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Selling DVD to Video Rental Centers...


Landon D. Parks

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I have a question. When a Production company sales DVD's to places like Blockbuster, hollywood video, ect how does the video store pay? Do they just pay retail price (i.e $10.00) per unit, or is it like $30.00 per unit for unlimited rentals of the unit?

 

I heard somewhere that they pay the higher price and get a license for unlimited rental of the DVD, but I'm not for sure.

 

PS) If it is option #2, what is the average they pay per unit for a smaller indie film?

 

Thanks as always guys!

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Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

It really depends on what film it is, but generally a video rental store would have to pay 5/10 times the normal retail price of the film. This is for the right to rent the film out.

 

(When I asked my local rental store they said the average cost for films was around £70, about $130)

Edited by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
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generally a video rental store would have to pay 5/10 times the normal retail price of the film.
That's a pretty close number. It does depend on the film. I'd guess between $120-$175 per copy.
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WOW! $120? I was figuring something like $30 or $40 per disk for a Hollywood Blockbuster. But $120 dollars, thats pretty cool.

 

What are the cances of some place like Blockbuster buying copies of a B-list (Unknown Actors, crew, NO budget DV type thing) buying copies for there stores?

 

Reason I ask is because Ahmed will more thank likly let my company handle the US / UK distrobution of the film Shadows, while he handles the Egyptian / Arabian Rights to it.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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Not sure what the chances are. I know that a rental store's selection goes through an extensive evaluation based on the surrounding population. They try and figure out what will rent out the most. So even some blockbuster hits aren't popular in some areas and rental stores will only stock just a few copies. There's a lot of guesswork that goes into what a rental store will carry. I'd suggest just calling them. There are some pretty piss-poor indie movies on the shelf in any given Blockbuster store. You better have some marketing material for your film to aid in your pitch.

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I recently (one week ago) had a conversation with a handful of distibutors where these questions were asked and this might be because my information is regarding the US - but it is vastly different than what people have been saying here. Most of the information comes from a guy who was a Blockbuster Buyer before becoming a Distributor himself.

 

Basically:

 

1) Blockbuster isn't going to take on a movie unless it's from one of their distribution suppliers because it would be too much accounting. If they did somehow see your movie, they would ask you to go to an appropriate distributor to handle the sale. Also the distributor would be managing things like E&O insurance and they know how to prepare the movies and talk the language.

 

2) If a movie is in the $15 retail range. Most distributors are going to be selling to the retailers for around $7.50. However, blockbuster and wallmart are huge volume buyers, so they get a discount - probably no higher than $5 per and no lower than $3.25 per.

 

3) No indication at all was given about any special "right to rent" price and I do not believe that this is the case anymore. A long long time ago, it was the case and those number (100 range) were accurate - then "sell through" would kick in. However, I believe that has been dropped. Certainly I have heard no mention of it in the indie market. If I'm wrong, i would love to know - but please provide your source.

 

 

Landon - this discussion may interest you: http://laindiefilmgroup.com/cgi-bin/ikonbo...forum=6&topic=3

Edited by Mark Douglas
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Well, I now not a month ago i was on blockbusters site and they had a wholew page dedicated to the subject.

 

They had a service where you sent a DVD, and compleye promo package to this address and they would review it and see if it fit into the needs at the moment.

 

They also offered a service where they actually bought the distrobution rights to the film themeselves.

 

Unless they got rid of this service within the last month, then it seems you may be slightly wrong. But what do I know?

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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I'm always willing to be wrong, but I need to see a link so I can read the fine print.

 

My suspicion is that, if you did read this correctly, they are doing a program like Amazon's program where basically you can sell your diary on Amazon if you want to go through the trouble - they'll carry anything - but it doesn't mean they'll buy copies from you, they'll just let you sell through them. I would imagine that this is the program they would have available.

 

The other possibility is that they are looking for movies to take on as a distributor themselves since they are such a massive operation - but I doubt it would be a movie like most indies are trying to sell.

 

I'd love to see the link though.

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Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

Methods I would use for selling/advertising a film:

 

1. Go to your local newspaper company and ask them to put an ad for it in, asking people to support their local film makers e.t.c.

