Third Window Films Discussion Thread

[charnier]

Originally Posted by logboy

that was me. and to answer your question - yes, i understand how expensive it is to make, and how much of a risk it is for adam. can;t remember the details, but i can remember being told the estimated price to master 'love exposure' on BD; the license allowed for it but wasn't viable until, i guess, it was mastered for BD release in japan and made available to him? problem is third window set the price at £10 then said the store was suspended temporarily. i've so much other stuff i can buy, stuff i've got that i've yet to find the chance to watch, that i can hold off any new purchases until i'm happy with the price. and who can honestly say they've never looked around for the best price on a disc? at times we don't need to, and at others we forget to, and it's even sometimes not an issue in the slightest, but although i'm particularly interested in japanese films and am also a fan of third window, i'm too old and low on money to intentionally make it no issue what so ever.

I completely understand as I have exactly the same problem myself: too much good stuff, not enough funds to get everything.

But at the same time, I would ask this: given what we have - some fantastic gems from a company who are doing their best to source great films, is it not worth paying a tad more than usual for this? For something which you can get to watch again and again? At the very least, certainly in comparison with other titles?

Don't get me wrong - I fully understand your philosophy as I share it. But for instance, I won't hestitate to pay as little as possible for a Hollywood release, whether it's £3 for a dvd or £5 for a blu, because let's face it - on the whole, they're not really trying anymore and why on earth do they deserve customers to pay RRPs when they really did not break any new ground?

But then there's the case of the unknown gem which you're likely to find from companies like Third Window - the Miki Satoshi dvd boxset for instance. I've rewatched Instant Swamp and Adrift in Tokyo countless number of times in the few months that I've owned it and I paid £13 for it. Possibly for me the best £13 I've ever spent and if I had paid £30 instead, and then it was suddenly reduced, I don't think I would have been mad (The films that they put out are the type where the re-watchability factor is high).

This is why I think it was a mistake to have a pricing policy of £5 for a dvd and £10 for a blu on their online store; it may have been fine in a sale, but not as a starting point. It creates expectations that it can always be this way; the consequence being - why pre-order on Amazon and other etailers anymore when you can get it far cheaper on the store? And then what happens if for pratical reasons, the online store is not in operation? Will people grab the new releases from other retailers while offline? Some might but others probably will not - after all, who can resist a bargain when the store comes back up? In the meantime, potential orders do not materialise.

[logboy]

Originally Posted by charnier

But at the same time, I would ask this: given what we have - some fantastic gems from a company who are doing their best to source great films, is it not worth paying a tad more than usual for this? For something which you can get to watch again and again? At the very least, certainly in comparison with other titles?

i don't re-watch films.

rather see something i've not seen than something i have seen. in that respect, i could be argued to be more ideal as i'm spending more money than the guy with a collection he returns to that he pays out no additional money to re-experience.

if anything, i'd rather the prices were realistic that suggestive of a quality that should be reliant upon the film itself. when third window started, the price of an american dvd worked out the same as they've long charged for a new release (i'd pay about £7-8 for a USA DVD so UK releases at £8.99 are far more tempting), and people in the UK would buy american releases of films as they'd be cheaper - it just so happens that since the economy went, many USA folk buy UK releases in the same way. a lot of USA companies releasing asian cinema have gone through various (fashionable, inept) reasons that made them vulnerable to the downturn and so third window are probably managing to get an american audience more aware of what they put out, too.

the hand-to-mouth nature of small businesses would be undermined by the very few willing to hand over larger sums as though it were a premium that made things look like a smarter choice than it already is when it's simply judged as a good or bad film is a twisted logic that isn't ever going to be widespread to say the least. i see 'collector types' online all the time that seem to think a certain label or packaging makes the difference to what they get - and they don't remember it's about the film in the end, and other characteristics are a bonus, not a starting point. i don't imagine many buy in such collector terms, and i think it's wiser to avoid the fickle audience that thinks of it as their baby that everyone should like in the same dewey-eyed manner over the dedicated audience that understands that the quality in part comes from a realistic, grounded approach that doesn't let romantic ideals get in the way of working towards a relationship that's mutually beneficial when improved by genuine successes or failures in what's licensed and bought - this requires shifting around to find the best films, rather than finding one place that seems to pay-off on it's own. i still to this day manage to find japanese films that nobody really seems to get excited about, films that are released on dvd to buy that nobody seems to be buying, and i think it's because people look for shortcuts to quality over putting in the effort to figure out all the various possibilities. this serves nobody well.

