Do not know about GreenCine but I can maybe help answer some of the other issues.

>>>1. Am I going to mark myself as some kind of idiot rube if I tell GreenCine,
>>>"No, that's O.K., just order them directly from me?"

It depends on what they are looking for. The normal domestic distribution route entails going through places like VPD, Baker and Taylor, Ingram, RenTrak and so on. Now the question *you* need to ask is if they are wanting to act as a sub-distributor or if they want to have an exclusive. If they want to act as a sub than what is going to happen is you will get a lot less money per unit. Example - say the SRP is going to be 19.95. If you sold direct to, say, VPD you would get maybe 10 - 11.00 per unit. If you go through a sub, they will be going to VPD with that price so you would have to sell it to the sub for maybe 5.00 per unit.

Another reason they may be asking is because they need to know what their ROI is going to be and if the big guys are putting it out there as well it normally means they have to fight harder and be in the same ballpark..which with the big guys it is very hard to do. For example Tower Records/Video does not buy direct store by store, they have regional buyers and they do the buying. Blockbuster has national buyers who sit in an office and go through screeners and they don't buy direct. Same with places like WalMart and Target. In these case, and it has been an issue the VSDA has delt with for a while, studios were able to do direct because they started to offer deep discounts and liberal return policys. In plain English this means I came to you and say "This is the video buyer at Target and I want 10,000 copies by tuesday at $5.00 a copy with a 6 month window of return" and you say "OK!!" However if I (acting as a store) call up Ingram and say "How much for 3 copies?" they say "$18.00 per unit". And I say "I am going to buy my 3 copies from Target because they have it for 14.95 a copy".

>>>2. Is there any real advantage for an independent like myself in working with a
>>> wholesaler (aside from the joy of giving someone else a seemingly
>>>unnecessary cut of my already paltry sales!)?

A wholesaler is not the same as a distributor. There are many places that deal in 30-60-90 and these are more the wholesalers. What this is is that before you put out a title you set a pre-book date and a street date. The hope is that everyone gets in their orders by street date so you can go to your duplicator and order what you need plus a little extra. Than you start shipping. Most places want their product in hand at least one week before street and the vendors need it before then. In many cases if you have a sub they will fax you the orders they get and have you drop ship.
The distributors get it and they break it down and ship it out to their stores. (This is a good time to bring up that in most cases you will have to cover the cost of shipping from your end to the distribution centers) So street date roles around and the clock start ticking. After 30 days you can take your extra stock and go out and sell directly to a wholesaler. At 60 days you do it for less and at 90 even less. One of the tricks is that many of these places deal in "used" (rental copies) however they aren't really. They are brand new copies that come direct from you, just that instead of being sold as new they are sold as "previously viewed". What it also means is that your per unit price goes down as well. So if the average wholesale price at street date is 15.00 it drops down to 7 - 8 at 30 days, 3 - 5 at 60 and 1 - 3 at 90. Beyond that and you are looking at 10 cents per unit in some cases.

>>>3. If they remain interested, is someone like GreenCine likely to order
>>> (and pay for) the 100s or 1000s of units that would justify the additional
>>> hassle and overhead of working with a wholesaler?

Depends on their terms - going back to what I said at first - you need to find out what they want to do. If they are going to be a sub there terms with the other main distributors will trickle down to you. If they had net 60 with VPD than you would be at net 90 meaning you wouldn't get any money for 90 days after you ship. If they ar ebuying product outright than you could work out terms direct with them, say net 30. However it is very imprtant to understand that none of the main distributors pay up front - they all do net and they vary from, net 15 - net 90. Most of the 30-60-90 places do pay "cash" when they buy however. Now I did mention the returns? Don't foregt about those. And I do not mean faulty prodcut returns, I mean stock rotation returns. A place like Blockbuster might order 10,000 copies of a huge release but they always order extra so it sits in their main centers. They clean out stock maybe every 6 months so if they find out they have 3,000 copies laying around they get packed up and sent back to the distributor for credit, who in turns ships them back to either the sub or you for credit.

So for you this might come out to an out of the gate pressing of 2,000 copies with an actual ship of 1,000. Of those you may get back 50 - 100 of them throught the next few months. The extra 1,000 copies you can have on hand for late buyers, direct consumer sales and selling direct to those whoelsalers. But just when you think you are in the clear UPS will be dropping off a package from VPD with 150 units after the film has been out for 6 months. Welcome to the world of distribution.

Again, don't know about GreenCine so I can not speak directly about if they would pay or not but in general if they are acting as a sub they will work with you about pricing, and break points are usually like for every 15 copies they get a free one and price breaks at 50 copies, 100 copies and so on. We went out with a "we don't have "two pack" discounts but we will give a fee copy for every 15 ordered".

Also if you expect the sellers to work your title they need to be happy which means swag should be thought of. Titles being offered with any POP material move lot better than those with none. Also an unwritten thing with most distributors is advertising in their weekly and monthly mags. You advertise and they try a little bit harder. We did not do ads, we didn't play the game - however in a comprimise we worked it out with VPD that they would run a B/W ad in their monthly selects listing and we gave them 100 copies. And FWIW we cut off ties with them because they demanded we take back 75 copies for credit on one title. They only moved about 20 copies of that title for us and the 100 above that were payment for an ad - we refused them when UPS tried to deliver them. So they sent them our sub and they called and were furious that we would refuse them. I held my ground and said "So if we had paid cash for that ad would they be offering us 95% of the money we paid for the ad back?" Anyhow - it is a nasty world out there and you need to seriously think about the DIY mode unless you have at least $45,000.00 to invest in it the first year to get it rolling.

Why so much? Just a few basic reasons:

1> Duplication
2> Printing of covers for the DVD (And VHS release if you are doing one)
3> Screeners
4> Shipping
5> Advertising
6> Cost of designing any POP materials (posters, mini-posters, promo stills, etc)
7> Cost of any "in store" personal apperance fees.
8> Office supplies
9> Phone bills
10> travel expenses
11> trade show expenses.
12> Any sort of legal fees