Tag: Roger Jackson

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post #49: 7 Sins That Make Money Movies

KNLOGOBy Roger Jackson

Previously: What You Must Know About Amazon CreateSpace

Ransom Notes

“I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes.” So said legendary Madison Avenue ad executive Phil Dusenberry. I think of that quip when I’m asked “What  movie subject will make the most money on VOD?” What type of film can you write & shoot quite cheaply – and which can pay out thousands of dollars a month, every month, way into the future? The answer: documentary films that are directly and intensively reflective of the American populace — addressing topics that touch almost everyone.

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post #48: What You Must Know About Amazon CreateSpace

KNLOGOBy Roger Jackson

Previously: Quality Control or Why Films Fail

Filmmakers frequently upload their movies to Kinonation after they’ve submitted to Amazon’s CreateSpace service. This is a truly excellent service for book authors, musicians and filmmakers to self-publish their creative work and make it available on Amazon.com. And in the context of films, a good way to make DVDs available without upfront expense.

BUT: for getting a film onto Amazon there are many reasons to use a specialist VOD aggregator like Kinonation, instead of CreateSpace. I’m not saying that out of self interest. Yes, Kinonation (or any aggregator) takes a fee or percentage of gross revenue – in our case 20%. But it’s much more about video quality, speed, marketing and, above all, access to many more Amazon US and global platforms, including Amazon Prime.

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post #47: Quality Control or Why Films Fail

KNLOGOBy Roger Jackson

Previously:  Why We’re Different

Quality Control

At Kinonation we’ve automated much of what has traditionally been manual. Films are uploaded to us instead of shipped on hard drives. Digital movie assets are stored in the cloud instead of locally at our office. Transcoding and metadata authoring is triggered automatically and happens in the cloud, replacing the existing process of “guy in a room for a day” — which is expensive and error-prone — with cloud computers that rarely make mistakes. But one very much human element we retain is QC — quality control.

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post #46: Why We’re Different

By Roger Jackson
KinoSmall

Previously: VOD Myths vs. Reality

We’re often asked what makes Kinonation different from other VOD distribution companies. While we are both a content and a distribution venture, we tend to regard ourselves as – above all – a technology company. And it’s technology innovation that allows us to do things a little differently. Here’s what we’re building for filmmakers – 9 points that define our business philosophy and operational goals.

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post # 45: VOD Myths vs. Reality

By Roger Jackson
KinoSmall

Previously: $45 Billion by 2018

At Kinonation we talk to dozens of filmmakers every week, and often discuss myths about Video-on-Demand. Here’s my top ten…

1. Myth: Every VOD outlet will accept my film.

Reality: Most outlets select or decline films at their discretion and rarely give reasons for a “NO” decision. In the USA, only Amazon and Google Play accept all films. (Amazon is limited to Amazon Instant Video. Amazon Prime will typically reject films that contain drug use, sex, nudity, violence, etc.)

2. Myth: Theatrical creative will work for VOD

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post #44: $45 Billion by 2018

By Roger Jackson
KinoSmall

Previously: Hard Work, Innovation & Blind Alleys

$45 Billion VOD Market

This is an amazing — and inspiring — forecast. Research company Markets and Markets predicts global video-on-demand (VOD) revenue will grow from $21 billion last year to $45 billion in 2018. They define this as the combined revenues of all VOD outlets, worldwide — essentially digital (online) VOD plus cable & satellite VOD. Huge numbers, but actually not a particularly high compound annual growth rate (16%) to get to the $45b number in years. Figure roughly half of this revenue flows to content owners and half to the VOD outlets.

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post # 43: Hard Work, Innovation & Blind Alleys

By Roger Jackson
KinoSmall

Previously: The Importance of Subtitles & Closed Captions


Post-Script

In my last post I wrote about Closed Captions and recommended you get them made by ZenCaptions. Now Amazon Prime has announced that captions are mandatory from March 1st. It’s already mandatory for iTunes. And has long been a requirement for Cable TV video-on-demand. It makes sense, it’s a good thing for people with hearing difficulties, and it makes your film more viable to watch in a noisy cafe or bar. At $1/minute it should be a no-brainer…get it done.

Hard Work, Innovation & Blind Alleys

Kinonation has come a long way in the past year. We dived into the very complex video-on-demand ecosystem. More complex than we expected, to be honest. We’ve invested heavily in technology and signing new outlets and content acquisition.

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