The Distribution U. Wrap-Up

Wow: two hundred filmmakers made their way to USC on Saturday (braving a walkathon that encircled the campus) to talk about the future of film marketing and distribution.

Amidst the continual caterwauling about the indie film “crisis,” Distribution U. was remarkably optimistic, as Peter Broderick and I had hoped it would be. Rather than organizing a panel where various experts would wring their hands about how it’s impossible to turn a profit making indie films anymore, our objective was to focus the day solely on strategies and tactics for finding an audience and earning a return.

I began the day by looking back at the history of cinema, briefly. Thomas Edison thought that movies projected for a communal audience would spell the end of his lucrative Kinetoscope business: the movie industry’s first existential crisis. In the late 1920s, most of Hollywood was convinced that sound technology was too expensive and complicated, and probably a passing fad anyway. TV was seen as a threat to the studios’ box office take, and a few decades later, once a big TV licensing business had emerged for movie studios, they were certain that the VCR and home taping would mean the end of that gravy train. Now, studio honchos and indies alike worry about declining DVD sales and digital revenues that, of course, will never be sufficient to support high-quality content creation.

But the bulk of my talk consisted of examples of how filmmakers (and musicians, artists, and writers) are engaging with their audience in new ways, and generating substantial revenues. (This was a one-hour version of a three-hour Fans, Friends & Followers workshop I’ll be giving in San Francisco on the evening of December 1st, at BAVC.)

Peter’s presentation was split into two hour-long parts, and though I’ve seen him speak several times before, each time there are new examples and clips that make me excited about the future. You can certainly keep hoping for the lottery ticket distribution deal, where someone hands you $10 or $20 million and turns your film into a great hit. Or you can be as creative with marketing and distribution as you were with your film, and take matters into your own hands.

One tidbit from Peter’s talk: he emphasized the need for filmmakers to create a persona – to be a human representation of their film, the “character” responsible for its creation. You might call this personal branding, and I know it doesn’t come as second-nature to every producer or director, some of whom prefer to operate behind-the-scenes. One of the filmmakers who was present at Distribution U. to lead a lunchtime discussion group, Adrian Belic (“Beyond the Call,” “Genghis Blues”), is a near-perfect example of someone who has cultivated a larger-than-life filmmaker persona. Belic is so enthusiastic about his movies, and bursts forth with stories about them, that you feel like the absolute next thing you must do is go see them.

We ended the day by inviting five filmmakers up to the stage to tell us a bit about their current project. (People were chosen at random.) Then, several of our guest experts – as well as other filmmakers in the audience -- offered constructive ideas and advice about marketing, sales, and distribution. (Among the folks who chimed in were Belic, Thomas Mai of Festival Darlings, filmmaker and marketing guru Marc Rosenbush, producer Cora Olsen, and Madelyn Hammond, most recently a top marketing exec at Variety and Landmark Theatres.)

The five films we talked about were:

- ”Two Spirits”

- ”Tricks”

- ”In My Sleep”

- “While Time Stands Still”

- ”Becoming Bert Stern”

It was a nice mix of narrative features and docs from some really driven, creative filmmakers.

We closed the day by asking the participants to boo if they were feeling more depressed and pessimistic than they had been in the morning. The room was quiet. Then we asked for applause if people were feeling more energized and enthusiastic, and it seemed like just about everyone was clapping.

Were you at Distribution U.? If so, what was the idea or tactic that struck you as most useful? What did you get out of the lunch discussion you were part of? Was there any advice you had for the five filmmakers who were part of the brainstorming session, but didn’t get a chance to impart? Do post a comment….

And here are some more pics from the event...



Madelyn Hammond leads a lunch discussion group.



Cora Olsen talks with the audience after her case study session.



Sacha Gervasi shares some advice with the audience.



Thomas Mai leads a lunchtime discussion on foreign sales.



Adrian Belic leads a lunchtime discussion group on theatrical bookings and working the festival circuit.



View from the back of the room. (Yes, we're hoping to release a DVD of the course at some point...)

You, Me & Peter Broderick: Distribution U., Nov. 7th @ USC

Here is the scary thing about talking about the new landscape of marketing and distribution at a film festival:

The panels and presentations are often too short (and sometimes too superficial) to really make much of a dent. Ask the audience at the end whether they're feeling more confident and in control of their destiny, or more anxious and confused, and they're likely to say the latter.

I've been talking for the last couple months with Peter Broderick about taking a different approach. We wanted to create a full-day workshop that'd dive into some of the marketing and audience-building strategies I explore in Fans, Friends & Followers, and would get into the nitty gritty of distribution and savvy deal-making, which Peter works on every day with his clients. We also wanted to bring in some guest filmmakers to talk in detail about how they've gotten attention for their work -- and made money from it.

Finally, we wanted to make this a great opportunity to meet other filmmakers and writers and producers who're working on this "bleeding edge" of new marketing and distribution strategy -- to create lunch discussion groups around topics you're interested in -- and, if you'd like, to get some ideas from Peter, me, and the rest of the group about actual, tactical things you might do with your film, online and off.

