• Ten Trends to Embrace in Branded Content and other Sub-Genre news for April 25

  • Posted on 25th Apr
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  Lately, as I’ve been consulting with many of my brand clients, one thing keeps striking me about the media/film marketplace, and it has quite a few implications for the branded content space. Put simply the field has matured, and that means what was once good enough isn’t any longer. With more brands making good, quality content than ever before, and with the simultaneous rise in SVOD platforms spending more and more to make the best films, Brands making content need to step up their game.

  Here are ten areas where I think brands need to concentrate in the next 12-18 months:

  1. Diversity – Everyone is paying lip-service to diversity, but too few brands are taking this seriously. The world has changed – it’s no longer about giving some equal time, but about being relevant to the new majority audience. This means not just more diverse stories in front of the camera, but perhaps more importantly, behind it. And that means not just the director, but the production companies being hired and (if you’re using them) the creatives at your agency. I’ve attended many a branded content conference/event, and trust me, they are currently whiter than the Academy, or the indie film world, and this needs to change.
  2. Up the ante – Take a look at any awards show for branded content, and be honest – there’s a lot of same-old, same-old going on. Brands need to up the ante and raise the stakes a bit. This means several things, but taking more risk, and stepping outside your comfort zone is the underlying need in the space. This also leads to the next four needs;
  3. More narratives – You would think documentary is the only cinematic art-form if you only watched branded content. Of course, if you only watched branded content, you’d need our head examined, but that’s another post. While there are some notable exceptions (Somerstown, Lego Movie, Uncle Drew, Marriott’s Two Bellmen, BMW’s short’s The Hire, Carmilla, among others), too often, brands are focusing all of their messaging around documentary instead of narrative. I get it – no SAG, no agents, it feels easier to jump into docs. More importantly, I think brands are doing this because they crave authenticity – the only buzzword that could top curation this year- and docs seem to lend authenticity to a brand. But this has opened up a big opportunity – with so few brands making narrative films (short or features), a smart brand can really make its mark in this space. How to do this is a longer post, but for now, just consider that narratives open up a whole new area for press, audience recognition, story-telling possibilities and – when done right – could bring more authenticity to a brand. I think this is the future for branded content.
  4. Turn to features – One could argue that brands are making short form content because that’s what people are watching online, it’s easier to view on mobile, especially with our on-the-go lifestyles, and the other usual arguments. And for many productions, this is true, but I suspect a big reason many brands are making shorts is that they just think it’s easier than making a feature. And let’s face it, if that’s your reason, it’s lazy. The decision to make short form vs. long form should be based on your goals, your intended audience and how you want to fit in the cultural conversation (among a few other things). Often times, a brand’s message would be better served by long-form content, be it documentary or narrative. Why? When done right, a feature film can have a greater impact. It’s seen differently, often more seriously, by audiences. It has a different release strategy, which often includes broadcast, theatrical or SVOD – and while these bring their own headaches and stumbling-blocks, they also open up many more avenues for earned media, and for meaningful additional marketing opportunities. While a few brands (and many of my clients, showing my bias) are doing this, more brands need to start playing around in this area.
  5. Top Talent – But you can’t up your game, move into narrative, or make feature films and have a success unless you’re working with the best talent. That means not just turning again and again to the same producers you’ve trusted for so long, and broadening the scope of who you consider. It means looking at their IMDB page and reviews, not just their reel (commercial reels are always pretty slick). It means you’ll have another layer of red-tape, as they all have top agents (meaning a whole other level of asshole). But working with auteurs also brings more credibility, better story-telling, and a whole mess of new earned media opportunities.
  6. More $ - All of these ideas are expensive. But the main reason brands need to increase their investment in branded content is that in a maturing market, you have to up your game and invest in quality content, and good films aren’t cheap. This can’t be driven by a need to cut your advertising budget. While many have been made cheaper, quality documentaries cost $750,000/hr and up. A good narrative film can quickly run into the low Millions. But when Quibi is investing as much as $150,000 per minute for ten minute shorts, your little $7500 Op-Doc style short has a lot more competition.
  7. Truly give creative control – It can’t be said enough – give full creative control to the filmmakers you work with, and you’ll see greater success. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t show you cuts and keep you informed (I’ve seen the lack of communication become a disaster). But stick with what you know best, and let the creatives do the same. Seemingly obvious pro tip – be super clear with your goals, objectives and vision at the start, and build in approvals at different stages if needed (script, rough cut 1, etc.), and things will go easier for both parties.
  8. More partnerships – I’m often shocked at how often brands just go it alone in making films. It seems obvious – own it outright - but it’s not the norm in most filmmaking. There’s usually a few partners involved – studios, different producers/financiers, and in the doc world, there might be 10-20 grant givers involved or more. I think brands need to partner more often, and this will lead to better films, and more help when it comes time for distribution and outreach. Of course, I don’t expect to see Pepsi working with Coke, but The North Face working with Macarthur Foundation, or with the Nature Conservancy, sure. Behind the scenes, I’m working with some folks to build more of these networks, and hope to announce more soon, but in the near-term, brands should look for like-minded partners to approach their films a bit more often.
  9. Own the marketing – Again, should be obvious, but when it comes to film, too many brands focus on making the film (the thing they don’t know how to do) and forget to build an awesome marketing campaign around it, and that’s where you excel. No one – literally no one – in film not named Disney or A24 understands marketing. Brands do. Keep your focus there. And this means being creative marketing ideas, not just throwing a ton of money at your media agency and hoping for views. You’d think this one would be easy, but countless brands fail at this part of the film business, and I think it’s primarily because they don’t do the next thing.
  10. Think about distribution from day one, not when you’re done – Too often, I get called when a brand has finished a film, and they say some variation of – “we just finished this movie, but now we don’t know what to do, can you help?” Happy to take that business and try my best, but as I tell these callers, that’s usually about a year too late. We’ve learned this in the indie film business and brands need to think about it as well – you need to start building your marketing campaign at the same time that you develop the creative ideas. Sure, things will ramp up as you get to later stages, but so much of your campaign might depend on the type of film you’re making, or it needs ancillary footage to be shot, or it mandates a distribution time-line that needs to be thought about early. Or maybe the audience is on NatGeo, and you should be co-producing instead of trying to sell it to the highest bidder at some festival. Or you need to activate your retail stores, and it might take six months to move that ship. There are lots of reasons, but trust me, you can’t start thinking about this too soon, and if you wait too long, media buys are just about your only (remaining) option. Don’t be that guy premiering your film at a conference/festival, and when the press asks “what’s next” your only answer is – we’re still figuring that out.

  And one bonus note.

  1. Skip branded content awards and go for real festivals – This one won’t make me any friends in the festival/awards world, but I say, skip them. They are meaningless. They were made to get big admission fees from brands and agencies, and they’re mainly pushed by agencies so they can show their clients that they can win some award. But the only awards and festivals that matter for branded content are not judged by a bunch of other advertising execs (who are usually white, btw). The important awards are getting into the regular program at a real film festival, or making a film good enough that reviewers want to watch it and you get Rotten Tomato scores, or that audiences show up and you can show butts in seats (or online views), and that lead to more earned media. Premiering at your booth at SXSW, and then winning a brand film fest award, and then getting 5K views on YouTube is not a plan or a success.

  WHAT I'M READING: FILM

  Disney and the Future of TV - Stratchery has a great write-up on Disney+, why it’s a smart move and the future of TV in general.

  In light of last week's post about re-imagining public media, I should point out that the current state of public media is once again under threat. Recode and Kara Swisher interview PBS CEO Paula Kerger about what's at stake.

  Still don't understand this whole writers vs agents thing? The American Prospect has a good summary, and ties it more directly to the private equity titans in the room (via Redef).

  Disney+ is the service Apple wants - More bets on Apple buying Disney

  

  AI is coming for Hollywood Next: says Nick Bilton in Vanity Fair, and which is exactly what I told the students at Columbia when I visited Ira Deutchman’s class last week. Don’t believe it? Every time you think some Hollywood movie is “formulaic,” it’s a hint at how easily robots will take over this sector.

  WHAT I'M READING: BRANDED CONTENT

  Creepy Facebook patent uses image recognition to scan your personal photos for brands This one is scary, but worth reading to see our future/present.

  Skip the branded content? Luke Blaser, writing for US Campaign, goes against the grain and argues that brands should take a step back when it comes to content creation and focus their resources on the actual products. Where does the promotion then come in? The consumers of course. Let the influences do what they do best.

  Fullscreen research demonstrates how branded social content can positively impact offline sales  If that’s your goal.

  WHAT I'M READING: Games

  Don’t make a pot-themed game - because while murder, sex and mayhem are all fair “game” in the gaming industry, even legalized weed is still a no-no when it comes to marketing and promotion of games on Facebook, YouTube, many gaming systems and more, reports TechCrunch. Sickening, if you think about it for too long, I think

• Cleveland Rocks - or how to Run a Film Fest; and news on streaming, Branded Content and more

  • Posted on 12th Apr
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  I’m just back from five days of being on the Nesnady + Schwartz “Portrait” Doc Jury for the Cleveland International Film Festival, and it reminded me once again of how important regional film festivals are to independent film.

  Unfortunately, if you want to copy CIFF and run a great festival, you might just have to move your festival to Cleveland. So much about what makes them great is because of the local community. The audiences are amazing, with over 108,000 attendees, and it was common for mid-afternoon, weekday screenings of obscure documentaries to sell-out a 300 seat theater – the people of Cleveland love films. There’s something about being near the Great Lakes that feeds cinema lovers – because Cleveland audiences remind me of those in Toronto, another great festival city that is somehow better known.

