Comments on: Feature films coming to YouTube

YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios possibly as early as next month, a studio exec tells CNET.

[macuenca]

I live in the US but spent most of my time out of the country. While traveling, I can't watch TV series in websites like HULU. I think this websites should allow US residents to enjoy content only suited for them even if they are out of the country.

I think that requiring a valid US credit card number would be a nice idea. I won't mind giving my CC number only for identification purposes. Just a thought.

[grudan]

An excellent idea.

[mmntech]

Or why not just make it available everywhere. Youtube has regionalized sites. I don't understand why I can't watch Hulu from just across the border in Canada. Of course, half of it has to do with our stupid Canadian content rules. Same reason why I don't get all the stations XM offers in the US, including the Sirius ones.

[rnieves1977]

you can use a free proxy service to mask your location so you can watch it from the outside. I use proxify.com

[karpenterskids]

Hulu is so much better than Youtube right now, at least when it comes to watching TV shows.
Enough said.


I also have doubts that these "feature films" on Youtube will work out for the good of everyone involved.

1. How many ads per movie will they be able to fit, without making it too obnoxious?

2. How much revenue will the film-makers gain from each person who watched the film? Will it really equal up to the price of a movie ticket, or the cost of the DVD?

3. Will these "feature films" be actual blockbusters like "Quantum of Solace" and "Twilight", or be crappy, sub-par movies that noone really wants to watch anyways?

If anyone has anything to add, leave a comment on this, and I'll make sure to read it.

[inachu]

I would love to see expired dead SCI-FI TV shows from the 1980's to show up on youtube.
Even dead Sci-Fi shows from europe would be cool to watch.

[TV James]

typo
same revenue in it's first year in
should be
same revenue in its first year in

[sandonet]

Thanks TV James. Nice catch.

[grudan]

Youtube has 80 million hits in part because of the ability and desire for people to consume short clips in more situations and contexts than a longer video clip. So many hits to youtube are to quickly follow a link, show a bunch of people something quick and funny, etc. In many situations in which people wouldn't want to take the time to watch a 30 (or 23) minute video. I think this also influences people's willingness to watch a commercial. I appreciate the ability to watch a TV show when I want, with fewer ads than I would have had to see otherwise. That feels like a win to me. But I might resent having to watch too long a commercial every time I wanted to show someone a 2 minute funny clip on youtube..

[paulsecic]

I would like to see Youtube air 50's TV shows

[firstpersonshooter_ fan]

Saying YouTube would provide streaming movies with an ad-supported base, really would be a great thing, and would work well for people who do not have time to go to the movies and spend money, but would watch the movie on their own time and see a couple ads in between the movie, just as if you were watching the movie on TV and would see commercials while you were watching the movie. I hope this service comes to YouTube soon, because I think it will be a great service and also provide money for the movie industry.

[Seanathome]

Exactly. Youtube is like TV... so feature-length films with commercials are perfect. :)

[movieflix]

MovieFlix.com has been around since 1998. We have seen dozens of dot bombs take tens of millions of vc funding... blowing it all away within 1 - 3 years... wirebreak, intertainer, den, mediatrip, wildbrain, etc. classic rags to riches to rags... there is NO business in giving content away for free. MovieFlix.com may not have the traffic of hulu but we turn a profit and have been in business for 10 years.

[The_Decider]

"Will these "feature films" be actual blockbusters like "Quantum of Solace" and "Twilight", or be crappy, sub-par movies that noone really wants to watch anyways?"

Blockbuster and "crappy, sub par" are usually the same thing.

[karpenterskids]

lol, I realize that...thanks for pointing that out, though. ;)

[twowan]

To make money with YouTube, this is what Google has to do...

On the most viewed clips (clips with, let say, at least 1000 views) (doesn't matter who posted them) you implement a 5 seconds overlay ad, that appears over the player and blocks out (darkens) everything else. (It gives a bit of time for the clip to load in the background as well).

This overlay is a 5 seconds spot (can't be longer than that and it doesn't link to a company website if you click on it. It's like a really, really short TV spot. It can be a still picture for outfits with very little budgets...)

Now, people don't like ads... but they like GAMES and they like to COLLECT stuff.

Each overlay ad is a mini 5 seconds GAME. You have three colored dots on the overlay. The viewer clicks on ONE of them. One is a winner, two are duds. If you're lucky to pick the winner (you only have one chance) during the 5 secs, you receive a TOKEN that is automatically added to your YouTube account. (It encourages you to stay registered...)

Now, you COLLECT these tokens. If you win a certain number of similar tokens, you can EXCHANGE them against full-length HD Hollywood Films or TV shows on YouTube. The fun part could be that you have different categorires of tokens. (Some would be for specific film genres or just for one TV show and some could be really hard to find, worth maybe ten tokens, etc.) (Tokens are generated randomly by the system.)

Now, you have the problem of guys posting shows and seeing Google make money off their film. Well, they need to be rewarded too. For a succesful posting (ie lots of viewers) they receive TOKENS as well to be exchanged to watch high-quality HD movies or TV shows...

