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September 21 2011
Man-Child the passion behind the story
The following is a guest post by Koo.
I’m currently crowdfunding my first feature film, and rather than pitch it to you, I’ll first share this “multimedia lookbook” that I put together. My project, a youth basketball feature entitled Man-child, is participating at Independent Film Week in New York this week and I assembled this clip to help producers understand what I’m going for aesthetically with the film. It’s just a combination of clips from other films paired with a voiceover, but it should give you some idea of what I’ll be going for:
Okay, so how did I arrive at this point and why am I making this movie?
After co-directing the “urban western” web series The West Side with Zack Lieberman, we got an agent in LA and attempted to get a larger interactive project made in Hollywood. One lesson we learned in this process: you can spend a lot of time knocking on doors, taking meetings, and putting together pitches and assorted documents. When you set out to be a filmmaker and tell stories that you’re passionate about, however, these aren’t the activities to which you aspire. You’re not getting better as a storyteller because you’re not telling stories.
I knew coming out of that experience that I wanted to tell a story I was personally passionate about, and so I set about researching and writingthe script forMan-child.And if you’re going to crowdfund a film, it has to be a project in which you’re personally invested. Great example: Zak Forsman’s campaign to make a feature about his father. I grew up playing basketball in North Carolina and so the story of Man-childis definitely personal to me.
Why this is a story worth telling
Man-child takes place in the surprisingly high-stakes world of youth basketball. Sometimes referred to as grassroots basketball, the fascinating world (largely unseen by the general public) has been getting younger and younger in its corporatization. Middle schoolers are now nationally ranked and shoe companies sponsor teams and tournaments in an effort to be the first to discover the next Michael Jordan (and sign him to an unwritten contract).
In response to this, in 2009 the NCAA lowered the age limit on who can be considered an official basketball prospect to include 7th graders. They did this in an effort to protect kids from unregulated recruiting.
This world is compelling to me for a number of reasons. We’re talking about kids for whom the sky is the limit, but more often than not they have very little in their lives right now. Thus they (and their families) are more easily won over with offers of money, free shoes, and the other benefits that street agents, coaches, and other hangers-on offer them.
The fact is that the vast majority of talented teenagers will never make it as professional athletes, but it’s more than just a matter of athleticism: it comes down to the decisions they make. These are decisions that few of us have ever had to face, much less at such a young age. This is why I find the world of youth basketball to be so interesting from a dramatist’s perspective: big decisions for little kids.
Why I’m crowdfunding the film
First off, that part about knocking on doors — there’s nothing wrong with trying to get your film funded in a traditional manner. But as someone who’s spent 18 months sharing everything I possibly can about filmmaking on my website NoFilmSchool, I felt if I could get my readers behind the project that it could be a film that’s enabled by a community that actually wants to see the film, as opposed to an executive that thinks the film will be profitable. I want to make a basketball movie about real-world, quiet moments as opposed to big melodramatic set-pieces, and I didn’t feel the Powers That Be would be interested in making the film that I want to see.
Will we make it? I don’t know. The goal is an ambitious $115,000 — sports movies are logistically complex and expensive to make, unfortunately — and there are only a few short days left. Check out my campaign video if you’re interested and good luck with your own personal passion projects!
Koo co-wrote, directed, shot, and edited the “urban western” web series The West Side, which won the Webby Award for Best Drama Series. He is one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Film and runs the website NoFilmSchool, which focuses on DIY filmmaking and independent creativity; Man-child will be his first feature.
September 07 2011
CONNECTED with Tiffany Shlain
We caught up with Tiffany Shlain as she prepares to release her newest feature, CONNECTED “An Autoblogography about Love, Death and Technology.” A DIY pioneer, Tiffany is always at the forefront of utilizing interesting and innovative ways to reach and engage audiences. Starting next week CONNECTED makes its way to screens nation wide after a successful festival run.
What made you decide to make the film CONNECTED?
Fifteen years ago, I founded The Webby Awards because I was fascinated by how the Internet was connecting people all over the world in new and unexpected ways. And being so interested in the ways things are connected, I it always struck me how so many of the conversations about the problems of our day were discussed as separate challenges. Whether the environment, women’s rights, poverty or social justice, it became more apparent to me that that when you perceive everything as connected, it radically shapes your perspective. The concept of interdependence has been around since the dawn of humanity, but the relatively recent component of the internet has added this new layer that connects us in a fresh way, almost giving the world a new type of central nervous system.
I am a filmmaker and so decided to craft a film that would tell the story of being connected in the 21st century. I asked my father, Leonard Shlain, to be a co-writer on the project. My dad was a surgeon, but also a pioneer in writing about connections between science, consciousness, the human brain, art and civilization. His best-selling books included The Alphabet Versus the Goddess; Sex, Time, and Power; and Art & Physics. He was an incredible visionary, had a wonderful knowledge of history and I felt he would make an enormous contribution to the film. Just as we began production on CONNECTED, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. I quickly discovered that here I was writing about all these interrelationships and the one great connection I had overlooked was the emotional connection. That’s when I began the difficult process of rewriting the film to include my personal story of connection interwoven into the the bigger story of connection throughout history and where I think we are heading.
The subtitle of CONNECTED is “An Autoblogography about Love, Death and Technology.” What does the word “autoblogography” mean?
“Autoblogography” is a word we made up in order to convey that the film is autobiographical, but also has to do with technology. It also conveys the humor which is a major thread in the movie.
Is there a connection between CONNECTED and your last film THE TRIBE?
In my earlier film, THE TRIBE, I explored American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie Doll. I know, it sounds absurd. After all, what can the most successful doll on the planet show about being Jewish in American today? It turns out that Barbie was invented in 1959 by an American Jewish businesswoman named Ruth Handler. A Jewish woman created the ultimate shiksa. With THE TRIBE, I wove together archival footage, graphics, animation, humor, and even slam poetry that took audiences on a ride through the complex history of both Barbie and the Jewish people. By revealing all these unique connections, THE TRIBE explored the question of what it means to be an American Jew in the 21st century. CONNECTED employs much of the same collage visual style but explores what it means to be a human in 21st century.
Do you believe there are positives and negatives to technology?
My father loved quoting Sophocles, “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.” So, from the beginning of time, every new technology and advancement brought with them a complex mix of positive and negative repercussions as well as unintended consequences. CONNECTED addresses the potential of these new 21st century technologies, the importance of harnessing their powers, but also covers the ramifications when these new technologies take over and even overwhelm our personal lives.
I’ve started practicing what I call “technology Shabbats” with my family. Every Friday at sundown, our whole family disconnects until Saturday night. No cell phones, no internet, no television, no Ipads. No multi-tasking. We disconnect completely. Or maybe I should say we connect completely – with ourselves and each other.
I am learning that turning off technology is just as powerful as turning it on and that our society needs both. Technology can be so enticing and overwhelming, but we also need to remember how important it is to be fully present with the people you love and also be alone and quiet. The potential of technology globally and personally is exponential, but we need to know where the off switch is and when to shut it down.
So what is the ultimate goal of your film?
The goal of CONNECTED is to launch a global conversation about what it means to be connected in the 21st century. I hope that the film will be the catalyst for this global conversation. In an effort to expand the power of the film, we’ve created a robust website, facebook page where we constantly add new articles about this topic and have created an educator’s kit including conversation cards, a film guide a curriculum for educators.
In the film you say, “For centuries we have declared our independence, perhaps it’s time we finally declare our interdependence.” What does it mean to declare our interdependence?
It’s time to shift perspective. In many ways we as a species are mirroring the way we each develop as a human on this earth. We come into the world completely dependent on our mother’s and parents. As we grow up, we evolve into independent adults, live on our own and get our own jobs and provide for our own families. But this independence then brings us to a new realization of how we are connected with family, friends and community. I think we, as a species are evolving to the point where we are entering this understanding of our interdependence. Who knows if all these tools we are creating for collaborating in new ways through the internet are leading us to this understanding, or the understanding is driving us to create these tools. Technology is just an extension of ourselves. It is not separate. Regardless of what’s propelling it, these living and thinking interdependently will actually change our consciousness and help make real transformation in the world around us.
So you are optimistic about our future?
When I do Q&A’s after screening CONNECTED, I am frequently asked, “What makes you so optimistic?” I respond by saying that I believe in humans and humanity and in our innate ability to change for the better. Look at the end of slavery and apartheid, the women’s rights and civil rights movements, and other political and social transformative movements in the last few hundred years, and you can see how we are indeed evolving. There are two things that make me optimistic. We as humans are curious and we have a deep desire to connect. These two things will make us move us forward to a better place.
You are also spearheading a new project called “Let it Ripple.” What is this and how does this connect to CONNECTED?
The ‘Let it Ripple’ project will pick up where CONNECTED leaves off. We are creating a series of six short films, all tied together by the general theme of connectedness. The first film is A Declaration of Interdependence. My husband, Ken Goldberg, co-writer Sawyer Steele, and I wrote A Declaration of Interdependence, which is based on the American Declaration of Independence. Our new declaration was then posted online on July 4th and tweeted out via YouTube and we invited people from all over the world to submit video of themselves reading the declaration in their native language from their cell phone, laptop, whatever was handy. We also asked graphic designers and artists to interpret the words creatively and submit artwork. The submissions are blowing me away. It’s interdependence in action. The film will be made up entirely of these submissions, tied together by our animator, Stefan Nadelman, with music by one of my favorite sound artists Moby.
A Declaration of Interdependence will premiere on Interdependence Day which is September 12th at a special event near Ground Zero in New York. Every time we get an entry, I get chills watching the videos. It is thrilling to see people from all over the world declare their interdependence. We are going to edit it all down into an inspiring 3 minute movie that will be posted on the web and we are going to provide this film for free and allow different organizations and non-profits to use the film by putting their own call to action at the end. We are open-sourcing the creation of the film and hope to open source how it is used.
By sharing these messages of connectedness and interdependence, I believe there will be a positive ripple effect; sparks that help turn what we’re talking about into action. It’s all about connection.
CONNECTED opens in theaters in major cities beginning in mid-September.
*All dates below start one week runs
SF: Sept 16th SF Landmark Embarcadero
Berkeley Sept 16 Shattuck 10
Marin: Sept 16 Sequoia Theater
Santa Cruz: Sept 23 Nickelodeon
Portland: Sept 23rd Regal Fox Tower 10
LA: Sept 30 premieres at The Pacific Arclight Theater Hollywood
Seattle: Oct 7th Landmark Varsity 3
NYC: Oct 14th Angelika Theater
Denver: Oct 28th Landmark Chez Artiste
Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, artist, founder of The Webby Awards and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. Tiffany’s films and work have received over 40 awards and distinctions. A celebrated thinker, she delivered the commencement address at University of California at Berkeley and is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. www.tiffanyshlain.com
July 19 2011
The 9th Dot
The following is a guest post by Kim Lessing.
Just about five years ago, Glen Trotiner, a filmmaker who’s had every job from p.a. to producer, and his buddy, Jeff Hephner, a television actor, were in bar in the East Village drunk talking about two of their favorite subjects: conspiracy theories, and fixing the world’s problems.
Somehow, that night, the two discussions became linked and a story that needed to be told began to unfold:
It began with one of their favorite conspiracy theories. Just before he died, in 1943, the 87 year-old reclusive inventor, Nikola Tesla, who had given the world alternating current, radio, radar, and x-rays, claimed to have invented a device that could produce energy from a free and unlimited source, and distribute it without wires or cables.
The device was never publicly demonstrated.
The conspiracy theory claims the device was removed from the inventor’s lab by Government Agents on the night the inventor died, and has been suppressed by the authorities for all these years.
Their story would begin almost seventy years later as two roommates, Jeff, a conspiracy theorist, and Sam, a debunker, go out in search of the one remaining surviving witness to the events of the night of Tesla’s death.
Just as the premise for The 9th Dot was hatching, Jake Wasserman, an ambitious and talented high school student, came to work for Glen as a production assistant. Jake is one of those kids born with a camera in his hands. Glen recognized his potential and immediately took Jake under his wing.
With Jake’s input on the script, The 9th Dot began to take shape (the title comes from the nine dot puzzle, developed by Disney, that tests for thinking outside the box).
The search for an actor to play Sam ended during a difficult film shoot in Maine. Ariel Shafir, who was coincidently, (or not so coincidently) playing conspiracy theorist in that very movie, read an early draft of the 9th Dot and came aboard to play Sam.
It seemed then that the project was ready for take off. Unfortunately shooting was put on hold when Glen went off to Romania to work on the movie Blood Creek.
Luckily, right after Glen returned, he learned Titan-TV, was looking for web content that could be launched into episodic material. Titian, read and loved the script and suggested it be conceived as a web-blog. Each episode would be a short segment of the investigation. The audience would be participating in real time, blogging along with Sam.
Just as the scripts were finished, however, Titan-TV stopped making original content. A disappointing blow, but like any good story, it didn’t end there.
