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Itinerant Filmmaking
In the 1930s Texas-born filmmaker Melton Barker began to mass produce a short formula film that would star neighborhood kids which he charged their parents for. Barker would repeat this same script in numerous towns changing only the child actors. It was called “The Kidnappers Foil.” It was about a band of kids who outsmart two sleeping criminal. The kids then perform a series of song-and-dance routines.
It was a scam aimed at the unrealistic dreams of parents who believed their children could be stars no matter whether they had any talent. He continued the game for nearly 40 years. You can see some of the films at his web site. You can read more in the New York Times story The Legacy of a Camera-Toting Huckster.
Not all itinerant filmmakers were selling such shady ideas. Back in my New York documentary days we knew a filmmaker who made travel films, much like the old travelogues you’d see on weekend television. These were made on spec before the Internet. When he finished a film, he would book a local library, do some local advertising and sell tickets. These were silent films as sound cost a lot more to do. So he took his projector to the library or other venue then show the film while he did a live narration. His audience loved it. Then he’d take his projector, film reels and advertising materials and move on to the next town.
His travel films often featured more obscure corners of the planet. I’d bet an enterprising producer could do the same thing to day. People do it online as in the films you can watch through iTunes, Amazon, NetFlix, etc. But there’s something to be said to actually being with a live audience and interacting with them.
Filmmakers are doing similar things today such as Sam Green whose film ‘Utopia in Four Movements” can only be seen live. He narrates onstage, while a soundtrack and lyrical score are also performed live. Read about Sam Green’s film.
The Wonderful Change Order Form
The Change Order as Money Machine
If you look closely at the names of those two boats, you’ll get the concept that has put many kids through college. The big boat is named Change Order. The small dinghy is named Original Contract. It’s a concept I first observed in the construction business. The client wants to change some part of the project from what was specified in the original contract agreement. It may be something like adding a window or moving a door or something even more trivial. These changes generally take more work and that costs money. To make the change, the client must agree to a new contract or change order with new prices and terms.
The concept works in video too as well as in many other fields. But you have to make it part of the deal from the start. It must be prominently placed in the contract. Point it out to your prospective client. Explain it. Invite discussion. Make it an integral part of every contract you offer. It will make your business more profitable and remove those uncomfortable feelings that can come from the grey areas inherent in every artistic business. Clearly spell it out in writing.
I learned this the hard way, but when I figured it out, it changed my business in a good way. I wrote a report about this just for video producers. The strategy is fully explained. The report includes several video production contracts you can use. You’ll see exactly how to use them in your video productions.
Pricing the Video Job Requires Thinking On Your Feet
Try this as a rule of thumb…
If they say how much
You say ten
If they don’t flinch
You say thousand
If they don’t flinch
You say per hour
If they still don’t flinch
You say per guy.
Thanks to Tripp Clemens, a filmmaker and co-producer for Windy Media
While those are the right idea, don’t take them too literally. Here are some pricing tips you can take to the bank.
Clarity About Rates and Charges
Most production jobs should require a chunk of the money up front as specified in your contract. This way the client, too, has an interest in completing the project in a timely fashion. Never get too far ahead of the payments. If the client needs to slow the payments, slow the work to keep in synch.
Don’t Play Lowball
Being the lowest price in town can work against you in many ways. Because you will need to rush the work and cut corners, the work of the lowball provider will not look as good as his competitors, thus taking him out of the running for many higher-paying and more interesting jobs.
Exceed Client Expectations
Make the final product better than the client expects. In the long run, it is quality production that will help grow your business.
To learn more about pricing see Micro & Home-Based Business Product Pricing” from the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service. It also applies to services.
For more information on growing your business see Professional Video Producer.
Produce A Superbowl Doritos Ad and Win $1,000,000
Can you produce a very funny, action-packed or just awesome 30-second spot in the next couple weeks? If so, you could win a million bucks. But don’t delay. The deadline is one second before noon CT, Nov. 16, 2012. Your ad must be exactly 30 seconds and not use any copyrighted material or have been published elsewhere. Read the complete rules here. To enter, you must go to the official page on Facebook Click on the DORITOS Crash the Super Bowl Application. Agree to and allow the app. You’re allowed a total of ten submissions. There are prizes for $1,000,000, $600,000, $400,000 and five $25,000. The winner will also get to work with Michael Bay who directed Transformers.