We're calling it "Distribution U.: A One-Day Crash Course on the New Rules of Marketing and Distribution." We're doing it on Saturday, November 7th in LA, on the campus of USC. If you register before noon on October 18th, you can take advantage of the early bird discount.

Our goal is to cram in as many examples, case studies, data points, and proven strategies into eight hours as is humanly possible. The complete schedule is here.

Right now, we're planning on doing this just once.

Hope you can make it, and if not, perhaps you'll spread the word to friends who are in LA.

(And if you'd be interested in a DVD of the proceedings, which we're considering, send me an e-mail.)

Audio: Panel on the Future of Hollywood, from USC

Thursday night's panel at USC's Annenberg School was a lot of fun... I'm posting some rough audio of about half the conversation here. The question it begins with is: "What's the biggest opportunity in the entertainment industry today?" It goes on to cover indie distribution, Internet content, and digital 3-D production.

The panelists were:

- Cliff Plumer, CEO, Digital Domain
- Steve Schklair, CEO, 3ality Digital Systems
- Evan Spiridellis, co-founder, JibJab Media.
- Brian J. Terwilliger, CEO, Terwilliger Productions and Producer/Director of "One Six Right"
- David Wertheimer, former president of Paramount Digital Entertainment and current CEO of the Entertainment Technology Center @ USC

Here's the MP3 file... or just click play below. It's about 30 minutes long.



Here's some Annenberg coverage of the event.

Thanks to Elisa Wiefel Schrieber, Giovanna Carrera, Z Holly, and Dean Wilson for making this event happen!

Small Money Eventually Gets Big

CinemaTech reader Michael DiBiasio sent me an e-mail yesterday pointing me to this blog post from Blip.tv, a site that hosts video and sells ads and sponsorships for video-makers. It mentions a couple folks who do shows on Blip and have started getting paid decent coin... like $40,000 (for two years' worth of programming) or $25,000 (for a few months worth of shows.)

I'm out in LA this week, and I've been having lots of conversations on the topic of content creation for the Web.

Imagine you are successful in TV or film. You're making six figures a year (if not seven figures), and they let you play with the big cameras, on the big soundstages. You have big budgets and big crews.

Why on earth would the prospect of making $25,000 for a Web series sound appealing?

It wouldn't.

That's why the opportunity exists, for the young and hungry, to define how storytelling will work on the Web... to establish the ground rules of how you build a big audience and interact with them... and to figure out the business models that will turn small money into big money.

I was on the campus of USC tonight, talking with a number of students, and it seems to me that if you're entering the entertainment industry right now, you have this choice: do you want to follow the path that successful people have walked, where you start by working as a gofer or production assistant and over a decade or two work yourself up to the point where they let you make shows for TV or feature films?

Or do you want to pioneer something entirely new?

At the panel I moderated tonight, Evan Spiridellis from JibJab Media had a great line. As he was beginning to make animated films in the 1990s, and starting to enter them in film festivals, he and his brother Gregg started to notice that the Internet seemed to be gaining momentum, and seemed to have some creative potential. Gregg asked Evan, "After you've seen the Model T, do you really want to keep making horse shoes?" Meaning, if you can see where things are headed... why keep doing the old stuff?

One answer is, because you're making a good living at it.

But I'm not sure there are a lot of other good answers...

In L.A.? Free Event on Technology and the Movies, February 19th

I'm really excited to be partnering with USC to put together an evening event on Thursday, February 19th. It's being jointly organized by the Stevens Institute for Innovation, the Annenberg School for Communication, and the Entertainment Technology Center.

We're calling it "Innovation in Hollywood: Past Present & Future," and it happens just before the 2009 Oscars, on the USC campus. I'll be giving a quick overview of Hollywood's tech history, and then moderating a panel of modern-day innovators. It's free -- but you do have to RSVP. I hope you can make it, or spread the word to folks in LA who might want to join us.

Netflix/Roku Alliance ... USC's Anytime/Anywhere Content Lab ... More with Spielberg and Lucas

- The WSJ, Wired, and TechCrunch all have news and reviews of a new $99 set-top box from Roku, which will deliver movies from Netflix. From the Journal:

At $99.99, the Netflix set-top box is priced like a DVD player and is as simple to hook up to a television. A high-speed Internet connection can either be plugged into the box or the device can pick up a wireless signal.

Netflix's new set-top box, made by Roku, will stream movies from Netflix's library directly to customers' televisions.
Similar Internet-to-TV devices made by Apple Inc. and Vudu Inc. cost $229 to $295.

"We think this is something that offers a big value at a low cost," said Reed Hastings, Netflix's chief executive officer.

The Netflix box, made by Silicon Valley startup Roku Inc., is the first of several devices that will pipe Netflix's streaming service to TV sets. South Korea's LG Electronics is expected to include the streaming capability in a Blu-ray DVD player that it plans to debut during the second half of this year.

