THE FILM BABY CHALLENGE


I was reading a very cool magazine for indie film makers called Indie Slate. They did a feature article on getting your movie distributed.

In the article, the writer mentioned that he sold 650 copies of his movie through a major distributor of independent film. I was never the best in math, but stick with me through the lesson.

To make everything easy, lets say the DVD Retailed for $20, he need to sell it to the distributor for at least 50% off retail. He gets $10 per DVD sold, and pocketed $6500. Now, I am sure there were some other fees he had to pay, catalog listings, ads and shipping of the film, so to be fair, we will say he is left with $6000 for doing a little work.

Imagine if he did market the hell out of his film. Took small ads out in local cities and at fan sites for the theme of his film, and sold the same 650 DVD's, we would have pocketed $13,000. Lets say his expenses were a bit more this time and estimate high at $4,000. He still made $3000 more then he would have. Is that extra work worth at least $3000 more in your pocket?

I talked to a few indie distribution gods who have said 650 is a pretty decent number of sales for just a normal run of the mill film with nothing to special (famous actors, etc). I say bullshit, and I issue this challenge:

If you SELL MORE THEN 650 COPIES OF YOUR MOVIE through Filmbaby.com, Film Baby will give you a $500 American Express Gift Card.

If you SELL MORE THEN 1000 COPIES OF YOUR MOVIE through Filmbaby.com, Film Baby will give you a $1500 American Express Gift Card.

This challenge is open to anyone. You can earn as many gift cards as you can. No lawyers needed. You must have all sales through filmbaby.com. This challenge does not expire any time soon.

Oh.. in addition, if you sell 650 DVD's (through Film Baby) you will have pocketed yourself $10,400 bucks at a sales price of 20.00.

Just food for thought to get you motivated to market.