Although this majestic beast sure seems comfortable doing it. Did you know that no White Tigers have lived (or been seen) in the wild since the late 50’s? There are probably now White Tigers alive than ever before — but they all live in zoos or parks. I guess we shouldn’t let them know about the one that we keep under our bed, eh?
How do you do it? If the mainstream industry and the mainstream festivals are not responding to your work, does it mean there’s no audience or community for you work? HELL, NO! You just have to bring it to where they are. It might be hard. It might be grueling. And it will be brutal, but it can be done.
Filmmaker Bob Ray guest posts today to show us all how it is done. He has hit the road couch surfing and community building. The kindness of strangers can be key but nothing is more so than being true to what you love and have made.
Bringing It To The People, The Badass Way: No Distrib, No Festivals, A Lot Of Help & Support
I’m honored to throw down a blog entry here. I follow this feed and put to use the wisdom gleaned from these pages. There’s a dialogue out there (and in here) about the ever-changing distribution landscape, the role of film festivals, self-distribution and the like. I hope my experience adds to this conversation and we’re all the richer for it. We’ll see, it might. It just might.
The stranger we met on Craigslist was nice enough to let us crash at his apartment in Boston. The suspiciously empty living room and the lack of a single morsel of food in the kitchen led me to believe that this was either a freaky sex pad or a murder house. We never found out which. The ghost of a woman and her dog haunted a New Orleans mansion we’d been at only weeks before. There were high-rise chickens in Florida, a crippling stunt and a pitch to IFC in NYC. I sat in the theater chair where Lee Harvey Oswald was nabbed. Whiskey-slapping in Greensboro, a near riot in Mobile and a fistful of pills in Houston. Weirdness abounds. And that’s just a few of the nights of the last film tour. Hey, at least we didn’t go to jail this time.
Around mid-2010 I finished my newest film, Total Badass. I skipped the film fests and, instead, I’ve been touring the film all over the US. With my hometown of Austin as the hub, I toured for five weeks out West and another five weeks out East. I screened in over 60 cities and racked up about fourteen thousand miles in total. I traveled America and had a blast. Now I’m perched to tour Europe in a few months. Australia and New Zealand look pretty tempting as well.
Name’s Bob Ray. What’s important to know is this: I’m an Austin-based filmmaker who will whip out films of all manner: narratives, cartoons, docs and music videos, short and/or long. Lately, it’s been all docs and ‘toons. Long docs and short ‘toons. My first two feature length flicks, the stoner comedy Rock Opera (1999) and the roller derby doc, Hell on Wheels (2007), premiered at SXSW and went on to screen at tons of fests, get great reviews and land small distribution deals that saw the films released on DVD and Video on Demand. All in all, my flicks have screened at over 75 film festivals in a handful of countries and garnered plenty of spectacular reviews. I attended many of these film fests and had a blast while making a pile of new filmmaker friends. All good stuff.
Despite my previous successes (or maybe in light of them), from the get-go it seemed that the odds have been stacked against Total Badass. Here’s why: Total Badass is a raw film. Raw by design, but it’s raw. At its core, the flick is a gritty and hilariously offensive, yet touching tale of a man striving to leave his creative mark while dealing with a family crisis and trying to fly straight long enough to finish felony probation. It’s a funny and intimate story about redemption, finding your purpose and the importance of family, but along the way, there’s plenty of way-over-the-line humor, high doses of drug abuse, rowdy music, graphic sex, racy racial humor, weed dealing and some dangerous trashcan jumping. You might find it hard to believe (and for some, this is almost a requirement for documentaries), but Total Badass contains no agenda to affect social change, end oppression or save the planet (I’m all for those things, btw). Total Badass features no famous artist, celebrity, singer, philanthropist, comedian or politician. Total Badass is a film about Chad Holt by Bob Ray. And you’ve never heard of either of us.
To overcome these crippling blows, I felt that what the film really could use was a big, wet stamp of approval from a top shelf fest. I feared that most fests would be too timid to screen the flick due to the rampant cocaine snorting and cock sucking, er, the controversial subject matter. I needed someone keen who could see the forest for the freaky trees, someone who could peer through the bong smoke and embrace the heart and soul that lie at the center of the film.
With fingers XXX-ed, I entered Total Badass into several top-tier film festivals: Sundance, Berlin, Rotterdam, IDFA, SXSW, Tribeca, Slamdance, Los Angeles, True/False, Full Frame, etc. We found not a lick of love there. I soon grew sick of waiting for others to validate my work. And I was annoyed with blasting off entry fee after entry fee like shooting bullets at the night sky.
Sometimes it seems the world is against me. Here I was again: me versus everybody. Plan A was shot. I needed a plan B.
