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This looks fun.  I wish I was going to be in Berkley on Nov. 15th.  The Haas Digital Media Conference.

Truly Free Film Heroes

I've moved the "Truly Free Film Heroes" sidebar over from my Let's Make Better Films Blog to here at TFFilms and clarified it a bit in the process (although you don't get to add a descriptive on Blogger's "Links" gadget unfortunately).  The Truly Free Film Heroes are the folks that I have found that are actively engaged in working to create a Truly Free Film Culture.  

The potential is before us to expand beyond a film culture designed only to serve the widest possible audience.  We can have something else other than a limited supply of mass market product.  We can move away from a gate keeper culture economy.  We no longer need to address only the audiences that are best served by the dominant apparatus.

The most critical work at the moment in terms of establishing this new culture is not the content itself but the infrastructure needed to support it.  Great work is being done in this regard, but we all need to share what we learn; we have to open with it.  A new model is being unearthed.  The Truly Free Film Heroes are doing the groundwork that we all will benefit from.  You need to support them.

And What Makes It All Worse Is...

As freeing as the growth and utilization of new media is, the death of traditional media certainly hurts Art Film and The Specialized Film Market.   When I read (online of course!) articles like David Carr's "Mourning Old Media's Decline", I can feel that jolt of panic.  It starts in my legs, and then spreads...

“The auto industry and the print industry have essentially the same problem,” said Clay Shirky, the author of “Here Comes Everybody.” “The older customers like the older products and the new customers like the new ones.”

The problem is that Art Film's audience is predominately over 35.  They are not generally online as much as others.  They are not participating in the blogosphere.  How is the audience going to get their information?  How are we going to get them signed up?  We need to make sure they are getting their RSS feeds of the great film lover websites like Hammer To Nail (okay, I confess to being a tad self serving on this) and Green Cine.  

I think for every film fan over 35 that you get to subscribe to such a blog, you should get a gold star.  Two gold stars if they are over 45.  Three for 55!  I don't know the solution, but we have got to sign them up.  What to do, what to do?  We have to act fast...

Film Festival Plan A: DVD sales

Your film screens and everyone loves it.  They want their friends and family to see it too, but there are no more screenings left.  Your audience loves your film, how are you going to mobilize them into action?

Festivals are a great place to sell DVDs of your film, but will the Festival let you? It's probably a good idea to inquire in advance. Will you be able to set up a table outside the theater? Will you need to have a website in order to sell them? Will you need to have some one do the fulfillment? Figure this out before you show up.

People that buy your DVD at a festival are your core base and they want to help you out.  Give them your card and ask them to email you.  Get theirs and email them.  Let them know that this is a special sort of DVD they bought; tell them that is a DVD for house party use.  Let them know that if they can get a certain number of friends to come over (25? 50?), you will do an iChat with them live for an hour and discuss how you made the film.  Let them know that you will get them more of these "House Party DVDs" for their House Party that they can sell on your behalf and keep a cut for themselves.  Trust people; it will do more for you than the harm the few times you do get ripped off will hurt.

Film Festival Plan A: Online Screening

Major Festivals are great for media exposure, but they reach a really limited audience. Sundance is predominately film industry professionals and wannabes; what about the real ticket buying people? If someone hears about your film and they can't attend the festival, how will they get to see it?

With your audience's interest piqued, is it a good time to get your film online soon after the festival screening? What method will best serve your film: streaming, ad-supported, pay per download? There are many variations on this, but the point is you need to have it figured out before your screening if you are going to take advantage of it. And you need to have some way to let people know.

Some festivals, like Slamdance, are doing this directly themselves, and I think that's a great idea.

Word Of Mouth Radio

I was just interviewed by Virginia Prescoot of WordOfMouthRadio.org for New Hampshire Public Radio.  Check out their website and download the podcast, unless you happen to be out campaigning in that state today, in which case tune in.

Film Festival Plan A: Getting The Word Out

Word of mouth is the key thing in generating want-to-see and future revenues for your film.  You want to shape that conversation as much as you can.  

