Selling Movies

[nolan]

Now, noramally,I put my videos on youtube for free.Well,not normally,always.Anyways,this summer,we are planning on doing a really ambitious project that could take all summer but has the potential,i think to be great,and somewhat lengthy.Not feature length,but not short short.Anyways,I was thinking about having all the people who worked on it come over for the premiere screening,and thought that it might be good because this movie might finish around Halloween and it is a horror movie.I also thought then,that I might be able to put up signs and invite other people over and make it open to anyone else interested.I thought then,that to help pay for it,we could sell DVD's at the door and inside after the movie for aprox. 2-5$ a piece.the price and if we even do it or not all depends on the quality and production cost of the final product,but I was wondering if anyone had ever done this before or if it was a good idea.

[BinBinProductions]

Cool.

[Kohrsfilms]

I've made DVD's of my movies before. I usually give the cast and crew a free copy. But then I'm left with like 10 copies that I intended to sell but people don't really want to buy.

When I finish Brainsuckers from Outer Space me and my friend Mike are gonna make VHS copies and distribute them by donating them to Goodwill stores.

[HunnyBunchFilms]

That sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately the market for our movies is pretty slim. Its almost the same as musicians who perform on the street and have copies of their work for people to purchase. Nobody really buys their CD's. Even when you hand them out for free people aren't going to watch it. I think everybody has a stack of unwatched and unlistened(not a word but bear with me) to free DVD's and CD's. Mine is gathering dust. You can probably get people to buy it if you try selling it around college campus's (film/video department) or maybe even high schools. You can also try to contact anyone with a public access TV show and maybe arrange a deal with them to show your project on their show.

[ClayOgre]

I wonder if one couldn't donate a copy to the local library, depending, of course, on the length and quality of the production, and suitably packaged.

[nolan]

thats actually a good idea,distributing them freely to places like a library or good will store,to get the word aout and get publicity.Also,yeah I would never think of forcing the people who worked on the film to buy the final copy,I would distribute those freely to them,and I know what you are talking about,I have a bunch of promotion DVD's etc. that I pick up for free and then never even take the time to watch,althuogh I suppose it's worth a shot,that is,just giving them away to people.However,I can see how difficult it would be to try and get people to spend money on a movie from a no name indie film company,even though selling just a few copies is better than nothing,and I'm probably more likely to sell them to people I know after a screening,if they enjoyed it,they might be willing to spend a few bucks on it just because.

[testpig]

i used to work on a summer camp, we would make a video of the 1 week session. it would be about an hour long video of the week, with skits/random filler footage from the events and games/music/ spoofs etc etc. there were about 150 kids(teenagers) at the camp, for the most part, all of them get in the video in some form or another.. And we would offer the kids a copy of the video at 10 bucks each.

[yupfrank]

i like the idea and that is what we are going to do with our feature the wiccan of oz
tell me if it goes ok

[ClayOgre]

What about public access cable? Do they even still have that?

[mopman]

well one of my Moms friends is part of a local broadcasting station and they need some random stuff to fill in a little 10 minute block of time. I showed him Heavy metal gear and LTFNM3 and he said If I could make a little 10 minute short with an under R rating he would think about putting it on.

[kennycouch]

I've dealt with musicians before who only sell merch at shows and complain about never selling merch. Rapper hang out at the local gas station and sell albums from the back of their car and at shows. If you want it to sell, you gotta sell it!