Indie Filmmakers Fight Bandwidth Costs

A few months back the horror web was besieged with stories about "Survive The Outbreak", an interactive zombie short film that put you, the viewer, at the controls of the main characters. It was essentially a "choose your own adventure" horror film, that I might add was very impressively designed.

Well, once the horror community picked up on it it took off like wildfire, and thousands of people ended up discovering the interactive short. You'd probably think that would constitute something of a "break" for the people behind "Outbreak", right? Well, that might have been true if it weren't for the crippling bandwidth costs. The people over at Jawbone have put together a very interesting article on the issue, discussing how Youtube is still the best bet for projects like this. Of course, that leaves all the bandwidth costs to Youtube, a company that countless people have written about not making any money and having a slim chance of surviving in the long run itself.

Either way, here's an excerpt from the article. You can read the full piece here.

“We've been spending anywhere from $500 per month to $4,500 per month, depending on the traffic,” claimed Lynn Lund, Producer at SilkTricky. “As you can imagine, it adds up. We've spent about $20,000 in hosting alone since we launched in September [2008]. Since we funded this project out of our own pockets, it's been tough to keep the site afloat.”

Eric N

Co-Founder / Editor-in-Chief / Podcast Host

Eric is the mad scientist behind the BGH podcast. He enjoys retro games, tiny dogs, eating fiber and anything whimsical.