It once was that film critics truly helped shape these discussions, but most have them now have been fired and lost their platforms.  Even before that, many had shifted to a simplistic way of reviewing, reducing things to a yay or nay and a synopsis.  But whom is doing this now?  There certainly is a galaxy of film bloggers out there.  And they are a lot easier to reach than their prior generation of film critics.  

If you got your film into a major film festival, I am sure the blogosphere will want to hear from you.  But why not go that extra step and get them a DVD in advance.  It's hard to see more than 25 films at Sundance and since there is five times that amount there, why not make sure that they see yours in advance?

Film Festival Plan A: Your Website

Today's post brought to you by Jon Reiss:

I thought I'd offer a few more comments about having a filmmaker website. In fact it is crazy not to have a website during production or pre production these days as a way to start building your audience.

The king of using the web is Lance Weiller - definitely check out his Filmmaker Magazine article "Lessons in DIY" from Winter 2007.

But one quick tip - you don't need to spend a lot of money designing a complex static website with lots of information about your film. I recommend using a blog as your main page. It is much easier to set up and is easier to keep current and dynamic. For Bomb It nearly all the traffic is to our blog - very rarely do people check out the other static pages on the site. With a blog format - most likely using Wordpress - you can create all the information pages you need such as "About the Film" "About the Filmmakers" and have these in a box on the right or left. (we have Press and Screenings links at the top of ours)

I am slowly turning www.jonreiss.com/blog which is what you are reading into a main page for my site. It is much easier to update all of your information using "pages" in a blog than to have a web-designer have to rewrite your information using html.

Feel free to check out the difference in:

www.bombit-themovie.com

www.bombit-themovie.com/blog

Another good example of a blog as main page, and a site you should check out anyway is www.lanceweiler.com

- Jon Reiss

Film Festival Plan A: Corporate Sponsorship

Corporate Sponsorship of a film, in any way, is a tricky thing.   A viewer who becomes aware of multiple agendas in a film, generally is no longer going to be "with" the film.  They become suspect.  But sponsorship is not the same as turning your art into a commercial.  There are many methods and many benefits to consider when considering corporate sponsorship (I will try to cover the negative side in another post in the future).

Perhaps the most important consideration regarding sponsorship is does the brand have a natural fit with your film (I know some will argue that the amount of money is the most important thing, but still).  If the film and sponsorship is not aligned, it will read to the public as a crass money grab (which maybe it is) and they will approach the film from a feeling of distrust.

Brands have their own audience.  Corporations maintain their own data on their "audience".  This is what you want most from the alliance: audience sourcing.  In considering sponsorship, ask them what they will do to reach out to their audience.  This may very well be a much longer term relationship with many phases to it, but it's hard to leap into such an arrangement.  As people like to say about investors and other supporters: "you have to get them pregnant first".  It's surprising that such a caveman philosophy dominates in so many areas, but you get the logic.  I prefer the "one step at a time" way of thinking myself.

You do need to keep the long term forever in mind though in working with a sponsor.  You want them there with you ever step of the way, hopefully deepening their commitment with your combined success.  Work the relationship.  Give them new opportunities.  

What do you want from the sponsorship from the get go though?  Well, beyond building for the long haul, you want to do something that has immediate impact.  Generally people think that is a big blow out party.  Personally, I am not a fan of this approach, particularly at Sundance.  They don't have much impact as they are over a few hours after they start.  Further at many festivals, you are competing with many parties.  And all parties get unruly; they just aren't a good experience and they don't leave much of a memory.

I am a big fan of dinners for fifty close friends.  This approach only works if your publicist can get you high end journalists to attend.  But who doesn't like a nice meal?  The question is though how would this benefit the sponsor.  Depending on your film and your sponsor,they may very much like the one on one interaction with your stars and team.  They might want to offer this to their top level execs, as Sundance has become a bit of a corporate getaway, another perk in their arsenal.  This approach can certainly extend beyond dinners: skiing with the stars, one on one sit downs, presentation of the movie at different branch offices.

Publicity materials are a relatively high cost item that you will need to have every step of the way.  Will your sponsor pay for the cost of posters and postcards, t-shirts and hats?  What can you offer them in return?  Is it such a big deal to have their corporate logo on the poster?  Is that too much to give away for such an investment?