The gang went ahead with shooting. They shot at locations all over New York City, including the New Yorker Hotel, where Tesla had died, Bryant Park, where Samuel Morse had once first shown the world the dots and dashes of Morse code at the very first New York Worlds Fair, and The Engineers Club, where Tesla had once belonged.
Soon, Jake took on the daunting task on editing, and furthered his role as a valuable collaborator. He singlehandedly created a unique look for the episodes, alternating between the handheld investigative footage with carefully crafted animations.
The finished product looks and feels like nothing ever done before; a true demonstration to the powerful content that can be created when passion meets craft.
CBS interactive saw the first three episodes and offered to pick up the series.
But then CBS Interactive was folded into CNET, so the series lacked an outlet once again.
At that point it became clear that if the project would never meet it’s full potential waiting around for the networks.
Five years after the bar stool meeting, the show is finally ready to launch, on August 1st, on it’s very own homegrown website (www.the9thdot.com).
A preview of the investigation is already up on the site, ready to watch. Self-made and self-promoted, it’s been a labor of love for all concerned and its birth is testament to power of interactive story telling in every sense of the world.
In the same way the character Jeff distrusts corporations, the 9th Dot’s creative team Glen, Jake, Jeff and Ariel want The 9th Dot and its followers to speak for themselves,
The cost of energy is still a global problem. The price of gas is still too high. And Tesla’s invention is still missing. There is much to be considered, and discussed and there is problem solving to be done. The 9th Dot is the place to listen and be heard. Above all else, we want to hear from you.
http://twitter.com/#!/the9thdot
http://www.arch-entertainment.com
May 11 2011
Facebook Marketing: The Key to Independent Film Marketing?
Today’s guest contributor is KYLE PROHASKA — CEO of Praise Pictures, a film production company primarily involved in the Christian market. His first feature film Standing Firm recently released on DVD in the USA and over a dozen foreign countries. Kyle’s skill set spans a wide range from graphic and web design to editing, coloring, compression, dvd authoring, and online marketing.
Facebook Marketing: The Key to Independent Film Marketing?
In a world bombarded by media and lower and lower budgeted products flooding the marketplace, it’s no wonder filmmakers are searching for new ways of distribution and marketing. The last ten years especially has opened up various doors for the little guy working in his moms basement. Technology has pushed the ball forward more for the indie filmmaker in the last number of years (even the last 5) than any other time in cinematic history. With movies showing up in cinemas shot on $2500 DSLR’s, it’s no wonder every deadbeat who ever wanted to make a film is now giving it a shot and throwing things up on Youtube or Vimeo. But, the same problem remains that has plagued the unknown filmmaker from the beginning of the cosmos…how to get your movie in front of people who care?
With the birth of social media, almost anybody can find an audience. That is, if there’s an audience to find. Facebook fan pages have become increasingly popular over a short span of time as everybody and their brother is making pages for their favorite things, and for filmmakers it’s the perfect opportunity to gather supporters. Email lists and things of that sort work well as well, but it’s a cold message dropped into an email box, it’s not the same. With a fan page you can regularly keep people updated about whatever it is you’re working on, comment and answer their questions, add polls to ask them questions back and get feedback, and invite them to share your films page with others. Unfortunately due to spamming and massive amounts of page invites, Facebook removed the “Suggest to Friends” feature from the site, crushing the ability to build your fan page for free. There are ways to still build it a little bit (they kept the Suggest to Friends feature for administrators), but it’s limited at best. Asking people to “Share” your status posts or the page itself is one of the few ways to spread the word, that is unless you care to spend a little money.
Lets be honest, not many filmmakers or indie-producers out there have a spare dime to spend on promotion. It all went into the spit and popsicle sticks they used to finish their film or whatever it is they’re working on. But, Facebook Ads can be a fantastic way to spread the word if you can get the costs down low enough. I don’t really suggest this for anyone who doesn’t have a product to actually sell, because your money can go down the tubs very quickly if you don’t know what you’re doing. The key is to get your sales to balance out with your ad costs, and with enough elbow grease actually get into the profit arena. I can’t spill every secret but I will give you a few tips and tricks to show you how to create an effective Facebook marketing campaign for your film.
Creating The Proper Page
Something to consider when creating your fan page that affects your ads….your page title. When you create a title for your page, it’s permanent. They won’t let you change it after a while so putting something clear in there is smart. You do need to consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when creating your fan pages. Is the title of your movie or product something unique? I know I’m stepping outside the bounds of Facebook here but that’s an important thing to consider. If your title is very unique you may have no need to put anything but the title in the page. If there’s something non-movie related that might clash with your title then putting “Movie” at the end of your title may be beneficial. Here’s why this actually matters. When you run Facebook ads for a fan page specifically, they don’t just track your clicks but your “actions.” This is how many people have become a fan as a result of your ad. This is great because then you know you’re not just paying for people that leave. This is something to keep an eye on as you run your ads and do tests because you might have a very cheap ad running and you’re getting the clicks but for whatever reason only 10% of those who click become a fan. That’s a problem so watch out! Ok, back to the title problem. The reason why the title matters is because when you run ads for a fan page on Facebook they FORCE you (yes) to use the title of the page as the title of the ad. When you do a normal ad linking to a site somewhere you can put in any title you want but with fan pages it’s different. So if your title is “The Blog_movie” it’s going to look very weird above an ad and possibly even look spammy. Be sure when you create your fan page’s name that it’s something that’ll look good above an ad if you ever plan to run them because once you choose it and build that fan page it’s PERMANENT.
How Can I Boost My Fan Base?
To do that I’ll have to look at my films page: http://www.facebook.com/standingfirm.
You’ll notice right away that we have quite a few fans, over 200,000 as of the day I’m writing this. Quite a few right? Well, that came at a cost and I’m pleased to report the cost has been made back and continues to be, but it took a number of months to get things that high even spending the money. You’ll also notice that before you become a fan you’re taken to a landing page with the trailer on it, links to buy the DVD, etc. These are very important if you have a film to market. I see many films out there with terrible trailers as well, and even if you run ads and have them point to a page like this, you could easily lose a potential customer if your trailer is awful. Not only is it rare for them to click an ad at all, but when they do they better love what they see when they get there or else they’re GONE. If you don’t have an absolutely fantastic trailer that at least grabs them in the first 10-15 seconds, do yourself a favor and either scratch the landing page altogether, or put something on it they WILL care about. FBML was an application you used to use to do these landing pages but Facebook only a number of weeks ago has swapped it out with something called iFrames. You can Google that to find more information on building landing pages. Basic HTML/CSS and graphics knowledge can be VERY useful here and you’d be surprised just how complicated these pages can get. If you want my advise, the simpler the better. People are just plain ol’ dumb sometimes when it comes to finding things and clicking on what you want them to. Just assume you’re making the landing page for your grandma and make things clearcut and easy to understand. Remember with advertising with ads you’re paying for the clicks, so what good is a click if they land on your page and go away after a number of seconds because they’re either disinterested or confused by what they’re looking at. KISS…keep it simple stupid, because that’s how most of the goofballs on the internet are. Some of you know what I’m talking about. “Click there.” “Where?” “Right there…” “Where, I don’t see anything!?” “Ugh! THERE!” ….(pause) “Oh, now I see it.”
You get the picture. 
Before I began running actual advertising for my page I did get the page up to 16,000 fans. This is done various ways and now with the removal of the “Suggest to Friends” feature it can get even tougher. Also, you need to target those who will actually care about your film. What good is having your best buddy as a fan of your film if he doesn’t plan to pick up a copy? 200,000 fans means nothing if nobody goes and purchases a DVD. Also, you can have all the fans in the world on your page and even pay thousands of dollars for them but have absolutely no activity on your page. There are pages on Facebook with hundreds of thousands of fans that barely get any “Likes” or comments on their status posts because the active users who are fans is zilch. You need to keep the page moving and keep those who are fans interested.
It won’t take any of you very long to notice that my film is a Christian film so therefore I’m going to be looking for people who have purchased other Christian products in the past. If you’re doing advertising that means targeting other Christian movies (of if you’re doing a normal movie that’s about something like Surfing, you’d target surfing movies). A very simple concept really, but it’ll all depend on the product you have for sale. Lots of people overconfident in their film will target people they think are the buyers and get frustrated when they don’t get results. This is something you should be thinking about before you even make a film but I’ll say it anyways…KNOW YOUR MARKET. Who’s the film for? Who’s the buyer? If you don’t know then find out first then come back to this article, otherwise none of this will do you much good.
OK, back to what I was saying about keeping people interested. This can be done in a few different ways. I’m using my film as an example because in the Christian market I have a lot of things that I can use to keep people interested and interacting with my posts. Bible verses, quotes from theologians, quotes from people in the film, testimonies from views effected by the movie, requests for prayers for those on the page who might ask for them, etc. I’ll admit it’s a lot easier in the market I’m in to keep the page active. But, I understand almost everyone likely reading this isn’t in that arena so I’ll try and offer some alternatives and a few warnings. Warnings first.
One thing you want to avoid is making every single post you put up about where to buy your DVD and how important that it is they go out and get a copy. Is that the whole reason you’re marketing things yes, but after a while you’ll just be a salesman alone to people and not someone they want to interact with. Have you ever hidden anyone off your News Feed because they drive you crazy? If so then you can see how pitching “ZOMG BUY MY MOVIE ITSZA BEST!” can get a little annoying. I like to post every 24 hours but if you can’t every few days can be ideal for a page.
Another thing to avoid is attaching links to posts. Now I don’t mean posting links in general but actually attaching them. When you post a link into a status you’ll notice that special box appears that puts the title of the page in there, normally chooses a picture from the page and the description is embedded. These can be good for very rare circumstances but take it from me, the performance and number of impressions your status post will get goes down significantly, especially when your page grows to a significant amount. Most viruses on Facebook show up in the form of those embedded picture links, so be aware of that. That reason alone is enough for me to stay away from them overall since I know people are becoming less and less likely to click on things out of fear. To avoid the attaching of a link when you put it into a post, click the “Status” link again after pasting the link into the status and the attach box will disappear. It can also help to put in short links so you don’t scare off your customers. Long links (particularly from sites that sell DVDs like long Amazon.com links) can just look spammy by appearance.
Posts that are short, sweet, and to the point get the greatest response rates. Anything long-winded and tedious goes in one ear and out the other. If anyone ever has to hit “See More” on one of your posts, don’t expect a very big response. The more things they have to do to see your message, the less people you’ll impact. People are way too lazy most of the time to click “See More” when they’re quickly browsing their News Feed.
I suggest a site like Bit.ly to shorten your links. Listen to me though, assign custom links to each of them. If you think an Amazon.com or other kind of link like that is spammy looking try some of those short links that look like an expletive spelled out like in Looney Toons. Give them logical customized links that people can understand. The one I put at the end of a lot of my posts or when I share where to buy my DVD at is http://bit.ly/sfbuydvd. It’s easy for people to read, and it has “buydvd” in it which tells them what it’s for. The benefit of using these programs is also so you can track how many clicks they get and where they come from. My suggestion for you is to pick one single link to give people, shorten it and customize it, and then use that link ALONE for everything. Facebook, Twitter, emails you send to your mom, etc. This way you start to build a network with the link and whoever wants to share the film with others will be using that link as well so you can continue to track the clicks and where they’re coming from. You don’t have to do that but I suggest it because it’s been helpful to me.
By the way, I know I said not to pitch your DVD in every post but I meant more specifically. I tag the link on the end of my posts because most of the time I have people on the page who haven’t even seen that link yet, and every single time there’s a handful that click it, and always a handful that buy it.
HOT TIP: If you’ve made a film and have exhausted the “Suggest To Friends” link with your own friends, contact anyone who worked on the film that you trust (make sure of that) and explain to them that you want to make them an administrator temporarily on the page. Once they’re added they can use the “Suggest To Friends” link themselves and invite their friends. This is a quick backdoor way to get a couple thousand or more invites to the page by those who were involved with the film. As far as I know Facebook doesn’t have a limit on how many admins you can have or how much you can add/subtract them and put new people in so you could do this with quite a few people. It’s a good way for free to advertise the page initially and get a kickstart.
Running Facebook Ads
How about the ads I keep talking about? I’ll only talk about those briefly because this article is already running long. Facebook ads can cost you a ton of money if you get things wrong, so be prepared to monitor them at first almost all day to make sure you aren’t blowing your money. Before you even think about running an ad you need to consider your market and who you should be targeting. Do you want to target just those who will be interested or those who will be interested but are also the more likely buyers? You need to decide that depending on the needs of your project. In my case I started primarily targeting women 45+ as they are the majority buyer in the Christian market. Even with movies made for teens or men, the women are typically the ones going out and picking up the movies while they grocery shop, or if they buy it online they’re the initiator most of the time. Women are the pathway in the Christian market to reach the other demographics (at least that’s my opinion). So you need to know who you need to target and why.