  And the City supports the arts. The main museums are free, and the Cuyahoga County Arts Council – Cuyahoga Arts and Culture (CAC) – is one of the largest public funders of the arts in the US. Beyond the government support, the majority of the festival’s sponsors are locally based corporations. Indeed, the festival’s $3.3 Million cash budget is made up of largely local support (with in-kind support, their budget is over $4.4 million).

  Most importantly, the board supports the organization, with a full 10% of their funding coming from their board. Having been involved with some (ahem, deadbeat) boards, I can tell you, that’s an amazing amount. You can have great programming, but without a supportive board (meaning with cash), you won’t get far and too fests are saddled with well-meaning volunteers instead of board leaders who can give/get or get off.

  In addition, local members make up 13% of their funding; heck, the local community contributed $150,000 towards a challenge match during the festival (making it $300K with the match).

  Of course, you won’t get this kind of community support without great programming and a hard-working staff behind the scenes, which the festival has as well. The core festival leadership has been working at CIFF for as many as twenty years or more, each – and this isn’t dead-wood, but a sign of committed staff who love their community and their festival.

  Aside from hiring great people, many of these things are hard to duplicate in every town/city to make a great festival. But CIFF does a lot of other things right, many of which can be duplicated. Here’s just a few:

  • Doing fundraising right – one last thing about their fundraising – they do it right. They only ask for donations once a year, instead of bugging you with fundraising emails every week. And they do it before every show, pointing out that the cost of the fest is about $50 per seat – way less than the ticket price, and that makes it real for the audience, and people opened their wallets.
  • Hospitality – the fest has a great hospitality room, and its open all day to not just filmmakers and VIP sponsors, but also to members and badge holders, with free coffee, food, beer and even ice cream. They put everyone up in great hotels, central to the festival and show people a good time. And like any good festival, they have great parties – keep the filmmakers drunk and they’ll love you.
  • Central locations – apparently, CIFF is the largest festival under one roof in the USA (if not the world), and that helps a lot. While the festival expanded to two outside locations this year, most of the festival takes place at the Tower Center. Yes, it’s a half-dying mall, but for the life of the festival, it’s a convenient one-stop shop for all things film, with plenty of parking. And if you’re visiting from out-of-town, you can find plenty to do within walking distance.
  • Great programming, serving its audience – this should go without saying, we all know you need good programming. But I’ve been to many festivals where the programming is more reflective of its programmer’s taste than its local audience. There’s a difference between challenging your audience here and there and being a snob. Cleveland has the right balance.
  • Multiple Audience Awards – the festival had four juried competitions (three made up of out of towners), but the rest of the awards are decided by the audience. That’s rare and smart - put the audience in charge, and it pays back when they actually show up for the awards ceremony. See all the winners here.

  I’ve run and/or been involved with a few film festivals. Inevitably, some well-meaning board member always says – we should aim to be more like Sundance. But I maintain that the US only needs one Sundance. What we really need are a lot more Cleveland’s.

  update: I forgot to mention in my original post that the Film Festival Alliance held a regional roundtable at CIFF, so they are on it when it comes to learning from the fest, and sharing other ideas to get even better.

  What I’m Reading: FILM

  The Sky Is Rising: The Entertainment Industry Is Thriving, Almost Entirely Because Of The Internet - TechDirt reminds us that years ago, Hollywood was sure the Net would drive them out of business - just like VHS tape - only to learn once again that new tech always helps the bottom line (while destroying many legacy business models).

  How Vimeo shifted from being a YouTube alternative to a $160m B2B player - This one is all pro-Vimeo, but given that everyone I know is trading Frame.io links now instead of Vimeo, and their ad campaign sucks horribly, I am counting them in the “fire sale” bin pretty soon. But maybe Digiday has it right, not me.

  “Her Smell’s writer-director breaks down the stark reality that film distribution today is an inequitable system that excludes almost everyone”. This one’s made the rounds, including the Sundance newsletter, but just in case you missed it, Alex Ross Perry explains how First Reformed shows how f-d we are these days.

  Stacy Spikes finally gives his views on what went on at MoviePass - Jason Guerassio at BusinessInsider has all the news you need to know on what worked  -and then what didn’t work -at MoviePass. Especially interesting is his claim that they verified giving AMC 100% lift in customers, and probably brought up the box office overall by a 5% lift. If true, astounding. It’s also a sad read about how a brand with amazing customer loyalty could kill it all within less than a year.

  [caption id="attachment_1427" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Killing a brand in one image[/caption]

   

  What I’m Reading: BRANDED CONTENT

  Are Brands missing out on OTT? Yes, says OpenX Chief Communication and Brand Officer Dallas Lawrence to Forbes. As he points out: “Last year, brands spent $70 billion advertising to television audiences, mostly using a media strategy that look more like 1995 than 2018. “Only 5% of all ad dollars go to OTT, even though more than 50% of the audience is there,” he tells them. And his company’s data also shows that while nearly 50% of audiences would pay $10 to skip ads on OTT, 25% prefer a free service with ads, and 29% want a hybrid model with a few ads and a lower monthly cost. Expect to see more brands in your OTT feed, and smart ones should be funding original content in these systems, or they’re missing out on most of their potential viewers.

  Lush UK has decided to move away from social media, reports Econsultancy. Lush smartly says it doesn’t want to pay to end up in your feed, and notes that they want to inspire more conversation, not less. Econsultancy analyzes the pros and cons, as well as whether its just a stunt, but I say kudos to anyone who stops polluting my feed with sponsored posts.

  Are ‘documercials’ the future of branded content? Mehdi Elaichouni argues that not only are documentaries about brands more effective branded content than narrative stories, they can also serve as a saving grace for companies in PR Trouble (i.e Dirty Money)

   Why brands are turning to Amazon Prime Video to distribute their own content - hint: they can control their distribution and it’s easy to do.

   

• Towards a New Public Media, and more Sub-Genre news for April 3

  • Posted on 12th Apr
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  Well, my last post seemed to touch a chord with more than a few people – apparently, many others are feeling the pain of being stuck in the indie film middle-class, and are ready to think about advocacy once again. There are myriad issues to be addressed, but my mind keeps coming back to one idea, and it’s a big one.

  It seems to me that one of the biggest problems we have is a lack of imagination about what it means to build a space for public media – and the public good – in an online world. The beginnings of public broadcasting weren’t only tied to spectrum scarcity. Sure, in a broadcast, linear world it took government (starting in the UK) to force a set-aside for public media. But public media was equally tied to a more important underlying realization: that it was in the public’s interest to support media that wasn’t inherently commercial, or it wouldn’t get supported at all, and such a situation would be bad for democracy.

  We’ve now spent decades allowing the market to dictate what happens in the online world. At first, it seemed that unlimited space for ideas would mean that the long tail might prevail and all voices were but a click away. And to some extent, this remains true, but similarly to the broadcast world, the illusion of infinite choice can mask many failures in the market.

  On the plus side, anyone can distribute their work online, and indeed, YouTube proves that even some kid reviewing toys can amass millions of followers. And let’s give credit to Netflix for backing more diverse filmmakers and subject matter than perhaps any entity ever has in the past. But just as we didn’t count America’s Funniest Home Videos as being ample accommodation for diverse voices to be heard, we shouldn’t mistake UGC as solving this problem either. And when Netflix can cancel diverse shows that are gaining in popularity just because they don’t need the extra cost associated with going beyond a third season, we should realize that businesses don’t have our best interests as a society at heart either.

  We need a new public media. It won’t look like the old public media, but the underlying concept is the same – to use a combination of public funding, policy, foundation and (later/even) corporate support to address the failures of the market to support media as a public service.

  Now I say this in full realization that it can sound unrealistic and maybe even boring. While public media around the world remain active/vibrant in many ways, there are also many failures, capitulations to the market (and to crooked government leaders), and let’s just admit it – it’s problematic as an ideal. But a new public media, re-imagined properly, could be a game-changer, while addressing the failures of the past.

  I’m definitely not the first to think about this, and while there are many other examples, I recommend looking at Sue Gardner’s recommendations to the Knight Foundation for inspiration (from 2017). She gives a comprehensive, but short and easy to read summary of the history and background of public media and then goes on to recommend:

  Public broadcasters were designed to elevate the societies in which they operated: to help them be smarter, better informed, healthily pluralistic and successful. For decades they did exactly that. Their impact faded because of technological and public policy changes: we cut their funding, we deregulated their industry, and we didn’t make the kind of policy interventions in the digital world that we had been making for decades in conventional radio and TV.

  Today, we’re in a mess. Our societies are fractured and fragile, and we need to heal the rift between the people and the institutions intended to serve them. I believe that calls for a reinvestment in public institutions, including public broadcasters, and for those institutions to re-center themselves on public service.

  Now, she is thinking much more broadly here than I am – she’s focused on news, education and other underpinnings of democracy. Those are just as important, if not more, than supporting quality, non-commercial media, but I am focused more narrowly on how a new public media might solve the problems we’re facing in film.

  A new public media would mandate that adequate space is given to independent and non-commercial voices. While I’ll stop short of saying Netflix should be forced to carry such media, that shouldn’t be off the table for contemplation. But somehow, policy needs to dictate a space for such films. It also means that carriage/distribution is not enough – we need mechanisms for discovery and curation built into the system to help people find this media.

  A new public media should also address diversity, and this means across the spectrum. For example, American-born Latin Americans should be represented closer to proportionally and not just the broader “Latino” media. It should include narrative filmmaking, not just documentary (and not just period pieces or cooking shows, either). And short form as well as long form content.

