All your fans belong to me.

[FantasyFilmProductions]

...where he has instant access to a highly established website, with an established fan base of potential billions.

I understand you're thinking long-term, but what's the incentive now?

Torrents are being uploaded/downloaded around the world right now.
We have the systems in place to add to that with our material.

On youtube people get the good with the bad.

When you download an indie film torrents, torrent...you are assured a certain level of quality.


Our fan-base exists all over the world. To see it, log on to the many popular torrent sites because soon our torrents will be there too. Why will it be there? Because if we don't put it there, somebody else will but either way it will have the site video at the beginning of it that brings them right back to you the producer.

Youtube is lower quality and nobody wants to sit and watch a full length movie on youtube. They want it in torrent form to play it on their favourite media player.

 

[jax_rox]

I mention other sites because we do know that our torrents will end up on those also.

So if they do, what's the plan to get the people who don't even view the film on your own website to donate?

They do predominantly go for Hollywood films, and its because of quality, I think we both agree there, so if we only allow a certain level of quality within our films, why should they not watch ours?

Well, that entirely depends on the level of quality you're accepting...

Firstly I wasn't aware that Hollywood had a system clearly set up to accept donations...

Purchasing the film...?

...they do not have that same opinion of the average Indie film or music producer, so respectfully I would have to point out that you cannot carry their attitude for one and put it onto the other.

We'll have to agree to disagree - I'm sure more people pirated The Avengers than Like Crazy - but I'm sure people still pirated Like Crazy.

Your premise is that people are donating to you because they enjoyed viewing your film and now wish to pay for it. I see it differently. I see it as me watching your film, enjoying it, and donating to you so that you can make another film that I hope I will also enjoy.

But do all of your audience see it that way? Let me pose a question: if most people made the connection between paying for a movie in order to get more, better, movies made - do you think we'd have as much piracy as we do?

If you had taken the time to look at our site, you would notice that submissions this month are FREE, ie you do not have to pay to submit material this month for consideration. HOWEVER, that offer is in the form of a competition where we pick only the very best of submitted content, and host it on our site for FREE.

This gives us a beginning amount of content while still allowing us to maintain that quality control. Not to mention any content that we ourselves can produce to put up on-line also.

So there's another point: the content that you, yourselves, produce - is it subject to the same vetting process as every other film?

When you download an indie film torrents, torrent...you are assured a certain level of quality.

Unless someone's found the torrent on a different website - which could happen, right?

Our fan-base exists all over the world. To see it, log on to the many popular torrent sites because soon our torrents will be there too.

But what's making someone use your torrent. What is it that's going to make someone pick the torrent of my film (not that I'm the one who would be doing the distribution, but you see my point)
'Upload it and they will come' simply doesn't work - how will people find out about this? How will they find out about my movie? Why will they choose my movie over the millions of others they could choose from? Why will they donate to my movie over the millions of others they've torrented? etc.

They want it in torrent form to play it on their favourite media player.

Do they? What's the numbers on this?


I'm not trying to rain on your parade, I just think that this business plan needs a lot more fleshing out... These are the sort of questions clients will ask you and you need to have good answers to them.

 

[MaxAblitzer]

Ok, thats a little unfair. You cannot claim that we have no engagement when we have spent a long time researching this, and time and money building and hosting the site. Especially when we have built this site because we believe it is the best way to get our own films noticed also ( as long as they meet the standard ) which makes us as invested in its and your success as you are. We have to date handed over a lot more then $30 each I can assure you.

Onto why we charge off the bat...

One, it gives us a financial basis ie your $15 or $30 fee on which to market the site from day dot.

Thirdly, to prey on the hopes of others for profit in the way that you say, is sadly a reality that is happening all of the time. To us that is wrong, which is why we set up our site. Yes its true that if your film or song is not good enough we will not show it, if that puts you off, then we suggest you do not use our service until you have seen what we do show on our site and are confident that your level of skill matches it. As long as it does, there is no reason why we would not put your material on our site.

I have no problem with paying for a legit service. Unless I miss something, I understand you charge for - CONSIDERING - entries. This means that you actually may or may not offer a service while I will pay you anyway.

Image the contrary. You pay me 15,00 $ for me to consider uploading my album to your web site. I will read all of the text there, which is quite a lot, I will prepare my files, name them and send them to you. That is, if I feel your service is up to the task. How does that sound, good?