Wired writes:

Choosing content to watch is done on your computer, using the familiar Netflix interface. Anything that’s available for instant viewing can be added to the player’s queue -- in fact, the box checks your DVD queue and adds any available content to the Roku player automatically. The upside is that browsing the amount of content on Netflix is much easier on a computer than TV; the downside is that you’ll find yourself wanting your laptop by your side.

What's not to like? Well, the choices are still limited. Netflix has 100,000 DVDs available, but only 10% of them can be procured for streaming. Also, fast forwarding and rewinding is a bit of a chore, given the limitations of video streaming, although the player smartly displays a visual time line of scenes to help with navigation.

$99 seems to me to be a decent price point for a set-top box... though there's still the issue of setting it up, which can be intimidating for many.

- Jon Healy of the LA Times pays a visit to the Anytime/Anywhere Content Lab at USC, where they assess new entertainment technologies for the home. From the post:

David Wertheimer, the ETC's executive director and a former digital guru at Paramount, said that while studios focus on their product, the lab concentrates on the user. The hope, he said, is that its work will show studios and tech companies how to "meet in the middle and provide new kinds of products" that appeal to the next generation of consumers. In addition to interviewing USC students on campus every week about their media consumption habits and attitudes, the ETC brings about 20 students into the lab to talk to its board and try out some of the gear it has assembled.

- Entertainment Weekly has a nice, long Q&A with Lucas and Spielberg. From it:

How much did George nag you to shoot film-free, with digital cameras, the way he did on the Star Wars prequels?

SPIELBERG: All through three years of preparation. It's like he was sending these huge 88 [millimeter artillery] shells to soften the beach, y'know? He never swears at me. He never uses profanity. But he calls me a lot of names. And in his creative name-calling, he topped himself on this one, trying to get me to do this digitally.

What did he call you?

SPIELBERG: I guess the worst thing he ever called me was old-fashioned. But I celebrate that. He knows me like a brother. It's true, I am old-fashioned.
LUCAS: I think the word ''Luddite'' came into it. In a very heated discussion.
SPIELBERG: I said I wasn't, I was Jewish! [Laughter]
LUCAS: The end of it is, I said, ''Look, Steve, this is your movie. You get to do it your way.'' And in the end, I didn't force Steven to do it. That doesn't mean I didn't pester him, and tease him, and get on him all the time.
SPIELBERG: It was all 35-millimeter, chemically processed film.... I like cutting the images on film. I'm the only person left cutting on film.
LUCAS: And I'm the guy that invented digital editing. But we coexist. I mean, I also like widescreen and color. Steven and Marty [Scorsese] have gone back and shot in black-and-white [on Schindler's List and Raging Bull, respectively]. I don't get on their case and say, ''Oh my God, this is a terrible thing, why are you going backwards?'' I say, ''That's your choice, and I can appreciate it.''

More Hollywood Editors Working on PCs

One of the things that movie editors love about PC-based software for editing is that they can work on a laptop while they're on the road -- just like all the rest of us.

The Wall Street Journal has a story today headlined 'Editing on Big Films is Now Being Done on Small Computers.' That's only news to folks outside the industry, and the piece doesn't capture the sea change that I think is happening right now -- big-name editors shifting from Avid's software to Apple's Final Cut Pro. (Am I wrong? Walter Murch edited 'Cold Mountain' on Final Cut back in 2003, and I've only been hearing more about Final Cut since then.)

Lee Gomes writes:

...[E]ven relatively low-end personal computers, laptops included, are now so powerful that Hollywood pros have joined student filmmakers and indies in taking advantage of them.

It's one more example -- along with music recording and graphic design -- of the way cheap computers are blurring the distinction between professional and amateur tools. Not that just having software makes you good at something, as a quick trip around the Web makes clear.

...[T]he typical Hollywood feature film these days is an analog-digital hybrid. Reels of film might be developed at a lab such as Technicolor, but then $1.5 million scanners digitize them and put them on a $100 generic USB hard drive. From there, it's on to the editors.

Editing on computers is so much easier than editing physical film that it's how nearly all movies are now cut. USC's film school once had 50 editing consoles; now it has only two. Indeed, editing may have become too easy. "You can easily recut your movie 10 times a day," says Matt Furie, who teaches editing at USC. "Some students go off the deep end and cut, cut, cut. We tell them they need to discipline themselves to push away from the desk, drop the mouse and just think."

Aguru Images commercializing USC's Light Stage technology

When I was at USC earlier this week, Elisa Wiefel and Krisztina Holly of the USC Stevens Institute happened to mention Light Stage, a technology developed at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, which I've been following for a while. It's an LED lighting array that basically lets you film actors on a stage, and then once you digitize the footage, adjust the lighting to mimic any possible environmental condition. So if you find you need to have a bright highlight on the right side of the actor's body, because they're about to be hit by a comet, you can do that. It has been used on 'Spider Man 3' and 'Superman Returns,' most recently.

Elisa and Krisztina mentioned that a company in Virginia, Aguru Images, has licensed the technology from USC, to better market it to studios and visual effects houses. (Aguru has also recently picked up some technology from NYU.)