  And a new public media would need to more broadly serve a global and a local audience. Meaning – we need to acknowledge that one failure of the marketplace is its inability to bring global voices to the US, and that we’re a global society. But at the same time, this doesn’t lessen the need for more local and regional voices, which have also historically been shut out of the mainstream.

  A new public media would also bring new funding streams, and my hope is that it would be a hybrid of public and private support, including the support of brands. I know this last part is controversial, but I refuse to believe that taking money from Patagonia is any worse than taking it from the Ford Foundation (to pick on two friendly places).

  What else do we need, and how do we get there? Well, once again, this is where advocacy comes in, and why I said last week that we need a new AIVF. It’s only by listening to the field and advocating for what people want (beyond my ideas) that we will get to any kind of solution for the future.

  What I'm Reading: FILM

  “Everything is Changing” - Sundance ran a Nice Interview w/ MoMA’s Rajendra Roy about the current state of the field, and it’s a great read about what’s going on in film exhibition, curation, archiving and more. Raj has some smart thoughts about the role of Netflix (positive) and the need for the Academy and Cannes (etc.) to change and face the future. I also appreciate his comments on the true value of critics: “The truth is I haven’t read reviews before I see them for over 10 years. I just will not read a review of a film I know I’m gonna see because I want to inform myself first, then I will ravenously read them. So if we are doing that, why would we expect that anybody else would depend on the voice of God ordaining this film as worthy of my attention?”  That doesn’t mean we lose critics, but that we need to think of curation a little differently.

  One minor quibble- Raj speaks highly of the “museumification” of cinema - where institutions like TIFF (and he hints, possibly Sundance) are building museums and “centers” for film - and suggests this is the future. I can only hope not - to me, that would be the death of cinema culture. The last thing we need are more buildings - institutions do this because that’s where the funding from rich people resides, in putting their name on a theater - but it’s not what the field needs at all. That said, Raj is one of the good ones, thinking good thoughts about the future of the field, and I highly recommend the interview.

   The WSJ reports that consumers can’t handle more streaming services (paywall for some). According to research firm, Magid, the average consumer will spend about $38 a month on as many as six services, but can’t handle much more, making it tough going for all of these new streamers (including Warner, AppleTV, etc.) And if you aren’t sure there’s too many already, just try to make it through IndieWire’s Streaming Bible without falling asleep before the comments (where some crazy people point out they missed a few services). And of course, BusinessWeek is already reporting that this glut of services might lead to some M&A activity.

  Youtube is Backing out of the Streaming Wars, showing that even Google may not have deep enough pockets to compete with Netflix, but hey, one less service!  While they keep denying it, Bloomberg reports that YouTube will no longer be creating new expensive scripted shows, that all original content will now be free (ad-supported), and that Youtube Red is transitioning into a music streaming service. Some key execs are leaving as well. When even YouTube throws in the towel, you have to seriously start thinking about new meanings for monopolies and anti-trust.

  If you still care about MoviePass and Theater-subscription plans, Screen has a good breakdown of the current state of affairs.

  Former MoviePasss CEO Stacy Spikes Launches New Tech/Film Venture: And it has almost tripled its Kickstarter goal with twenty-four days left. The idea is that in exchange for watching fifteen minutes of branded content, one gets a free movie ticket. What makes this appealing for brands is that through user data, ads can be specifically targeted toward individuals and create calls to action. And given Stacy’s track-record, it’s a just-crazy enough idea to keep watching.

  Netflix’s plan on owning your kids screentime: Going Brandless : Unlike Disney and Dreamworks (and other animation studios) Netflix animation doesn’t aim for an all-encompassing brand, rather they are seeking diverse creators to do what they do best - create great stuff. This could be a sound strategy given that the audience that Netflix is serving  is global, and diverse. But I’m a fan of building a brand, so I’d recommend they build sub-brands within Netflix (not unlike Amazon’s private labels).

  Avengers: Endgame Broke the Internet: or at least several ticketing systems, most notably AMC’s for nearly 8 hrs. This may seem like a minor story, but it’s a serious f-up with a huge fan base - one that the studio was already teasing mercilessly for weeks (on timing of ticket avails). You had one job, AMC, and it wasn’t popping corn...

  The folks at Union Docs are looking for applicants for their Collaborative studio. Highly recommend for aspiring filmmakers. as it is a comprehensive program that will get you in the room with other like minded filmmakers. From them:

  UnionDocs is currently seeking artists, thinkers and makers from across disciplines to apply for our 2019-2020 COLLABORATIVE STUDIO. This is a singular opportunity for 12 artists to participate in group research and production. Spend 10 months in an expansively designed program that fosters and deepens an understanding of documentary theory and practice, develops creative partnerships and output, and immerses participants in a community of active, like-minded individuals with a shared goal of making something together. Application deadline is 4/4 (tomorrow).

  Stuff I’m Reading: VR/AR/Branded Content:

  Burger King is encouraging users to ‘burn’ rival ads in augmented reality campaign

  In a fun new ad campaign, Burger King is having users download their App, and play an AR game in which users ‘burn away’ a competitor's ad, revealing a coupon for a free whopper. While this is gimmicky, remember - someone soon will create a similar application where anyone can block ads via AR, and I for one can’t wait til I have Android-specs that allow me to ad-block every billboard in Manhattan and replace it with cool artwork instead. That’s the real future of ad-blocking.

• Saving the Indie Film "Middle Class," what Hollywood gets wrong on YouTube and more news you can use

  • Posted on 21st Mar
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  It’s an amazing time to be a filmmaker and film lover with more places buying films than ever before (and often for record sums), and more places to watch films (and shows) as well. But as I’ve written before, there’s a simultaneous negative trend going on, where it’s getting harder and harder for the majority of filmmakers to get their films picked up and have any chance of finding an audience. In many ways, the indie film sector has split into the high and the low, with no middle to be found (much like our society).

  If your film didn’t premiere at a handful of major festivals, many distributors will pass on acquiring your film – not because they’re evil, but because they can’t take a risk when there’s fewer buyers who want these titles. Netflix, for example, had as many as 35,000 titles in its library in 2005 (when it was primarily a DVD service), but it now has just around 4,500 movies and 1,600 TV shows in its library in the US (it varies by country), and a significant portion of each are “originals,” that weren’t licensed as finished films. So as Netflix and other services become more focused on TV, originals and curated content, that means distributors have less places to license these titles and must also get pickier.

  It’s a phenomenon that’s not just impacting new American indie films – most platforms don’t want to license older, “library” titles at all, so distributors don’t want them either. I’ve had numerous filmmakers approach me with Award-winning, Sundance premiering, once-popular films that are less than ten years old, but they can’t get anyone to help them keep their films available to the public because that market has collapsed. Many foreign-language titles aren’t licensed here at all – as one leading foreign sales agent from France told me last year – the US market brings him less licensing revenue than Benelux, and he’s almost ready to give up on us (he was slightly joking…I hope).

  While it’s easy to get cynical, I don’t blame this on Netflix (or Amazon, or Hulu, or distributors) at all. Netflix has been a boon for many shows, films and creators – especially when it comes to diversity – but it’s not a public service. It’s spending a ton of money to make & license content, and if the market doesn’t support it, that money has to be used elsewhere. Netflix is just doing its job as a market leader that could be dethroned at any time. It has to cut underperformers and re-designate that money to possible winners before it becomes the underperformer itself.

  This is a market problem, and while usually these represent opportunities for competitors to exploit, that won’t be the case here – long story short, the market is never going to find a solution that solves the problems of indie films getting to an audience. But it’s a problem that affects everyone in the business – whether you are making films, funding them, distributing them, starring in them, or just watching them.

  I’ve been saying for a long time that the indie film sector- especially the nonprofits, film festivals and foundations that support it – will need to solve this problem together. As I contemplated this problem this past week, my mind went back to the beginnings of Netflix entering the streaming business (announced in January, but launched in February, 2007), and something else that happened around that same time – the death of AIVF in June of 2006. I think these two events are intimately related (along with the purchase of YouTube by Google in November, 2006) to our core problem for indies – the death of the “middle class,” and hints at how we solve it as well.

  For those of you who don’t know AIVF, it was the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (link has the full history), and it was one of the leading organizations for indie filmmakers in the US. Throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, AIVF was the main advocacy organization representing independent film – it helped secure funding for indie films, advocated for the NEA’s grants to filmmakers, helped organize the beginnings of ITVS, fought budget cuts to public media, started one of the first magazines for indie film (The Independent) and so much more. Yes, we eventually had organizations like IFP and Sundance, but AIVF was one of the first in the space (so was Women Make Movies), and it was always more focused on advocacy than any of the others.

  By the early 2000’s, AIVF was struggling, and I wrote a couple of posts about its pending and eventual demise, which you can read (along with Eugene Hernandez’s piece for IndieWire linked above), and Jim McKay wrote a nice piece back then as well. As I said then in a piece for IndieWire (note that I didn’t even mention YouTube):

  "we have some great new possibilities, such as Google Video, iTunes and Netflix. But these are corporate entities; they are beholden to their shareholders, not to the needs of the independent community. There is no guarantee that they           will continue to distribute your media, and none of them want to make sure you get paid fairly for it. Only a place with the public good in mind can serve the needs of independent media artists and their audiences."

  And as I said that same month in my newsletter rather dramatically but presciently, the death of AIVF would mean: “The definition of independent is debated regularly, but could soon just mean one thing: alone.”

  Well, that’s exactly where we’ve ended up. In a sense, AIVF was the union for the middle-class filmmaker, and just like in the real world, the decline of the middle-class can be pegged directly to the decline of the unions, and for us – AIVF. It’s not that AIVF would have stopped the market from shaping how Netflix behaves – but that when we lost AIVF, we lost any semblance of a place that can fight to build an alternative for the rest of us. Movements need leaders, and without an AIVF, we’ve had no one to organize the field to create the systems we need.

