An Update on the State of Indie Film Online

I worked on a piece for Variety this week that intended to examine why no online destination has emerged specifically to serve up independent films.

From the piece:

A decade after the dot-com boom, when the Web promised to make any piece of content globally accessible to any interested viewer, a dominant online destination for indie film has failed to emerge -- though many have tried.

Earlier this year, San Francisco-based Caachi quietly shut down, and world cinema purveyor Jaman let go most of its staff. Two of the first sites to try to connect cinephiles with streaming and downloadable indie films, GreenCine and Intertainer, have since exited that business.

As usual, there was a lot of material that didn't fit into the piece... and Snagfilms CEO Rick Allen e-mailed to take issue with some of the data I presented.

- Gary Hustwit told me his last doc, 'Helvetica,' has already broken into six-figures of iTunes earnings. He says his new film, 'Objectified,' is now available for pre-order on iTunes, and it's already in the iTunes top ten list for documentaries. Hustwit is also selling a USB drive containing the movie (pictured above). They're $75 each, and they've been produced in a limited edition of 500. Hustwit says they're selling briskly.

- Cory McAbee told me that a deluxe package of 'Stingray Sam' goodies is selling well through his site: for $49, you get a DVD, t-shirt, photobook, soundtrack CD, and two digital downloads (HD and standard definition).

- Rick Allen, CEO of doc-streaming network Snagfilms, takes issue with the traffic figures I cited in the story, supplied by Compete.com. Compete says the Snagfilms site gets about 100,000 unique visitors a month, compared to about six million for Hulu. Allen accurately points out that some of Hulu's most popular full-length films actually come from Snag (like 'The Future of Food' and 'Super-Size Me.') And he argues that a lot of Snagfilms content is viewed on other site, describing Snag as "a massively sub-distributed network." Unfortunately, Snag doesn't share any data of its own about how often films are viewed on its site or others, so reporters like me have no choice but to cite statistics from independent third parties like Compete or Quantcast.

- An interesting quote from Eric Lemasters, who handles digital distribution for E1 Entertainment: "iTunes and Netflix are probably leading the pack, but there’s a huge middle of the pack. Hulu is doing well, as is EZTakes. There's Amazon, Blockbuster [Movielink], CinemaNow. They all seem to be holding their own. EZTakes has done the best in that world. Snag and Jaman aren’t moving the needle much." Lemasters says 'Welcome to Macintosh' and 'The Bridge,' both docs, have been doing especially well on iTunes.

- Steve Harnsberger of Jaman says that site has no plans to shut down, but they're focusing more on providing "white label" video delivery services for other customers, like content owners, electronics manufacturers, and potentially telcos. "The Jaman site is definitely here to stay," he says. "It's a demonstration site for our technology."

- Distribution consultant Adam Chapnick of Distribber: "You have to be reminded that people like studio movies more. The reason that 90 percent of revenues online goes to studios is because most people don’t like indie movies." One reason that indie-only Web sites haven't succeeded, he believes, is that "most people don’t say, 'I’m in the mood for an independent film tonight.' They want a destination where all film can be aggregated."

- Some data points from Chapnick: "I know of one film property that's been making $50k/ month on iTunes, but it's not a feature, it's a stand-up comedy offering. I'm told by Netflix that they pay up to 30k for their [streaming] rights; of course that means they probably pay at least twice that to a really worthy title.

"But my bet is that 90 percent of indie films sell under 1000 units on iTunes, and 90 percent of indie films on Netflix are paid under $2500 for a year of [streaming] rights..."

- Some data from an anonymous source about indie content on Netflix and iTunes:

Per-title agreement [for two years] with Netflix can go up to 5k-20k, especially if we give them a 60 day pre-dvd release window, and we have.

Standard on one-year day-and-date ranges from .8-2k and catalog renewal can go as low as .25-.5k per if the titles is 5 years old or more...

