Zen Films

Why & How We Chose to Self-Distribute Our Film - Part 1

Where We Are Now 

MindFlesh went on sale to the public last week. We're selling a 2-disc special edition DVD via Amazon & CreateSpace and the movie can also be downloaded via Caachi to personal computers and portable devices.

The film in all formats is DRM-free (except via Caachi's streaming service). Later this year the movie will be available on other download and streaming sites and a couple of video-on-demand (VoD) pay-per-view TV channels in Europe.

 

Anyone discovering the film on Amazon, a download site or VoD will have no idea or reason to care that we're self-distributing the movie. Potential customers can watch our trailer or various clips from the movie and they can read our excellent reviews. On the MindFlesh site I've tried to provide as much information as possible for the viewer to make an informed decision about whether they'll like the film before they buy.

 

This blog post is about how we got to this position. In subsequent posts I'll discuss the various marketing activities we have underway and their relative merits.

 

Should I Self-Publish My Work?

In any other industry except book publishing and movies, cutting out the middleman would be viewed as a good thing! Why give away x% of your revenue if you don't have to? And yet there seems to be some kind of stigma about self-published works - as though those who choose this route do so only to satisfy their vanity or because they weren't good enough to get a "real" distribution/publishing deal.

It was great to see that Lance Hammer took his Sundance film Ballast and decided to self-distribute it because maybe this will encourage a change in perception.

 

My usual response is, talk to people who have distribution deals and ask if they're happy with the money they're making or if they're happy with the marketing the distributor/publisher is doing. Very few will tell you they are. Many authors I know that are with big publishers still find themselves working hard to promote their own work. Why not take that little extra step and cut out the middleman? Cut out the distributor and speak directly to your audience? The problem of course is knowledge & resources to do the promotion and distribution efficiently (e.g. to sell the book or film with the minimum time and money).

 

Market Background - Independent Films

After the success of London Voodoo on DVD (now available in five languages and 21 countries; and we also had a small theatrical release in USA and Singapore) I'd been planning to sell MindFlesh to various distributors around the world for a minimum guarantee and then walk away. Approaching and selling to distributors is very easy - they're looking for product they can sell and they're open to any film that might make them money. It's a simple as that and it should be. So what changed?

 

Well, several things happened or increased in prevalence over the two years if to took to shoot and post-produce MindFlesh:

•  Internet piracy is stealing DVD sales - why buy the DVD if you can download it for free?
•  NetFlix, LoveFilm and other rental companies that offer "all you can eat" subscription-type services have reduced DVD sales - particular for independent titles that have always been seen by the public as a bit of risk
•  user-generated video sharing sites like YouTube are satisfying viewers' needs for original content. Further, because there is so much to trawl through, it's created what some have called a new "Attention Economy" where everyone publishing any kind of content is struggling to get some of the viewer's time.

 

The result of this has been a huge reduction in the number of DVDs purchased.

This in turn has meant that those most likely to sell are the Hollywood titles and those other titles with big marketing budgets that buy attention through print, cinema and TV advertising. 

Hence:

• the big retail outlets now only carry a narrow range of titles. (For more information about what's happening in retail, watch this video or visit the "Save the Indies" MySpace page)
• independent DVD distributors have gone bust because of lost sales through piracy, subscription-based rental and they're squeezed out of retail outlets.

Some people may be able to point to exceptions of course - smaller titles in a Virgin Megastore for example -  but these titles come from the bigger distributors that have long-standing relationships, a bigger library of titles and hence more leverage – "take our turkeys" they might demand "or you won't get the better titles". This bundling of dross with gloss happens everywhere – in TV and in film festivals: take these weaker titles or you don't get the titles you want. It further squeezes out the indie.

The bottom line for us then is that the market for indie films is smaller and more risk-adverse. We knew going in that MindFlesh was never going to be an easy sell because we set out to make something completely original: it doesn't fall into a neat pigeon hole because it's part sci-fi, part horror with a storyline that allows parallel interpretations because it's a film about parallel realities. It's based on an excellent Buddhist horror novel, White Light. 

 

We screened in Cannes and although many distributors loved the film they confided "I don't know how I'm going to sell it".

Of course we'd anticipated some distributors reacting in this way but had hoped to sign with some niche distributors who sell kinda fetish/art-house/genre cross-over titles. But in a smaller market (by which I mean less money being spent) these guys are going bust. For for the bigger distributors still in business it's not about "good films" vs "bad films", it's about "sell same product to known (but dwindling) audience" vs "sell something unusual to a hybrid audience" - they can't be bothered to take the trouble. 