Then you need to determine if you want to run CPC (cost per click) ads or CPM (cost per impression) ads. The difference between them you can go look up on Google but I’ll just tell you they both have their strengths and weaknesses. If you expect an amazing click through rate (I would say anything above 0.3% is doing pretty good) then CPM might actually keep your costs low. However on ads where your CTR is very poor CPM will just eat your money away. CPC can eat your money as well if your bid is too high and you’re paying 50 cents or even a dollar a click. That’s no way to market on Facebook especially when you’re probably keeping a couple bucks from your DVDs and that’s it. I would say you should get your costs down to $0.10 per click at a minimum if you want a really great ROI (return on investment) but that’s just my suggestion. You can be higher and still make a profit if those you are targeting are buying your product.
The ad itself is important and you would be surprised what affects the CTR’s most. The picture is the biggest eye catcher you can have. The text and even the title of the ad are secondary. Why do you think they put pictures of attractive women on there even if the ad is about something more general? They know men will click it. Honestly even if you’re targeting women, they respond to a woman’s picture more than a mans (in my experience) because they relate. Men click on ads with women on them because they’re attractive, women aren’t the best to grab that way. Choose pictures that your target market whom your shooting the ads at will respond to. Also don’t get too stuck on making the ad particularly fit the film or project. Sometimes it should but it doesn’t always have to. As long as what they see when they click on the ad isn’t TOO different from what they saw a picture of you should be fine, but your only goal is to get them to click, not to give them a rundown of your whole movie or product. JUST GET THE CLICK.
The title of the page as I stated at the top of this article is very important so make sure you choose wisely. The next would be the text which can be very annoying and coming up with something good can be hard. A call to action is always good because it initiates the buyer to click but all of this can fluctuate depending on your film. If it’s a chick flick then put something mushy in there and if it’s a horror movie put something about how great a horror movie it is. The options are endless and honestly I can’t give much advise here. You’ll need to experiment because none of this is cookie cutter. You need to do tests and see what performs the greatest, but make sure you don’t burn through your money doing it! The closer the text, title, and image relates to those you’re targeting the better.
As somebody who has spent a hefty sum on Facebook ads for myself and other people, I will tell you that the lower you spend per day the less performance you’ll get. That doesn’t mean that things won’t go great, but you’ll be limiting thing significantly. The ad system on Facebook is very organic and gives favor to those who spend more. If you just start doing ads you might notice it can take forever to get an ad approved but when you’re a big spender it can be in a matter of a minute or less. Also when you run ads and put up bids you’re waiting for impressions which puts the ad on the sidebar of those you’re targeting. The lower your daily budget per day along with the bid you put in for each specific ad will have a big effect on how much exposure your ad gets. It can be tough to even get an ad jumpstarted with a budget that’s very low since you can’t get enough system favor due to the low amount. I’ve had ads where I set my daily budget too low, kept my bid the same, increased my daily budget and the ad shot off like a rocket. The goal here to get an ad moving and then milk it for all its worth as you slowly lower the bid and move it into what I call the “sweet spot.” I’ve had ads get down to very low CPC amounts after weening them down over a small period of time, and then they coast for a long time and the costs sometimes stay consistent and even go down in a lot of cases. This is why if you only have $100 to spend you won’t get very far, because you’ll never be able to spend enough in the long run to get your ads performing like that. Or your daily budget is set so low that your ads never are given the time to mature.
To sum up what I mean, the less you spend the more expensive your ads are likely to be. Sounds stupid? You bet it is! But that’s the way it works. Because you aren’t spending enough to allow mature ads to bubble to the surface out of all your tests, they’ll cost much more per click unless you “strike oil” which many ads I’ve done have and they become a mature ad almost immediately. Granted, I’m targeting enough people with the ad in my market that it can continue to give the ad impressions without the ad showing up too many times to the same person so that does affect things as well.
If you’re budget is extremely low (in the hundreds) then I’m not so sure spending it here is your best option. Lower budgeted projects would benefit more from the CPM type ads because you get impressions no matter what because of your bid while CPC ads don’t give you impressions at all unless your bid is high enough. If you have a really awesome CTR and you’re running CPM ads you could actually stretch $100 or a little more pretty far, but those times are likely and it always takes some time and money to learn how to do that. Plan on blowing some dollars to learn this stuff because every ad is different and every product/film is different.
Closing Statements
I hope this article has been helpful. I couldn’t spill all the beans here or else I would’ve written a book (perhaps I should?) and although things might be a tad confusing for some, I tried to pack as much helpful information into this as I could. If there are any questions you can email me at kyle@praisepictures.com but just beware I get a ton of emails and yours can get lost in the cracks. Some emails I just have to ignore as well because either I could sit there forever just answering emails, or I can go make a movie and make a living. I’m also available for hire in this arena so any companies or people with films they want to try and spend some dollars on, hit me up!
Adios,
Kyle Prohaska
My Networks:
http://www.twitter.com/kyleprohaska
http://www.praisepictures.com
http://www.kyleprohaska.com
http://www.standingfirmmovie.com
May 03 2011
Golden Rules: Running an Independent Film Screening Series
In 2009, as a reaction against an increasingly corporate-ized and fractured media landscape, I decided to start an independent film screening series. My friend and colleague Georgi Goldman was also enthusiastic about the idea, and together we began running a monthly film series in Los Angeles: Cinema Speakeasy.
The purpose of Cinema Speakeasy was to be the filmic equivalent of the slow food movement (but a heck of a lot less boring). We aimed to process films rather than quickly consume them. Positioning CS a not-for-profit organization, I was quite set on divorcing ourselves from the intervention of brands and sponsorship in the belief that – in this particular case – other people’s marketing strategies would corrupt our intention. Thus, we were to serve as advocates for the arts in a space that was separate from corporate commerce, all while showing people a good time.
With that said, we also hoped to create an alternative and non-inflated marketplace for independent film cause let’s get real for a second: We all have rent to pay. Willingly forgoing corporate support, and not keen on the virtual trumpeting that is crucial for successful IndieGoGo or Kickstarter campaigns, we needed to find alternate ways of creating this self-sufficient revenue stream for ourselves and our filmmakers. We hoped, simply, to survive – and to help filmmakers survive – without selling out. To do this, I believed that we needed a few things: A consistent audience, good programming, and a low overhead. Attaining those things, then, became the organization’s main goals.
We are now approaching Cinema Speakeasy’s second anniversary, with a recent expansion into San Francisco with the wildly popular CS:SF events. I wanted to share some of what we have learned in running this film series over the course of the last two years: The things that have allowed us to survive (and perhaps even modestly thrive?) in a very bad economic climate for the arts. Here, then, are my golden rules for running an independent film screening series.
Golden rule number one: Maintain a not-for-profit attitude, but make sure the organization can pay for its expenses.
When we started CS I plastered ‘we give all our revenue to the filmmakers and the venues’ all over the place. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Although we have maintained that policy thus far, we are going to change it for the simple reason that we need to pay for things like web hosting, promotional materials, advertising. If we don’t pay for those things, we limit our reach, which does a disservice to the filmmakers when no one shows up to their screening.
Having said that, it’s no secret that it’s devilishly hard to make a living while staying independent. So forget about making money, at least for the first 3 years, but don’t forget to apportion a part of whatever comes in to your organization’s survival, and to share the rest!
In practice: Don’t quit your day job, and NEVER get into personal debt for the sake of the organization. If you can’t afford to do the event, consider a different approach where it doesn’t cost so much. Keep overhead low, and be sure to split the revenue at the door between yourself, the venue, and the filmmaker – but always split the money that has come in AFTER deducting the expenses incurred in promoting the screening.
Golden rule number two: Plan for low audiences, and set realistic expansion goals.
Something I learned from my days at the Silver Lake Film Festival is that a too rapid expansion = a guaranteed disaster. It always pays to underestimate the amount of people who will show up. Slow but steady wins the race, when it comes to non-profits, and small is often more fun anyways: It’s better to have a packed-feeling small room than an empty-feeling big room.
In practice: For the first year of Cinema Speakeasy we stayed at a small venue (the amazing Echo Park Film Center) that seated about 60 people. Once we had created a consistent series of events, we dabbled with larger venues through special one-off high-profile screenings. Now, almost two years in, the organization has expanded to San Francisco (with monthly events run there by a trio of uber-dames: Fhay Arceo, Allison Davis and Kate Sullivan Green), and we are starting to regularly expand to new larger venues in LA. Our larger events, which we typically do at a rate of one per quarter, are working because we have slowly built the audience to support this expansion, and because we are cautious and conservative about numbers and expenses.
Golden rule number three: Keep your eye on quality
It’s one thing to have a democratic approach, it’s quite another to show any old thing. That’s what YouTube is for.
Do not forget to maintain a level of quality. If you show ‘bad’ films, even your best friends will stop showing up, not to mention strangers. You won’t be able to grow an audience, and you will ultimately do a disservice to the filmmakers whose work you show.
However, if you gain a reputation for showing good content- as independent as you please but always to a certain standard (those standards are yours to decide) – you will gain a following and people will be honored to be included. It’s curation, and you can interpret it as you will, but do not forget to set standards – whatever they may be for you – and stick to them.
In practice: This is a golden rule I have had a hard time with, myself, and it’s only through my colleague Georgi’s prodding that I’ve begun to see the light on the value of saying no no no. It’s very hard to balance open access with good content, but it must be done.
In practice, also, if you have a lot of filmmaker friends who you want to support through your organization, consider implementing a ‘friends and family’ sub-series- an open call facet to your screening event, where you provide an audience to people just starting out, or whose work is challenging. Keep it separate from the main curated event, and do these at small venues.
Golden rule number four: Be open to oblique approaches
Be open to other mediums as a way of bringing attention to film, and this sometimes may include non-indie film. We’ve found this to be an excellent way to bring new audiences to our programming. Although every effort should be made to engage fellow filmy types, do not focus entirely on the indie film community. It’s small, it’s self-referential, and it’ll limit you.
In practice: Cinema Speakeasy has partnered with art galleries, music venues and other such entities to create two-part programs around a film. For instance, we did a potato-type ransom note workshop at a local gallery in Los Angeles (Machine Project), and partnered with a local design community (Kernspiracy) to get people interested and thinking about typography. This was all in support of our screening of Kartemquin Film’s ‘Typeface’.
This, and other oddball events such as the Tranimal Makeup Workshop (that we produced, and was curated by artist Austin Young, as a part of our ‘Ultra Fabulous Beyond Drag’ screening event), have been incredibly successful at bringing new types of people to our events, and many of them have come back and proposed some awesome ideas of their own.
Golden rule number five: Get the F off the internet, already.
Marketing. The evil reality of doing anything that requires other people in this age of brands and buzz.
One thing’s for certain, and all the talk about ‘the power of social media’ notwithstanding, I’ve found there to be a fairly low correlation between Facebook or Twitter followers and butts in seats. It’s easy to hit ‘like’, but it’s a very different experience to get in the car, look for parking, feed the meter, walk a few blocks, and watch an unknown movie. Put simply: A lot of online participation is not a guarantee that people will show up.
What makes people do THAT is good programming, the potential to meet sexy new people, and (with some exceptions) traditional media support. Not sure why, but in our experience a write-up in the local weekly means a full house, 152 retweets does not. Maybe it has something to do with reaching new people rather than the same people you already communicate with online all the time. Or maybe it’s because people trust traditional media cause they’re better curators.
In practice: Instead of focusing all your efforts on creating buzz online, just BE awesome, focus on showing your audience a good time and on actual word of mouth, and consider traditional publicity for the larger events. Use social media as a complementary strategy, but not THE strategy.
We at CS also tend to engage in teenage-like ‘marketing’ such as sticking handwritten flyers in menus at hip diners, posting stickers everywhere we can get away with it, and generally trying to get attention in the real world. It seems to be working so far, is viral in a way more tangible way, and – mainly – it feels authentic to who we are.
Golden rule number six: Allow the organization to have a life beyond you, but set the rules early
If you succeed with your organization, people will come and want to be involved. You need these people for the organization to succeed. But never forget to make sure you maintain control of your organization’s overall trajectory and vision.
What this means is that you need to set the grand vision early (a mission statement and an organizational bible will help with this exponentially). But you also need to allow for expansion, changes of ownership, in short, whatever it takes for people to want to be involved, and are able to create and implement ideas. It’s basic good management skills, and it’s probably the one thing that will keep you up at night as you grapple with your own ego, sense of insecurity, etc.
One thing’s for sure: If you impose your vision in too draconian a manner, you will lose the very people who can help propel the organization to the next level. BUT, if you do not retain some leadership, you can lose control of the organization’s vision. Not an easy thing to balance.
In practice: When I had the idea to start a film series and call it Cinema Speakeasy, I had a certain vision in mind. When the organization’s current Executive Director Georgi Goldman officially came on board – right before the first screening event – she also had a vision. We were colleagues at work and used to confrontation and adaptation, so we simply confronted and adapted our ideas to one another. Together, we set a certain tone for the organization- and we set it early.