Precisely: The Conversation

Scott Kirsner has blogged about the the highlights of The Conversation last weekend, which I had the pleasure of participating in.  

film is just one component of a story that you start telling before your first festival showing... and continue to build on and embroider even after you've released the DVD and digital download. The "movie release date" becomes just one milestone in this conversation between you and your audience. Some people who participate in the conversation may never actually buy a ticket or a download... while others may become so engaged that they buy everything you offer, and help market your movie to everyone they know.

Bill Cunningham riffs on that further at Pulp 2.0:

This is two things:

1) utilizing the power of the internet to be different media all at once.

2) This is branding. Intellectual property building.

Filmmakers and novelists and other creatives need to figure this out now. Their book, comic, movie, animation, music, radio drama, is only the beginning. A book isn't just between the covers. A movie isn't just onscreen.

Don't think small. Think about how you can add to your creation. How you can translate it. How it can have further value - both to you and your audience

.

Film Festival Plan A:Postcards

(Today's post courtesy of director Jon Reiss)

Create a piece of striking key art. 

Easier said than done. This can be expensive (starting at $5,000 - $10,000 and up) - but it does not have to be. Chances are you have a few friends that are good at graphic design - ask them. If not - try a post on Craig's List and/or Mandy.com. Since you are in a festival - you have the ability to say that their work will get a lot of exposure. Also you might consider outsourcing your graphic design. For Bomb It we had a Uruguayan group do some of our key art for Tribeca. Try to get the designer to give you a variety of comps to choose from.

Get the key art sized for a 4x6 postcard as well as at full film poster. Its way too expensive to offset your film poster now. But you can get single printouts from most digital printers for about $50-$60 each and you only need one or two.

For the postcard, have your key art on the front and have film, contact and screening information on the back. Printing postcards are very inexpensive now. You can get 4000 for $100 at NextDayFlyers.com (and 1000 postcards for $39.95). For super low budget create one postcard with your general contact and film information on the back and leave room for putting stickers for your show times. BUT since postcards are so cheap now - I really recommend printing your screening time on the back of the postcard. It can take a bit of time to print and stick the stickers on the back of the postcards and you are very busy. A compromise is to print your first festival screenings on the back (esp since this is often your most important screening) and to use the rest for other fests putting the label over your first set of screenings.

Don't forget business cards - I recommend putting your film title treatment on the front with your films website so that people remember why they have your card. Again these can be printed very inexpensively - 1000 for around $10-$20.

In a couple of weeks I will start putting downloadable PDF samples of Key Art on my website www.jonreiss.com

Film Festival Plan A: Still Need To Hire A Publicist

When I first started going to Sundance, it was just a bunch of filmmakers and a bunch of filmlovers.  Filmmakers had no entourage.  No one told them what to do or what they thought was right; instead they shared information and secrets.  But that was then.

For the last ten years, it has seemed that filmmakers arrived at major festivals with a horde in tow: lawyers, agents, managers, producer's reps, foreign sales agents, and publicists.  The list actually goes on from there.  But that was then.

These days, recognizing that a sale is very unlikely, how much do you really need?  There's definitely another few posts worth of material in that question, but I can tell you that the one I think is critical is the publicist.  After all, it is all about getting the word out about your film.

The traditional media still holds the most weight (okay, that's debatable), and any a publicist worth their salt will know how to reach them.  More importantly, the publicist will know what these critics and journalists look like, and will be able to find out what they thought of the film immediately.  Their opinion matters as it influences everyone: buyers, festival programmers, independent bookers, and other journalists.

The publicists also know the distributors and as long as you want to keep Plan D (sell your film) alive, that is invaluable as the publicists can help facilitate meetings with the buyers.

A publicist will help you draft your press notes in advance of the festival and arrange key interviews.  Sometimes they can even help find a corporate sponsor for a party (more on that later).  The publicist will collect all of the press you receive, and survey the journalists on their response.  They will collect all this material so you can share it with everyone you reach out to later.

How do you find your publicist?  Well these days they often find you if you get into Sundance or a major festival.  The key filmmaking community organizations like IFP and Film Independent can also help direct you.  Maybe I can put together a list and post it here (I will get back to you on that).

