Amsterdam 13th September.
With 2 days of the IBC gone, I've hardly had a second to stop and ponder about what it is I've learnt or found. Certainly one of the wow moments was listening to Rajesh Mishra of UFO Films in India. UFO have executed a powerful vision to digitize (till now) some 1250 movie halls, putting in their own investment, technology and actually operating the systems. They deliver the movies to the halls via a satellite link. In most parts of the world, the film distribution have struggled to implement a good idea - mostly arguing about who should pay for the digital upgrade.
Consider some of the numbers - the cost of prints for a film used to be around $ 1500. Because of this high cost, even the biggest mega-films only do about 500 copies. Most big budget movies do around 400. These are shown in the top 500 halls, then the same prints are sent on to the other ones. Obviously this a) slows down the revenue cycle and b) opens the door for pirates.
Now, the movie can be simultaneously be released to 1250 halls, at a cost of under $150 each - a 90% reduction, with a target to more than double the number of halls in the next few years. Apart from dramatically improving the cash flow, it strikes a blow at the heart of the piracy which apparently takes out up to some 40% of revenues.
The piracy itself is an outcome of the slow speed of distribution. In the celluloid based world, people in the smallest towns are exposed to a film's marketing and if they don't get to see it for 6 months, they will do whatever they can to get their hands on the prints. The pirates are very organized with "blockers" - groups of people who will surround the person who actually carries a movie camera into a hall. The blockers ensure that there are no "heads" and shadows popping into the pirated print.
Thanks to a more immediate distribution model, the movie reaches everybody at the same time and thus a big chunk of the piracy will be knocked off. Although I didn't have time to speak with Rajesh after the event, I enjoyed his simple and direct way of explaining the model. No powerpoints, no marketese, just a structured and simple explanation. Much impressed, both with the delivery and the model - always great to see somebody who actually puts their money where their mouth is, with the digital dream.
