indie movie producer looking for advice....

quietwaterfilms

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Hi all

Jeff Bach here. I am one of the owners of Quietwater Films in Madison, WI.

I'm here looking (writing??) for advice. We do paddlesports movies - canoe, kayak and most recently kayak fishing. We had a booth last year at a paddlesports expo and I had a gentleman with two cochlear implants (sp?) come up and ask me why none of our films were closed-captioned. I had no answer. A year later I am still searching for an answer on how to handle what I think is an underserved market.

To be clear.....I am a greedy capitalist. I think I can make money by selling closed captioned canoe and kayak movies to people that are deaf and/or hard of hearing. I think this is an underserved market.

I think I can based on "gut feel". But I don't know. Which is why I'm here asking: Do you all think there are enough deaf and hearing-impaired people who paddle canoes and kayaks that would buy closed captioned DVDs on those topics?

Companies that I pitch for captioning sponsorship kind of like to see numbers that give them an idea of market size and how their captioning sponsorship dollars would get their brand/logo/likeness in front of "x". Personally, I would like to have some idea of market size before I commit $$, time and resources to putting captioning into my movies. But I don't know what that "x" is, and I have not yet found any meaningful data on the deaf community in terms of size and purchasing power. For me, economic reality is that I cannot afford to just "do it". Captioning is expensive for a small budget. The risk of doing something that could be 10%+ of my budget prevents me from outright doing it, unless I know the marketplace for that particular feature. Should I do it?

Is the deaf and hearing-impaired demographic underserved? My perspective on this marketplace is just starting to form and could be much better formed based on what you all tell me about this market.

thanks!
Jeff Bach
Quietwater Films
 
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