# BigScreamCDs feedback



## BigScream (Mar 22, 2006)

Hello--

I'm new to the forum so I hope I'm okay in following board etiquette here...
please check out my long-winded intro to see what crack I'm crawling out of.

Anyway---My partners and I make BigScreamCDs and Halloween Scarols. Halloween Scarols are "mulitations" of Christmas Carols, and I mention them because they certainly do fit in this section. ( bigscreamtv.com )

My specific intention is feedback-- not so much with the music but with sound-effects...I hope this fits into this section. 
We made nine different "BigScreamCDs" sound effects CDs last year. Our approach was to "untangle" all of the Halloween sound effects. Our THUNDER is on a separate CD from CREEPY MANSION or TWISTED LAUGHTER. The reason being that before everyone threw everything along with the mortician's sink into the mix. Isn't it annoying to have outdoors sounds indoors and vice-versa? Anyway, we got a lot of great feedback for doing so. So..what do we want from you?? Well--have you heard of these discs? Have you used them? Where did you find them? What's your feedback? What are your suggestions for future versions? Would you make any mixes? (We are struggling in the mass-market place and we truly need your expert insider help.) We want to make product that haunters and regular consumers both like. Please give me your feedback.

Thanks for this opportunity and forum!


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## Lurks in the shadows (Mar 12, 2005)

Welcome aboard,

I've heard several of your sound effects and used a couple discs last year. I liked the one theme per disc format. 
Great idea, great execution.

Now about the Scarols... I saw and heard them at TransWorld. Brutally honest here... I hope I never see or hear them again. I thought it was lame. I found it rather annoying after only a few minutes while I was looking around, by the time I placed my order I was really sick of it. Maybe there's a market for it, but frankly, I don't think it will be your best seller.

Keep up the good work with the sound effects, I will definitely be buying more.


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## BigScream (Mar 22, 2006)

*Thanks & when were you at Transworld?*

Thanks for your brutal honesty. 'sorry you were annoyed...it's definitely an acquired taste and not in everybody's "genre."

Did you hear 'em at Transworld earlier this month or last year? We didn't attend
with our distributors this year, and I was curious if they even had our stuff on display.

Thanks-
-Bill


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## Lurks in the shadows (Mar 12, 2005)

This year's show. 
First Imperial Trading Company had a display of your products up front facing the aisle. a lot of people stopped to check it out, but the $300 minimum order chased most away.

You make the "Extreme Haunted Home Make-over", right?
That disc has all the stuff that's on the individual "Boo-It-Yourself" discs, doesn't it?
I thought the "Boo-It-Yourself" discs needed more than one how-to on them to make them worth the price.
The "Extreme H H M-O" looked like a decent deal for people who are interested in creating better than average yard decorations.

Have you considered an advanced home haunter how-to? Maybe an intro to timers and controllers, basic pneumatics and motor operated armatures, lighting and audio, latex and it's myriad uses, foam carving, faux finishing, etc...


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## Rich B (Sep 23, 2005)

How about a thunder disk with right and left channels time shifted just a bit?? Many of us use color organs to trigger a lightning effect based on sound input (Target carried these devices last year for $20, worked great!!) By time shifting the l/r channel you can have the thunder go off in one channel and then a moment later the other channel can be used to trigger the lightning effect. perhaps a series of thunder tracks with differing time shifts?

I admit I don't have any of the sound effects disks but upon further review, these look like great discs, I may have to add all of them to my library this year!!

I love the concept of the theme disk with one theme, this allows us greater control, and allows those of us who custom mix our own effects the ability to loy tracks on top of these too..


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## BigScream (Mar 22, 2006)

*Xtreme HHMO / Thunder*

Rich B: That's an excellent suggestion on the Thunder.

Lurks in the shadows:

Well...this is the first we heard about a whopping three hundred dollar minimum order. (This is the first show we did not attend with FITCO.) I'm totally alarmed by this and will be contacting them immediately after I finish here. Whoa!

