Dance Recital Video Distribution Revisited

[Vince Baker]

Hi Tim,

I have a very similar workflow to you, I also was looking at how to supply alternative formats affordably to DVDs. I also have another issue where many of my customers expect me to sell individually to each parent rather than one price for all.

I couldn't find anything out there that met the need, so decided to design something from scratch.

You can see a couple of examples published on https://view.creative-films.net under the examples heading.

The idea being we offer 3 options:

1. Public viewing - open link (so it can be shared to anyone that they want to see)
This option is not very common

2. Show code - the company hiring me pays a fixed price and then I give them a show code. they can then share the code, parents still have to register on my site and then they add the code to get the film added to their library. Each year they can simply add the next show to their existing library.

3. Purchase code - Each parent can purchase a code from my website and that gives them access to add to their library.

The key to this is that the shows can only be watched by streaming on our site. No option to download, no option to watch embedded on anything but my site.

There is still the potential that parents could make one purchase and share the login with others when using option 3, but I have yet to see this happen, and I also can see how many views are being made concurrently so if it happens I can at least investigate. But to date, no one has.

Also, option 2 is what I am promoting, which for one customer this year means we have published 21 shows for them and only offered distribution this way.

I have also given the option for a cheap DVD purchase also should it be needed, but just disc only, no complex menus, just simple and cheap to make and post should someone want the physical disc.



Has the option to add scenes as well. Would be interested in feedback on what people think, I am very happy with the product after using it for 6 months now, considering there really was nothing out there (not that I could find anyway) it is great to have a future model for delivering on a medium other than DVD, and great to be able to give nice HD.....

[Chris Harding]

Hi Tim

A slightly different slant on the methodology here but what sort of costing are you looking at. You seem to have quite a complex edit process with 3 - 4 cameras and extra audio Do you cover your actual time involved for each recital and do you still make a good solid profit???

[Tim OBrian]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Hi Tim
A slightly different slant on the methodology here but what sort of costing are you looking at. You seem to have quite a complex edit process with 3 - 4 cameras and extra audio Do you cover your actual time involved for each recital and do you still make a good solid profit???

Hi Chris,
The smaller dance studios that run for no more than 90 minutes I'll only shoot with 2 cameras, won't worry about extra tap mics as there may only be 1 tap item and I walk away with minimum $1600, with around $100 of that going towards disc expenses and printing. Larger schools...well I'm not going to say, but it's very profitable :) I've been doing this for many years and am pretty quick at editing and usually only need to run through a dance one time multicam switching realtime in Premiere. A decent 2 hour show I could edit in 1 day from footage import to final DVD - that's not including duplication though.

[Chris Harding]

Nice profit Tim !!

I see all these wedding videographers who boast that they spend at least a week full time creating an exquisite masterpiece for brides (one guy actually said it took him 2 days to perfect a 2 minute clip) Then they advertise a 12 hour wedding shoot with all the bells and whistles for $3000!! I often wonder if they ever calculate the actual cost and their hourly rate ...probably make less than a guy flipping burgers at Maccas!!!

[Michael Silverman]

This is an interesting thread, thanks for posting. I'm trying to focus more on dance recitals because there are so many dance studios out there. I currently have one client that is local and we charge a set price to the parents for each DVD set. I think the school has around 200-250 dancers and we sold 90 last year but then only 60 this year so our profits dropped significantly. I would like to come up with a different model for selling the DVDs and I would like to get some input about what might work. I think I read on this thread (or another similar one) that some videographers ask the studios to build the cost of the DVDs into the price they charge their clients (or just require that each client pay for a DVD). If anyone is currently doing this, how do you require the parents to buy a DVD? Do you have the dance studio write it into the contract and then send them an order form and hope they comply? Or do you just ask the studio to add the cost into the membership fee?

I'm speaking with the director of a brand new dance studio and she doesn't know how many dancers there will be so I don't have a way of knowing how much to charge to ensure we make enough money.

Also, if you have any other ideas as to how we can require each parent to buy a DVD please let me know because it's tough when you sell so many DVDs one year and then not nearly as many the following year.

Thank you for your help,

Mike

[Gerald Webb]

Hey guys,
I run pretty much the same model as Tim, multi cameras and audio, and about the same turn-around being about a day for a larger gig.
A couple of hrs for a 2 cam shoot, just J,K,L ing and chapters/transitions.
It all happens fast in concert season.

