Often when I go online to look for a film to watch, I end up feeling kind of dirty. I grow depressed. It is not just about the movies I find (or fail to find), but much more so about how they are positioned. Films are sold online the same way that shoes are sold — in a grid with no community interaction. We create jewels and then discard them as garbage, never unlocking the true power they hold. Granted, this is what we are aiming to change at Fandor, but it is still the state of the land when it comes to online cinema. We can do better.
I don’t like always being sold to — and I don’t know anyone who does. Yet, I feel that my humanity frequently is only acknowledged because I have money to spend. This is how it feels generally when it comes to online cinema. It feels that what is valued most about a film or an experience is its ability to generate profit. We are failing to recognize cinema’s unique attributes, let alone emphasize them to consumers. If we reduce a film’s value down to its potential for consumption will limit the business it can do.
Film is a transformative experience — at least good films are. They change us. They change how we perceive things. They can even change the world. Very few things are available legally, that can create a shared emotional response amongst strangers in the dark. Cinema compels us to discuss it afterwards. Movies build bridges of empathy across great divides of difference. Film can be a community organizing tool, uniting people amongst shared values, and keeping them gathered over long periods of time. How incredible is all that? We have such a powerful thing all around us, but we still only discuss it generally about whether it will pull the money out of our wallets.
Beyond ticket sales, the only business built on cinema’s back is selling a 15 cent bag of popcorn for six dollars. We can do better. For the longest period of time, it has felt that one of the only way we could measure a work’s value was by the money it generated. But it no longer has to be that way. We can now measure something’s impact, reach, engagement. We can build new works collaboratively around it. Hopefully we will start to recognize film’s greater utility — and promote that around the film.
When we reduce people down to wallets with eyeballs, we extract our humanity from what is otherwise a life-affirming experience. We are ruining life by simply encouraging people to just consume, instead of demonstrating we respect their engagement and see what a powerful force it is. Film remains a truly revolutionary tool. When will we release it? So many other benefits will bloom in the windfall from the recognition of cinema’s power.
One of the reasons it cost so much money to market a film is we have to keep bringing the same people together over and over. We spend money doing what has already been done. With cinema, we have an incredible tool that brings people together, keeps them united, helps them express whom they are, and expands their sense of the world and their place in it. Cinema is the glue to community and if we actually used it to build community, we could reach the people who love such cinema more economically and effectively. If we unlock cinema’s utility, we improve the film ecosystem for all.
Cinema is our passport to other cultures. It take us on journeys across the globe. Film brings us closer together, and whether we seek world peace or simply better travel experiences, cinema can be used to get us there.
Neighbors gather in book clubs, enjoying group learning as well as many a pot luck dinner. Where is the equivalent for films? Is it because book notes are available and we don’t have similar study guides for cinema. Books often take more than 90 minutes to consume, and although they have that advantage that they can be held in one’s hand when time comes to review, movies available online have that same benefit. Wouldn’t you like to know your neighbors better?
If we start to acknowledge that we are now able to move beyond profit and consumption as the way we measure and value engagement, we make all of our lives richer. Let’s stop speaking of cinema as a product and trumpet its incredible power to make our lives better. In the end it may also help to make the movies a bit better too.
