Over at Filmmaker Magazine, Jake Abraham, writer/producer of “Lovely by Surprise”, wrote yesterday about his troubles with Twitter and file sharing. I know he’s not the only one, so it seemed a good opportunity to share a few points on how to turn these tricky points to your advantage.
Abraham writes:
Twitter in particular has proven to be a great device for communication amongst our followers. It has also become a tool for evil, I’ve discovered. On Saturday, August 8th, one month after our official release date, there was a spike in tweets related to LBS. We wondered why and took a look. It appeared that people were tweeting and re-tweeting a URL that linked to a pirated version of the film.
Remember the pink slime from “Ghostbusters II”? For most of the film, it was also a “tool for evil.” But Dr. Spengler et al. sprayed it all over the inside of the Statue of Liberty, and then it made everybody hug. (Ok, it represents a slightly different kind of “free,” but I think the analogy holds.)
I don’t need to spend a lot of time on how to compete with free, since it’s a well-covered topic. Kevin Kelly’s essay “Better Than Free” lists a number of factors that you can build into your film/story/product to give it value that make it worth paying for, even when it’s available for free. Brian Newman has a blog post and video on it, which is worth watching.
What this is really about is taking advantage of Twitter and other communication tools to play a major part in the global conversation about your work. (If there isn’t one, you need to start it.) Piracy on Canal St. happened before the Internet, and illegal downloading happened before Twitter. As Abraham acknowledged, you can’t stop it. Beyond pointers to free downloads, people are going to be saying lots of things about your film that you don’t like, including bad reviews, off-brand descriptions of your work and possibly even lies or personal attacks. The power of the Internet is that you can be in on it. You can know it’s happening, you can respond to it and you can preempt it.
As a filmmaker, you are at a tremendous advantage in owning your brand’s online story. Presumably, you know all about your film before anyone else does, so you can start putting your message out there before anyone else gets to it. You own the domain name, twitter account, etc. for the name of your film. (You don’t? Get on it!) And the people who love the film are probably the most vocal about it, and they’ll link back to you. You have to work real hard to piss people off enough that the haters will shout more loudly than the fans. If you keep the conversation going, those tweets and blog posts about torrent links and other nastiness will drift off the front pages and into obscurity. There are a few tiny things about me personally from way back that I’d rather not have out there (nothing too juicy, sorry), but you have to dig pretty deep to find it, because I’ve put myself out there with Twitter, an open Facebook account, my blog, etc.. But if you keep quiet, the nasties will fill the void for you.
Of course, it’s much harder to take advantage of this when you’ve got $1 million or more at stake and you address the matter after your film is already out. I think it’s wise to keep budgets low for now, as the details are still being worked out, but they will be worked out, since these are not entirely new business principles. Mercedes-Benz doesn’t go out of business just because it’s cheaper to get to work in a Hyundai. And Coach is still profitable, even though their belts are being knocked off everywhere. That’s because Mercedes and Coach are premium brands, and it’s not about a cheap ride to the office or keeping your pants from falling down. Their advertising messages reflect that, which is why Mercedes ads have Janis Joplin and vintage cars instead of some announcer shouting about seasonal discounts.
Most independent films are also premium brands. Your film is probably not about killing 90 minutes. It’s not about catching a glimpse of Megan Fox bent over, and it’s not about keeping the kids quiet in the back of the minivan. You can’t compete with “free” on price any more than Mercedes can compete on price with Hyundai. So don’t. Your film is about a deeper story, and the ability to create that is your sustainable competitive advantage. Twitter and other digital media are your opportunity to demonstrate that.
I’m writing a film right now, and even before the script is finished, I’m planning some cool stuff for screenings, merchandise and other payment points to add value along the lines of Kevin Kelly’s article. When I release the film, I will probably put it online for free. By putting it out there myself, I can beat the pirates to it and make sure free copies are burned with a URL to my online store, and I can track how many people are watching it. But it also tells the story that my film is a full experience and more than just a few hundred megabytes of pixels. After all, as a filmmaker, I should know how to tell a story, right?
Sure the Internet is a double-edged sword. But if you know where to swing it, you don’t have to cut your face off.
This Saturday, I will be speaking on a roundtable on metadata at the Open Video Conference and presenting an informal demonstration of new, metadata-related software I’ve been working on at the “Hack Day” on Sunday.
