DON'T JUST STAND OUT... STAND TALL FOR SOMETHING

Ted Hope has a great little "list-post" outlining how to stand out in this crazy film biz.

Of particular interest is item #10 (which in my mind should be item #1 and be beaten into every film student's skull like the Phantom's ring). It reads:

Don’t look to be discovered.  The film industry encourages a plantation or corporate hierarchy way of thinking, which again only benefits the status quo.  This is most represented by the old way of bringing a film to market upon completion.  The filmmakers who design their projects to take directly to their audiences will demonstrate a forward and practical way of thinking — and one that does not negate a later adoption of old methods (if someone wants to dump a pot of gold on you that is).  Abandon the belief that all you have to do is make a good film and the rest will work out — it’s akin to a slave mentality.  Why do you need someone to discover you?  What you need is to find a way to keep producing new work.


This is the key to longevity in this business... 


If there are an estimated 27,000 indie films produced every year  and less than 600 get any sort of distribution then don't you think you need to think differently than the other guy?  Don't you think you need to make sure your film gets to the right audience instead of leaving it up to the distributor to try and find them?  

• I'm telling you that you do need to think differently. 
• I'm telling you that your film probably isn't that special and could do with some "sprucing up." Most likely at the development stage where most productions go wrong.  
• I'm telling you that if you don't make it better, or if you leave it to the distributor to do then you are leaving money on the table as you walk away. 
• I'm telling you that you can do it yourself - it's not easy, but the rewards will go to you and your investors first instead of to the middleman. 
• I'm telling you this because I've worked (am working) for the distributors and production companies.  They don't know anything you don't know or can't learn quickly.  

But mostly, I am telling you to be passionate about what you do, and stand up for it because it will make all of the difference.  It will make all the hard work, the frustration, the lawsuits and the angry phone calls and emails worth it.  I speak from hard-fought experience.  

No Budget? It's All Good (Machine)

Ted Hope just published a list that circulated around the offices of his former production company Good Machine back in the day.  It's worth reading and modifying for your own needs as it contains nuggets of wisdom lost on most of today's filmmakers...

1. Write to direct. A screenplay, especially a no-budget screenplay is a very loose blueprint for a film – ultimately every choice you make will compromise something else.

2. Write for what you know and for what you can obtain. This goes for actors, locations, animals, and major propping or set dressing. If your friend owns something, anything, write it into the film.

3. Remain flexible. Recognize the essential element in a scene and allow it to take place in a variety of locations or circumstances.

I can't say I agree 100% with everything he says here - I'll let you figure out where my sticking points are - but this is a pretty comprehensive list.  

Drip...Drip...Drip...

Ted Hope over at Truly Free Film (which you really do need to place in your Google Readers, kids) had a post up regarding how slow things haven't changed from the dire predictions he made in an older article he wrote for Moviemaker in 1995 titled "Indie Film is Dead.". What's interesting to me is that he lists many problems with the Industry at that 1995 point that make me shake my head a bit.

So I thought I would take a few moments to look at this more closely and add my pithy prose to the mix and discuss the slow drip of change:

Acquisitions are driven by marketability, and marketability alone. Art has no value. Sure a film has to be "good" to be picked up, but what does a distributor truly look for when it acquires a film? Uniqueness of vision? Independent spirit? Discipline? A controlled or unique aesthetic? Try again. Like their Hollywood counterparts, the first item on their menu is a marketable concept, one they already know how to package.

Here's the problem with this statement - As an audience member, I don't care how unique the vision of the film is, or the person's indie spirit, their discipline or unique aesthetic. I want to be entertained. I want to connect to the story in some way and be asking myself, "What happens next?"

Marketability means how easy it is for an audience to connect to and immerse themselves into the movie. If you can't connect to the audience in some way - then why do it?

The major specialty distributors only seek films they believe can gross $2 million at the US box office. There is no small acquisition anymore. When a distributor offers a minimum guarantee of $300,000, they are essentially stating that they believe the film will gross over $2 million at the box office (the MG is nothing more than an advance against future profits – the size of the advance is in direct correlation to a distributor’s conservative estimate of the film’s future revenues).