Sure we have a niche audience but the audience for MindFlesh is very easy to identify - it's those people who like films by David Cronenberg, some of those who like David Lynch and some Buddhists. Look at Cronenberg's fans - they're not all horror fans or all sci-fi fans; some would just say that they're fans of great cinema.

 

Thankfully we'd anticipated this outcome from the moment we signed up the book rights which means we'd already started our audience building long before we'd started shooting, never mind selling.

 

Coming Next

In the second part of this blog posting I'll discuss all our social media audience building work including our YouTube blogs, widget building, newsletters, MySpace page, Facebook application and so on.

Overlay TV could be great for independent filmmakers

Check out Overlay TV. This could be a great tool for independent filmmakers to grab a few sales from clips and trailers.

And here's another for Sarah Fisher's excellent documentary, Meditate & Destroy

Incredible Information Sources

I was searching around last night for some quality market data and opinion on social media/mobile content. I know it's not directly film related but there are a number of exciting developments in this area where I think creative people are going to be able to leverage their skills.

So, I found two amazing mines of information. The first is SlideShare. I've embedded their "tour" presentation so it'll explain itself. I've had to make it small to fit in the blog column but you'll get the idea :)

| View | Upload your own

The second is Scribd. I couldn't find a tour.. although I didn't look very hard as it's so obvious what's going on. Instead, here's an interesting document on Alternate Reality Gaming. It's from 2006 but still worth a read.

Read this document on Scribd:Alternate Reality Games Whitepaper (2006)

Mobile Content

Wow, once again it's been a while!

I've been hard at work creating Google video ads and experimenting with Google adwords - nothing to to with the film business but for a family villa in Florida. Plus I've been playing with Flash Lite and developing some MindFlesh-related content.

For example, there are now a couple of animated screensavers (or wallpapers) that will work on any Flash Lite 1.1 enabled phones - which is pretty much most of the more recent cellphones. I've tested them in Adobe's Device Central and on a couple of phones - my Nokia 6500 and a Sony Ericsson W850i.

Here they are :) They can be downloaded from the main MindFlesh site - click the menu item "downloads".

   

Here's a couple of mobiles wallpapers too. Again, more at the main MindFlesh site.

  

Oh, and I shouldn't forget that I've created an iPhone-specific page for MindFlesh. It's not as content-rich as the main site but does allow access to the basics. The main site homepage checks the UserAgent property and switches to the correct page. Here's a look at it on my iPhone.

Subtitling in French and London Voodoo re-cut

Oh man, I've been soooo busy these past weeks. Apologies to regular readers for the high self-promotional content - it's almost all I've had time to write.

In the other spare hour or two every day I've been subtitling London Voodoo in French. Now, of course, if the film were only to be show on DVD then I could have used Adobe Encore to add the subtitles automatically... well, kinda. I'd have to create a text script file of course but given I already have a spotting list with the dialog timecoded it would have been fairly straightforward.

But, although I was asked to do the work for a film festival in Canada, my plan is make the French subtitled London Voodoo available for download - hence, the text needs to be added as hundreds of title cards in Premiere :(

Just a final note on the translation. I used BeTranslated- very nice people, quick, accurate and about the cheapest. The most expensive quote I had was 50% more than BeTranslated's price - so quite some range. There's a lot of translation folks online and it's very easy to get a quick quote, it's pretty much just a multiple of x-cents per word.

London Voodoo re-cut and digital "remastering"

So, given I had to go back to the LV source files, I decided to give the film a make-over and cut out about 8 minutes. Anyone that's edited a film before will tell you how tough it can be to just cut out a few seconds, never mind 8 minutes. Still, I did it by removing a lot of voodoo explanations and "exterior interludes" I guess you could call them.

The primary reason for mentioning it here is a small bug I found in Premiere: my source clips are in PAL 25fps. When I export the edited timeline in NTSC mpeg format, not only is there a slight blending of shots between the cut - rather than a neat, clean cut - an additional frame is added from the outgoing shot! What? To overcome the problem I've had to export in PAL - works fine - and then import the exported PAL clip and re-export in NTSC.

I know that NTSC is a different frame rate etc. but the software should recognise the end of the edited shot correctly.

Dirt and scratch removal in Adobe Premiere

I've also been removing the odd blemish and scratch from the image. LV was shot in super 16mm and when the neg was cut before digital scanning (we have a hidef digital intermediate), the guy or girl that glued the cuts wasn't too fussy about where that glue went or how much dirt and crap the neg picked up.