Anyway as an example, I payed something like 65,00 $ to CD baby to distribute digitally my album world wide, create a page from where you can buy it on their site web & mange all the sales. The investment was worth it many times. It's a great web site with many reference - they claim to make millions a year, which I believe them - , but especially they DO offer a service. It's not that they will consider doing it, see the difference?

Anyway good luck with it, as I just wrote my music is already out there to stream for people for free on Youtube and Souncloud or to buy from any renowned web site, so it's not for me anyway.

 

[rayw]

... for at least the first year we would expect to be putting most if not all money coming in directly back into the company for marketing, competition prizes that can include expensive equipment, cash etc,... We simply assist in building the fan base that might buy [your paraphernalia].

What marketing plan specifics can you provide to potential content providers?
Venues.
Their ad programs.
PPM and/or PPC frequency.
SEO.
Other.

What have you already mapped out for your branding strategy?

Thank you.

 

[Will Vincent]

I see this as greatly benefiting you, to fund your film (for which your kickstarter is seeking $30k), if you can convince anyone to contribute content, drive traffic to the site, and generate 'donations'

There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money. I encourage that kind of thought and behavior in fact, as I think it's one of the better things a person can do with their time.

However, guaranteeing yourself a profit in every transaction and making it a gamble for everyone else is going to turn a HUGE swath of people away straight off the bat, assuming they ever hear of or see your site in the first place.

Generally if I go to the store and buy a crap product, I can return it. But even if I get stuck with it, I still get something back for my investment. The way you've described your business model, I'd go to the store and play a giant claw game, maybe I'll get lucky and the claw won't drop my item before it reaches the chute, but more often than not, it's just the guy who owns that machine getting my money and I'm leaving empty handed.



Good luck.

I've heard enough, not for me -- even if I did have a film to submit, which I do not presently.

 

[mad_hatter]

...to us it effectively ruled out the use of that button because we would be passing donations onto for instance yourself if a donation came through for you. This could be difficult to justify as a charity lol.

Because this isn't a charity and you shouldn't be trying to claim it as such. If it's a viable business for you, you should be paying the same taxes that the likes of Apple pay. You shouldn't get the exemptions that charities get.

...what I said was..."billions of people looking for enjoyable movies in torrent form" That is true...

I think you missed Jax's point. That statement is certainly not true. Not at all.

The earths population is only 7 billion. The majority of those people don't even have access to the internet. Do you seriously believe that "billions" are "looking for enjoyable movies in torrent form"? I'd expect a truer statement to be that "tens-of-thousands of people looking for enjoyable movies, full stop".

Did you know that China has a population of nearly 1.5 billion?



Anyway, this whole thing of "donate to us, then tell us who it's for and we'll pass it on" doesn't sit too well with me. What would be the difference to me hosting this torrent on my own website and allowing people to donate directly into my PayPal account? Unless you're driving a lot of traffic to your site, I don't see any real benefit. And the fact that there's no PayPal purchase button, so a potential customer has to go directly to the site, log in and set up the transaction (along with a message to say who the money is for) is just too long winded. People won't bother.


And also, your competition says you are taking all entries before the "end of March". The submission deadline is then given as the 24th of March (...there's 31 days in March).

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

I see this as greatly benefiting you, to fund your film (for which your kickstarter is seeking $30k), if you can convince anyone to contribute content, drive traffic to the site, and generate 'donations'

There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money. I encourage that kind of thought and behavior in fact, as I think it's one of the better things a person can do with their time.

However, guaranteeing yourself a profit in every transaction and making it a gamble for everyone else is going to turn a HUGE swath of people away straight off the bat, assuming they ever hear of or see your site in the first place.

Generally if I go to the store and buy a crap product, I can return it. But even if I get stuck with it, I still get something back for my investment. The way you've described your business model, I'd go to the store and play a giant claw game, maybe I'll get lucky and the claw won't drop my item before it reaches the chute, but more often than not, it's just the guy who owns that machine getting my money and I'm leaving empty handed.



Good luck.

I've heard enough, not for me -- even if I did have a film to submit, which I do not presently.

