‘publish’
Looking to publish? One of the next steps for the amateur film-maker after making a short film to be proud of, is trying to get a distribution deal, or raise finance for the next film. Video-Fu gives you the means to raise revenue using your existing content, whilst retaining full control and without surrendering any rights.

 

 ‘online viability’
How viable is online publishing? Well, if you want to be honest, its not as cut and dry as you might think. As a producer, you might be quite happy to charge someone one pound to watch your hour long masterpiece, but as a viewer, would you hand over a pound online to watch a film from someone you dont know? It's unlikely. Amateur film-makers need to manage their own expectations in line with current viewer behaviour. Users wont pay for a film they might decide isnt for them after 5 minutes, and they dont want to get their credit card out everytime they want to watch a 10 minute short. Note: A premium piece of content, such as a 1 hour popular US TV episode will still only persuade people to pay out a couple of dollars. As much as you might wish it, you wont earn by charging a few viewers a high price. If you want to earn revenue from your independent short or feature, you need to charge a lot of customers, very little. So, what is the answer?

• Micro-billing is easier to accept than pay-per-view
• Viewers can try a little, pay a little

 

 ‘investment’
To publish, all you do is provide your film on physical media or in digital form, necessary clearances and contract and it will published to the worlds biggest streaming network - Akamai. Protected by rights management and delivered in streaming flash, viewers will be billed for each minute they watch by pre-purchased credits against their user account. Users can watch your film fullscreen in a number of different bitrates from 250k to 1mb/sec, in fully cross-platform flash video. You can even use the provided code and embed the film on your own website. Earn for each minute viewed.


 

 ‘earnings’
How much can you earn? Currently, the market rate is dictated by the lower end, which is technology/delivery costs, and the higher end rate per hour, determined by the larger players, such as iTunes and what the user is willing to pay. You can set your cost-per-minute anywhere between the two. Certain content can charge a premium (adult, special interest, subscription only, new releases etc), but earnings will be determined by how much you decide to charge and your target audience (and obviously, how well you promote your content and drive viewers).
 

 ‘contact’
If you are an independent film producer or director and would like to publish your film online, contact us for further details of the trial phase, beginning June 2007.