This is, and will, serve the organization well as it enters our current expansion phase. For instance, Cinema Speakeasy’s San Francisco edition was started and is run largely autonomously by its co-directors Fhay Arceo, Allison Davis and Kate Sullivan Green (FAK!) – who have final say in their programming, venues, marketing language, etc.
But, they still also use the visual ‘brand’, as it were (set by our brilliant creative-director-of-sorts Micah Hahn), and stick to the tone of the organization, as well as certain programming guidelines. Thus they maintain an approach that is in line with the larger CS organization- and in fact, take it to the next level of cool – but still act independently of the larger organization in many arenas. It’s a balancing act, and it works out very well if you pick your partners well. Which brings me to…
Golden rule number seven: Partner judiciously
Be picky. That’s all there is to this. There are a bazillion horror stories of what can go wrong if you pick the wrong partners- and I can categorically say that I’ve lived through just about all of the bad scenarios.
As a general rule, when approaching partnerships, it helps to think of what this person/organization can bring you right now, rather than what they could potentially bring you down the road. Keep it real, and keep a focus on your current needs.
In practice: Cinema Speakeasy partners creatively with like-minded folk – not too corporate, arts-centric, and who also have their shit together. We try to find oblique approaches, as well, by teaming up with oddball venues, creating cross-promotional partnerships with groups that wouldn’t usually be so excited about indie film, etc etc etc.
I could write five pages on this, so will leave it at this: Be judicious, work with people who are like-minded, and always write out (and agree to) the terms of the partnership early on.
Golden rule number eight: Expect defeat, and then expect success
If your role is to advocate for film by finding new audiences for the indies, then your goal is quite simple: Get people in seats. Simple, right?
The truth is, there’s no science or method to what will bring people in, all these golden rules notwithstanding. A front page write-up in the local paper will definitely help, but chances are that won’t happen for awhile, especially if you’re in a big city with tons of other competing things going on. A celebrity helps too, but that also gets really cheesy really fast, and can turn into a sort of Faustian deal with the devil, right quick.
In practice: If you want to maintain and grow your audience but don’t have access to tons of press, pay really strict attention to how you present your organization both online and offline, program with an eye towards quality (see rule #3), partner with awesome people and organizations (see rule #7), make every event fun, sociable (and a little raucous), and KNOW that you will occasionally have a occasionally super empty theatre. It’s no biggie. We’ve all been there. Just smile and take amazing photos of the three people who showed up.
Golden rule number nine: Just keep going
When I was in graduate school for fine art, one of the tutors told me that in a class of 20, at graduation all 20 are practicing artists. In five years, about 10 are still practicing artists. In 10 years, 5 are still making their work. But in 20 years only one will be making his work, and that one person will probably be well-known.
Consistency pays off, especially in a field where so many people give up early. Make sure you are in a position where you can maintain your organization in the lean years (see rules 1 and 2), and keep the faith.
As they say in Havana: SUERTE, chicos!
More info about Cinema Speakeasy can be found at cinemaspeakeasy.com. A list of other amazing film programs that are thriving and surviving here in the US and abroad can be found here.
April 21 2011
Caution Tape: Competing against Macro Budgets with Nano Cash pt 1
Off the top of my skull, even reading the title immediately makes me think “Yeah right.” I think it’s a fitting (if controversial) title for the topic that’s to be talked about here. Before I begin, please, allow me to post a disclaimer:
None of this is fact, nor is it gospel. This is what my experience is at the current time of writing.
I want to share a few thoughts about what I’m trying to do with my first feature film and the reasons why I lightly heeded the warnings of a wall of Caution Tape and ducked under it to attempt to walk right into the front door. It’s a very ambitious project, the aspirations of which can be summed up with the pitch.
It’s superbad with super powers, or Harold and Kumar go High(er) concept.
To go a slight bit further, Avery and Pete: Superseeds is a gamer-generation adventure soaked in the batter that 90’s Saturday Morning cartoons were poured from. Set in Los Angeles, following slacker best-friends on a mission to stop their buddies–and enemies–from using their newfound superpowers for bad.
Right away, we’re talking about some very key elements here but, primarily, visual effects. So, not only did I have to juggle fifteen or so key cast members, ten locations that I can count off of the top of my head, and everything else that comes with the territory of a nano budget production I now have to deal with getting believable post visual effects done, something that’s worth seeing on a big screen at the very least.
I’ve failed to mention the budget, but the Kickstarter for Superseeds (which can be easily found by a google search–it was successful) reflects more than half of it, so now we’re talking sheer lunacy.
I’m literally moving away from the traditional nano budget motto, where it’s mostly one location, two to three people, a dramatic situation, etc.
I’ll spare everyone the details on production itself until a later episode, and go into the mentality behind it in bullet points:
A. There are too many nano budgets that take place in one location, with a few actors (some are good, some are not), relying on horror gimmicks or other very similar (even though well done) storylines. And, I swore I would never make a feature that opens with someone tied to a chair and bloody, no matter how easy it was.
B. I wanted to make my first one count for something serious. It needed to at least smell like I tried to play a big boys game, and competently. Aside from getting lost in the sea, it was a test for myself to see if I was worth the criticism I dished out to big Hollywood features. I’ve walked away with a newfound respect for a lot of directors and movies I hammered, regardless of if they are bad or not.
C. Even at this nano-budget, with the five years of experience here in Los Angeles, I knew I could pull it off. And, by knew, it was a gut feeling that I could make this happen one way or another. Thankfully, a lot of the key elements began to fall into place the second I made the decision to not wait for hundreds of thousands of dollars and just do it.
D. I wanted to make sure that it was worthwhile for everyone involved, from cast to crew. Form the onset, it was destined to be a small crew, a skeleton crew. The skeleton of a badger. I was going to shoot in tight spaces with a big camera(s), there was enough money to either feed a lot of people bad food or a few people decent food, and with the crew being so small I wanted each person to get a very prominent credit.
The actors needed to benefit too, and they will regardless of if I move forward. They’ll have footage on their reel of themselves as tasteful superheroes (no spandex suits here), and the production quality was going to look several hundreds of thousands times more than what the budget really was.
People needed to benefit as much as I wanted to myself, take care of everyone. This is why, after this first article, the I becomes we
E. And, most importantly, I wanted to at least break even. I didn’t hear enough stories of nano budgets getting advances,didn’t see enough of them getting into the trades like Gareth’s did or Lena’s Tiny Furniture. When I began to look at them, I noticed what the trend was.
It wasn’t necessarily that they had no star power, they just lacked a certain entertainment cog that a mass audience is looking for. Or, better yet, pays for. Production quality AND value ride along with this as well. Not a lot of people were attempting to compete with Hollywood on their own ground, with a fraction of the money. Probably for very good reason, as well. So, there is no fault or blame, I know why and I respect why.
But, I’m going to go where fewer fish school.
Rest assured, though, it doesn’t mean that it was any easier or harder for me. I am sure I experienced a lot of the blood bath that other filmmakers have, do, will. It’s just another path I wanted to take.
With the investment that’s been made (Kickstarter, My own pocket–I’m so broke right now it’s a crime, and through the gracious dollars of private investors), I knew that if it didn’t happen with a distribution deal, there was a world of self distro opening up that I could recoup the small dividends with and then open up a profit as well. Again, this goes back to having content that’s at least competently “mimicking” what Hollywood tends to churn out.
This post isn’t to tell you that I’ve been successful by doing it, it’s to bring some awareness to the project. A Case Study of something that’s not exactly mumblecore (I respect it, trust me), definitely not a star vehicle, absolutely not well-budgeted enough for what’s going on, hopefully something that inspires the other Little Macs who are afraid to jump in the ring with the Bald Bulls and Sodapopinski’s of the Film World. Ten points if you get the classic 8-bit video game reference.
Stay tuned to the New Breed for updates on progress of Avery and Pete: Superseeds. I’ll spoon-feed you info from my experience at simply trying to entertain the way the Big H-Wood does, successful or not, and what I plan to do with the property beyond simply creating a single feature film.
November 04 2010
Audience Building and Distribution EVENT hits NYC and LA
This November Distribution U returns with a stops in NYC and LA. The day long event provides a crash course in distribution and audience building. We caught up with Scott Kirsner co-founder of Distribution U to get his take on interesting trends, projects and services that are doing innovative things in the space.
WBP: What are some of the interesting trends you’re paying attention to within tech that could benefit filmmakers?
Scott Kirsner: Obviously, iPhone apps and Android apps continue to be huge. I think filmmakers collaborating with software developers (maybe at a local college) holds a lot of promise. And I just heard about a new startup called Groundcrew that’s doing neat stuff around helping you coordinate activities for people in your social networks — actually getting them to do things in the real world and participate using their mobile phones.
WBP You cover the tech industry with a focus on start-ups. How could filmmakers learn from start-ups? What are some of the takeaways that would directly apply to filmmaking?
SK: I think many start-ups try to build something cheap and simple — a prototype, or a “minimally viable product” — and then get feedback on it from the market. That’s antithetical to the way many filmmakers work, raising and spending lots of money on something, finishing it, and then seeing what people think. I’m not an advocate for letting the Internet community write your script (thought that could work for some projects), but I do think there are creative ways to get input from your target audience earlier in the process.
WBP: If you were sitting down to write Fans, Friends & Followers now what would you include that you didn’t in previous editions?
SK: Probably more examples of people who’ve not only created big networks on Twitter or Facebook, but actually used them to get people to do something, whether it’s buying an iTunes download or a t-shirt or showing up for a screening. There’s a big gap between “friending” or “following” someone and taking an action.
WBP: What do you think our the top 5 things for filmmakers to consider when taking their film to market?
SK: Oh man, I’m not sure I have a top 5 list all baked and ready to hand you. But one thing that very few films do is show they’ve built up a potential audience — a following — online before they get to their first festival, or start talking to distributors. Showing that you’ve generated 50,000 views on a YouTube channel or 5,000 Twitter followers can give you more leverage in any negotiation, since it’s a promotional platform that you can use when you launch the film.
Iron Sky
WBP What are interesting projects that you’re seeing that are doing innovative things with distribution and audience building? Can you share some links?
SK: Well, I like how much Tiffany Shlain has been giving presentations and public talks in advance of her next doc, “Connected.” She has also been posting footage and montages from the film on YouTube. I think she has some innovative distribution ideas once it gets into festivals next year. (http://www.connectedthefilm.com/Connectedthefilm/About.html) I’m also curious to see what Timo Vuorensola has up his sleeve with “Iron Sky,” where he has raised north of 300,000 Euros through crowdfunding. And I was really impressed by all of the outreach that “Winnebago Man” did to influential blogs, and what they’re doing with DVD and t-shirt sales online.
WBP: What is distribution u and why now?
SK: We did the first one last November, at USC in Los Angeles. It was a first attempt to really collect and present examples of how filmmakers have been successfully taking control of their marketing and distribution strategy, and connecting directly with an audience. That one sold out, and people seemed to think it was really helpful, in terms of helping them make new connections and think through what they would do for their next project. The New York Times did a big piece on it, too. Obviously, a lot more has happened since last November, so these two Distribution U. events will present more recent data points, and also dive in a bit deeper to crowdfunding, where we’ve seen people having more success in the last year.
For those interested in attending Distribution U see the following links
Links to register:
New York, Nov 13th:
Distribution U – NYC
LA, Nov 20th
Distribution U – LA
September 10 2010
Indie Film Capitalism #8
It’s been awhile! As politicians are heavily campaigning, attempting to add constituents money to their political coffers in return for “favors” or “supporting” their political agenda, there are many lessons to be learned on the fund raising front. Some of which I have done in the past and will be doing in the future.
PARTIES
I could cover a wall with the political meal invites I have received this season from my politician friends. Throw a party, EVERYONE loves a party especially if there’s a good reason. Over the years I have held cocktails parties, sit down dinners and “get canned with Zeke” (parties specializing in amazing canned beers) blowouts to raise funds for various film projects. Some have been successful, others not. The lessons learned: invited cast or a special guest, people need a reason to fork over their money and to get them excited. Know who you should be inviting. Aunt Lulu may not drink canned beer, she’s a draught sort of gal so invited her to the cocktail party featuring vodka X. Get brands or restaurants involved. People can identify with these things and they bring more excitement to the event. Don’t be afraid to ask just make sure there is some sort of return for them on their investment aka booze donation. Send out invitations, via mail, email, facebook events. The way you invite people should be a reflection of the type of event it is. I have raised as little as $380 to over $7,000.
CROWD FUNDING
There a couple of crowd funding sites out there where people can donate at various levels in return for perks. I really like indiegogo. They have an amazing tool kit and innovative ways to help artists achieve fund raising success. They’re also approachable and hands on. I plan on using them on my next project which I will be announcing very shortly. A friend of mine is currently using kickstarter for his innovative project the 8mm Film Project. My biggest suggestion; when it comes to crowd funding, give away perks that are unique and worthwhile and have a project that resonates with people. My wife and I were shocked when someone we did not know from California donated $500 to her Hand-Some Journey campaign.