My personal kickstarter needed 10k mate. Yea it would be great if I could just whip the money out of a business to pay for my film but that would be wrong to do. I would hope that you guys know me and Metro enough by now to know we wouldn't do that. Further, you are right, I didn't get the coin I need from the kick starter campaign. That hasn't stopped me. My film is still going ahead at the end of March. How can I be so sure?...because I now have what I need to make it happen which I worked for just as I was always going to do to insure I had the basics that I needed. Please don't assume I would take peoples money to fund my own film. That's a bit of a slap in the face bud.

But I hear you, its not for you, that's completely respectable.

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

Because this isn't a charity and you shouldn't be trying to claim it as such. If it's a viable business for you, you should be paying the same taxes that the likes of Apple pay. You shouldn't get the exemptions that charities get.




I think you missed Jax's point. That statement is certainly not true. Not at all.

The earths population is only 7 billion. The majority of those people don't even have access to the internet. Do you seriously believe that "billions" are "looking for enjoyable movies in torrent form"? I'd expect a truer statement to be that "tens-of-thousands of people looking for enjoyable movies, full stop".

Did you know that China has a population of nearly 1.5 billion?



Anyway, this whole thing of "donate to us, then tell us who it's for and we'll pass it on" doesn't sit too well with me. What would be the difference to me hosting this torrent on my own website and allowing people to donate directly into my PayPal account? Unless you're driving a lot of traffic to your site, I don't see any real benefit. And the fact that there's no PayPal purchase button, so a potential customer has to go directly to the site, log in and set up the transaction (along with a message to say who the money is for) is just too long winded. People won't bother.


And also, your competition says you are taking all entries before the "end of March". The submission deadline is then given as the 24th of March (...there's 31 days in March).

I agree, its not a charity and we shouldn't be trying to claim it as such, nor would we.
The issue was that the donation button, which is what we were discussing through paypal, was there for us to use, but it had a note beside it as explained above which specified that a condition of using that button was that one would have to show charity use effectively of the funds. We could have gone ahead and used it but we didn't because we agree with you. The use of the one 'donate' button through paypal was specified for charity use and we are indeed not a charity. We also wholeheartedly agree that paying tax is good and right, and we will certainly be paying ours.

The numbers, as you asked for them.
Lets take a little trip into the figures of piracy via this link.
Scroll to the bottom of that article to see how they gathered those figures.

http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/

The one that stands out for me is this...
"Websites hosting pirated content receive more than 146 Million visitors per day."

Thats FAR more then tens of thousands. And I am not saying that is a good thing, its a bad thing because it means less jobs for you and me if we ever get good enough to work with the stars.


I'm sorry that the "donate to us and we'll pass it on" thing doesn't sit well with you. I guess you won't be running any kickstarter campaigns either because their model is similar. Nor will you be donating to any charities etc. Ah well, your loss.

as for the difference between hosting it on ours and hosting it on yours...simple....

For you, every film you put out would lead back to your site. With us, every film EVERYONE puts out leads back to our site...see the difference? We might put out 20-50 films a year through our site, with each of them making their way into the wider torrent community so lets say for instance that in its life as a torrent, one film from us goes through the computers of 800 people. Thats 800 people now aware of our site. Now multiply that purposely underestimated number by another underestimated number, lets say 20 films that year go out. Thats 16,000 people that have now heard of our site and the contents on it...Could you really expect to match that on your own? from your own site? and host that site etc? for just $30?

I think not

And thats before we do any real marketing!!!

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

-Assurance of a certain standard of quality. We don't let film on that doesn't meet it. This assures you that the flood of sludge won't smother your work, and it assures our viewers that no matter what they download through us it is going to be reasonable.

Judging if a film is up to a certain standard of quality is purely subjective. One man's trash is another man's treasure...

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

I have no problem with paying for a legit service. Unless I miss something, I understand you charge for - CONSIDERING - entries. This means that you actually may or may not offer a service while I will pay you anyway.

Image the contrary. You pay me 15,00 $ for me to consider uploading my album to your web site. I will read all of the text there, which is quite a lot, I will prepare my files, name them and send them to you. That is, if I feel your service is up to the task. How does that sound, good?

Anyway as an example, I payed something like 65,00 $ to CD baby to distribute digitally my album world wide, create a page from where you can buy it on their site web & mange all the sales. The investment was worth it many times. It's a great web site with many reference - they claim to make millions a year, which I believe them - , but especially they DO offer a service. It's not that they will consider doing it, see the difference?

