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.  

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.

Confirmation

A week or so ago, Ted Hope at his wonderful Truly Free Film posted a call for blogs and so forth that reviewed movies that didn't have a distribution deal...

You'll note this mosh pit of pulp is in his latest list.

Consider this a confirmation if you're here via TFF.

I want to see the cool, the unusual out there. I want to see screeners, trailers, press kits, links and so forth...and not only that, I want to see the books, the comics, the games, the toys - all of it. I want my socks blown off and my face melted.

I want to see the Pulp 2.0.

If you've made something (Congratulations! Now comes the hard part) then tell us about it. Every comment I get on the blog gets fed to my email. I miss nothing that is said here. Don't be shy. Post a link to your stuff.

This week I will be pointing out a few things that have hit my inbox. Pulpy Things you can see, download or play with online. Hopefully you'll think it's as fun and as cool as I do and you'll tell the artists where you saw their work, and you'll share it with others. Remember...

We are in the mosh pit together.

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.