Vimeo Adds “Tip Jar” for Producers
Vimeo has just added a Tip Jar which enables viewers to “like” a film with money. To enable the Tip Jar on your video, you must have a Vimeo Plus or Pro account. This is good news for filmmakers. Vimeo apps are available for iPad, iPhone, and Android. Vimeo can also be seen on Roku, Boxee, Google TV, and Apple TV.
The independent filmmaking community has long been partial to Vimeo as a video hosting site. Out of the 65 million unique visitors per month, a great many are film lovers. This tip function puts Vimeo in the realm of crowdfunding sites. Like the others, Vimeo takes a cut – 15%, which is more than most, but at least they don’t make you wait long for it.
So now when a viewer discovers a video she likes, perhaps a tutorial, and wants to thank the filmmaker for it, the new Tip Jar is an easy way to reward helpful or entertaining films. But even better is that early next year Vimeo’s pay-to-view will debut. Filmmakers and producers will be able to charge for viewing their videos. One thing that is different with Vimeo’s Video-On-Demand (VOD) is that anyone with a Vimeo Pro account can use it. Amazon and ITunes, on the other hand, make filmmakers go through an intermediary like Distribber.
Vimeo also has a new music store where filmmakers can find and license music to legally use in their films.
If you’re looking for exposure, YouTube has tons more traffic and it is the second most popular search engine in the world, but if you’re looking for an artistic community, Vimeo wins hands down. Vimeo does not run ads before or on top of videos like YouTube does. What to do? Use BOTH of them and get even more exposure.
Crowdsourcing Commercials With Poptent
An example of a Poptent video for Paypal that was purchased for $7500.
Poptent is a crowdsource exchange that connects producers with advertisers. The arrangement produces thousands of commercial videos each year for clients which include numerous Fortune 500 brands and agencies.
One of the Superbowl XLVI ads was produced by a poptent producer. Thirty-five of Poptent’s top producers were invited to submit their creative vision for Dannon OIKOS yogurt featuring John Stamos and positioning OIKOS as “Possibly the best yogurt in the world.” One production was chosen and the producer paid.
How It Works
Advertisers, agencies or brands post a “Creative Brief” explaining the video assignment and what they are willing to pay. The producer works on spec and takes most of the risk when they produce a video in a contest arrangement. The payment for these videos tends to be $7,500 to $10,000. The client guarantees they will purchase a video(s) from at least one of the producers. There are also cash awards for videos which are not purchased.
There are open assignments and invite assignments. Invite is for a smaller group of experienced producers.
The Open Assignments
Poptent works with the brand to help shape the creative brief in a way that will best speak to the community and attract on-point, quality submissions.
The brand provides electronic assets to assist in the creation of the videos (logos, pictures, music, styles guides, etc.).
Poptent creates a custom landing page for the assignment, where creators can read the creative brief, download the assets, and ask questions.
Then producers have 30 – 45 days to produce their videos and upload them. The brand selects which videos they wish to purchase for use.
Jared Cicon who hosts http://videocontestking.wordpress.com ,a site for video contests talks about his experiences with Poptent, “In 2011, I submitted 8 commercial projects to 8 assignments on the poptent.net website. Half of my submissions were purchased by the brand. This year, I have so far produced 4 commercials for different assignments whose conclusions elapsed. I won (sold) only one of the four submissions, and lost three. Six weeks of production work (four commercials) for a gross payment of $7,500.00. Amortized, I was paid (gross) only about $1,850.00 apiece for the each of the four submissions.”
A Great Time For Documentaries
We’ve come a long way from the days when the only way you could see a documentary was if you lived in a big city that had an art house theater and happened to know which of the one or two days a particular film was playing. Today, the Internet is exploding with feature-length docs you can watch for free. There are scores of sites that specialize in showing these films. Here are just a few:
And, of course the biggest ones are YouTube and Vimeo. YouTube has a special section just for documentaries. Vimeo has a section called Documentary Films On Vimeo.
Vimeo has been the preferred site for filmmakers because it’s considered a more artistic community. On the other hand, YouTube has an enormous audience. So there are advantages to each. Some filmmakers post their films to both sites and them cross-promote them.
Some doc producers would physically take their films to special interest groups and charge per viewer or give a talk for free and show clips and offer to sell the DVD on the spot. Some people actually made a living doing this. Of course like many businesses they spent a lot of time marketing and they traveled extensively.
