Disrupt and Distribute: VHX Helps 'Internet Revolutionaries' Self-Release Their Films

As promised, the team behind VHX is steadily working to change the independent film distribution landscape. Veteran experience in populist collaboration and the building of Vimeo means VHX understands web video, audience interaction, and tracking social trends. Can it really work? The likes of NPR and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl (as director) think so, joining the ranks of non-fiction VHX-powered releases like Indie Game: The Movie. VHX has also empowered documentary filmmakers spotlighting the ‘hacker’ community Anonymous, and the creators of the controversial BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay — even with the latter doc’s simultaneous free release through YouTube and BitTorrent.

Mission Objective: Help Creators Distribute Their Work the Way(s) They Want

The thing to keep in mind about VHX is that it’s a set of tools, not a hub. It’s not a forum, it’s not a PR firm or an advertising agency, and it’s definitely not YouTube or Netflix‘s home screen. Original content doesn’t “live on VHX,” it’s managed in the background by VHX and displayed only how and where creators want it. Even its social video curating service is a find/share/follow feed that reworks the idea of a centralized video source. VHX is a “platform” only in the way WordPress(.org), for example, is a CMS platform. It’s an engine that drives what you put into it.

That’s also to say it goes further with more fuel, with ‘fuel’ likely translating to “a lot of hard work and time spent by the independent creator.” VHX is by no means the only game in town within the wider world of video monetization, either. Vimeo’s upcoming pay-to-view service is a pretty good example of an alternative. VHX stands out, though, for several major reasons:

*It costs nothing for creators, except a cut of paid-view earnings.

*All content ownership is retained by the creator.

*It provides advanced back-end support: this includes analytics reports, social media integration, content management, and everything else necessary for a fluid user experience in accessing multiple DRM-free encodings, streamed or downloaded.

*It provides powerful front-end customization:* see Indie Game‘s beautiful, beautiful homepage (including the ‘buy/watch now’ portal) for full thematic design consistency and visual brand-recognizability. *[A 'full treatment' from the ground up has applied to the films hand-picked so far, and will probably only carry over to the most major of projects once VHX is available to everyone. All others will be able to choose from mod-able pre-designed themes.]

*Total non-exclusivity: iTunes, Amazon VOD, (in IG:TM‘s unusual case, even Steam), or physical copy ‘simulcasts’ are welcome and encouraged.