DVD Selling

[Jperson]

Right i wasn't sure which category to put this in, but since 'General Film Making Stuff' is going through a popular period I'll use this one:

How do you go about selling DVDs? I'm considering for the film I'm working on right now. I'm London, UK, by the way. I also happen to be great friends with the brother of the head of 20th Century Home Entertainment.

Er...I was joking.

[kene555]

I never sell my DVDs because I use all this great music that isn't mine, and it wouldn't be fair to take money for other's content. If I ever get around to making a vid with complete original music (unlikely), I would put posters of it around school, then have a showing on the school's 15 foot projector with copies available for sale after the showing.

[Jperson]

Nice. Except there is no way my "school" would let me do that...they're generally evil.

[Ornsack]

I don't sell DVD's because I don't want the embarassment of having to deal with nobody buying my home made cr**.

[Matt]

When we looked at selling DVDs we hit a number of problems.

1) Very few people will give you money for a DVD because they expect it for free.
2) When you can buy 'Shaun of the Dead' for £4 from HMV brand new, £5 for a 30 min amateur film looks very, very expensive.
3) By the time you actually manufacture a DVD (disc,label,printing,postage,packaging) you just can't make them cheap enough.

Distribute them online any which way you can. If people download and watch them then it is a bonus.

[angusware]

and no-one will want to buy your film (not you specfically, in general) unless they are your family and want to make a little treasure box with memories written on the side, or they are you mates and want to laugh at you (or themselves givent he nature of amateur film)

[kene555]

One thing that I noticed is that the film I am working on now is becoming very popular at school. I was lucky enough to befriend some very popular kids at school, who, coincidentally, star in this film. In the event that copies are sold, I have a feeling that it would do pretty well. The actors have many, many friends who would fork over $5 for a copy. After showing the effects at school, many others would probably get a copy too. So, if you plan to distribute a film at school, get some popular people to act in it, to ensure a good release.

Generally, if your film has a good plot, good action, good effects, good acting, good music, and popular, likable, entertaining people it will do well.

[angusware]

^ welcome to hollywood!

alternatively if you want to remain arty and independent of the superstars, make films that have cult followings with bored college students.

[ipon70]

Well now we have had a different experience selling disks. Our most recent movie Stories From The Street has sold the best of all our movies right out of the gate. This is how we make some money back on making the movie and your time.

1. Purchase dvd cases from http://www.supermediastore.com/ they have really good deals on cases. You can usually pick up 100 cases for about $20 shipped.
2. Purchase the printable DVD's from Costco on sale 200 disks dvd-r $20, now hopefully you own or can buy (one time purchase) an Epson printer R220 $79.95 to print on these and design a disk print.
3. Design your wrap for the outside of the case, and take it to Office Depot, with the shiny print paper you purchased from a local print shop supplier. The paper should be at least 8.5x14 or Office Depot can't print far enough to make the wrap. Paper should cost you about $10 for 100 sheets and printing at Office Depot for 50-100 is .30 each.

Add all this up and you can make a nice looking disk and case for about .20 per case, disks we will say are .20 each, paper is .10 and printing each is .30, ink from your Epson printer .25 each disk for a grand total of $1.05 each disk. Now you can sell them for $5.00 or $10.00 each and go from there.

I hope that helps man, but yes it is tough to get people to buy but with a little effort they will. And if you need an templates for making artwork you can download it off our site for free www.nova-productions.com

[Lawriejaffa]

Well its a tough one -

First of all you really have tow work out who ur selling them too. I mean Jperson ur a kid right so this stuff is going to family/friends yeah. I mean anyone 'buying' ur dvd in that case would be doing it as a patronising favour (most probably.)

However, the suggestion by Ipon i think while courageous (but too complex and time consuming i think) is absolutely perfect for a cheap to distribute dvd for very small localised audience markets.

Another means to self distribute dvds is through 3rd party companies like for example, www.customflix.com

Of course there are ways to market your films - shaun sells for £4 but for example, that interesting arty french film will no doubt sell for £14 in the intnernatioanl section.

So people are willing to pay more if you can be interesting enough and identify your market probably.

Ornsack your stuff if the production quality was higher in the camera work and sound - would be ideal for a comic compendium - budget priced. *shrugs*

[Jperson]

Nice...thanks all for the help. Here's another idea, how about selling on Google Video (it has a price thing) which could work... I'm not sure, what do you think? But, yeah, I'll be taking into account all your suggestions.

At the mo, for me, making money is easiest done by doing commissions for friends and family (I'm feeling great, I just got £34 pounds for my first commission).