 

2. Get some posters printed, go around shops asking to hang them up on their windows e.t.c.

 

3. Build a fantastic web site, with a forum and trailer for the film. Also make a listing on IMDB.com

 

4. Go around shops trying to sell it to them. (Possibly make a deal with some smaller shops, lend them 20 copies, whatever sells they get a certain percentage of the profit, whatever copies left you take back, so you or the shop have nothing to lose)

 

5. Stand outside cinemas with leaflets of the film, hand them out as people walk out/in. And copies of the film should people want to buy them, and/or CD's with trailers on them to hand out. And plus, if I remember correctly you work at a cinema so you might be able to strike a deal and get it shown, provided you have digital projectors.

 

6. The greatest of them all, Ebay! ;)

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Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

You realise generally you would hire a professional markets women to do that kind of job, sure you would have to pay them, but at least they know exactly what to do with it, and it would probably be a lot more worth it.

 

(Men turn to jelly when a blond model walks in and offers them stuff, a 16 year old kid? P... off..)

 

I'm not being childish here, but seriously hire a good looking saleswomen to go around selling it, they are professionals, they know what they are doing.

 

Get the guerrilla?s film making guide, gives all you need to know about distributing.

 

One thing you will find when you come to selling the film is that you will become painfully aware of it's weaknesses. For instance I sent of a DVD copy of that series I shot as a reel to someone, now I'm completely unconfident they'l even consider hiring me, I'm thinking about all the bad things about it.

Edited by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
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Self Distributing is sort of an interesting thing because if it is going to be something that sells like hot cakes, there will be a whole bunch of legitimate distributors who know their job as well as you know yours who will want to take your movie and will probably have a better shot at getting world wide sales than you. Yes, they'll take half the money or some negotiated amount - but, in theory, they'll be able to make many more sales than you giving your film more value when it comes time to hit the video deal - or the cable deal because there has been a lot of marketing dollars put into the campagin. See - that's a major thing that affects the value of the film in video sales - how many millions was spent on marketing it already - how much has penetrated the world wide audience's collective conscious? That is going to be the different of thinking 250,000 in video sales profits and 25,000,000 in video sales profits.

 

Now - if no one wants to take your movie because either it has problems or it is just so unique that they don't "get it." That's when self distributing might be an advantage. That's when you got to use film festivals to get it seen by people who might mention it. Hunt for your core audience - does it hav the best martial arts ever seen? Then get it written about in Martial Arts magazines. Beautiful leading leady in a sci fi or action movie? Get her in Femme Fatale or Maxxim. etc. etc. etc. But you'll spend the next year of your life doing this instead of making another movie.

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You all offer great advice.... And yes daniel, I work at a cinema. We do have digital projectors, however they are nothing specil, just mulitmedia projectors (Prolly single ship LCD). The resolution looks horrible even on our smallest screens.

 

I have talked to the manager about showing the film at the theater. While he siad he would show it if I advertised the film heavy around town to create a buzz about it, and I would need to have a 35mm copy :lol: .

 

There is a theater in Indianapolis however that is more than willing to project your DVD with there 3-chip DLP projectors for free, but thats because there a fairly off-beat indie cinema (i.e not the type that shows any hollywood movies :rolleyes: ).

 

As to hiring sales agent, yeah I though of that. If it comes to self-distrobution I more than likly will.

 

As to getting a ditributer, I would love that for this film. Its not going to be anything off-beat. Its a classic Thriller / Mild Horror film with nice dolly and crane shots. Probly shot on MiniDV with XL2 though. I considered places like "Indiefilms" and "First Look".... They all seem willing to take on unsolicited material for a look. So does Newline and Fineline, but Im going to reuin my reputation with a HUGE company like that with a MiniDV thriller film.

 

PS) About that blockbuster thing. Its not on there site now, but I e-mail them to ask about it. I have not got a reply yet.

 

All good advice though!!!! Thanks again guys.

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Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
You all offer great advice.... And yes daniel, I work at a cinema. We do have digital projectors, however they are nothing specil, just mulitmedia projectors (Prolly single ship LCD). The resolution looks horrible even on our smallest screens.

