Avenues for distributing to the Edu Market?

Traditional educational distributor

• Handle most matters for you
• Selective about who they work with

Self Distribute

• You handle most matters yourself
• Increased control

Something in between

• Filmmakers cooperatives - New Day Films, Film-Makers Cooperative
  
• Hire consultant or advisor

A few norms in the educational marketplace on how to sell these things to Buyers

Purchasing a copy

• DVD is still preferred physical format
• Chaptered
• Closed Captioned
• Length - keep in mind a class is 50 minutes long; variable lengths
• Educational ‘extras” - guide on how to address specific issues; quizzes, curriculum tie ins (K-12)

Price

• Often higher priced - $200 - $500 average range
• Why? Niche educational topics -have a very focused and small audience
• Rational: Sell relatively few copies, so you need to charge more per copy to break even. If nobody can make money creating specialized content, what’s the incentive to create it?
• Tiered pricing - $300 for college; $150 for public library; $30 for individual
• Keep in mind, you can only effectively implement tiered pricing if you control all the sales
• Libraries can purchase Home Video versions. If something’s available on Amazon for $20, a library can buy it
• If you directly control sales to libraries and individuals, you can decide who you will sell to and for what price.
• Zipporah/ Frederick Wiseman is a good example of tightly controlling his work

Public performance rights (PPR) for an open screenings

• Many filmmakers include this as an “bonus feature” when charging higher prices
• Limited PPR - Ex: on campus, under 50 students, not admission charged.
• Some filmmakers change $ for EDU DVD or $$ for EDU + PPR
• Additional fees for additional needs - if someone wants to charge admission or open the screening up to the general public
• Remember, PPR is not needed to show a film in class

Online access to films

• Needed more and more - online courses, students preferred anytime/anywhere access
• Digital Rights - Permission for the buyer to digitize and put the film online in a protected environment
• Access levels -  to all currently enrolled students or to a specific course
• For how long? 1 semester, 5 years (standard), in perpetuity!
• Prices changes according to what you’re selling
• Provide streaming Access
• When the filmmaker or distributor hosts the online film and managed access
• Similar to online journal databases - things are moving in this direction
• Subscribe to 1 film or a collection of films
• Libraries can’t use individual streaming options like Amazon Instant, Itunes, download codes, etc

This is an uncomprehensive list of film distributors working in the educational/ non theatrical market.