YouTube film for sale on DVD

Homescreen, the video label of Dutch film distributors Cinemien and ABC Distribution, comes out with a new movie called ‘Life In A Day’. One might wonder what’s so interesting about that. Well, remarkably, the film is a YouTube project where series of clips from YouTube users have been edited into one film. Moreover, people can watch the film for free on YouTube.

Even though the movie can be watched for free, Homescreen has decided to offer the movie in the form of a physical disk (DVD) as well as from November 15. Furthermore, consumers can already purchase the movie the next two weeks in the web shop of a Dutch newspaper called “de Volkskrant”.

Luc Freyer, sales and marketing manager of Homescreen, thinks that the film can already be watched for free via YouTube is "good publicity for this particular film”. Freyer does not think that because ’Life in A Day’ can already be watched for free this will automatically have a negative effect on the sales of the physical DVD. Freyer believes that it is such a special film that consumers will want to have the movie in their film collection and are willing to pay for it.

Now, the question remains whether consumers are indeed willing to obtain the physical DVD and pay for the DVD. In the current download culture the traditional distribution-models for releasing music and movies are under heavy stress. However, since the audience itself is involved in the movie (so called ‘crowd sourcing’) and the movie is an innovative project this could lead to the consumer purchasing the DVD.

Reference: Entertainment Business