Ive just about got all the delivery methods being spoken about here happening across multiple schools.
We have the oldest (our original) model currently performing the best.
Copy protected DVDs sold to individual parents.
Order envelopes sent to school for hand out, picked up on concert night in a bundle. Lots of orders come in after we post a sample clip up to the schools Facebook page the next day.

Over the last few years we have some schools that pay a flat fee for a digital download (about $3500).
The school just adds the fees in per family so they aren't out of pocket. The Principals like this model but I get feedback from some parents (only some), that they would still prefer the DVD with Jacket and chapter list on the inlay, motion menus and credits etc. Nostalgia maybe....

We have a couple of schools that pay the flat fee for a set amount of DVDs.
More are enquiring about this. They then have the compulsory payment scheme so the school is not out of pocket.

Ive been pushing 1080p downloads for years as it crushes me to turn my HD Prores files into MPG2 files for DVD. Im kind of easing my push now. If 98% of the parents are happy with the DVDs then so be it.

The only thing I wont do is individual sales for USB.
I spoke to another videographer in my area last year who is now offering DVD and/ or USB because he wanted to keep up with the times. He then said the industry is dying and its time to get out because he cant make enough money on previously profitable jobs........

IMHO it comes down to this-

Be a producer AND a retailer and sell copy protected DVDs with jackets, menus etc.
They can hold it, look at it on the shelf and give a copy to Nanna.

Or,

Supply a service and let the Dance school be the retailer.
Just get paid to deliver the file and don't worry about who's receiving (and paying for) the end product.

Just my thoughts.

[Michael Silverman]

Gerald,

I'm speaking with four dance companies right now and I'm having trouble selling our services to them. In an ideal world, I would be able to tell them "we will film your dance recital, you don't have to pay anything, parents will just purchase DVDs from us directly and we will ship them to them without you getting involved". The problem with this is that we have done this in the past and one year we sold 90 DVDs which was great but the following year we only sold 60 so we made quite a bit less money. My goal is to shoot dance recitals for dance studios in other states (and also have others shooting for me) and if I have to send someone to another state but we only make $600 from DVD sales then I lose quite a bit of money.

Do you know of a way to bill parents directly and also ensure that you sell enough DVDs to make enough profit?

In my post above I believe I mentioned the idea of asking the studio owner to charge parents for the DVDs when they sign up their children. This would ensure that every parent pays for a DVD which would mean we would definitely make enough money since all parents would be required to purchase DVDs. The problem I'm running into is that this gives the studio owner more work to do, they have to keep track of the payments, and they also have to deal with the few parents that don't want to pay for DVDs.

So, is there a way to simply send online order forms to all the parents, take payments from them directly, but also not run the risk that only 20-30 parents will buy DVDs? If there isn't then what would you suggest doing?

[Paul R Johnson]

It's always a gamble. I did a recital recently and figured I'd lucky to sell 20, but had some new kit to try out for the first time, so took a gamble and they bought 40? I've had 0 blu-ray requests and 0 USB delivery, and all delivered on good old DVD in SD. Crazy!

[Tim OBrian]

Hi Michael,

No, there isn't a way to make sure you sell enough - that's why I always got the studio to bring the orders in and tell them they need a minimum order number. BUT then you run the risk of the studio making a profit off of your product. One studio I had done work for were selling my $40 discs for $60! I understand that it takes them a bit of time to organise selling and collecting money, but not for more than $5 a DVD and making $2000 off of my work. I think this is also why some of the studios prefer to collect the orders themselves (not that they've ever said). I don't think some of them understand that the higher the price, the less orders we'll get. The parent doesn't know that they've marked the price up and blame us for the ridiculously high price!

I've also had horror stories of the studios spending my money they've collected and waiting months to recoup the loss and finally pay me - again the parents look at us for the blame of the DVDs taking so long to get out to them. The studio principal was cagy whenever the DVDs were mentioned. Thankfully some eagle-eyed parents tracked me down through an instagram tag of their school when I was filming on the night and were able to put the pressure on her.

In saying that, I'd only do direct orders with parents where I know the ballpark of orders I'll receive from the studio. After doing the same studio for a few years the parents get to know the quality they're getting.

I'm trying to approach the concert fee at the moment with a few of my schools and explaining to them it'll actually be cheaper for each student if it's just included and I'll still make the same amount of money or more.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Michael

I found that dance studios love the "we will shoot it for FREE" and no extra work for them regarding distribution and getting payment from parents. I have done this method halfway (so we shoot for free but send the ordered disks to the studio and they get the cash when the parents/kids come to their next session at the studio) The studio found this time consuming and ended up having to deposit cash into their bank account and then pay us in batches and it got very messy. Yes, their ideal is to give you permission to film the recital and the rest is your baby ..so that's the easiest sell. Parents that actually attend the concert can be given an order form either at the door as they come in but the parent that cannot make it are lost unless you give each dancer an order form ...the studio doesn't really want all this extra work unless they are going to make a bucket load of money!

