Wire Yourself In...

Recently Ted Hope over at TRULY FREE FILM posted his 38 Problems with Indie Film, and it's a good list. An excellent list even...but as I pointed out to him in the comments, he makes the mistake of thinking that we can recapture the 'glory days' of indie film.

As I pointed out, in my usual blunt MPB manner, that train has left the station.

And while I am far too young and way too sexy for my shirt to ever be called a curmudgeon(cough, cough), I also have to agree with many of the things in Jim McKay's guest post here.

Okay, Indie Film as we know it is screwed... good. It wasn't a good business anyway. Too whimsical, too full of itself to be a real business.

(and if any of you starts yelling out, "It's art, not business," you're an idiot. Any time you ask people for money for goods or services - it's a business)

So where do we take this business we call show?

Fortunately, there are many brilliant people out there, smarter than me even (cough, cough), who are rethinking how things are done in this digital age, and what promise that holds for each and every one of us of getting a ticket on the better, less expensive, train that takes your content to every place in the world there's wifi.

And they are Wired.

First off (H/T to Cousin Trevor up in the 'Peg) is David Byrne who discusses survival strategies in this new age.

Chris Anderson discusses this fundamental shift and what it means.

And while this article discusses automobiles, take out that word (or car, or vehicle) and substitute the word movie, tee vee, or series . You begin to see the possibilities of where media production is going.

Anderson puts it into focus:
(emphasis mine)

To all the usual reasons why small companies have an advantage, from nimbleness to risk-taking, add these new ones: The rise of cloud computing means that young firms no longer have to buy their own IT equipment, which helps them avoid having to raise money or take on debt. Likewise, the webification of the supply chain in many industries, from electronics to apparel, means that even the tiniest companies can now order globally, just like the giants. In the same way a musician with just a laptop and some gumption can accomplish most of what a record label does, an ambitious engineer can invent and produce a gadget with little more than that same laptop.

And while my Canadian brethren fight the good fight, I have to say the one thing they are ignoring (or at least not speaking of out loud):

"Only a fool fights in a burning house."

(Quote from Kang. Lesson learned by James T.)

So what does all this mean when taken as a whole? It means change. It means not thinking of media in the same way. It means doing different things outside your normal niche. It means pushing boundaries. It means you can stand on your own two feet.

It means Bootstraps don't chafe like Corporate or Government chains.

And there are those that will shout out, "But how do I make money at this?" Know that you aren't alone. Your own are questioning the old ways and coming up with new ones.

So connect the wires:

-- How DO you make money at this?
-- How can you MAKE it more efficient -- not only for yourself, but for others too?

You and your work are your business. Make it a good one, not one you have to tolerate because that's the way it's always been.

Read. Rethink. Let's discuss. Comments are Open as is the Bar.

Internet v. TeeVee

Essay here by Paul Graham.

Discuss. Dissect. Not necessarily in that order.

H/T to Ted Hopefor finding this.

Rushing off to see Watchmen.

Pilots, The Internet and You...

Kay Reindl - she of Seriocity blog infamy - has a new post up on the pilots being put forward to production, genre, and network branding. You should go read it first. I'll wait.)

(Reads comics from Boom Studios, takes cold meds, masturbates)

Okay - great. Now you've read it. It's a long post that covers a lot of subjects about that multi-billion dollar entity we call Television. But in the interest of giving you "news you can use" let's focus on just a couple of things - namely pilots and branding - and how they can relate to your use of the internet:

Kay writes:

But let's look at it in all seriousness. Masterwork, for example, the Paul Scheuring pilot for Fox, which is about people who travel the world and collect artifacts. We pitch this show every year, and we're not the only ones. But if you're a Fox executive and Paul Scheuring and Jane Writer pitch the same idea, who do you buy it from? Jane, who's never gotten a pilot shot no matter how much staff experience she has, or Paul, who had a show on the air on your same network? The choice is clear. And the executives can't really be taken to task for that. It would be wonderful if the idea were the only thing that mattered, but that's not how it works. Of course a network's going to buy from people who've produced for them.

I can't find fault with any of her logic here - it's sound as a pound. You can't blame the networks for backing a horse with a proven record. So the point is - you have to have a record, a body of work to show what you do, and how well you can do it. These days, anyone can write a pilot script and try to sell it. The market is tough enough that the guy with the track record is going to sell his, even though the ideas are the same, and yours may even be better written.

Enter internet. Stage right.

The internet is your first job in the industry. It can be your network, marketing machine and production hub all in one. It is a place where you can show what you can do. You create shorts and serials and put them up on the web for all to see and marvel over... But you also back that up with spec scripts you've written for other shows. This aspect of your personal career growth and marketing strategy is going to be super important as more TeeVee folks cross back and forth across the web-o-sphere.