Most of the main blemishes and glue patches were picked up and corrected during grading but I've noticed a few during subtitling so I've fixed them in Premiere.

Ok, so Premiere comes with a dirt and scratch removal effect but it's kinda like a Median effect - it slightly blurs all the image which is ok for small bits of dirt but I have BIG white holes in some places. What I've done is steal a technique from After Effect's rig removal effect.

First, isolate the frame with the blemish in the timeline.Then, in the clip monitor, find the same blemish and step back one frame - to a clean frame. Now take this one clean frame and add it to the timeline on the video track above the blemish. Hopefully, so far so good.

Now drag the Four-Point Garbage Matte effect and drop it on that clean frame in the upper video track. Drag the corners of the matte so that they crop out the whole frame except around the blemish on the video track below. Result - you should have now successfully plugged the blemish with a clean image area from the frame before.

I was concerned that I might have to feather the edges of the matte to hide the fix, but nope - works fine. It also sounds like whole load of effort but it's actually quite quick to do once you get familiar with the steps. Below is an illustrating screen shot. I'd recommend clicking to view image full size in a new window.

MindFlesh in San Francisco

So last night was our USA premiere of MindFlesh in San Francisco at The Roxie down in the Mission district.

What a great turn-out and what a great audience reaction. I'd checked ticket pre-sales the day before and was delighted we'd managed to hit the top spot. So, with my expectations set, it was nice to see a packed theatre.

Regards the technical aspects of the screening, the sound was pretty good but the projected image looked darker than it should and I need to check if it's our tape or their projector. At the screenings in Cannes the image transferred from the hard drive to tape was too bright for some reason but I'm worried the post-production guys have gone too far in their corrections - last night was the first time I'd seen the NTSC version (the film is mastered in HD and txferd to NTSC digiBeta for last night).

My wife Helen and my nephew Anthony were there last night too. Here's some of Anthony's video work in the form of some audience feedback.

I was delighted to screen with Imp Of Satan which is an excellent short film (30 mins). It opens with some mesmerizing shots of SF's Castro and similarly scary/hypnotic music. All the direction, acting and photography is absolutely great. Check out the movie if you get a chance....

For those that came last night, and others I guess, here's the link to Bill's novel on Amazon.

NEXT SCREENING

MindFlesh plays for a second time in San Francisco on Tuesday 17th June 2008, 7:15pm. Again we're preceded with Imp Of Satan but be sure to catch both films - IOS is great.

Creating Film Dialogue List for Subtitles

I've finally finished the dialog list for MindFlesh. Not that it should have taken very long to do but it's just a dull job so I kept doing other things in between! :)

I thought other filmmakers might be interested to see how my spotting list is formated. I can't remember how I got hold of the format but it's one we've used for London Voodoo (and sold successfully around the world and now on Amazon Unboxed!) so I'm hoping it's still good for MindFlesh. Click the thumbnail below for a snapshot of the sample output.

If you right-click and "save as" on this link. You can download the Excel spreadsheet I used to create it. The idea is you can quickly and easily enter the timecode & dialog on the INPUT sheet ( it's quick because you don't have to worry about formatting) and then the OUTPUT sheet is what you print.

One small thing to note is that I've made the formulas as simple as possible so when a timecode flips over a minute (e.g. start 1:59 and end 2:01) you'll get a negative duration - just do the math yourself and over type the formula. It's much quicker this way than having to code (end_hour*3600+end_mins*60+end_secs)-(start_hour*3600+start_mins*60+start_secs).

SlingBox good; Sharp BluRay DVD Bad

The last time I was back in the UK I hooked up a SlingBox to our Sky box so that I would be able to watch UK TV while in the US. Now, it's not that I'm a TV junkie - I've hardly watched it (honest... well maybe the occasional Newsnight). But yesterday The Kooks sent me an email saying they were on at the Later with Jouls Holland show at 10pm. Now I had a real reason to go remote!

I'm pleased to say that the Slingbox works like a dream! Not only could I see & hear the band live but I could also set the Sky planner to record the performance on the UK DVR - nice. Oh I'm so excited about the new Kook album....

