CHAOS ON DVD

How do we Turn Our Indie Animation into Cold, Hard Cash?
Part III

On September 11th, 2000, Understanding Chaos exploded onto the animation stage as a free download on the internet. Websites devoted to animation, computer graphics and manga quickly picked up on the news and stories about it, as well as interviews, were carried all over the world, some on sites I couldn't even read. I no doubt had people's attention. So how does one turn this attention into revenue? I had planned to release the project, with an extensive making-of video, on DVD exactly one year later, but world events altered those plans.

Creating your own DVD in that day was not like it is currently. Now you can do everything for very low cost in your home office. Back then, it was a very expensive process and the tools and equipment just didn't exist. I, however, was determined to make independent animation reality. After a lot of study, trial and error, Understanding Chaos was on DVD complete with a making-of video detailing how it was created.

Understanding Chaos was a short film and so the DVD centered around a making-of feature that would show artists and animators how to make their own films. That was the major selling point. So now everything was together and ready to go. The DVD release was even time to coincide with my first full page ad in a major magazine. Animation Magazine had an advertisement for my DVD called "Independents Day" which featured much of the artwork from the show and made it clear that this disk would show you how it was done. That full page ad cost me a whopping $3600 dollars, but I knew all the puzzle pieces were together and that this disc was going to start selling like mad. But did it?

More on that in the next post...

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