  Yes, we have great organizations that might take up the cause – IFP, Sundance, Impact Partners, IDA, Kartemquin and many great festivals (if I didn’t mention your favorite org, it’s unintentional) – but solving the problems around building a better ecosystem for independent media artists is bigger than any one of their missions and if they haven’t found the time to do it on their own since 2006, it’s not going to happen now (but they’ll collaborate on the answer).

  We need a new AIVF, but for the modern era.

  I’m not sure what it should look like, but I know we need it, or something like it. I imagine it’s more of a with-profit than a nonprofit, meaning some hybrid of nonprofit activism and services, coupled with some for-profit, entrepreneurial activities.

  It would enable us to re-envision what a new home for truly indie films would look like – and corral the miscellaneous support groups, festivals, producers, services and platforms to help make it a reality. It would advocate for this need with foundations and other funders, who are currently too enamored with putting their logo on films (via production-funding) to think about the bigger problems of distribution and audience-building. It would advocate at the government level for a new generation of public media, for funding to make this a reality, and for public support (which is hard when people think they have access to everything already). It would take the lead on projects like bringing more transparency to the business, or demanding more diversity behind the camera, or making sure that Spielberg doesn’t hurt indies when he tries to kill Netflix.

  These are just a few of the myriad needs we have that no one else is fully addressing. Advocacy and service organizations may not be sexy anymore, but I think the past 13 or so years have proven they’re needed more than ever. I may be proposing something too quixotic, but if anyone else agrees, maybe we can get a movement started.

  What I'm Reading - FILM:

  What Movie Studios are doing wrong, and what they should be doing on YouTube according to Little Monster media. What’s wrong: Letting others profit from their clips (and own their audiences); unde-utilizing their library content; trying to be everything for everyone (because they don’t know their audience); not making content endemic to YouTube are chief among the mistakes. What should they be doing? Watch the video to find out, but it’s partly fixing those mistakes and partly - taking YouTube more seriously (as opposed to Facebook, for example), because that’s where the fans are already located. Good advice for brands, and to some extent, indies, marketing films as well.

  This bias against YouTube in the film world, also applies to Hollywood’s lack of respect for Freddie Wong as well. Freddie Wong went on Corridor Cast recently to explain how he built over 8 Million Subscribers, and more than 1.6 Billion video views on YouTube, but found Hollywood didn't care. It's a sobering statement from a DIY pioneer, and a dumb move on the part of Hollywood and other potential partners.

  Why, Exactly, Do We Still Trust Telecom Megamerger 'Synergy' Promises? | Techdirt wants to know, and so should you. Time and again, these mega-mergers don’t only not bring the benefits to consumers that they promise, but they fail miserably as business ideas.

  But I’m Not a Lawyer, I’m an Agent: Want to understand the fight between the WGA and the agencies about packaging fees? Nope, but you probably want a good read anyway? If you read one thing this week, make it David Simon’s take-down of CAA and other agents. Laugh a minute stuff here, but dead-serious as well.

  Amazon is slashing royalties for video makers uploading to Prime Video This one has made the rounds, but further sign of the lessening value of indie and similar content to the online eco-system.

  There’s another new social video sharing platform - and this one, Firework, allows for you to shoot for both horizontal or vertical viewing mode - just to drive filmmaker purists crazy.

  Keep Your DVDs and BluRays, to avoid Corporate Censorship...and shitty business practices, says WaPo.

   

  What I'm Reading - BRANDED CONTENT:

  After laying off 250 staffers, Vice is now looking to raise $200 million Good money after bad...

  Russo Brothers & Justin Lin Team To Launch Superconductor, Creative Services Agency reports Deadline. Looks like branded content is getting some serious new entrants.

  

  Tongal is helping bring together brands with emerging filmmakers by giving them the opportunity to create their own Alien short film. While this is a bit of old news, I’d missed it, and it’s a pretty cool use of branded content by a Studio.

   

  What I'm Reading - VR/AR/AI:

  VR might be the future, but it’s not gonna be made at Google - Google is reportedly shutting down its in-house VR film studio. Is this a sign that others can make it better, or that it’s just not working? I think the jury is still out, but this is a set-back, for sure.

  At SXSW, filmmaker Brillhart is looking into the 'uncharted territories' of VR, AR A good summary of what Jessica Brillhart is up to post-Google, which is a good hint at where the field should be going next. Among her projects - VR for people with disabilities, spatial audio and experimentation: ““The systems in place are trying to keep something contained that should be constantly evolving,” she said. “Immersive cannot be contained. What we should fear the most isn’t disruption, it’s thinking things will always stay the same. No matter what the old guard says, our generation gets this stuff.”

  [caption id="attachment_1412" align="aligncenter" width="300"] AICAN + Ahmed Elgammal[/caption]

  The AI-Art Gold Rush is here:  The Atlantic reports on the rise of AI-generated art - we’ve now had AI art at auction, in gallery shows, and smart folks are starting to use it to not just create new art, but predict what will become popular and do well in the marketplace. Don’t think for one second that film is immune to this either, as AI, CG and similar wizardry simultaneously improves, we’ll have AI-created films gunning for the Oscars, as well as AI algorithms determining what we watch (oh wait, we already have that…).

  Morpholio let’s you walk into any sketch via A/R. While this is being touted as a platform for architects, designers and real estate folks, I could see some cool uses for film production - running through your set, blocking the scene, etc.

   

   

• The Skoll Report on Impact Entertainment and other Sub-Genre News for March 7

  • Posted on 7th Mar
  • Category: Newsletter

   

  

   

  What's the State of Social Impact Entertainment? Well, the Skoll Center for Social Impact Entertainment and UCLA have 186 pages of thoughts about that in their new report on the State of Social Impact Entertainment.

  I’ve just barely had time to read the majority of it, but think it's a must read for everyone who cares about this space. First, as summarized by the LA Times, the report analyzes a variety of social impact projects and identifies some keys to success: "The report identifies some common characteristics among the successes of social-impact entertainment: a strong focus on the story, a deep knowledge of the issue, strategic alliances with key partners and clever distribution plans to connect with viewers."

  I think the report is a pretty good summary of where the field has been, who is doing what and what has worked - at least anecdotally. My issues are somewhat minor: it’s surprisingly thin on actual data/measurement; it's too focused on Skoll funded programs (even for a report funded by Skoll) and what I call the "doc mafia;" and if it's going to bother to include new forms like VR and short form video, it should also include more about creative uses of social media.

  But it does give a few good examples of what looks like real impact/change. And with filmmakers, foundations and now even brands wondering how to have an impact, and whether or not any of this shit works, it's a welcome addition to the ongoing dialogue. I'm sure I'll have even more thoughts as I finish reading this thing, but I recommend you add it to your reading queue (oh, and it has pretty "state of the field" maps, like the one I linked above).

  What (else) I'm Reading: Film

  Want to learn about people doing cool shit in the film business? Disrupting the status quo? Listen to Film Disruptors, the great podcast by Alex Stolz. I’ve been meaning to plug this for awhile now, but I’m behind on my podcasts to be honest (how does everyone keep up?). Every week or two, Alex interviews people doing some cool, disruptive stuff in the film business. And because he’s UK based, he has a decidedly less American focused lens, which I find refreshing.

  

  AMC Cracks the code for Movie subscriptions: Theatre attendance is up and they’re not about go out of business, quite the opposite in fact. Turns out that copying MoviePass works well, especially if you charge even more for the subscription.

  Meanwhile, MoviePass announced a new business plan, that kinda seems like the old plan. Thats said, it did bring their stock up 40% to just over a penny. But I bet they're not done disrupting just yet.

  Netflix has a message for Hollywood: Make room for others. Nicely played Netflix, and true as well - leave the Roma debates aside, no one out there is pushing diversity to the top of its agenda like Netflix. And they aren’t just doing it to look good - they have the data, and it must be working. Time for others to follow them and “make room” for more diverse story-tellers and stories.

  And Slate thinks Netflix should truly respect cinema and let us watch the f-n credits already. Gotta admit, while I disagree with Steven Spielberg in his arguments against Netflix, I loved this little article which makes a good point about what a creativity destroyer their system is, or as the writer puts it: "But until Netflix lets its customers actually watch an entire movie, no one should ever be expected to keep a straight face when they say they love cinema."

  Apple's move into Hollywood is not going so well, especially because of intrusive execs, says the NYPost of all places. Apparently, development folks are angry that Apple is so worried about being family friendly, and has a lot of notes. My take: That's par for the course when a platform is protecting a brand as important as Apple, and there's no need for them to fund the next Breaking Bad. On the other hand, with reports that CEO Tim Cook is getting heavily involved, one can only hope he isn't ruined by Hollywood the way Bezos has been, or he'll be featured in the Post a lot more often.

  Stephen Follows has a great breakdown of how a film's costs change at various budget levels. Worth a look if you want to see if your film budget is on target percentage-wise.

  Changing of the (Avant) Garde - We are losing and have lost two of the most important figures in American avant-garde cinema - Barbara Hammer and Jonas Mekas.

  Barbara Hammer's Exit Interview in the New Yorker is a must-read for anyone who knows her work or cares about the history of avant-garde and/or LGBTQ cinema.

  Sky Sitney penned a great Obituary for Jonas Mekas in the latest issue of Documentary mag online (he passed away just before Sundance). Given that she grew up around Jonas, she brings great perspective. If you don't know much about Jonas, read his obit in the NYT or their wonderful series about aging where he was featured many times. (Knowing Barbara, she might yell at me for putting a story about her next to one about Jonas, but that's another story...)