They know it's a lot of work to distribute a film theatrically. Especially in 1995 when you didn't have digital cinemas. They have to have a reasonable cut off point where they know their efforts are going to be worthwhile monetarily.

There are too many pictures out there that received a theatrical release that did not deserve it. It was the wrong move marketing-wise and choked too many theaters and distributors. The audience simply wasn't there to support it.

The "Big Little" distributors have a surplus of films; they don’t want yours (particularly if it’s an art film). Miramax doesn’t even try to hide the fact that they have over 40 films on the shelf – they promote it. If one of the larger specialty distribs were to pick your film up today, you’d be waiting a year for your premiere.

What's true then is true today...if you're using a "Theatrical release first system." Having a library of content and moving it around so you always have some sort of income flowing in is the model that allowed Trimark to become Artisan to become Lionsgate. No distributor wants to release a movie just to release it. They want to position it so it does its best.

I urge all of you to read the rest of Ted's article and his postscript. Then I want you to start rethinking how to release a movie - and think about what a movie actually is to your business plan - by watching this:



(courtesy of Jill Golick)

Your movie in today's marketplace is simply the tip of the iceberg. Hollywood is The Titannic. We all know how that story ended.

Turn it around. Build the audience first: through email, through the content, through interaction. Then sell the containers: the DVD, the merchandise, and finally the screening event in a theater.

Indie Film's Survival Strategy: 2009 and Beyond

Ted Hope over at Truly Free Film has a Top Ten List here outlining what it's going to take to survive the next couple of years:

(Note: I'm going to tweak it a bit here and there)

1) Cut all your budgets by 60% -- but recognize your fee is going down by an even greater percentage;

2) Meet all the marketing, distribution, publicity, social network, widget & app designers, web strategy, & transmedia story world builders you can possibly meet, because "producing the marketing and distribution" of all your films under $4M has become part of the producer's job description -- but recognize that is going to be a major time-suck on your schedule;

Develop contacts above you in the financing and venture capital sectors of the business. Meet people outside of film. Learn.

3)Aggregate viable projects under $500K to build a new media distribution apparatus, recognizing the lack of fees and time suck involved -- but that the low budget is required to experiment with new platforms with unproven financial models and a multitude is necessary to learn;

Experiment. Learn. Repeat what works. Publicize the results. Build the audience for the next one.

4)Continue to try to get one of 10 or so available slots for prestige specialized film budget over $10M so you can actually earn a fee, but recognize the odds are really really low that yours will be the one out of 500 or so that are competing with you;

Yes. The odds are low, but keep submitting anyway because it builds your contact base every time you pitch a project.

5)Do everything you can to get a studio picture and/or television series since they are the only ways to legitimize yourself in the industry's eyes, the quickest ways to promote your brand to potential new fans, and the most likely ways to earn enough money to sustain yourself;

I would also say that a successful web series would do the same thing. If promoted well to the right people it will have the same effect.

6)Spend some time every day building your own audience and deepen their level of commitment to you by you giving back to them regularly -- so that ultimately they will follow you and help promote your work, because you aren't going to be doing it alone;

Blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube muthafucka!

7) Find some other way to earn money on a regular basis since the film industry will remain unstable for a very long time and we all need to pay the bills;

Something like this. Low commitment high return.

8) Fight for affordable health care and education because if you have to go into substantial debt to pay for what should be available to all then you will never be able to consider a career in the arts to begin with or ever again;

Use the resources you have - the internet, local services that are free, etc... Save, save, save. Be thrifty and frugal and learn that you don't need to spend to have fun. Use the library to rent movies and read helpful books.

9) Try to give back to a younger generation who are much different than you (other than their interest in film) because if things don't make some substantial changes soon, their won't be a film industry for you to work in either (i.e. we've all done the same things for too long and the system is broken and we don't seem to know how to fix it) and besides, maybe you will learn something;

Draft these people into service. Put them to work. I would have killed to work on a film set or with one of my mentors when I was a young student. Give them the benefit of your hard-earned experience.

10) Keep your overhead as low as possible forever and ever and ever, as you will need to remain very flexible in the days and months to come.

