Sleep Always nears 200 sales - a special offer

[Justin Lovell]

Why so few sales? 200 copies is pretty poor for a feature film, with a ready made audience of super-8 fanatics would will lap up anything made on the format.

you seem to know what you're talking about...maybe rick should hire you to produced/distribute sleep always for him then..

congrats on 200 rick.

[aj]

Why so few sales? 200 copies is pretty poor for a feature film, with a ready made audience of super-8 fanatics would will lap up anything made on the format.

Well, the DVD is where people actually PAY REAL MONEY for it to own it. So it is a considerable achievement compared to the undocumented number of downloads of clips of others which also have only a running time up to max 10 minutes.

The audience of a forum like this is consistently over-estimated. With 200 sold every active poster and reader could have two copies. So, many were sold outside this forum.

BTW How many of your last cine achievements did get sold against real money?

[Rick Palidwor]

Why so few sales? 200 copies is pretty poor for a feature film, with a ready made audience of super-8 fanatics would will lap up anything made on the format.

Actually 200 is not bad, considering it is being entirely self-distributed with promotion being largely limited to sites like this, which is probably the best way to get at the super 8 fanatics.

Having said that, I agree with you. I was expecting more sales, but I have not been able to get any "letgitimate" distributors to take me seriously, or those who do make such a poor offer than I turn it down. That's been the depressing part of this journey: talking to a distributor who seems like the right fit, they "like" the movie and then politely tell me they have genre titles with bigger built-in audiences than we have and they can't move those discs for a couple bucks each.

Granted, I probably haven't spoken to the right distributors yet, because I think they could move it, and I think it has a long shelf-life (cult status over time) but finding that deal can be a full time job and I have been toiling (trying to recover my money) for 3 years now. Tiring.

Until such time the sales trickle in from a variety of sources. The review in the latest Super 8 Today has led to a few sales. I sold one the other day to someone who found it mentioned at onsuper8.org . I also get people who google Nikon R10, for example, and find our site and buy a copy. My favourite sale to date was a fim student in Montreal who overheard it being discussed at a party.

If any one has any ideas on how I can better promote it I will listen.

Now, having said all that, I did receive an offer from a German company recently which wants to distribute a German-language DVD. We are still ironing out the details and I'll announce it when it is finalized. We are finally preparing some long-overdue "extras" for that DVD which I will make available to anyone who has purchased the movie for the cost of postage.

Big thanks to those who have bought a copy in the last day. I am up to 204!

Rick

[Rick Palidwor]

Rick, where can we get the soundtrack of the film?
I already have the DVD and loved the tunes on it.

Yes, we should do a soundtrack. Contracts with musicians did not include this, so we'd have to negotiate with them all. Most would be agreeable I am sure. It would be a question of us simply doing it. Hmm. Time. How many would we sell? What could we charge? Something for me to think about. If we do it it will certainly be announced here.

Thanks for the suggestion.
Rick

[Scotness]

Why so few sales? 200 copies is pretty poor for a feature film, with a ready made audience of super-8 fanatics would will lap up anything made on the format.

200 is a great result I think - you probably don't realise it Nathan but it is very hard to not only make a feature on Super 8 but to sell it yourself as well - I challenge you to beat those figures - and if you can I honestly will be very happy for you.

I'd love for In My Image to have figures like that - I think it's around 60 odd at the moment. I was a bit disapointed by my NTSC sales - I went to alot of trouble to do an NTSC version and have so far only sold a few (hint hint everyone!!). I think Sleep is a better made film than Image - and it has more of an ofbeat/cult element which In My Image doesn't have - In My Image has more pretensions of historical drama which probably closes it's audience down a bit more. Matt Pacini told me Lost Tribes had sold about 2000 I think which is fantastic - this is on VHS too - but it has that lesbian vampire angle in it - hard to ignore.....

Releasing the soundtrack to Sleep is a good idea - it was pretty good music - I've got an in principal agreement with the composer for In My Image too - and I'd like to release a copy of that because I thought that was great music as well. He's doing the soundtrack for Hold Me Tight which I'm pretty happy about.

Doing an extras disc is a great idea too - I'd like to get a copy of it - I know all the extras I put on In My Image accounted for a number of the sales - especially to other film makers. You should charge something though shouldn't you - just to cover your costs of the discs at least?

So what's your next project??

Scot

[David M. Leugers]

Still waiting for mine to arrive in the snail mail. Can't wait!

David M. Leugers

[flatwood]

.....200 is a great result I think - you probably don't realise it Nathan but it is very hard to not only make a feature on Super 8 but to sell it yourself as well - I challenge you to beat those figures - and if you can I honestly will be very happy for you.

I'd love for In My Image to have figures like that - I think it's around 60 odd at the moment. I was a bit disapointed by my NTSC sales - I went to alot of trouble to do an NTSC version and have so far only sold a few (hint hint everyone!!).

Right on!!!

OTOH, I'd spring for a copy of In My Image if I knew where to find it. Maybe a section here on the forum to maintain alerts to links for super 8 movies available on DVD and VHS.

[Scotness]

OTOH, I'd spring for a copy of In My Image if I knew where to find it.

Try here!



Scot

[npcoombs]

Oh yes I recognise the achievement -Im just surprised the appeal is so limited. I think with a bigger marketing push you could have done better.

That said, I will have to put my order in soon to push those figures up!

[sooper8fan]

scotness, out of curiosity, how come the PAL version gets the deleted scenes, outtakes, and some commentary and the NTSC version only gets the feature and "making of"? I'm sure I'm still going to buy one, but I was just curious. Thanks!

[Scotness]

Scotness, out of curiosity, how come the PAL version gets the deleted scenes, outtakes, and some commentary and the NTSC version only gets the feature and "making of"? I'm sure I'm still going to buy one, but I was just curious. Thanks!

Because due to the software I have and various inadequacies in my brain I found doing the NTSC version very problematic and was totally over it by the time I'd finally worked out a way to do it.

I think I could probably add those other features on now - but won't have time to work on it for another few weeks though.

This is why the price for the ntsc one is only $30 not $40.

Scot

[Rick Palidwor]

And Rick, I still think you should make a follow-up movie starring Ed Fielding (the neighbour).

Ed is great. I have used him in a few shorts since, but nothing major. I never hesitate to call him if I have a part. I'll tell him what you said. He'll appreciate it.

Rick

[Rick Palidwor]

double post.

[Number216]

Scot- You were mentioning a while ago about the possibility of a dual-layer version of IMI; is there any progress on that, or not for a while (I understand that currently DL burners (but especially discs) are pricey right now)?

Rick- I am definitely going to take this offer. However, where would we cite the message when purchasing? (as in, would we send an e-mail quoting the message and say what PayPal account we are, or can you actually send messages within PayPal itself? ...sorry if I sound dumb, new to this whole thing)

[David A. Goldfarb]

I just mentioned the thread and discount offer in the "subject" field on the PayPal payment form.