Up until now, iTunes has made it difficult for independent filmmakers to sell their work through their service. They want to deal with big studios or distributors, not a million little guys who require a million little checks once a month. The alternative has been to give away iPod friendly files in podcast feeds, but you don’t make any money that way.
There are a couple distributors who are dipping into the indie well for content to sell. One such is ShortsInternational at britshorts.com, which handles a lot of high end award winning shorts.
A recent episode of This Week in Media alerted me to TuneCore.com , which will take your hard copy submissions and run them by the “editorial staff” at iTunes. Users pay iTunes, iTunes pays TuneCore, and TuneCore pays you. Not a perfect solution, but it’s a start. This is similar to the way CD Baby works with indie musicians, although I doubt there’s a gatekeeper that judges the content of songs.
While iTunes is the holy grail for filmmakers — as it’s already being used by a huge chunk of the population — there are some alternatives. MeDeploy.com is a competing service, an “iTunes for indie film producers.” There’s also Amazon Video On Demand (formerly Amazon Unbox), which works with CreateSpace.com (formerly CustomFlix). These services sound great, but are they really that different than video-on-demand sites I’ve submitted to in the past, like Dave.tv and Vuze.com?
Most likely not, but Amazon does have something going for it — a name that people trust. And that is a huge deal when it comes time to promote. If I send out an email blast saying “buy my film,” I think people will be more likely to pay if they already have an Amazon or iTunes account. Asking someone to pay AND download a program they’ve never heard of is a hard sell.
Edit 10/06/08
See the comments for a clarification on MeDeploy.
I was also contacted by Indieflix, which I’ve considered using for DVD sales in the past. Indieflix now distributes films through iTunes, the first of which should be up late October early November.
Edit 10/08/08
Since posting this article, I’ve heard feedback that Shorts International is notorious for not paying royalties to filmmakers. That’s reason enough to be wary of them, along with their exclusive contracts that restrict you from selling to other online distributors.
When Google Maps first launched its Street View function last year, I thought it was the coolest thing. First off, it’s quite a concept to get your head around: imagine Google vans driving down every road in a given city, taking panorama pictures every 10 feet or so. Incredible!
Then there’s the functionality. It’s incredibly easy to look up a location, click on Street View, and click your way up and down the block to look for landmarks. Someday I’ll have an iPhone or Google phone and search maps while on location. Add GPS, and you’ve got something out of Star Trek.
So while I drooled over the pics from the first 5 cities, I thought my hometown of Rochester would be way down the list for inclusion. We’d probably get Street View somewhere around 2019. Not so! Today while searching for an address, I saw it was active for Ra-cha-cha and some suburbs.
When did this happen? Today, apparently. From Wikipedia:
On June 10, 2008, twelve more cities were introduced: Atlanta, Buffalo, Charlotte, Columbus (Ohio), Fresno, Jackson, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, St. Louis and Virginia Beach. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming was also introduced. This update also included a number of locations without attributable camera icons. These locations include Bakersfield, Cincinnati, Dayton, Death Valley National Monument, Greenville, Huntsville, Knoxville, Lexington, Omaha-Lincoln, Palm Springs, Reno, Rochester, New York, Sequoia National Park, Syracuse, Toledo, and Tulsa.
It looks like the pictures were taken late last summer. In the pic of Animatus below, we have our neon sign, but the lot next door hasn’t been paved yet.
So spread the word! Look up your house! It’s a surreal experience.
We’re legit! Not only do we have 4 audio episodes and 2 video supplementals under our belt, but The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast now has a listing on iTunes.
To subscribe (for free!) through the shiny Apple interface, click HERE.
Our latest episodes address music rights, getting started in the business, the basics of special make-up effects, and the advantages of shooting with the Panasonic HVX200.
Visit http://www.maddogmovies.com/podcast for show notes and more.
I’ve been using the 4 gig Sansa e260 from Sandisk for a couple months now, and color me satisfied.
Pros:
- Long battery life (15-19 hours?) and easy to charge using USB
- I can read the titles and authors of podcasts now! No more renaming files to 6 digits or less.
- Compact and light
- Easy to use togwheel and navigation screen
- “Pause” function lets me shut it down and come back later at the same point
- Fast forward and rewind easier to use than my last player
- Records voice
- Has FM radio, which it also records
- When formatted properly, the Sansa can act as an external hard drive.
Cons:
-
There’s no way to reset after a crash. It’s only happened a couple times, but I’ve had to let the battery run down, charge it, then start it up.I’ve discovered that if you hold the menu button down for 10-20 seconds, the Sansa will reboot. - The buttons are so small, you need to use the tip of your finger to press them.
- The screen is really too small to use the video or picture functions much. More of a novelty than anything else.
- The radio presets should be easier to access.
- Not much playlist capability. Podcasts and music end up mixed up together. Fortunately, I use it for podcasts almost exclusively.
- I thought my Sandisk flashcard would be compatible, but the card slot is only for MICRO cards.
Overall, worth the $130 I paid for it (through Amazon, if you’re interested).
When YouTube hit, everything changed. Now there are a thousand video sites where you can watch 400×300 pixel videos of your pets and favorite bootlegged moments from Family Guy.
What’s next? JOOST is on the horizon, designed to bring high-end content and high resolution video. They’ve got deals with Fox, Sony, and Time Warner. That might be hard for the indie filmmaker to break into.
Today I uploaded a short to VUZE, (formerly ZUDEO), an on-demand service from Azureus. Using VUZE requires downloading a special browser. There’s a ton of content, from movie trailers to A&E programs and the sci-fi show Red Dwarf. I believe the content is downloaded to your computer using bit-torrent, but I’m not sure yet.
To download the full version visit vuze.com
Another site I’ve been toying with is DOVETAIL, which is aimed at independents. Again, you need to install a special program.
What worries me is that none of these is available in your standard browser. It will take a lot of persuading to get the bulk of mainstream users to download a new program.
It could happen — just look at iTunes. That interface had the advantage of being tied into the Mac operating system and the popular Quicktime player, though.
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