THE ASK
Do not be afraid to ask for money outright. Send out a donation pamphlet describing your project and the different levels that people can support you. Remember fund raising is a campaign it’s an uphill battle and you need as many tool in your arsenal as possible. Be a little bold. If you believe in your project, you are the best salesperson to pitch your project and raise money for it. I have had politicians personally ask me for my financial support and I didn’t get much in return. Go to public events where you might run into people that you sent information to, follow up with them, ASK them.
SALES
Often times politicians will call on certain supporters to help them raise money by holding sales: bake sales, hunting trips, car washes, etc. Be different. Hold a Ballyhoo for a Kazoo sale! Sell kazoos outside your local supermarket. Kids will love ‘em and it will drive the shoppers crazy, thirty kids playing their kazoos in the store, imagine the sight. Really there are so many ways to sell things to raise funding.
LOCAL MONEY
Every town or city have different resources that could be used to tap into your fund raising efforts. Grants, scholarships, access to public equipment, etc. Make a list of things you will need in your budget and try to obtain the use of the item through your local community. Let’s say you need passenger vans, ask your local YMCA. You need a condor for a shot, ask your township maintenance department. It never hurts to ask and be creative in your ask, always give something in return.
I’m certain there are so many ways that politicians are raising money that we all can learn from. Over the next couple of months I will be writing about how I’m raising money for my next project. I know it isn’t going to be easy but I will share my insights and lessons as they are happening.
August 18 2010
TCIBR: Ted Hope and Katie Holly on creative producing [audio]
TCIBR returns with a special podcast featuring Ted Hope (21 Grams, Adventureland) and Katie Holly (producer of One Hundred Mornings ). Topics covered include creative producing, community curation, making films you’re passionate about as well as what it takes to sustain as a filmmaker in today’s changing landscape.
The WorkBook Project is proud to present One Hundred Mornings the winner of the WBP Discovery and Distribution Award. One Hundred Mornings opens Sept 16th at the Downtown Independent Theater in LA and will run for a week. Special thanks to our partners IndieFlix, Slamdance, The Downtown Independent Theater, Cinema Speakeasy, and CineFist.
August 09 2010
New Breed LA: Screening the Cut [vid]
For the community of working-class filmmakers at New Breed a constantly evolving creative process of telling our stories is the one thing we can count on in these changing times. Embarking on journeys through deeper methods of collaboration & engaging with fans across various platforms is certainly exciting – but one thing is for certain, the creative needs to be the driving force behind any and all approaches in order to preserve the integrity of the story (and the core reason we make our art).
In this series we begin at the beginning and explore what perhaps drew us all into making movies in the first place: the mystery of the creative process. What follows are short documentaries with creative tips, techniques, learning lessons & personal experiences from a handful of artists we encountered at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2010.
Episode Seven is titled: “Screening the Cut.” Featured in this episode are Jeff Malmberg and Ted Hope.
August 05 2010
New Breed LA: The Integrity of Story [vid]
For the community of working-class filmmakers at New Breed a constantly evolving creative process of telling our stories is the one thing we can count on in these changing times. Embarking on journeys through deeper methods of collaboration & engaging with fans across various platforms is certainly exciting – but one thing is for certain, the creative needs to be the driving force behind any and all approaches in order to preserve the integrity of the story (and the core reason we make our art).
In this series we begin at the beginning and explore what perhaps drew us all into making movies in the first place: the mystery of the creative process. What follows are short documentaries with creative tips, techniques, learning lessons & personal experiences from a handful of artists we encountered at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2010.
Episode Five is titled: “The Integrity of Story.” Featured in this episode are Julius Onah, Jeff Malmberg,Trieste Kelly Dunn & Brett Haley and Ted Hope. Check back on Monday for the remainder of the series.
August 02 2010
New Breed LA: Making People Notice [vid]
For the community of working-class filmmakers at New Breed a constantly evolving creative process of telling our stories is the one thing we can count on in these changing times. Embarking on journeys through deeper methods of collaboration & engaging with fans across various platforms is certainly exciting – but one thing is for certain, the creative needs to be the driving force behind any and all approaches in order to preserve the integrity of the story (and the core reason we make our art).
In this series we begin at the beginning and explore what perhaps drew us all into making movies in the first place: the mystery of the creative process. What follows are short documentaries with creative tips, techniques, learning lessons & personal experiences from a handful of artists we encountered at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2010.
Episode Five is titled: “Elements of Casting.” Featured in this episode are Jeff Malmberg and Brett Haley. Check back on every Monday and Thursday for the remainder of the series.
July 01 2010
Building a Better Request Tool
Recently, I’ve been keeping a close eye on tools for audience building. Several months ago I was very excited about a project, being funding through Kickstarter, called Openindie – if you’re not following Kieran Masterton on twitter already, then you should be. The site is still in beta, and what is exciting about Openindie is that it’s still finding and building it’s community: it is open to ideas and able to adapt quickly to what the filmmaking community needs.
A few nights ago I was in night-owl mode, with a moleskine and pen in hand, as I was pouring over some of the most-requested films on Openindie. Among them: Heart of Now, We Live in Public, and What’s Up Lovely. I was sketching out site designs that made use of an integrated Openindie request button. Researching which of these top-requested films on Openindie were heavily using Openindie on their film’s main site, the answer: none of them.
Which, I found very strange. But I’ll get to that below.
What I mostly wanted to talk about is: better approaches for audience building. Either for the purpose of mapping out which zipcodes have enough support + demand to schedule screening events, or for other purposes. A question I kept coming back to was “is it necessary for the audience to actually sign-up?”. Openindie does make the process quick and painless by offering Twitter Oauth and Facebook Connect – but does this benefit Openindie more than it does the film?
For example: I’ve been very interested in using twitter as the main engine behind building audience interest – asking that someone interested in FToM simply twitter the hashtag #requestFToM (for those who do not have a twitter account already, they could simply text #requestFToM to 40404). If Openindie could make use of that kind of information, I think it would be a far more powerful tool then having people navigate to a specific URL, sign-up, and then click on the request button. Any #hashtag attributed with GEO information could be mapped immediately, and any #hashtag without could be @replied back to requesting a zipcode. There is no sign-up form, there is no Oauth or Connect needed. Anyone with a cell phone that walks past your flyer on the street could immediately voice their interest.
What I would most love to see from a site like Openindie is a request tool that is 100% flexible on the filmmaker’s end. By that I mean, the request button does not change, you can grab a short piece of code and embed it anywhere you like. But from within Openindie the tool can be scaled out and adjusted in reaction to what is working best and what isn’t. As a filmmaker, what would I like to happen when the request button is clicked?
I would like the visitor to never leave the film’s site. Or if they do leave, much like Paypal, they are returned right back to where they started after the request is finished.
I would like control over what the visitor sees. Have I turned on the options for both twitter and facebook? Or am I just asking them to provide an email? Am I offering all 3 or 4 or 5 options? Does it take them straight to a pre-written twitter with the #hashtag and other important info? These should be settings that can be controlled from the Openindie dashboard without having to replace any embed script.
Once a visitor clicks the request button, that same button then reads: promote. And, of course, have 100% control from within Openindie as to what exactly happens when that is clicked. Does it take the visitor to Openindie’s list of sharing options? Or point them to a site of sharing tools still under the film’s URL? Perhaps I’m running a campaign that involves real-world action like flyers or stickers in public places and want them taken to a page walking them through that idea.
Only a tool that is 100% flexible is going to be a perfect fit for each different filmmaker.
I’m really excited about where Openindie is heading – and I’ve already pestered Kieran about some of these ideas and he seems very open to them, even more so he seems excited about talking to filmmakers and getting feedback on what tools are going to take independent film the furthest.
Building a Better Request Tool
Recently, I’ve been keeping a close eye on tools for audience building. Several months ago I was very excited about a project, being funding through Kickstarter, called Openindie – if you’re not following Kieran Masterton on twitter already, then you should be. The site is still in beta, and what is exciting about Openindie is that it’s still finding and building it’s community: it is open to ideas and able to adapt quickly to what the filmmaking community needs.
A few nights ago I was in night-owl mode, with a moleskine and pen in hand, as I was pouring over some of the most-requested films on Openindie. Among them: Heart of Now, We Live in Public, and What’s Up Lovely. I was sketching out site designs that made use of an integrated Openindie request button. Researching which of these top-requested films on Openindie were heavily using Openindie on their film’s main site, the answer: none of them.
Which, I found very strange. But I’ll get to that below.
What I mostly wanted to talk about is: better approaches for audience building. Either for the purpose of mapping out which zipcodes have enough support + demand to schedule screening events, or for other purposes. A question I kept coming back to was “is it necessary for the audience to actually sign-up?”. Openindie does make the process quick and painless by offering Twitter Oauth and Facebook Connect – but does this benefit Openindie more than it does the film?
For example: I’ve been very interested in using twitter as the main engine behind building audience interest – asking that someone interested in FToM simply twitter the hashtag #requestFToM (for those who do not have a twitter account already, they could simply text #requestFToM to 40404). If Openindie could make use of that kind of information, I think it would be a far more powerful tool then having people navigate to a specific URL, sign-up, and then click on the request button. Any #hashtag attributed with GEO information could be mapped immediately, and any #hashtag without could be @replied back to requesting a zipcode. There is no sign-up form, there is no Oauth or Connect needed. Anyone with a cell phone that walks past your flyer on the street could immediately voice their interest.
What I would most love to see from a site like Openindie is a request tool that is 100% flexible on the filmmaker’s end. By that I mean, the request button does not change, you can grab a short piece of code and embed it anywhere you like. But from within Openindie the tool can be scaled out and adjusted in reaction to what is working best and what isn’t. As a filmmaker, what would I like to happen when the request button is clicked?
I would like the visitor to never leave the film’s site. Or if they do leave, much like Paypal, they are returned right back to where they started after the request is finished.
I would like control over what the visitor sees. Have I turned on the options for both twitter and facebook? Or am I just asking them to provide an email? Am I offering all 3 or 4 or 5 options? Does it take them straight to a pre-written twitter with the #hashtag and other important info? These should be settings that can be controlled from the Openindie dashboard without having to replace any embed script.
Once a visitor clicks the request button, that same button then reads: promote. And, of course, have 100% control from within Openindie as to what exactly happens when that is clicked. Does it take the visitor to Openindie’s list of sharing options? Or point them to a site of sharing tools still under the film’s URL? Perhaps I’m running a campaign that involves real-world action like flyers or stickers in public places and want them taken to a page walking them through that idea.
Only a tool that is 100% flexible is going to be a perfect fit for each different filmmaker.
I’m really excited about where Openindie is heading – and I’ve already pestered Kieran about some of these ideas and he seems very open to them, even more so he seems excited about talking to filmmakers and getting feedback on what tools are going to take independent film the furthest.
June 21 2010
Thoughts On Audience Building
In a recent post here, Ted Hope listed “38 More Ways The Film Industry is Failing Today“; many of the questions and points made among the 38 stood out to me, and I’ve spent the last several days trying to openly brainstorm steps that could lead towards change. But today, I wanted to write about one in particular: Ted asked why we don’t encourage, or even demand, that a film build it’s audience (say, 5,000 fans) prior to production and greenlight.
For starters, I love the idea of audience builds. I think the practice of audience builds before a film gets too far off the ground would be a great shift in how we think of films, how we approach them, how to involve the audience long before they ever sit down in a theater – but it raises a few key issues:
Filmmaking is storytelling, and stories are told many different ways and take very different paths. Because of this, it might not be the best idea to mandate audience builds. One reason for this is it could, if taken advantage of, create yet another “door” that is opened easier only for some.
So the real question is, “why” take this route? If you had a fork in the road, would you, as a filmmaker, only take the path of audience building prior to production because it was the path less traveled? Or would it come with it’s own real incentives outside of “popularity”? For example, would studios honor and take seriously independent films that have done the hard work of pre-building their audiences? Or would certain grants and financial benefits kick in at such a watermark? It’s important to help build that distinction and give filmmakers real incentives at thinking of storytelling in this way: your supporters are your foundation, build that first, then your film.
This topic of audience builds is interesting to me because, as much as I agree with the idea of pre-building your supporters, I’ve been very hard at work on For Thousands of Miles for six years now, always with a strong interest in the community that can grow around a film, and I still fall short of that hypothetical benchmark of 5,000 supporters. Even with Facebook, Twitter, mailing list, Kickstarter, production-blog subscribers, Vimeo community, etc: we are not above 5,000 people. Have we overlooked the importance of forming a relationship with the audience beforehand? Does our film’s approach and idea need more work before people really begin to relate on a larger scale? And on top of this, these supporters overlap: people who follow the film on Twitter, also might be subscribed to both our blog as well as our mailing list. Which raises the questions:
How do we keep proper tally of the numbers during an audience build without counting one person two or three times? How would an outside review separate individual supporters across multiple social tools? And more importantly, who would do this validating? Should we be building stat tools and options for keeping these aggregated numbers public, letting the film’s own growing base self-check it’s own real-world size? Does this public display beg for popularity contest, where growing your numbers by any means necessary as fast as possible becomes the focus, instead of slowly and steadily reaching out to people who will really follow and support your work over the longterm?
