A while back I waxed wondering why no one or no place has set up “The Festival Of The Weird & Wonderful”. I would be there in a heartbeat (not as an exhibit mind you, but just as an audience member). We still need some help programming the first edition but I imagine that “The 5000 Fingers Of Dr. T” would screen, even if it is now up for free on Crackle.
Month: September 2009
I was talking to a comrade in the field a bit back, and mapped out this survival strategy for the exceedingly tough times that producing indie film is these days. See it’s simple, right? Just do these ten things (and then a little more) and you got it made (if you don’t have to actually earn a living that is!):
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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.
Did I get the list right? What did I leave out? I mean, other than the obvious one of having a large fortune to squander. You do know that this is a quiz, right? I mean, I did leave some things off the list just because the internet likes top ten lists best. And of course because I want to test you. But really there was one, that I thought was obvious and is really why I have an energy to do any blogging or social networking whatsoever. It’s the most crucial if Indie Film will live:
If Indie Film is going to truly survive — and once again flourish –we all have to do everything we can to organize our community, to encourage participation, to share information.
Choose the culture you want.
Get on the bus. Please.
Thank you.
A filmmaker asked me if there was any place that would stream a film for free, something other than having to put a feature up in ten minute clips on YouTube. Now of course I recommended he check out the list “Internet Video Platforms” where we have a bunch listed already, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get a little help expanding our knowledge base. In addition to asking the blogosphere for some answers to this, I put it out to the Twitterverse and got a lot of replies.
@FilmNetDotCom offered their services and suggests we all check them out on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/FilmNet
@vdovaultreplied The Auteurs hosts some free films @theauteurs
@jbernhard check out openfilm.com
@grkingsuggested http://kareltests.co.uk/ – gives a breakdown of free video hosting sites (alternative to YouTube)
@johnnybingham recommended http://www.10besthosting2009.com/#2736941795/, where you can compare the top 10 web hosting services
La Quadrature du Net (Squaring The Net) is an organization involved in public-policy debates at the French and European Union levels in order to protect the fundamental rights of the citizen in the digital environment.
They provided a clear ad concise defense of why net neutrality is so important. Check out their answers to a survey here.
The Internet’s open architecture aims at guaranteeing the free movement of information through our communications infrastructures. It is only by maintaining this principle of openness that the rights and freedoms of citizens in the digital environment – both as producers and users of informational goods – will develop and flourish.
Network neutrality is the essential guarantee for competition, innovation, and fundamental freedoms on the Internet.
Categories
Our Earth Changes Fast
I moved to Oregon soon after Mount St. Helens exploded. It made for some pretty great sunsets. But things keep changing on this planet of ours. Look at how much this volcano changed between 2003 and 2006. 360 degree views no less.
On the final episode of Christine & Ted Talk To Directors At Sundance ’09, Alan, Jeff, And Lee give advice on thinking for the long term:
And about being described as a pessimist, all I can say is they should read this blog more often!
Lance Weiler has a nice, albeit short, piece in Screen Daily on the audiences role in crafting cross-platform narratives (aka transmedia). Here’s a taste, but check out the whole thing:
Pre-production, production and post are melding ― so why do most producers wait until the film is finished to engage their audience? The art and craft of how stories are designed, delivered and shared must catch up with the realities of how audiences are consuming them. This points to a number of new and exciting storytelling possibilities. The audience is telling us what they want, we just need to start listening.
Lance will be at Power To The Pixel, along with yours truly, Brian Newman, and a host of other fantastic folk that I can’t wait to meet.
