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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
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.
March 02 2011
Saskia’s Guide to Producing: Understanding the International Market
This is a series of posts delving into the gory details of what it takes to produce an independent film. Covering the entire process — from development to fundraising, production, distribution, online strategies and beyond — they will be written in real time, from first hand experience, as I go through the process of producing a feature-length documentary.
UNDERSTANDING THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET: INTERNATIONAL SALES AGENTS & THE EFM.
A few weeks ago I took my first trip to the European Film Market (EFM), which is hosted annually as a parallel event to the Berlin Film Festival.
My stated goal was try to gain support for a few film projects. But the moment I walked into the massive building that hosts the EFM and saw the teeming hive of people – all seemingly engaged in animated conversations with one another – I realized that this was no cozy, friendly, intellectual space. Indeed: The opposite. This was a place of Big Business.
Mulling over my approach & networking tactics, it hit me like a ton of bricks: I knew nothing of the ins and outs of the international film market, not to mention how to break into this group of long-established friends and colleagues without making an ass of myself. I had to learn, and quick. I immediately set about the task of understanding what I was dealing with – and getting a measure of my ignorance of the ins and outs of the international film business.
As far as I could gather, the EFM was composed primarily of the usual types of people we see (or hope to see) at most film festivals: Filmmakers, distributors & acquisitions execs, financiers. Rarer at the indie fests and of great interest to filmmakers hoping to go big, the EFM is also the hub par excellence of that shadowy group of people who negotiate rights and broker territory sales: International Sales Agents.
Sitting at their booths or at the market’s numerous screenings, meeting with filmmakers, exchanging notes in the café, it became very clear to me that the ISAs rule the roost at EFM. In truth, they are most often the first point of contact for big distributors looking to pick up new titles. These are people, in short, that every aspiring filmmaker who hopes to launch into the business in a bigger way should at least think about, new strategies for distribution and fundraising notwithstanding.
I broadsided one of these ISAs – shivering outside on a subarctic German afternoon. What follows, then, is a short interview with the very savvy Miriam Elchanan, the Senior Vice President of Sales and Acquisitions of Los Angeles-based Fabrication Films, explaining the world of the International Sales Agent in nine questions.
What do international sales agents do?
International sales agents represent feature films in the international marketplace. We are responsible for licensing specific rights to specific territories or countries. So for example, if you have produced a film and you have a North American distributor for the United States and Canada you would license the remaining worldwide rights to us. We would then license these rights to our buyers around the world. Our company offers established relationships with distributors and broadcasters and strategic marketing and promotional strategies.
What are the territories that you cover? What are the other territories?
Fabrication Films has buyer relationships in every country in the world. Major territories include Europe (UK , France , Germany , Benelux , Italy , Spain , Greece , etc), Asia (including Japan , China , Thailand , Indonesia , India , Malaysia / Singapore ), Latin America including Brazil, Eastern Europe including Russia, Australia , the Middle East, Turkey and Israel.
At what phase of the filmmaking process would you come in?
We prefer to get involved as early as possible in the production phase so that we can assist the Producer with creative and financial suggestions that will help bolster the value of their film in the global market. In many cases we become involved while a producer is in post-production or has just recently completed their film.
Do you deal with international presales for projects in development, ever?
Yes, however our decision to become involved in presales is usually strongly based on the cast and genre.
What do you, in particular, look for in the films you represent?
There are three things that I look for in an acquisition, the first is cast, the second is genre and the third is story/production quality. In the foreign market a film can be great but if it is a drama with no cast it will be extremely difficult for me to sell it. Action films traditionally are the easiest genre to sell and an action film with cast, great production values and a good story is a slam-dunk. However, I do keep my eye out for those special festival or art house films that have cache and documentaries that will speak to everyone.
What are some major no-nos, for you, from a creative point of view?
Films with a film industry story line can be particularly difficult. I am not a big fan of filmmakers who have their characters pull out a video camera in the middle of a scene and then go to a grainy gritty hand held shot.
I think there is a major difference between making a film for creative reasons and making a film that sells. There is a way to do both but you must consider who is going to buy your film when it is finished. A painter can paint an amazing piece of art but that doesn’t mean you would want to hang it in your living room and look at it every day.
It is the producer’s choice to make a film that is less mainstream and more for a specific group of viewers, but keep in mind the more you limit that scope the less return you will make on your investment.
How do you feel about the DIY strategies that many filmmakers are engaging in, in order to promote, distribute or sometimes even fundraise for their film?
I like the idea of DIY distribution. If you make a film for less than 100K you can get your film seen and build an audience for yourself.
This is much harder to do in the foreign market. Most foreign distributors do not want to work directly with a one-time producer. [Rather] they want to work with a company they already have an established relationship with. They know that I can competently negotiate an agreement with them, we will follow through and deliver the picture and provide the necessary legal and financial paperwork they need to fulfill their obligations.
Recently I was representing a film where the producer had sent a trailer and artwork of their film to a number of foreign buyers about 6 months prior to us taking the film to market. When we began meeting with buyers they would immediately retort that they had seen the film and passed. This was due to the fact that the producers promotional materials were subpar and were not up to the standards these buyers were looking for. When we presented our campaign [for the very same film], it was much harder to engage the buyer in a dialogue.