Yes...We make the "Extreme Haunted Home Make-over"
Yes...Most of the "Boo-It-Youself" single-project DVDs are cut out from the "Master" XHHMO.
What the hell price were they selling the "singles" for? The entire idea behind that was almost like "Itunes" --dirt cheap. To make the DVDs an "impulse-buy" item at check out. "Hey, it's three bucks...I'll take it." It is a different approach. We definitely did not target this for the haunters, but for the lightweight consumers that just impulse buy stuff. We also needed to do it because as many of you know, the vendors never really put this product out last year. Party City had XHHMO hidden under their counters and if you asked for it they'd pull it out. Then at the end of the year they had the nerve to tell us the "sell-thru" wasn't high. Talk about BIG SCREAM! Anyway, we're trying to cater to the way vendors sell stuff. If it's a low-cost impulse item, they'll take hoards of it without asking any questions. They don't care. "A DVD for a buck! We'll take a hundred!". If it's a 9.99-14.99 DVD, they will conduct investigations that rival the FBI & CIA and then still leave you without a sale.

We've gotten nothing but high praise on the original XHHMO DVD..which actually surprised and delighted us 'cause it was the haunters that wrote us even though we designed it for "everyone". The unfortunate surprise was that regular consumers never found it. 

Advanced stuff:

There are a few advanced haunter DVDs out there...at least I believe the projects
are very huge undertakings. (Mostly big construction, not so much timers or controllers.) They intimidatedeven me and I can't get pretty radical. One that covers everything you mentioned would really be great! We still lean towards consumers and maybe "prosumers" with our current stuff. In any case, we will not produce another huge project like that until we get our marketing and sales straightened out. 'good idea though. There's so much we'd like to do. Oh..time and money.

Thanks for your information and suggestions. And do let me know if you remember the price on the single boo-it-yourself DVDs.
-B

__________________


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## Frighteners Entertainment (Mar 14, 2006)

BigScream said:


> Rich B: That's an excellent suggestion on the Thunder.
> 
> Lurks in the shadows:
> 
> Well...this is the first we heard about a whopping three hundred dollar minimum order. (This is the first show we did not attend with FITCO.) I'm totally alarmed by this and will be contacting them immediately after I finish here. Whoa!


This is because they were at a wholesale show.


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## Lurks in the shadows (Mar 12, 2005)

It just so happens that I do...

The "singles" were $2.50 each, minimum purchase of 12 identical discs. I thought that would be a good retail price, not wholesale.
$2.50-$3.00 PoP impulse sale... sure.
Since the mark-up for small items is usually twice the wholesale price, and the XHHMO was $6.00 (min. 12), I thought "Who's going to spend $5 for one when $12 will buy them all?" Even if the XHHMO was going for $25 it would still be a much better deal.

Now, an advanced prop/effect instructional would be great in the "single" format. Being more complicated, it would entail more information, justifying the higher cost.

About distribution, have you contacted bookstores? Call the XHHMO an instructional video magazine, it's sized to fit a magazine rack. Borders, Barnes and Noble... big-time visibility!

There are a few "more advanced" instructional videos, but most that I've seen were crap. Poorly produced, inadequate lighting and audio, weak content, that sort of thing. I think with your name recognition and reputation, a "more advanced techniques" video would do fairly well, particularly after you get XHHMO distributed and displayed better. (Volume 1 basic, Volume 2 advanced...?)

While I really didn't like the content of Halloween Scarols, I'll admit that it, as well as all your products, are very professionally done. Your productions show that a great deal of planning and effort was put into them. I wouldn't wonder about the quality of a new product from Big Scream TV.

Yes, TransWorld is a wholesalers show, but the $300 minimum order policy turned a lot of customers away. There are an awful large number of us small-timers, and we do affect the market, the owners of TransWorld are starting to realize this, hence the Haunted Attraction Show. It was designed to appease the uber-stores (Rubies), by getting us out of the way, yet still allow the huge number of smaller purchases/sales to go on. I heard a couple of vendors say that they will be upstairs in the future. Those small sales must add up to something. But if F.I.T.Co is too big to bother, fine. Their loss, somebody else's gain.

You're very welcome, Bill! I only wish more companies actually solicited feed-back. It's good to see that someone realizes customer service equals satisfied customers, which create more sales, resulting in happier everybody!

Matt


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## BigScream (Mar 22, 2006)

Thank you so much for taking time to lay out all the info and feedback!