Anyway good luck with it, as I just wrote my music is already out there to stream for people for free on Youtube and Souncloud or to buy from any renowned web site, so it's not for me anyway.

We make no bones about it. We do in deed charge for considering the film. That way we reserve the right to say no but still cover our time for sitting through an hour, hour and a half of footage to see if it makes it on. Lets put the ball in your court. Lets assume you work, now lets assume you get a job where you have to watch 3-5 films a day or week to see if they make the cut. Would you do that for free?

Now lets look at it from a different view. Lets say we only charge if we agree to put it on the site. We would get every video from around the world sent, and have to troll through all of them to see if they are any good before we even make a cent. Does that seem like a job you would do in the hope of being paid? I wouldn't because I still have to justify that time spent to myself and my family.

Now lets take it to the extreme and say for instance that I take your album, listen to it, and if its good, offer you $15 to host it on my site. Would you do it for $15 or would you want more? And with that, I then have to find the money to market the site etc after paying you. That would cost me hundreds of thousands a year, if not millions. Thats not realistic.


I do see the difference between the service you currently get and what we provide. It sounds like a reasonable deal. May I ask how many albums you move a year on that model though?
Granted you get paid for each and every album sold, which is not something we can do. We could offer the album sales by outsourcing the cost of hard copies to Amazon, but we would not have the brick and mortar store sales that I assume you see as part of your package. Am I correct in assuming there are physical stores that your album gets into with this deal?

If it is just online distribution that you get for your money, we may well look at that quite seriously as part of our service because that would indeed provide a benefit to you.

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

Judging if a film is up to a certain standard of quality is purely subjective. One man's trash is another man's treasure...

Which is why not just one person judges it.

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

Which is why not just one person judges it.

Who will be judging it?

Still, as I said, JUDGING IF A FILM IS UP TO A CERTAIN STANDARD OF QUALITY IS PURELY SUBJECTIVE.

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

What marketing plan specifics can you provide to potential content providers?
Venues.
Their ad programs.
PPM and/or PPC frequency.
SEO.
Other.

What have you already mapped out for your branding strategy?

Thank you.

GOOD question.

-Metro Magazine - A UK based film magazine with tonnes of readers.

-Bus and Billboard promotions. Because people notice large visual adverts.

-PPC or pay per click is a waste of time. Most people have add blocker now.
Thats why we will avoid online add's, they are often blocked from view.

-PPM? - probalistic package marketing. To be frank I am not up to play on PPM. I can learn quickly enough once I understand a little more about it.

-Tv adverts once we get to that point.

-At content appropriate festivals around the world. Again once we get to that point.

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

Who will be judging it?

Still, as I said, JUDGING IF A FILM IS UP TO A CERTAIN STANDARD OF QUALITY IS PURELY SUBJECTIVE.

isn't that how film festivals work?

 

[ChimpPhobiaFilms]

isn't that how film festivals work?

Yup. 100%.

Are you looking to create an online film festival?

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

So if they do, what's the plan to get the people who don't even view the film on your own website to donate?

Answer.
As mentioned, each torrent that goes out has a small video at the beginning that tells them about our site and that they can come and donate to the producer if they enjoyed the film.


Well, that entirely depends on the level of quality you're accepting...

Answer.
It certainly does.


Purchasing the film...?

Answer.
Purchasing and donating are different concepts



We'll have to agree to disagree - I'm sure more people pirated The Avengers than Like Crazy - but I'm sure people still pirated Like Crazy.

Answer.
Agreed.

But do all of your audience see it that way? Let me pose a question: if most people made the connection between paying for a movie in order to get more, better, movies made - do you think we'd have as much piracy as we do?

Answer.
Did people think about paying for strangers films to be made before crowd funding? NO!!!
Are people capable and willing to accept new concepts? YES


So there's another point: the content that you, yourselves, produce - is it subject to the same vetting process as every other film?

Answer.
Absolutely. It wouldn't be very fair if it didn't.


Unless someone's found the torrent on a different website - which could happen, right?

Answer.
We certainly hope so. In fact we encourage our members to spread our torrents far and wide, with our marketing still on it.