For the past year or so, I’ve been hearing bits of the film industry slowly wake up to the fact that the state of media metadata is a mess. The complete lack of open, common data formats leaves media producers struggling to conform their data to a variety of proprietary formats, only to result in outdated and inaccurate information left under the control of others. Worse, existing processes discriminate against independent producers by limiting what counts as a “real” movie, album or other work.
I have been working on a project called Open Media Object Format, which is a free (both as in beer and as in speech) protocol and file format for publishing rich metadata on a range of media. The protocol creates a distributed network of information on media and its participants, allowing the information to spread while every creator maintains authority over their own work. And the format is designed to store semantic data in more detail than we’ve seen before. The Open Media Object Format is an effort to address the above problems while bringing metadata away from the mere administrative, opening up possibilities for pretty cool stuff we haven’t seen before.
Scott Kirsner (moderator) is a journalist and all-around smart guy. He’s the author of two books, Inventing the Movies, which I frequently cite as a defining analysis of how the film industry falls behind on innovation, and Fans, Friends & Followers, an excellent collection of interviews with artists who build their own audiences and distribute their own work. He also writes the blog Cinematech.
On Sunday, April 26, 2009, I will be speaking at a panel at Independent Film Festival Boston on digital strategies for building and communicating with your audience. I hope to reveal some of the tools I’ve been working on over the past year.
I’m looking forward to attending IFFB for the first time. I’ve heard great things about the festival, since Four Eyed Monsters played there in 2005, and the festival’s Program Director Adam Roffman managed the very successful Boston release of the film in 2006.
Here are the Details:
Sunday, April 26, 2009 @ 12:00 pm Somerville Theatre
55 Davis Sq
Somerville, MA 02144
(617) 625-5700 map
The other panelists are:
Scott Kirsner (moderator) is a journalist and all-around smart guy. He’s the author of two books, Inventing the Movies, which I frequently cite as a defining analysis of how the film industry falls behind on innovation, and Fans, Friends & Followers, an excellent collection of interviews with artists who build their own audiences and distribute their own work. He also writes the blog Cinematech.
As promised in the video, here is a list of some of the tools I use and recommend. If you have any to add, post them in a comment. I’ll update this post if I find any others that are useful.
General Information Tools
WordPress: This is the blogging software that runs this website, as well as foureyedmonsters.com, Workbook Project and tons of others. It’s free and open source. You can have it hosted for free on wordpress.com, or you can download it and install it on your own web server and customize it further. In addition to blog posts, you can set up more permanent “pages” for information about your film that isn’t time-based (example). Learn more and get WordPress at http://wordpress.org
Google Analytics: Most web hosting services provide basic reporting, but Google Analytics offers a clean, more reliable way to track your web traffic and drill down to find more information. I use this mostly to learn where incoming links are coming from and to see which pages and posts on my sites are getting the most attention. This is also free. If you have WordPress, you can use this plugin to easily get Analytics running on your site. Learn more and sign up for Google Analytics at http://google.com/analytics
Discovery Tools
Search Engine Optimization: This is not a specific software tool so much as a tactic for making your website easier to find through search engines. There are a few WordPress plugins out there, but your best bet is to search around the web for articles. Andrew Peterson, who worked on the Four Eyed Monsters distribution team sometimes blogs about SEO. Some people try to game the system or cheat to get higher search rankings, but I try to use tactics that will also make a site easier and more informal for humans as well as for Google. Learn about Search Engine Optimization on Wikipedia
Social Networks: This includes the obvious sites, like Facebook and MySpace, but many other sites have social networking components. YouTube, Flickr, Twitter or any other site that let’s you link up to other friends on the same service is a social network. Most social networks will show your friends what you’re up to, and they will show their friends in turn that they’re watching you.
Spreading and Sharing Tools
Social Bookmarking: A variety of tools exist that allow you to bookmark resources on the web and share them publicly. I use del.icio.us (a.k.a. Delicious), but there are a ton of others (Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, etc.), each a bit different in exact purpose and features. Encourage your audience to share your videos, posts, etc. on these sites. I use Social Bookmarking RELOADED, which is a WordPress plugin that automatically adds social bookmarking links to every post on my blog. Also, check out ShareThis, which is what you saw on the Iron Sky site in the above video.