Bringing in professionals in most cases is the best strategy to getting the best return and the most successful release. I would recommend that a filmmaker make a decision from the beginning how they want to release their film and stick by it. If a DIY strategy does not go well, don’t be surprised when a more traditional sales agent or distributor [has no] interest in stepping in after the market has been saturated.
Just ask yourself this question, if I told you that I watched ER everyday would you let me perform open heart surgery? Just because you read Variety doesn’t mean that you can do what someone with 10-20 years of experience can do.
How do you find the titles that you represent?
We monitor the internet, festivals, social networking, attend industry events.
The best way to get your film noticed by a good sales agent or distributor is to have a well maintained website with good up to date contact information. If your film is listed on IMDB or other industry sites make sure the information is correct and that you provide as much information as possible.
Do you have any advice for filmmakers looking to work with an international sales agent? Anything they should watch out for?
I would look for a well-established company that has been around for at least 5 years and has a catalogue of films that are good quality. Many sales agents have a certain genre focus some focus more on family films some on horror. You might want to see what they have sold before to get an idea if your film is a good fit. Look for someone that you feel comfortable with and try to negotiate a deal that works for you.
I think there is plenty of paranoia out there when it comes to distributors and sales agents. Look at your film in the most realistic way. If someone tells you that they have a studio relationship and they can get you a deal but they will not put that in writing that means they will do their best but cannot guarantee anything.
If a sales agent is representing a huge film and it doesn’t make sense [in the context of] the rest of their line up, make sure that they are representing the major territories on that film — and not just Indonesia.
If a sales agent tells you that their estimates are realistic and those estimates are twenty times bigger than your entire production budget I would be concerned. However, if a sales agent’s estimates are smaller than what you hoped but are more like what you expected I would say – in most cases – they are the real deal.
Check out Fabrication Films here and if you are curious about the international scene, may I recommend the very excellent blog ‘Sydney’s Buzz’ on Indiewire.
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
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.
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.
May 27 2010
The LOVELY Post Flow
I’ve been asked by a few people to cover the post-production workflow. I already talked about the shooting, editing and test screening process. So now I plan to address the score and sound design component and how everything — in theory — comes together in the end.
Here’s a snapshot of the final project in Final Cut Pro: (remember to keep your dialogue, sound f/x, music all on separate tracks)
This review is all just based on my experiences as I’m sure if I had a post-production supervisor and budget to hire a post-house things would be a lot different.
SCORE
Tackling the score with two different composers (Ken Lampl and Jonathan “Electronathan” Sorge) was no easy task. First off, I had to see if they were even open to this idea.
The reason I was interested in having two composers is I enjoy both their work for different reasons and skill sets — and it’d be an easier time commitment for each (if they split the duties) as they would be doing it as a favor for me. I showed them the rough cut to see if it was something they’d be interested in working on…thankfully they liked it and found it to be a great challenge they wanted to take part in. The main factor that I believe hooked them is that “Lovely” is definitely a score-driven film.
Admittedly, I was a little afraid to even bring up the idea — but knowing each guy personally helped make this a realistic option. They are true gentlemen and professional so I knew approaching them about it would at least be entertained. However, it’s a very risky thing to ask any creative person to join forces (almost like asking 2 filmmakers to co-direct together) — as it leads to potential conflicts. After a few phone calls to clearly define the roles/responsibilities and give each their own autonomy over specific scenes we were off to the races.
We all reviewed the film together in late November 2009. Then they took several movie files from me in order to work separately in their studios to create sketches of ideas. I let them work their magic until January 2010 when I checked in and previewed their cues. There was definitely some back and forth of feedback and revised cues — and by the end of February the score was locked and I was truly amazed.
In fact, the score is now so alive and adaptable with each scene in the film….it moves seamlessly from cue to cue (composer to composer). To me there is no sense of schizophrenia with the score – or at the very least their styles gel quite nicely together where it doesn’t take me out of it. In the end, the audience feedback is just that they truly enjoyed “the score” which is a win for everyone.
SOUND DESIGN
Dialogue clean up and sound f/x were completed by a talented music student — Keith Ukrisna — that I had met while he was interning for a post-studio I was using for “New York Lately“. I delivered the film to him and off he went.
We primarily used Google Wave for our entire communication/review process. There were definitely some lengthy waves going on, but for the most part it helped us keep organized over the entire scope of the film.
Keith spent the majority of time working on cleaning up the audio (primarily the dialogue scenes). Note: Remember to record “room tone” so that you can lay it under your scene to help smooth things out. He worked wonders on some of the scenes. Thankfully we had pretty clean sound throughout, but there were definitely a few locations that had some issues (ex: bar refrigerator, traffic, etc)
I asked him to put all his ideas into the sound design — and then we could scale back as needed. I preferred him to explore the soundscape as I thought there would be things he developed that I never would think of — which happened. There were definitely times where I did say I wasn’t too fond of things and they were removed.
It was an easy process/workflow. We divided the entire film into separate sequences for him to work on and referenced every shot with a timecode window. 
Once sound was approved for each scene, Keith would deliver the sound design files associated with the scene (referencing the timecode on where the file should be plopped in to the timeline to sync up with picture).