I know what I want, I just need a new way to get it. The goal is to get the film out and in front of the people who’ll appreciate it. I want to get the flick reviewed and hopefully build an audience for my movies. I want to do the work that’ll do the film justice. There’s no point in making the damn thing if no one’s gonna see it, right? I am also, by collecting piles of fantastic reviews and making waves, looking to get the attention of the film biz and, ideally, find a distributor to pick up wherever I leave off. If I can actually make some spare change in the process, all the better. It’s sure to be an adventure wrapped in a lesson and shoved up an enigma.
It’s very DIY around here. I’m willing to sleep in strange places. I’m willing to drive long stretches and make new friends of total strangers. Even with a lack of money, there are other ways to get things done.
Bands surround me. I live in the Live Music Capitol of the World. I’ll take a page and tour around, band-style. I’ll hop in a car and hit a new city every night, screen films, do a Q&A, sell merch and party. I’ll repeat for weeks on end. Sounds solid. But first I gotta sell the idea to a bunch of cinemas.
My name carries little to no weight. It sounds kinda cool and reads palindrome-y, but that’s about it. So I partnered up with some names that do. The Alamo Drafthouse has screened many of my films. SXSW has shown 11 of my films in the last 10 years. The Austin Chronicle gives me ink with kindness. The Austin Film Society is a benevolent institution that likes to help. I teamed up with them all. These would be my promotional partners. I’ll package and pitch the tour as a slice of Austin coming to towns near and far. Everybody loves Austin’s weirdness.
It’ll work because my films are Austin-centric. Total Badass is about an Austin underground icon, Rock Opera is a fictional tale set in the real Austin music scene of the late 90s and then there’s Hell on Wheels. I was privy to the birth of modern roller derby and I made a doc about it. Roller derby has since exploded in popularity and Hell on Wheels is the de-facto history book for the movement and Austin is its birthplace. This doc enjoys a built in fan base in every city where roller derby exists, and that’s all of them. If I can convince cinemas to screen two films a night, I can double dip with a screening of Hell on Wheels and Total Badass. And with Hell, I can team up with derby leagues in a cross-promotional extravaganza. So I did that.
Booking is a pain in the ass. Packed with maps, spreadsheets, emails, pitches, phone calls, scheming, plotting, conning, negotiating, math, business b.s. and other seemingly endless and entirely thrill-less work, it all pains my ass. And it takes forever. Four months before the launch date for the tour I was researching and contacting cinemas, partnering up with derby leagues and filling up the calendar. Here’s a depressing surprise: just finding indie cinemas is a bit of a chore. Some cities, big cities even, just don’t have one. On the flip side, you’ll occasionally come across theaters that are totally down with the idea and jump right on in.
Business-wise, I work out door splits. Usually, I get around 50%. I’ve yet to four-wall a venue and couldn’t afford to if I wanted to. What the cinemas want to know is how we’ll be bringing an audience. Cuz we all know that it’s not with ads, as there’s no ad budget. The way we do it around here is with piles of hard work and creativity.
Promotion was grass roots. We teamed up with derby leagues and partnered w/ local film groups and local filmmakers. We worked with fests that had screened my past works. We sought out music, culture or film writers who have written about off-the-beaten path events and harassed them for press. We sent out press releases, screeners and email reminders. We teamed up with radio stations and held ticket giveaways. We hit up university film clubs and sought to meet professors who’d encourage their students to attend. We teamed up with film societies to help spread the word. We reached out to every blog, newspaper, ‘zine, and radio station and angled for coverage. Getting the word out is half the battle.
On the tour, we screened some of my CrashToons cartoons (www.CrashToons.com) in front of Total Badass and Hell on Wheels. The ‘toons are super-short and punchy-funny and set a good tone for the night. Chad Holt, the subject of Total Badass and a good friend, accompanied me on the tours, contributed to the tour journal (http://crashcamfilms.com/tourjournal.htm) and hosted post-screening Q&As with me. With Hell on Wheels, we partnered up with leagues all over to present the flick. This partnership allows us to grow our audience and hopefully turn on some local filmgoers to the derby scene in their own community. After Hell screenings, I’d do a Q&A w/ the derby gals.
Steve Bloom & Shirley Halperin’s fine stoner film guide “Reefer Movie Madness” features a killer review of my first flick, Rock Opera. I contacted the author and we scored a case of books to give away as door prizes. We also gave away DVDs of Rock Opera, to help tie it all together and to create a more festive environment. After the Q&A, I’d mingle with filmgoers and sell DVDs, shirts and posters and give away stickers and condoms (for the after-parties, duh).
Life on the road is odd and fun. Of the ten weeks on the road, we only needed to rent a motel twice and only slept in the car twice. The rest of the time, we found couches, beds and floors to crash on. Sometimes, during the Q&A, we’d beg for a crash-pad. It usually worked. People like to help.
My experiment, in part forced by a flood of film fest rejection letters, has me evaluating the value of film fests versus taking it straight to the people. In one sense, I got out of touring what I would have gotten out of film fests: loads of reviews. Behold a pu pu platter sampling:
“The title couldn’t be more apt.”