"Hmmm...Big name writer is going to create aweb serial for us. He's going to need a (small) writing staff to meet the deadline...wait, I know. I saw this guy's short on the web the other day. [click, click, click of the mouse] Yep, and he's a writer too. He'd be perfect - watch this. "

You have to invest in your career as if it were your business (because it is). As Kay puts it:

What's most interesting is that two of the ABC pilots -- V and Happy Town -- were written on spec. I don't know if Scott Peters has an ABC deal, but Applebaum and Nemec do, and they wrote their pilot on spec. Very interesting. There's something I like about networks buying spec material, and also about writers believing so much in their idea that they'll write a script to prove the veracity of said idea. It's also selfishness on my part. I'd rather write a pilot than pitch one. We'll see what happens with all of these pilots. I'm certainly looking forward to reading them.

If your goal is to be a TV showrunner - then write the show, produce it and put it up. It shows your writing skill, your producing skillset and your brand (what sort of stuff gets your creative wheels turning enough for you to invest in making it happen). And if TeeVee never comes calling, then at least you have something to work with in order to build your company, your brand, and explore other options.

Because as things change, there will be more options outside traditional media.

Traditional Media Deck Chair Shuffle

It's bee an interesting morning. Two cups of Joe into it, I read two separate posts by two respected friends / creators that really illuminate the problems with traditional media today:

1) That the business model of television broadcast and feature film exhibition is eroding...

2) That people are trying to push breaking into this eroded infrastructure as if this were a rock-solid career choice. (And no it never has been, but it's never been this bad before either)

First off is Denis McGrath's post regarding Heather Havrilesky's rant in Salon:

Let's not mince words here: The TV industry is badly run, and there's far too much big money flashed around every corner for sustainable efforts to take root. The shows that maintained their quality over several seasons -- "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under," "The Shield," "The Wire," "Deadwood" -- were all run by stubborn, outspoken eccentrics who 1) set the bar high for themselves, year after year, 2) believed in their creation above all others and placed that belief above the big money they were offered elsewhere, 3) had faith in the network that supported and embraced their creation (in most cases, HBO), and knew that the show would never have found such a welcome home elsewhere, and 4) had no interest in drawing out their stories indefinitely, "ER"-style, past the point where hey should naturally conclude.

Heather has some harsh words for TeeVee, and they are well-deserved. The traditional model for TV is screwed up. When Warner Bros. has to sue CBS for $49+ million for TWO AND A HALF MEN - it IS SCREWED UP. That sort of deficit financing is not sustainable.

Denis follows up Heather's sharp tongue with some lashes of his own for the Canadian TV biz:

Why is this so scary?

Because I work in Canada. And in Canada, they haven't even mastered the art of listening to or managing talent at any level. In Canada, the discussions about how to extend the life of the broadcast TV model don't go much farther than "go to the CRTC and see if they'll give you free money from cable subscribers."

The changes that have come down the pike in the last year -- the speed of them -- is truly astounding, and the simple, shit-scary fact is that Canadian broadcast business does not have their traditional two or three year window to dick around and figure out how they're going to cherry pick a solution.

Then we have Alex Epstein's post regarding Chad Gerwich's blog and book SMALL SCREEN BIG PICTURE regarding his experience in TeeVee, and how you too can break into the industry. There was one element of Chad's comments that speak volumes about where the future of entertainment is going and how traditional media types are going to be (have already been?) left behind:

There’s nothing wrong, creatively, with dreaming up telenovelas and limited series—and I am NOT saying this to discourage people from thinking outside the box—but I often hear young writers pitch ideas that don’t seem to illustrate a competent understanding of how TV stories work. The ideas themselves may be perfectly fine—outstanding, even—but they’re not TV ideas. They’re novel ideas or short stories or web ideas or SOMETHING… but not TV.

So let me put this out there:

We have a traditional media eroding away, not only from a monetary standpoint, but a creative one as well. People ARE NOT watching TV they way they have been...and it's only going to get worse. People are going to be working a lot more, using their DVR's a lot more and using the web a lot more to interact with their entertainments. You do not have destination TeeVee anymore.

In addition, we have a whole generation who aren't married to doing it the traditional TV way anymore. They WANT MORE from their media...and from the creation of their media. That's part of the reason why Chad gets so many pitches that aren't traditional (beyond what he thinks is just lack of industry awareness by newb writers) - TeeVee as it is traditionally understood is no longer as important as other media-distribution methods.

And three years from now? While folks are figuring out how to break into TeeVee, the iceberg will have hit. There will be a big implosion. Don't get caught rearranging the deck chairs, make your way to the lifeboats now.

Don't count on the ship being unsinkable.