Category: Truly Free Film

We are on the verge of a new film culture and infrastructure.

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Truly Free Film

Preparing For The Film Festivals

Its that time of the year when filmmakers nationwide get all antsy.  Sundance generally starts to let filmmakers know whether their work has been selected for the festival around the end of October.  This ritual extends for about four weeks until Thanksgiving gives everyone a break.

Generally speaking, for fifteen years now, filmmakers approach Sundance with a single plan: to sell their film for a big profit.  The logic of this singleminded pursuit is non-existent.  For several years now, great films with clear audiences screen without getting picked up.  The amount the lucky few achieve has been dropping consistently with a few exceptions.  Simultaneously, the need to work with the mainstream distributors has been dropping rapidly.  One could even argue that these distributors have defined their acquisition strategy so specifically that they need to even bother to attend the festival.
Filmmakers need to recognize that what once was the holy grail now needs to be regulated to Plan C or even Plan D.  I wish it wasn’t so and I wish many of the filmmakers could walk off the mountain with their wildest dreams of wealth realized.  But we all need to recognize what Plan A and B really should be these days.
Plan A has got to be that you will need to be the leading force in the distribution of your film.  This is the DIY model.
Plan B is that various experts will all want to work with you on Co-Distributing your film, albeit for a fee.
Plan C is that buyers for different media will want your film and you need to be able to evaluate how to mix and match these offers — or even accept those offers at all.
Plan D is that someone will make an offer of such an amount that it is worth considering giving up all your rights to your film for the next twenty years.
There are many aspects of each plan that need to be considered in addition to these various plans.  I will be doing my best to examine these aspects in the days ahead.  Although Plan D doesn’t really need any further thought than where to find a good lawyer; the indie world has relied on this plan long enough.
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Truly Free Film

Navigating Film Festivals

Scott Macauley linked to yesterday’s post on the Filmmaker Magazine Blog and included a link to Chris Holland’s book “Film Festival Secrets”.  Seems like a good thing to read up on as you dream about being selected for Sundance.  I am going to give it a look.  You have to sign up, at least temporarily for Chris’ newsletter and then they send you the book — so I haven’t gotten to look at it yet.

I am going to be posting some basic advice over the next few days on how I personally recommend viewing the festival circuit, and in particular Sundance, — once you are in.  Chris’ book is a very comprehensive overview on selecting your festivals,  how to get in (and manage when you don’t), marketing, building your team, preparation, troubleshooting, and followup.  It’s a quick read and an incredible resource.  It compiles what took me years to learn.  It does though take festivals a bit as an end into themselves, whereas Truly Free Filmmakers must see them as just the first step in building awareness about their films.  
Festivals have to be used very judiciously these days.  Festivals are going to change from many diverse and singular events to much more of a unified community focused on year round programming.  They are the keepers and maintainers of aggregated film lovers and cinephiles nationwide.  They will be able to leverage that community into a truly valuable resource for TFFilmakers, but a new model needs to be found.
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Truly Free Film

The Post-Fest Era

In September, Christian Gaines wrote a provocative two-part article for Variety speculating on a new business models for film rights holders in terms of how they use film festivals.  It’s required reading, and certainly got me thinking.

In this month’s Independent, Paul Devlin has a piece on lessons he learned on the film fest circuit with his film BLAST.  He definitely has some good information for all, but again it was  ‘s last paragraph that got me thinking again:

Of course, the film festival model will always serve some film very well. But diverging interests may mean that film festivals necessarily become a much less essential element of a filmmaker’s strategy for promotion and distribution. Just as we seem to be entering a “post-distributor” environment in which filmmakers eschew rotten deals and embrace DIY, we may be witnessing the emergence of a “post-film festival” environment as well.