Ok, so while on the subject of hifi, back in January we bought a large, flat Sharp HD TV - it's great and I love it. Very satisfied. My problem comes with the Sharp Blu-ray DVD player - the Sharp BD-HP20U - or lack of it. Firstly, the blu-ray player was offered as a package with the TV and I was told that it would be in the store a week after I bought the TV. Yeah.. I know you know what's coming! I could have guessed it myself but I didn't know that the wankers at Video Only, 1199 Van Ness Ave would still be lying to me in April. Every time I call I get a different excuse as to why the player isn't in stock yet - there's going to be a delivery; there's not going to be a delivery; the Sharp rep said "x" now he says "y"; the format wars.. blah blah blah. The bottom line is I'll never again be shopping at Video Only, 1199 Van Ness Ave because they can't be trusted. I should have known and trusted my instincts because another customer was in the store complaining about something else as I was paying for the TV. Agghhhh.

Anyhow, a couple of weeks after having the TV at home (back in Jan) I popped across the street to Circuit City and bought the damn Sharp player. BUT the bloody thing didn't work out of the box! I checked the firmware - I had the latest version - and then I called the Sharp support. Some disinterested, lazy agent told me to mail it in to them. Oh, what like it says on the inside box lid "don't return to the retailer"? Come on! I wanted to watch a DVD that afternoon - I'm not going to mail it in. I took it straight back to Circuit City - who were fantastic. They allowed me to swap the Sharp for a Panasonic - which is superb - and I saved a couple of bucks.

So, I'm wondering if the delay in receiving my Sharp DVD player is due to the fact that the damn things just don't work?!

MindFlesh Monster Update

There's been absolutely tons happening on the MindFlesh front but I've been so busy getting on with it that I've not had the chance to blog it!

First, we've had a stack of great reviews - thank you so much for all the folks that have taken the time to watch the film and post their opinions. Including, but not limited to, these most recent reviews at Eat My Brains, Tony Lee's blog (Editor of Zone and VideoVista) and Horror-Movies.ca.

Secondly, we're getting some great exposure via WonderTouch, creators of the excellent ParticleIllusion digital effects software we used on MindFlesh. If you're into CGI and you're making an independent film, then it's worth a read.

Thirdly, our Cannes market screening has now been booked - yahoo! This will be our market premiere. Dates and times are May 19th at 2pm and May 20th at 11:30am both in Palais D in the main Marche. Oh yeah baby.

Forth and finally, I've started work on the DVD extras - the first of which is The Making of a Monster. Here, Sangeet Prabhaker explains how we went from concept through construction to create the Guardian creature suit as worn by Charlotte Milchard.

iPhoned yesterday, today iEmail

I finally bit the bullet and got a permanent mobile (cellphone) number. I had to have Helen hold my hand of course because my social security number hasn’t come through yet plus without a US credit history it’s impossible to do just about most things… unless of course you can afford a hefty deposit… which you wouldn’t be able to afford if you were credit worthy… so.. anyway, like everywhere in the world poor people pay more. And right now without a credit history we’re in that camp.

So on Saturday we took out a family plan (one deposit fits two) with AT&T and bought two iPhones. I was surprised that the cost of the iPhone isn’t subsidised by AT&T even though we took out a 2 year plan.. which I would never have done in the UK.

I've not yet given up my beautiful Nokia 6500 though... oh.. now this phone feels like class and behaves like it too. Possibly the best mobile I've had.

I'll admit that the iPhone is pretty cool - i like being able to check the next bus time and check my email of course. But of the few things that really are disappointing is the lack of photomessaging.. that’s MMS. Sure it has a camera (but not video) and you can email the photo but you can’t text it to anyone. I checked out all the iPhone forums and found lots of debate raging about why email is better than texting! Ho ho... dudes wake up, one is not a replacement for the other, I need both. Apple, please get your arse in gear and sort this out. And I want it available as a software update. If Apple brings out a new iPhone and tells me to buy new hardware after I’ve just bought this one… well… it’d be just like Apple wouldn’t it? And possibly the last bit of Apple kit I’ll ever be buying.

I checked out the forums to find a photomessaging solution for the iPhone but I haven't found anything satisfactory. For those readers interested in some workarounds, I'd check out this advice.

And one other software update I'd like is to be able to text with one hand! Seriously, the small qwerty keypad requires me to use two hands - one to hold the phone and the other to press straight down my finger. I'd like to be able to text with my thumb. Try it on the iPhone and it'll be one of the most frustrating things you'll ever attempt. Maybe Apple could allow me to switch the keypad from qwerty to regular alphanumeric with proper predictive texting. The predictive texting on the iPhone very weak.. in fact close to pointless.. I guess it's more like a spell checker.. kinda?

The truth is, the iPhone is not a phone, it’s a data terminal with voice capability. It ought to be called iBlackberry or iDataDevice or iDoWhatMyiPodDoesButiStillDontDoWhatMyNokiaDid10yearsAgo.