David Hughes, founder of UK-based ‘micro-Blu-ery’ Plumeria, has a few tips
By David Hughes
It’s said that the Devil makes work for idle hands. So did Covid.
My day job is making trailers, TV spots, and social media ads for the movie marketing agency Synchronicity, so in 2020, when the pandemic shut down cinemas, there wasn’t much for us to do. It was time to progress one of the ideas I’d been too busy to pursue since I thought of it: an audio commentary podcast, Rogue Commentary. (Don’t worry—we’re getting to the Blu-ray label.) I reached out to every filmmaker I knew, and after bagging Bernard Rose for my first episode (Paperhouse), asked veteran producer Richard Holmes (Eden Lake, The Ritual), who happened to be attached to one of my screenplays, if he’d like to record a commentary for an obscure but rather wonderful 1992 film Soft Top Hard Shoulder, written by and starring Oscar winner Peter Capaldi (later the twelfth Doctor Who). Capaldi had been an early mentor of my screenwriting, and I was a huge fan of the charming British road movie. With film production shut down as well, it wasn’t long before I woke one morning to find that Holmes had sat down with the film’s director, Stefan Schwartz (The Boys), and recorded a wonderful commentary, using a YouTube rip of the film as reference. We were off to the races! Only one problem: if a YouTube rip was pretty much the only available copy of the film, how would people listen to the corresponding episode of Rogue Commentary, which is designed—should you wish to—to be cued up to the film?
Richard, it turned out, had the rights and happened to be in possession of an HD digital master. So I wondered: could we release it on Blu-ray? Within a couple of days, a deal was done: no upfront licence fee—known as a Minimum Guarantee (MG); simply a straight 50/50 split of the profits. I quickly learned how to design a sleeve, master a Blu-ray, add a commentary track and manual subtitles (a pain, but I wasn’t willing to cut the hard of hearing out of enjoying the film). I found a wonderful piece of fan art I licensed for the slipcase, commissioned a piece of original art for the inner sleeve and disc, and—in 45 minutes flat—set up an e-commerce site, PlumeriaPics.co.uk. I dropped a post on Twitter that said something like “Now would be a really good time for Peter Capaldi fans to follow me”—and the fans did the rest. When the pre-order button went live, we sold just enough copies to cover the mastering costs. Now we had three months to sell enough to cover the production and postage as well.
Now, obviously none of the above would be a good way to start a Blu-ray label. But since this inauspicious beginning, we’ve managed to release a few other films, including four titles licensed from studios and distributors—Sneakers, The Big Man, No Way Out and Bull Durham—as well as the worldwide Blu-ray debut of Tom Hanks’ first feature film, the amusingly misguided but surprisingly touching ‘Satanic panic’ title Mazes & Monsters, which we released region-free for its 40th anniversary. We’ve made terrible mistakes—The Big Man, which nearly bankrupted its production company 35 years ago, nearly bankrupted us too—but we’ve also learned a lot about the business of boutique Blu-rays. We look on in awe at fellow UK-based labels like Eureka, Radiance and Second Sight, which manage to release multiple titles per month, rather than per year, but we’ve learned enough to know how it all works—and, perhaps more importantly—how it doesn’t. The main issue? The economics are a nightmare.
Here’s how it works (for us—mileage may vary).
1) Pick a title from a list of studio or distributor ‘avails’—films that are available but haven’t yet been picked up by a label, or have previously been released, but are now out of contract.
2) Find out the MG—i.e. what you need to pay to licence the title—and royalty split; typically 80/20 in your favour. £5,000 is typical for a studio title, but you could get lucky and/or knock them down during the negotiation phase.
3) Pay the MG (+ 20% VAT if, like us, you’re in the UK) on signature of the contract.
4) Choose your manufacturer so you know how much your first run will cost. Our manufacturer, KSL, charges £2,000 (inc. VAT) to manufacture and deliver 1000 shrink-wrapped Blu-rays, standard packaging, single side sleeve.