[SimBelm]

Originally Posted by Sinthetic

I saw Vulgaria the other night and thought it was mediocre.

Saw this one today and have to agree. Glad I saw it before making a blind pre-order.

Interested mostly in the Tsukamoto pair now.

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Originally Posted by charnier

I completely understand as I have exactly the same problem myself: too much good stuff, not enough funds to get everything.

But at the same time, I would ask this: given what we have - some fantastic gems from a company who are doing their best to source great films, is it not worth paying a tad more than usual for this? For something which you can get to watch again and again? At the very least, certainly in comparison with other titles?

Don't get me wrong - I fully understand your philosophy as I share it. But for instance, I won't hestitate to pay as little as possible for a Hollywood release, whether it's £3 for a dvd or £5 for a blu, because let's face it - on the whole, they're not really trying anymore and why on earth do they deserve customers to pay RRPs when they really did not break any new ground?

But then there's the case of the unknown gem which you're likely to find from companies like Third Window - the Miki Satoshi dvd boxset for instance. I've rewatched Instant Swamp and Adrift in Tokyo countless number of times in the few months that I've owned it and I paid £13 for it. Possibly for me the best £13 I've ever spent and if I had paid £30 instead, and then it was suddenly reduced, I don't think I would have been mad (The films that they put out are the type where the re-watchability factor is high).

This is why I think it was a mistake to have a pricing policy of £5 for a dvd and £10 for a blu on their online store; it may have been fine in a sale, but not as a starting point. It creates expectations that it can always be this way; the consequence being - why pre-order on Amazon and other etailers anymore when you can get it far cheaper on the store? And then what happens if for pratical reasons, the online store is not in operation? Will people grab the new releases from other retailers while offline? Some might but others probably will not - after all, who can resist a bargain when the store comes back up? In the meantime, potential orders do not materialise.

You read my mind. I've been thinking all of this. I think they really shot themselves in the foot by making their starting prices 5 and 10 on their website. Most people who are familiar with their site and the prices before it went temporarily down won't pay more than that on amazon now because most of us are willing to wait an absurd amount of time for something to drop in price.

Most of us will wait until their store is up and running again before bothering to order because it's a shitty feeling paying twice as much (ESPECIALLY for a dvd!) and then all of a sudden it's so much cheaper, but in saying that, like you said, I don't mind paying more for the kind of thing they release because I rewatch their releases all the time. I'd be getting my money's worth either way. I still buy their blu-ray's from amazon but I can't bring myself to pay 8-10 GBP for one of their dvd's after seeing their prices.

I contacted them about their store shutting down and they said that when it comes back, they'll only be shipping within the UK, not internationally anymore due to too many apparent shipments never arriving and having to refund and losing too much money so that sucks.

[charnier]

I don't think they have a choice now - they have to bring back the store now when you consider the current state of the etailers:

Play - closing their retail business.
HMV - fine for pre-orders, but their back catalogue is simply too expensive.
Zavvi/Sendit - have started reducing catalogue titles. Sure, you can find titles like Confessions and Love Exposure, but where are titles like Confessions of a Dog and Instant Swamp?
Amazon - the go-to choice. But without any of the above to price match, who will keep them honest?

And I think they'll have to rethink the policy on international delivery as Amazon may be too expensive for some - they may have to look into recorded delivery or some sort of deal to cover shipping costs and protect against losses.

[logboy]

...i'm still waiting for the store to come back.

if you're looking for other places to buy specific titles, plenty of websites compare retailers prices - i use http://www.find-dvd.co.uk

[charnier]

Originally Posted by logboy

...i'm still waiting for the store to come back.

if you're looking for other places to buy specific titles, plenty of websites compare retailers prices - i use http://www.find-dvd.co.uk

Seconded - it's very handy for finding the best deal.