The only drawback in asking a student to work on your project is they have school and other activities that may cause delays if you’re on a strict timeline. But for me, the cost-saving advantages far outweighed any hard deadline — even though I kept him on one to keep things on track. Keith did a phenomenal job and I plan to work with him again.
FINAL MIX
I did the final mixing myself on Final Cut Pro. Not the ideal whatsoever but it worked. I had all the separate files (music, sound design, dialogue) on discrete tracks so I could easily mix the levels to what I needed. And since the film is in stereo 2.0 (and not some complex 5.1 or 7.2 mix) I felt I could handle it.
Again, not my choice to do it (I’d really prefer someone else) — but to save money and not burn any favors — I believed I could spend about a week on it. If I had any trouble I had friends willing to help out which was a great safety net.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
The best part was at a recent sneak preview of the film we had the audience comment on how great the music and sound was — which is an incredible testament to my team. They were truly amazing to work with and I hope I can keep them around (and pay them next time!). Sometimes I have to take a step back to really appreciate the amount of talented people that are willing to work with me for very low (or no) pay. I definitely don’t want this to be a regular thing and — as evidenced with my next project “How Do You Write A Joe Schermann Song” — I’m able to move up and gain a little funding which I’m more than happy to share with the people who’ve been there the whole time believing in what I’m doing.
That’s sometimes the best part — to look around at the people who were there with you from the beginning….and to see everyone moving up together. Helping each other along the way. That’s independent filmmaking.
The LOVELY Post Flow
I’ve been asked by a few people to cover the post-production workflow. I already talked about the shooting, editing and test screening process. So now I plan to address the score and sound design component and how everything — in theory — comes together in the end.
Here’s a snapshot of the final project in Final Cut Pro: (remember to keep your dialogue, sound f/x, music all on separate tracks)
This review is all just based on my experiences as I’m sure if I had a post-production supervisor and budget to hire a post-house things would be a lot different.
SCORE
Tackling the score with two different composers (Ken Lampl and Jonathan “Electronathan” Sorge) was no easy task. First off, I had to see if they were even open to this idea.
The reason I was interested in having two composers is I enjoy both their work for different reasons and skill sets — and it’d be an easier time commitment for each (if they split the duties) as they would be doing it as a favor for me. I showed them the rough cut to see if it was something they’d be interested in working on…thankfully they liked it and found it to be a great challenge they wanted to take part in. The main factor that I believe hooked them is that “Lovely” is definitely a score-driven film.
Admittedly, I was a little afraid to even bring up the idea — but knowing each guy personally helped make this a realistic option. They are true gentlemen and professional so I knew approaching them about it would at least be entertained. However, it’s a very risky thing to ask any creative person to join forces (almost like asking 2 filmmakers to co-direct together) — as it leads to potential conflicts. After a few phone calls to clearly define the roles/responsibilities and give each their own autonomy over specific scenes we were off to the races.
We all reviewed the film together in late November 2009. Then they took several movie files from me in order to work separately in their studios to create sketches of ideas. I let them work their magic until January 2010 when I checked in and previewed their cues. There was definitely some back and forth of feedback and revised cues — and by the end of February the score was locked and I was truly amazed.
In fact, the score is now so alive and adaptable with each scene in the film….it moves seamlessly from cue to cue (composer to composer). To me there is no sense of schizophrenia with the score – or at the very least their styles gel quite nicely together where it doesn’t take me out of it. In the end, the audience feedback is just that they truly enjoyed “the score” which is a win for everyone.
SOUND DESIGN
Dialogue clean up and sound f/x were completed by a talented music student — Keith Ukrisna — that I had met while he was interning for a post-studio I was using for “New York Lately“. I delivered the film to him and off he went.
We primarily used Google Wave for our entire communication/review process. There were definitely some lengthy waves going on, but for the most part it helped us keep organized over the entire scope of the film.
Keith spent the majority of time working on cleaning up the audio (primarily the dialogue scenes). Note: Remember to record “room tone” so that you can lay it under your scene to help smooth things out. He worked wonders on some of the scenes. Thankfully we had pretty clean sound throughout, but there were definitely a few locations that had some issues (ex: bar refrigerator, traffic, etc)
I asked him to put all his ideas into the sound design — and then we could scale back as needed. I preferred him to explore the soundscape as I thought there would be things he developed that I never would think of — which happened. There were definitely times where I did say I wasn’t too fond of things and they were removed.
It was an easy process/workflow. We divided the entire film into separate sequences for him to work on and referenced every shot with a timecode window.
Once sound was approved for each scene, Keith would deliver the sound design files associated with the scene (referencing the timecode on where the file should be plopped in to the timeline to sync up with picture).
The only drawback in asking a student to work on your project is they have school and other activities that may cause delays if you’re on a strict timeline. But for me, the cost-saving advantages far outweighed any hard deadline — even though I kept him on one to keep things on track. Keith did a phenomenal job and I plan to work with him again.
FINAL MIX
I did the final mixing myself on Final Cut Pro. Not the ideal whatsoever but it worked. I had all the separate files (music, sound design, dialogue) on discrete tracks so I could easily mix the levels to what I needed. And since the film is in stereo 2.0 (and not some complex 5.1 or 7.2 mix) I felt I could handle it.