Post-Fest Era: Further Festival Initiatives

In a post on Variety's Festival Blog, The Circuit, Steve Ramos writes about the unique launch and partnership Miramax is doing with the Heartland Film Festival and their film "The Boy In The Striped Pajamas".

Battsek approved the call to partner with the 16-year-old festival on a single-night, 31-city screening program to promote "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" to Heartland partner organizations like the Boy Scouts of America in an attempt to build national awareness for the film.

This type of re-imagining of the film festival is critical these days.  Hopefully other festivals will follow suit and find new ways to increase a film's exposure when they commit to play at a festival.  A 31 city simultaneous single day screening is possible even for the Truly Free Filmmaker in these days of digital projection.  How many festivals can extend beyond their home base?  Festivals have to think beyond their immediate community and increase their reach if they are going to offer filmmakers something truly meaningful.

I would be curious to hear what other festivals are doing to further their impact and partner with filmmakers.

Film Festival Plan A: Beyond Bonding

For years, I have recommended filmmakers do all they could to bond with the other filmmakers they met at festivals, for as the films travelled festival to festival, these other filmmakers would become their support group, their friends, perhaps even more. 

As we enter the Post-Festival Era, this support group needs to be transformed into a far more important alliance. It remains a top priority to find like-minded filmmakers, but now these fellow conspirators should be sought out as fellow distributors. With five united filmmakers you have a booking block, a touring film festival of your own making. 

If there was a way to locate all the other festival programmers, community center programmers, or independent theater bookers that attend the festival, this alliance would be in business.  Hopefully this type of independent booker will recognize that this is a new era and they can go to the filmmakers directly for an engagement.  Somehow I don't think that's going to happen this year, and these people remain hard to find.  Filmmakers need to share this information where ever they can find it.

I recognize that some may be hesitant to pursue this approach immediately after the festival.  The dreams of acquisition will still be strong.  Yet this sort of booking engagement is not a theatrical release in the traditional sense.  It is closer to a publicity tour -- a publicity tour on someone else's dime.  Field publicity is direct communication with the audience and that is the most successful way to build word-of-mouth on your film.

A Few Words Of Inspiration...

from Lance Hammer, courtesy of Ray Pride.  Check them out here.

Marketing 101: Synecdoche

Okay maybe this the long way around, but here's a great inexpensive way to get the word about your film out. First come up with a title that people don't understand, ideally a single word.  Then, make an incredibly unique and heartfelt film illustrating the full meaning of the word.  Finally, approach Dictionary.com to feature the same word as your title.  Genius!

If you are late to this post, check out the word of the day for Wed. Oct 22, 2008.

Film Festival Plan A: Basic Web Stuff

It seems ludicrous to head into a festival these days and not have a website or blog for your film in advance. It seems silly not to have that web address built into you film end credits. It doesn't have to be a final or even a polished site, but there should be something. How else will you tell your audience how they can participate in the experience or even see your film?

Beyond a website or a blog, filmmakers should do the simple outreach chores. Build a Wiki page for your film. Create a MySpace and/or Facebook profile for your film. Make sure all the info is in IMDB. 

And don't forget images. Post some stills. Hell, post some clips up on YouTube. For years, filmmakers have been told to make presskits, but why not do the things that let the audience find them directly?  Why wait for the journalists; they have all been fired!

Film Festival Plan A: Logic & Strategy

If you are so fortunate as to have your film selected for Sundance, there is a good chance that your festival screening will be the peak point of media activity on your film. Unless your film is going to be released by a major distributor, more attention will be paid during this period ever again. Are you going to take advantage of this attention or are you going to squander it?

We all know very few films get picked up these days for distribution, so why are you going to bet on that?  Well, you're not.  Over the next few days I will explore some of the questions you should ask yourself and strategies you should consider in heading to the festival.  And I won't avoid the obvious either, because these days it is still being overlooked.  I am sure I will miss a lot and I hope others write in to fill this out.

People are going to hear about your film when it plays at a major film festival; their "want-to-see" will be at its highest point when folks are talking about the festival in traditional media, online, and through conversation. What are the options before you headed into a festival in order to exploit this want-to-see?  This is the reason you are headed to the festival, isn't it?