[thirdwindowfilms]

Think I'll chime in on this as I know this has been a problem for the past few months and have followed this thread to see what people think.

The reason we setup a store was due to all the UK major DVD companies selling titles so cheaply that other companies such as ours we forced to drop our prices in order to somehow compete in any manner. The average price of DVDs nowadays in retailers and online seems to be well-under the £5 mark, and that's not just for mainstream films. Unfortunately companies like Revolver, Optimum, Cine-Asia, etc that deal with niche Asian films started selling their titles cheaply over the years and we unfortunately had to follow suit as people started to refuse to pay any more for a DVD or blu-ray. It may be fine for those companies selling Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai for £2.99 on DVD and having the original first-week price of the blu-ray for £8, or titles like The Host, Red Cliff, 14 Blades, I Saw the Devil, Ichi, etc selling for under £3.50 as those companies are selling thousands of units and can make their profit due to the sheer number of units sold. I guess by following suit we are now 'part of the problem', but it's a bit of a double-edged sword.

Also, those companies know that selling thousands of units at a low cost can get them into supermarkets and with the number of units sold as a high 'number' sold (nothing to do with whether or not profit is made) they can present that 'number' to TV stations or other retailers and say "we sold 20,000 units of this so therefore it should command so much for a TV sale or pre-order on the next release." Nobody cares less whether or not 20,000 units were sold at 1pence each, but having a number of '20,000 units sold' is all that TV stations and other retailers care about, and that's where the real money is in the present and future (future regarding pre-orders from retailers on similar upcoming product).

and this brings us to the store...

it was setup as a way of getting a larger direct share of profits. If DVDs are all being sold at such low prices, then unfortunately we needed to follow suit as everyone else was dropping their prices and the only way to even get our product into retailers was to lower the cost to them so that they could lower the cost to their audience who wouldn't want to pay over a certain price for a film as they now expect the average price of a dvd to be so cheap (I remember when nobody would bat an eyelid about paying £20 for a new Tartan DVD 10 years ago when they were at their heights - and those Dvds were awful quality with no extras - nowadays we need to do so much more yet sell at cheaper prices!). If the stores were selling our titles for so cheap, then after you take their cut, plus our sales agents cut and the physical distribution and manufacturing cost it leaves us with only a few pennies, so we decided to go direct to keep more of it ourselves.

The problem recently though is that with HMV going under as well as Play and others, and the main problem of the LVCR loophole being closed, it means that without enough competition prices will now be set through Amazon, and we can't dictate retail costs to them (they make more than a 50% markup on the amount we ask and take from them). This means prices have gone up and people are asking for the store's original prices back. I disagree that we 'shot ourselves in the foot' with those prices as they merely reflected the market at the time, yet now it does seem like a larger gap has appeared.

Though coming back to the reason why the store hasn't re-opened. There are 2 reasons: Going back to the part about 'units sold' - As we are in severe financial trouble at the moment and people aren't buying DVDs as much as they were a couple years ago (our monthly sales on many 'steady' popular titles have dropped by 50%) we need to make sure we can promote Japanese cinema more to the mainstream plus get larger financial revenue through TV and internet sales, yet as I mentioned before, TV sales are wholly dependent on 'units sold' and not how much money or profit a title may have made. 'Units Sold' are tracked by barcode scans within the UK, but this is only done through real retailers, so every product that is sold through our store is not considered a proper sale, and therefore despite the fact that we make more money at the time, we lose a 'unit sold' on a product, therefore making that product less appealing to a TV station or VOD outlet.

The 2nd reason is more simple, being the fact that I don't think people really understand how small we are as a company. We have no office, no real staff (except my flatmate and an outsourced sales team who work on behalf of the majority of indie labels in the UK) and everything is literally done 'in-house'. Heck, I don't even know why I use 'we' so much, except is sounds more proper I guess. I think most people know me to an extend, but I don't think most people realise that the Confessions of a Dog limited edition DVD set required me to physically hand cut a 35mm film reel and physically insert and seal 1,000 cards (which took 2 days without sleep and I could barely use my hands after). Were we to have any larger operation we (i've used 'we' again, but will just continue like that) would have gone under years ago.

