Hi there- welcome to Infinicine.com. Today we go live and start to offer you information and dialog about the brave new world of digital distribution. Please check out the site, the discussion board, and make comments and suggestions. And tell your friends and colleagues. Hope this will be a useful resource and you will learn as I do.

The educational market is an often overlooked source of revenue for independent filmmakers, and has a lot of models that may be used by more “commercial” vendors in the future. Rachel Gordon has a background as a director, producer, ad writer. Her consulting business, Energized Films, helps filmmakers access the educational market.

[I]nfinicine: How are streaming/digital downloads changing educational distribution?

[R]achel Gordon: The process of change in education is pretty slow, but what is happening is that some colleges and universities have been able to experiment. They’ve
started licenses to stream on servers they’ve created and maintained. Or, though less frequently, they are assigning films that are available for streaming online to students, especially in social service departments.

Unfortunately, however, technology is inconsistent and I can’t say that even these two options are the only ones taking place, but people are definitely experimenting more thanks to these new options. Some still buy VHS, believe it or not. Since there is not a singular form of technology that people use with their media so, while it’s important to keep track of the delivery
systems out there, it’s also important to be flexible about how end users receive content.

Secondarily, the new modes of delivery also alleviate storage issues as a server can be better than 100s of units. Perhaps the best impact so far is that downloading and streaming are useful for opening up more class time. Professors and students can be setup to take distance learning classes, or not use up lecture space, or do web conferences that play media where you
check in and view the same material, and that’s a pretty exciting leap.

[I]: What kinds of revenues can an independent filmmaker get in the educational market in general, for a title with a strong educational angle?

[R}: This really depends on how much they are willing to invest in it, in many
cases. I can't give you figures because people don't come looking for a film unless information is put out there, constantly and repeatedly. What an independent filmmaker should be on the lookout for, however, are advocacy groups - such as not-for-profits who have similar goals - as acknowledgement from them helps with other groups and with conference income. There are
conferences that filmmakers can be paid to go and present at with their films. They also can do re-selling at a discount to thematically related catalogs. By getting reviewed in educational publications, they can use quotes and pass their information to readily available contacts on the web.

It's time consuming and you might send out 100 emails to get 5 sales, but you also learn about your audience and how to reach them and build on them.

It's important to stress that income from sales alone may not be enough to live on for a full-time basis, but it could certainly help generate interest in your work and even provide you with people who might invest in your next project.

[I]: How can filmmakers access the educational market? Do they need a distributor?

[R]: You do not need a distributor to access the educational market, but distributors are good if you do not have the time, patience, and commitment you need to do it yourself. It can take from 6 months to a year to get reviewed by publications and really start getting through to educational libraries.

[I]: What do you think will be the evolution in educational sales from DVD to other technologies?

[R]: I don’t think DVDs are dead by a long shot. Laserdisc didn’t last, but DVD
will be sticking around for a while. I am seeing more cable and local network channels that are either connected to a school district, or college/university. I am also seeing more consortiums arise to do bulk purchasing. I do think downloading is becoming much more popular, though
most independent filmmakers are afraid to go that route.

[I]: Is it still worth it for filmmakers to make their own DVDs and sell them online? Do you see online downloads and streaming as displacing DVDs as a delivery mechanism for independent filmmakers?

[R]: I think it can still be worth it to make DVDs and sell them online, though it depends on what your priorities are. There are plenty of DVD on Demand platforms out there that will make your product for you and bill/ship it, but they also tend to take a large percentage of any sale you might make.

At the same time, if you make a 1000 DVDs for $5000, you may not want to store them and it will probably take you several years to get rid of thembut you’d technically be making more per unit on every sale.

As part of the ongoing series of online markets, Infinicine presents an interview with Charles Choi from Caachi.com, a streaming and download service that specializes in independent film and is friendly to independent filmmakers.

[I]nfinicine: What services are offered on your site?

[C]aachi: Streaming online - We provide high resolution (700Kbps) streams of the films we offer. This enables a high-quality viewing experience.
Download to own – the films distributed in this fashion are “DRM free”, to provide the greatest user flexibility in viewing.
Download to disc – Films downloaded from Caachi can be burned directly to DVD or installed in a video iPod/iPhone.