Per-title revenue on iTunes for one year has proven to range greatly, from $ 50 to about $ 2000 with the average well below $1k thus far, but they have only been offering indies for just over a year so let's allow them to continue to build steam.

Your comments welcome...

Panel Video: Tech @ The Movies

Here's some video taken at an event in Cambridge, MA last month called "Tech @ The Movies." It focused on the role that Massachusetts companies are playing (and have played in the past) in the technological evolution of the movie industry. Description and cast of characters below.

Massachusetts companies have played a pivotal role in the evolution of Hollywood. Movies might still be in black-and-white -- and we might never have had "The Wizard of Oz" -- if not for Technicolor, founded by Massachusetts entrepreneurs. And Avid Technology won an Oscar in the 1990s for introducing computers to the movie editing process. You'll hear from a panel of technology innovators who're changing the way movies get made in the 21st century -- helping directors create special effects or helping movie fans buy their favorite pics in digital form. Journalist Scott Kirsner will introduce the panel with a short, illustrated overview of his new book Inventing the Movies, which tells the heretofore untold technological history of Hollywood -- including the stories of Avid and Technicolor.

Panelists:

-Jim Flynn, Founder & CEO, EZTakes and iArthouse

-Jeff Kleiser, CEO, Synthespian Studios; Visual Effects Artist on "Fantastic Four," "X-Men: The Last Stand," and "Tron"

-Patrick McLean, Senior Product Manager, Avid Technology

- Katherine Hays, CEO, GenArts

-Dave Waller, Founder, Brickyard VFX

Calling all Massachusetts Filmmakers / Techies: 9.25 Panel in Cambridge

Interesting in the future of filmmaking?

On Sept. 25th, I'm moderating a panel in Cambridge, Mass. that'll touch on what's next for visual effects, editing & post-production, and digital distribution of movies.

This is an evening networking event in the heart of Kendall Square, accessible by T. The goal is to bring together Boston-area filmmakers and techies. We've got folks on the panel from Avid Technology, Brickyard VFX, and EZTakes; legendary VFX artist Jeff Kleiser (he has worked on movies like 'Tron' and ' X Men'); and Katherine Hays, the new CEO at GenArts. There will be clips shown, lots of time for questions, and snacks!

I'm going to open things up by giving a short presentation on the role that Massachusetts companies have played in the evolution of the movie industry.

Best news of all is that there is now a special rate for students and filmmakers: $20. You can register here.

Movies You Can't Buy Online

Ever try looking for some of your favorite movies on iTunes, Amazon Unbox, Movielink, or any of the other legal download destinations?

Odds are good that you won't find them.

I wanted to write about the issue, so I put together a list of fifty great movies (celebrated by the AFI, Roger Ebert, and Time Magazine) and all-time box office champs that you can't buy or rent online.

Here's the Variety article on the topic. One reason that you can't find movies like the James Bond series, 'The Godfather,' and 'The Lion King' is likely that they haven't yet been released on Blu-ray disc yet, and the studios are sure they'll make more money on selling high-def discs than they can with $9.99 iTunes downloads.

My favorite quote in the piece is from Jim Flynn, who runs the download sites EZTakes and iArthouse: "The pirates in general have a download exclusive," he says. "These movies are available as downloads -- just not legal ones."

Here's my list of fifty great movies you can't buy or rent legally on any of the major download sites (iTunes, Unbox, Movelink, and CinemaNow). Have you discovered others? Add them in the comments.