Now, these HD movies or TV shows can also be sponsored with a longer lead-in spot... That's even more money for Google.

Now, we have the problem of big brand names not wanting to have their spots stuck on "Jimmy and his weird cat"... Well, they could "control" where their 5 Secs. spots go by teaming with content suppliers through YouTube. Example, a Coca-Cola campaign with Viacom clips... Viacom takes all the succesful shows they own like, as an example, "Spongebob". They cut out little "gems", two to three minute clips and they post them on YouTube to watch for free... Viacom via Google sell their 5 second spots to Coca-cola. Everybody is happy. The viewer, who enjoys these mini-clips, can even link to the full episode of Spongebob on YouTube. He can pay by redeeming TOKENS or he can PAY with a CC for the full episode or combine both. (It's all streaming! It's like TV a la carte.)

Now, what about the "Jim and his weird cat" clips. Who pays for these 5 secs ads? Well, it's like Google's Adsense, it's small outfits who purchase so many spots. You can buy a thousand spots or ten thousand spots to be randomly placed on clips or based on the clip's TAGS. The outfit supplies the spot or the still and pays Google directly up front.

A system like this is not that difficult to implement. It's fun for all involved. Everybody is a winner especially Google who makes tons of money from the big guys but also... most importantly...from the long, long tail of all the little guys. Viewers are hooked to YouTube forever!

Here, you have it.

Twowan,

(If Google wants more ideas like this one, they can contact me. I'm the guy behind laboratoryfilms.com)

[karpenterskids]

Wow...sounds like you've really thought it all out.


And somehow...it does seem like it could work.
I know I'd enjoy it better than just a regular ad popping up before my short youtube video plays.

[cscott5288]

hmph I still think www.streamingfreemovies.com is the best place to watch movies online

[vjlenin]

This is indeed pretty great news. We are looking forward to seeing movies. Perhaps Google can start producing movies as well.

Lenin
http://cutewriting.blogspot.com
<a href="http://cutewriting.blogspot.com">Creative writing help blog</a>

[i_made_this]

If the user doesn't need to see a new release film within the first six months following release, he or she can rent it free of charge from most every public library system in American cities. And we don't even have to be hassled with watching any ad's.

Yet we don't see the studios in an uproar with our public libraries. I don't understand the studios' uproar with Google and the others who want to do the same thing as our public libraries do, with the only difference being that the net providers wish to cram ad's into the viewing experience.

[KrishnaRRaja]

The funny thing is Hulu has a YouTube channel. Oh the irony.

[lady_bones]

YouTube is great for watching short user-gen videos, and it may well also be good for watching full-length movies ? but there are currently plenty of movie watching sites out there, Hulu being only one. What these online video sites currently lack is a real sense of social activity. Lycos Cinema (cinema.lycos.com) is distinct in that it brings the social experience of watching movies with friends and fellow fans to the online experience ? you can watch thousands of films (as well as TV content) in viewing rooms that allow you to chat in real-time with other audience members, or schedule viewing parties with friends.

[lady_bones]

YouTube is great for watching short user-gen videos, and it may well also be good for watching full-length movies ? but there are currently plenty of movie watching sites out there, Hulu being only one. What these online video sites currently lack is a real sense of social activity. Lycos Cinema (cinema.lycos.com) is distinct in that it brings the social experience of watching movies with friends and fellow fans to the online experience ? you can watch thousands of films (as well as TV content) in viewing rooms that allow you to chat in real-time with other audience members, or schedule viewing parties with friends.

[PP Martin]

I hope that, contrary to Hulu, Youtube will take a worlwide approach and will not limit it's movies to such or such small country. Hulu really stinks for having such small minded limitation to US based connections, and it is a nuisance to have to use proxy servers to bypass this limitation.

[arincrumley]

Hey there,
Our film Four Eyed Monsters was the first feature length film to be screened on YouTube over a year ago and we had the business model of getting people to join spout.com/foureyedmonsters with a custom message we added to the front of our film. For every person that joined we made 1 dollar and we raised $50,000 plus another $5,000 on banner revenue from getting over a million views to our film. We made more money then our entire theatrical DIY release and got way more exposure.

Complete Case Study Posted Here:
http://foureyedmonsters.com/four-eyed-monsters-diy-case-study/

In the film world they usually equate a films theatrical success to how well it will do on DVD and in foreign markets. In our case it substantially boosted our DVD sales, brought foreign deals into the picture and landed us a 100,000 IFC TV and retail DVD deal that we are still in the process of getting paid on, but except for that little detail, the experience was hugely beneficial to our film careers. We are now working on our second feature film As The Dust Settles and are definitely considering YouTube as part of the distribution strategy to this film as well.

Not only does this make sense for indie films, but I think that larger films also want to capitalize on the exposure of putting a feature film on YouTube. And if they did what Joost and Snag do which is put commercials every 10 minutes then it would be an interesting source of additional revenue for these films as well as great exposure to boost DVD and blue-ray sales.

Arin Crumley
Four Eyed MOnsters
http://foureyedmonsters.com
http://asthedustsettles.com