Prime Video Direct Fest

Democracy in self-published film

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Product Owner: Nick Beacom

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© 2019 Udacity. All rights reserved.

Background

Why Are We Here?

© 2019 Udacity. All rights reserved.

• Self-publishing books is big
• Self-publishing music is big
• We as Amazon are already deep in film, including indie film
• Indie filmmakers need more routes to get eyes on their art

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Background

Why Are We Here?

© 2019 Udacity. All rights reserved.

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A quarterly film fest on prime video direct. Sundance meets Premier League.

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Business Case

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Initial Focus

Where are we starting?

© 2019 Udacity. All rights reserved.

• Amazon has been looking to expand presence in self-publishing verticals
• When it comes to film, we’ve got Prime Video Direct
• Still not enough democracy

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Opportunity

What’s the problem?

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• We know the streaming market is huge. Estimates go from 150B to 600B (Bloomberg, BusinessWire)
• 2019 we at Amazon were estimated to have ‘tens of thousands’ of titles released through Prime Video on Demand alone (MomoFilmFest)
• Filmmakers and fans still want more democracy in film
• We’re at some risk of lower engagement due to royalty cuts (Business Insider)
• Much of total indie film market will shift permanently to streaming, even after theaters and film festivals reopen (The Guardian)

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Proposal

What’s Our Solution?

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• Let’s combine Sundance Film Fest and the Premier League Soccer.
• Use Amazon’s existing ratings features to select the top 120 most-loved Prime Video Direct films each quarter
• Make an event out of showing these top 120
• pre-screening sponsorships
• analytics (for the nerds)
• creator QandA streams, juried selection + audience review aggregation for winners

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Return On Investment

What can we do?

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• Pre-screening sponsorships:
• 120 festival titles per x 400k views per title (conservative) at $45 CPM = $2160000 per quarter, $8640000 per year
• Promote mode:
• 30% of 5000 uploaders * 26 promotions at $45 CPM = $175500 per quarter, $7020000 per year
• Other avenues:
• Utah makes close to 200 million when Sundance comes to town, amazon retail will make adjacent sales too
• Increase / retention of prime subscriptions

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Measurement

How will we know if we’re successful?

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• 10% increase in films distributed on amazon prime direct over previous year
• Revenue goals for sponsorships and promote mode met
• Increase in viewer/ user engagement as measured across views, reviews, ratings

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Competitors

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Sundance Film Festival

Peak Indie

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• Largest Independent Film Festival In the US
• Sundance Institute $15.0 MM earned revenues (excludes nonprofit contributions)
• ~$190M impact on state of Utah
• Mountains
• Auteurs in attendance
• Access to hungry distributors

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© 2019 Udacity. All rights reserved.

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Filmocracy

Movie Streaming with Gamified Rewards

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• Filmocracy compensates users for reviewing indie films
• 100k in funding across indiegogo and kickstarter
• Freemium to get rid of ads, 10% of revenue back to users
• Very early stage, pre-accelerator

© 2019 Udacity. All rights reserved.

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Our Advantages

Why are we better?

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• Virtual film fest for age of covid
• Distribution is already free
• We can give more substantial rewards to reviewers and festival entrants
• Synergies with Box Office mojo, IMDBPro, Amazon Originals
• Democratic: gatekeepers to the festival are the public (prime subscribers)

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Roadmap and Vision

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Roadmap Pillars

Where do we go from here?

© 2019 Udacity. All rights reserved.

• The first and Premier distributed film festival competition
• Pillars:
• Make it an event
• Boost what Amazonians have already given us

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Make It An Event

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• Dashboard, Leaderboard with stats
• Site for special engagement like Creator Q&A videos, juried selection + audience reviews
• Analytics of prime video direct power users
• Targeted messaging
• Internal data collection for provision to recommenders, Prime Original Content Development

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Boost What Amazonians Gave Us

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• Integration into areas of prime sites and IMDB
• Promotions at the front of prime originals
• Dedicated area in prime mobile app
• Display reviews leaderboard
• Rotten tomatoes-style power reviewers

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Where do we go from here?

Widening the scope

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• Focus on ASEAN countries (southeast asia)
• Expand prime video direct to be an aggregate distributor competing with BitMax
• kleros-inspired adjudication and staking for reviews, prediction markets
• kickstarter-like staking for creation and promotion of films
• expand promotional partnerships

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