Our, er, Opening Weekend!

Well, the first facts and figures are mostly in. After (joyfully!) discovering that a lot of payments had been made that hadn't been notified by email to me from PayPal, it turns out to be pretty damn good. Although there are less downloads overall than I'd hoped, it is a very long way from a disastrous... as you will hopefully see.

The first 3 days (our opening weekend, if you will) saw just over 100 downloads - not so bad considering how little-known we are. However, the great unknown has always been how many people will actually pay... and how much.

In fact, early indications are that around 30% of people are paying, which is broadly the same amount that megastars Radiohead pulled. The biggest surprise of all, however, is HOW MUCH people are paying. Whereas Radiohead's reported average was £2.90 per album, our average to date has been an extremely healthy £4.70! And without further ado, I'd like to say a huge thank you to every single person who has given something, it truly restores your faith in human nature...

A lot of people wrote off Radiohead's venture when their figures were released ("2/3rd of people don't pay a penny" etc). However, it seemed to me at the time like a huge success. It is well known that artists only get around £1 per CD sold... so I figured that even after costs they'd be getting double per purchase than they would with CD. Also, how many of those people who downloaded for free would have paid £12.99 for a CD otherwise? Probably a tiny fraction, they'd probably have got it illegally that way anyway. Do some back-of-an-envelope sums, and I reckon the band did rather well.

The big unknown for us was - how could this model work for a small British independent movie? Although we only have a statistically-tiny 3 days figures in so far, the early signs are promising. And we could afford to take the risk simply because we weren't in it for the money (in fact, we decided to give away 20% of anything we got anyway). The fact is that if these sort of modest figures continue for a while (and it's a big IF), we WILL be able to pay back our debts, and the charities will get a significant boost.

I heard one UK distributor tell me of a $16m budget movie he promoted on DVD, with a big name US star, good reviews and front page advertising in the broadsheets. In 6 months he sold 500 copies. You don't need to know too much about movie economics to realise how disastrous that was. The physical DVD authoring & mastering, distribution, postage, VAT, BBFC costs... it adds up massively. Downloading has none of these nightmares (except simplified mastering and hosting fees), and technically things seem to be working well - only 2 people have contacted me to say they've been having problems, and I've heard others say the connection was quick and the quality of the film itself very high. In 3 days we already have a 1/5th of the people watching that bought the $16m movie in 6 months - without reviews, stars or advertising.

Doing it the Radiohead-way goes under everybody's radar. For the first time in film history (yeah, I know, hyperbole but it is true!) the film makers can go straight to the public with no middlemen whatsoever. When you are as small as we are, you don't even pay the VAT. Potentially, this model changes EVERYTHING. Now that mainstream technology exists not just to watch downloads on your computer but also your TV (name-brand DIVX-playing DVD players can now be bought for about £30), surely a revolution has begun. PR aside (which is still a major and expensive issue), all that matters ultimately is how good your movie is.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this - you can add comments at the end of each post on this blog.

In other news, we got some good radio coverage on launch day. Radio 5 had a five minute spot on the Breakfast Show, but the best piece by far was on little BBC Radio Stoke, which had a 15 minute interview with Misha Herwin, Posy Miller's mother, and myself (Posy was from Stoke-on-Trent, and a lifelong fan of Stoke City FC). I'm trying to get permission to get this up on our website, as it sums up why and how this film exists better than anything I've been able to do.

There was something genuinely special about that being launch day, five year's after Posy's death, talking with her wonderful mother. It seemed very right that this was at the heart of the film's launch... it certainly gave it some perspective for me.

Thanks again to everyone who has made this film possible, from Posy's family to the dozens of friends, the corporations who bent the rules and now every person who has downloaded and freely given something. Happy New Year!