Audio: Talking About the Future of Indie Film, at SXSW

Eight folks who were in Austin this week for the SXSW Film Festival sat down yesterday morning to have breakfast and talk about the one big idea or big challenge or big shift that we've been thinking about most these days. We recorded the conversation so you could listen in, but be forewarned that there's a lot of background noise; the restaurant was noisier than is ideal for audio recording. (It gets better as the recording goes on, as the restaurant empties out.) The order in which people speak in the recording is: producer Ted Hope, filmmaker Lance Weiler, conference organizer and producer Liz Rosenthal, technologist Brian Chirls, outreach guru Caitlin Boyle, filmmaker Brett Gaylor, producer and Filmmaker Mag editor Scott Macaulay, and me (Scott Kirsner.)

Some of the things we talked about:

- film financing
- transmedia experiences
- Creative Commons Plus licensing (ways to profit from people sharing and redistributing work licensed under Creative Commons)
- the need for more experimentation and information-sharing among filmmakers
- business models around piracy and file sharing (in particular what Jamie King has been doing with VODO)
- the desire for participation (IE, the audience is no longer just interested in passive consumption)
- the possibility of some kind of "Oprah's Book Club" movement that would involve groups of people watching and discussing films, rather than books
- the rise of YouTube, and whether filmmakers should be paying more attention to what audiences are doing (IE, watching short YouTube videos with groups of friends or colleagues), rather than insisting that the 90-minute film is the only "respectable" product to be making today

And much, much more.

I started the conversation by asking everyone to talk about one big idea or challenge that they'd been thinking about lately.

Here's the MP3, or you can listen by clicking 'Play' below.

Gabbing About What the Future Holds for Filmmakers

Filmmaker Magazine Editor Scott Macaulay and I had a chance to chat in October about where new technologies are taking the movie business. It was a really enjoyable conversation -- and the core of it is well-captured in the Q&A that appears in the fall issue of the mag. Here's the opening:

Q. You‘ve written a book about innovation in the media arts, and one recent innovation within our new digital world appears to be the decimation of traditional ways in which artists are paid for their work. Do you think there will be a countervailing innovation that will allow artists to get paid again, or, as [Wired Magazine editor] Chris Anderson argues, is all digital media destined to be free?

A. Well, I hope that innovation will offer ways for filmmakers to capture lots of value from their work. I‘m pro making money from creative work. I‘m a writer, that‘s what I do. I worry, though, that preserving the idea of being paid cash for the privilege of watching your movie, whether it‘s a download or a DVD, may be under threat. I had a conversation with one of my students. He has never bought a movie on iTunes, he doesn‘t buy a lot of music, and he said, “Your book and Web site are great — I downloaded the three free chapters, but I haven‘t bought the book.” I think that‘s kind of representative of the fact we may be heading towards the Chris Anderson “giving a lot away for free” economy. The challenge is going to be figuring out the new business models. Maybe they are ad-supported or maybe everyone needs a benefactor, a Medici family backing you up. Or maybe it‘s something else we haven‘t discovered yet.

Q. It‘s so ironic, because all these new models harken back to the oldest artist-support models there are. The patronage model goes back to the 15th century, and the idea that the artist is a traveling showman dates from before recorded media.

A. Yeah, maybe filmmakers will have to make money at live screenings where the audience interacts with them and has a cocktail before the movie and a Q and A after. Maybe it will be a little bit like the road shows of old. I understand, though, that a lot of filmmakers, like Hollywood studios, want to preserve their ability to sell DVDs, which have a great profit margin built into them. But I just know that DVDs are not going to have an infinite lifespan. Physical media is clearly going away. Even Blu-ray DVDs are going to go away at some point.

The Future of the Movie Trailer

An impromptu dinner at SXSW last night brought together an interesting group, including Arin Crumley ('Four Eyed Monsters'), Lance Weiler ('Head Trauma'), Brian Chirls, and producer and Filmmaker Magazine editor Scott Macaulay.