-Time Out New York
“Total Badass is a wild, unique ride, deep into the Austin counterculture… it’s entertaining and shockingly funny, and undeniably touching… a thunderbolt of a documentary.”
-Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
“[Total Badass director] Bob Ray is Austin’s newish lowbrow Maysles brother… Chad Holt comes off charmingly as equal parts Texan Keith Moon and crispy Richard Benjamin, talking blue streaks and rolling joints in his probation officer’s parking lot.”
-Village Voice
“A ballsy feature-length documentary… a totally unapologetic profile of the ubiquitous Austin hero.”
-Vice Magazine
“A psychological treat”
-Phoenix New Times
“An outrageous and hilariously seedy journey into the Austin underground… [Total Badass] bravely goes where no documentary film has gone before.”
-Flavorpill
What we didn’t get was the attention of industry folks. I’m not sure we’re on anybody’s radar. But we are armed with badass reviews, so we’ll try to work that angle next.
Also in the con column, I personally missed the camaraderie and fun of screening flicks with new and old film friends and peers at film festivals. This is not to be overlooked. Many, if not most of my filmmaker pals I’d befriended at fests. While on tour, I met up with and crashed at the houses of lots of these same folks. Film fests are a fantastic way to connect to likeminded peers in a kickass film friendly environment.
Back to the pros: in addition to one hell of an adventure and some awesome reviews, I found in my possession a bit of cash. I spent about seven grand on Total Badass (not including my time, and I did not pay myself). I grossed a little over eight grand on these tours. I’ve yet to do the math and find the net (there are many things to factor: gas, printing, shipping, DVD replication, t-shirt and poster costs, food, etc.), and none of this takes into account working my ass off for four months to book and promote the tour and being on the road for five weeks (twice). But when I guestimate the expenses, I still come out ahead.
Now, for many filmmakers out there, making a film for seven grand sounds nuts. And grossing eight grand on a tour is peanuts. But for us low-to-no budget filmmakers, this is all good stuff. I’m not sure how touring would transfer to a larger film with a greater budget. There might be something to the old adage “you gotta spend money to make money.” I might have more insight on that if I’d ever spent money, or had money to spend. But with no budget to promote, the attendance was hit or miss. We had some big hits, but also a few whiffs. I read of people spending upwards of $10,000 for a publicist for a single film festival screening, or dropping twenty grand for theatrical publicity. Those numbers blow my mind. For all I know, that’s money well spent. Maybe you sell soooo many more tickets that it comes back to you. I have no idea. My little film cost only $7000, so spending nearly three times that amount (let alone finding the money in the first place) seems like a steep hill.
Since we’re talking about cash and film fests, let me add this: It’s tough being at a film festival screening where 600 people are watching and enjoying your film. It’s awesome that they are there and all is going well. But when your film costs $7000 to make you figure that each person paid $10 to see the flick, and if you could keep all the box office, you could almost pay off the cost of making your film. Granted, there might not be 600 people at your screening if it weren’t for the fest, and the theater needs their cut (and I do realize that most film fests work tirelessly to put on a good show and have a great deal of overhead, so I begrudge them not). But if you don’t get a cut of the door, and you aren’t one of the few to benefit from industry and press exposure at said fest, the fun and experience might not be so sweet in the long run. At the end of the day, meeting filmmakers and having a blast is great, but you have a movie that still needs to be paid for.
If you submit and do not get into fests at all, the taste is downright bitter. I entered Total Badass into upwards of a dozen fests and all it did was add about ten percent to the budget with fest fees. We got nothing for our effort. Didn’t move an inch. All I have to show for that pile of spent cash is a digital stack of rejection letters and greater debt. It can be quite irritating.
In the end, It’s kinda hard to tell if I’m better off not having hit the fest circuit. On the one hand, I racked up some pretty amazing adventures and I made my budget back (depending on how you do the math). On the flip side, I really did miss the fest atmosphere and being able to meet up with fellow filmmakers.
I hope Total Badass will manage, one way or another, to find its place in cinematic history alongside films like American Movie, Billy the Kid, The King of Kong, Hated and Grey Gardens. In such terrific flicks about interesting folks with passion and drive, we spend time with these individuals and find that despite their eccentricies, we share common needs, desires and goals. The small, universal truths.
Still in the thick of things with Total Badass, I’m currently setting up a European tour. The costs will be greater, but so will the adventure. If you wanna help us get there, swing by http://kck.st/g4VgjJ and throw down for the cause.
In the mean time, if you’re itchin’ to eyeball some clips from Total Badass, go here: http://www.TotalBadassTheMovie.com and click the “peek” page.
My CrashToons cartoons loiter here: http://www.CrashToons.com They are NSFW but are funny and super-short.