Measurement can be relative when it comes to films, support can vary wildly depending on how a filmmaker goes about engaging people beyond their film. So how do we really measure this? Hitting a set number of followers / supporters / fans / backers could be one way, or if anything, the first step in audience building. From there it’s what you do with these people: how you involve them in the process, what they get out of supporting your project. As filmmakers we cannot change the future of storytelling without the audience’s full support – we need them to fall in love with a new “norm” of getting involved and be right there next to us when going head-to-head with the old ways of industry.
May 13 2010
Hosted Screenings – an interview with Sol Tryon
Recently, Ted Hope posted a list entitled 38 More Ways The Film Industry Is Failing Today the first point on the list focuses on building richer theatrical experiences.
1. We cannot logically justify any ticket price whatsoever for a non-event film. There are too many better options at too low a price. Simply getting out of the house or watching something somewhere because that is the only place it is currently available does not justify a ticket price enough. We still think of movies as things people will buy. We have to change our thinking about movies to something that enhances other experiences, and it is that which has monetary value. Film’s power as a community organizing tool extends far beyond its power to sell popcorn (and the whole exhibition industry is based on that old popcorn idea).
This and the other 37 points are definitely worth reading. They raise numerous questions while hinting at possible solutions. In relation to the first point that Ted raises I was struck by the fact that “Hosted Screenings” present an interesting option for those looking to roll something out in today’s theatrical market.
We had a chance to catch up with filmmaker Sol Tryon from Mangusta Productions to hear about his recent experimentation in the hybrid distribution world and how he and his team are working around a “Hosted Screenings” model for their theatrical releases.
What lead to your hybrid distribution efforts around your slate of films?
Over the past few years we have seen the independent film industry flip on it’s head. With the number of films getting big advances for all rights deals dropping drastically, it became apparent that in order to be independent filmmakers with sustainable careers we were going to have to know how to market and distribute our films ourselves. We began exploring and comparing the different options for self, hybrid and traditional distribution. Fortunately, there have been a few other filmmakers blazing these trails already giving us some points of reference to work from. For the most part though, these strategies are only being implemented as a one off sort of thing for specific films. Seeing this as a developing trend, we decided to try to shape our company around eventually being prepared to release all of our films ourselves theatrically. With that as the strategy, we have begun including a modest P&A (prints and advertising) budget into our production budget in order to finance a theatrical release. This puts us, the filmmakers, as well as the initial investors in a greater position of power when it comes to managing the distribution options. If one of the precious few large all rights deals comes our way, we can take it and just distribute the remaining funds back to our investors. If there aren’t any offers we are jumping up and down about, we have the ability to distribute the film ourselves in a way we feel it deserves. The ideal situation being that we develop this strategy for distributing our films to a point where other filmmakers and distributors want to work with us because they see the value we are able to add to a project.
Can you explain how you’re approaching theatrical and the results you’ve seen so far from your efforts?
Our first theatrical release was FIX (directed by Tao Ruspoli; starring Olivia Wilde and Shawn Andrews). We opened in New York and played for two weeks at the Village East. We generated a lot of press and saw a real tangible jump in awareness for the film. One of the most effective strategies we employed was setting up hosted screenings where we invited cast, crew, friends and influential personalities to take part in themed post-screening Q&A’s. For instance, we invited Daniel Pinchbeck, a proponent of hallucinogens, to participate in a discussion with Tao Ruspoli titled: “Drugs: Culture, Addiction and the Exploration of Altered States of Consciousness”. Pinchbeck promoted the screening on his Reality Sandwich blog which, combined with our promotional and marketing efforts, enabled us to sell out a Tuesday night screening.
With our two current films, The Living Wake and 2012: Time For Change we’ve continued in this direction. With 2012: Time For Change we partnered with Green Festivals (the largest green expo in the U.S.). They hold five events throughout the year (San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C., and San Francisco again). We premiered the film April 9th at the San Francisco event where we organized panels on the green festival main stage featuring participants in the film and set up a booth to promote our screenings, build our mailing list, and sell merchandise. Outside of the festival, we booked a Landmark Theater for one screening a night for three nights. With the awareness we built up at the green festival and our grass roots marketing, we sold out all of our screenings and built a strong base of interest in the area for our film. Each night the film was followed by a Q&A featuring a different lineup of luminaries from the film. These events became great opportunities to bring together an eclectic mix of personalities into one space for unique discussions. The guests included Paul Stamets (Mycologist), Rob Garza (Thievery Corporation: Musician), Tiokasin Ghosthorse (First Voices Indigenous Radio), Richard Register (Ecological City Design), Barbara Marx Hubbard (Futurist, Writer), and many more.
We are continuing this approach next in Chicago and are expanding the idea in Seattle to incorporate a full one week theatrical run. The thinking is that Seattle is a great market for this film and with the green festival’s outreach, as well as the attention we received from our San Francisco event the time is right to explore taking things to the next level. We are also planning an event screening in NYC for early July with Sting, Paul Stamets, Ganga White, Daniel Pinchbeck and director Joao Amorim where we will be doing simultaneous screenings through several platforms and streaming the Q&A/panel discussion live after the film.
With our latest release, The Living Wake, we are collaborating with Dylan Marchetti of Variance Films on our theatrical bookings. We started by booking theaters in New York (May 14th) and LA (May 21st). From there we used those dates to build around with other cities. We currently are planning on releasing the film in Seattle (June 4th), Chicago (June 25th) and several other cities through June and July. We have also recently secured separate deals for the DVD and VOD rights, coordinating them both to be released on August 3rd.
Can you share how you design your self hosted screenings?
For our New York release of The Living Wake this week we have a total of twenty hosted screenings set up, and are planning to do the same in Los Angeles next week. Many of the screenings will be hosted by the Filmmakers and Cast members themselves (Sol Tryon, Jesse Eisenberg, Mike O’Connell, Jim Gaffigan), while others will be hosted by special guests such as Shirin Neshat (Women Without Men), Mark Webber (Explicit Ills), Cory McAbee (American Astronaut), Daniel Pinchbeck (2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl), Steve Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness), and Jimmy Miller (Step Brothers). Several companies and film festivals we have screened at are also jumping in and hosting select screenings in support of the film.
Our goal is to create an event type of experience within the traditional theatrical format. The approach with each host is slightly different. Some hosts are trying to just promote us and our film by bringing people that they think would enjoy it to a specific screening. Others it works two fold for, where they are promoting us, but we are promoting them as well and it becomes a mutually beneficial experience. All of it though is targeted at creating a particular experience around each and every screening for the audience.
What tips would you offer for someone who is interested in booking their own event / hosted screenings?
Give people as many reasons as you can to go out and see your film. It’s hard to get people into the theater, it’s expensive, and you’re competing with a zillion other things so you have to work to make the experience unique and memorable. Form partnerships whenever and wherever possible with groups and individuals and help promote each other. Get as much advice from people who have done it before as you possibly can, but remember that Self and Hybrid Distribution is still very new, there are no set rules as to how it is done so be creative. Lastly, be prepared to work harder than you ever have. The only guarantee in going this route is that the fate of your film rests on you and how much work you are able to put into it.
What’s next and will you be releasing theatrically in more cities?
The Living Wake and 2012: Time For Change will be rolling out to more cities throughout the summer and fall. The next film on our slate for distribution is Being In The World, a documentary directed by Tao Ruspoli (Fix). This project we have been with from the beginning and are devising a strategy for a theatrical tour building on the experiences gained from Fix, 2012: Time For Change and The Living Wake, but gearing everything specifically for this film. We have also decided to work on supporting other indie films that we think deserve a theatrical release, but have not had the opportunity for what ever reason to make it happen yet. In that vein, we are providing the P&A financing for Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench to be released by Variance Films. We have a few projects in development and plan on continuing to do theatrical releases on our own films as well as others. Our goal is to work with filmmakers on establishing a sustainable environment for us all to continue creating the projects that inspire us.
Hosted Screenings – an interview with Sol Tryon
Recently, Ted Hope posted a list entitled 38 More Ways The Film Industry Is Failing Today the first point on the list focuses on building richer theatrical experiences.
1. We cannot logically justify any ticket price whatsoever for a non-event film. There are too many better options at too low a price. Simply getting out of the house or watching something somewhere because that is the only place it is currently available does not justify a ticket price enough. We still think of movies as things people will buy. We have to change our thinking about movies to something that enhances other experiences, and it is that which has monetary value. Film’s power as a community organizing tool extends far beyond its power to sell popcorn (and the whole exhibition industry is based on that old popcorn idea).
This and the other 37 points are definitely worth reading. They raise numerous questions while hinting at possible solutions. In relation to the first point that Ted raises I was struck by the fact that “Hosted Screenings” present an interesting option for those looking to roll something out in today’s theatrical market.
We had a chance to catch up with filmmaker Sol Tryon from Mangusta Productions to hear about his recent experimentation in the hybrid distribution world and how he and his team are working around a “Hosted Screenings” model for their theatrical releases.
What lead to your hybrid distribution efforts around your slate of films?
Over the past few years we have seen the independent film industry flip on it’s head. With the number of films getting big advances for all rights deals dropping drastically, it became apparent that in order to be independent filmmakers with sustainable careers we were going to have to know how to market and distribute our films ourselves. We began exploring and comparing the different options for self, hybrid and traditional distribution. Fortunately, there have been a few other filmmakers blazing these trails already giving us some points of reference to work from. For the most part though, these strategies are only being implemented as a one off sort of thing for specific films. Seeing this as a developing trend, we decided to try to shape our company around eventually being prepared to release all of our films ourselves theatrically. With that as the strategy, we have begun including a modest P&A (prints and advertising) budget into our production budget in order to finance a theatrical release. This puts us, the filmmakers, as well as the initial investors in a greater position of power when it comes to managing the distribution options. If one of the precious few large all rights deals comes our way, we can take it and just distribute the remaining funds back to our investors. If there aren’t any offers we are jumping up and down about, we have the ability to distribute the film ourselves in a way we feel it deserves. The ideal situation being that we develop this strategy for distributing our films to a point where other filmmakers and distributors want to work with us because they see the value we are able to add to a project.
Can you explain how you’re approaching theatrical and the results you’ve seen so far from your efforts?
Our first theatrical release was FIX (directed by Tao Ruspoli; starring Olivia Wilde and Shawn Andrews). We opened in New York and played for two weeks at the Village East. We generated a lot of press and saw a real tangible jump in awareness for the film. One of the most effective strategies we employed was setting up hosted screenings where we invited cast, crew, friends and influential personalities to take part in themed post-screening Q&A’s. For instance, we invited Daniel Pinchbeck, a proponent of hallucinogens, to participate in a discussion with Tao Ruspoli titled: “Drugs: Culture, Addiction and the Exploration of Altered States of Consciousness”. Pinchbeck promoted the screening on his Reality Sandwich blog which, combined with our promotional and marketing efforts, enabled us to sell out a Tuesday night screening.
With our two current films, The Living Wake and 2012: Time For Change we’ve continued in this direction. With 2012: Time For Change we partnered with Green Festivals (the largest green expo in the U.S.). They hold five events throughout the year (San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C., and San Francisco again). We premiered the film April 9th at the San Francisco event where we organized panels on the green festival main stage featuring participants in the film and set up a booth to promote our screenings, build our mailing list, and sell merchandise. Outside of the festival, we booked a Landmark Theater for one screening a night for three nights. With the awareness we built up at the green festival and our grass roots marketing, we sold out all of our screenings and built a strong base of interest in the area for our film. Each night the film was followed by a Q&A featuring a different lineup of luminaries from the film. These events became great opportunities to bring together an eclectic mix of personalities into one space for unique discussions. The guests included Paul Stamets (Mycologist), Rob Garza (Thievery Corporation: Musician), Tiokasin Ghosthorse (First Voices Indigenous Radio), Richard Register (Ecological City Design), Barbara Marx Hubbard (Futurist, Writer), and many more.
We are continuing this approach next in Chicago and are expanding the idea in Seattle to incorporate a full one week theatrical run. The thinking is that Seattle is a great market for this film and with the green festival’s outreach, as well as the attention we received from our San Francisco event the time is right to explore taking things to the next level. We are also planning an event screening in NYC for early July with Sting, Paul Stamets, Ganga White, Daniel Pinchbeck and director Joao Amorim where we will be doing simultaneous screenings through several platforms and streaming the Q&A/panel discussion live after the film.
With our latest release, The Living Wake, we are collaborating with Dylan Marchetti of Variance Films on our theatrical bookings. We started by booking theaters in New York (May 14th) and LA (May 21st). From there we used those dates to build around with other cities. We currently are planning on releasing the film in Seattle (June 4th), Chicago (June 25th) and several other cities through June and July. We have also recently secured separate deals for the DVD and VOD rights, coordinating them both to be released on August 3rd.