The Conversation: Live in Berkley 10/18

Scott Kirsner, Lance Weiler, Tiffany Shlain and others put together a great program at Pacific Film Archives this past weekend, bringing together folks from the tech, social entrepreneur, and film worlds.  There was a lot of great stuff on the new world of DIY/Hybrid Distribution.  I imagine Lance will post a lot of it over at The Workbook Project.  

This is a nice low angle (i.e. I am not quite so wide in real life -- or rather I still like to think my self not so wide) shot of my "Coffee Chat" with Scott and Dean Valentine of Comedy.com.  It captures and highlights my nasal honk quite well though.   It's the end of the session Q&A and I rant on the transformation from an impulse to a choice economy of entertainment, throwing in some speculation on the coming Post-Fest Era to boot.

On changing Festival world, Variety has an article on how the financial crisis has effected film festivals. Worth checking out.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Effect Of The Vanishing Film Critics

This is an earlier post from Let's Make Better Films.  I started that blog to discuss the films and filmmaking process.  Sometimes we all just feel like we want to bury our head and avoid the biz altogether.  I started TFF to help build and rebuild the infrastructure to support those better films.

We started Hammer To Nail because we found it hard to get go analysis of what Truly Free films that were out there were truly worth watching. The mainstream critics had stopped covering the smaller films.

Ad Age is now running an article on the effect of all the firings of the established critics on the specialized film business. The loss of established voices has brought a serious drop at the box office.

"It's the consistent relationship [with a critic] that gets people to go to these movies," said Mr. Bernard. "[Editors] felt they should get critics that connect to that younger audience that's getting its news online, but they're not looking at how the box office is affected when the critic changes."

Of course, the loss of these critics had no effect on the revenues of all the interesting and great films that weren't getting the theaters or coverage in the first place. For those films, just go to Hammer To Nail.

For a discussion on the state of film criticism, check out Greencine's podcast here. 

And to keep a vast and diversified culture alive, vote with your dollars, and go out to see a movie today. Seriously. We will lose it otherwise.

There's a great new program in NYC that bumps the film experience up a notch with direct contact with the filmmakers and a post screening celebration. It also confronts head-on the over emphasis the exhibition biz puts on the first weekend revenues.

Credit the IFP and Michelle Byrd with putting their money where their mouth is an truly supporting both Independent and Truly Free films with their new First Weekend series (all done without corporate backing -- c'mon you sponsors, follow suit!). Read about it here.

And guess what their inaugural film is? BALLAST! Did I tell you how much I admire this film? How great it is? How much I like it? I think I have. Go see it.

Come To Woodstock!

I am on the jury and will be be doing another panel up at the Woodstock Film Festival this weekend. I am completely impressed with the films in competition. They've done a great job curating. And they've done a great job programming too.

I am on a panel on the current state of what is still mistakingly referred to as the "Indie" film world. Woodstock's assembled a stellar and diverse group for it: John Sloss, Mark Duplass, & Ryan Werner -- all of us moderated by Variety's Dade Hayes. It is on at 2P Saturday. Here's the description:

IS IT SAFE? With the closure of many of the studio specialty divisions and the reported financial troubles of many of the independents, has “indie film distribution” come to an end, or is this just the end of the world, as we know it? What does the “falling sky” really signify for the independent film sector? Were these companies right to turn their backs or were they just spending too much? Should you make films these days without some form of distribution? And most importantly, who, what or where is the great future hope for indies (and is it all online?)?
Join this esteemed panel of experts straight from the front lines of indie distribution and learn where the light is at the end of the tunnel.

I wonder what I am going to say? Hmmmm.... We need to move the dialogue beyond my "1000 Phoenix Rising" and certainly beyond "The Sky Is Falling".

Building A Truly Free Film Culture

Thanks to all the great response I got from my Keynote Speech at Film Independent last weekend, I've started this blog to try to lay out some of the work that can be done to build the Truly Free Film Culture that I ranted about.

I will also try to cover some of the issues that are effecting the emerging new paradigm.  Let me know if you want to help out.  You know where to find me.  You can certainly start by commenting to the upcoming posts and subscribing to this blog's feed.  Stay tuned...