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.

Jaman Tries Ad-Supported Streaming

Jaman, the Silicon Valley movie marketplace geared to indie content, is introducing ad-supported streaming this week. That adds a second revenue stream to Jaman's business model, which was originally built atop selling downloads and rentals of films.

I don't think this is a surrender, indicating that downloads and rentals aren't working for Jaman, but it has undoubtedly been a challenge for the site to get visitors to hand over their credit card information... and ad-supported streaming makes it easier to simply start watching a movie that looks half-way interesting. Jaman will offer 100 ad-supported titles to start with.

Here's the TechCrunch coverage ... and the official press release.

Digital Downloads Panel at IFP Filmmaker Conference

This afternoon's panel on Digital Downloads was hugely fun for me to moderate.

Joel Heller of Docs That Inspire recorded the panel, and has posted it here.

Some of my impressions and rough notes:

- Digital downloading isn't yet a major revenue-generator for indie filmmakers; Hunter Weeks of '10 MPH' said he has sold about 4000 DVDs of the documentary, and about 700 downloads (both on his own site and on Amazon Unbox)

- Anyone who picks up your movie for distribution in theaters, on home video, or on TV will try to buy the digital rights for it ... even if they don't actually do anything with them; carving out digital rights seems like a good idea

- We all agreed that iTunes is the "hot shop" where digital movie buying happens, but they're not yet open to indies; Peter Broderick of Paradigm Consulting said that iTunes will start selling indie content (handled by aggregators) really soon, but wouldn't say more

- Building a database of your fans' names, e-mail addresses, and ZIP codes is really important, as you sell downloads. Many services won't give you that information, to protect their customers' privacy. But Peter said that getting that information could be as valuable as any profit you earn from selling or renting your movie -- since those are fans you can communicate with and market your future films to. Peter has a great term for that group of people: they are a filmmakers "core personal audience." I like that.

- I predicted, in response to an audience question, that in five years, digital movie consumption will be about equal to consumption on DVD.

- Jaman said they plan to start integrating advertising in short films soon, and sharing the revenue with creators (right now, Jaman's model is simply to sell or rent full-length movies in digital form)

- I brought up Jaman's deal structure: they give filmmakers 30 percent of the rental or download revenues, and pocket 70 percent. That compares to selling movies through Amazon's Unbox / CreateSpace, which split revenues down the middle. Kathleen Powell said that Jaman is more of a concentrated community of cinephiles, and that indie features and docs don't get lost. (She also said that "Black" is the site's most popular film.)

- Then Brian Chris of the 'Four Eyed Monsters' team hammered on Jaman some more, noting that the site requires filmmakers sign a six year non-exclusive agreement ... so if you made another distribution deal, you couldn't remove your movie from Jaman for six years. Kathleen clarified, and said that the length of these deals run anywhere from five to nine years, and said that it's expensive for the site to encode movies (that cost is anywhere from $800 to $2000). So it isn't economical for the site to do that one week, and have a filmmaker pull down the title the next week.

Jaman CEO Gaurav Dhillon: Building a Marketplace for Indie Movies

I had a chance, just before the holiday, to sit down for a chat with Jaman CEO Gaurav Dhillon; I'd spoken with him the previous week for this Variety piece about the iPhone, and had also written here about a hack that allows AppleTV users to view content purchased from Jaman, even though Apple and Jaman don't have a formal partnership.

I'm posting the video of a portion of our chat here. It is very much geared to filmmakers who might be considering using Jaman for their films. Below the video are some of my notes from the non-recorded part of our conversation.



Some notes:

- Jaman's split is 70/30, with the filmmaker getting the 30 percent. That's a smaller cut than other sites offer, like Brightcove, EZTakes, Lulu and Grapeflix, for example.

- But Gaurav emphasizes that the site has done a lot of high profile marketing at events like the Tribeca Film Festival and Cannes, and that the community they build around their catalog of films will help lead users from one movie download to another.

- One cool feature: allowing viewers to "blog inside a movie," leaving comments and questions that other viewers can read as a movie plays, attached to specific scenes.

- Gaurav says they don't support downloading content to a portable device; they're more interested in getting onto set-top boxes like AppleTV right now.

- They also don't support DVD burning; Gaurav says that "a good percentage don't burn right or just won't play."

- Movies on Jaman aren't quite HD. They've got fewer than 720 horizontal pixels, but they're better than DVD. The file of one movie Gaurav used as a demo, "Agua," was compressed to just 1.3 gigabytes.

- Some of his favorite movies on the service: 'Yank Tanks,' 'An Uzi at the Alamo,' 'Stoned,' and Hirokazu Koreeda's 'After Life.'

- I suggested that one way to get other sites pointing users to Jaman movies (you can already embed links to movie trailers) would be to offer an affiliate program, where those sites would get a cut of any resulting movie rentals or downloads. Gaurav seemed open to that idea -- but it isn't on the near-term radar.

- Jaman's movie files are wrapped in their own flavor of DRM, but Gaurav says that if Apple would license its FairPlay DRM, he'd do that deal in a second. Windows DRM, on the other hand, is "buggy and crash-prone," he says, "and the rules that are imposed are fairly arbitrary."

Video interview with Jaman CEO

Robert Scoble recently did a 30-minute video interview with Gaurav Dhillon, CEO of indie film marketplace Jaman. I've embedded it below.

I'm going to be chatting with Gaurav on Monday afternoon -- so if you have any questions you'd like me to ask, e-mail me (address at right, under 'About Me'), or post a comment below.

