What to do with VERY LARGE vintage collection?
 

Hi everyone!

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have...

This could be a long post so I should just get right to it.

I have a collection of about 600 vintage films on 8mm and Super8 film. I've had these films transferred to digital and had them color corrected. The range of eras for the films is from the early 1900s-1960s.

I have experience with WordPress, and there are quite a few good video-type themes available these days. However, that is the full extent of me web site abilities, such that they are. So, I know web hosting, FTP, a bit of CSS etc, but that's it and it ain't much.

I'm wondering if anyone has ANY ideas as to how I might best monetize this asset? For example, with my very limited experience should I just sell the content, or build a site, or is it even possible to build a free site and turn a profit through ads (ala Tube8)?

I really have no idea what to do with this stuff, but it seems a shame to let it just sit.

Four or five years ago, when the collection may have actually been worth something, I was in touch with the Joe Spikes and Mike Hawk from Smashbucks and we were working on a deal. Likewise I had a few meetings with Phil Green in Marin, who thought there was definitely something to the collection. Unfortunately, I had many other things on my plate back then and never followed through.

Is it now just too late? Is the market saturated with this kind of stuff?

If not, any advice on what to do would be a HUGE help.

Thanks very much

Christian

I do a lot of vintage stuff myself but not really that far back, mostly 1970's and on.

Do you have actual films? Or just a collection of scens? And now on dvd or on web ready via wmv or some other media? I may be interested but not sure how much. Drop me message or an email maybe. rob at bustycafe.com

Rob,

Thanks for your reply. To answer your question about films vs. scenes I'm embarrassed to say I don't know the distinction. They are films and by that I mean they originated on actual celluloid—but I guess they are also scenes. Each film is approx. 10min long— so I'd guess that makes them scenes, not 90 min features. Some are straight sex. Others have a story associated with them. Of course I don't know if that makes 'em films or not.

Anyhow, regarding the format (this is something I know a bit more about— I'm a video editor by trade) I've transferred the films onto digital media and from there can output them to any format really— .avi .mpg, can do DVD authoring etc.... not sure about .wmv as I'm a Mac guy, but if you can do it in Final Cut, I can do it.

Thanks again for your reply and let me know if there's any other info I can give you

Christian

They are scenes yes since not 90 min features as you said but that is fine too. Like I said I really do more with the 1970s-1990s so I don't know if I'd have any use for them. Do a search for sites that use true vintage content from the 1960s and earlier and see if they'd want to buy them.

Creating your own site I'm not sure that would work unless you know how to create traffic and such.

If you ever had any images from the early years (but again 1970-1999) I'd buy them.

Ramster,

Thanks very much for your help and advice. I do have a bunch (probably 150) of scenes from the 70s, but can't say how many of them have been transferred to digital.

Also, I think you're right: I could build a site, but know nothing about creating traffic for this type of product. To be honest, I don't even know what kinda of bandwidth and server costs I'd incur streaming that much video.

I'll search my library and see if I have any images, not footage, from the 70s, etc...

thanks again

Christian

If it turns out you some some from the 70s I may be interested. Photos for sure

is it all on DVD's?
im always looking for 50s-70s content.
PM me with what you have and the price/s

Tell the truth Shemp, you are really interested cause it brings back memories of your teen years ;)

im an expert on the subject ;)

Why not making a blog and a paysite. really good vintage content will be wildly popular

You can't make a paysite without traffic to send to it.

Really? there's a heap of resourses devoted to vintage content... why not trying?