Can you share how you design your self hosted screenings?
For our New York release of The Living Wake this week we have a total of twenty hosted screenings set up, and are planning to do the same in Los Angeles next week. Many of the screenings will be hosted by the Filmmakers and Cast members themselves (Sol Tryon, Jesse Eisenberg, Mike O’Connell, Jim Gaffigan), while others will be hosted by special guests such as Shirin Neshat (Women Without Men), Mark Webber (Explicit Ills), Cory McAbee (American Astronaut), Daniel Pinchbeck (2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl), Steve Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness), and Jimmy Miller (Step Brothers). Several companies and film festivals we have screened at are also jumping in and hosting select screenings in support of the film.
Our goal is to create an event type of experience within the traditional theatrical format. The approach with each host is slightly different. Some hosts are trying to just promote us and our film by bringing people that they think would enjoy it to a specific screening. Others it works two fold for, where they are promoting us, but we are promoting them as well and it becomes a mutually beneficial experience. All of it though is targeted at creating a particular experience around each and every screening for the audience.
What tips would you offer for someone who is interested in booking their own event / hosted screenings?
Give people as many reasons as you can to go out and see your film. It’s hard to get people into the theater, it’s expensive, and you’re competing with a zillion other things so you have to work to make the experience unique and memorable. Form partnerships whenever and wherever possible with groups and individuals and help promote each other. Get as much advice from people who have done it before as you possibly can, but remember that Self and Hybrid Distribution is still very new, there are no set rules as to how it is done so be creative. Lastly, be prepared to work harder than you ever have. The only guarantee in going this route is that the fate of your film rests on you and how much work you are able to put into it.
What’s next and will you be releasing theatrically in more cities?
The Living Wake and 2012: Time For Change will be rolling out to more cities throughout the summer and fall. The next film on our slate for distribution is Being In The World, a documentary directed by Tao Ruspoli (Fix). This project we have been with from the beginning and are devising a strategy for a theatrical tour building on the experiences gained from Fix, 2012: Time For Change and The Living Wake, but gearing everything specifically for this film. We have also decided to work on supporting other indie films that we think deserve a theatrical release, but have not had the opportunity for what ever reason to make it happen yet. In that vein, we are providing the P&A financing for Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench to be released by Variance Films. We have a few projects in development and plan on continuing to do theatrical releases on our own films as well as others. Our goal is to work with filmmakers on establishing a sustainable environment for us all to continue creating the projects that inspire us.
April 21 2010
The Purpose of Film Festivals, Part 2
How small festivals can be the future of meatspace film distribution
In the past several years I’ve had the opportunity to participate in and listen to a lot of conversations about the shifting role of film festivals, particularly as those shifts apply to mid to high level independent festivals. There are a number of conflicting opinions on the role of film festivals – from ‘they’re useless and will die’ to ‘they are the future of theatrical’. In truth, all theorizing aside, nobody knows the role film festivals will take over the course of the next few years because nobody know how time-based media will evolve. I do, nonetheless, believe that they can retain their relevance… if they adapt.
What follows here are the last of four thoughts that came to me about the functionality of film festivals, and in no particular discursive order.
Thought 3.
What festivals should do to better serve their communities.
The motivations that guide independent film festivals vary wildly: Whereas some were founded solely to develop industry in a second-city environment, others take radical stances against the industry altogether, shifting their focus towards serving their local creatives instead. Others, still, strive to function as arts-based businesses, leveraging sponsorships and ticket sales in an attempt at joining the ranks of corporatized culture-hawkers.
It is hard to generally classify the purpose of pre-existing film festivals, then, as their needs and motivations are often so divergent. One can nonetheless begin to make an attempt at creating a sort of style guide outlining some pragmatic ways that festivals can better serve independent filmmakers and artists, their contradictory purposes notwithstanding.
Based on several conversations had with such luminaries as Lance Weiler, Brian Newman, Paul Rachman, Peter Baxter, Lisa Vandever, Roger Mayer and others, here is the beginning of a list of how festivals can better help independent filmmakers.
NB. I see the following 5 points as responsibilities, not suggestions. I believe that arts organizations, due to their very nature of being the cynosure of dialogue and thought, have the responsibility to guide that discussion in the correct, honest direction.
I. Manage Filmmaker Expectation (No dangling carrots)
Too often festivals obliquely play into a system based on false promises and permission-based access. In this, they encourage and fail to manage filmmaker expectations, and inevitably end up with some seriously disappointed filmmakers on their hands.
It is crucial for independent filmmakers to understand how the system actually works, and to understand, also, that there are alternatives. It is therefore crucial for a festival to actually explain what they are to expect – from an industry point of view- from inclusion in the festival.
Action point: Clarify what will and probably won’t happen at the festival with your filmmakers along every step of the way, from the call for submissions to the acceptance letter.
II. Be transparent:
If a filmmaker, however naively assuming that his independent festival of choice has scads of dollars to throw at promoting his screening, throws up his hands and lets the festival do all the work, imagine the shock and dismay he may feel when finds his big premiere empty. Conversely, if a filmmaker is aware that the festival has no marketing budget, he might be inclined to engage in a little marketing of his own, and in so-doing will support the festival’s efforts (with the happy accident of helping ticket sales, to boot).
My point is this: Anyone who’s worked a festival knows that they are damn hard to run, and are often on the verge of collapse. BUT: Most filmmakers and attendees do not realize this. In order to – again – temper expectations and ensure a good experience for all, it is simply a question of a festival engaging in a little transparency in its affairs. Open books and open access (within reason, of course) can be positive for several reasons, most saliently in helping people know what to expect of you- what you are capable of providing as a festival. It also allows a community to help where they see problems or deficiencies.
Action point: Clarify and publish your budgets, be clear about shortcomings and explain how your community (including your filmmakers) can help fill them.
III. Educate:
With transparency in festival affairs and transparency about the reality of what to expect, festivals also have a responsibility to provide their filmmakers with information about alternative solutions for independent film. This can be done simply by shifting the focus away from old-industry panels towards realistic, functional and educational seminars centering both on the ‘art’ side of the filmmaking process and, of course, the business.
There are several areas that are drastically changing with the advent of new(ish) technologies: New fundraising stratagems (crowdsourced); New storytelling techniques (transmedia); New production processes (crowdsourced); New distribution strategies (online, VOD, etc); Open culture
Action Point: Taking a cue from The WorkBook Project’s DIY Days, create open access educational seminars around the new models in distribution and fundraising. Make the information available online.
IV. Develop access to new distribution models
In addition to educating filmmakers about new models for film production and distribution, festivals should also provide optional distribution solutions for its filmmakers in new media platforms, VOD and theatrical. These should allow filmmakers to exploit their rights piece-meal, monetize their films and gain new audiences, with the appui of the festival’s curatorial credibility behind them.
This is a hugely lengthy topic to go into, but for examples of festivals that are attempting to do this, take a look at a few examples: Slamdance’s deal with Xbox; Sundance’s deal with YouTube; Tribeca’s recent VOD deal
Action Point: Use your festival’s organization cachet to broker deals for your filmmakers, and offer those deals as optional systems to complement their distribution strategies.
V. Share resources and organize year-round community screenings
Imagine a scenario where the audience winner at Nashville FF is given a 15 city theatrical run through community screening programs run by Nashville FF partner fests.
In line with the previous point, festivals could increasingly work together to further four-wall film exhibition through year-round screenings, and by combining marketing and local resources with other festivals.
In turn, by leveraging partnerships with other arts organizations and venues worldwide, festivals can help their filmmakers reach wider audiences, and also provide them with a de facto theatrical release. Of course, the benefits of partnering reach beyond only helping filmmakers, as these sorts of partnerships can help spread a festival’s brand, vision, and curatorial voice- in turn allowing for higher levels of sponsorship or- better yet- more participants in its next crowdsourced fundraising campaign.
Action Point: Organize year-round screenings in your community. Make friends with your colleagues and organize film exchanges. Share resources and programming.
All these points, to me, demonstrate one overarching fact: In order for an independent arts community to thrive, it must take a conscious stand to stop trying to emulate a corporate business methodology of exclusion, competitiveness and opacity.
In copying a system that, really, has little to do with how we as independents actually work, festivals are unwittingly incorporating all the nasty little habits that are anathema to thriving collaboration and creativity: Status-based ranking systems for humans (‘VIP’ passes, for instance), one-way payment systems, the obsession with celebrity attendance, fearful and covetous business practices. In following this approach, of course, we effectively stop innovation and discourage the development of new collaborative systems altogether.
In servicing the arts, a festival services the arts community in all its forms – even those it sees as its competitors. One will never exist without the other.
Thought 4.
How to sustain without selling out: An exercise in ego management.
In the last several posts I’ve argued that film festivals should take a step away from the commercial approach and should adopt a community-centric view in their strategic direction.
Maslow's pyramid, as applied to film festivals
However, if we apply Maslow’s taxonomy of human needs to film festivals, it becomes quickly apparent that it’s all well and good for festivals to try to better serve their communities, but when they’re barely surviving, simple basic needs end up perforce taking precedence.
Most independent festivals function at the ‘safety’ level of the pyramid—trying to securely retain theatre space, staff, volunteers, film submissions… It’s hard for these hard-working people to discuss the philosophical approaches towards how they serve filmmakers (the top of the pyramid) in these tenuous circumstances.
Running & funding a film festival
Consider the bare mimimum needed to run a festival: Theatre rental; Projectors, seats & screens, if you use alternate spaces; Special decks (beta decks, for instance); Liability insurance; A budget for marketing (banners, festival programs, lanyards and passes, any further visibility needs), and a budget for the design thereof; A publicity and advertising budget to garner submissions and audiences; Transportation; Online operations (email, url, web design & maintenance, submissions tracking); Staffing (Fest director, programming director, submissions manager, volunteer manager, ticketing manager, print traffic manager & runners, sponsor liaison, filmmaker liaison, venues manager… etc.)
Festivals are, in short, pricey. Looking to fill these basic needs without going out of pocket, most festivals survive through four options for revenue sources: Public funding, ticket & merchandise sales, submission fees and sponsorships (private and corporate).
Unfortunately the United States happens to be a government that has piss-poor public funding for non-profit arts institutions, so the European model of public funding is, for the most part, out of reach for US based festivals.
Similarly, ticket and merchandise sales are helpful, but usually provide a tiny financial drop in the big bucket of need. If you take an average independent festival—7 days long with 3 screenings a day in a 100-seat house, selling tickets at an accessible $9 each- the festival stands to bring in $18,900 IF EVERY SCREENING IS SOLD OUT. More realistically, they can probably hope to bring in about half that.
Looking at submission fees- say a small independent festival gets 800 submissions in (it’s usually less for most festivals) and charges an average of $30 per submission, it stands to make an income of $24,000. Though distasteful to many, submission fees nonetheless become the bulk of the funding.
In this climate, then, it is not surprising that most festivals immediately turn to sponsorships, which have proven in some instances to be very helpful. However, this is an approach that is problematic on many levels, not the least because it turns festival directors into glorified salesmen. Further, still, corporate sponsorship is a double edged sword.
Both support and interference in the arts, corporate sponsorship, when done wrong, turns an inherently let’s-talk-about-art sort of experience into a hyped-up advertising vehicle, potentially void of substance. Also, in today’s world of ‘branded content’ and ‘online properties’, it DOES bears reminding: Corporate Sponsorship is cheesy. Nothing says independent film more than a miniskirt-clad alcohol-wielding would-be actress imploring you to try her company’s vodka. Right?
Though there are many examples of sponsorship deals that do not force the festival to scream “AUDI!!!” from the rooftops, it remains a fact – to me – that corporations should not be our answer to the Medici. One might correctly point out that ulterior motives existed from time immemorial (the Medici were really into self-image, after all- a sort of precursor to the obsession with branding and corporate image), but the ulterior motives of late are just too base. Neither lofty, nor profound, our experience of philosophy and thought evolves into an experience of commerce. ‘What do you think he meant by his reference to Nietzsche in that one piece of dialogue?’ turns into ‘Oh, shit! They’re giving free Nikes away down at the filmmaker lounge! Do you have the right pass to get in?’
So: How can festivals survive without selling their souls?
I believe the answer – the way to survive without selling our souls – is in a crowd-sourced / crowd-powered film festival – a no/low sponsor film festival that is small, community-driven, and community-funded. This is possible to achieve, and would additionally be a solid step towards empowering the festival’s audiences and participants through transparency and involvement.
This would require a few action steps:
- Think about what you want to accomplish with the festival—what you think you should provide to the arts community and how you can best provide it.
- Band together with local community groups as partners to share expenses or trade assets, band together with other festivals to create larger incentive and reach
- Create comprehensive, community-based micro-donation strategies to meet goals, as they arise.
- Maintain your relationships with your community through transparency, accessibility, invitations to curate/ host screenings/ participate in whatever way it sees fit.
