ITVS: Case Studies of Indie Filmmakers Working with New Technologies

One of my big projects for 2008 was collaborating with ITVS on a series of case studies focused on indie filmmakers who are pioneering new ways to:

- Open up the production process to more audience participation

- Find and connect with new audiences for their work

- Distribute their finished film in new ways.

The first seven case studies are up on the ITVS site now, along with a list of the "Top Five Connection-Creating Strategies" and "Top Five Marketing and Promotion Strategies" for social issue filmmakers. (Many of these would work for any kind of filmmaker, but the whole project has a social issue doc focus.)

The filmmakers I interviewed include Byron Hurt ('Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes'); Katy Chevigny ('Election Day'); Curt Ellis ('King Corn'); David Iverson and Michael Schwarz ('My Father, My Brother and Me'); Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell ('10 MPH'); Tiffany Shlain ('The Tribe'); and Brad Lichtenstein ('What We Got'). One last case study, with Patrick Creadon (director of 'Wordplay' and 'I.O.U.S.A.'), should be up soon.

Here's part of the intro to the project:

...Chasing every new opportunity can be a waste of a filmmaker’s energy and resources. Which ones will generate the biggest return, in terms of attracting viewers, making change in the world and producing positive financial results?

The ITVS Digital Initiative: Report from the Field, a series of case studies published on the ITVS website, aims to answer that question. By sharing the stories of filmmakers who are experimenting with new technologies, and trying whenever possible to quantify the results, we’ll seek to inspire other filmmakers to innovate—while trying to avoid raising unrealistic expectations.

The Report from the Field will focus on three main changes, or pillars: opening up production, finding new audiences and taking advantage of new distribution opportunities:

Opening Up Production to Participation
During pre-production and production, how are filmmakers communicating with audiences, widely dispersed teams, funders and prospective subjects in new ways? What new opportunities for involvement and participation are they exploring?

Finding New Audiences
Once a project is completed and ready for release/broadcast, how are filmmakers using blogs, social networks, games and other technologies to reach audiences that will care about their project?

New Distribution Opportunities
How are filmmakers presenting their work on websites, cell phones, iPods and the new generation of Internet-connected TVs and set-top boxes? Do these distribution avenues create conflict with more traditional outlets? Are there substantial economic benefits or simply promotional positives?

Thanks to Sally Jo Fifer, Matthew Meschery, Cathy Fischer, Jim Sommers, and the rest of the team at ITVS for supporting this work!

A New DIY Manual for Indie Filmmakers

Hunter Weeks, director of the documentary '10 MPH', has just published a most excellent manual for other do-it-yourself indie filmmakers (it's especially geared to first-timers.) It's available for free on his Web site, or for 99 cents as a PDF/printable download.

From the introduction:

We had no formal training in making films and very little understanding of how the industry worked. This obviously meant we didn't have any connections either. But we could tell things were changing and felt we had the ability to jump in and figure it out. This spirit is one that many filmmakers share. It's a desire to do something more than the ordinary - to create something that will ultimately have an effect on people. After three years, I can honestly say I think we're figuring it out and it's a whole heck of a lot of work. But, the rewards are just enough that it leaves us hungering for more and just certain enough that we're on the path to whatever it is that we're supposed to be doing.

Hunter is also now experimenting with a Radiohead-style, "name your own price" program for the downloadable version of '10 MPH.'

His next doc, '10 Yards,' is about fantasy football. There's already a site up to promote it. Smart.

Digital Downloads Panel at IFP Filmmaker Conference

This afternoon's panel on Digital Downloads was hugely fun for me to moderate.

Joel Heller of Docs That Inspire recorded the panel, and has posted it here.

Some of my impressions and rough notes:

- Digital downloading isn't yet a major revenue-generator for indie filmmakers; Hunter Weeks of '10 MPH' said he has sold about 4000 DVDs of the documentary, and about 700 downloads (both on his own site and on Amazon Unbox)

- Anyone who picks up your movie for distribution in theaters, on home video, or on TV will try to buy the digital rights for it ... even if they don't actually do anything with them; carving out digital rights seems like a good idea

- We all agreed that iTunes is the "hot shop" where digital movie buying happens, but they're not yet open to indies; Peter Broderick of Paradigm Consulting said that iTunes will start selling indie content (handled by aggregators) really soon, but wouldn't say more

- Building a database of your fans' names, e-mail addresses, and ZIP codes is really important, as you sell downloads. Many services won't give you that information, to protect their customers' privacy. But Peter said that getting that information could be as valuable as any profit you earn from selling or renting your movie -- since those are fans you can communicate with and market your future films to. Peter has a great term for that group of people: they are a filmmakers "core personal audience." I like that.