[I]: What is the structure of the deal, i.e. flat fee, percentage of sale, ad revenue, etc. Provide terms if possible.

[C]:

• Distributors keep 75% of the sales revenue, with no expenses deducted
• Caachi partners with distributors on a non-exclusive basis
• There is no minimum time commitment
• We can restrict sales to geographic regions (based on IP filtering technology)
• Choose to sell your films as: 1. downloaded video, 2. streaming online, or 3. both
• The terms can be found here

[I]: Does your service sell into all territories?

[C]: By default, our service sells into all territories but can be restricted to countries using IP filtering technology.

[I]: How many people visit the site? How many are “members”? How many sales on average per title? What are the top-selling titles?

[C]: For the month of July, 2008 we had around 50,000 unique visits, a 76% increase from May, 2008.

Our top grossing titles are as follows: 1. Tripping with Caveh, 2. Venus Lives, 3. Dreams on Spec, 4. Preaching to the Perverted, 5. Dat Kho

[I]: What is the marketing strategy for the site? Why will customers purchase or rent from your site as opposed to other similar sites?

[C]: We sell films by using targeted online marketing techniques involving social networks and Web 2.0 technologies. Customers will buy films from Caachi because they understand that most of their payment will go to the filmmaker or distributor and not to Caachi.

[I]: What are the marketing opportunities for films on the site?

[C]: At Caachi, we recognize that that our films must be actively marketed online to reach their audiences. To this end, we do the following today:

• Caachi has an affiliate program which allows 3rd party blogs and other websites to help promote a film by placing an advertisement about that film on their website. A 20% sales commission is given to the affiliate, which is taken from the distributor share. Distributors can opt-out of the affiliate program.
• Caachi feeds trailers of distributor’s films to multiple UGC video sites and social networks such as YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook.
• We send periodic mailings to registered users to let them know about our offerings.
• We do targeted marketing to social networks for a select number of films in our library.
• In the near-future we intend to develop tools and widgets to allow filmmakers and distributors self-market their films through our website to social networks and blogs.

[I]: Can individual filmmakers sell to the site?

[C]: Yes.

There are so many online streaming and downloading markets popping up that it is difficult to know which ones are legit- and which ones will be a good place to sell a film. Infinicine has sent out a series of questions to a number of sites and will have a resource page on the new Infinicine site so you can compare their answers.

Here are the answers from HUNGRYFLIX. Hungryflix specializes in content for portable media, i.e. iPod and iPhone as well as computers and Apple TV.

[I]nfinicine: What services are offered on your site?

[H]ungryflix: Download to own (DRM free)

[I]: What is the structure of the deal, i.e. flat fee, percentage of sale, ad revenue, etc. Provide terms if possible.

[H]: HungryFlix pays its content providers 60% of all sales after PayPal fees. For example, you sell a movie for $0.99. Current PayPal fees are 2.9% + $0.30 USD. So, for a $0.99 transaction, PayPal fees are $0.33,
the content provider’s share is $0.40 and HungryFlix’s share is $0.26.
Payments will be made quarterly via PayPal. Quarterly payments will be made only if a minimum of $10.00 in profits has been earned. If this minimum has not yet been reached, the sales will be credited toward the next quarter. You will always receive credit for all sales.
(http://www.hungryflix.com/help.php)
We will be looking into other options in the near future.

[I]:Does your service sell into all territories?

[H]:Yes

[I]:How many people visit the site? How many are members? How many sales on average per title? What are the top-selling titles?

[H]:Currently around 1,000 visits a day, over 5,000 members. Sales vary, and we are looking at many ways to improve the site, which will increase sales.

[I]:What is the marketing strategy for the site? Why will customers
purchase or rent from your site as opposed to other similar sites?

[H]: The site is growing, and has many titles (over 300) that would be hard to find elsewhere, some are exclusive to the site.
We are looking into new avenues for marketing.

[I]:What are the marketing opportunities for films on the site?

[H]:Get in touch to discuss your needs, we are open to new ideas.
info@hungryflix.com

[I]: Can individual filmmakers sell to the site?

[H]:Yes, there are no restrictions as long as you own the rights.