4 ms·

As I was editing this article, I was thinking the same thing myself. My guess is, it would be pretty tricky to turn a profit: movies like Primer are going to be

by kadavy 14y ago

As I was editing this article, I was thinking the same thing myself. My guess is, it would be pretty tricky to turn a profit: movies like Primer are going to be rare. But maybe you could get the formula right? Find filmmakers with collaborative attitudes, and put them together to coach them on film making (and marketing).

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
> My guess is, it would be pretty tricky to turn a profit: movies like Primer are going to be rare. It sounds quite a bit like betting on a batch of startups in the hope that one or two of them will break big...
- kadavy 14y ago
  Fair point :)
- gee_totes 14y ago
  Sequoia Capital tried this back at the tail end of the dot-com boom. All the independent films they invested in bombed and the film ended up loosing money.
  - kfk 14y ago
    Some links?
kfk 14y ago
Well, it all goes down to run some numbers. My problem is that I have to assume too many things, somebody with a little bit of experience in movie making/distribution might help? I mean, Primer is rare, ok. But you don't need that. Depending on your costs, you can decide to keep thinkgs pretty lean. I think the biggest problem here is distribution. Sure, you can find some small cinemas, but how much you get of the ticket price? How many people you can reach out? Would paid streaming on the web be a suitable thing (are people ready to pay for low budget movies on the web?). For how bad a movie is, there will be always an audience (even if audience equals to your mom). My problem with this all reasoning (25 k per movie I mean) is estimating how big and scattered is this audience.
- kadavy 14y ago
  If distribution was the problem, wouldn't this be taken care of by having a huge group of indie filmmakers banded together. I'm feeling very naïve about the movie industry here – is what we're describing simply a movie studio?
  - kfk 14y ago
    If distribution was the problem, wouldn't this be taken care of by having a huge group of indie filmmakers banded together. This is a good point. As I said, I'd really like some indie filmaker to come and answer this. But do consider that I usually have few problems with those guys: 1. No sequels, or they take really long to come. 2. All the copyright crap is still there. 3. Difficult to judge quality _before_ watching the movie. 4. Too many people to tip. You want your money to go to 1 guy that makes good movies. Not to 100 filmmakers. I'm feeling very naïve about the movie industry here – is what we're describing simply a movie studio? Well, I guess that's where we ended up. Again, somebody with an insight view might help. On HN they were talking of the Nigerian movie industry that seems to be doing profits. I think is all about how you model revenues and cost (yes, abstract, but that's how I think about it).
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      Distribution isn't so much the problem as marketing is. There are all kinds of ways to make your film available now, but getting people to even know that it's available, much less that they want to watch, isn't much easier than it was in the past. Even with super-low budget films you still need to spend hundreds of thousands at a bare minimum to get people to see them. More often that figure is in the millions for theatrical releases. I've spent a fair amount of time trying to think of a way a startup could work around this problem and promote films reliably and successfully without money. I'm not sure there is a way. I think it's possible for select groups of filmmakers to do it. If you have a group of 4 or 5 that could turn out high quality work reliably, I think the reputation could build. But now really, you just have two problems. Marketing and finding/managing that group.

by kadavy 14y ago

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

> My guess is, it would be pretty tricky to turn a profit: movies like Primer are going to be rare. It sounds quite a bit like betting on a batch of startups in the hope that one or two of them will break big...

kadavy 14y ago
Fair point :)
gee_totes 14y ago
Sequoia Capital tried this back at the tail end of the dot-com boom. All the independent films they invested in bombed and the film ended up loosing money.
- kfk 14y ago
  Some links?

kfk 14y ago

Well, it all goes down to run some numbers. My problem is that I have to assume too many things, somebody with a little bit of experience in movie making/distribution might help? I mean, Primer is rare, ok. But you don't need that. Depending on your costs, you can decide to keep thinkgs pretty lean. I think the biggest problem here is distribution. Sure, you can find some small cinemas, but how much you get of the ticket price? How many people you can reach out? Would paid streaming on the web be a suitable thing (are people ready to pay for low budget movies on the web?). For how bad a movie is, there will be always an audience (even if audience equals to your mom). My problem with this all reasoning (25 k per movie I mean) is estimating how big and scattered is this audience.

kadavy 14y ago
If distribution was the problem, wouldn't this be taken care of by having a huge group of indie filmmakers banded together. I'm feeling very naïve about the movie industry here – is what we're describing simply a movie studio?
- kfk 14y ago
  If distribution was the problem, wouldn't this be taken care of by having a huge group of indie filmmakers banded together. This is a good point. As I said, I'd really like some indie filmaker to come and answer this. But do consider that I usually have few problems with those guys: 1. No sequels, or they take really long to come. 2. All the copyright crap is still there. 3. Difficult to judge quality _before_ watching the movie. 4. Too many people to tip. You want your money to go to 1 guy that makes good movies. Not to 100 filmmakers. I'm feeling very naïve about the movie industry here – is what we're describing simply a movie studio? Well, I guess that's where we ended up. Again, somebody with an insight view might help. On HN they were talking of the Nigerian movie industry that seems to be doing profits. I think is all about how you model revenues and cost (yes, abstract, but that's how I think about it).
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    Distribution isn't so much the problem as marketing is. There are all kinds of ways to make your film available now, but getting people to even know that it's available, much less that they want to watch, isn't much easier than it was in the past. Even with super-low budget films you still need to spend hundreds of thousands at a bare minimum to get people to see them. More often that figure is in the millions for theatrical releases. I've spent a fair amount of time trying to think of a way a startup could work around this problem and promote films reliably and successfully without money. I'm not sure there is a way. I think it's possible for select groups of filmmakers to do it. If you have a group of 4 or 5 that could turn out high quality work reliably, I think the reputation could build. But now really, you just have two problems. Marketing and finding/managing that group.