I'm pleased that direct-to-DVD is becoming a market. I guess soon it'll be called "direct-to-DVD-and-Blue-ray-and-also-download-rental-and-purchase", and it will be a huge market itself, sitting between the TV-series market and the theatre market, but perhaps one day be bigger than either.
I think it can produce many high-quality things, both by small and big producers, to set at various places in the Long Tail, including the fat end.
One example of a good product is the new four planned DVDs of Futurama of which two are released yet, I've watched the first one, Bender's Big Score, which was top notch, and I've bought the second one, The Beast with a Billion Backs.
The thing is that something like the Blair Witch, which had a super-low production budget, can now also be released for a very low budget, unlike theatre release which is extremely costly. With today's technology, a small group of of talented people can produce a fully professional film (either live action or animated) and release it too, for a budget a tiny fraction of what was necessary a few years ago. And there are even new ways of promotion, like YouTube. It's all very cool.
We've been seeing OVA for some time. There are also some direct to VHS/DVD titles dating back for some time, but they always seem to be where a cinematic release was aborted, and they were trying to make something out of it.
ReplyDeleteDirect to Video productions were like a modern day B movie. OVA's can be more promising.