Today we have easier ways to show a documentary. YouTube, Vimeo, and others will even pay you based on number of viewings of your film and the ads that run on your film, but unless you are getting thousands of views every month, the income is likely to be small.
To make money showing your video online, you’ll want to distribute your film across as many platforms as possible. This includes Video On Demand (VOD) from sites such as Amazon Instant Video, hulu.com, distrify.com, filmbinder.com, site.dynamoplayer.com, and others. That’s pretty much the easy part. The hard part, which makes all the difference, is marketing. This takes work, often more than the work of producing the film. A smart place to start your marketing efforts is by registering the name of your film as a domain name or as close as you can get. Then build a website for it, even before you have the film. When you’re ready, the site should have the trailer for your film and a “Buy It Now” button which links to a video on demand site and or DVDs. Use WordPress to build the site because it’s so easy and powerful.
As part of your marketing campaign, you may also want to advertise your film through Google Adwords and possibly Facebook ads. If you do, find some expert help because advertising with Adwords gets expensive and you want to make sure it is money well spent.
You’ll also want to sell your film to Netflix and iTunes, but this requires a third party. A producer cannot sell directly to Netflix or iTunes and other outlets of that size. These companies want to protect themselves from poor quality so they don’t become just another dump for videos like YouTube almost did. So they require that films be submitted through what is called an aggregator. They’re really distributors and until recently most of them charged a fee and took a percentage for doing this. Now they just charge a fee and let you have the payments. Here’s an example:
Distribber.com charges $1295 (SD) or $1595 (HD) to distribute your film to iTunes for both the US and Canada and to Amazon VOD: US only. For additional fees, you can also have them distribute to Netflix Watch Instantly: US and Canada, Hulu: US only and Cable/Satellite/Telco VOD services:
US only.
Distribber is one of the most popular aggregators for filmmakers. They were purchased by Indiegogo, a competitor to Kickstarter. Their fee structure is designed so they collect no royalties. All the money from a sale goes directly to you. But, of course, it’s bit more complicated than that so you’ll need to study the field carefully.
After you have an aggregator, the sales begin. Here are numbers:
iTunes splits sales 70/30. The filmmaker gets 70% and iTunes gets 30%. If you film sells for $9.99 on iTunes, you get $7.
Hulu streams films to the public for free and inserts ads. 50% of this advertising money goes to the filmmaker.
Amazon VOD pays the filmmaker 50% of what they collect.
Netflix purchases a license for your film for 1 or 2 years and they can play your film as many times as they like during that period of time. The license fees vary on a film by film basis.
Many people think “my film is perfect for Discovery,” but take a breath. On the Discovery Channel Producer’s Portal, you learn that
“This site was designed exclusively for industry producers to submit proposals, manage contract deliverables, and find information about all aspects of producing for the Discovery family of networks. This website is for established television producers and production companies. If you are a viewer with an idea for an episode of a currently airing series, please contact Viewer Relations.” (Their underline.)
The bottom line is that one of the most important skill to a documentary producer is marketing.
Why I Self-Distribute My Documentaries (11 so far)
by David Wittkower
http://www.davidwittkower.com
I went the distributor route many years ago when everyone told me that was the way to go, but the promises of quarterly reports did not happen and the checks were so small. So I confronted them about it and they finally admitted that I was one of 500 other titles and I was now a small number in line with many other titles, so when I questioned why they were taking 75%, that is what they told me, “it’s standard.” I told them I could do a better job and so they tore up my contract and I’ve been doing it myself ever since.
I had also gone to Walmart to see if they would distribute one of my films. They said they would, but I would have to sell it to them for $3.00/ each. They would sell it for $19.95. They said they could get the video into 3,200 stores. I thought that even with such a high markup it would do okay, but they said if after 1 year if the videos didn’t sell, I would have to buy them all back!
I went to another distributor once who wanted 80% so I asked what for. They said they would push my title, re-design the cover, (I liked the one I had) get it into tons of stores, etc. I learned from another producer that this 80% from each producer, afforded the distributor to fly 1st class to Cannes, wine & dine other distributors, and attend parties. So the producer makes 20%. I would have had to sell $500,000 worth of my DVD’s to make any kind of money at all.
Needless to say, since then I bought a disk duplicator and a printer, I buy the cases and DVDs wholesale, shrink wrap them and ship them, I make the calls to the stores, I offer the stores a 50/50 split which most stores will agree with, I get letters from people who have bought the films, telling how much the film has meant to them. I go to film festivals and reap those rewards, none which would happen if I had had a distributor for the last 10 years.