But what's making someone use your torrent. What is it that's going to make someone pick the torrent of my film (not that I'm the one who would be doing the distribution, but you see my point)
'Upload it and they will come' simply doesn't work - how will people find out about this? How will they find out about my movie? Why will they choose my movie over the millions of others they could choose from? Why will they donate to my movie over the millions of others they've torrented? etc.

Answer
Did you forget our monthly promo videos etc that highlight films that have been uploaded that month?
Sure not everyone in the world is going to watch our promo vids. And its true that not everyone is going to donate. But the difference between joe blogs pirating your films and putting them all over the internet, and us doing it with you consent and cooperation, is that this way, your film has a way for viewers to come back and donate. If your film is good its going to be pirated anyway, and if its not, then you would not have made money anyway.


Do they? What's the numbers on this?

Answer.
Websites hosting pirated content receive more than 146 Million visitors per day.
http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/


I'm not trying to rain on your parade, I just think that this business plan needs a lot more fleshing out... These are the sort of questions clients will ask you and you need to have good answers to them.

Answer
No need to apologise. You are not raining on my parade. Good and fair questions.

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

These are all great questions and I am glad you are all participating.

Please don't feel worried about asking any questions you have.

Also any ideas where you think we could improve our concept are appreciated.

This is a site and concept that at heart has its main interest in helping each and every one of you so if you have concerns we are happy to have those discussions.

If we don't have the answers yet, we will find them. This is the value of laying the concept out for all of you to comb over. It prepares us for what we need to be able to provide and the questions we will face.

Please, keep it coming

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

Yup. 100%.

Are you looking to create an online film festival?

In a way yes. We are going to be hosting annual competitions where we take the top films and put them up for the members to vote on.

Once those votes are in we will draw winners from each genre and hand out prizes as well as an overall winner who will receive a bigger prize.

Certainly there will also be titles to be won such as "Indie Film Torrents Film of the Year"

There will also be titles like "Indie Film Torrents best horror/thriller/drama/etc movie of the year" for each genre.


The difference is, the festivals run for a set amount of time. With us your film is viewed from the day it goes on the site.
It stays there for as long as you like, all at no extra cost. There is no annual fee or anything. The initial payment covers it for as
long as you want it on our site.

 

[FantasyFilmProductions]

Heres something to consider....

One the numbers on piracy
http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/

and two..the figures on video sales presented by your very own Sonnyboo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3LbKsXhy74

Film Festivals
Heres what one guy had to say
http://johnaugust.com/2008/nines-post-mortem#sthash.Wr4Ewnp3.dpuf


We are not saying that piracy for instance is ok. Its not and we would never try to defend it.
But it IS a reality of the world and environment we film makers have to live in and if we don't adjust, we will die.

I for one want my films to be seen by as many people as possible so that on a good day I get fans and donations and on a bad day I at least get fans.
The way I see to do it is torrents. Thats a decision that I have come to based on the facts and figures that I have seen. If you want to go a different route, do so.
If you want to give this a try, its here.

 

[mad_hatter]

I agree, its not a charity and we shouldn't be trying to laim it as such, nor would we.
The issue was that the donation button, which is what we were discussing through paypal, was there for us to use, but it had a note beside it as explained above which specified that a condition of using that button was that one would have to show charity use effectively of the funds....

Which is why you would use the " Buy Now " button instead.

"Websites hosting pirated content receive more than 146 Million visitors per day."

I still don't see where they get their figures.... But it's also important to be aware that they don't mention "Unique Visitors". That number could be one person visiting the same site 143 million times. Plus they're talking about all digital media, not just films. Non of that equates to "billions of people looking for movies".

I'm sorry that the "donate to us and we'll pass it on" thing doesn't sit well with you. I guess you won't be running any kickstarter campaigns either because their model is similar. Nor will you be donating to any charities etc. Ah well, your loss.

If I give to a charity, they are the end user of that money. With Kickstarter, I give my money to a business where everything is clear and visible to myself and the public. They handle the transaction, and money switches accounts. You want people to pay money into your bank account, then hope it finds its way to the person they actually wanted to pay. That'd be like me giving £10 to a stranger and asking it to pass it on to a friend of mine if they happen to see him.

...multiply that purposely underestimated number by another underestimated number....

So what are your actual estimates?

And thats before we do any real marketing!!!

So how will anybody see any of these films? I think your underestimates are actually pretty wild overestimates.