‘Straight to audience,’ not ’straight to DVD’

Sheri Candler notes that the key is to get your work to people who are an audience for that work.

In a discussion group we are having on Twitter at #infdist, I brought up the point that it is a shame the term Straight to DVD has such a negative connotation; meaning that such films are somehow inferior to films shown in theaters. I think it has more to do with bigger Hollywood studios deciding that their smaller films, the lower budget genre films, don’t command as much marketing investment as the star driven vehicles and they are “dumped” straight to home video instead of screenings in theaters.  It has little to do with the quality of the film. But quality, low budget indie films get this bad rap from it as well. Home video (or DVD) is the most lucrative way of distributing independent films.