By Roger Jackson
Previously: Music for Movies, Expert Tips, Part II of II
Blockbuster Trends
At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had 9000 stores worldwide. All but 50 of the remaining 350 stores will close by next year. 2004 was a peak year for DVD revenues — close to $30 billion globally. In 2014 it’ll be less than $16 billion and falling fast — certainly VoD has yet to make up the difference. Our investor projections — culled from disparate sources — predict worldwide VoD sales hitting $40 billion by 2024, with DVD (Blu-ray, Ultra HD, etc.) still alive but shrunk to maybe $2-3 billion. Who knows…ten years is a long time, but for sure VoD will have long eclipsed DVD. This is good news for indie filmmakers for the simple reason that those 9,000 Blockbuster stores had limited shelf space, with very little reserved for independent titles. Whereas VoD platforms have, essentially, unlimited shelf space. Meaning more — even most — indie films will get distribution. Now we just have to figure out how to match each film with its natural affinity group, wherever on the planet that audience may be.
Amazon Japan
The DVD business is still strong in Japan, and DVDs there aren’t cheap: typically $30 each. So Amazon Instant Video is trying to shake things up by launching in Japan with 26,000 local & foreign titles at $1 for 24 hours. They compete with Hulu Japan and iTunes, plus several local incumbents. It’ll be interesting to see how well non-Japanese films perform. Audiences there seem to have largely fallen out of love with American movies, and since Japan is considered an “audio dub” territory it’s much more expensive for English language indies to get distributed.
Dubs & Subs
Talking of dubs, I’ve learned in the past year about “subtitle territories” and “dub territories.” Well worth knowing if you’re developing a film that you think might do well in a specific set of countries. Audio dubs are generally required for distribution of a narrative feature in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan. A decent dub will cost you (or your distributor if you get one) $20-25k for each language. Whereas subtitles are cheap — you just need to hire a native speaking translator for a day or two, say $1000 total. These countries make exceptions — notably being OK with subtitles for documentaries. The countries preferring subtitles for foreign films include the US, Canada, UK, Australia, India. We obviously just have a problem with mangled English, but in fact much of the dubs vs. subs issue is an accident of the varying history & politics of 1930s talkies as they made their way around the world.
Review Velocity
Today I was talking to our partners at Amazon and discussing the importance of “review velocity.” That is, how often people comment on an online film, and the speed at which reponses to comments are added. We were looking at the Kinonation CGI film “Enigma” which has been going gangbusters since it went live on Amazon in October — 104 reviews so far. That’s impressive. As soon as Enigma was live, filmmaker brothers Jason & Matt Shumway responded to every Amazon comment, even the scathing ones. They basically said “thanks for watching, sorry it wasn’t to your taste, thanks for supporting independent film.” Equally important, every one of their responses added to “review velocity” which boosted the film’s visibility on Amazon. Enigma was watched over 7,000 times in October, 11,000 times in November and who knows for December… consequently we’ll be cutting the Shumway brothers a good sized check for Q4 of 2013.
Thanksgiving with The O’Briens
Finally, a shout-out to a delightful film that was uploaded to us from Ireland a couple weeks ago. I watched the The O’Briens with my family — it’s the story of a flawed family reunion that really should have a US theatrical release. For Gawd’s sake, there’s 36 million Irish-Americans in the US and they’ll all love this. Very excited to start pitching this movie to VoD outlets.
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Next Up: Post # 42: The Importance of Subtitles & Closed Captions
Roger Jackson is a producer and the co-founder of film distribution start-up KinoNation. He was Vice President, Content for digital film pioneer iFilm.com and has produced short films in Los Angeles, documentaries in Darfur, Palestine and Bangladesh, a reality series for VH1 and one rather bad movie for FuelTV. You can reach him at roger@kinonation.com.