I have to agree with you on everything you said. I'm disappointed to hear that
the singles broke five bucks....I could sort of see $4.99....but $3.99 would be
perfect. I guess we'll see how this plays out. I didn't hear back as to how they sold at the show.

If we can just get XHHMO to do "fairly well" we'll consider the "advanced" volume II. We're actually considering doing an Xtreme Xmas Make-Over next....that's a whole other story.

The bookstore idea is a very good one. I might just take a peek at that. From other experiences I've had with bookstores, it may be either a tough or too risky a sell. They like to buy six items and then return them if they don't sell. It's high maintenance and risk, but maybe a holiday item would be different. Thanks for the idea.

Thanks for the praise on our production value. We really do put a lot of planning, work, and heart into our stuff. It's what we would want to use and see. .. And it's a labor of love...otherwise we never would have made it this far. The amount of work is also why we're pulling back a little this year -rather than making new stuff, we're re-packaging and looking at marketing. We do hope to make a few "professional" BSTV DVDs come this Halloween (other Eyes, Scarier content, etc.) It's going to be a matter of available time.

When we started with FITCO, their policy pretty much was "there's no such thing as too small a vendor or sale." Now, they are the largest suppliers to Party City and others. This results in less attention to the smaller buyers. It also means less attention to the smaller product creators...like us. We're all just gonna have to find what works out best for each of us in the end. Perhaps the web will eventually be all of our salvation from distributors and miserable stores (we had huge disapointments with the "mass" stores....but the mom & pop operations LOVE US & we love 'em right back.)

Again, many thanks.
-B


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## boyjim1976 (Oct 23, 2004)

I have all of your DVD's (although I had to order the Scarols and make-over DVD's direct from your website last year). I went to several Spirit/Spencer's and Party City stores here in Dallas, and no one had them, at least that I could find.

I've really enjoyed the quality and production value of the DVD's. People are so multi-media oriented now, that your product adds a much needed "contemporary feel" to my Halloween celebrations!

I did see your sound FX CD's in several places last season, but didn't purchase any... mostly because of my previous bad experiences with sound FX CD's. The CD's I've purchased in the past have had bad music mixed in, or poor quality audio, or... well you get the idea. Although the cost would probably be too much, it would be nice if the stores had a small kiosk that played samples from the CD's, kind of like the set-up Spencer's/Spirit had for your DVD's the last two years. It's hard to sell the quality of audio CD's when they are sitting on a shelf wrapped in plastic.

I look forward to seeing (and hearing) what your amazingly creative minds come up with for future Halloween seasons!

Jim


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## BigScream (Mar 22, 2006)

*Spirit/Spencer's and Party City stores / Audio CDs*

BoyJim1976:

Don't get us started on Spirit/Spencer's and Party City stores! Oh the HORROR! They don't display stuff, then they tell us stuff didn't sell....and that's the least of the hassles. Big Chains are Big Pains!

I just wanted to let you know that you can in fact listen to excerpts from the audio CDs on-line!!!
http://bigscreamtv.info/bigscreamcds.html

It would be great to have listening kiosks in stores....alas, that's up to the distributor, and typically, the "masses" don't care all that much. We do, and we know our customers do. It's an uphill battle.

And Thanks for the praise!
-B


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

Where would one purchase your CDs now? Or are we going to have to wait until the season rolls around?


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## BigScream (Mar 22, 2006)

*Purchasing CDs*

Oh, I hate to say it....but I think you'll have to wait for the season to roll around.
We ourselves have NO CD product on hand. The distributor is manufacturing the next batch for next Halloween....they will not be available 'til late summer.

If anyone out there knows of any web stores that have 'em. Please let us know!

Thanks-
-B


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

I ran upon a great steal! A guy had the Big Scream CD 9 ~ Twisted Laughter, on auction and I grabbed it for only TWENTY- FIVE CENTS! Brand new, still in it's package. I'm listening to it right now and it's insane! LOL! In fact, I guess the outside world would think ME insane for sitting here listening to it. I can't wait to use it.


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## Rich B (Sep 23, 2005)

*Store?*

Hey Big Scream - when's the online store gonna open???


Any new cd's DVD's this year??


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