Apologies for this very long message. I hope it sheds some light on the situation and if anybody wants any further clarification please email adam@thirdwindowfilms.com anytime.

Thanks

[Refused]

Does selling direct to your customers cause you any hassle with retailers at all? I seem to recall Raro having to increase prices, as certain retailers got upset that they were undercutting them.

[charnier]

Originally Posted by thirdwindowfilms

Think I'll chime in on this as I know this has been a problem for the past few months and have followed this thread to see what people think.

The reason we setup a store was due to all the UK major DVD companies selling titles so cheaply that other companies such as ours we forced to drop our prices in order to somehow compete in any manner. The average price of DVDs nowadays in retailers and online seems to be well-under the £5 mark, and that's not just for mainstream films. Unfortunately companies like Revolver, Optimum, Cine-Asia, etc that deal with niche Asian films started selling their titles cheaply over the years and we unfortunately had to follow suit as people started to refuse to pay any more for a DVD or blu-ray. It may be fine for those companies selling Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai for £2.99 on DVD and having the original first-week price of the blu-ray for £8, or titles like The Host, Red Cliff, 14 Blades, I Saw the Devil, Ichi, etc selling for under £3.50 as those companies are selling thousands of units and can make their profit due to the sheer number of units sold. I guess by following suit we are now 'part of the problem', but it's a bit of a double-edged sword.

Also, those companies know that selling thousands of units at a low cost can get them into supermarkets and with the number of units sold as a high 'number' sold (nothing to do with whether or not profit is made) they can present that 'number' to TV stations or other retailers and say "we sold 20,000 units of this so therefore it should command so much for a TV sale or pre-order on the next release." Nobody cares less whether or not 20,000 units were sold at 1pence each, but having a number of '20,000 units sold' is all that TV stations and other retailers care about, and that's where the real money is in the present and future (future regarding pre-orders from retailers on similar upcoming product).

and this brings us to the store...

it was setup as a way of getting a larger direct share of profits. If DVDs are all being sold at such low prices, then unfortunately we needed to follow suit as everyone else was dropping their prices and the only way to even get our product into retailers was to lower the cost to them so that they could lower the cost to their audience who wouldn't want to pay over a certain price for a film as they now expect the average price of a dvd to be so cheap (I remember when nobody would bat an eyelid about paying £20 for a new Tartan DVD 10 years ago when they were at their heights - and those Dvds were awful quality with no extras - nowadays we need to do so much more yet sell at cheaper prices!). If the stores were selling our titles for so cheap, then after you take their cut, plus our sales agents cut and the physical distribution and manufacturing cost it leaves us with only a few pennies, so we decided to go direct to keep more of it ourselves.

The problem recently though is that with HMV going under as well as Play and others, and the main problem of the LVCR loophole being closed, it means that without enough competition prices will now be set through Amazon, and we can't dictate retail costs to them (they make more than a 50% markup on the amount we ask and take from them). This means prices have gone up and people are asking for the store's original prices back. I disagree that we 'shot ourselves in the foot' with those prices as they merely reflected the market at the time, yet now it does seem like a larger gap has appeared.

Though coming back to the reason why the store hasn't re-opened. There are 2 reasons: Going back to the part about 'units sold' - As we are in severe financial trouble at the moment and people aren't buying DVDs as much as they were a couple years ago (our monthly sales on many 'steady' popular titles have dropped by 50%) we need to make sure we can promote Japanese cinema more to the mainstream plus get larger financial revenue through TV and internet sales, yet as I mentioned before, TV sales are wholly dependent on 'units sold' and not how much money or profit a title may have made. 'Units Sold' are tracked by barcode scans within the UK, but this is only done through real retailers, so every product that is sold through our store is not considered a proper sale, and therefore despite the fact that we make more money at the time, we lose a 'unit sold' on a product, therefore making that product less appealing to a TV station or VOD outlet.