It's the pulp way isn't it?

How to Make Money with Free Media..

People look at me aghast when I tell them to put their movie up online for free. They look at me aghast when I mention merchandising and advertising and p2p networks. They look at me aghast when I tell them to forget about festivals and sending out screeners to distributors. They look at me aghast when I tell them Twitter , YouTube and Facebook will increase their sales more than a distributor or an award win.

(and if you're not on these networks, go now and join - then friend, follow or add me)

They look at me aghast when I tell them to quit living in the 20th century. To rethink what it means to be a filmmaker. To rethink what it means to be a distributor. To rethink the economics and methodologies of all of it (which was long overdue). To rethink things like copyright and user friendliness.

Would it help if you listened to this guy instead? Because seriously - if you want to survive in the next decade as a mediamaker; If you want to make inroads into the entertainment industry...

Then you are going to have to listen.

H/T to Ted Hope at Truly Free Film

The World Is Our School...Not Just The Classroom

Okay, settle in kids. It's Sunday so it's Maudlin Pulp Bastard time. I have a few minutes in between stories and scripts and edits so I thought I would share some things that have really bothered me lately. Things that people just aren't realizing have already happened and we just can't go backward. We can look backward. We can learn from it, be inspired by it, but we can't go back.

I've thrown myself into the mosh pit of two discussions over at Ted Hope's Truly Free Film. You can find them here and here. They are really the same discussion / argument / debate and deserve a much wider audience and commentary than what is apparent on the surface.

The point of it all is this:

Everything I need to understand to obtain the equivalent of a film school degree is available online. I have access to editing tools, screening, critical commentary, a vast library of knowledge on the subject as well as ancillary subjects such as art and design and drama. It's all for free and available via laptop, netbook, or IPhone and wifi connection.

I could take a film project from concept to distribution all on the net, harness an audience of my peers and mentors to advise me along the way, and get my hands dirty learning while actually doing it. Just like film school. So...

- with all these resources available to anyone, anywhere...

- with a generation using these tools to mashup videos and music and art and writing...

- with our world becoming more and more wireless...

Why would anyone want to take the step backwards and put film programs in schools? Spend millions of dollars sending filmmakers to schools for workshops within the public school system?

Especially in today's economy?

It just seems that this proposal is more for the filmmakers and less for the students.

It seems to me that instead of making film part of school, where more often than not it will be done just at school, we try to make filmmaking, creativity, learning a part of life.

It seems to me we should try and go to where the kids already are - online - and develop the talent pool from there. Steer the discussion and the tools toward them and let them run with the ball. Fall down. Make mistakes. Fuck it all up...

and learn from it while enjoying the process.

When I do hire assistants or interns, I don't want the one who knows everything from a school book. I want the one who's hungry and driven enough to play with the computer or camera and develop some mad skills. I want the kid who'll go online and look something up that I reference or shoot me an email asking for help.

I want the kid who's constantly learning, because that's a kid who's looking to the future and knows he can handle it. It's part of who he is.

It's appropriate then, that we post this from Jim Henshaw's joint:



A movie that was made from as much seat-of-your-pants filmmaking as it was "book learnin.'"
A movie that was unusually made, unusually edited and unusually successful.
A movie that was made by young people who took an unusual perspective on their subject.

A movie that mere decades ago would have been hard to find at your local video store.
But now, I can watch the whole thing anywhere in easily digestible parts.
I can learn outside the classroom...it just doesn't feel like learning.

And maybe that's the best way to learn to prepare for the future.

Today's Media is Global, Social, Ubiquitous and Cheap

H/T to Cousin Trev.

Eavesdropping on The Conversation: Brand Building

Scott Kirsner highlights some of the speakers from THE CONVERSATION which occurred last weekend in SF.

One highlight is Ted Hope's discussion on what filmmakers need to think about. From Scott's post:

The independent film producer Ted Hope proposed that filmmakers need to be think about creating material for their Web sites to pique viewer's interest before their film's festival debut.... and more material to bridge the gap between the debut and the theatrical release...and still more between the theatrical release and the DVD... and yet more after the DVD, to keep DVD (and digital) sales humming.

