This week I am presenting a new talk “How To Produce In The Emerging New Film Ecosystem”. This is not part of my “book tour” but really back to my gospel on the pulpit — my push to help drive us forward. I launched this new talk on Monday at AFM (sans any slides), and will follow it up today (Wednesday) in Napa (in an abbreviated format) and then off to Vancouver for Merging Media to really kick it home. I should have it down pretty well come end of the week I hope. I spoke a bit about this new rant to PlaybackDaily/StreamDaily and you can read about it here.
As both artist and entrepreneurs, we filmmaking types are stuck in legacy practices that have little applicability to the way the world is. We are holding back both the advancement of our craft and our culture, the cash and the capital. It is time to start thinking differently.
The first step is to recognize where the world is and then what practices don’t apply. I’ve been singing this song for some time now. I don’t find this last month of all major media companies jumping on the OTT/SVOD bandwagon at all surprising consequently. SVOD is a solution to the woes of media companies, distributors, financiers, filmmakers, and most importantly the fans. It is not the question of why the HBOs, CBSs, Univisions, or YouTubes are now planning to do it, but what took them so damn long.
- Don’t all the businesses want to return to a time of predictive revenue streams?
- Don’t all businesses benefit from a direct interaction with the consumer?
- Don’t people want a home for both discovery and community? Consumption and engagement?
- Doesn’t it make more sense to bring our work where people are gathered rather than have them alter their behavior and routines?
- Doesn’t the industry want a way to exploit cinema’s most distinct attributes? To capture that shared emotional response, that creates empathy, and compels us to discuss afterwards?
- Don’t we need more affordable marketing tools that allow films and filmmakers to build a network effect upon each other?
- Don’t we want to better match films with the people who will love them?
It seems so obvious to me I changed my life to try to make it happen, precisely when I was reaching the height of my producing skills. And now it is happening. Or at least on the verge of. So what should filmmakers do as a result?
- We need to change what we consider film to be.
- We need to change our process of creation.
- We need to change what it is we produce.
- We need to change our relationship with the audience.
- We need to change the methods we market and distribute our work.
- We need to capture, harvest, and spread the data our work generates.
Of course, “god is in the details”. And that is what I am trying to provide a bit in my new lecture. I look forward to bringing it to you. If not live and in person, eventually in the form of a blog post. For now, I hope this is a good appetizer.