- Embrace your role as a community-based organization by lowering the klieg lights, ditching the red carpet and toning down the ego.
Festivals taking ownership of their small part of a bigger whole means that they allow themselves to expand more organically and buoyed by bigger better support systems. Not trying to be the next Tribeca implies a level of humility and restraint that many festival directors would probably rail against, but one must ask oneself, how does raising $500,000 for an exclusive red carpet premiere of the latest Big-Studio schlockfest really help independent film? Is the ‘visibility’ one gains from this type of event more helpful for the festival and its filmmakers, say, than that gained by having a series of smaller open screenings in venues that are invested in the success of the film they are showing?
Festivals with high overhead are festivals that are forced to toe the line- spending the lion’s share of their time wooing and maintaining sponsors. Smaller festivals – I would argue – actually have it a lot better than they typically think. Yeah, they’re not raking in the dough, but their overhead is controllable, and they can focus on programming and their community.
There’s this ‘marketing guru’ called Seth Godin who wrote: “Big used to matter. Big meant power and profit and growth. [...] Today, little companies often make more money than big companies. Little churches grow faster than worldwide ones. [...] Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs. [...] A small church has a minister with the time to visit you in the hospital when you’re sick. [...] Small is the new big only when the person running the small thinks big.” (Seth Godin, ‘Small is The New Big’, Portfolio, 2006)
How does this apply to us in the fest world? Simple: Provided that the festival director is OK with slow growth, small fests are in a position of power vis-à-vis the increasingly irrelevant behemoths. Enjoy!
April 15 2010
The Purpose of Film Festivals
How small festivals can be the future of meatspace film distribution
In the past several years I’ve had the opportunity to participate in and listen to a lot of conversations about the shifting role of film festivals, particularly as those shifts apply to mid to high level independent festivals. There are a number of conflicting opinions on the role of film festivals – from ‘they’re useless and will die’ to ‘they are the future of theatrical’. In truth, all theorizing aside, nobody knows the role film festivals will take over the course of the next few years because nobody know how time-based media will evolve. I do, nonetheless, believe that they can retain their relevance… if they adapt.
What follows here are several thoughts that came to me about the functionality of film festivals, in four parts and in no particular discursive order.
Thought 1.
For small festivals, the ‘shifting’ purpose of film festivals is actually not shifting at all.
People seem to concur that the primary purpose of film festivals is (was?) akin to that of an art gallery: To sell art.
Festivals have long acted as the gatekeepers to commercial distribution. As such, the ideal and well-trodden path for an independent filmmaker was a simple one: Make a film; get into a good fest; get the film acquired for distribution. Done.
This was an apt trajectory when dealing with a festival like Sundance, one of several festivals which were indeed the most functional gateways through which films could join ‘the system’. For the smaller festivals catering to independent or local film (and for the indie filmmakers whose work was typically programmed there), however, this was never a relevant model. The reason for that is simple: Distributors tended not to attend those festivals.
This ‘festival-as-marketplace’ raison d’etre , then, has only ever been a functional purpose for the bigger festivals. Further to that, this is sort of inherently understood by the film community: Not many filmmakers ever submitted their film, for instance, to the Tulsa Overground Film Festival, Nevada City Film Festival or Cucalorus with the intention of selling to HBO.
The obvious deduction? We’re assigning and bemoaning a dwindling commercial purpose to small festivals retro-actively in light of a perceived dearth of distribution deals – a dearth which, again, is only really relevant to festivals that were the hosting space for sales in the first place, and entirely irrelevant to the continued purpose of the small festivals who saw no such activity in their lounges and meeting rooms. Most annoyingly perhaps, small festivals gamely play along, trotting out their one or two success stories as bait for a system that never functioned for them or their filmmakers in the first place.
With the advent of digital media and the burgeoning (but hopeful) success stories around online/DIY distribution strategies, the purpose of the festival as a sales agent becomes even more obviously questionable.
We’ll look at that in the next post, but for now, I leave you with a recent tweet from Ted Hope: David Brown’s Secret To His Success: “I never lived beyond my means, & therefore, I never had to be a slave to Hollywood.”
Thought 2.
Money-making should not a successful small festival make. Culture-defining should.
In my time running the Silver Lake Film Festival in Los Angeles (alongside my partners Greg Ptacek and Kate Marciniak), we rarely hosted any distributors at the screenings. Those that did attend never cut a deal with any of the festival’s filmmakers.
I’m pretty sure that the Cucalorus Film Fest in North Carolina has never immediately helped filmmakers pay off their credit card debts, either.
In these two instances, the festival hosts no commerce: No one involved is making any money to speak of. Are these festivals, then, to be seen as failures?
The answer, of course, lies in how one defines the purpose of a cultural event. I believe that if we put aside commercial functionalities for a minute, we see that though the utility (and success) of smaller festivals becomes inherently value-based, it is nonetheless inherently of value.
Here are some points, then, on the value and purpose of film festivals, above and beyond commerce:
• To curate, provide imprimatur and thus help shape culture;
• To create access to independent voices and new stories within specific, underserved geographic communities;
• To educate filmmakers;
• To grow independent film communities and foster creative collaboration;
• To help create de facto four-wall releases for filmmakers through festival-run programs and partnerships above and beyond the event itself;
• To assist with DIY distribution by offering access to distribution tools through festival-run partnerships with emerging content platforms
These last two functionalities are becoming more important as filmmakers and festivals realize that- scary as it may be- the ‘old’ system is falling apart. It thus becomes incumbent upon a festival to help build up a new system through an increased focus on helping filmmakers sustain and exhibit their work. This can be achieved by brokering and supporting digital distribution deals for filmmakers, or simply by providing education in self-distribution. Further still, festivals can create four-wall programs and partnerships that allow greater visibility for the participating films beyond the festival itself (a traveling screening series, for instance).
Acknowledging an alienation from the mainstream film industry has big repercussions for festivals and filmmakers alike. Silver Lake Film Festival, for instance, with all its focus on working outside the system was unable to harness the sponsorships that festivals so drastically need for survival, and died a fiery financial death in 2007 (the results of which I am feeling to this day).
With that said… it still felt successful. It spoke to several of the points I believe to the inherent in a fruitful arts organization- points that have nothing at all to do with (immediate) economic exchange. The organization focused- largely- on what we thought should be its primary goals: Empowering a community and its artists through coherent promotion; leveraging the festival name to garner publicity and opportunity for its participants; facilitating radness in general– Art for art’s sake, as it were. The efforts of the core team, then, were mostly spent on promoting and advocating for micro-communities through programming decisions, and fostering creativity and creative collaboration in our neighborhood and beyond. Mainly, though, Silver Lake FF focused on curating a very cool and forward-thinking festival (under the benevolent expertise of programming director Roger Mayer, as well as a plethora of guest curators), the results of which are still bearing fruit in the continued existence of some of its former programs and ongoing collaboration.
So do these artsy, community-driven, low-budget, no-commerce festivals like the still-thriving Cucalorus, Nevada City, or even Slamdance still have value? My conclusion would be that yes, they do. These festivals’ value (and purpose) lies in providing an imprimatur – an edge – for its filmmakers, and a strong platform for community-empowerment. This value, for a filmmaker, supercedes the worth of some horrid exploitative distribution deal, and lasts longer. At the end of the day, sometimes being part of something amazing and cultural is worth more than being paid a grand to have your documentary air once or twice on TV.
April 11 2010
Slaves of Industry
I don’t want to sell my work to corporations. I want to sell my work to, and share it with, people.
I don’t know why it has taken me this long to land upon this thought, but it hit me like a ton of bricks today. For some time now folks in the ‘industry’ have been crying, rather loudly, about how the system of independent film distribution is broken. I usually took that to mean that they (the individuals telling me how broken things were) simply felt overlooked by a cruel system, which in many cases they perhaps didn’t fully understand, I know I don’t, but now I realize, the shit IS broken. But, it’s not film distribution, it’s much deeper than that, it’s the entire system of American entrepreneurship we so pride ourselves on. For all our ‘rugged individualism’ we sure seem to prefer the role of sheep, even in our art.
We have fundamentally shifted our value system. The rich history of American entrepreneurship, of innovation, of ‘going it our own way’, feels stunted by our inability as 21st century Americans to sustain any kind of long view. It seems that everything, including our art, has become disposable, not built to last. We no longer start new business (or make films, or make anything) in an effort to carve out and create new, and sustainable industry (or culture), we plan exit strategies. And, nearly 100% of the time, that exit strategy means selling out to a corporation, no matter what your business.
This is so very prevalent in the world of independent film. The whole business, if we can call it that, to date, has been built on exit strategy. Many filmmakers “just wanna make films”, and not be bothered with those troublesome technicalities of how their genius makes it onto screens, just as long as their genius is recognized. So, producers package this profundity in a manner pleasing to the tastes of corporations, and simply role the dice, as the independent film industry has no actual sound business model for bringing a product (film) to market. And, since the strategy for the producer is based on the exit, throughout the entire process of production the actual end user, who in most cases will not be the corporation, but rather everyday people, have never been considered, brought in to the process, or otherwise engaged. Because it would of course diminish the art, and mystery of our cinema.
It’s 2010 folks. Take a look out your window. There is not much mystery left under the sun, and the golden age of indie film, those long lost 90’s, have so sanitized the idea of cinema it’s turned filmmakers into some of the least adept people at revealing the deeper struggles, meanings, and questions of this life through their art. Of course we’ll deny that loudly, and stake our claim as the preeminent art of this age, as we continue to chase down ‘industry’ desperate to be seen, to be scooped up, coddled, and told how wonderfully exciting we are. But, the reality is, we’re struggling to stay relevant in an every changing world, and doing a bang up job of proving it as we continue to produce sub-par rehashes of our beloved 70’s, and our roaring 90’s cinema. YouTube is relevant, you’re boring.
Because of all this, and because enough people have lost their shirt pursuing their independent film careers (dreams, fantasies…), the conversation has obviously turned heavily toward “how do we sustain?” It’s a new era of responsibility across the board. It may costs less to make, and distribute independent films now, but it still costs money. And, as long as it costs money, and we are going to assume it is a business, there is a responsibility placed upon the filmmakers to ensure the work makes as much, or more money than it costs to produce. If we can not fulfill that promise, then we might as well call it a hobby.
When you actually just stop and think about it, it’s completely insane. Independent film, as ‘business’, depends on audience, on people to pay for tickets, DVDs and downloads. But, generally doesn’t, in any tangible way, consider that audience at any point in developing, producing, and marketing their wares. Even when we all get together and talk about developing, producing, and marketing our wares. We’ll engage in conversations about what the market wants, ie. the corporations, but it’s somehow taboo, and an affront to the art of cinema to talk about the audience on which we all depend.
Part of the reason we find ourselves in this debacle, and in this conversation, is because the business of producing ‘independent’ film has never been about the distribution. This is at the heart of the great, and growing divide between what is considered the ‘independent film industry’, and the growing micro-budget or diy ‘movement’. The ‘industry’ depends upon financiers funding budgets to provide salaries to sustain, in contrast the ‘movement’ generally does not have the luxury of budget, and depends on (figuring out new means, and methods of) distribution to sustain.
Based on that assertion alone, which ’sector’ as it were, do you think will be leading the way in the next decade? Where will the innovation come from? And, how long can a business that doesn’t consider itself dependent on the distribution of its product, and that for all intents and purposes is a form of legalized gambling, actually sustain?
From where I am standing the writing is on the wall, and the message is clear. If you want to carve out a sustainable career as a 21st century ‘independent’ filmmaker (or artist, or musician), forget trying to appease the gatekeepers, because the gates are crumbling, and swiftly revealing the mess of an ‘industry’ that was built more on magic, and illusion than anything else. It’s time to dig in, take the long view, take responsibility, and get to work. Go out and make friends, lots, and lots of friends, and be willing to openly share your work with those new friends at every stage of the process, understanding that the ability for you to sustain and thrive from your work, (and yes -we’re talking dollars here), depends solely on your audience for that work. You cannot getting something for nothing, and if you build it -they will not automatically come, so put in the face time, digital or otherwise, and get to know the people who want to know you, and embrace their embracing of your work.
It’s time to revel in the fact that you can make films for less money, and with less crew. It’s a good thing. Time to take pride in your uniqueness, and to have pride of ownership. Strive to be one of the artists driving cinema forward. Stop chasing industry, and start building relationships. While corporations are looking for tried and true, there are a lot of people out there who are looking for something off the beaten path, and refreshingly new. Take heart in that. Be bold. Be consistent. Be vocal. Be open. Concentrate of your craft, and lead the way.
In the next 2-3 years we will see a Hollywood more and more dependent on spectacle, which they do well and will likely thrive at, and an independent film industry decimated under they weight of its own bloated self importance, if it continues in it’s long held practice of producing for exit strategy. There is only so much money out there.
The choice for us ‘independent’ artists seems very clear to me. Pioneer a new and sustainable film culture based on relationships with people, rather than corporations, or go the way of the dinosaur.
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