Again, not my choice to do it (I’d really prefer someone else) — but to save money and not burn any favors — I believed I could spend about a week on it. If I had any trouble I had friends willing to help out which was a great safety net.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
The best part was at a recent sneak preview of the film we had the audience comment on how great the music and sound was — which is an incredible testament to my team. They were truly amazing to work with and I hope I can keep them around (and pay them next time!). Sometimes I have to take a step back to really appreciate the amount of talented people that are willing to work with me for very low (or no) pay. I definitely don’t want this to be a regular thing and — as evidenced with my next project “How Do You Write A Joe Schermann Song” — I’m able to move up and gain a little funding which I’m more than happy to share with the people who’ve been there the whole time believing in what I’m doing.
That’s sometimes the best part — to look around at the people who were there with you from the beginning….and to see everyone moving up together. Helping each other along the way. That’s independent filmmaking.
May 24 2010
TCIBR: Four Boxes a DIY thriller [audio]
With 40k in hand Wyatt McDill and Megan Huber set out to make a first feature on their own terms. Having spent a few years pushing a script through development hell they came out on the other side wanting to “just make a movie.” The end result is a DIY voyeuristic web thriller entitled Four Boxes
THE STORY: Trevor, Amber and Rob run Go Time Liquidators – an ambulance-chasing eBay auction business. In a dead man’s destroyed suburban house they start watching a bookmarked surveillance-cam website:fourboxes.tv. If fourboxes.tv isn’t just more internet BS, then a crazed creep they call Havoc is building enough bombs to, like, kill everybody in the U.S.
Designed to embrace and work within the confines of an internet experience the films stars Justin Kirk from (Weeds). Four Boxes enjoyed a festival run with stops at SXSW in 09 and has just recently returned from the Cannes Market. This fall Wyatt and Megan will stage a hybrid release of Four Boxes with a mix of touring, VOD, along with few special internet surprises. We caught up with the husband and wife filmmaking team to discuss the project and the freedom that can be found by working within your limitations.
Step into the world of Four Boxes
TCIBR: Four Boxes a DIY thriller [audio]
With 40k in hand Wyatt McDill and Megan Huber set out to make a first feature on their own terms. Having spent a few years pushing a script through development hell they came out on the other side wanting to “just make a movie.” The end result is a DIY voyeuristic web thriller entitled Four Boxes
THE STORY: Trevor, Amber and Rob run Go Time Liquidators – an ambulance-chasing eBay auction business. In a dead man’s destroyed suburban house they start watching a bookmarked surveillance-cam website:fourboxes.tv. If fourboxes.tv isn’t just more internet BS, then a crazed creep they call Havoc is building enough bombs to, like, kill everybody in the U.S.
Designed to embrace and work within the confines of an internet experience the films stars Justin Kirk from (Weeds). Four Boxes enjoyed a festival run with stops at SXSW in 09 and has just recently returned from the Cannes Market. This fall Wyatt and Megan will stage a hybrid release of Four Boxes with a mix of touring, VOD, along with few special internet surprises. We caught up with the husband and wife filmmaking team to discuss the project and the freedom that can be found by working within your limitations.
Step into the world of Four Boxes
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 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.
April 02 2010
The Cycle of Success, Rejection and Anonymity
Whenever I sit down to write a post, I always freeze. I transform from ‘loudmouthed truck driver’ to Cindy Brady the instant that record light turns on. Some of you may be wondering where the hell I’ve been for the last year. The answer is (usually delivered monotone), “Working on Abel Raises Cain.” And in return, the incredulous response from family and friends is always, “What? Still?”
Yes, it’s true. It turns out that the finish line is nonexistent, the definition of success is completely nebulous, relative and random. At what point do you stop? Never. Once you make a film, you’re chained to it for life. While the preceding sounds grim, I’m actually enjoying the journey, although I’m tired as hell. The high points have overshadowed all of the ‘no’ men, naysayers and other assorted sour grapes who tried to thwart me along the way. Their feeble attempts to rain on my parade only made me stronger and more persistent.
While I may cry myself to sleep at night over our declining DVD sales and pray that all of the nice people out there who have watched torrents or free streams of our film (our anonymous ‘fans’) will one day send us even just a few pennies, I remain optimistic that our small little movie that has taken on a life of its own will indeed survive another decade.
I’ve kind of resigned myself to the fact that it’s impossible to track all of our ‘fans.’ (BTW, my parents ask for everyone who has seen the movie and laughed out loud at least once to send them a dollar in the mail.) The current issue getting everyone riled up is CreateSpace’s recently revised policy to no longer share buyer data with its clients, claiming that information sharing is a breach of consumers’ privacy.
I handle our own DVD fulfillment, so I develop a ‘personal’ relationship with all of our direct sales customers. Amazon is a different story. I supply the stock to them (through my Advantage account), so at least I know how many units are moving, but the buyers remain faceless and nameless. On one hand, I feel good about being partially involved in the process. But it’s like a one-night stand after a drunken night on the town. No phone number and you never see that person again. Not that I would know, of course.