The 2nd reason is more simple, being the fact that I don't think people really understand how small we are as a company. We have no office, no real staff (except my flatmate and an outsourced sales team who work on behalf of the majority of indie labels in the UK) and everything is literally done 'in-house'. Heck, I don't even know why I use 'we' so much, except is sounds more proper I guess. I think most people know me to an extend, but I don't think most people realise that the Confessions of a Dog limited edition DVD set required me to physically hand cut a 35mm film reel and physically insert and seal 1,000 cards (which took 2 days without sleep and I could barely use my hands after). Were we to have any larger operation we (i've used 'we' again, but will just continue like that) would have gone under years ago.

Apologies for this very long message. I hope it sheds some light on the situation and if anybody wants any further clarification please email adam@thirdwindowfilms.com anytime.

Thanks

Thank you for clarifying this, Adam - I did not realise that dvds/blus sold through the store did not count as a proper sale - which makes ordering/ pre-ordering new titles at the remaining online stores even more of a necessity.

I hope Amazon does not take advantage of the pricing with some of the etailers' demise - but judging from recent prices, I am not hopeful. I think I'll start using Moviemail from now on.

I am looking forward to Third Window's releases this year - I'll be watching The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a coin locker very soon.

I hope 2013 is a far better year for you guys and that you continue to put out the wonderful gems that you do.

[BAKA]

What about setting up a marketplace seller on Amazon and providing Amazon with your stock to package and distribute to customers, as Eureka most recently appear to have done. Would they then scan the barcodes or is it only their stock they would scan?

[charnier]

Originally Posted by BAKA

What about setting up a marketplace seller on Amazon and providing Amazon with your stock to package and distribute to customers, as Eureka most recently appear to have done. Would they then scan the barcodes or is it only their stock they would scan?

Do you mean "Fulfilled by Amazon"?

Adam - have you also considered limiting copies to a certain amount?

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by Refused

Does selling direct to your customers cause you any hassle with retailers at all? I seem to recall Raro having to increase prices, as certain retailers got upset that they were undercutting them.

In theory it could. For example, if Amazon find that we have sold our titles cheaper to elsewhere they will find out instantly (through their price-matching programs) and get on our backs about it. Of course their programs can't find out about our online shop as easily, though it could in theory prove risky

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by BAKA

What about setting up a marketplace seller on Amazon and providing Amazon with your stock to package and distribute to customers, as Eureka most recently appear to have done. Would they then scan the barcodes or is it only their stock they would scan?

We've always had our stock sold through Amazon, but we've also had our own Amazon marketplace which has been always linked to on our website and when we closed our own store we directly linked to it from our own store's old link. http://astore.amazon.co.uk/

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by charnier

Do you mean "Fulfilled by Amazon"?

Adam - have you also considered limiting copies to a certain amount?

We've done limited editions of titles such as Confessions of a Dog and Underwater Love, but most people don't collect limited edition versions of titles and it does get more expensive and complicated making standard and limited edition versions of things. Remember that we don't get as good rates regarding manufacturing and authoring as the major companies as we don't release that many titles a year, so doing multiple editions doesn't always work.

[Sinthetic]

Great explanation Adam. I'm looking forward to picking up the Tsukamoto's later this year.

Any other news on schedule you can tease us with?

[thirdwindowfilms]

Originally Posted by Sinthetic

Great explanation Adam. I'm looking forward to picking up the Tsukamoto's later this year.

Any other news on schedule you can tease us with?

Not much really. We'll probably release Land of Hope at some point, and trying to tie up the micro-budget film Shady, but other than that it's going to be a super tough year due to this LVCR loophole closing and with that Play.com and probably many more online retailers therefore Amazon creating a larger monopoly and screwing over everybody. They already moved their paying schedule last year back so that they now pay us 60 days from sale and with HMV not paying up front as they used to (plus they're nearly under themselves and not taking much stock anyways) it's REALLY hard to keep going. 2013 is really going to have to be a 'make-or-break' year, and I'm sure not just for us.

[mattyl149]

There's some good bargains on some Third Window Blu-rays on the Play Clearance sale:

Memories Of Matsuko - £5.19
Cold Fish - £6.29
Kamikaze Girls - £7.19

[pro-bassoonist]

The Woodsman and the Rain Blu-ray REVIEW

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Thanks for the great review on The Woodsman and the Rain. Love Third Window Films!