Author: Stephen G DaviesDo you love scripting and shooting movies? Do you have a movie that has a spellbinding storyline but not quite sure how to market it? Well, you have probably heard about YouTube.com and their phenomenal success hosting virals on their web site. It started out very small, on a shoestring budget, and grew over just a few years into a business worth millions. Shooting video for fun has been a commonplace global pastime for years. Even back in the 80s there was ‘Candid Camera’, and a host of video clip shows on TV. The clips shown on TV like UK’s ‘People do the Funniest things’ are no more than 1 minute in length. Soon, broadband speeds allowed for the hosting and transmission of these clips on the web. No advertising costs, just a web site with a video clip embedded.
This accessibility has placed virals in the public eye as anyone with a broadband connection can upload a video. The internet is displaying that there is a convergence occurring between the web and television. This gap is becoming thinner each year as Internet TV and virals have become a huge source of public entertainment.
So who is actively involved in online movie production work? Actually, the list is almost exhaustive. There is the exciting iFilm site which reaches a worldwide distribution of film fanatics for just one online example. While scrolling across the internet, looking for evidence of online hosting, many sites emerged helping filmmakers showcase their movies. One of the biggest players is Atom films who organise competitions and also offer promotional services to distributors at film festivals on an annual basis.
Why does this business work?
1. The power of the internet shows its weight by being able to connect filmmakers across the world.
2. The internet allows movies from amateur and independent filmmakers around the world to be seen on web pages. This gives them the ability to share their work with a broader audience.
3. Utilising Movie hosts, video enthusiasts use the internet as a weapon to submit their work to many people on a worldwide level.
This is not just a forum for people who just want to host a short clip, but also benefits the professional filmmaker. This is achieved by beginning the first steps in front of the needed movie production industry contacts. The filmmaker presents movie ideas directly and can talk to people with the same energy on these web sites like Atom Films. Together, they can constructively and collectively criticize their movies in online forums regardless of geographical location. Filmmakers perform networking by attending film festivals and actively engaging in online filmmaking forums like NMD’s forum. The goal is to bring the filmmakers in the film making community closer together so that they can share ideas and present their work to a wide audience – the World Wide Web. Thus this creates a great place to learn and promote film making at its best.
Here are some online businesses other than YouTube that have made their commercial success from hosting video for filmmakers. These are chosen based on their influence and support for filmmakers and their recognition of the diversity in this field.
Atom films
http://www.atomfilms.com has progressed from a back room desk to a flourishing global business in just 7 years. It is probably the most successful short movie host and distributor on the web with hundreds of videos in many genres that you can either watch online. Atom films has grown into a site that not only hosts video but also offers distribution services to effective promotional mediums like the international film festivals. There are sections showing the top five movies in each genre according to the ratings selected by the viewer on opening the movie. Thus, this allows for great promotional power for the short movie maker directly from the home page. Registration is very easy and takes just a minute, very important aspect to consider as the web viewer’s attention span is very short. So Atom Films succeeds in bringing the information and video content to the viewer as quickly as possible. There’s nothing worse than a mile long registration form or links that send you round a map before reaching the required information. Visitors to sites like Atom Films want to get their movie hosted and displayed as quickly as possible.
IFilm
http://www.ifilm.com/ sports a huge collection of genres, up to the minute trailers, competitions and is a very informative site that is very easy to navigate. There are hundreds of streams a month on this very busy site. iFilm makes heavy use of advertising but it never intrudes on your viewing or tries to force you to watch any of the ads. This is an important consideration since no movie lover likes interruptions or intermissions. I tend to believe that an intermission is an interruption, but that’s me. Most films are no more than 10 minutes in length, and there is a healthy mix comprising amateur and professional productions. You will discover that iFilm has a wide category range. Their most innovative part in my view is how the site with the support of cable channel VH1 has managed to pioneer the first transitions from the internet to TV. VH1 hosts Wen Junk 2, an accumulation of viral videos from the iFilm web site shown on TV. These virals are targeted at anyone with some real creativity. From blundering cam movements to blundering actors, the videos make for a hysterical night in and it is worth watching if you like watching these types of shorts.
CustomFlix
http://www.customflix.com/ offers a slightly different and enterprising approach to marketing movies on the web from pros and fledglings. This site offers the full ensemble upon receiving your movie. They will produce an e-store which is a web page detailing your biography and movie details. Additionally, they offer DVD production for offline publishing needs. For a budget, you can be selling your DVD movie on your web page very quickly using their On-Demand DVD service. The only difference is that you can’t upload your movie, it must be sent on DVD or CD to the company, but that’s a fair request on viewing the services on offer. As far as stock is concerned, your movie is available on demand with no inventory costs over a 24 hour period. As the copywriter of Customflix admirably states on the home page:
‘….revolutionary new way to distribute your film and video worldwide.’
The services certainly live up to that statement. Not only will they do all the shipping, but they will take care of the DVD replication on sales for you too. It is an amazing service and one that rivals its competitors with the presentation of the end product being distributed on DVD, and accompanied by a web site for the moviemaker.
The site uses a content driven strategy that allows the download of free guides and also access to professional help. Though, the site doesn’t rely on pure information to draw its customer base, making for a more targeted audience interested in bulk production or viewing. The video shop is the place to look for movies to watch and is a little bit of marketing genius as you choose your selection of movies that you want compiled onto a DVD. Of course DVD can store a whole host of video clips, so you could order many movies in this way. Again, there are both amateur and pro productions to choose from. You will not find ‘King Kong’ or ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ here; this is not a mainstream movie site. It hosts independent productions from filmmakers expressing their talents at a variety of genres. But like the two other sites discussed previously, do not confuse independent with bad quality, the best filmmakers came from short movie production like Steven Spielberg, Wes Craven, and Francis Coppola to name just a few.
So if that does not inspire you, I do not know what will…. Good luck if you are inspired.
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About the Author:During my spare time, I like writing content for web sites. At present, I am writing articles for broadband-guides.com where some of my articles
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