Right now, we’re totally reliant on word-of-mouth in terms of people stumbling upon our film. We never had a budget for Publicity and Advertising. Our DIY journey has been an ever-morphing experiment with a million different variables at play. I continue to figure things out as I go. I struggle to embrace even just a few of the incredible tools at our collective disposal, some of which Lance Weiler talks about in a recent Culture Hacker article. The dizzying array of possible directions any one filmmaker can take in order to reach his or her audience is mind-blowing.
One of the last frontiers that I’ve been obsessing over, wondering how in the hell we’re going to crack this ‘old world’ nut, is the esteemed educational market. To my question posed prior to the Filmmaker Summit, Is it possible for filmmakers to independently tackle educational sales and succeed, the answer is a resounding YES! I’ve recently been shown the light and have begun to embark on this journey with the help of another filmmaker, Ashley Sabin of Carnivalesque Films. Please stay tuned as I report back on our progress…I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’s looking like I may not need to raid our penny jar for groceries this month.
March 30 2010
The Cycle of Success, Rejection and Anonymity
Whenever I sit down to write a post, I always freeze. I transform from ‘loudmouthed truck driver’ to Cindy Brady the instant that record light turns on. Some of you may be wondering where the hell I’ve been for the last year. The answer is (usually delivered monotone), “Working on Abel Raises Cain.” And in return, the incredulous response from family and friends is always, “What? Still?”
Yes, it’s true. It turns out that the finish line is nonexistent, the definition of success is completely nebulous, relative and random. At what point do you stop? Never. Once you make a film, you’re chained to it for life. While the preceding sounds grim, I’m actually enjoying the journey, although I’m tired as hell. The high points have overshadowed all of the ‘no’ men, naysayers and other assorted sour grapes who tried to thwart me along the way. Their feeble attempts to rain on my parade only made me stronger and more persistent.
While I may cry myself to sleep at night over our declining DVD sales and pray that all of the nice people out there who have watched torrents or free streams of our film (our anonymous ‘fans’) will one day send us even just a few pennies, I remain optimistic that our small little movie that has taken on a life of its own will indeed survive another decade.
I’ve kind of resigned myself to the fact that it’s impossible to track all of our ‘fans.’ (BTW, my parents ask for everyone who has seen the movie and laughed out loud at least once to send them a dollar in the mail.) The current issue getting everyone riled up is CreateSpace’s recently revised policy to no longer share buyer data with its clients, claiming that information sharing is a breach of consumers’ privacy.
I handle our own DVD fulfillment, so I develop a ‘personal’ relationship with all of our direct sales customers. Amazon is a different story. I supply the stock to them (through my Advantage account), so at least I know how many units are moving, but the buyers remain faceless and nameless. On one hand, I feel good about being partially involved in the process. But it’s like a one-night stand after a drunken night on the town. No phone number and you never see that person again. Not that I would know, of course.
Right now, we’re totally reliant on word-of-mouth in terms of people stumbling upon our film. We never had a budget for Publicity and Advertising. Our DIY journey has been an ever-morphing experiment with a million different variables at play. I continue to figure things out as I go. I struggle to embrace even just a few of the incredible tools at our collective disposal, some of which Lance Weiler talks about in a recent Culture Hacker article. The dizzying array of possible directions any one filmmaker can take in order to reach his or her audience is mind-blowing.
One of the last frontiers that I’ve been obsessing over, wondering how in the hell we’re going to crack this ‘old world’ nut, is the esteemed educational market. To my question posed prior to the Filmmaker Summit, Is it possible for filmmakers to independently tackle educational sales and succeed, the answer is a resounding YES! I’ve recently been shown the light and have begun to embark on this journey with the help of another filmmaker, Ashley Sabin of Carnivalesque Films. Please stay tuned as I report back on our progress…I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’s looking like I may not need to raid our penny jar for groceries this month.
January 05 2010
OpenIndie an interview with Kieran Masterton
By Lance Weiler – OpenIndie burst onto the scene this past fall when Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters) and Kieran Masterton ( a software developer) successfully raised over 12k via a kickstarter campaign to bootstrap a new theatrical on-demand model. Frustrated at the current state of distribution the two teamed up to create a service that will help filmmakers find audiences and audiences find films. I had a chance to ask Kieran some questions around OpenIndie, the importance of data and what thinks the real-time web might mean for storytelling.
WBP: What will the role of social curation play within OpenIndie? Is it important and what types of trends have you seen emerging in the area of social curation afforded by the real-time web?
KIERAN MASTERTON: OpenIndie will work socially in a similar manner to Twitter in that you will have non-reciprocal relationships with other users i.e. users you are following and users who are following you. Unlike Twitter, however, it is user actions on the site, plus a small optional comment, that is recorded in their stream. So, when a user requests a film in their area or RSVPs to a screening it is that information that will be disseminated to their followers. Meaning in terms of social curation almost every action a user makes on the site will let their followers know which films and events they believe to be valuable.
I think one of the keys to enabling the crowd to filter out the noise in these increasingly distracting social spaces is to link their ability to be part of the conversation to a positive action. What I mean by this is that I believe in the value of a positive actions within the community. Putting on a screening via OpenIndie has hugely positive outcomes: a group of film fans get to see a film and the filmmaker gets a screening and hopefully a little revenue in return. Then the reverberations of that real-world event begin to travel across the real-time web with screening specific hash tags for social spaces like Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo and YouTube. The outcome of these positive actions, I believe, should be a louder voice within the community.
