Over the past twelve months, I’ve dedicated a lot of time and energy to eBook sales, marketing, interviews, and production. My sales numbers for the past year for CLAWS, THE COLORADO SEQUENCE and more recently for THE KIRIBATI TEST have been nothing short of a career breakthrough, and I’ve spoken at length about it previously.
Today I’d like to work through my thoughts on DIY video production and the rise of Direct-to-TV download movies and TV shows. I see parallels between eBook publishing and sales through Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad, and other eReading devices to what we’re on the cusp of with regards to video production, Direct-to-TV downloads, and independent film production. As a business model the two are similar because they give more direct access to consumers for the independent or self-published creators among us.
The traditional models of publishing and TV and Film all had a critical vetting process. Major publishers like Penguin Putnam, Simon & Schuster, Random House, etc., function in many ways like a major television studio or film studio — FOX, CBS, NBC, Paramount, Universal, HBO, etc. — as they act as the gatekeepers between the tens of thousands of aspiring writers (or producers) and readers (or viewers).
Essentially they hold shit up.
Of course they do a lot of valuable things beyond just holding shit up from financing, to distribution, to marketing.
But here’s my hunch, a similar disintegration of the traditional vetting process will soon be seen in TV and film to what we’ve seen over the past 2-3 years with eBook publishing.
When an indie film/TV producer is able to upload his or her TV show or film to an online database like NetFlix, Amazon, or TiVo, and when those distribution databases have direct access to people’s TVs in their homes, you’ve got a platform similar to Amazon Kindle in place but for television and film instead of books.
And people spend a hell of a lot more money on movie tickets and rentals each year than they do on books.
Because I’ve been developing a TV show for three years through community access programming I’ve learned a lot about video production and online video marketing. Most of our shows we put online on YouTube, and they’ve had a life of their own on the popular video sharing site. I don’t make any money doing this, though, and that’s okay. I’ve considered this a learning experience. And I’ve learned a lot.
But most recently, I’ve begun producing independent short films, and this is why my thinking has reached a critical point on this topic.
Now that I’ve produced a couple of films, I want to produce more and better films… films that will really entertain audiences. And for which audiences would pay money.
But how to distribute the films, how to market them, and how to reach an audience is very much where my thoughts have been focused of late.
A couple years ago I made a Direct-to-DVD movie that I published through CreateSpace.com and distribute through Amazon.com. The video has continued to sell every month for two years, and it’s intended for a very small niche audience and I’ve done nothing to market it. It doesn’t take a giant leap to imagine producing a much more entertaining movie intended for a broader audience and using many of the online marketing strategies I’ve learned through eBook sales and marketing to make it happen with a film online.
The key is knowing your audience, which I don’t right now. I’m not sure who has Direct-to-TV video download capability and what their interests are exactly. I have a much better sense of this with eBooks and Amazon Kindle.
I do know that over the past couple of days, my wife and I have been talking about changing our NetFlix account so that we are able to download movies directly to our television through our Nintendo Wii console. We regularly watch 3-4 movies per month through the traditional NetFlix system, whereby we queue a movie online, they mail us a DVD, we watch it, and then we send it back through the mail.
You better believe that if we were able to download these exact same movies straight to our TV instead of using the online queue and postal system, we certainly would.
Consumers want convenience, and they act on impulse in purchases (or rentals, as the case may be) if they have easy access to the products they want and the price is right.
My hunch is that tens of millions of TV viewers will be making the shift to Direct-to-TV download methods for renting and watching movies and special TV shows over the next 5-10 years, and when this number of viewers reaches a critical point, an independent producer could bypass the traditional routes to get his/her film or TV show to the masses.
My personal goals should be to use the platforms I do have to interview independent producers and filmmakers and folks in the tech world (bloggers, pundits, etc.) who are on the front edge of this new wave. It is going to be an exciting time.
Look at http://www.openfilm.com for what is happening in video for the independent film world.