I’d like to know more about selling shorts on iTunes, but I’ll need to do some research. (To give something away in iTunes, you simply put it in a podcast feed.) Basically, I know how to give away content, but not how to sell it. That’s one of the topics discussed in a recent Mad Dog Movies Podcast.
Will the general public pay for shorts, especially after sites like Youtube have conditioned an audience into expecting short form content for free? It may be a long shot, but it can’t hurt to try.
Here’s an article from Deep Structure that raises the same questions.
I’ve been looking through the Shorts area of the Itunes store. It’s not easy to find — shorts are listed in the lower right (ghetto) corner of the movies page.
I can see all the shorts listed by distributor. Everything is Disney, Pixar, Sundance, Tezuka (out of Japan?), Shorts International, and two wild cards. One is The Tribe, mentioned in the above article as having special circumstances.
Like any distributor, if they wanted your film they’d have you sign a contract. Non-exclusive is the way to go — you don’t want to give away exclusive distro rights. Also, they may want rights to DVD, too. You can usually negotiate those issues.
One cartoon/music video I had my eye on was the Doogtoons produced Weird Al video, “Trapped in the Drive Thru.” I contacted Bryan at Doogtoons.com, and he said that the Weird Al video was handled through Sony. That makes sense, since it’s in the music video (not the short film) section.
He suggested using Payloadz.com to sell hi-res versions of short films, which is something they do. I’ve used Payloadz for other files before, and it’s fairly simple to set up. You accept payments from consumers through Paypal, and then they get access to the file to download from Payloadz as a one time thing.
The problem there is that people have to know about you, seek you out, find your website, and then pay. The advantage of iTunes is the huge numbers of random people finding you accidentally. There would certainly be more sales through iTunes. (Although you’d have to split the $1.99 with the distributor.)
Over at the CinemaTech blog, there’s a run-down of the companies that have dealt with iTunes or might have dealings in the future. Check it out here.
“New Video” is another company that caught my attention, handling mostly long form documentary content. Read about it here.
I know musicians who use CD Baby to get their music into iTunes. Could this happen for filmmakers with sister company Film Baby? CD Baby was recently purchased by replication giant Disc Makers, so that may become a factor in future distribution deals.
Stay tuned for more blogs on the subject.
