A New Direction for Cinevite
Important Product Announcements
Wow! We are already at the end of 2023 and it has certainly gone by in a blip! I want to thank you for your interest in learning about our company and products this year. For Cinevite and Cinestruct, it’s been a tremendous year of learning and development. This was our first year exploring how the Cinevite platform could support film festivals and through that exploration we were able to connect with a lot of really cool organizations and filmmakers.
It’s also been humbling as we’ve had to put aside some assumptions we made at the onset of this exploration. With these learnings in mind, I want to share with you some updates we’ll be making to our products and operations as we look ahead to 2024.
Expanding Cinevite Pledge
This year we announced and launched the beta of Cinevite Pledge. We were blown away by the amount of inquiries we got from film festivals interested in learning more about how they could use Cinevite Pledge to support filmmakers and raise additional revenue for their events. The beta helped us collect valuable information to optimize Cinevite Pledge and ensure seamless use for festivals and filmmakers. We also saw areas we need to focus on as a company to give as much value as possible from this new opportunity.
I am excited to announce that we are making Cinevite Pledge core to Cinestruct’s operations and restructuring all our resources to support Cinevite Pledge.
In practical terms, this means a few things:
The Cinevite mobile app will be redesigned to prioritize giving filmmakers the utilities they need to successfully navigate their films through the film festival circuit and while doing so, raise funds with Cinevite Pledge. This represents our biggest change since we launched the Cinevite app in 2021. This redesign will be iterative and collaborative, with the first major deployment rolling out in Q1, 2024.
The Cinestruct matching pledge program will become central to our operations. In 2024, to celebrate the full launch of Cinevite Pledge, we are seeding the matching pledge program with up to $10,000 to support filmmakers with films screening in at least 10 participating film festivals in 2024. With the launch of the matching pledge program we are also starting two key initiatives for its long-term success:
We are optimizing our fee structure to fund the matching pledge program directly from revenues.
We’ll be kicking off outreach to create corporate and business partnerships to further grow the matching pledge fund. This will allow us to increase the number of filmmakers we’ll be able to support through this program.
Applications for the 2024 Cinestruct matching pledge program will be opening soon so please stay tuned!
Cinestruct Media
Cinestruct is developing video media to support Cinevite Pledge with the following goals:
Promote the festivals and filmmakers using Cinevite Pledge to broad audiences, starting with social media, and expanding promotion via tech and independent film blogs and regional press.
Curate an engaged and activated pool of sponsors that contribute, on a recurring basis, to films enrolled through Cinevite Pledge and featured by Cinestruct in media programming.
Create a feedback loop between Cinevite product development and Cinevite users.
We have lots of exciting plans to use media to promote and tell stories that support filmmakers, film festivals, and our initiatives with Cinevite. For example, in our media programming, we’ll be bringing on personalities to participate directly in the development of our platform.
We can’t wait to kick this off!
Discontinuing Cinevite Premiere and Cinevite Partner Services
To help us focus on the goals we’ve established for the future of Cinevite and Cinestruct, effective immediately, we are discontinuing the Cinevite Premiere and Cinevite Partner services. While we are sunsetting these services, the benefits and value they offered won’t be disappearing entirely. Much of what was offered from the Cinevite Premiere and Cinevite Partner services will be rolled into Cinevite Pledge at no cost!
We launched these services earlier this year, recognizing an opportunity to elevate the digital experience for small and medium-sized film festivals. Many of these festivals don't have the resources and time to provide a modern and connected app experience for their audience. Ultimately, most of the festivals we met with this year could not procure these services given the cost and their challenges raising enough funds to effectively put on their annual events. We listened to this feedback and built Cinevite Pledge to give film festivals a tool that is revenue generating instead of tool that is another cost center. And, as I shared above, we are moving full steam ahead in that direction.
We are so excited to be moving to this next phase in our journey with Cinevite and Cinestruct. 2023 has been a remarkable year for us. And we can’t wait to take everything we’ve learned and turn it into value that will help to keep film festivals and the independent film community thriving!
Happy Holidays! 🥂🎉