Digital Distribution for Films

There are three types of Video on Demand (VOD) platforms:

Transactional VOD- The audience pays for each individual video. (iTunes)

iTunes is a digital distribution platform used by almost all film companies, especially indie films. The platform is well known and used by a major amount of the population and it isn't difficult to get a film on the service. It is much more difficult to be noticed on, however. Getting a recommendation from the company can help majorly, but is rare.

Subscription VOD- The audience pays a subscription fee and is able to access all of the sources content with limited or no ads. (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu)

Platforms in this style are often pickier about the content they allow on their sources, such as Netflix, which is known for being extremely picky with that it chooses to stream. Netflix only streams content that it believes its subscribers would enjoy, typically leaving indie film makers behind except for the rare one willing to offer up enough money to be on the platform. Amazon Prime, another platform of this kind, is not as strict about the content it streams, allowing for a wider spread of content by smaller film maker to be streamed, such as a deal they made recently with the college student film festival Campus Movie Fest to stream some of the most popular films created through Campus Movie Fest.


Ad-Supported VOD- The audience can view the content for free, but is subject to advertising. (Youtube)

This sort of source can allow your film to be seen by a larger audience of people; perhaps teens who want to watch a film but don't have the money for a theatre ticket or a subscription service. This kind of source can, however, cause a film to get lost in the crowd of other films using the service to distribute their film. There can also be a loss of revenue since typically a free source, even with no cost going to uploading the film, since there is typically less money made per view on these sites. Using Youtube as a specific example of this format, a film maker can upload a film onto Youtube extremely easily at no cost. The film, however, can be completely unnoticed because of how popular Youtube is as a platform of digital distribution, causing it to get lost among the masses of other uploads. Youtube also only provides revenue to the uploader based on popularity and advertisements. Youtube is continuing to make its rules for those that can make revenue even stricter, further limiting those that can make money with the format.


For my groups project, transactional VODs and ad-supported VODs will likely serve us the most benefit. With ad-supported VODs, we can save budget costs by uploading the film for cheap or free, but we also need to be cautious of losing revenue through this format. Transactional VODs can provide confirmed revenue on a more trustworthy format, even if it may cost us more to upload. Subscription VODs would probably not be useful to us since this platform is usually quite costly and picky. The best possible way for us to digitally distribute our film would likely be to offer two options: viewing the film free with a fair amount of ads or purchasing the film to be able to download it and view it with no ads.