I'm not interested in beginning another thread, so I hope no one minds if I go off on a brief tangent on my own thread:
Considering the nearly ten thousand feature films that are likely made annually in the US alone...
And that each year the larger film festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, TriBeca, Telluride, etc. receive upwards of four to five thousand entries...
And of those only a hundred and change are chosen...
And of those only a small fraction (less than a third, maybe only single digit percentages) receive traditional cinematic distribution...
And those only get about 150 theaters for maybe 8 to 11 weeks...
That video-on-demand (VOD) is probably a fairly sensible revenue avenue to go investigating next.
Anyone have and sage bits of experience to share?
I'm JUST begining research into this and don't know jack-nothing about anything other than I strongly suspect there are smarter and dumber ways to go about this process.
This evening I ran across this:
http://www.filmmakingstuff.com/independent-movie-distribution-made-simple-with-video-on-demand/
Which lead to this:
http://www.moviedistributioncompany.com/
Which lead to this:
http://www.howtosellyourmovie.com/
Now, obviously this is just a circular self promoting chain to market this guy's own stuff, which is a-okay fine by me, and it's fairly decent looking and organized to a nube like me.
But I was interested in seeing if any of you guys had run across this guy's work product or a variant (among dozens, I'm sure) of it.
Are these legit or just vomit-boxes of outdated and generalized intel?
Thanks.
* * * * * * * *
Gathered stats for the above proclomations:
700 to 800 MPAA rated films annually
+
500 to 600 non-MPAA rated films annually
Page 13 -
http://www.mpaa.org/Resources/93bbeb16-0e4d-4b7e-b085-3f41c459f9ac.pdf
"There are an estimated 4,000 - 5,000 independent films made every single year. Here's the unfortunate truth: Less than 5% of all these movies end up with distribution."
http://www.distribution.la/
Probably not the most reliable source of intel, but it doesn't sound like complete BS.
Maybe this'll be better...
"Only about 40 of the 3,812 finished films that were submitted to Sundance this year will get any kind of distribution at all. That’s slightly over one percent. The other 98% you will never get to see – not even on Netflix."
http://www.culturalweekly.com/indie-films-state-of-the-union.html
Looks somewhat more credible.
And considering that not every indie film gets submitted to Sundance (on a lark) their 3,812 number suggests the previous distribution.la numbers were low balling the total number.
I bet it's closer to 8,000, give or take a thousand. Or two.
Lettuce move onto spec screenplays...
"I often see the figure that 40,000 (or more) scripts are written each year... " (2004 figure)
http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/boards/archive/index.php/t-7081.html
"According to the Writer's Guild of America, 55,000 pieces of literary material are registered annually, 30,00 of which are screenplays."
http://www.screenwritingtostandard.com/
"An old adage in Hollywood is that in spite of the hundreds of thousands of rejected scripts every year, a good script will find an audience. Format properly, be professional, and write a killer script, and your chances are maximized for success."
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-spec-script.htm
Perhaps a little melodramatic, but point made - it's more than a few thousand.
Certainly
more than the number of never-to-be-seen feature films made.
A
LOT more.