The chances are (now I don't know this for sure, just ignore me if I'm wrong) the digital projectors have a higher output resolution than the XL2 records at, so really there?s nothing to be gained by using better digital projectors. Let alone transferring it to 35mm and then showing it on a larger screen, which will cost you thousands anyway and probably won't be worth it.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is your first ever film project, just getting it shown in a cinema in front of an audience is a great start. About all I can do is show my films at festivals, but I don't have access to public cinemas.

 

The project I'm doing in the summer certainly isn't my first and I'm pushing for HD, it will never be shown in a cinema. If your first ever project is good enough for cinema, then go for it, whatever projectors being used, however many people you get watching it, it's being shown to a viewing public, that's pretty much a better start than any film maker has got.

 

Besides that most people won't even notice the bad resolution, if the films that good then you have nothing to worry about. I mean, as an average cinema go-er, would you walk out the cinema because you could make out the pixels on screen?

Edited by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
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again Daniel, great advice. My concern with the projector is not resolution, but Lumens, It's very low on'em.

 

On the smaller screens its not so bad, but we have 12 screens here, and when you project it on our 4 largest, It really shows. The bright reds look REALLY dark (Almost blackish-red in some cases).

 

If I was to show this with a digital projector, I would come more like showing it at Key Cinemamas in Indianapolis (www.keycinemas.com) where they have the better projector (With better lumens) and are more willing to show the film. And on top of everything else, its FREE, lol. The manager at my cinema sais he will charge a very substantial fee of $600.00 to show it, Plus they keep all the profits :o .

 

You know, while this is my first feature film project, We are still considering HD, maybe even just to keep the option for the TV Market open. We figure it this way, with our limited funds we can either BUY a complete MiniDV production package, ect or RENT the stuff needed for HD.

 

Heck, I was even pushing for 35mm, but that fight looks like it died a long time ago.

 

Personally, Id rather rent the HD stuff and have a better looking film, but then again I get to to keep the MiniDV package if we buy it, so it puts me kind of in a bind.

 

We'll see what happends.... As always, I'll keep you guys updated.

Edited by Landon D. Parks
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Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
again Daniel, great advice. My concern with the projector is not resolution, but Lumens, It's very low on'em.

 

On the smaller screens its not so bad, but we have 12 screens here, and when you project it on our 4 largest, It really shows. The bright reds look REALLY dark (Almost blackish-red in some cases).

Well.. there?s always the smaller screens I suppose.

 

ALTHOUGH:

The manager at my cinema sais he will charge a very substantial fee of $600.00 to show it, Plus they keep all the profits  :o .

No offence to you here, but seriously tell your manager to go f.. himself. (Not literally, you still want your job lol)

 

$600 just to get it shown and they keep all the profits? I know they have to make money on these things, but really it should be them paying YOU $600, or more. If you know it will attract enough customers for them to make their money back that is. A more realistic deal would be for them to give you a certain percentage of the films income, at least then both of you don't have much to lose if it does go badly. But as it stands the cinema is getting all the credit.

 

 

If you can't afford HD, you could always try the SDX-900 or something. I mean, like HD it still has 4:2:2 colour rendition, just not as much resolution that?s all. And at least that will save you money, which could be used on other more important things, like getting in some pro lighting gear and crew.

 

Just shoot with the XL2 man, but make sure you have a good DP and camera operators, as well as sweet lighting kit.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a bit of a testimony since this was mentioned: "Well.. there?s always the smaller screens I suppose."

 

My husband and I had our doc. film shown on TV and while we were disappointed we couldn't get it on the big screen, we were still just as pleased and as it turned out a unexpected (and very welcomed) chain of events occurred.

 

The film's subject matter was baby abandonment. We had a lot of opposition due to the nature of the intensity of the subject but we felt it was an important issue to bring to light. We had to beg and plead with several people and show them the benefits of them broadcasting it--it was aired. We even won a media award (EMA) Best Educational TV Program for it 5 months later after it aired. It opened many more doors for us career wise.

 

Just thought I'd give some input to see if it would help or encourage. Remember to keep plugging away, you never know what will turn up. You may even want to see if you can pay for it to air on a local TV station or something like that. We paid a family channel to air it a second time. It did cost a bit, but we did any odd jobs we could from script supervising to moving furniture to raise the funds.