If you wanna keep abreast of our tours, the site with all that juicy info is: http://www.BadassFilmTour.com
Crazy tales of the first two film tours are here: http://crashcamfilms.com/tourjournal.htm
If all goes well in Europe, we might attempt a New Zealand and Australia tour in late 2011.
Kevin Smith recently began traveling with his new movie Red State. Maybe touring films around is catching on. Surely his tour will proceed on a much grander scale. Perhaps we can compare notes later on.
And, if you’ll pardon the personal shout-out, I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to Mia Cevallos, the producer on Total Badass and the Tour Producer without whom I could have done none of this. You rule, Mia!
— Bob Ray
With ass kicking music videos for the likes of Nashville Pussy, Fuckemos and Riverboat Gamblers, a slew of freaky CrashToon cartoons, and three critically acclaimed features: the stoner-comedy Rock Opera (SXSW ‘99), the modern era roller derby doc Hell on Wheels (SXSW ‘07) and his newest flick, the crazy-fun, touching and out-there documentary Total Badass, Bob Ray catapults the Austin counterculture onto the big screen, reveling in its inspiring, unique and deliriously offbeat glory. Behold the oddities and awesomeness: www.CrashCamFilms.com
What is it that a camera sees? Do we need to accept and conform to the dominant storytelling paradigms, or is there actually more that we can be striving for? Perhaps no life and work embodies these questions as well as Ricky Leacock. Filmmaker David Van Taylor guest posts today with an examination of him and these issues, and the difference between documentary and essay film. There is a lot that can be said about these subjects, certainly enough for a six hour documentary AND many blog posts.
For over a decade, Lumiere Productions has been working to create TO TELL THE TRUTH, a 6-hour history of documentary film. As the title suggests, we’re not interested in appreciating documentary just as an art form, in “film for film’s sake.” We’re exploring how documentary operates in the real world, where non-fiction films have both causes and consequences.
One joy of this project was our in-depth 2004 interview with the late lamented Ricky Leacock. Ricky was part of a small group that helped invent “Direct Cinema” (aka “cinema verité”) in the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s. For many, this was the beginning of “real documentary,” since much of what came before entailed what we now call “re-enactments” or other intrusions that Ricky and his colleagues found a way to avoid.
Here’s a clip where Ricky describes his awakening, with the help of Bob Drew, to a new documentary concept. Note—he’s not talking about equipment or even technique. He’s not talking about intrusion or reenactment. No, the most critical shift was his understanding of what constitutes an interesting subject and a worthwhile impact on the viewer.
The (much-deserved) postmortem ado about Ricky has stressed this ability to be “fascinated,” and his lifelong quest to convey “the feeling of being there.”
But … it has been scarcely noted that these core convictions about what makes a good documentary are, if not dead, then distinctly out of fashion. We are in the midst of a documentary renaissance in theaters, on TV, at festivals. It is dominated, though, not by Ricky’s brand of cinema verité, but by essays and exposés on distinctly important topics—in Ricky’s words (not mine!), “films that convert people to this that and the other thing … all this left-wing, politically-correct bullshit.”
This opposition—between films “fascinated” by human stories and films that aim to change people’s attitudes about a critical issue—is not new in the history of documentary. It wasn’t new at the time of Ricky’s epiphany, either. For all their innovations, Leacock et al. were also standing on the shoulders of Ricky’s erstwhile mentor Robert Flaherty. The director of Nanook of the North, Man of Aran and Louisiana Story—whose work prompted the popular coinage of “documentary”—created observational, character-centered story films before the technology existed to do so. He believed the essence of filmmaking was “non-preconception.”
But in the same era as Flaherty, a very different mold was being forged half-way across the globe. Committed Soviet Communist Dziga Vertov, in Man with a Movie Camera, Three Songs of Lenin, and Enthusiasm, pioneered montage-driven essays about mass movements and social issues. The films, often distributed through innovative grass-roots “outreach,” were explicitly intended to change the world.
You can view documentary history as a pendulum swinging between these two poles—observational and argumentative, Flaherty and Vertov—due to shifting historical and political contexts. For example, the argument film dominated in World War II, when governments around the world sponsored documentaries for propaganda. Observational cinema returned, as “cinema verité,” in the ‘50’s, when McCarthyism (like Stalinism) made direct political expression dangerous.
As I see it, most prominent documentarians these days are children of Vertov, whether they know it or not. (Most don’t.) I’m not sure we yet have the historical perspective to know why that is. It may have something to do with a long-term conservative political tide that has left many viewers eager for a strong opposing voice. But whatever the reason, critics, viewers, film students today seem more likely to complain that a documentary doesn’t make a clear statement than to complain that it has an axe to grind.
