Drop: My Life Downhill

The Durban Film Society is willing to screen this movie, (and I am keen to see it but I need the name of the director and contact details for the guys involved to give them so they can try arrange a copy for us.

Massimo and I are planning to ship in a few of the DVD's through First Nature and have a screening in Jo'burg and send some to the guys in Cape Town for their screening. We are looking at hosting screenings in other cities. They want us to have at least 100 people at the screenings. Do you think we could round up that many people in Durbs?

Hi,

I doubt you'd get 100 ppl at the particular event I was thinking of. but it varies, the particular event is the Durban Film Society, film appreciation screenings. Which is a free movie on Thursday evenings in the park, you bring a blanket and picnic supper and sit on the grass to watch a movie.
The organizer has said she will screen it if she can get hold of a copy.

I'm not sure that the makers of Drop would be happy that we have a screening for free as it will de-value the brand. They suggested we keep the ticket price similar to theirs in the US which was $10. Not many South Africans are going to fork out that much cash for a skating vid though. We will see what we can do. We'll hopefully have the DVD's when we come to Durbs in March, see if you can find people who would pay to see the vid. We'll also try to get some sponsors on board to hand out free stuff so it will be a fun event.

Sorry please enlighten me;

• What brand does the 'movie' represent?
  
  and how does price of the viewing affect the 'value' of said brand?

I am struggling to follow the logic, lets give that there is a brand X that is given a value of some sort by the distribution of this film. My instinctual - possible ignorant, thought would be that the value is derived from the distribution/advertising/press that the brand X receives through the viewing of the movie - for instance I don't pay 'Loaded' to watch their videos online even though they surely spend a lot producing them.
Or if we think about it in a different way; my other - and primary, instinct is that this is primarily a film which is produced for a particular purpose of which one is namely, the making of profit.

The part which I am struggling with is the essential link being made between the process of the end viewer paying for viewing (vs say the local distributor [FN] or local film club [Alliance France] paying the min 100x 10$ set by the producers of the film) and the gain or loss of 'value'.

I find it difficult to digest when I get told that value is lost when 100 people don't pay to watch something... the only thing lost it seems is revenue.

But please if I am wrong correct me, my knowledge of the skating and film industry is rudimentary at best.

The DVD's are retailing (pre-sale orders) for $29.99

So the best thing is to get 10 guys to contribute $2.99 (R20) and buy a copy and screen it... with no advertising by third party organizations.

and yes I am anti-Capitalist 

The brand is Orangefiist. By de-valuing the brand I mean that if people can see it for free why would they buy the DVD's. The producers need to pay for the filming and everything otherwise we won't see videos like this again.

Anyway, the guy from Orangefiist has been too busy to reply to our emails so it looks like the screenings will be postponed.

1) There is a big difference between brand building/value and loss/gain of revenue. FN should know this since they give away free stuff (ie loss of revenue) to gain brand value... actions and words seem a bit contradictory here.

2) The link between making media available for free harming actual sales has been debunked. For instance research has shown that the more times a music album is 'pirated' by dowloading for free online the more actual sales go up. DVD sales have sky rocket in the USA in the last decade and researchers are linking it to the increase in people downloading the movies and watching them first then going out and buying the DVD.

If this is really FN and Orangefist's stand then they are doing all the devaluing themselves!

ok, I probably don't know what I'm talking about. They just said they wanted us to charge $10 per person for a screening. Obviously we would do it for free if we could.

dis n lekker dag vir boomklim.