Couple links: XLNT Ads, Starbucks, The Film Department, Jaman on AppleTV

I'm down in Mountain View at Under the Radar today -- lots of interesting company presentations. Coolest so far: XLNT Ads, an agency for user-generated advertising.

Some links worth looking at today:

- 'Starbucks Sticks With Film-Promotion Plan', from WSJ.com. From the piece:

The Seattle coffee chain plans to announce today that it has picked "Arctic Tale," from Paramount Classics and National Geographic Films, as its second movie venture. The film is about a walrus pup and a polar bear who grow up and find their frozen environment melting underneath them.

Starbucks's much-anticipated entry into the film business last year ended up a disappointment for the company. The chain marketed the uplifting spelling bee tale "Akeelah and the Bee" in its stores by printing hard-to-spell words on cup sleeves and asking baristas to tell customers about the film. Executives have conceded that the movie's ticket sales came in lower than they had hoped for.

- From Anne Thompson/Variety: 'Gill and Sacker Launch New Film Department.' The opening paragraph:

As the movie business slowly moves away from the outmoded inflated big-studio model, momentum is starting to shift to the stand-alone indies that are in a position to deliver to the studios high-quality mid-range commercial pictures for a price. Of course that's easier said than done. And many folks are having the same idea at the same time. So will ex-Miramax and Warner Indie Pictures exec Mark Gill and partner Neil Sacker, ex of the Bob Yari Group as well as Miramax, be able to pull off their new financing and production co. The Film Department, which they've raised $200 million to launch?

They plan to make about six films a year, at $10 to $35 million a piece.

- Jaman has figured out how to get its indie movies onto AppleTV, reports Om Malik.

Jaman added to list of sites that allow you to monetize Internet film and video

The guys at Jaman were kind enough to tell me a bit about how their deals with filmmakers are structured, so I've added them to my list of services that help video creators earn money from their work.

Their revenue sharing model is as follows:

30% of the gross, paid quarterly to the content owner
$1.99 rentals (seven day); $4.99 download-to-own
7-9 yr non-exclusive contract
Worldwide Internet rights

I've listed them at #10; the list now provides a look at 24 different Internet video services, along with several that are about to launch and also a handful of DVD-on-demand services. I've been using Jaman for the past few days, and have been enjoying the experience: the software works flawlessly so far, and there's some high-quality content in the library. (Plus, they're offering free rentals on many titles, presumably to build up their customer base.)

Updated Resource: Sites that Pay for Film and Video

I've updated this chart once again, which lists many of the sites that help makers of film and video earn money online.

It now includes updated info about YouTube's new revenue-sharing program, along with links to newer services like Joost, Jaman, and Vuze.

Also: I heard this week that iTunes may start allowing indie producers to upload content and charge for it, sometime this summer. I'll add that if and when it happens.

Wednesday links: Cinemark goes public, Jaman offers Tribeca fare, Chad Hurley writes for Forbes

- Cinemark Holdings, the third-biggest theater operator in the US, went public yesterday. An IPO for AMC, the second-largest, is on the way.

- Six films screening at the Tribeca Film Festival will be available for free download on Jaman.com, for seven days. Variety's Adam Dawtrey writes, "Deal is believed to mark the first time a major festival will have given online exposure to part of its full-length feature program at the same time the movies unspool at the fest."

- YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley has a piece in Forbes on the site's impact on the entertainment industry. He calls YouTube "the ultimate audition venue," continuing:

YouTube is more than a library of clips. It's also a network of audience members who engage content in a different way than previously possible and spread success stories by word of mouth. Some rise to fame because of one viral hit, others build a consistent following over time.

BusinessWeek gives Jaman.com a thumbs-up

Tech writer Stephen Wildstrom seems to think that Jaman is on its way to becoming a significant player in digital movie distirbution. His piece is headlined, 'At Last, an Online Art House.' Wildstrom likes the pricing (download to own for $4.99, rather than a DVD-like $15) and selection. From the piece:

...This startup download service aims to become an online film festival for world movies and the works of independent filmmakers—the sort that don’t have distribution deals with Miramax (DIS) Film or Fox Searchlight Pictures (NWS).



The concept is more novel than you might think. Outside of Jaman, the movies available for download today are mostly a subset of the limited offerings at your local Blockbuster (BBI), dominated by films that have recently finished their theatrical runs, box-office hits of the last few years, direct-to-video flops, and just a smattering of classics. Movielink’s download service offers fewer than 150 of the thousands of movies made before 1970, plus a shamefully underpowered roster of 40 foreign films.

From the NY Times: Downloading Cinema

The NY Times has a package of three stories in the arts section, all focusing on movie downloads. They are:

- A.O. Scott's 'The Shape of Cinema, Transformed at the Click of a Mouse'

- 'The Revolution Will Be Downloaded (if You're Patient) by Mahnolia Dargis, and

- 'Little Films on Little Screens'

Nothing ground-breaking here. In fact, here's my summary:

- In the future, there will be thousands of movies in downloadable form to choose from. Film critics like A.O. Scott are fretting about their role in that environment of boundless options (IE, how can a lone movie critic watch all that stuff on your behalf?)

- Downloading movies is slow and complicated.

- Directors still dream of having their movies distributed to theaters; they're not yet devising new kinds of movies, or new distribution plans, for this downloadable universe.

- Jaman.com, a download site devoted to indie cinema from around the world, must have a heck of a PR person -- the site is mentioned in all three articles.