A new model needs to be found for filmmakers choosing (or having no other option than) to hold onto their rights.
Festivals can be a great way to heighten awareness for your film, but generally only in the local community where the film is playing.  To make matters worse, many festivals these days are over-programed and as a result the films simply get lost and overlooked.  The festivals and the communities make money on the sold out shows but not the filmmakers.  With only a few sales happening and then only at the highest festival level, filmmakers can’t be attending with the hopes of a deal?  So how can festivals be utilized by the Truly Free Filmmaker?
It would be ideal for local festivals to initiate deals with local theaters so that prize winning films would get an automatic one or two week booking three or four months after the festival.  I have to imagine this is done somewhere already but frankly I am clueless as to where.
It would be ideal for colleges and community centers in and around the local festivals to agree to bring filmmakers and their films out to lecture one or two months after winning at the festival.  This would allow for some local publicity to be done in advance of a future booking.
The most natural fit for regional festivals and TFFilmakers is for the filmmakers to use the festival to launch a specific DVD sale directly at the festival.  At the very least they could take pre-orders.
I found it very exciting when Slamdance announced this year that certain films would be available for streaming directly after their festival premiere.  When I have heard of a film playing a major festival, that is when my “want-to-see” is at its highest.  Six months later another 50 films have moved ahead of it on my queue.  TFFilmakers have to strike when audience desire is highest.
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Truly Free Film

Towards The New Distribution Infrastructure

Are we just dreaming that we could have a distribution infrastructure to handle films based on what they actually are, as opposed to the current one that looks for films that justify significant marketing budgets?  I don’t think so.

A couple of weeks back I was sitting with Lance Weiler and he told me it was already here.  I paused and wondered how I missed it.  He said it was the Obama Social Network.  So am I now dreaming of an activist film loving community that works together to make sure the films get seen and appreciated?  I don’t think so on this one either.
I definitely flashed back on our conversation when I read Ari Melber’s “Obama’s iSuccess” article in The Nation last week.  The thought of gathering and creating regional Truly Free Film CultureVultures united through text messaging and their love of unique and personal film delights me.  There’s a lot more that can be explored here and followed up on.
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Truly Free Film

Digital Dollar Models

Scott Kirshner has a good post up at Cinema Tech regarding a panel he was on.  In it he breaks out eight different revenue streams filmmakers can pursue for their work.  There are definitely more, and I hope to get to some of those in future postings.

One of Scott’s eight, really caught my eye:

Live speaking gigs via videochat. One interesting new idea that emerged from the panels is that filmmakers might earn “speaking fees” without having to travel. Instead of asking a non-profit or educational institution to pay $2500 or $5000 to fly you out to address their group, ask them to pay $250 or $500 to have you do a short live talk/Q&A (using software like Skype or iChat) after they’ve watched your film. More groups would be able to afford that kind of filmmaker interaction than the pricier one, and fewer filmmakers would be spending time stuck in airports or jammed into center seats.

I think the live interaction element with audiences has a great deal of potential, particularly when linked with other elements.  For instance, imagine you are one of the lucky few whose film is accepted to the Sundance Film Festival.  What do you do next when you, like most, made the mistake of betting on a distribution deal?  
What if you banded together with your fellow filmmakers prior to the festival though?  What if you looked reality in the face and took action ahead of the festival?  If I was a college professor anywhere in the US and I was approached by five or ten filmmakers with films in a major festival and they told me they would provide me their film, one film a week, two or three months after the festival, AND that the students would get an hour of iChat with the filmmakers after the screening, man, would I do all I could to book the group at my school.  If the filmmakers also asked me if I knew other professors at other campuses that might do likewise, I would definitely share my list.  
In a short matter of time, the beginnings of a Truly Free Film Culture college tour would start to emerge.  Inevitably these tours would start on a regional basis, but from there the foundations would be set to start to work this on a national basis.  With such a national tour infrastructure in place, a new publicity outlet would be born.  Filmmakers could use this no cost apparatus to connect to audiences, and reach out to greater communities.
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Truly Free Film

Music Vs. Film : Copyright Control Comparisons

I was reading over an article on BBC News on the state of the music business.  