The problem of how to execute personal, social and professional curation on socially powered sites is, I think, one of the most important challenges facing developers and information architects in 2010. One site that I think could be one to watch, with regard to social curation, is Stackoverflow.com, a collaboratively edited question and answer site for programmers. Their reputation system is driven by the quality of the answers Developers give to questions on the site. This system is now, in turn, being used to power a Developer recruitment site. While, obviously, their methods can’t be directly translated to OpenIndie, I think they’re getting things right and we should be taking note.
WBP: Do you have any feelings about visualizing the attention economy that is online? In the sense that there are interesting ways to hook into various social APIs. Have you and Arin discussed ways to visualize the demand for a film? Online, via mobile and in the real world?
I think some of things being done with visualisation are fantastic. I’ve been following the stuff that Flickr have been doing on their Developer Blog and also the open source software visualisation project code_swarm. And I also think that subtractive blending overlay maps like the one below from Shawn Allen on Flickr are potentially extremely revealing for mobile social activity on OpenIndie.
Naturally, Arin and I have talked about geographical mapping in a similar vein to the heart map developed for Four Eyed Monsters. However, we haven’t discussed specifically ideas around real-time visualisation which I think could be especially interesting working with OpenIndie’s API on mobile devices both before and after screenings. Filmmakers could get insights into their audience but perhaps more exciting is the potential for storytellers to work with our data to expand the world of their film.
Flickr Devs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/revdancatt/3398050524/
code_swarm: http://vis.cs.ucdavis.edu/~ogawa/codeswarm/
Overlay map from Shawn Allen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shazbot/3282821808/
WBP: I strongly believe that data is an area that will become increasing more valuable to filmmakers. Such as the data around their films and their audiences. I’m a proponent of of DataPortability and would love to see some type of audience sharing protocol established that enables audience to be aggregated in anonymous ways. Are these things that you’re considering around the development of OpenIndie? The name and what I’ve discussed with Arin leads me to believe that you want to be as open as possible. From a programming / development perspective how do you achieve openness that will satisfy the needs of both filmmakers and audiences?
KM: I couldn’t agree more and likewise, I’m a proponent of the DataPortability Project. Arin and I are determined to bring those values to OpenIndie. Data is already tremendously important to filmmakers, and I agree, it is only going to increase in value. As a programmer it is extremely tempting to do it yourself, to establish your own standards and close your doors to the world. Similarly, in the business world, it is very tempting to look upon your data as an asset that should be protected but I genuinely believe that opportunity comes from openness.
One thing fundamental to OpenIndie, that it’s important to understand if you’re filmmaker signing up to the site, is that the data surrounding your film is not private. What I mean by this is that OpenIndie believes it is beneficial to everyone for data pertaining to requests, screenings, and audience attendance etc. to be open. A filmmaker is not the only user who is going to have access to statistical information about a film’s life on OpenIndie. This is simply because the more applications that are built to utilise that data, the more attention a film gets and in turn the audience for that film grows. Whether it’s a one-off iPhone app for a film that tells you, wherever you are in the world, where you can find the nearest screening or a number-crunching web app for market research purposes it’s all of value to the filmmaker and the audience. I think the key point to remember is that we’re not building this site just for the benefit of filmmakers, or audiences or exhibitors the focus is ensuring the same level and quality of information is available to all those groups and beyond.
Finally, I must note that we are not planning to release any private data via our open API. Users will be able to give permission to release various levels of information such as geo-specific data, but we’re not in the business of handing out email addresses. What we do want to do is provide a open elegant interface for working with the fairly large amounts of data we are going to amass and for that data to be as complete as possible.
WBP: Any thoughts on the future of the real-time web and where you’d like to see it go especially in relation to filmmaking?
KM: As a geeky type I especially excited about SimpleGeo who have developed a cloud based platform for building location aware applications. I think that the potential for this product is immense in providing context to almost any action performed in the cloud. Likewise, they will give apps the ability to perform “complex geospatial and temporal queries” on their SimpleGeo enabled data. I can see fantastic opportunities for this with OpenIndie especially in real-time mobile applications. I eagerly awaiting a beta invite.
In terms of filmmaking I’m extremely excited to see how the real-time web can become part of storytelling, especially in a theatrical sense. I’m a passionate cinephile and love the theatrical experience and would love to see real-time web applications allowing the story world and the real world to blend. I’ve love to see OpenIndie involved with filmmakers using our data to make their story more immersive and we’d be extremely interested to hear from any filmmakers who are working in this area.
RELATED:
Arin Crumley explains OpenIndie
Phase 1 Successfully Funded! from OpenIndie on Vimeo.
November 30 2009
10 Lessons Learned – The New Year Parade
By Tom Quinn – In the fall of 2003 I began work on The New Year Parade with my co-producer, Steve Beal. Steve was a high school biology teacher with no film background and I was the building AV tech who would stop in at lunch to talk about my screenplay, which followed a South Philadelphia family through the first year of a divorce. It was loosely based on interviews I had filmed with friends about their parents’ divorces and set against the backdrop of Mummery, a centuries old tradition in South Philadelphia where the working class holds a parade on January first. The film concept was not entirely practical: in addition to the core cast we would need a hundred musicians in costume, thousands of extras, and permission to close Broad Street to film the parade sequences.