 

Oh, just to mention, I had worked in marketing handing out flyers to promote a film. While I'm not a blonde, I am a red-head-lol. But it did work well as opposed to a young kid doing it. Funny thing when my husband did the same thing, he got less of a response than I did. Just thought you guys would find it interesting. ;)

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I hope that's a typo in Landon's progress report of his film....

 

"Budget and script approved, and casting is raping up on Shadows. "

 

"Raping" up the casting could be very interesting, and draw in the police. :blink:

 

R.

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Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
Oh, just to mention, I had worked in marketing handing out flyers to promote a film. While I'm not a blonde, I am a red-head-lol. But it did work well as opposed to a young kid doing it. Funny thing when my husband did the same thing, he got less of a response than I did. Just thought you guys would find it interesting.

Women have got that ability to turn mens heads, always better to have a women doing the job than yourself or any other man.

I hope that's a typo in Landon's progress report of his film....

 

"Budget and script approved, and casting is raping up on Shadows. "

 

"Raping" up the casting could be very interesting, and draw in the police.  :blink:

:lol: Ok, in spite I wouldn't usually laugh at that, but that is actually pretty funny. (funny on the grounds that I'm *presuming* it was a typo...)

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"It hides in wait, and now it has come for your sanity. You have told yourself it don't exist, but just wait..."

 

Can I recommend less words, (and never repeat a word, as in the word "wait")

 

How about... You told yourself "it" didn't exist. Now its come for your sanity.....

 

 

You can't underestimate the distributor's role in selling to blockbuster. The distributor not only handles the sales, they handle the presale "quality control" report. This is the dirty little process nobody likes. They look at your finished master frame by frame and print out a report on any and all errors in regards to picture levels, drop-outs, audio, soft focus, boom in the shot, etc...

 

If you have more than three, they expect you to fix them.

 

I assume your audio will be top notch?

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"You can't underestimate the distributor's role in selling to blockbuster. The distributor not only handles the sales, they handle the presale "quality control" report. This is the dirty little process nobody likes. They look at your finished master frame by frame and print out a report on any and all errors in regards to picture levels, drop-outs, audio, soft focus, boom in the shot, etc..."

 

If this is really the case then half the titles in a typical Blockbuster need to be tossed out.

 

R.

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Reason I ask is because Ahmed will more thank likly let my company handle the US / UK distrobution of the film Shadows, while he handles the Egyptian / Arabian Rights to it.

 

That just about covers the world, doesn't it?

 

Is it just me or does this whole project sound dodgy?

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Is it just me or does this whole project sound dodgy?

 

Max,

 

Of course his backers would give up the US and UK in favour of Egypt and the arab states, it makes perfect business sense.

 

R.

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Sorry I have not been on in a while, we are getting ready to start filming and I have not had time. Anyway:

 

Max,

 

Of course his backers would give up the US and UK in favour of Egypt and the arab states, it makes perfect business sense.

 

R.

No, he is not giving up the US rights. He is the owner of all the rights to the film. im just hired to direct. He does however, want me to co-ordinate the rights in us, as he is not here, and therefore wants someone in the US to handle the rights on his behalf.

 

 

That just about covers the world, doesn't it?

 

Is it just me or does this whole project sound dodgy?

Well, let me put it this way. I now know ahmed is a real person, cause I have meet with him. So unless its fishy in the fact that he is suing stolen money to make it, its for real. I guess we'll just have to see....

 

QUOTE(Richard Boddington @ May 7 2005, 07:46 PM)

I hope that's a typo in Landon's progress report of his film....

 

"Budget and script approved, and casting is raping up on Shadows. "

 

"Raping" up the casting could be very interesting, and draw in the police. 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, in spite I wouldn't usually laugh at that, but that is actually pretty funny. (funny on the grounds that I'm *presuming* it was a typo...)

lol, no illegal activities being performed in this production. AKA: It was a typo...

 

PS) Tag line is going to change anyway... Im getting tired of it already.

 

Well, im outta here!

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The one advise I'd give you, Landon, is that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you invest your own money in this production. Because to be honest, a producer who makes a film with a 16 year old does not sound very trustworthy. I have seen too many shoots with established production companies have money troubles recently and this one reminds me of them.

 

What is your budget anyway?

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