The other day Amazon Video Direct emailed to let all of us providers know they are once again cutting the legs out from under indie filmmakers. They are now taking the Japan, Germany and UK royalties and making them similar to the current US royalties. Basically, if you have a high CER (Customer Engagement Ranking) you can make more money per hour of viewing on your Prime viewing titles. That is to say, you can make jack squat or less than jack squat. Even at the highest CER rank, you won’t make more than 0.07 CBP per hour of streaming. That’s Zero Point Zero 7 Pounds. I took my feature doc off of Prime viewing because I think my work is worth more that a dime per viewing. That’s what I was getting with my CER in the US back then. People would watch an hour and 45 minute film, and I would get about $0.10. Currently my doc is available for rent on Amazon for just $1, of which I receive $0.50.
But, that’s not the real reason for this post today. Looking at my account I noticed that only one of my videos that are on Prime was getting any views. That’s odd. I had this little comedic short that used to get a lot of views. But there had been no minutes streamed for a few weeks. Investigating further I found these publishing errors on 2 of my 3 short films that were on Amazon for Prime viewing:
So, Amazon had pulled them down. And there’s no recourse, and don’t bother trying to resubmit. These short films had been on Amazon since 2016 for one and 2018 for the other. One had 5/5 stars the other had 4/5 stars.
The reviews were (mostly) very positive, and the star reviews weren’t a problem. And it’s not about offensive content, or inappropriate content. And it’s not about quality- to be completely honest, my 3rd short film is the worst one of the bunch, and it’s still available. They had good audio, good video quality. I’ve watched a lot of indie films on Prime, and I’ve seen some ugly ones that are still on there. So that leaves you with Customer Viewing Behavior as a cause.
Both the films that were removed were under 3 minutes long. The short film that is still available if just over 5 minutes. I wondered if they had instituted a minimum runtime for titles. So, I dug around and found a contact email. I asked about minimum runtimes for titles and why they hadn’t notified me via email about taking down those titles. And they replied:
“Hello, We do not have a set minimum run-time, however most customer engagement metrics indicate that shorter films (less than 15-20 minutes) typically fail to meet quality expectations. Please note that all title updates are posted to the title entry page in the Your Videos section for each video.”
So there you have it. Short films are out. I survived previous purges, and my 5 minute film survived this one, but the days of Amazon Prime Video Direct being a place to get your short film seen are over. Also, they won’t bother to tell you if they remove a video, they expect you to be checking a page you only look at once a year or so, or when you’re uploading new content.
Now, what does this actually mean for me?
It means those two short films won’t be available on Amazon prime anymore. You can still see them on YouTube:
(A slightly longer -30 seconds more- version of this film was on Amazon, without the Rode Reel graphics)
I won’t really be losing any money. Think about it. If I get a maximum of 10 cents per hour of viewing, it would take 20 views of a 3 minute movie to earn 10 cents. 200 views of that movie to make $1. And the reality is, older films naturally have a lower CER, so I expect those short films were earning 1 cent per hour of viewing, so it would take 2000 views to make $1.
Let’s face it, having a short film on Amazon Prime is like publishing a novel at a Vanity Press. It’s nice, feels good. But you’re not making a living from that. Not with short films. And now, even that option is disappearing. So, off we go to Youtube and Vimeo- where we also make no money for providing content.
Scott Link Media 