By Jim Cummings
This is part three of a four part post. Part One. Part Two: The Problem With Piracy.
Many of our peers seem to have rifts in their thinking about the digital revolution, that our future is uncertain, but that considering the negatives might distract from the steadfast pursuit of our work and thus lessen our chances of success. Does considering the reality of our own deaths prevent us from pursuing our lives or living them to the fullest? Of course not, so let’s stop deceiving ourselves that the death of the industry is not a real problem that deserves real answers.
Here is one:
There are many new ways to make money as an independent artist, but it is unlikely that we will make it from our future audiences. In the last year, new ways to approach releasing videos online have made it easier for artists to screen their work for free and still receive adequate funding. The show South Park has been pirated and streamed illegally online for years. South Park did not ignore this, they recognized the problem, created their own streaming site, and partnered with companies like Jack In The Box to stream in HD for free, provided that commercials played throughout the episodes. They weakened the blow of the pirates, made sure that their fans had incentive to visit their site, and all it took was speaking with outside parties for financing. Why can’t we do this?
It would be terrible if commercials plagued feature films, but they may not have to. Videos appear online as a thumbnail of the uploader’s choice and when it is shared that thumbnail appears on websites and facebook pages. Even without watching the video, this rectangle that filmmakers design appears to anyone that happens upon it. The number of times that the frame appears far outnumbers its views and that data is made available on Vimeo.com. This seems to be an untapped resource for artists to partner with companies and feature advertising of their choice. It is a simple method that can actually lift artists out of debt, excite modern viewers, beat the pirates, and allow us to interact directly with our audience and financiers, and it is as easy as a phone call to a PR department.
Here is another:
The comedian Louis C.K. terminated his relationship with Ticketmaster because it repeatedly overcharged audiences for shows. He began selling tickets through his website at the constant price of 45 dollars, even on show nights. He did this to attack ticketmaster, the scalpers, and to ensure fairness for his audiences. This has become a new ideal, to change the system on our own, but this method is only possible for established artists. Louis C.K. has 2.5 million Twitter followers, which may indicate why this business model is working so well for him. If he tweets, ‘Buy tickets for my New York show here…’ he has a much better likelihood of a sell-out crowd than most of us.
There is a mutual benefit to making art this way, building your own art community for reciprocal gain, and it is far more achievable than wasting our time hoping for a movie deal. There is solid ground following in these footsteps; work on smaller projects, build a following, run a fundraiser for your next piece, and most importantly use the technology to put money into your pocket, not vice versa.
We conclude this discussion on The Digital Recession tomorrow with “The Future“. You can read part one here, part two “The Problem With Piracy“.
Jim Cummings is a producer at ornana.com and the creator of Sanfrancisco3dfilms.com He is also a screenwriter about the imploding film industry (originalhighquality.com) and you can reach him here: jimmycthatsme@mac.com
