Tag: Jay Webb

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Truly Free Film

IndieStreet Post #7: Navigating Potholes

By Jay Webb

Screen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: IndieStreet Post #6: Not Louder Mouths, Just More Ears

Facts of the Storytelling Street:

– Creating a new, unchartered path will never come without risk or potholes.

– Brilliant (even just good) storytellers innately take risks.

– Potholes usually create an even better story about your drive once you make it home.

– Learning more about getting your story out there (distribution) in order to ensure continual story telling through life will not add any potholes (or risk) to your path. It can only make your street wider and stories more easily heard.

 Screen shot 2013-12-02 at 11.40.45 PMAfter discussing Indieconomies of scale and the benefits of adopting a cooperative group approach, we thought it might be a good time to switch the charge and talk a bit more about the challenges (potholes) that we have come across to date.  If a pothole doesn’t swallow you, it makes your vehicle stronger. 

From our slightly biased IndieStreet POV, there should be no reason for any story teller to be scared of exploring self-distribution, and more specifically, some type of cooperative distribution.  The following potholes have busted a tire or two during our journey, but in no way have they strayed us from our mission.  Starting a business is not for the faint of heart…A simple rule of thumb: If you want to succeed as much as you want to breath, then it won’t be hard at all.  

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Truly Free Film

Indie Street Post #6: Not Louder Mouths, Just More Ears

By Jay Webb

Screen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: Indiestreet Post #5: Indieconomies of Scale: Distribution

Indieconomies of Scale, Part 4 (of 4): Marketing 

The DIY marketing of an Independent film has always been an overwhelming, and somewhat foreign prospect for an artist.  For me it’s one of those things that seems to be more of a “Where do I even start?” type of problem, especially in today’s fast paced environment.  There are new free to use marketing/networking platforms that pop up everyday, but how do we know what will work?  And even more importantly, what will work for our film specifically?  While the internet, social networking, data mining, and targeted ad networks do make it possible for Indie filmmakers to market their own films more effectively, they surely do not make the marketing process any less complicated.

So let’s try to simplify the idea of transitioning from filmmaker to film-marketer, and then we will talk about why a group mentality can make all the difference in this transition.

1.  Marketing = a cousin of storytelling

Sure storytelling is your born talent and passion; not commercial exploitation.  Well the best marketers are the ones that can tell the story of their company in a brief, memorable and entertaining way.  So before you run and hide during the marketing phase of your film, just realize that a filmmaker and a marketing professional are actually some type of bizarro storytelling cousins.

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Indie Street Post #5: Indieconomies of Scale: Distribution

By Jay Webb

Screen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: Indie Street Post #4: Maximizing Your Story-telling Capital

Indieconomies of Scale, Part 3 (of 4): Distribution

Distribution and marketing are the business areas where we at IndieStreet are really getting excited about the great potential effects of Indieconomies of Scale.  Empowering a group of Independent artists to unite and grow together as a trusted brand has not been a realistic option until recently.  Indie filmmakers didn’t even have great ways to find each other before the rise of social networking. And now, just by cooperating with one another and utilizing some emerging technologies, a small group of artists can gain negotiating power, release momentum, and expand customer reach in ways comparable to a larger distribution company.

Xindieconomies

As human beings we are each looking for our own path and purpose, and through our journey we will surely run across successful people or companies out there that we don’t “like” or may not agree with.  The mistake that many of us make is to take these entities as a whole, and not try to absorb or learn from different aspects that makes them successful.  

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Truly Free Film

Indie Street Post #4: Maximizing Your Story-telling Capital

By Jay Webb

Screen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: IndieStreet Post #3: “Indieconomies of Scale Part 1”

Indieconomies of Scale, Part 2 (of 3): Production Benefits & Vertical Integration

There is one aspect of business that seems to remain constant no matter the advancements in technology: the pressure placed on producers to create better products for less money…the story telling business is surely not immune to this stress.  In my opinion, there is no better way to accomplish greater story-telling on smaller budgets then by having a group of filmmakers that are cooperative, competent, but most importantly, alarmingly passionate about the stories being told.

Screen shot 2013-10-01 at 10.14.09 PMWhen considering how to apply business concepts like economies of scale to Independent film, in the case of production we have to reorganize our thought process a little.  In this post, we start by treating a small group of Indie filmmakers as a story producing company with each member having both objective story telling capital (skillset, equipment, etc.) and subjective story-telling capital (interest in project, loyalty, emotional connection to material).  The more story-telling capital that can be attained through cooperation, the more a group can benefit from production Indieconomies of scale.

Traditional Production Economies of Scale

Decreasing Costs per unit:  When companies look at production economies of scale, they find a wide range of advantages that stem from increasing their production to a certain level.  With the growth of a company’s operation, cost per unit will decrease so per unit profit increases.

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Indie Street Post # 3: Indieconomies of Scale: Cooperate or else!

By Jay WebbScreen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: IndieStreet Post #2: “Word on The Street”

The “Word on the Street” is:  Cooperation

Indieconomies of Scale Part 1 (of 3)

How can we apply the word “cooperation” to an industry whose namesake automatically pushes us away from the very notion?  At IndieStreet, we are hoping to bridge the conceptual gap from “artistic & independent” to “business-minded & together” through a simple explanation of what we call Indieconomies of Scale.

We hear a lot of buzz in the Independent film academic space about how filmmakers must start cooperating for the industry to survive, but we have yet to see many examples of execution. This post will not express a concern about the “industry” as an abstract whole, but is more concerned about you as an individual filmmaker.  I love great storytellers, and there is a threat to individual independents who do not start grasping technology advancements that can uncover the benefits of community and emerging markets. You are a hard worker who makes a film and tells a touching story with all of your heart, but you can’t figure out the best way to navigate the transitional market in a way that will maximize your film’s potential reach or return.  Well you are in luck!  You (single frowning Indie filmmaker) are not the only one with this dilemma…and you are also not the only one in the world with a quality story told in an innovative way.  There are others just like you.  My bet is that you can find at least one other like-minded filmmaker (or better yet another filmmaking team) from somewhere on the globe who you admire that has a similar passion, energy, niche target market, and can mutually agree that you are at the same career stage (which, let’s admit it; the level of “Struggling” encompasses at least 90% of Indie filmmakers).

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Indie Street Post #2: “Word on The Street”

By Jay WebbScreen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: Post #1: Introducing “Group” Distribution

A problem with our construction: Our street must be built on the active tectonic plates known as the Film-Tech Fault.

So how do we build a film/tech company when the dimensions & planes are constantly shifting?

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Indie Street Post #1: Introducing “Group Distribution”

By Jay WebbScreen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Step 1 to building a street: Clear the Brush and raise the land.

1. The Tycoon.

So it seems appropriate to start this series of posts by explaining how IndieStreet came to be.  Last year, I was completing a screenplay that I had been working on for a few years, and was about ready to start the daunting fundraising process.  Before I started sending out the business plan for the film, a friend of mine, Chris, told me that he wanted me to first meet his old boss who had just sold his contracting/tech company for a cartload of cash.  He said that this Tycoon was looking for an alternative investment, so maybe this film raise was going to be simple.  HA!

By the second month of presentations and dinner meetings, it seemed to both my friend and I that the Tycoon was our guy.  He met with us on numerous occasions and seemed in many ways to actually be courting us.  More importantly, each meeting resulted in more synergy and productive dialogue than the previous.  

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