5) Choose (or commission) your artwork for your sleeve and disc, based on the template provided by your manufacturer, and a designer—ideally with specific experience. (I use my own company, Synchronicity, but other design houses are available.) You’ll need to add a barcode (you can purchase these online), a plethora of logos and copyright information (refer to any Blu-ray sleeve for advice), and the BBFC rating if you’re in the UK. If your film hasn’t been previously classified, you’ll need to submit it for classification, which is another expense.
6) Figure out what you can include as special features, some of which may be supplied by the distributor (licensor) as part of their ‘supply of materials’ process, i.e. when they send you the master feature file. If you commission new extras, you’ll obviously have to pay for them, but there may be materials out there you can license more cheaply than commissioning new ones. You’ll figure out what’s best for your title, but an audio commentary is an inexpensive option, as you can find an expert on any film, and have them record the commentary themselves at home, or via Zoom. Or you can hire a convenient studio for them for a couple of hours.
7) Choose your mastering house carefully; we use Fidelity in Motion, the best in the business. The mastering process will cost about £2,000, meaning that your costs (including MG) are up to £9,000 for 1,000 Blu-rays. Yep—your unit cost is already £9. Once you have your disc content in place, the mastering house will package it up and master your disc, and send you a copy for quality control (QC). Once you’re happy that it all works (burning a test disc is recommended), you can send the files straight to the manufacturer, where they’ll match them with the sleeve.
8) While you wait 2-3 weeks for the discs to come back (make some space—1,000 Blu-rays will come in 50 boxes of 20), you can set up your e-commerce site. Remember your costs are mounting up, so you’ll have to decide a retail price that covers your costs, but doesn’t put people off: the impulse-buy difference between £20 and £25 can be significant, unless it’s a 4K edition.
9) Should you charge extra for postage and packing? Probably. You’ll need to buy 1,000 padded envelopes, and it’ll cost £2 to post each Blu-ray—another £2,000.
10) Now you’re ready to start posting about your first Blu-ray release on as many social media platforms as you can find, remembering to alert the fan sites of your title’s cast and crew. With any luck, you’ll get as much support as we did from Peter Capaldi fans when we launched Soft Top Hard Shoulder all those years ago.
If you’ve been doing the maths as we go, you’ll realise that you’ll have to sell a lot more than 1,000 units to make it worth your while—unless you’re doing it as a non-profit, or for sheer love of the game. With a £20 RRP, you’ll net £18,000 after VAT, but your costs will likely be £10-15,000 for the first 1,000 discs. The good news is, with mastering and licensing costs covered in the first run, if you sell more than 1,000 copies you can print another 1,000 very cheaply, meaning that the profit on the second run is much greater. And that, of course, depends on two factors: the market (will people buy it?) and the marketing (can you persuade them to buy it?).
Selling via direct mail, through your e-commerce site, is the most profitable method, but it doesn’t reach the biggest audience. We don’t sell on Amazon for ethical reasons, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t list your title in the world’s biggest shop window, as long as you take into account that Amazon takes a big cut, meaning that you may be selling more units, but—unless you do big numbers—you could be selling them at a loss. Likewise, wholesale distributors, who—assuming they agree to list your title, enabling it to be sold in shops—will probably offer you about £8 per unit, so they’ll need to make a fairly hefty order to make it worth your while. Oh, and remember: the royalty you pay the licensor (once the MG has been cleared) may not allow the kind of deep discounts third-party sellers and wholesalers will apply, so be sure to check the fine print.
So, with such high costs and low margins—unless you have a runaway bestseller—why would anyone want to start a boutique Blu-ray publishing house or ‘micro-Blu-ery’?
The hope is that your second title will do better than your first, and so on, as word gets around, your mailing list grows, and you gain experience about what works and what doesn’t. But there’s an abundance of rewards beyond the financial prospects. Collaborating with filmmakers and experts about prospective commentaries and extras… engaging with film fans as you discuss the release… watching the pre-orders tick up, each one a thin slice off your sunk cost… excitedly awaiting the delivery of the final Blu-rays… and—once you’ve gone through the grind of packaging them up and sending them out—the joy of seeing people post about them on social media and Blu-ray forums.
It isn’t easy… but we promise you it’s worthwhile.
Get 10% off any Blu-ray at PlumeriaPics.co.uk by using code BLURAYFAN at checkout.
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