Exploring Tectonic Media Shifts, Later This Month

I'm looking forward to the big, biennial NAMAC conference being held in Boston later this month, August 26-29.

(To the uninitiated, NAMAC is the National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture, a group of organizations dedicated to "the independent moving image arts, or what we call the 'media arts.'")

I'll be running a workshop (hopefully a very interactive, useful, high-energy one) on Friday, August 28th about the challenges of cultivating audiences and generating revenue in the digital age.

We're in the midst of a major tectonic shift in the way media is produced and consumed, and the conference will address a lot of the big questions that are being raised by this shift -- questions that I often blog about here.

Questions like...

- What kinds of content are people watching, and what platforms are they watching it on?
- What makes content 'go viral'?
- How do viewers want to participate with content-makers?
- How do you get viewers to do something after they've viewed your content?
- What is the relationship between content and social networks?

The event brings to Boston some very smart, forward-looking people, including Wendy Levy from BAVC, filmmaker and media prof Brad Lichtenstein, Tamara Gould from ITVS, Joaqin Alvarado from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris. (And, I'm sure, many others whom I just haven't yet met.) I'm looking forward to it...

For locals interested in attending the conference, there is a $75 day rate (and a $50 student rate.)

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!

New Business Models for Digital Distribution

Any idea what the weekend box office numbers were for April 14-15, 1894?

Or how much home video raked in, the first few days that you could purchase movies on VHS or Betamax tapes?

Cinema was a tiny business at the outset. The Holland Bros. Kinetoscope Parlor in Manhattan took in $120 on its first day of business, a Saturday. When the entrepreneur Andre Blay started selling Hollywood titles on cassette in the 1970s, he made $140,000 during his first weekend.

Those are pretty unimpressive figures.

But by the mid-1920s, movies were generating $1 billion a year (adjusted for inflation). By 1990, home video had grown into a $6 billion business.

Those two examples may be instructive when studios and filmmakers look at digital distribution today. It’s small. It’s tempting to ignore it, and focus instead on selling DVDs. That’s where the money is. But digital, I believe, will gain a lot of steam over the next five years.

This shift from the business of selling physical DVDs to the business of selling digital bits was the focus of two panel discussions earlier this week; they were sponsored by ITVS and the Paley Center for Media. One took place Monday in Beverly Hills, and the other was held Tuesday in San Francisco.

The panel included Rick Allen, CEO of Snag Films; Tami Yeager, a filmmaker who is also working with the Tribeca Film Institute’s Reframe Project; and Jesse Patel of the Participatory Culture Foundation. Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain participated in the SF panel, and Brian Terwilliger was the filmmaker on the Beverly Hills panel.

Even the filmmakers who have been pioneers of digital distribution haven’t yet come close to earning online what they earn from selling DVDs. Terwilliger said that while his movie One Six Right is for sale on iTunes, it isn’t easy to find unless you specifically search for the title. (For some reason, Apple doesn’t list it under “Documentaries” or any other category, and he hasn’t been able to rectify that.) Shlain told me that while her short “The Tribe” was the top-selling short film on iTunes for a while last year, and while she has offered it through other sites, the digital revenues have been only about 1/10th what DVD sales have achieved. (Shlain has also had trouble getting paid by the aggregator that helped funnel the movie to iTunes.)

But everyone on the panel agreed that DVDs will not last forever.

What was most useful at both panels was exploring some of the different business models that are emerging for earning digital dollars from movie releases:

- Paid downloads, a la iTunes.

- Paid rentals (limited period for viewing)

- Free rental or download (to reach broad audience); what’s free may be only a portion of the film, and “extras” or bonus material or a "comprehensive" version of the film may be for sale, digitally or on DVD

- Subscription (a project is released in installments, and interested viewers pay a small monthly subscription to receive them – or receive them first, a week or a month before they’re released for free)

- Slicing and dicing. Educators or institutions may pay a fee for the right to edit or excerpt a full-length film in a way that suits their needs. Instead of the old, “Buy this DVD for $300,” you might say, “Pay $300 for the right to customize this material to fit your course, or to work in the context of a group meeting.”

- Bounty fee/referral fee. A film becomes a tool for generating new members for a Web site or other organization. With the YouTube release of Four Eyed Monsters, for instance, the filmmakers received $1 for every new user they directed to the Web site Spout.com

- Advertising/sponsorship/underwriting. A film will be peppered with short ads (they’re 15 seconds long on SnagFilms), or sponsorship/underwriter messages.

- Live speaking gigs via videochat. One interesting new idea that emerged from the panels is that filmmakers might earn “speaking fees” without having to travel. Instead of asking a non-profit or educational institution to pay $2500 or $5000 to fly you out to address their group, ask them to pay $250 or $500 to have you do a short live talk/Q&A (using software like Skype or iChat) after they’ve watched your film. More groups would be able to afford that kind of filmmaker interaction than the pricier one, and fewer filmmakers would be spending time stuck in airports or jammed into center seats.

No doubt there are other models that will work, or are at least worth trying. Post your thoughts below…

400 Producers Talk About Digital Strategies

The Independent Television Service just released the results of a survey, conducted this past spring, of more than 400 producers and indie filmmakers. San Francisco-based ITVS asked them about shooting in HD, distributing via the Internet, online promotion, and selling rights to their work.

The survey, in PDF form, is here -- it offers some great insight into the mind of the documentary filmmaker/producer. (Full disclosure: I'm in the midst of working on a research project with ITVS.)

From the conclusion:

In short, the survey shows that few producers are profiting from digital distribution today. Most, however, are optimistic about the future impact of technology, although concerns linger about how indies will use brand, niche marketing and flexible partnerships to succeed in the digital age. These trends are in line with the marketplace, where only three to four percent of film revenue is currently generated via online distribution, mostly by commercial blockbusters and viral hits.

Producers' perceptions of the future may reflect the experience of the music industry -- to which many referred in their comments -- where digital sales rose from almost nothing in 2003 to 15 percent of industry revenues in 2008, with some independent labels reporting up to 40 percent of their revenue flowing via digital distribution. For the independent film producer, however, few clear choices for online distribution have presented themselves to date, and many producers continue to move cautiously as they search and wait for better options.

There are some great quotes sprinkled throughout the report from producers who filled out the survey. Among them:

"Realize that more and more people, and especially young people, will have nothing to do with non-interactive, non-participatory content."

and...

“I am overwhelmed with all the things I should be doing…the promise of the Internet is still at arms length….I’ll have to stop making films and learn a whole new skill set? Rats.”