- I predicted, in response to an audience question, that in five years, digital movie consumption will be about equal to consumption on DVD.

- Jaman said they plan to start integrating advertising in short films soon, and sharing the revenue with creators (right now, Jaman's model is simply to sell or rent full-length movies in digital form)

- I brought up Jaman's deal structure: they give filmmakers 30 percent of the rental or download revenues, and pocket 70 percent. That compares to selling movies through Amazon's Unbox / CreateSpace, which split revenues down the middle. Kathleen Powell said that Jaman is more of a concentrated community of cinephiles, and that indie features and docs don't get lost. (She also said that "Black" is the site's most popular film.)

- Then Brian Chris of the 'Four Eyed Monsters' team hammered on Jaman some more, noting that the site requires filmmakers sign a six year non-exclusive agreement ... so if you made another distribution deal, you couldn't remove your movie from Jaman for six years. Kathleen clarified, and said that the length of these deals run anywhere from five to nine years, and said that it's expensive for the site to encode movies (that cost is anywhere from $800 to $2000). So it isn't economical for the site to do that one week, and have a filmmaker pull down the title the next week.

More from the IFP Filmmaker Conference

Lance Weiler moderated a great panel yesterday afternoon that was supposed to be about "Consumer Viewing Habits" but wound up being more about the economics of supporting one's creative work, whether it involves full-length features (Arin and Susan from 'Four Eyed Monsters' were there), short-form funny videos (Andrew Baron from Rocketboom), or documentary (Brett Gaylor of Open Source Cinema).

Some very random notes:

Arin mentioned to Brett how important it is to collect ZIP codes from people interested in your project. That way, when you're doing theatrical screenings or events (or trying to figure out where you should do these events), you have a sense of the geography of your fan base: do people love you in Madison, Wisconsin, while they couldn't care less in Portland, Oregon?

Brett showed the trailer for his doc, which garnered applause -- a good sign. It should be finished next year, he says.

Andrew said that Rocketboom is one of YouTube's advertising partners, and that YouTube will share revenue from the ads it places on Rocketboom. But none of the ads have started showing up yet. Lance suggested that one reason why is that someone created a hack for Firefox that allows you to strip the ads off YouTube's videos. I suspect there may be other reasons, too. Afterward, Baron told me that the ad payments are based on impressions (not click-throughs), and that YouTube would be splitting the revenue roughly down the middle with its creators.

Arin and Susan shared a lot of financial info about 'Four Eyed Monsters.' They've grossed about $135,000 from the movie so far (but are still trying to erase some credit card debt.) About 69 percent of that has come from selling DVDs, movie tickets, and downloads, and 31 percent has come from selling t-shirts, posters, and other merch.

Afterward, Hunter Weeks (director of the doc '10 MPH') came up and we talked about distribution a bit. He said he hasn't really been selling many downloads on Amazon Unbox, even though an Amazon PR rep told me recently that his films was among the best-selling indie downloads on that site. (They had 12 downloads in the month of August through Unbox...and yet a representative for Amazon's CreateSpace division, which handles the indie content on Unbox, told me that month that they were "in the top 20 Unbox titles." What does that say about how well Unbox is doing?) Hunter said he also sells digital versions of the movie on his own site using a service called E-Junkie, which charges $80 a month to host the movie -- and nothing per transaction.

Then there was some hanging around in the lobby...I spoke with a couple knowledgeable folks about when, if ever, indie movies will appear on iTunes. The smart money is on 2008 -- not this year. iTunes is supposedly still more focused on trying to get more studio content. (It is now almost two years since I wrote this opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle arguing that Apple is being hypocritical by not allowing independent creators to sell their film and video on iTunes.)

Then there was a dinner that Slava Rubin of IndieGoGo organized....which brought together the 'Four Eyed Monsters' team, Lance, Brett, and M dot Strange...basically, an incredible about of DIY filmmaking smarts gathered around one long table.