YouTube: Filmmakers Wanted

YouTube offers independent filmmakers a new distribution outlet!

By: Christopher Romero Wilson

During the 2010 Sundance Film Festival YouTube launched its Filmmakers Wanted campaign by making five films in the festival available for rent on YouTube.

When we first started in the industry, making an independent film of any kind was no small thing. To start with, indie films back then were actually shot on film. Film was (and is) expensive. Even if you could somehow raise enough money to buy the film, rent the camera gear, shoot it, edit it, and strike a print for projection, your best chance to get it in front of an audience was to screen your film at a major festival and hope a distributor picked it up and put it out. While it all may sound improbable, this very process did come together for a handful of filmmakers, most notably Kevin Smith with Clerks, Steven Soderbergh with Sex Lies & Videotape, Robert Rodriguez with El Mariachi, and Quentin Tarantino with Reservoir Dogs. Independent distributors like Miramax, New Line Cinema/Fine Line Features, and October Films took these movies and made them financially viable, launching the independent film movement of the 1990’s. But that was then and this is now.

First the good news, nearly 20 years later technology has made indie features cheaper to produce and easier to distribute. Now the bad news -  nearly 20 years later technology has made indie features cheaper to produce and easier to distribute. “This means there are more and more movies being made diluting the audience for these movies. Not to mention that many distributors of indie features like Warner Independent, Paramount Vantage, and Picturehouse have had to close their doors in this current economic downturn”. It all seems pretty hopeless doesn’t it? What’s an indie filmmaker to do?

“While some believe that technology is to blame for diluting the audience pool, it is also providing new avenues for reaching new audiences”. Netflix has for some time now been accepting submissions from indie filmmakers and making their movies available on DVD and more recently as streaming video. However, similar to other conventional distributors, there is still a gate keeper and your movie may or may not be accepted.  CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing LLC which is part of the Amazon group of companies, provides DVD on Demand services making it affordable to distribute indie films through Internet retail outlets, filmmaker websites, and other bookstores, retailers, libraries, and academic institutions. They also now offer a service to make indie films available as a high-quality download on Amazon Video On Demand.  Customers can choose from Download to Own or Download to Rent purchasing options while the filmmaker earns royalties from each sale.

Recently, (and possibly most importantly) YouTube is offering indie filmmakers the opportunity to make their films available for rent on YouTube.

This is a significant development in that YouTube serves over 1 billion video views everyday. “They have developed a new platform which has done away with buffering and poor video quality. YouTube is currently offering the service to filmmakers at no cost. The filmmakers set the price and keep all the rights”. YouTube launched their Filmmakers Wanted initiative at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival making five of the films in the festival available to the public for a limited time.

• One Too Many Mornings
• Bass Ackwards
• Homewrecker
• Children of Invention (Trailer)
• The Cove – 2009 Oscar winner for Best Documentary (Trailer)

“On March 16, 2010 YouTube was at the SXSW Film Festival where they continued to roll out their Filmmakers Wanted campaign, to educate filmmakers about opportunities to distribute and make money from their work on YouTube. The program, which is still in its Beta stage, offers Users the option to watch a trailer and then rent the full movie via Google Check Out. Filmmakers or Partners can upload their movie to YouTube, and then set the rental price and the duration of its availability. In order to become a partner, the filmmaker must fill out an online questionnaire about content ownership. Once approved, the film will have access to a potential audience of millions of users”.

Some movies may go viral, but the truth is most won’t. So what remains to be seen is how indie filmmakers will effectively promote their films to the YouTube audience without spending big money on an expensive marketing campaign. Social Media Marketing will no doubt play a key role in the development of this new distribution model. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Let’s watch!

If any filmmaker has had an opportunity to give this new service a try, we’d love to hear your feedback?