Fifty Movies You Won't Find Online (Legally)

Almost Famous
Amadeus
Annie Hall
Apocalypse Now
Brazil
Brokeback Mountain
Bubble
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Citizen Kane
City of God
Double Indemnity
Drunken Master (1 or 2)
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Fantasia
Farewell My Concubine
Fargo
Forrest Gump
The Godfather I-III
Gone With the Wind
The Graduate
It’s a Wonderful Life
A Hard Day’s Night
Hotel Rwanda
Jaws
King Kong, 1933 original and Peter Jackson’s 2005 re-make (the 1976 Jessica Lange version is available)
La Dolce Vita
Miller’s Crossing
Munich
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
My Fair Lady
Nashville
Notorious
Pulp Fiction
Purple Rose of Cairo
Raging Bull
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rear Window
Roger and Me
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler’s List
Sex, Lies & Videotape
Shrek 1, 2, and 3
Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs
The Sound Of Music
Star Wars Episodes I-VI
Titanic
The Wizard of Oz
12 Angry Men
2001: A Space Odyssey (but 2010: The Year We Make Contact is available)
28 Up

EZTakes launches a new site for the artsy cinephile

Anne Thompson noted this morning that the guys at Massachusetts-based EZTakes, one of the first download sites to do the burn-a-DVD-on-demand thing, have launched a new site called iArthouse.

It'll compete primarily with Jaman, another site focused on foreign, arthouse, and independent titles.

iArthouse, so far, is just a rebranding of EZTakes.com without some of the schlockier stuff -- no "Extreme Sports" category, for instance, and no Troma movies like "Toxic Avenger." But other than that, the fare is virtually identical: here's the drama category on EZTakes, and here it is on iArthouse.

I called Jim Flynn, co-founder of EZTakes, to see what's up. He told me that there aren't any new titles up on iArthouse yet that weren't on EZTakes, but he expects about 30 titles from Kino International to show up within the week.

Flynn acknowledged that EZTakes isn't selling as many downloads as iTunes (50,000 a day), but that he wouldn't reveal specific numbers. He said that EZTakes received a "multi-million dollar" investment in January from a private investor, in addition to the several million that he and co-founder Bill Clarke have already put in. As of the start of 2008, Flynn says the site is profitable.

Here's a graph from Alexa comparing the traffic of EZTakes to that of Jaman, CinemaNow, and Movielink. Interesting that Jaman has twice the traffic of EZTakes. Obviously, Web site traffic doesn't equal downloads -- you can visit without buying or renting -- but it's the best approximation we've got.

Metacafe banks $30 million ... YouTube officially intros advertising ... Video search ... EZTakes gets friendly with the iPod ... Panel at Toronto

- Metacafe just raised another $30 million in venture capital. While no video site has really yet figured out a great way to integrate advertising with their videos, clearly that's what the investors are hoping here.

- YouTube will officially start selling ads in some of its videos, according to the Wall Street Journal. YouTube won't use pre-roll ads. Emily Steel writes:

YouTube...plans to sell these ads only on videos from its select content partners, whose original videos include professionally produced clips and user-generated content. The partners will earn a share of the ad revenue. The system is similar to Google's AdSense network, which matches ads to the content of a network of Web sites, and gives those sites a cut of the profits. YouTube, of San Bruno, Calif., has established revenue-sharing deals with more than 50 partners, including Ford Models and Warner Music Group Corp. YouTube declined to say what percentage of videos on its site comes from its content partners.

YouTube started testing its in-video ad format in June and July on more than 200 videos from 20 content providers, and found that 75% of viewers watched the entire ad. The ads had five to 10 times greater click-through rates than standard display ads that appear on Web sites, YouTube said. Other ad models are in the works.

- The Journal looks at four video search sites (Truveo/AOL, Google, Yahoo, and BlinkX) and seems to like Truveo best.

- Jim Flynn, CEO of the Massachusetts movie download site EZTakes, sent a note that his site is about to start selling videos that can play on Apple's iPod. "Consumers, who could already burn EZTakes downloads to playable DVDs, can now also enjoy their purchases on their Apple iPods, and just about any portable media player that they may own in the future," the press release says.

- The panel I'm doing at the Toronto International Film Fest next month, on how filmmakers can use social media, has filled out nicely. It'll include Jason Klein of Special Ops Media, Sandi DuBowski of Films that Change the World, Bill Holsinger-Robinson of Spout, Christine Moore of Myspace, and producer Corey Marr. It's on Saturday, September 8th. See you there?