I’m pretty sure Ricky couldn’t have been too happy about that. I’m less certain how I feel about it. Maybe the argument film is what we need as a culture right now. And let me be clear: these are not simple, black/white distinctions, even at their root. Vertov was a master of “fly-on-the-wall” filming, though he then manipulated the heck out of it in editing. (He also coined the term “kino-pravda,” which translates as “cinema verité,” now connoting a very different kind of film than those he made.) Flaherty, on the other hand, was famous for manipulations as he was filming—there’s a shot in Nanook where you can see the rifle the Eskimo would have used if Flaherty hadn’t asked him to use an old-fashioned spear—but made films that appeared as seamless and natural as life itself.
The controversy at the time about Flaherty’s poetic liberties still echoes today. HBO is about to release Cinema Verité, a (fictionalized) condemnation of how observational filmmakers allegedly exploited the Loud family in the ur-reality series. Perhaps it’s always the case that f you put something on the screen that appears unmanipulated, from Nanook to An American Family, you open yourself to feelings of betrayal when viewers discover that the documentary lens has in fact had a hand in shaping events.
Maybe that’s another reason argument-driven documentaries dominate today. We’re all convinced that everyone’s trying to spin us, from elected officials to news reporters to the kid with the Flip camera. So maybe the best we can hope for is that they’ll spin us straight—not pretend that they’ve gone in without preconception and are just trying to convey the feeling of being there.
Figuring out the last couple of decades will probably be the hardest part of making TO TELL THE TRUTH. I’d love to hear what anyone out there—documentary filmmakers, dedicated viewers, or just film lovers in general—thinks about this perspective on recent doc history. Am I on target, or full of BS? If I’m right that argument-driven docs dominate the scene now, why do you think that is? And is it something to be embraced, to be combated, or somehow to be transcended?
Right now my personal feeling is: Ricky, please don’t go. We need you more than ever.
— David Van Taylor
David Van Taylor and Lumiere Productions are currently completing 2 episodes of TO TELL THE TRUTH. For more on the history of documentary, including additional clips of Ricky Leacock, please follow TO TELL THE TRUTH on Facebook.
Orly Ravid co-founded the Film Collaborative and has been providing us with a great series of posts on the changing market and options for independent filmmakers and their work. Her generosity and commitment is an inspiration. She is a brave thinker.
Indie Filmmakers used to think that once they made their movies, their only real option was to surrender — to surrender to the market and the middlemen who decided on a film’s applicability to an audience or community. Those days are now gone and good riddance! The services and tools we have to get our work out and on the screens of what has long been under-served under-educated audiences and communities increase every day. As those options expand, so do the choices of content, form, and aesthetic — we are becoming truly free in terms of how, what, and where we can tell our tales. The sky hasn’t fallen; a thousand phoenix have risen.
Today Orly looks at new platforms and toolkits that allow filmmakers to sell or rent their films directly to fans. The Era of Artist/Entrepreneur is here! Now all we have to do is fight for a free and open internet…
In a new media world in which people sometimes conflate distributor with platform and buyer with online/digital store, I want to draw that distinction and highlight a few new and compelling DIY options (platforms or toolkits) for filmmakers to sell or rent their films to audiences / consumers directly. TFC always encourages filmmakers to develop their own brands while also noting the importance of being connected to other brands that generate significant traffic and indie film consumption. In other words, sell direct to your fans off your site and other sites and social networking platforms and/or via other DIY platforms or tools but also recognize the usefulness of being available where average film consumers go, i.e. via Cable VOD if you can manage it, and other key platforms/online digital stores (depending on the nature of the film) such as: Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, Vudu, Hulu, Sony Playstation, Xbox etc.
The few DIY platforms or toolkits highlighted in this blog are: Distrify, EggUp, Groupees, Stonehenge’s iPhone Apps. Next time we cover this topic, we’ll investigate more into DIY platforms FansofFilm and Open Film (7,000 films, 70% shorts).
Let’s begin.
Peter Gerard & Andy Green, the co-founders of Distrify, are both filmmakers who formed Distrify. I met with Andy @ SXSW.
Distrify is not a film sales platform – it’s a toolset. One can use Distrify to sell a film anywhere on the web and via social media platforms. Once your trailer and film are on Distrify you embed it on your website like http://www.justtogetarep.com/ and Facebook page like https://www.facebook.com/just.to.get.a.rep?sk=app_203403406338325
You can then start telling your film’s fans about it and ask them to embed the widget on forums, blogs, websites, etc.
Distrify’s “sell-movies-socially” tools are designed to make effective social media marketing profitable. If your trailer and film are on Distrify, when you share the clip, you’re also sharing the store to buy the film or find out about upcoming screenings. When your audience shares it further, you’re always spreading the point-of-sale along the way. Anyone who shares it gets paid a share of sales they generate.
One does not have to start selling through Distrify right away – one can use it to promote screenings and events through the trailer interface. Here’s an example of an upcoming Anime release that is using the Distrify player to promote upcoming screenings: http://www.we-loveanime.com/
If the film’s not available in the user’s area, they can make their interest known directly through the player as well. Distrify compiles the statistics for filmmakers and give them the mailing list data – all free. Any new screenings you add are also automatically listed in all the players that have been embedded around the web. And when you want to start selling the film, you can add it as well.