To me, it sounds like the film is just one component of a story that you start telling before your first festival showing... and continue to build on and embroider even after you've released the DVD and digital download. The "movie release date" becomes just one milestone in this conversation between you and your audience. Some people who participate in the conversation may never actually buy a ticket or a download... while others may become so engaged that they buy everything you offer, and help market your movie to everyone they know.
---------------------------

This is two things:

1) utilizing the power of the internet to be different media all at once.

2) This is branding. Intellectual property building.

Filmmakers and novelists and other creatives need to figure this shit out now. Their book, comic, movie, animation, music, radio drama, is only the beginning. A book isn't just between the covers. A movie isn't just onscreen.

Don't think small. Think about how you can add to your creation. How you can translate it. How it can have further value - both to you and your audience.

Hope Offers Hope: "There is no Indie Crisis"

Veteran Indie Producer Ted Hope (The Savages, American Splendor, 21 Grams, Lovely & Amazing, Happiness) delivered a stirring speech at the Film Independent's Filmmaker Forum that counters Mark Gill's controversial speech.

I am reproducing the speech below taken from Anne Thompson's Hollywood Blog for Variety. It's a great speech and indicative of my own philosophy of moviemaking. To wit - there are greater rewards to be had by creating, producing and owning your own material even if you don't have a multi-million dollar budget or huge audience. It's about being creative and entrepreneurial and responsible. Filmmaking today is more than just producing the movie.

I have bolded appropriate lines that should probably be tattooed on everyone's eyelids so we don't forget.

A THOUSAND PHOENIX RISING
How The New Truly Free Filmmaking Community Will Rise From Indie's Ashes

I can't talk about the "crisis" of the indie film industry. There is no crisis. The country is in crisis. The economy is in crisis. We, the filmmakers, aren't in crisis. The business is changing, but for us -- us who are called Indie Filmmakers -- that's good that the business is changing. Filmmaking is an incredible priviledge and we need to accept it as such -- and accept the full responsibility that comes with that priviledge.
The proclamations of Indie Film's demise are grossly exaggerated. How can there be a "Death Of Indie" when Indie -- real Indie, True Indie -- has yet to even live?

Yes, there's a profound paradigm shift, and that shift is the coming of true independence. The hope of this new independence is being threatened even before it has arrived. Are we going to fight for our independence and can we even shoulder the responsibility that independence requires? That is: will we band together and work for our communal needs? Are we ready to leave dreams of stardom and wealth behind us?

When someone says "Indie is dead," they are talking about the state of the 'Indie Film Business,' as opposed to what are actually the films themselves. They can say "The sky is falling" because for the last fifteen years, the existing power base in the film industry has focused on films fit for the existing business model, as opposed to ever truly concentrating on creating a business model for the films that filmmakers want to make.

This is where we are right now: on the verge of a TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE, one that is driven by both the creators and the audiences, pulled down by the audience and not pushed onto them by those that control the apparatus and the supply. We now have the power and the tool for something different, but will we fight to preserve the Internet, the tool that offers us our new freedom? Can we banish the dream of golden distribution deals, and move away from asking others to distribute and market it for us? Can we accept that being a filmmaker means taking responsibility for your films, the primary responsibility, all the way through the process? That is independence and that is freedom.

Indie, True Indie, is in its infancy. The popular term "Indie" is a distortion, growing out of our communal laziness and complacency -- our willingness to be marketed blandly and not specifically. Our culture is vast and diverse, and we need to celebrate these differences, not diminish them. It's time to put that term "Indie" to rest.
Independence is within our reach, but we have to do what we have never done before: we have to choose.

It's a lot like the [U.S.] Presidential election. And it's also a lot like the way psychotherapy works: we have to ask ourselves if the pain we are experiencing presently is enough to motivate us to overcome the fear inherent in change itself.

We have to change our behavior and make that choice. We have to choose the type of culture we want. We have to choose the type of films we want available to us. We have to choose whether the Internet is ours or the corporations. We have to choose whether we decide for ourselves whether a film is worthwhile or whether we let those same corporations decide. We have to choose who our audiences are and how we are to reach them. We have to choose how we can all best contribute to this new system.