Subscription Tools
RSS and Atom Feeds are formats of machine-readable XML versions of websites. They’re great for reading blogs using news reader software, such as Google Reader. The idea is that posts on blogs you read are pushed to you through the reader software so you don’t have to remember to go back to the blog website. They’re also great for syndicating information between sites. The differences between RSS and Atom are subtle and technical, so for right now, they’re almost the same exact thing. Learn more about feeds
Twitter is a service that allows you to very easily post short updates, up to 140 characters from your cell phone, IM (Jabber/GTalk), a website or a variety of software. People can subscribe to your Twitter feed using RSS/Atom or through Twitter itself via those same platforms (text messages, instant messaging, etc.). You can also use the same RSS feed to syndicate these updates to your website, Facebook or other services. This is a great way to keep the updates coming without much time investment. Learn more and sign up at Twitter.com
Interaction Tools
Disqus: WordPress and other blogging software come with built-in comment functions. Encourage your audience to post comments to keep the discussion going. Disqus is a service that plugs in to your blog and enhances the discussion features. Use these to keep your fans invested, get feedback on what you’re posting and see which fans are most involved. Learn more and sign up for Disqus
cforms: This should be obvious, but not every film site has this. I use this WordPress plugin to create a great contact form on my site so people can email me directly and privately without me having to post my email address online, which invites tons of spam. It also tracks incoming emails in a database so I can keep an eye on who’s in touch. Get cforms
Examples
Here are some film and media channel sites that show off some of the tools and strategies I talked about in this video.
Here at SXSW, I’ve met a number of cool, smart, ambitious filmmakers, some of whom even have great films. Even as I attend premieres and parties that fit the fantasy, the sad reality of distribution prospects for the films is all too evident. That’s why I’m working with the From Here to Awesome team to build a strong case for DIY distribution. Maybe, rather than drag filmmakers kicking and screaming, we can see a DIY distribution as a positive opportunity.
Inspired by our roundtable discussion, I pulled out a couple of old distribution contracts I had and took them apart to look for the value that the distributors brought to the table in exchange for the rights granted. A typical distribution deal will offer the following:
Physical distribution
Cutting the deal
Promotion
Cash advance and/or minimum guarantee
If we can understand what this value is, we can evaluate whether these distribution deals are the best option. Here is a look at what each of those means and which rights and costs to the filmmaker are associated with each service.
Physical distribution
Getting your film (and soundtrack, posters, t-shirts, etc.) to an audience is a clearly necessary and valuable service. It includes replicating and shipping DVDs and placing them in stores (online and offline); theaters and film prints or digital cinema; and digital download or streaming services. Most of the above services are commodities, in that there are many competitive companies from which a filmmaker or distributor can choose, so prices tend to be reasonably close to the actual cost of time and materials. For physical distribution, the filmmaker often pays either a fixed fee or a small percentage of revenues. Exclusivity is almost never required, and contract terms are for short periods of time.
DVD replication is a great example. Depending on volume, you can pay about a dollar or two per DVD. Shipping costs are fixed, as is the amount per unit that a retailer will usually pay. Download services are not quite there yet as far as deal terms. ITunes is pretty good, passing along 70% of gross revenues, though you have to go through an aggregator, who will take their own small cut. (See the next section.) Other download services have yet to come on board with reasonable terms. It is fair for a download contract to lock you in for a certain amount of time to cover encoding costs, but those costs are always falling and terms should become shorter. (The term should be somewhere from zero to no more than three years, but about one year is fair.)
Cutting the deal
Unfortunately, many distribution platforms won’t work directly with filmmakers, so you need someone to close the deal for you. This could include a lawyer to double-check your contracts. Again, iTunes is one such example; they require that you go through an aggregator, though it’s very possible that they’ll eventually drop that requirement as they learn how to scale the acquisition process. Think of these people as agents, whose services might be worth about 10%.
Promotion
Promotion is perhaps the most elusive and tricky of all the value points distributors will claim to offer. They will often incur costs for advertising, though incurring cost is not the same as providing value. Unless you have the kind of movie that is well represented by newspaper ads, billboards and trailers on television, a distributor is not likely going to know better how to promote your movie than you do. To look at it another way, you can spend $30,000 (guesstimate) on a quarter page ad in the New York Times. For a truly independent film, that might bring ten or twenty people to a screening. (For Four Eyed Monsters, it brought one.) Now, imagine what you could do spending the same $30k on a web video series, where your audience can subscribe and interact repeatedly directly on your website.