There are no up-front charges, fully non-exclusive, and they don’t need any rights. They take a small transaction fee on sales (see specifics below).
In the Beta period it is free to sign up and upload one film to Distrify. They don’t charge for uploading or hosting and there is no subscription fee for a Beta account. They do charge a 30% revenue share on sales. They note that their profit “is around 3% to 5% so it’s costing us around 25% to deliver the service to the customer. We’re working hard to reduce these costs and when we do we’ll hand the saving over to the rights holder.”
Distrify Beta Pricing
How do you get paid?
Each month if you’ve earned sales revenue they will send you a sales report and transfer your earnings to you directly via PayPal or bank transfer. You may be charged by PayPal or your bank to receive the transfer. When you get your first sales report, they say “just let us know how you prefer to be paid”.
What about affiliates?
“We will soon offer your audience the ability to earn a share of revenues that are generated from their sharing. Once this is enabled they will earn 5% from each sale they refer to you. We are currently offering to split the cost of the revenue-sharing with you. This means we only charge 27.5% on a revenue-shared sale. You keep the remaining 72.5%.”
Peter Gerard followed up further noting that whilst still in Beta their pricing is FREE to sign up and sell one film and a 30% transaction fee on all sales through their player and there are no costs for special encoding. Their Beta period ends in June and after they will continue this pricing option and offer some premium plans.
“EggUp is a publishing platform for filmmakers and film distributors. We help filmmakers and distributors rent and sell their films online while preventing piracy. Our free online publishing tools can help you distribute and sell your film or video which is all packaged and encrypted into a file called the Egg. The Egg is currently available for download and allows consumers to watch and share with friends and family virally while filmmakers are able to make money. With EggUp you get your own website to promote your film, together with an integrated pay per view solution. We also list your films in our film catalog called GoEggit. Distribute the Egg on your own website, and other online retailers with your very own buy now button without setup fees and inventory.”
Payment options: FREE, Rental, Purchase. Filmmaker will be able to choose several options. Accept Paypal and major credit cards. Customer credit card information does not go through their servers. They only link to the filmmaker’s Paypal account. Paypal holds customer’s credit card info.
They are Worldwide and can Geo Filter as needed.
Content: Currently about 60 films due to focusing on developing technology and negotiating deals with international governments and studios. They will be ramping up pretty quickly in the next 3-5 months with content.
When I asked about revenue thus far to filmmakers they answered with this: “It really varies since it’s up to the filmmakers. Some filmmakers make $0 due to they are not marketing their content or older film with no cult following. While others are getting consistent purchases daily since they have a full marketing strategy including PR pushing their film. It adds up but nothing making millions”.
EGG UP’s FEES:
http://i811.photobucket.com/albums/zz38/Egg_Up/EggUP_Overview3.jpg
Egg Up Filmmaker Benefit: Image
http://i811.photobucket.com/albums/zz38/Egg_Up/EggUP_Filmmaker3.jpg
JON REISS’ GUEST BLOGGER Solomon MacAuley– Raved about EGGUP:
http://jonreiss.com/blog/2011/03/03/prevent-film-piracy-and-globally-monetize-instantly/
SHERI CANDLER interview for MicroFILMMAKER Magazine about EGG UP:
http://www.microfilmmaker.com/tipstrick/Issue58/EggDist1.html
GROUPEES (YAWMA) groupees.yawma.net & yawma.net
I was introduced to this platform via TFC client (and HopeForFilm Guest Blogger) Ari Gold (Adventures of Power). Thomas Brooke who demo’d the platform / service via Cisco’s WEBEX. I was impressed with the simplicity and comfort of the interface.
Thomas Brooke is the Founder and CEO of YAWMA. YAWMA is the social media technology company that operates Groupees. Thomas describes GROUPEES as:
“A Flash sale (24-48 hr) platform focusing on digital media entertainment (music, games, film) - Like Groupon in the sense that we’re crowd-sourcing but deal isn’t dependent on a certain number of users buying and “tipping” the deal; rather we start with the good deal but the content owners set a goal and if achieved it unlocks extra exclusive content (to incentivize users to work as a group and spread the promo through their social graph) - There is a high degree of Facebook and Twitter integration so purchases spread virally - Flexible SaaS based system supporting product bundling, multiple pricing options (fixed price, pay what you want), inclusion of charity, etc. We’ve set Groupees up as an on demand platform where content creators/licensors sign up to run a single promotion, all of which is configured through a web interface. It is a platform by invitation only- we’re sourcing quality independent music, games and film.”
Their next Groupee starts on Wednesday so if you go to: http://groupees.yawma.net
you will see the promo vid and count-down clock now live.