Film people never like comparisons between us and them (Music vs. Film), but I find them useful.  Film vets dismiss the comparison of Music vs. Film over a couple of issues: 1) cost of motion picture production; 2) cost of motion picture marketing; 3) cost of the product; and 4) length of time required to listen/watch.  You can hear a song in two minutes for free and have a complete experience.

I think dismissing the comparison often comes down to seeing the Film Biz as 100% Hollywood.  It’s true that’s where the money is made these days (outside of distinct national industries and genres), but we do have potential to develop a true alternative now — that is provided the internet can remain truly free and neutral.
In the BBC article, they cite a panel that took place between Jazz Summers, the manage of The Verve (and a proponent of artists’ control of copyright) and Lyor Cohen, the head of Warner Music (and a proponent of corporate control).  Cohen stated the big money perspective:

“It’s very important for us to own those rights if we are going to have an infrastructure around the world of thousands of people, if we’re going to invest in new artists to create new music and promote and market it.”

Cohen’s perspective is also the Big Money Perspective on Film.  But here’s where it’s important to recognize the difference between Big Money Hollywood & Traditional Indie/Specialized on one hand and Truly Free Film culture on the other.  
Truly Free Film will be built on collective endeavor and an open source perspective on information and information sharing.  Those attitudes and subsequent action will build a new infrastructure that will allow Truly Free Film artists to earn a living.  The Truly Free Film Culture infrastructure will not be dependent on Mega-Corp investment.  
In a Truly Free Film Culture, there is no argument for anyone other than the artists owning their copyrights, or at least sharing in them with their investors.
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Truly Free Film

Know Your Digital Rights

I was on another fun panel yesterday at the Woodstock Film Festival.  All of these discussions are part of the ongoing conversation on the future prospects for both Indie and Truly Free film.  There’s a lot more that I can write about that panel, but one thing I felt was the filmmakers’ position getting stronger.

John Sloss, the man and the legend, and Ryan Werner of IFC Films were among the panel’s participants.  IFC Films is certainly the leader in terms of number of films that they are putting up on VOD, and John, among many other things,  probably sells more films to them than anyone else.  Sloss’s Cinetic Digital Rights Management initiative is also probably the leading aggregator of digital rights for feature films.
This whole arena is new for everyone and it all can easily be looked at as one big experiment for the time being.  The market is being created as I type and as you read.  The model is not yet set by any means.  Yet Cinetic and IFC are arguably the market leaders of the moment.  That’s why I was so heartened by what I heard them claim they were open to — something that could truly be a great step towards creator empowerment and ultimately also towards audience access.
Neither company, to my knowledge and according to what was said on the panel, currently does anything to provide the content generator/creator/filmmaker with access to any of the data that their work generates.  I hope that’s now going to change, and what was said on that panel makes me believe it could.
Matt Dentler, Cinetic’s Digi-maven, has expressed that Cinetic’s DRM initiative is all about transparency for the filmmaker.  John Sloss backed that on the panel by saying that he thought it made sense that future contracts include a provision mandating that buyers provide the digital data to the filmmakers.  Not that Cinetic does that yet for its clients, but it can, and as John said, it will.  Ryan Werner also replied to an earlier question that he felt that such information could be provided to the filmmakers if they asked for it (even if they did not contract for it).
Now its up to the filmmakers to demand that their lawyers craft such language.  What will that be?  What is the information we need?  And how can we make sure that we are able to share it with each other?  It would be great if an industry leader on the legal side really stepped up and showed their commitment to filmmakers’ rights and drafted something that could become industry standard.  It would be great if we could link to it now!  Who’s going to help?
If you are licensing your film for next to nothing, if you have decided to split your revenue with your sales agent, shouldn’t you at the very least get the information on who your audience is, where they are located, when they are watching or purchasing, whatever.  If you, the filmmaker, feel forced to make this kind of deal, shouldn’t you at the very least be getting the data your work generates?  As filmmakers, not only should you be asking for language from your lawyer, but demanding that your licensor, your distributor provide this.  Do it and according to the leaders on the panel yesterday, they will listen and provide.  I hope it is so.