Man From Earth Producer Speaks

A week ago I wrote about file sharing and how I think free file sharing will be the new business model for film makers. The film The Man from Earth is mentioned in the article. Teh producer of the film read my post and had some things to add.

It’s nice to see that people are still blogging about my film. It’s been out on DVD for several months now and most of the commotion and “chatter” has died down a bit.

So where do I start?

Eric, “Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth” is my first film as a producer. While I have written many unproduced screenplays that sit in my desk drawer, producing a movie has always been a dream of mine. When the opportunity came only to not only produce a film, but producing a script penned by the late, great Jerome Bixby, I jumped at the chance. I put much of my own personal money, my family’s money along with friends and business associates, and three years of my life into it. I could not be prouder of the final result. Unlike many first time producers, we actually were fortunate enough to get distribution for the film and I was thrilled at the prospect of being able to go to my local Circuit City and buy my own movie (which I did).

Piracy was inevitable. I knew that going into this. When we got wind that the marketing budget for the film would be very small, I was thrilled at first when I saw all of the attention that it was getting online. The screener that was sent out to retailers was pirated and my film was getting a TON of attention. People were watching it and loving it and I was loving the fact that they were loving it, so much so, that I threw caution to the wind and sent that email to one of the P2P websites (www.rlslog.net) that turned out to be the equivalent of pouring gasoline on the fire. My film was getting a ton of attention, more and more people downloaded it and we flirted with the mainstream press (“Movie Producer Thanks Pirates For Stealing His Movie”). Since then, we have gotten over 10,000 votes on IMDb, with an 8.3 rating, the trailer has been streamed online close to 200,000 times, I’ve had more traffic to our website than I ever would have imagined. The awareness is great. But has it translated into sales?

Unfortunately… no.

While I absolutely meant what I said when I wrote “Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download.... People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the Net!” , the key words here are “talking about it”.  Sales and rentals have been “okay” and probably stronger than they would have been thanks to the awareness generated from P2P. And, while we did set up a PayPal “donate” link on our http://www.manfromearth.com website and people from all over the world generously donated what they could after watching our film through P2P, the real truth is that the donations were a mere fraction compared to the tens of thousands of times the f ilm has been downloaded over the net. We are far from breakeven. If EVERY person that downloaded the movie actually donated $5 we might actually be a profitable film. When you look at a movie like “Transformers”, well, that movie grossed $700,000,000 worldwide and sold 10,000,000 DVDs is first week out. Anyone could download “Transformers” from P2P the week the movie opened in the theaters. You can’t tell me having sold 10,000,000 copies in the first week that many of the same people that downloaded it didn’t go out and buy a copy too? They had to. The sales numbers prove it. I don’t believe piracy hurts some of these big media companies as much as it affects independent filmmakers who struggle to try something new and different and offer an alternative to the same big budget pabulum they are used to eating. While piracy helped generated awareness, the fact is that the majority of the people that downloaded and watched it for free, paid nothing to do so. While that may not hut the BIG studios all that much, it adversely affects independent filmmakers when you don’t pay to watch their film.

At the end of the day, while I agree, I just don’t think it’s enough for you to just say that P2P “exposes people to material they never would have seen and allows them to try and sample new music, art, and literature”. While P2P very well may serve that purpose, why don’t you offer a suggestion on how big media or an independent filmmaker can not only embrace P2P but suggest a viable business model that P2P users will embrace as well? Again, while I agree with you the P2P is an amazing promotional tool, I still am struggling for my movie to break even.

I do want to say THANK YOU to you and to everyone who rented and bought our DVD or graciously donated whatever they could. Every cent we have collected does not go to line our pockets, but is distributed to everyone who worked on the film. I’m really glad you liked it and I appreciate you mentioning it. To those who havent seen it yet, It’s available on Netflix and Amazon (and all other retailers).

Thanks for letting me rant. I look forward to your response.

Eric D. Wilkinson
Producer
Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth

www.manfromearth.com
www.myspace.com/manfromearth

The business model is working itself out. In the case of films, I think the answer is to offer special editions so people are interested in purchasing teh hard copy because there is some collector gimmick involved. And I’m sure legal downloads that offer the film for a lower price than a DVD is another way to go, but that business model is still in its infancy.

I buy DVDS, but a lot of the ones I buy are used because its cheaper and I don’t feel they deserve full price. The dollars I spend may not add to the movie’s take, but they already made money when they were sold to the rental chain.

Wired did an article recently describing why free is the future of Business. I think they’re right, but we still have to figure all the ins and outs yet. 

<< Back to main