Wednesday, July 30, 2008

There's More Than One Way To Skin A Cat...

We've all been having discussions over the wonderful Dr. Horrible and the master plan to make money using the web.

Kid Sis is talking about it here.

Scott Kirsner is talking about it here.

Hell, I'm talking about it (after Warren Ellis) here.

And believe me, there's lots to talk about - the story, the production, the distribution, the marketing, the merchandising, etc...

The one thing people are harping on (or at least that's the musical note I'm hearing) is "How do I duplicate that success? I'm not Joss Whedon! Damn him. "

Do you really want to duplicate what Joss Whedon did - OR - would you rather use the same web tools he did, along with some others, to find your audience and feed them entertainments accordingly?

(All the while keeping the costs down and the creativity and fun high. Because really, if it's not fun then why do it and waste your time and energy?)

What Joss did was use the tools he had at his disposal - talent, celebrity, a network of contacts, and his spare time - to create Dr. Horrible. He marshaled forces to create an event on the web that would spur DVD and international sales.

But the title of this post says it all - There's more than one way to do this. So what if you don't have a network of contacts - get on the web and find some! (see my sidebar for great places to start) Just use the tools you do have.

Don't have financing? Look here at possible options.

Don't have marketing? Now you do.

Publicity / Advertising / Etc... Again, look around.

Need production resources? Here. Now you have them.

You don't need to duplicate exactly what Joss Whedon did. What you need is to find your audience using all this cool free stuff and then sell them on your movie...or series...or merchandise...or comic... or all of the above.

Like these guys... or these guys.

And yes, The Conversation will be ongoing in this regard as someone finds some new way to use an application to reach their audience in a new way then shares that information with other mediamakers. Don't get locked into one way of doing things because that will exclude all sorts of solutions and resources for your production/distribution/marketing woes.

1 comment:

Aric Blue said...

Nice post with some good links! Keep it up!