Indie film: Distribution & viewing indie films

As someone who has tried and failed to launch a "self-distribution" platform, there are only so many things you can do.

1) Don't rely on film makers finding you. You need to heavily curate content and launch with a large, and respected, library. This means venture capital or acquisitions and marketing.

The issue there is finding content worth watching... who aren't already good enough to get great distro deals. You get stuck with B or C level content and who wants to become loyal to a site like that?

2) You're competing against Film Annex, Youtube, Vimeo and so on in terms of sites with low barrier to payment. Deals with Netflix, Hulu and iTunes are walled gardens, but understand their pricing. If you don't already have some experience in distribution either online or in the real world (theatrical, VOD, cruise ships, airlines, hotels) then I wouldn't rely solely on technology to launch a company unless it's game changing.

3) You'll need a good amount of first and second tier advertisers for most business schemes.

Jaded? Maybe, but I learned a lot in the process of my failure. Unless you're coming in as a split-off from a tech or distribution company that understands media well and with a full team, I don't have high hopes.

Angelo Lorenzo
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services - Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire - The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

Like anything, know your audience and weigh your options. If you're totally unknown then I may go for one of these curated sites (and there are a dozen plus with slight variations in payment terms, contract length, and so on), but if I were better known with an established base then I would lean to a personal website set up to do business; the latter avoids your fans viewing the website as a whole and spending money on what is your competition.

It also depends on how you want to do business. Do you want to get a lot of eyeballs and hope the conversion percentage is enough to make a return, or do you want a smaller base that eats your product up?

In other words, distribution relies heavily on a marketing mindset.

Angelo Lorenzo
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services - Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire - The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks