paus partners with Raindance Film Festival & offers access to incredible films
Magine Pro’s partner paus has partnered with the Raindance Film Festival this year to enable award-winning filmmakers the opportunity to premiere their work on the paus service.
The partnership means paus users can now discover over 200 unique films in a series of 24-hour windows during the run-up to the Raindance Film Festival (between 27th October – 6th November 2021). And once the festival ends, the films will be available to stream for the rest of 2021, giving the filmmakers the opportunity to receive tips from fans, friends and family all over the world.
The founder of Raindance, Elliot Grove, said of the exciting collaboration, “Raindance is always on the lookout for innovation and constructive disruption. For Paus, a company that strives to end unfavourable algorithms and intrusive paywalls from independent film, this is a truly remunerative and meaningful partnership”.
paus is an online streaming platform dedicated entirely to independent film and is available via web, iOS, and Android apps. The streaming service is uniquely powered by tips, which means there are no subscriptions, adverts, or set payments for the audience. Instead, viewers can choose to tip filmmakers any amount, at any time.
Rishi Kapoor, founder and CEO of paus said of the exciting opportunity for Raindance filmmakers, “At Paus, we are excited to elevate the nominees to an even wider audience and help facilitate them in monetising their fanbase in the most seamless way possible. Paus’ global reach with our dedicated community of independent film enthusiasts are thrilled to gain exclusive access to the rich selection of work submitted to the Raindance festival.”
To find out more about paus and its partnership with Raindance, head over to paus.tv. In our case study, you can also learn more about how Magine Pro enabled paus to launch their unique streaming service.
We also recently spoke with paus, founder and CEO, Rishi Kapoor, for an insight into the inspiration behind paus and what impact its unique tipping feature has had on subscriber growth. Check out a snippet of the Q&A here, or download our latest white paper, OTT Discovery: How to stand out amongst the crowd to read the full story.
Q&A: Rishi Kapoor, founder of paus, shares an insight into the unique streaming service
Founder and CEO of paus, Rishi Kapoor shares an insight into the inspiration behind paus and what impact its unique tipping feature has had on subscriber growth.
Rishi Kapoor is an experienced professional in film distribution both UK and Internationally. A former executive at Sony Pictures, Universal
Studios, Warner Bros. and Disney. After many years working on distribution deals with Netflix, Amazon and Apple, he turned his attention to the independent film space, supporting independent filmmakers at paus.tv.
What’s the origin of paus? And what did you set out to achieve at the beginning?
Having worked in the commercial space for such a long time with big brands, I felt content was becoming increasingly commoditized and manufactured. And as a film enthusiast, I could see the authenticity being lost because the models weren’t there to support content that had smaller audiences. If you’re Netflix, for example, spending billions of dollars on content, you have to make content with mass appeal, which means many fantastic stories that may not attract millions of people just get lost. So I wanted to solve a problem for niche content that wasn’t being solved as the traditional model of one-size-fits-all didn’t fit all.
What was the inspiration behind the paus’ unique tipping feature? And how does revenue share with independent filmmakers work?
In my opinion, no model was fair for creators and audiences. The free ad-based model can require lots of traction for any meaningful revenue to be earned. And at the same time, there was a rise in this creator economy. Creators were moving online to target their audience directly and monetize without involving a distributor or sales agent or getting a deal with a big streaming service. I was particularly inspired by other creative economy platforms such as Patreon and OnlyFans. They were solving this issue but for other industries and creators, such as influencers and musicians. They proved that people want to support the creators they like and inspired the tipping model for paus.
At paus, filmmakers take 80% of the revenue, and we keep 20%. The feature is fully integrated and seamless on the platform. For example, if someone watches a film in London on paus and opts to tip, the filmmaker in New York will receive their share within minutes. Interestingly, Twitter, Snapchat and Clubhouse have also both recently launched their own tipping feature. So I think we may soon see a shift in how the internet is monetized with more direct-to-consumer payment models supporting creators.
What impact has the tipping feature had on content acquisition?
For content owners, it’s really easy to get drowned out on a one-size-fits-all platform, like Amazon Prime, where you have independent films sitting alongside blockbusters such as Jurassic World.
The paus model gives more back to the filmmakers. So yes, it’s tipping, but it’s coupled with a platform that’s free to use and is a dedicated space for independent film. I believe the paus model and the exposure from a dedicated platform are two things that drive creators to our platform.
What are paus’ long-term growth plans? And how does a platform provider like Magine Pro enable you to meet those goals?
We want to work with more filmmakers around the world and provide them with more tools to be able to monetize. We’re not just a tipping platform; we want to do other things, integrating merchandise, ticketed events and anything that creates a fair reward for filmmakers to monetize from their fans. Magine Pro lets us focus our money and attention on the filmmakers and our marketing efforts and spend less time worrying about creating a world-class streaming service in-house. They have given us the foundation and infrastructure to focus on serving the creative community much better.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Read the Q&A with Rishi Kapoor in full in our latest white paper, OTT Discovery: How to stand out amongst the crowd and learn more about how paus’ unique tipping feature has impacted their marketing efforts and the discoverability of the service. Rishi also offers those considering starting their own streaming service.
To find out more about paus, an independent film service that is uniquely powered by tips, check out our case study. For more information on Magine Pro’s OTT solutions and services, head here.