Can you remember the last time you watched a DVD? I can’t. And I assumed most people were the same, hence why for many years we didn’t bother with DVD and Blu-ray distribution for our films.
But last year, when we distributed Machination, we decided to include DVD and Blu-ray in our plan. It is a film with elements of horror and we knew horror fans were more likely to buy physical media, merchandise, and collectables.
After some research, we went with a company called Allied Vaughn to produce the DVDs and Blu-rays. It was Media On Demand (MOD), so there were no upfront costs for inventory, no risk of being stuck with boxes of discs if you didn’t sell; a DVD and Blu-ray is created and shipped only if somebody actually orders one. The split was 50/50, which we thought was high, but I guess that is the trade off for doing MOD.
Machination on Blu-ray
We prepared all the assets needed and after some lead in time, the DVDs and Blu-rays launched on Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble and a few other online retailers. We didn’t really have any expectations on how it would perform. But then the first performance report came in and Machination was doing well. Very well.
The good reports and payouts lasted about three quarters and then things tapered off, but as things stand today Machination has made considerably more money via physical media sales than streaming sales.
It was eye-opening. For a long-time we believed physical media was dead. But though it has seen a dramatic decrease in revenue from its 2005 heyday, over one billion physical media sales were reported in 2021, and hundreds of millions in 2022. Yes, the numbers drop every year, but even if you can capture a tiny fraction of the audience that buys physical media with your film, you can still make money.
And it’s not difficult to see why there is still a demand for a product that many people consider passé. It is something tangible, something you can own, unlike paying for a streaming service which is akin to renting films. Even when you “buy” a film digitally, you don’t actually own it. Right now, Apple is facing a class action lawsuit over this led by David Andino, after they removed access to films he “purchased” on iTunes.
This is not uncommon. License rights expiring, big media companies being sold, new streaming services launching and many other factors means something you sit down to watch today, might be gone tomorrow. There are also a ton of movies that are just not available to stream anywhere, such as James Cameron’s The Abyss as of writing. Your only (legal) option to watch The Abyss: owning one of those out of print DVDs.
An impressive DVD and Blu-ray collection
So true film collectors and connoisseurs prefer to have a film available on DVD or Blu-ray. These people are also accustomed to paying more to own the film. By distributing your own film on DVD and Blu-ray, you are not targeting people who want to watch movies for next to nothing, you are selling to somebody who wants to hold something in their hands and is willing to pay more for the privilege. That’s a valuable audience. And appealing to this audience is smart business.
One way to increase that appeal – apart from making a quality film – is to take advantage of the bonus material discs are known to contain. Pack your own DVDs and Blu-rays with behind the scenes content, deleted scenes, cast and crew interviews, promo material, a director commentary – anything that makes the disc version of the film stand out from the bare bones streaming version. We created some of these features for Machination but we are looking forward to creating even more bonus content for the Cats of Malta DVD and Blu-ray.
We want our audience to have value for money. We want our films to be proudly displayed on a film collectors shelf. And as such, though we have signed with a US distributor to release Cats of Malta in North America and have done deals or are close to signing deals in various other markets, we have made sure to always retain our DVD rights.
I think it is smart for indie filmmakers to do the same. By using MOD, there is virtually no risk, and the upfront costs of creating physical media are low. You need authoring, the key art modified for packaging, and the IOS file made for the disc. That’s a challenge on modern computers – our Macs haven’t included disc drives for many years – but companies like Allied Vaughn can do all this. Or you can use Fiverr, like we did with Machination, to get things ready with even less upfront costs.
Any money you make from physical media should be easy money. Bonus money. So consider DVD and Blu-ray for your next film release. It’s a no-brainer.
Written by Ivan Malekin
References:
https://www.wired.com/story/why-do-dvds-exist/
https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/20/itunes-purchased-content-removal/
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/7-classic-movies-cant-watch-150654861.html