Promotion is particularly nasty because it’s the primary reason for someone to demand exclusivity. The idea is that if a theatrical distributor pays for a newspaper ad, someone might see that ad and then buy a DVD instead of going to the theater. So they need to not only get a cut of that DVD but also determine how and when you can sell that DVD. You can get around exclusivity by working with companies that don’t do much or any promotion, though there are many that will claim that they promote your work but don’t really. A buried listing on a website or in a catalogue is not sufficient promotion to justify exclusivity. You may want to offer very limited exclusivity (e.g. on a given platform for 30 days) in exchange for a great promotion or placement opportunity.
Cash advance
At the point that a film is picture locked and ready to screen, filmmakers often find themselves desperate to make a deal that will cover their budget. Such desperation gives any source of said cash undue negotiating power, and the whole situation should be preventable by preparing distribution funding in advance. Consider that a distributor’s advance/minimum guarantee is simply time-shifting of money and sharing of risk. It happens that these are the exact services that financial institutions and equity investors provide. So why would you go to a movie company for financial services instead of to a financial services provider?
Typically, before shooting a single frame, a filmmaker will raise money from one or more investors – perhaps private equity (like a dentist uncle), from a production company or by credit card. At that point, the investor is taking on a great deal of risk and will expect an accordingly high share of the profits. Maybe the film will stink; maybe the production will go catastrophically over budget; or maybe the director will get hit by a bus. But once the film is completed, much of that risk has dissipated. The movie has been delivered, and maybe it’s even pretty good. Any further investment from then on should take significantly less ownership, corresponding to the lower risk.
Given an investor-filmmaker relationship that has been successful enough to make it to picture lock, a filmmaker might be best served to return to the original investor(s) to fund delivery and distribution until revenues start coming in from box office, retail, etc. Better yet, one might prepare a business plan to receive a first round of production funding with a high-risk return, followed by a second round of distribution funding at a pre-determined lower return rate once the picture lock milestone has been reached. This is no different from how start-up companies prepare for venture funding.
Build vs. Buy
Whatever resources I need for a film project, I’m always asking myself whether to build or to buy. I look at the costs and benefits of hiring another company provide a service for me, compared with the costs and benefits of putting together the resources to do it myself. Once you break down the real costs and added value of any distribution or other deal, you can determine at each step whether you really need someone else to do it for you. Depending on what you find out, a distributor may be the best way to go, or maybe it’s just better to DIY.
This January at Slamdance, I covered this discussion on alternative funding methods for Filmmaker Magazine. After a month and a half of wrestling with video formats on YouTube, here is the entire panel. Notes and short excerpts clips are on the original post on Filmmaker.
Last week, at Sundance, I managed to squeeze in a quick meeting with Scott Kirsner, who writes one of my favorite blogs, Cinematech. Scott was in Park City to a panel called Digital Opportunities for Creatives, which I missed because it was after I left town. But we had a few minutes to talk about said opportunities, and Scott interviewed me on video for his blog.
Brian’s a smart guy… we mostly talked about the importance of collecting information about your fans (and who’s a super-fan versus someone who’s just mildly interested in your movie). We also touched on the deal that ‘Four Eyed Monsters’ did with YouTube and Spout, where YouTube offered the full movie for free, and Spout served as a sponsor, paying the filmmakers a buck for every new member who joined after watching the movie on YouTube.
Check out Scott’s original post and take a minute to look at some of the other posts on his site.
Peter Goldwyn and I disagreed on a few things, which made for a fun and interesting discussion. He seems like a smart guy, and it was good to hear from Peter and Clémence, who have very different sets of experiences.
Correction: In our discussion, I compared the theatrical film industry to the bottled water industry. I mis-stated some figures. Upon further research, I realized that the global bottled water business generates $50bn, whereas the U.S. market is closer to $10 billion (source: ResearchBuy MarketWikis). However, this is still more than the annual U.S. theatrical gross of $9.49bn (source: MPAA). So I think my point is still valid.
A few bloggers have noticed a post that Netscape founder Marc Andreessen posted last week. He proposes that, given the precarious state of Hollywood’s control over…just about everything, the WGA strike could serve as a tipping point at which the structure of Hollywood changes to one similar to Silicon Valley, where the artists become entrepreneurs and each film is its own independent start-up company. Yet another blockquote:
But here we are, living in a world in which the bottlenecks have suddenly become irrelevant.
I don’t think there’s any question that this is the logical model to pursue in the age of the Internet — the age of free distribution and marketing.
Suppose the writers’ strike continues for months to come — and even beyond that, suppose the actors or the directors also go on strike. In such a scenario, it is hard to see how many companies based on this new model won’t be created extremely quickly — after all, if you really can’t work for the Man, why not start your own company, if you can?