  What I'm Reading: Branded Content

  AdWeek's Arc Awards for Branded Content ran online this week, and will be celebrated at SXSW this weekend. Some great campaigns here, including P&G's "Words Matter" piece done with CNN's Great Big Story (which I reported on before), and a nice long form doc from the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau about songwriters that looks very interesting, It all Begins with a Song (I haven't seen the full doc  yet). Read/watch the full list here. At minimum, this list serves as a good “State of the field” report.

  Is Netflix moving into Ad-Sales and AVOD? Well, this guy on LinkedIn thinks so, and claims they're hiring for the Unit. If that's true, then we truly created the internet to make a better TV, I guess, which is a shame. But when you're bleeding (borrowed) money like Netflix, you've got two possible new revenue sources - ads and branded content, and they're already doing the latter.

  Thrive announced new hires for its branded content push, which is focused around health/wellness and experiences/events. Will be interesting to see where this goes.

  Net Neutrality Back in the News & Congress

  Ajit Pai has been trying to ruin the internet before we do it our own damn' selves, and now Congress is trying to stop him. The new Save the Internet Act has been introduced to do just what it says (and TechCrunch sums it up well). Want to add your voice by contacting your Congress-person? Click here.

  

   

• Academy Thoughts - North Face Tuxedos and Acceptance Speeches, and other Sub-Genre news

  • Posted on 28th Feb
  • Category: Newsletter

  What I’m Thinking: Academy Awards

  

  Green Book: I don’t have much to add to the backlash over the Best Picture results from the Academy Awards, as there’s been enough written about why Green Book wasn’t deserving of an Oscar. If you need any evidence, just read Shadow and Act, perhaps. Or spend your time watching Yoruba Richen’s The Green Book: Guide to Freedom doc instead, or learn how Don Shirley was evicted from Carnegie Hall in Lost Bohemia.

  But I am perplexed that the Academy can’t figure out that the only thing worth watching in their entire show is the thing they keep ruining – the acceptance speeches. Hearing the music swell as they try to push people off-stage might be the most annoying thing on the planet. I hope they play that music when they fire their leadership someday. And that can’t come too soon; only in Hollywood can you cause this much mayhem, keep your job and have the town think you saved the show…!

  It’s unconscionable that they found time to add a commercial for a nonexistent Academy Museum, but then cut short the Best Animated Feature speakers. Even when the acceptance speeches are long or flubbed, they’re still the reason people bother to watch the show. The speeches, the awards themselves, the In-Memoriam and (for some) the songs, are just about the only things worth watching, and the ratings won’t improve much until the Academy figures that out.

  Netflix: Some people blame the Green Book win on the dilemma some voters felt they faced in voting for Roma, when it would validate Netflix’s business model. Sorry folks, that battle is over and Netflix already won, even if they didn’t win the big award. It’s ridiculous to listen to these pundits say that Netflix is making TV movies like HBO, when Roma alone proves they’re making cinema. Future audiences might regret that Green Book won any awards, but they’ll definitely forget they used to go to theaters before they remember that anyone ever cared whether Netflix won an award in 2019.

  Availability, or Millions lost: While you could find many of the nominated films online for rent/sale/streaming, there were a lot of films being held back and only available in theaters or nowhere. By the time the Awards come around, everyone who is going to see the movie in theaters has done so, and there are millions more who would watch the films if they were available pre-Awards online. Studios seem to think that the Awards heighten interest post-show, but I’m willing to bet that if every film was available online for a low cost pre-Awards, they’d make millions more – quite possibly during the show when people get bored and decide just to watch that film they just saw getting snubbed.

  Alex Honnold wore a The North Face tuxedo to the Oscars for Free Solo. And if that’s not the best brand placement of the past year, I don’t know what is. Sure, lots of fashion companies outfit people for the Oscars, but The North Face sure has gotten more out of their sponsorship of Alex than perhaps any brand/athlete relationship in recent history, and what an unexpected partnership for the red carpet!

  

  What I’m Reading: Film

  SVOD Wars Updates: April is coming: And no, I’m not referring to the premier of Game of Thrones, but rather the launch of Disney Streaming service which appears to be having every major media company in a scramble to acquire as many assets as possible:

  1. Amazon spent $47 Million at Sundance for the rights of five different films.
  2. Disney ended its partnership with Netflix, canceling their Defenders series of shows. (The Motley Fool says now is the time to buy.)
  3. Hulu finds itself in a increasingly more complicated place with Disney now owning 60% of Hulu’s shares after the Fox Acquisition and the launch of Disney+ in April.

  What I’m Reading: New Media

  This Kevin Kelly article on AR and the Mirror World in Wired has been making the rounds, but just in case you missed it, and want to know more about where AR is going, it's worth a read. Kelly has a great way of pulling together disparate threads of exploration and summarizing their future directions in a way that makes you say "yup, of course that will happen." And most of it will, but thanks to advertising, with a much more dystopian flare than he tends to foresee.

  Attention economics: Another reminder that Fortnite is not the main problem facing the games industry, but rather unreasonable performance expectations for new media and competition over the dwindling time of consumers . This is true for gaming and films - you have a lot more competition, which means your “game”must be stepped up.

  What I’m Reading: Branded Content

  MediaPost argues for better metrics on ROI by tying branded to shoppable content.  While I agree we need better measurement tools and think linking branded content is one way to measure success, I’d disagree that it should be a goal for most branded content - usually the most direct connections to sales make for the worst films. Sometimes branded content should be about building the brand, not just measuring sales. But unless we come up with good metrics, this might be the only one we have.

  Whatever happened to the Denominator? Asked no one ever until  Kalev Leetaru in Forbes. But while his analysis is of Twitter and his methods are wonkish, he’s right that too often “we have traded more data for less understanding of what is in that data.” Or we’re obsessed with data instead of information… that we can actually use. Worth a read for you data nerds out there.

  Peter Berg is launching a branded content division to his production company, Film 47, and I think it’s the model for anyone trying to build a sustainable production company business:

  “It just occurred to us that we like the idea of trying to be a small, multifaceted media company that could make the film about an oil rig in Texas that blew up [Deepwater Horizon], and then make a documentary on the environmental cleanup, and everything in between,” Berg continues. “That aimed us at having our own production company/creative agency where we talk directly with clients or work directly with ad agencies, and help take on a more thorough or comprehensive role than a traditional production company.”

  Folio magazine demonstrates the need for publishers to have their own Branded Content and it’s a good summary of who is doing what right now.

   

   

   

   

   

• Buzzfeed and Canaries in Coal-Mines, Happy Valentines Day Edition of Sub-Genre News

  • Posted on 14th Feb
  • Category: Newsletter

  Buzzfeed and canaries in coal mines...

  As I read all of the reports (see below) on the death of, er, layoffs at Buzzfeed and what it means for the future of journalism and Media (capital M), I can’t help but feel that these problems are the canary in the coal-mine for film. Why?

  As the Columbia Journalism Review summarizes so well, most people are blaming Facebook for these problems, “But if the giant social network is partly to blame, it is mostly because editors at BuzzFeed (and many other places) yoked themselves so tightly to Facebook’s wagon…” And as any business school professor will teach you - if your business model depends on the business model of someone else, you are in danger when you no longer fit their business model anymore.

  For Buzzfeed and similar publishers, they felt they had to lean-in (pun intended) to Facebook because there was no other choice - it’s where most of the eyeballs go, and with them, most of the ad dollars. But then you lose the direct connection to both your advertisers and your viewers. Ok, fine, you think - we’re building our brand, getting our content seen, and can leverage it later. But that didn’t work out so well.

  In a sense, these publishers were making “original content” for Facebook, and once Facebook realized original content from its users (for free, no less) was more valuable, it didn’t need the content these publishers were providing. But the publishers can’t get the eyeballs or advertisers directly, and there’s no one really waiting in the wings to replace Facebook, so they’re screwed. Unless you are a niche publication (like The Information) that has built a small but loyal audience, and you know who they are, and they pay you to keep in touch (via subscription).

  Likewise, every distributor (and aggregator) has been going to Netflix because they have the eyeballs and the money (not via ads here). But Netflix realized it could make its own original content and cut out these publishers, and that’s what they’ve been doing. So now everyone races to license their content to Amazon. In fact, when I speak with distributors, they pretty much admit it’s the only revenue source they can count on right now. But Amazon has also been slowly moving towards making their own content meaning you are also soon to be screwed (they’re also making their own products and brands, so you are in the same boat if you happen to be selling anything else, btw). They been scaling back Amazon Prime Video Direct already, and don’t count on that being the end of their purge.

  But to make matters worse, like publishers, most film distributors and “content-holders” (and even producers for that matter), haven’t built up their brands or their connection to their audience. So, few people will subscribe to them directly, and the revenue from AVOD won’t ever be able to replace what they made from their now-disappeared or soon-to-disappear partners.

  Unless you are that rare brand - Criterion (or filmmaker - Gary Hustwit) who has built their own brand and direct-to-consumer relationship, you are fucked. Or maybe you’re that lucky 1% of producers/filmmakers/studios who make stuff that is good enough to be “must have,” meaning you are A24, or Shonda Rhimes or one of about, oh, twelve other folks out there and you’ll be just fine. But that’s a small group of smart, creative people.

  The rest of us are left hoping that as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and WarnerMedia move away from needing what we make, that maybe someone will fill the void and that becomes an opportunity. Right now, that looks like Apple to some people, but ask a few publishers what that feels like. Some say it’s the broadcasters, but we know what content they like to buy already. And some say it’s services like Pluto.tv, but I’m betting those will be “pennies replacing dollars” deals.