A Bit of History
The Mummers began strutting during pre-Revolutionary times and grew until the city organized an official parade in 1901. Popularity peaked in the 1960’s when thousands upon thousands would crowd the streets and bands like Quaker City and Ferko were nationally known. Like the rest of the country, the Mummers have been hit by hard times and the city was forced to cut funding in 2008. This past year, Philadelphia natives Kevin and Michael Bacon got involved with the Save the Mummers foundation www.savethemummers.com, organizing a Bacon Brothers benefit concert on December 5.
Lesson 1: Turn Your Perceived Weaknesses into Strengths
When Steve and I told friends about our script, they thought we were crazy: We had no money to speak of and could not afford seasoned actors, permits to shut down Broad Street, or props and costumes to create the parade. Inspired by Jim McKay’s Our Song we approached The South Philadelphia String Band to see if they would permit usage of their club and costumes for two weeks. Instead, we were welcomed in for three years as the band acted in the film; incorporated our cast and crew into rehearsals; gave us old costumes and keys to their club; and obtained press passes so we could shoot the 2005 Mummers parade with five cameras. Before we began shooting, I joined the Mummers’ Grapevine (a message board for members) and submitted sections of the script for feedback. We were also fortunate enough to work with The Quaker City String Band who acted as South Philadelphia’s chief competitor in the film. Because of the community’s endless support our film captures the Mummer world to an unprecedented degree.
Lesson 2: A Small, Dedicated Group Can Do Wonders
While we were fortunate to have a few professional young actors aboard, the majority of our cast had never acted before. To build the nonactors’ confidence we spent four months rehearsing and rewriting the script – shaping it to their personalities. Many scenes were shot as long improvisations, riffing off the screenplay while allowing the cast to tap into their own raw feelings and experiences. To keep our costs down, we filmed on nights and weekends over the course of three years while most of the team kept their full time jobs or were enrolled in school. This was a tremendous commitment for all involved – particularly the cast (who could not cut their hair for three years). For instance, Jennifer Welsh was in college and working full time while Greg Lyons moved to LA when his band Eastern Conference Champions was signed. Despite their busy schedules, the entire cast was professional and focused – always ready to perform, dress the sets, or pack up gear. Our crew was very small: typically the ever-talented Mark Doyle would run sound, light the set, set up the video monitor and occasionally act. Meanwhile, I shot and worked with the actors. On larger days we were lucky to have one or two extra hands (including the extremely loyal PA Grant Gaudry), but the crew was never more than five. It was a wonderful atmosphere and really did feel like a family by the end.
Lesson 3: You Don’t Need $$$ to Connect With An Audience
By 2007, we had shot 160 hours of tape, including 80 hours of documentary footage of Mummer practices, parades, and concerts. Our cut was progressing slowly when we were accepted into the amazing IFP Narrative Rough Cut Lab. Coming off the Lab we hit the pavement with new momentum and premiered at Slamdance in 2008. To our surprise we were awarded The Grand Jury prize for Best Narrative and followed it up with a great week at SXSW and 7 additional festival awards. 2008 ended with a Gotham Award nomination for The Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You, which brought the film to MOMA for an exclusive run. All of this for a film that was shot on digital video for $7,000!
Lesson 4: Find Passionate Partners
Steve and I briefly considered a theatrical run to coincide with the 2009 parade, but knew our release would benefit from time to plan. Fortunately, Carnivalesque Films were interested in releasing a DVD. Carnivalesque is a fairly new independent label we’re pretty psyched about. They are releasing exciting independent work like Mardi Gras: Made in China, Orphans, and Woodpecker. Owners David Redmon and Ashley Sabin are both filmmaker friendly and very hard working. We decided on a November 24 release to coincide with “Mum Season” in Philadelphia and began work on the DVD design and content.
Lesson 5: Create a Final Product With Audience in Mind
Based on our festival experience we felt there were three core audiences who would buy the DVD: Aspiring filmmakers, Mummer fans, and family counselors. Our aim was to create a DVD they would want to own rather than rent so we created eighty minutes of bonus features we thought they would enjoy. For aspiring filmmakers, we shot interviews with most of the major cast and crew and cut a “Making Of” that is unusually detailed for a low-budget film. Our hope was that, by including footage of auditions, rehearsals, and deleted scenes, other filmmakers could learn from our successes and failures.
I spoke to the friends I interviewed before shooting the film, and they were all supportive of including their discussions on divorce. During our festival run we had met many family counselors who thought the film could be useful to their profession because it explored the problem in a realistic way. We also met so many wonderful people, from the 68-year old woman in Ashland, Oregon to the 20-year old in Torino, Italy who had experienced divorce first hand and connected to the characters’ experiences. My hope had always been to generate discussion about divorce because, while it is a topic we often consider understood, many people have unresolved feelings toward it.
Finally, we created a “Behind-The-Sequins” section of the DVD, which provides a glimpse into Mummery. Everywhere we have screened, people have wanted to know more about the Mummers. We reached out to The Mummers’ String Band Association, who provided oral history interviews they had taped. We included three that related to the film. We also shot a History of The South Philadelphia String Band as a thanks for all they had given. The short documentary piece covers the band from their inception in 1946 through present day and includes interviews with 14 members, including Jim Donaghy, who had been their highly respected captain for 30 years.
