KINONATION: more movies that matter
ki·no - a motion-picture theater; cinema.
nat·ion - a community of persons bound by shared interest or passion
Big, Bold Vision
Every year, at least 25,000 feature films and documentaries get made. Meaning they’re actually done, wrapped, edited and ready to watch. Only about 1% of them -- 250 or so -- are distributed by the Hollywood studio system.
What happens to the 25,000 films?
Many of them are amazing, incredible, even world-changing films. Producers, directors and crew invest huge dollops of passion, hard work and money into these movies. Then they hit the brick wall of distribution. The films are essentially buried. Lost to the world, unavailable and undiscovered. There’s not enough movie theaters to show even a fraction of these films. Not enough shelf space in video stores. Not enough distribution...
Digital Distribution -- sometimes called video-on-demand -- promised to change that. Suddenly theater space or shelf space isn’t an issue. All of those 25,000 films can be available to rent or buy on digital outlets iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu...and dozens of other digital outlets around the world.
Right? Unfortunately, not so easy. It’s still incredibly difficult to get independent films on to these digital services. And very expensive, at a time in an indie film’s life (right after post-production) when the meager funds are usually already used.
The big digital distributors force filmmakers to produce custom versions of their films, to very exacting specs, at very high cost -- thousands of dollars, with zero guarantee that the film will be paid for by the online audience.
KINONATION changes that...eliminates the risk, the cost and the aggravation.
We’re asking you for Seed Capital to build KINONATION. We intend to get a minimum viable product up and working by the end of September. We’re big believers in the concept of the Lean Startup -- fast build of a basic product, launch it, learn from real users, listen to their comments and build some more.
Double Your Money
Every dollar raised on Indiegogo will be “matched” by an equal donation from one of the founders. So every dollar you give has double the impact.
What are the Perks?
We’re created a really compelling package of perks that have real value. Not T-shirts or trinkets, but interesting & useful services. Check out the list to the right. In addition, every contributor becomes a Citizen of KINONATION. This is a VIP club of contributors who -- we hope -- will be active participants in the creation of the service. You can join a monthly conference call, make suggestions, tell us what we’re doing wrong. You'll have the inside track on what we're building as we build it. You get to shape it with us.
So what exactly is KINONATION?
KINONATION is an web startup with the mission to make it fast, simple and free for independent feature films -- from anywhere on the planet -- to get paid digital distribution on services like iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and dozens of other outlets around the world.
It's a simple web-based pipeline:
Create Film > Upload > Transcode > Distribute > Audience > Get Paid
So filmmakers and producers of independent film can upload once and have their film automatically transcoded to the different file formats for all of the video-on-demand services. No encoding fees, no shipping of hard drives, no signup costs, no hidden charges. Eventually we'll take a 15% commission on VoD revenues earned by the film -- we have to keep the lights on -- but at the beginning we'll offer a completely free service. The revenue from consumers renting or buying the film flows back to the film owner.
Who is KINONATION for?
KINONATION is for the thousands of filmmakers around the world who struggle to get their movies out there and available to a global audience that WANTS to see them. It's a whole new distribution pipeline.
What about quality, security, integrity?
We're fanatical about quality. Films will available to audiences in exacty the quality they were made. They'll be stored with 100% security. KINONATION will be run with total transparency and integrity.
Meet the Team
Klaus Badelt
German-born, Los Angeles-based film composer Klaus Badelt has written music to over 80 studio and independent films, including Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, U-571, Rescue Dawn. Klaus is inspired by the collapse of the old music distribution hierarchy and is the creative inspiration behind KINONATION.
Roger Jackson
Roger is a film and digital media producer. He was on the founding team as Vice President, Content for digital film pioneer iFilm.com. He’s passionate about independent film, has produced documentaries in Darfur, Palestine, Bangladesh, Nepal and Tajikistan, and is frustrated with the challenges of distribution.
What We Need
We need $40,000 in seed funding to build and launch a basic version of KINONATION. We need to hire a couple of genius software engineers, pay for secure servers, massive amounts of digital storage, and do some smart marketing. We're not paying ourselves.
NOTE: One of the co-founders will provide matching funds for every dollar that is contributed, so any contribution you make is immediately doubled in impact!
Other Ways You Can Help
Even if you can't give money, your contribution is still very important to us. So we're asking you to:
- leave comments, give us feedback, positive or negative, it's all good
- post this link on your Facebook page
- use the Indiegogo share tools
- tell your filmmaker friends that help is on the way!
We hope you'll decide to be a part of KINONATION. We're only successful when YOU are successful. Thank you.
PS: IMAGINE a world where it's simple and easy for great independent films to be available anytime, anywhere, in any language. When Roger joined the startup team at iFilm.com, this was the dream. Now the dream is possible. Filmmakers can use simple software tools to subtitle their films in a dozen languages, vastly increasing the potential audience. KINONATION will be the hub for this film revolution, making it simple to upload ONE version of a film, and we'll generate custom versions for each service, in each country, with the relevant subtitles. Please dream with us, join us, support us in making it a reality.
