Tag: VOD

By Roger Jackson

Previously: Movie Live on VoD…Now What?

Ted Hope recently asked me to write about what we might have done differently at Kinonation with the benefit of a year’s hindsight. Mistakes made, lessons learned, what worked, what didn’t…

1. Big, Fat Assumptions

Most startups ventures are premised on one or more big, fat assumptions…which may or may not be accurate, even if you’re convinced they are. Kinonation is based on the assumptions that it’s really hard to get indie films widespread VoD distribution…and that there’s a huge backlog of films whose producers want help with this problem…and that the VoD outlets are actually interested in running indie films…and they have the audience to watch them.

By Roger Jackson

Previously: The Vision Thing

Progress Bar

If you’ve submitted a feature or documentary to KinoNation, you were probably a little overwhelmed at first by all the metadata that’s required. We just made the process much easier by including a real-time Progress Bar, with a dynamic list of what required metadata is still missing.  We’ve also radically simplified the signup & login process. Check it out, the sooner you submit (or complete) a film, the sooner we can get it distributed.

Movie Live on VoD…Now What?

KinoNation films are now going live every day on our beta partners Hulu, Amazon and Viewster. And they’re getting watched. And generating revenue for the filmmakers. So now’s a good time to get into the weeds about marketing. i.e. what concrete steps can get people to discover your film on video-on-demand? And once they’ve discovered it, how do you get them to start watching…and keep watching ‘till the end credits roll? What’s at stake is whether your film makes, for example, a trivial $250 on Hulu in 2014 — or it makes $25,000. And then repeat that across a dozen other platforms? It’s what Gravitas Ventures CEO Nolan Gallagher calls “The Last Mile” — and like every other part of the filmmaking process, it requires imagination, hard work and persistence.

Early Success

Roseanne Liang submitted her documentary “Banana in a Nutshell” to KinoNation a few months ago. Roseanne in the doc is the “banana” — that is, white on the inside, yellow on the outside.

By Roger Jackson

Previously: London Calling

Who Pays What?

At the recent Artist to Entrepreneur (A2E) summit at the SF Film festival, a frequently asked questions from filmmakers was “How much can I expect to make from VoD?” The question was greeted with stony silence, mostly because the data just isn’t out there in a meaningful, predictive way. That is, there aren’t enough proxies. A proxy for your film would be a film in the same genre, similar level of name talent, similar marketing budget — and perhaps comparable subject matter for documentaries. In short, a film with much the same chances in the market. That’s a proxy, and they just don’t exist. Or rather, the data isn’t being made public. Why? It’s not a nefarious conspiracy, it’s simply because no one has an incentive to release this data — and anyway there’s no much of it to begin with. So I thought it would be useful to shed what light I can on how much you might expect to make from various types of VoD outlets — ad supported, subscription, transactional, etc. The BIG caveat here is that KinoNation is just getting started, we’re only delivering films to a handful of “beta test” outlets, and so far films have only been live for a month or so — not nearly enough to make revenue predictions.

By Roger Jackson

Previously: How to Avoid Rejection

London Calling

I’m in London talking to most of the UK video-on-demand outlets. Being English myself doesn’t seem to confer any advantages. It may even cause suspicion — the Brit who abandoned ship and washed up in sunny California, and now he wants our business…screw him.  That’s still the attitude here, at least among some. LOVEFiLM (yes, that’s how they write the name) just told me that while they’ll happily ingest KinoNation films, they’re much more interested in — and focused on — television content. I like that level of honesty, and I’m not surprised. The lion’s share of VoD revenue on platforms like Netflix, Hulu and LOVEFiLM right now is being generated by TV shows, rather than movies. But movies on demand is still a big — and growing — business. Big enough for us to disrupt!