  I’d like to say that you’re only screwed as a distributor/publisher. As a creative/filmmaker/producer, you can just work directly with Netflix or Amazon and be fine.. But then I hear stories of how slow Netflix is to pay, and how banks are starting to deny loans to cover that gap given how much debt Netflix and their partners owe them already. And then I look at the reality TV and HSN type shows Amazon is launching. And then I just stop thinking about this stuff before my head explodes.

  Of course, canaries in coal mines die a long time before the rest of us. I mean, Amazon and Netflix spent tens of millions at Sundance this year. Things are looking good. And let’s face it, they are the only games in town, so we gotta be there.

  But as Warren Buffet says - it’s not ‘til the tide goes out that you learn who is swimming naked. And the time to think about these changes is before the tide goes out.

  What I’m Reading: Film -

  Disney gave some more clues about its plans in its Q1F19 Earnings results webcast. Not too secret, but Bob Iger thinks their brands will help them cut through the clutter: “Presented with an over abundance of choice, consumers look to brands they know to sort through the options and find what they actually want. The DTC space is no different in that regard and we are confident that our iconic brands and franchises will allow us to effectively break through the competitive clutter.”

  Apple is now telling various studios and networks to be ready for launch in mid April. And like Disney, they’re relying on being a family-friendly brand.

  Because we need more streaming: MGM-owned Epix jumps into the streaming service arena with EpixNow

  

  TVOOT is launching a crowd powered social tv platform that may help cut through the clutter. Don’t know what to watch? Ask your friends via VOOT. Think this might work? Support them on Kickstarter. My favorite feature - it automatically switches your screen to your favorite back-up channel during commercials, and brings you back home when the commercials are over. That should go over well in court.

  The Information thinks Quibi is going to have trouble meeting its (short form) streaming content goals. But my bet is people will take the money, and they’ll have no issues when it starts to work (again, if he can keep Meg out of the way, sorry…).

  If your lawsuits might not work, join forces with your enemy’s enemy, which is what ChooseCo (Choose your own Adventure) is doing with Amazon.

  Games are also moving intro streaming, and will undoubtedly face the old problems of video streaming? Especially with console exclusives? There is no doubt that any subscription service can offer an overwhelming amount of content, but is that what the consumer actually wants? And how will they sort through all of these options?

  I was just in Salt Lake City for work this week, and the Deseret News has a pretty good update on the current state of MoviePass and their plans to survive for the future.

  What I’m Reading: Media -

  More Buzzfeed News: Per the above, I’m swimming with the fishes and thinking about Buzzfeed a lot this week. Some are already asking - with Buzzfeed failing, who is going to swoop in and take over the fledgling digital media company?

  The Hollywood reporter suggests that the big media companies (Disney, Viacom, Comcast etc.) should swoop in and buy in. Me: but why should they when these companies were not particularly good to begin with and are near death because they never had a sustainable business model? I smell another AOL/Time-Warner but as BuzzFeed/?.

  Adage makes a similar argument that these layoffs shouldn’t come as surprise since these digital media companies like Buzzfeed were never particularly noteworthy to begin with being that relied on community created content rather than actual journalism.

  So maybe they should look at the old guard? While most of the new media organizations are failing, the NYT is thriving: the times reports (on itself, so be aware): “BuzzFeed generated more than $300 million in sales, while still bleeding money, and The Times was on a pace to exceed $650 million in digital revenue.”  Why? Maybe because the NYT never relied solely on Facebook for traffic, or ads for revenue. But - considering just how often the NYT has screwed up its approach to digital, even with the war chest of money they’ve got, it’s odd to point to them as any model without being prepared to second-guess yourself soon.

  BuzzFeed cuts should mean the death of metric-obsessed media says the Columbia Journalism Review, which also has a bevy of links to more coverage on the issue at the end of the linked article.

  Journalism Isn't Dying. It's Returning to Its Roots - A good argument that we’re really back where we should be with hyper-partisan news, funded by (pissed-off) subscribers.

  Maybe Apple sees the future of journalism? And that’s taking 50% of news revenue generated through their platform. Magazines support it, but Newspapers fine the model to be unfair. I agree - the only people who like this deal are likely close to death anyway.

  What I’m Watching: Branded Content:

  Brand Storytelling Partner Showcase online: For those of you who've read my posts about Brand Storytelling, and weren't able to attend and want to know what it's about, you can watch many of the partner presentations on the Brand Storytelling Partner Showcase on their YouTube Channel.

  Creative Coupling: Just in time for Valentine's Day ,REI has a great new podcast interview with Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin about their film, Free Solo, which is interesting on its own, but what makes it more worth your time is that it asks what it's like to make a film like this as a married couple with kids? Some great thoughts here on the collaborative creative process. (disclaimer, I consult w these folks, but not on this).

  

• Five Sundance Takeaways, the death of Media and More Sub-Genre news

  • Posted on 7th Feb
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  Five Insights from Sundance

  When you head to any of the bigger industry festivals, you not only see great films, but also get a chance to catch up with others in the industry and get a read on what’s going on in the field. This year, I was lucky enough to attend Sundance, Slamdance, and Brand Storytelling - a conference just for brands, agencies, platforms and others working in this space. I emphasize lucky here because another thing people like to do at these fests is gripe about having to attend, when it’s really quite a privilege in life that this is part of our jobs. Anyway, here’s a few of the broader trends and takeaways that hit me as important during my time in Park City:

  1. High and Low.

  Entertainment has bifurcated into the High and the Low with very little in the middle - just like our society. We get to Sundance either crammed into economy seats or flying first class. The middle class has died across the world, and you’re either rich or poor.

  There is no middle anymore, and that’s definitely true in the film world. Amazon and Netflix were spending $14-15 million on a few films (at least they were spending again); and outside of the 1% of top distributors, most buyers were waiting it out to see what remained and could go for cheaper. Or were hoping to capitalize on that middle gap where no one else seemed to be buying. Meanwhile, and this caused the next two trends, producers and financiers were all talking about you had to either go big, or go small, but in-between was a no-person’s land.

  But my strangest experience at all of Sundance was also a high/low story - I went to see the excellent doc American Factory, where a subject in the film laments how last year he only made $27K at the factory as a skilled laborer, while his daughter brought in $13K more working as a nail technician. One hour later, I’m at a party where I overhear two (higher up) industry people debating careers and one tells the other “man, I’m telling you, you can’t live on less than $600,00 a year, it’s impossible these days.”  That to me was Sundance - and our current society - in a nutshell.

  1. Everyone wants in Early

  But I digress. The high/low split leads to trend 2- everyone is trying to board films much earlier. Film Funds are launching development funds, distributors are offering early back-stop deals or outright financing, people are optioning doc subject’s life rights before making the film so they can pre-sell the narrative feature. When you can’t count on what Netflix might do, and as the market bifurcates, safety comes in getting in very early (or very late, but that is often off the table when so many people are getting in so early…).

  1. Producers (esp doc producers) are giving up on risk and moving towards commissions

  Trend three also comes from the high/low divide. Conversation after conversation went like this:”No more one-offs and spec projects for me, I’m focusing my company on commissions.”  While Netflix and Amazon did open back up their wallets, last year taught people not to get caught without a big SVOD sale. Taking those risks and hoping to be the big sale at Sundance doesn’t always work, and it’s too stressful. With the middle dropping out, people want less risk and a guaranteed reward, which means seeking out and working on more commissions. Doc producers in particular are pitching projects to Netflix, Amazon, A&E, Natgeo and others early, and if there’s not a buy on the table or a commission for a series, forget about it, and drop the film. Secondary to this - trying to get a series commissioned which can pay the overhead while you do those labors of love on the side. The problem with this - but this is another article - is the downside of relying on those platforms payment schedules, which means you need to keep feeding the beast. On the other hand, I predict that this need for less risk will also lead to more producers seeking out brands for support, which should fuel an increase in quality branded content.

  1. Not selling works best for branded content

  I spent the first half of Sundance running between the fest and Brand Storytelling, the best conference on the planet for people working in the intersection of brands and film. And they showed a lot of case studies, and also premiered (sometimes as a work-in-progress) many brand-funded films. And hands-down the best stuff there was the least advertising-centric and the most focused on not selling (directly) by just telling a great story. Sure, at the end of the day, these brands hope that if you like the film, you will feel better about them and about buying their products, but that’s often not the direct goal of these films. Their goal, like the filmmakers they work with, is telling a great story. This wasn’t a surprise to me - it’s what I preach to my clients all the time - but I was glad to see so many brands and their partners have embraced this mission.

  1. Trusted Word of Mouth Still Rules Discovery

  This seems obvious, right? But I think it’s key to keep in mind as we move ever further into an algorithmically governed world, and as companies will increasingly use AI to serve us what they think we want to watch. Plus, I can plug a filmmaker and film this way.

  Even at Sundance, you go into the festival hoping for a bit of algorithmic luck - you chose films based a bit on which ones are playing while you’re there, which ones the programmers put in the P&I at a time you can attend, etc. And you use word of mouth - from trades, industry friends, distributor tracking lists (when you can get them), publicists you trust, etc. But the word of mouth that matters most is from people you trust. Every year, I have an experience like this:

  It’s my last night in Park City. I’ve seen three films (one great, one meh, one annoying but it sold for a lot); and I have just left one party and am debating whether to go a) the party known as one of the best at Sundance, or b) a film by a filmmaker I love, but that I know will come out soon and I can see it later. I have a spontaneous, text arranged meeting with someone I’ve never met before, and we decide to meet at the Treasure Mountain Inn’s restaurant because it won’t be busy. This is also Slamdance HQ and on my way out to option A or B, I run into Paul Rachman, a friend, filmmaker, co-founder and programmer of the fest who tells me Option C is my only option, and it’s playing right now, there’s only one seat left and he can get me in (we go back…). Very few people could have swayed me to skip party A or film B, but Paul also told me that Steven Soderbergh was a guest of the festival and loved this movie/director and it would be one of those moments where you say “I was there when…”

  The film was worth staying for, and made everything about Park City 1 million times better for me. It was worth skipping other stuff, it was worth the crappy seats and screen at Slamdance (I love them, but let’s be honest), and it will be worth bragging about later. But the point is, this only happened because of a lot of serendipity (timing, etc.) and a lot of trust in two person’s opinions of film. Not critics either mind you, but people I trust as curators for other reasons.

