V Channels Shows How A Feature-Length Movie Can Be Shot For $10,000 Dollars – And Become An Overnight YouTube Hit
The Dutchman – A Spaghetti Western From First-Time Director Emiliano Ferraro – Attracts 500,000 Views On YouTube In 24 Hours
V Channels (www.vchannelsmedia.com) uploaded the independent studio’s latest feature film The Dutchman on June 30, and by July 1 – without any marketing whatsoever – the movie attracted 500,000 views on YouTube. Produced on a micro-budget of only $10,000 dollars, the movie achieved the highest views at the fastest rate and the lowest cost in V Channels’ 5–year history. Housed on the V Movies Channel on V Channels’ massively popular YouTube platform, The Dutchman is a spaghetti western from first-time director Emiliano Ferraro that takes place in the19th century, and follows the adventures of treasure hunters and soldiers who risked their lives searching for a legendary gold mine hidden in the hostile Superstition Mountains of southern Arizona. Together, they face the Apache guiding the mythical mine – and a descendant of the mine’s original discoverers, armed with the infamous map.
Says Niccolo Messina, CEO of V Channels Media, “Most movies from first time directors are made for under $50,000 dollars, however Hollywood has taken the position that this category of independent films has no real value. V Channels has amassed 9 billion views on our YouTube platform that proves otherwise. The Dutchman is one of scores of movies that our audiences have turned out in droves to watch, underscoring the V Channels philosophy – great audience successes don’t require great budgets.”
Besides The Dutchman, other V Channels-financed features such as Stranger, directed by Emanuele Pica, was brought in at $25,000 and has delivered over 10,000,000 streams from both its English and Spanish dubbed versions. Dark Parasite, from filmmakers Luca Boni and Marco Ristori cost $25,000 to produce and secured more than 7,000,000 combined English and Spanish version streams. Another V Channels $10k-budgeted film Washerwoman directed by Bonnie Jean Tyer attracted 2,500,000 views of its English and Spanish dubbed versions.
Behind the audience success of The Dutchman and V Channels’ impressive library of independent films and documentaries is a series of proprietary YouTube algorithms that help determine which movies the studio will green light. For example, the impetus behind approving The Dutchman for production occurred when the studio saw a spike in the number of YouTube searches related to the keyword “western.” As the algorithm dug deeper, it showed additional fundamentals – users tend to search specifically for old spaghetti westerns, and average watch times increased with westerns that featured strong female protagonists. Significantly, the V Channels algorithm revealed a particular surge in searches related to the keywords “new western movies,” growing by more than 500% year over year, indicating a market demand for a return to the old spaghetti westerns. “V Channels has succeeded in helping forge a new revenue sharing path for the independent filmmaking community. By partnering with V Channels, emerging filmmakers have a unique opportunity to receive the funding, distribution and marketing required for their movie and documentary projects without any creative interference,” added Messina.
Founded in 2019 by global technology executive Niccolo Messina, V Channels is breaking new ground in the production and distribution of independent films and documentary content. Since its inception, the independent entertainment studio has premiered over 100 original movies and 60 documentaries on its own YouTube channel, amassing more than 9 billion streams worldwide. V Channels has also licensed select titles from its vast library to major digital streaming platforms worldwide, further demonstrating the company’s successful production and distribution formula aimed at empowering emerging filmmakers and reshaping the traditional movie distribution landscape. Find out more here. Visit V Channels and see what all the fuss is about.