One topic we talked about over barbecue at the Iron Works was movie trailers: is it time to retire the idea of the trailer? Or just radically revamp it? (The very word 'trailer' is archaic; coming attractions used to play after the feature..."trailing" it.)

Here are some questions to think about:

- In an age when it costs nothing to distribute clips and promotional material from your film, why have just one trailer?

- Why are trailers only made once the movie is done and ready for release? What about sharing material (even, heaven forbid, non-polished material) while the film is in production, or post?

- The trailer genre is unabashedly sales-y. "Let's show you some great moments to try to convince you to go see this movie." What about more authentic approaches to introducing the audience to your story, your characters, your issue?

- Why not explain, as the filmmaker, what attracted you to the material, or why you wanted to tell this story, or playing a character of your own devising? (Alfred Hitchcock used to introduce his movies in the trailers. Check out Hitch promoting 'Psycho.') If you're a documentary filmmaker, maybe you could provide an introduction to the issue your film is about... with some stats, background, and images.

- Could a trailer (or series of trailers) offer 'entry points' into a movie, as Wes Anderson did with his 'Hotel Chevalier' short? Rather than excerpting the movie in a trailer, why not tell a story about one or more of the characters that pulls the viewer into the full-length film?

Scott Macaulay pointed out that many directors aren't good at cutting their own trailers. And he said that some filmmakers might worry about posting material early in the process: that can make it clear just how long it's taking to get your movie finished.

Brian Chirls and I talked a bit about using clips on sites like YouTube not just to generate buzz, but to get potential audience members to give you their e-mail address, or subscribe to an RSS feed of updates. (That's helpful later, when you want to try to get them to show up to a theater, or buy a DVD or download.) Chirls said the best solution is to use sites like YouTube to bring people over to your site (via a link in the "About this Video" box), and explain to them really simply how to sign up for your RSS feed, add your Facebook group to their profile, or enter their e-mail address to get occasional updates on the film.

In general, we agreed that most filmmakers are just so focused on making the feature, and then making the next feature, that they don't spend enough time exploring innovative ways to market and promote their work.

What If You Had an Unproduced Screenplay?

This morning's panel at the IFP Filmmaker Conference, 'Turning Your Viewers On,' was a lot of fun. Laurie Racine sat in for David Dudas of Eyespot, and she was great (in addition to working for Eyespot, Laurie is also involved with Creative Commons and dotSub, which added a lot to the panel.)

Here's a question I posed to the audience, which sent the discussion off on a really interesting trajectory. My goal was to talk about how creative people think about the collaborative potential of the Internet.

What if you had an unproduced screenplay in your desk drawer? Would you put that screenplay up on the Net, where an aspiring filmmaker could take it and turn it into a movie -- with full credit to you as the screenwriter? What if you could be assured that if they made a movie (maybe they'd film the entire script, or condense it into a short), and they made money, you'd be guaranteed a percentage of any revenues? But let's assume the more likely scenario is that your movie would only show at a film school, or online, but wouldn't generate much of a return for the filmmaker...

(Afterward, Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker Magazine mentioned that Jonathan Lethem, a bona fide famous writer, has done this with some of his short stories.)

Here were some of the responses from the audience:

- If the screenplay is in my desk drawer, it probably isn't very good, and I wouldn't want my name attached to it if a film was made.

- I'd worry that someone would take it and make a lot of money from my work.

- What if I become famous, and someday a studio wants to make a "real" movie from that old script that I wrote in college?

- What if they changed my script while they were making the movie?

Have a look at The Jonathan Coulton Project, where a very good singer/songwriter allows anyone to produce music videos using his songs. Why wouldn't screenwriters want the same kind of thing to happen with their unproduced work?

I'd love to hear your feedback below... but one last quote from the novelist and blogger Cory Doctorow to get you thinking: "The greatest threat to an artist is obscurity, not piracy."