  No one has built in an easy way to take advantage of this trusted source recommendation in film discovery on any platform. We tried it with Flicklist - but we failed for so many other reasons. But when I’m flicking through the endless scroll of recommendations on Netflix, or watching another shitty movie because it has a good IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes score because you can’t trust the crowd - I wish I had access to just the recommendations I trust. I want this for film, for other culture and even instead of Yelp, or any other crowd-sourced system I know of. So if you are out there and you are smart, please, please, build me this machine - a system that let’s me designate people I trust to recommend the best stuff. That’s all I want, and it should be easier to make than an autonomous car.

  Long story short, if you trust me at all, or Paul or Soderbergh, add The Vast of Night and its director Andrew Patterson to your watch list. It has its issues, but it signals a tremendous new talent. I can’t say it any better than Amy Taubin (another voice to trust, who was also tipped by Soderbergh) did in Film Comment: “For me, The Vast of Night was the kind of discovery that one comes to Park City for, a display of visionary moviemaking intelligence equal to that of my most memorable Utah experiences; Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko or Shane Carruth’s Primer, or for that matter, Christopher Nolan’s Following, which also premiered at Slamdance.”

  What I’m Reading: Film & Content

  

  Finally, an open source, useful film festival database: Created by filmmaker Michael Forstein, on his own time, and not by any of the “filmmaker service organizations” or “film festival alliances” that in theory should have done this shit a long time ago. But I’m glad someone did this - and as of now it includes a searchable, sortable Google Doc database, as well as two map versions for geo-targeting (BTW, for those looking, it has deadlines in the master database tab).  It needs more international fests, and has a few minor errors - but it’s one person doing this for free. Some foundation should retroactively give him a grant for his work (I’ll be donating, which you can do here).

  Who is Netflix’s biggest competitor? HBO? Hulu? A new Disney service?  It’s actually Fortnite. In a letter to investors with their Q4 results, Netflix recently outlined how they aren’t just competing with streaming services for screen time, but also with other forms of media such as video games. “”We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO," Netflix said.” A good reminder to anyone in this space - you aren’t competing with just other movies for people’s attention, but everything else they can do with their time. The “Attention Economy” is here.

  And about Fortnite: Redef has a great run-down of the myths and realities of what makes it tick. And when all is said and done, this is why it’s a threat not just to Facebook, but to Netflix and even movie-going: “Fortnite’s most significant achievement may be the role it has come to play in the lives of millions. For these players, Fortnite has become a daily social square – a digital mall or virtual afterschool meetup that spans neighborhoods, cities, countries and continents.”

  Games moving to Subscription - Like Netflix and MoviePass, Games are moving towards a subscription model as well,according to The Week, which coupled with a freemium model (free game, pay for add-ons), should only increase their popularity. If the Bandersnatch model catches on, it could extend the freemium model to film as well - pay to get a better ending; or what I’d prefer - let me pay more to get a better selection of films instead of tv shows!

  How important is Disney+? Many analysts are calling Disney the “safest bet in streaming,” with UBS projecting they sign up 5 million subscribers in their first year and grow to 50 million by year five.  That’s half as many as Netflix already has, but close to their US base as of now. Disney announced this week that they’ve already lost $136M in this quarter building the damned thing - but consider that an investment in a robust future.

  Viacom bought Pluto Viacom is officially enlisted in the streaming wars, buying Pluto.tv (not the planet for those of you who have never heard of the free, ad supported service). They’re also saying their $340M acquisition will become a $5Billion ad business.

  M&A: BTW, this confirms my prediction from a few weeks ago in the newsletter about mergers and acquisitions coming this year, and you can Add The Orchard to that acquisition list as well.

  Forbes is predicting Amazon and Netflix will launch an ad-supported version of their services soon. My take: Amazon, sure, but there’s no evidence that Netflix would do this at all. I could see it in certain foreign markets on a mobile-only version, but “no ads” is one of their biggest selling points.

  Netflix still has 2.7 Million DVD subscribers - and they brought in $85 Million in revenue last quarter from it. Small change for Netflix, but I predict the DVD service might grow since you can actually get a better mix of films there than on SVOD (which is why I still get the DVDs).

  Amazon Prime just booted a bunch of indie films off of the service with no heads-up the filmmakers. TheNextWeb thinks its a travesty, which it is, but apparently only some 3000 people agree, as that's how many are signing the Change.org petition to bring back indies to Prime. Which begs the question: is the sum total indie audience less than 4000 people?

  At least we have a new niche streaming service: There’s a new Home for Classic Films as the Criterion Channel sets Launch date of April 8th. Will there be enough consumer support to keep Criterion alive when FilmStruck shut down in 2018? While I love Criterion, my bet is that they need a lot more capitalization so they can curate a much broader selection to remain competitive. I still don’t believe that enough people want only niche films to keep a niche service alive - I know I need a bit of both (niche and mass entertainment).

  What I’m Reading: Media

  Unless you are living under that rock, reading a print newspaper, you may have noticed that this past week/month might go down as the time when all hopes for the future of the media finally died - in print, digital and in many people’s dreams.

  Buzzfeed, Vice, HuffPo, Gannett and others all announced layoffs. Jill Abramson’s book about her time at the NYT and what’s happening in the space hit bookstores and the reviews and articles became even more timely as a result (read Jill Lepore in the New Yorker in particular) The free vs subscription wars seem to be coming down in favor of paid subscribers being the only solution, but no one seems sure what to do in a world where Facebook, Google and now Amazon own most of the advertising space, and the eyeballs. I believe that what’s happening in journalistic media is similar to what we’ll see in film as well, and worth watching closely.

  So what can we take from this?

  Jeremy Littau in Wired has some good thoughts to keep in mind -  First: “The internet wasn’t just paper—it was also the paperboy. It was a content, platform, and distribution model all in one.” Remember this, filmmakers/content-makers. And second: that a lot of overlooked audiences (women, people of color) finally had somewhere else to go: “The internet gave these already dissatisfied audience segments new choices—and reason to leave newspapers behind.” Which will happen to film if it doesn’t continue to diversify its voices/audiences as well.

  Focus on quality and loyalty: News organizations chose to compete with each other on mass scale, rather than finding what they’re best at. As Rafat Ali says in the article (but really back in 2016): “‘Time to focus on what matters: building loyalties, both with users and advertisers (if that’s a constituency), focus on doing the things that build revenue base, stay away from hiring diva-stars for the sake of hiring them, and focus on quality as consumers are tiring off cheap tricks.”

  The future of media is niche. While all these layoffs are happenings, news organizations such as The Ringer, The Athletic, and Politico are doing well. Why? A super loyal reader base, which they own, and not attempting to compete with large tech companies such as Apple and Google. But it also means you can’t count on the hyper-growth targets demanded by VC’s, so it’s better to take funding elsewhere and build for the long-term - go figure!

  The Solution is constant experimentation to serve your audience better:  Corey Ford, Founder of Matter Media’s solution for media companies is true for film companies too: “The focus needs to be: If you’re going to be long-term sustainable, how do you build an organization with a culture and processes that enable teams to constantly be understanding their audience and adjusting — constantly be experimenting with new technologies, and constantly seeking out new sustainable business models? If you’re a leader of a media organization and that’s not the No. 1 thing you’re thinking about every single day, I don’t think you’re leading your organization to long-term success.”

  Brands/Platforms need to be intimate.

  While consumers are becoming more wary of social media, brands are seeking to create more personalized and relatable relationships through consumers. What does this look like? Well, Conde Nast gives a good example when they “launched a private Facebook group called Women Who Travel, which provides a safe space for passionate female travelers to ask each other questions, leave suggestions and offer encouragement. Since the group is private, it requires moderator permission to join and provides a sense of exclusivity and authenticity that can be hard to find elsewhere on the web. The group has quickly grown to more than 120,000 members strong.” That’s niche, intimate media for the win.

  But as Nick Child’s reminds us: don’t get too intimate: because false personalization kinda sucks.

  What I’m Reading: Culture

  Guidestar and the Foundation Center are now Candid: If you’ve ever raised money for a film or nonprofit from grants, you’ve probably used the Foundation Center’s database of grants. And if you’ve ever applied for a job at a nonprofit, you are stupid if you didn’t use Guidestar to search for top executive salaries, and (more importantly if you might take that job), their financial backgrounds via their 990s. And now the two have merge into one entity called Candid. I love this. I’m a big fan of mergers for greater efficiency and services, and this looks like just such an example. Kudos to the leadership of both organizations and the funders who paid for the merger.

  What I’m Reading: VR/AR

  Screen reports that AR will grown into a Trillion Dollar Industry - Or so said Ted Schilowitz, a futurist in residence at Paramount. Me: A trillion dollars may be spent on it over time, but that doesn’t mean any profits will be made. Ok, I’m being cynical, and I think AR does have a future, but after playing around with the latest and greatest at Sundance, and speaking with the teams there about costs and potential, I’d say the costs to get involved - as a maker or a consumer - are too high and the payoff is too low to see this happening anytime soon.