For design, we turned to Matt Hanemann, a Philadelphia based designer and musician who had created our poster artwork. We both felt the design needed to be recognizable at a very small size as the DVD would often be a thumbnail online. Matt shifted the proportions from the poster concept to create greater emphasis on the title and created a beautiful back cover full of quotes and images. For the inside booklet, we used a photo from Charlie Roetz, a mummer from Quaker City String Band who tells the real story behind the photo in the film. Finally, we were fortunate to have Steven Rea, a respected critic with the Philadelphia Inquirer, write our liner notes.
Lesson 6: Theaters Will Work With You
To build awareness for the DVD release, Steve and I booked a theatrical run in Philadelphia through Landmark Theaters. We had reached out to Landmark in February and while they loved the film, they had concerns as to whether we could fill the theater for a week. Steve continued the conversation all summer while we simultaneously reached out to our press contacts in the Philadelphia area. Throughout our festival run, we had been contacted by reporters interested in a story, but we asked them to hold off until a release. We asked if they were still interested and went back to Landmark with confirmations from The Philadelphia Inquirer, City Paper, Daily News, and Philadelphia Weekly. In early October, they agreed to open the film on October 30 at their Ritz Bourse Theatre with five screenings per day. This all proved….
Lesson 7: Print is Not Dead
When Landmark first requested we buy an ad in The Inquirer we wondered whether that money could be better spent online. So much has been written in the past few years about the death of print and we did not have the funds to waste. Yet when it came time to premiere the film we found a very high percentage of our audience had discovered the film in print, despite a heavier online presence. The best answer I have is that the print audience is a paying culture and more likely to go to a theater and purchase a ticket whereas the online folks appear rabid at times, but may be more likely to wait for DVD on Amazon, Netflix, or bit torrent.
Lesson 8: Regional Filmmaking = Regional Release
Since we only had 4 weeks to promote and $300 left for P&A, Steve and I began work on a grassroots campaign to build awareness. We printed 200 mini-posters and I e-mailed the 18 string band presidents. Over the next 2 weeks I visited every club I could to talk directly to the members about our film. Meanwhile, Steve connected with Save The Mummers, who began promoting the run through their website (in exchange, we donated a portion of our Saturday night box). I also cut a new trailer geared toward the Philadelphia region, which featured the Vet and more obscure Mummer references. In the two weeks prior to the premiere our Facebook fans went from 220 to 2000! The excitement was electric!
Lesson 9: Free Beer Can’t Hurt
To kick off our run, Steve organized an event at Top Hat, a bar within walking distance to the theater who offered a free beer to each ticket holder. Then, 2nd Street Annie’s (owned by one of the Mummers in the film) offered a free drink to any ticket holder all week! Finally, we paired up with the amazing marketing agency 95 North, who sponsored a free happy hour mid-week! There, we projected bonus materials from the DVD, had a chance to meet fans of the film, and 95 North auctioned off free tickets to the screening! All of these events gave the audience a chance to interact with the cast and crew, and to meet other fans of the film.
Lesson 9: An Event Brings Press & People
After a year of traveling without The South Philadelphia String Band we were thrilled to include them in the premiere. Nobody brings a good time like the Mummers and this was certainly the case as they piled off the bus to play outside the theater.
Within minutes a crowd had gathered and was dancing in the street, cars were stopped, and the press showed up. Fox 29 interviewed me as the band played in the background, and then shared the footage with other area networks! Afterwards, three members from the band participated in the Q&A with the cast, allowing the audience to learn more about Mummery and their unique involvement in the film first hand.
Lesson 10: The Yankees Hate Independent Film
We knew from the get go it would be difficult to go up against Halloween, but never expected the Phils to be playing The World Series that weekend. It was tough competition, but fortunately our grassroots campaign paid off and Landmark extended the film for a second week! Word of mouth began catching on beyond the Mummer and art house crowd that second week and many new fans were disappointed the run ended before their friends could make it. All in all, the theatrical run brought in $6,766.50 on one screen and 1900 new Facebook fans just in time for the DVD release!
So Now What?
Our DVD was released through Carnivalesque Films this week and sales have been incredible! Netflix is backed up and word of mouth has been crazy good. We never expected any of this and are thrilled by the results. I’m especially grateful for the e-mails, hugs, and handshakes I’ve gotten from Mummers in Philadelphia thrilled to see their tradition respected and taken to a larger audience. Meanwhile, Carnivalesque has been helping with additional theatrical events. Next up is a week at Facets Cinematheque in Chicago from December 11 – 17.
When not wearing the many hats of distribution, I’ve begun working on a new screenplay set in the suburbs of Philadelphia where I can apply these 10 lessons. I look forward to learning 10 more.
Tom Quinn’s debut feature, The New Year Parade, was selected for the IFP Narrative Rough Cut Labs, won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative at Slamdance, and was a Gotham Award nominee for “Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You.” Tom has been listed one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine and “Ten Young Writer-Directors to Watch,” by MovieMaker Magazine. He was fortunate to be the first American filmmaker accepted to the Toronto International Film Festival Talent Lab and is currently working toward his MFA at Temple University.
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