Here is a screenshot and the model we’re using for projections on Music groupees.
FEES: The model split is reflected at 60-40% (in favor of filmmakers).
When I asked why they were more expensive as Apple (which takes 30%) Thomas answered:
“While it is true that Apple takes 30%, they don’t do anything for their 30% beyond providing a distribution system. Fact is we’re not just a point of distribution. We’re pretty sophisticated technology with a high degree of customization, strong FB and Twitter integration and 100% pr support (strongly question this, what do they mean by 100% PR support?) for every promotion we run. Groupon is really a better business analogy, and they take 50% but have nowhere near the social media integration or customization features. I do appreciate your asking whether to make mention but I’m certainly comfortable with this.”
“In terms of film/video, we can support straight download in any format and also video streaming. As mentioned, the service requires buyers to register so all files are secured behind a firewall. I think for indie film the concept of bundling films from different film-makers might work very well as it provides good cross promotion and from the consumer’s perspective allows you to get two cool films from a single purchasing experience. Definitely one of the premises of our platform is convenience as people are overwhelmed by our digitally connected world so by featuring quality indie entertainment as a part of a single promotion, consumers get the benefit of a curated good deal on relevant media/entertainment. I think also there is an opportunity to bundle films with music, especially where there’s a good thematic connection. Obviously, a soundtrack with a film is a no-brainer as well. We’re also currently looking at possibly bundling a video game that is from the horror genre with a horror film. “
Groupee Platform Features
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STONEHENGE – Distributing films worldwide via Phone Apps — FilmApps…Get Your Film in More Hands
Stonehenge Productions enables film producers to sell their films on iTunes, Android Market and Amazon Appstore as applications for the iPhone, iPad and for Droid platforms.
Their pitch: “With a low start-up cost of just $680, you can have an application of your film available on Phones everywhere !! You keep 100% of sales revenues minus the 30% that Apple charges.”
What do you get for $680?
How?
Contact Stonehenge Productions and we’ll provide you with further instructions to upload your content. It will then be turned into a customized application. You’ll get final review and you’ll continue to hold all rights to the film.
We’ll submit it to Apple and manage the whole selling process through the App store OR we’ll put it on the Android Market or Amazon Appstore.
A Stonehenge Sales Sheet: http://www.stonehengeproductions.com/sales-sheet/
Mark Smillie of Stonehenge notes “we are really working hard to build FilmApps that encourage participation over the lifecycle of the film…so pre-release to build awareness and fan base, at release to drive fans to the theater and post release to sell the film through the App channel.”“We build for Apple, Android and sell on the iTunes, Droid and Amazon app stores.”
Their latest press release for our App for the film: Race to Nowhere. It’s a good example of a social activism app paired with a film App. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/03/prweb5193274.htm
Another testimonial Mark showed me is from John Paul Rice of “One Hour Fantasy Girl” “Apps for films work: Itunes report for One Hour Fantasy Girl in Q4 2010, rental/downloads up 558% over Q3. Credit goes to @WeGoTo11” John Paul Rice President No Restrictions Entertainment from Twitter:https://twitter.com/norestrictions/status/53291871367200768
* That’s all for now folks. More platforms and tools and DIY solutions next time.
Orly Ravid has worked in film acquisitions / sales / direct distribution and festival programming for the last twelve years since moving to Los Angeles from home town Manhattan. In January 2010, Orly founded The Film Collaborative (TFC), the first non-profit devoted to film distribution of independent cinema. Orly runs TFC w/ her business partner, co-exec director Jeffrey Winter.
Don’t you wish that they would let you play this too?
One day, maybe… but then again, we were promised jet packs.
I’ve written a lot about the increasing responsibilities of filmmakers and the absolute need to focus on audience/community building. How to we get our work seen in an entertainment economy that has shifted from being based on scarcity and control, to one of super-abundance and ever-increasing access? The tools get better daily, and slowly we start to map out a series of best practices.
In today’s guest post, filmmaker Ari Gold writes precisely of that challenge and how he’s managed to find some success without following the standard release plans. Ari directed one of my favorite all-time shorts (Helicopter), so I am excited to see his feature debut ADVENTURES OF POWER.
In a case of life imitating art imitating life, my air-drum comedy “Adventures of Power” is now launching a real air-drum competition [http://AirDrumBattle.com]. Rock-star drummers are lining up to participate. How in hell did I become an event planner? I used to think you just made a movie, and watch it go to theaters. But that’s not how it works these days, not for most of us. Independent filmmakers who can’t afford advertising have to find a way to get the word out about their movies – I’ve decided to become an event planner in order to do it. “Power’s Air Drum Battle” is the second initiative that I’ve done during the slow-burn release of the movie: we’ve already saved a music school with our charity auction, and so now we’re just going to have some fun. Anyone want to become a star by air-drumming?
