American Film Market Dailies

THE FUTURE OF VIDEO ON DEMAND (11.15am)

Andy Bohn

Founder & Partner, The Film Arcade

 “Some of the irony of VOD is that it was originally a promise of unlimited shelf space. However, when you are talking about the user interface on Netflix, iTunes, etc., I find that it’s actually less shelf space versus when you could walk into a Blockbuster 15 years ago and skim the aisles for 10 minutes and see a lot of box art really quickly. Now, unless you know the specific movie you want to find, if you are just browsing, you are exposed to a lot less content than the old brick and mortar way.”

“Transactional spaces are tough right now; our transactional VOD numbers have not grown at the rate they once did.”

“We are doing whatever we can to try to get that SVOD number as high as possible and also getting as creative as possible with everything else.”

“One of the things that has changed dramatically over the last 3-5 years is Redbox; there was a really amazing run in terms of what you were getting out of Redbox and those numbers have shifted downwards dramatically, so we are trying to fill those numbers now and a lot of focus is on SVOD.”

“Even if your film doesn’t have stars, it could be a film better suited for a traditional release (if reviews and word of mouth is going to be fantastic).”

“We’ve done a lot of day and date movies over the years; one of the things that has been a little problematic about the day and date space is that it got really flooded. Originally it was pretty much Lionsgate and Warner Bros., then everyone flooded the market. This caused a lack of curation so that the specialty of the in-theatres category on VOD became devalued a little bit.”

Thomas Hughes

EVP, Worldwide Digital Distribution, Lionsgate

[Where is the money?] “The entertainment industry for a long time has been the experts at windowing; that’s what we continue to do from our perspective…the real answer is that the money is everywhere and today the model is still dependent on the windows.”

“What makes a movie right? There are some actors that we refer to as VOD gold, who can make that buy button on the remote click, and we know who they are historically. There is no one single answer for what makes a movie good for day and date, but this is an interesting model that has evolved wildly in a short time.”

“All of our babies are pretty, they just need individual plans…” [about which films should get VOD versus theatrical releases]

“In the last calendar year (2016), Lionsgate had 19 of the top 30 day and date titles in the space.”

Hanny Patel

VP, Video Marketing, AT&T Entertainment Group

“The windowing strategy is set by the studios so we play into whatever those windows are; we are very selective on which films we take for day-and-date (not every film should be). Something we do often is we seek out independent films to air exclusively on DirecTV for 30 days before they go to theatres. We have 20 million customers across the US so we give them the opportunity to see these great films that we have hand selected that they wouldn’t get to see otherwise. This gives filmmakers the opportunity to showcase their film in a way they couldn’t have done otherwise.”

[Where is the money?] “The money is everywhere and every project has a different way they can make money. Overall, thinking thoughtfully about each individual project is really important. Not everything should be released in the same way.”

“There is a lot of opportunity out there now that wasn’t there only 3-4 years ago.”

“Media/PR/Social you can’t buy it; so, when you have someone you know is going to get behind a film or project and really support it, it brings a lot of incremental value to the film. If someone has a lot of passion about a project, it’s so much easier for us to get behind it and support it.”

[What makes something work?] “From our customers’ perspective, the films that play well for exclusive windows and day and date are independents. We find that the audience watching VOD are parents with small kids (including myself), and if I’m going to get ready, call a babysitter and go to the theatre I’m going to see Thor.”

“A film that works well on Comcast might not work as well on DirecTV and vice versa.”

[UI – user interface] “We use as a merchandising tool so we can bring to the surface and put front and center the films we want to highlight. We are trying to do more from a user interface perspective, where we start to get smarter, we know what you watch and try to surface that content.”

Tania Jones

VP of Marketing & Customer Service, Shift72

“We are currently in more of a shift moving towards a hybrid monetization model.”

“If you’ve got a film that’s on baseball then why not look at a partnership with the LA Dodgers? Be a little bit more creative at how you are looking to get your content out there; look at different avenues of how to get in front of your target audience and go from there.”