"Wire" star will play the god Heimdall in Marvel pic.
SnagFilms Finds Online Works for Distributing Documentary Films
A new online distribution system for documentaries launched in July has found widespread consumer adoption, but is still not close to providing substantive income to documentary or low-budget filmmakers.
Slideshow
Disney released a triptych of posters for this spring's "Alice in Wonderland" on Thursday. The posters give audiences a look at Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen, Anne Hathaway's White Queen, and Mia Wasikowska's Alice. Take a look at the avant-garde art for Tim Burton's upcoming 3D fantasy flick.
“Absolutely. Is the revenue stream going to be something that starts out so large that you're going to be able to do distribution? No. Do we believe it's a revenue stream that you can track is growing? Yes.
“And we've seen it dramatically, number of views going up dramatically. It starts with the product being out there.”
Comments
samantha Says
Films featured on the site include well-known and already successful documentaries such as “Paper Clips,” a documentary about the Holocaust, and “Supersize Me,” a cult hit about the fast food industry.games
Rick Allen Says
We are very appreciative of The Wrap’s thoughtful coverage. A couple of additional points of interest:
1) Among the 600 films in the SnagFilms library are non-fiction titles on every imaginable topic, with a wide variety of styles … and made for modest as well as substantial budgets. They have in common a uniform level of excellence.
2) Some of our films first became available to a national audience online – indeed, we had a simultaneous premiere of “The Least of These” on Monday concurrent with its opening at the South By Southwest Film Festival. Others of our films have enjoyed traditional distribution in theaters and/or television, and are still available on DVD. And we have examples of every distribution window in between.
3) I think whether revenue is “substantive’ will be determined by the recipients of our checks. We are proud that as a new company, we have paid each one of our partners, every quarter, beginning when we were only a couple of months old. As Sharon has pointed out, we provide two primary revenue streams – the share of ad revenue from the viewing of each film, and the conversion of viewers into purchasers of DVDs. The recap in the article of what revenue might result from a given number of views is wrong (even under the assumptions the piece states), as it assumes only a single ad is played per view. In fact, most viewers see two or three ads, depending on how much of the film they watch within a single sitting.
4) As the article points out, digital ad-supported distribution is still in its infancy. We are seeing audience growth of 20%-50% per month – an exciting indication of interest and potential at a time when very few documentaries can secure any theatrical distribution (with fewer seeing any payment from the process), and most films do not air on television. We are providing regular (and rising) revenue, and access to a very broad audience. At a comparable period in cable TV’s development, the platform was ignored and derided; it now clearly has become the way most Americans enjoy non-fiction films. That’s a great trajectory, and we will do everything in our power to mirror it.
Rick Allen
Ross Says
Sharon,
What a great piece and thank you for writing about snag.
I was wondering if you would be willing to incorporate the widget into the article? I was thinking that it would really help to see what the widget looks like, and plus that is the idea behind snag.
If you are interested, here is the embed code for TED which you have written about-
NEW COMMENT