I honestly think that your problem is purely a marketing one so you need to figure out how to get to parents without giving the studio tons of work!

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I’ve experienced some of what you said. Bigger studios with a lot of orders want to sell to the parents or want me to pay them a 10% commission. I go along with it for a few reasons. First I net more even after paying a commission than retaining all the profits on a small studio. Second I don’t have to spend the time, money and headache of individually shipping each order. Finally, I find studios who have a vested interested ie making a profit will make it a point to sell as many dvds as possible. They will man a table at the show taking orders and collecting money or send out reminders via email or social media to the parents. I’d rather share a bigger pie...

All that being said they get a really good deal not only do they get a professional to film and produce a video of their production for free they also look to eat into the small profits we make. I filmed a theater camp of like a hundred kids and the parents had to pay $650 per student to be a part of it then pay for a ticket to the show and after all that they’re aren’t too keen on paying much for a video. They’re grossing $80k and I’m eaking out $500 from the parents. What can I say it’s a tough business. I’m often in the dark about the financials behind the scenes, we really seem to be at a disadvantage.

[Gerald Webb]

Hi Micheal,
Sorry, I don't have any way to invoice the parents and make them pay. The school needs to do that.
As mentioned above, my original schools were single order and each mailed out. It is a pain but we still are getting the biggest sales from those schools.

With new business and going out of area to get new business IMO you would have to be a wholesaler to the Principal of the school.
Give them copy protected DVDs with Jackets, printed discs etc with the school branding all over them but more importantly your branding as well.
I would make an agreement to capture and supply 50 DVDs for X amount.
If they want more they have to ask for more at, say, $50 each in lots of 5 minimum. (we always get another run of orders once they go out and they can't copy them easily).
The principal can mark them up if they want (some of ours mark up 20% ). Thats great, you will sell heaps more with the school pushing it for you.

Off topic a little, but how do you guys deal with the double ups?
I have a few Saturdays and Sundays in early December where Im doing 3 in a day which is fine if they work out neatly like 10.30am then 2pm then 7.30pm starts and the traveling works. But what about when you have two a 100km apart at the same time?
Do you hire contractors or let them go?

[Michael Silverman]

Thanks for the replies. I just heard back from one person who said my prices were too high. Another one didn't respond to my follow up email. I think that by asking them to require that everyone buy a DVD might be a tough sell but I just hated the fact that for the company we're shooting for currently we sold 90 in 2018 and then 60 in 2019. If i'm traveling 5-6 hours to another state and I only sell 20-30 DVDs then I'm barely making a profit. I may stick with it and see if some school's are willing to add the cost of the DVDs to the fee they charge the parents. Also, if the cost is added into the registration fee then I can offer an online link as well which isn't any trouble for me but it's an added bonus for the clients.

[Tim OBrian]

Originally Posted by Michael Silverman

I think that by asking them to require that everyone buy a DVD might be a tough sell but I just hated the fact that for the company we're shooting for currently we sold 90 in 2018 and then 60 in 2019. If i'm traveling 5-6 hours to another state and I only sell 20-30 DVDs then I'm barely making a profit.

I'd suggest a minimum order number then to make sure you're covered. The way I've always done it is the school organises all the orders and collects money. They just have to make sure they meet the minimum number of orders. I know I'm getting at least $$$ for the show, any extra is a bonus. Unfortunately that's the industry with drop in numbers. I had quite a few drop in sales last year (student numbers were also downn, so it's not necessarily the DVDs...). I think it's just the last thing on a parent's mind after paying all year for school fees, concert tickets, costumes etc and then forking out for a DVD which they may watch only once.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Minimums are good in principle but difficult to enforce. Let’s say you have a 20 order minimum and you only get 17 are you really going to try to get the studio to ante up the money? Again let’s say you require 20 pre orders or you won’t film are you really going to pull out a week before? Think they’d want you back next year? If you don’t film there is no way you’ll be able to rebook that date on that short of notice. The best you can do is if the minimum isn’t met, you can’t film next year performance.

Another reason for lower sales is parents using their smart phone to record their kid. That’s hard to complete against since you have to film every one on stage.