They used to say you write a film 3 times: when you write it down, when you film it, and when you edit it. Making my movie, I learned that the first and third “writes”, you can be a perfectionist. But the second time (the shoot) you have to be a philosopher, because you’re not the one doing the writing. The shoot takes on a life of its own – often like a minor apocalypse. I would now add a fourth time you “write” a film – and that’s when you bring it to the world. That’s another one that’s hard to write yourself, even when you’re doing it yourself. Getting people’s attention without having the traditional press in your pocket is not easy to do.
I first conceived of “Adventures of Power,” a spiritual/political/absurdist fable about air-drumming and the American Dream, while living in a copper-mining town in New Mexico. The miners were going on strike; there were fights in the street. The story about a copper-mining dreamer making something out of nothing seemed to me to be a perfect combination of the ridiculous and the sublime. I don’t think I could have predicted the wild journey of bringing the “little epic” to the masses, and how much I’d feel like that miner. Broken bones, lightning strikes against the crew, death threats from copper-factory bosses (and eventually, on the plus side, invitations to countries from Finland to Thailand) were not what I expected. I wasn’t expecting my rough-cut to be reviewed (mostly badly) and the final film which I love to get no press whatsoever. But suddenly I have 100,000 fans on Facebook. How’s that work?
The sleepless, terrifying night before my shoot started, I received the following email advice from my brother: “Have fun, have fun, have fun.” And my friend from Germany wrote that before he shot his last film, he told himself “things will go wrong. not work out. i will be disappointed, frustrated and lost at times. but thats not bad. or wrong. as long as i can lay in bed at nite and honestly tell myself: i gave it all i got.’ this is not about winning. this is about doin´ it. with all your might and love. than the gods will look after you.”
Both of these emails were incredibly helpful. The winds of fate, weather, casting, financing, and distribution are often out of our control. I’ve had fans begging to buy my movie for many moons, while it navigated the perils of a distribution business in transition. I realized I couldn’t just walk away from the movie when I finished it. It played Sundance, won a bunch of prizes, and then I still had to put it out on my own. I have no idea if 100,000 new fans will ever pay the bills, but it’s great to know that all the hard work is finally bringing the fable to the masses. Every once in a while, people take power into their own hands. Power to the people!
— Ari Gold
Ari Gold’s first feature film “Adventures of Power”, an epic comedy about air-drumming and the American dream, won best-of-festival prizes at film festivals around the world, and was called “One of the funniest films in recent years” by New York Magazine. His short films “Helicopter” and “Culture” won prizes around the world, and he is currently at work on a new feature. AriGoldFilms.com
http://AdventuresOfPower.com
Now on DVD
DVD includes 2 full hours of bonus materials, making-of, Ari’s student Oscar-winning short film “Helicopter”, interview with Neil Peart, bonus scenes with Jane Lynch, Adrian Grenier, Tim & Eric, and more.
Follow Ari Gold on Twitter at @AriGold
Ari’s site: http://AriGoldFilms.com
The democratization of culture and the tools to create and share it is definitely been one of the more exciting trends of the recent past. We see it in all spheres and aspects of our daily life, but what symbolizes it best? Many friends and pundits characterize it as a dumbing down, but I truly perceive it as quite the opposite. People everywhere are asking all of us to look and reach up, to aspire to more, to inspire each of us to cross into new realms.
Maybe this is most felt on the streets of Austin during SXSW (although the committed might nominate Burning Man), but it is refreshing to know that NYC is not going to abandon the terrain of the wild, weird, honest, and true to that Texas town. We’ve got on own thing going down in Brooklyn.
rooklyn has emerged as a new creative epicenter of culture, and Northside is the festival that curates this talent into a 4-day experience of Music, Art, Film, and Ideas, showcasing the best regional and national talent all within the walkable radius encompassed by Williamsburg and Greenpoint. It’s June 16 -19th and I plan to be there. In fact, I will be one of the judges of the film component. But it is not just film, per se. It is lo-fi, hi-ambition, DIY variety.
DIY filmmaking is very much a part of this mission. It’s now a given that many of the most exciting films at major American festivals are the product of a handful of friends working on a shoestring (some of them right here in Brooklyn), and it’s time festivals gave these films the dedicated platform they deserve.
Last year, with the first-ever Northside Film Festival, copresenters like Rooftop Films, IFC, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Film Comment screened exciting local and upcoming films; this year, alongside these special feature presentations, Northside’s new DIY Film Competition will shine a spotlight on the exciting new voices working with the materials at hand.
The submissions guidelines:
The L Magazine presents: The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Film Competition, Northside Festival’s first juried screening series. Open to all filmmakers with ingenuity and a hands-on approach, the winners will receive an exclusive screening with Rooftop Films plus cash and equipment rentals! For more information on how to submit your own dynamic short or brilliant feature before the May 1 deadline hits, please visit northsidefestival.com and click “Submit Your Film.” The films must have been made after January 1, 2008.