I have sold about 37,000 DVDs (most sell at $19.95 retail) and won over 27 awards for excellence in film making. None of this is easy mind you, but I feel if you want to make a living doing this, you have to see it through to the end, if you hand it over to a distributor, you might as well be saying, “Here’s my film, you can have all the money from it, because I don’t care.” Be the film maker, be the distributor and get back what you put into it. Of course I know film makers who with the right connections have done okay but I know even more who made one film, then quit because it was too hard. There are plenty of people out there who are more than willing to take all of your hard work and reap the rewards without doing very much work.
Sorry, will get off of the soap box now.
-David
Promos from some of David’s documentaries
Jitterbugs
Guardians of the Gates: The Surfboats
The Eagle: America’s Tall Ship Trailer
Jitterbugs
Guardians of the Gates: The Surfboats
The Eagle: America’s Tall Ship Trailer
The Wal-Martization of Video Production
There are a number of companies that purport to “produce” very low-cost business videos by using inexperienced producers who audition their talents on the Internet and only deal with the business client after a contract has been made. Some of those companies include:
http://www.studionow.com
http://www.turnhere.com/
http://www.geobeats.com/
http://www.lightswitch.com/
Not surprisingly, the videos are pretty lightweight. GeoBeats videos seem to be made entirely of still photos edited into videos with stock music and weak narration. Some are better than others, but it’s obvious that these types of videos are produced very quickly and by-the-numbers.
For a couple hundred dollars, it’s an easy sell to businesses. They may be thinking they are ahead of the game, but I like to look at the number of views a video has had. If only 50 people have seen it in six months, it’s pretty much worthless. And that kind of number is not uncommon in these cheapie videos.
At least they are not (yet) trying to outsource the production to China. These videos are shot at the business owner’s location so they require a local videographer. Young and inexperienced videographers get experience from this work and very small paychecks, but this makes it harder for real production companies to compete. That’s how business works many will say.
Wal-Mart does have positives: Great efficiency in buying and low prices, more choices for the consumer, employment for poor people who want to work. But don’t forget the negatives. Many Mom & Pop stores are forced out of business. Wal-Mart wages and benefits are very low. No one knows your name when you walk into the store. The charm and sense of community of small-town businesses is lost. Economists says that overall Wal-Mart helps the national economy, but I’m not sure it’s worth the cost. Wal-Mart is one of the largest private employers in the world.
What’s your opinion of this type of video production company?
Can You Show Video Samples That Are Not Yours?
Can you show samples that are not yours? Here’s a brief correspondence I had with someone I’ll call Acme Video.
Acme Video wrote:
From: Acme Video
To: Hal Landen
Subject: Need Video(s) for Website
Hey Hal, my name is Acme Video out of ___________. I’m new to video producing, but I have purchased and began reading your “Professional Video Producer- Home Study Course.” I have recently begun constructing the website for my company, but I have no footage or photo’s to display. Where can I get a few videos to temporarily display on my website?
Thanks,
Acme Video
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: Hal Landen
To: Acme Video
Subject: Re: Need Video(s) for Website
Hi Acme,
Before you build the website you should produce a couple or more free promotional videos for non-profits in your area. This will benefit you in several ways: You’ll have real videos to show others, people will talk about their videos and get your name around, you will become more confident in your producing skills.
These are all worthy goals that will help you, especially if knock yourself out to produce very effective videos that actually help the non-profits.
If you don’t have videos to show, it’s a bad idea to show videos you have not produced. Don’t try to cut corners. That would only slow your business growth.
I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear, but I honestly think this will help you more than showing videos you did not produce. Another bonus is that when you produce a free video, you get very clever at doing a good job quickly.
Best Wishes,
Hal Landen
(401) 253-2800
http://videouniversity.com
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: Acme Video
To: Hal Landen
Subject: Re: Re: Need Video(s) for Website
Thanks! I appreciate the honesty very much! I now have clarity and understanding on the best thing to do for my company. Thank you Hal.
Acme
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That is a question every producer faces at some point. It’s a small world and if you are ever caught showing someone else’s work as your own, you’re sure to pay for that mistake for a long time. And besides, it’s bad karma.
There are some circumstances where showing someone else’s work is legitimate – when you are representing them as someone who freelances for you. And then only when you clearly credit them for the work and have their permission.
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