And as we act on those choices, we have to get others to make a choice too. For the last fifteen years our community has made huge strides at demystifying the production process and providing access to the financing and distribution gatekeepers. Some call this "democratization," but it is not. This demystification of production was a great first step, but it is not the whole shebang. In some ways, understanding the great behemoth that is production is also a distraction. It has distracted us from making really good films. And as it has distracted us from gaining the knowledge and seizing the power that is available to us.

We have learned how to make films and how to bring them to market. We now have to demystify how to market and distribute films, and to do it in a way truly suited to the films we are making and desire to make. Don't get me wrong the last fifteen years have been great. The Indie Period -- as I suspect history will call it -- has brought us a far more diverse array of films than we had previously. It got better; we got more - but that is still not freedom. We are still in a damn similar place to the way it was back when cinema was invented 100 years ago. And it's time we moved to a new term, to the period of a Truly Free Film Culture.

If we want the freedom to tell the stories we want to tell, we all have to start to contribute to build the infrastructure that can support them. We need to step back from the glamour of making all these films, and instead help each other build the links, articulate the message, make the commitments, that will turn us truly into a 'Truly Free Film' community. We have to stop making so many films. The work before us is a major readjustment that will require many sacrifices. We must redesign the business structure for what the films actually are.

We have to recognize that a Truly Free Film Culture is quite different from studio films and even different from the prestige films that the specialized distributors make. But look at what we gain: we will stop self-censoring our work to fit a business model that was appropriated from Hollywood and their mass market films to begin with. We will reach out to the audiences that are hungry for something new, for something truthful, for something about the world they experience, for something that is as complex as the emotions they feel. We can let them guide us because for the first time we can have real access and contact with them.

Presently, we are divided and conquered by a system that preys upon our dreams of success, encouraging us to squander collective progress on false hopes on personal enrichment. We follow the herd and only lead reluctantly. If we want Truly Free Films we have to stop dreaming of wealth, and take the job of building the community and support system. For the last decade and a half, we have been myopically focused on production. Using Sundance submissions as a barometer, our production ability has increased eight and half times over -- 850% -- from 400 to 3600 films in fifteen years.

C'mon! What are we doing? Wasting a tremendous amount of energy, talent, and brainpower - that much is clear. If the average budget of Sundance submissions is $500K, that means the aggregate production costs are $1.8 billion dollars a year. That's a hell of a lot of money to lose annually. And you can bet the Indie World isn't going to get a government bail out like Wall Street and the banking industry have. We need to recognize the responsibility of telling unique stories in unique ways. We are frequently innovators and groundbreakers, but that brings additional responsibilities.

Working at the intersection of art and commerce, requires consideration for those that come after us. It is our responsibility to do all within our power to deliver a positive financial return. If we lose money, it will be a lot harder for those that follow us. With a debt of $1.8 billion per annum you can bet it will be a lot harder for a lot of people. And it should be - but it didn't need to be. We don't get better films or build audiences by picking up cameras. Despite this huge boom in production, the number of truly talented uniquely voiced auteurs produced annually remains unchanged. What's happened instead is the infrastructure has rusted, the industry has failed to innovate, and we are standing on a precipice begging the giant to banish us into oblivion.

There is a silver lining to this dark cloud of over production that they like to call The Glut. As a young man I never found peace until I moved to New York City; the calm I found in New York, is explained by a line of Woody Allen's: "In New York, you always know what you are missing." What's great about a surplus of options - and we have that now, and not just from movies, but from the web, from books, from shows - what's great is that you have to make a choice. You have to commit. And you have to commit in advance. The business model of the current entertainment industry is predicated on consumers not making choices but acting on impulses.

Choice comes from research, from knowledge, and from tastes. Speak to someone from Netflix, and they will tell you that the longer someone is a member, the more their tastes move to auteurs, to quality film. Once we all wake up and realize that with films, as frankly with everything, we have to be thoughtful. We have to make it a choice - a choice for, and not an impulse. We are now in a cultural war and not just the red state/blue state, participate vs. obey kind, not just the kind of cultural war that politicians seem to want to break this country down to. We are in a culture war in terms of what we get to see, enjoy and make. The lovers of cinema have been losing this war because the makers have invested in a dream of "Prince Charming," content to have him sweep down, pick us up and sing that rags to riches refrain even if it comes but once a year to one lucky filmmaker out of 3,600.

So what is this TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE I am proposing? It is one that utilizes first and foremost the remarkable tool that is the Internet. It is the Internet that transforms the culture business from a business that is based around limited supply and the rule of gatekeepers to a business that around the fulfillment of all audience desire, and not just the desire of mass audiences, but also of the niches. We have never had this sort of opportunity before and the great tragedy is that just as we are learning what it means, forces are vying to take it away from us.

The principal that all information, all creators, all audiences should be treated equally within the structure that is the Internet is popularly referred to as Net Neutrality. The Telecos, the cable companies, and their great ally, the Hollywood motion picture studios and the MPAA are now trying to end that equality. And with it you will lose the opportunity to be TRULY FREE FILMMAKERS. But they are not going to succeed because we are going to band together and organize, we are going to save the Internet, and keep equal access for all.

A TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE will respect the audience's needs and desires as much as it currently respects the filmmakers.

A TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE recognizes film as a dialogue and recognizes that a dialogue requires a community. Participants in a TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE work to participate in that community, work to get others to participate in that community. We work to get others to make a choice, to make a choice about what they want to do, what they want to see. We all become curators. We all promote the films we love. We reach out and mobilize others to vote with their feet, vote with their eyes, and vote with their dollars, to not act on impulses, but on knowledge and experience.

A TRULY FREE FILMMAKER -- be they producer or director -- recognizes their responsibility is not just to find a good script, not just to find a good cast, a good package. A TRULY FREE FILMMAKER recognizes that they must do more than find the funding, and even more than justifying that funding. The TRULY FREE FILMMAKER now recognizes their responsibility to also find the audience, grow the audience, expand the audience, and then also to move the audience, not just emotionally, but also literally: to move them onwards further to other things. Whether it is by direct contact, email blasts, or blogging, whatever it is, express what you want our culture to be.

The TRULY FREE FILMMAKER also recognizes that knowledge is power, and not ownership. The TRULY FREE FILMMAKER recognizes that others, as many others as possible, sharing in that knowledge will make everything better: the films, the apparatus, the business, and the just plain pleasure of participating. We are walking into new territory and we best map it out together.

The TRULY FREE FILMMAKER is no longer bound to just the 5 or 6 reel length. The TRULY FREE FILMMAKER is no longer bound to projection as the primary audience platform and is not stuck on the one film one theater one week type of release.

The TRULY FREE FILMMAKER recognizes that just because there is no user term, no audience term, no consumer term for the cohesive cross-platform immersive experience, does not mean that we don't want that. A child understands that when you say "Pokemon" you mean not just the films, or TV shows, but also the cards, the games, the figures, the books. And a child understands that when you say "Brand Management" or "Franchise" you are just looking for ways to separate you from your wallet. We need to define that term to help the audience recognize what it is they want, what it is that we now can create, own, and distribute independently.

It is this thing that we once called the "Independent Community" that is the sector that truly innovates. The lower cost of our creations allows for greater risks. It is what we used to call "indies" that have innovated on a technical level, on a content level, on a story telling approach, and it is this - the TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE - that will innovate still further in the future of distribution.

With the passion that produces 3600 films a year, with just a portion of those resources, we can build a new infrastructure that opens up new audiences, new models, new revenue streams that can build a true alternative to the mainstream culture that has been force fed us for years. We are on the verge of truly opening up what can be told, how it is told, to whom it is told, and where it is told.

We can seize it, but it requires that we embrace the full responsibility of what independence means. Independence requires knowing your film inside and out. Knowing not just what you are choosing to do, but what you have chosen not to do. Independence comes with knowing that you have fully considered all your options. It is knowing your audience - knowing how to reach them - and not abstractly, but concretely.

Let's make the next ten years about seizing our independence, killing "indie" film, and bringing forth a Truly Free Film Culture.

Thank you.

----- Ted Hope 9/27/08