  Blatant Self-Promotion Department: A film I’ve been consulting on is now available on multiple digital platforms.Check out Long Time Coming if you haven’t seen it already:

  Synopsis: You don’t have to be a baseball fan to appreciate this incredible story of two groups of 12-year-old boys and their coaches who snubbed southern segregation because they wanted to do one thing: play ball. Florida’s 1955 Little League Championship was one of the first integrated Little League games in the South. For the all-black Pensacola Jaycees, it was a long trip away from home to play the Orlando Kiwanis, and the film brings the two team captains together after 60 years to discuss for the first time how that historic night felt for them … and maybe get a little play in while they’re at it. With commentary from Ambassador Andrew Young, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken Jr., and others, this film is about baseball, sure, but it’s much more about culture, society, and a few important childhood hours that hold meaning and questions for both sides over a half century later.

  

  Available for sale/rental now:

  Amazon Prime Video: https://amzn.to/2MPDOXo

  FandangoNOW: http://bit.ly/2BnQm3E

  Google Play: http://bit.ly/2t8JiDw

  iTunes: https://apple.co/2suReig

  Vimeo On Demand: http://bit.ly/2HSV1QX

  Vudu: http://bit.ly/2SaOMwx

  Microsoft Movies & TV: http://bit.ly/2TwIjc0

  YouTube Movies: http://bit.ly/2GpMZN0

• Pre-Sundance 2019 Sub-Genre News - what I'll be talking about at the Dance

  • Posted on 18th Jan
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  Sundance is as much about the conversations in line for films, as the films themselves. Here’s a few things I expect to talk about while waiting for some great movies. Hope to see you at Sundance and chat about the following:

  1. Sundance Needs Speed-Dating. Yeah, I know, it’s a film fest and there’s plenty of movies to see, but every year I spend more time in meetings than theaters. That’s my own fault, but I do have one wish – could we all just show up one day early and have an eight hour speed-dating session where we switch seats every ten minutes and each see 48 people (6 per hour, 8 hrs, screw lunch) and get the meetings out of the way so we can just watch films the rest of the time? The Arthouse Convergence kinda acts like this for exhibitors and fests, but the rest of us need some kind of solution to the madness that is Park City.
  2. WWND? What Will Netflix Do? We all want to know. Will they be active? Will they spend? Or, more likely, will they sit on the sidelines and stay focused on their own original content? The lack of Netflix action last year led everyone to shit a ton of bricks. Entire business models (reliant on their acquisition fees for SVOD) had to be rethought. What will this year tell us?
  3. The need for a new (Foundation Funded?) SVOD - With the demise of FilmStruck and Fandor recently – and the soon to be announced death of every other SVOD/OTT service not called Netflix or Amazon Prime - as well as the increasing lack of interest from Netflix in anything remotely indie, foreign, arthouse, classic, just old, or heck, just a film…we are in dire need of a home for the rest of us.

  No one can launch a rival to Netflix without Billions in the bank, it seems, but meanwhile – I can’t find thousands of titles I want to see anywhere (legally) online. Filmmakers I know are getting their rights back to their older titles and all but a few of them are getting the cold shoulder from distributors because no one (read not Netflix, that’s for sure) wants to license these older titles. All but a handful of foreign gems are overlooked by US distributors every year, and plenty of decent indies are left hoping for a Hulu deal, even though no one I know has ever typed the letters H-U-L-U into a browser, but it’s all we can hope for anymore.

  I could go on and on, but I think it’s time some people with money turn their attention to this problem. As I’ve mentioned before, Foundations need to stop focusing on making content, and start investing in making it available to audiences. It will take hundreds of millions to make this work, so join forces my foundation friends because you are the only ones who can save us. Otherwise all of these films you keep funding will play Sundance and then sit in your grant portfolio but be seen by no one else because no one will put them on SVOD, and even though no one’s making any money on any of these films, no one will give them away for free, so we need a grant-supported (and/or crowd-funded) SVOD service to pick up the slack.

  1. MoviePass is not Dead: Contrary to all reports otherwise, and even though its owner’s stock is almost de-listed, MoviePass is not dead, and in fact is launching new programs and promotions and will be active at Sundance trying to get the word out about its changes. How do I know this? I met with them two weeks ago to find out what’s up, and I liked what I heard. I know they have steep odds against them, but I imagine we’ll be hearing more from them than anyone expects this year, and we’ll likely be discussing them at Sundance, or at least how to get an invite to their party.
  2. Are film fests struggling, due to decreased sponsorship? Anthony Kaufman had a nice little story in December in Filmmaker Magazine (subscription needed) about the death of the LA Film Fest and how festivals are having a harder time attracting sponsors and are seeing a slight decrease in individual donors. The struggle for funding is an ongoing topic of conversation for all film festival organizers, but I do think things are getting worse and won’t get better. Now that I work with multiple brands (on branded content), I see a lot more of the sponsor pitch kits that festivals send, and very few differentiate themselves or show any remote understanding of the brand they’re pitching or make any case for why that brand should sponsor that festival beyond being nice. This is mainly because the smaller fests can’t afford the staff that could take the time to tailor their pitch, so I don’t blame them really, but as brands build more direct links to their consumers, and start making their own content – fests are going to have to step up their game if they want to attract brands. They won’t do it just because you show great films. It’s hard to show greater value, build more customization, have better activation and still just serve your audience, but it has to be done. That said, fest organizers are scrappy folks, and I’m sure they’ll rise to the challenge.

  Ok, that’s five things to discuss in line for films – other than “what have you seen?” – see you at the ‘Dance.

  What I'm Reading - Film:

  Who is gonna own Awards Season? Netflix...says Fast Company, noting that:

  • “They spend way more than anyone else.
  • They pursue any and all ways to promote their projects for awards.
  • And most importantly: They, and especially Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, really, really, really want to win” (Fast Company).”

  In other news regarding aggressive moves, Liberty Media is reportedly in talks to purchase a large stake from CAA.

  And further - CNBC says Apple better buy Sony, Lionsgate or A24, or someone making content, and soon. And I agree - the future of content is gonna be tied at the hip to companies making other products.

  The Innovative Storytelling of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has confounded Internet Pirates, although video games are pirated just as much as movies, so I can’t imagine it won’t be that long until the pirates find a way to replicate the experience.

  On the subject of innovative media that could potentially confound pirates: check out this four minute dystopian short film that utilizes periscope film technology to create an immersive visual experience… and all without cumbersome VR Goggles. It’s also a good hint at our future.

  Peter Hamilton analyzed the break-down of acceptance rates for Sundance. Check it out here

  When it comes to your data, not even your OTT provider can get it.

  Digiday covers the lack of transparency in the OTT world, with Amazon, Roku and others not giving subscriber data to the platforms, meaning they know less about who is doing what and what works.

  What I'm Reading - Culture:

  In the rare good news from Government file, POTUS has signed a new law - the Open Government Data Act -  that requires all agencies to publish their data in a machine-readable format. This has been a brewing movement for quite some time, and it's a good move for consumers in the long run. No more data dumps in unreadable formats, or sending you to the copy machine, or worse - making you pay to get access to the data you funded.

  And in the bad Government file - go figure it's Ajit Pai again, who refused to testify to Congress about why the mobile phone carriers are being allowed to share your data with aggregators. He used the shut-down as an excuse, but as EndGadget reports, he isn't affected by the furlough. Which makes you wonder why he really cancelled his appearance at CES last week?

  Steven Soderbergh, Creator and Curator: We all know that last year he produced Unsane, but maybe we should be asking what he consumed? Turns out he’s a creator and a curator - and he provided a comprehensive list of all media he consumed in 2018.

  More reasons people should be more focused on gaming. The Drum sums up four reasons why Gaming is a necessary market in media right now:

  1. Gaming is not niche, but a mass market.
  2. Gaming is focused on long term attention and consumption
  3. People watching people play video over streaming is growing in popularity
  4. eSport popularity is also growing exponentially

  Yet, no one wants to put real money into gaming, a decision that is so easy, even an Ai could make it.

  But maybe we are overestimating the intelligence of Artificial Intelligence? John Naughton of The Guardian seems to think so.  

  

  Need a Facebook replacement? Just getting used to TikTok? Well, get ready to hear a lot more about Squad, the latest screen-sharing, video chat app that's going viral w the young'uns, and will therefore be on all our radars by next week.

  What I'm Reading - Branded Content:

   

  REI and The Atlantic: ReThink teamed up for this great, in-depth report on how to increase diversity in the outdoors, and make it more inclusive, proving that branded content doesn't need to be film, it can be great "journalism" as well. As a consultant to REI, I am biased, but I had nothing to do with this piece, and I'm also a fan of anyone bringing attention - and potential solutions - to this problem in the outdoor industry/society.

  AeroMexico for the Win - on immigration, DNA and Mexico. Ok, this is an ad, and it's a bit shaky on the science, but it made me smile - Aeromexico has a nice take on getting US of Americans to visit Mexico  - by showing them how much of their DNA is Mexican. Nice work, Aeromexico.

  Larry Fink of BlackRock tells companies to take a stand: Outspoken leader Larry Fink makes news again with his letter to CEOs telling them, according to Andrew Ross Sorkin in the NYT: "Businesses...cannot merely have a purpose. They must be leaders in a divided world. Stakeholders are pushing companies to wade into sensitive social and political issues — especially as they see governments failing to do so effectively,” Amen to that - and smart ones will be doing it in their branded content campaigns going forward.

   

• CES Quick-takes and more Sub-Genre news for Jan 11

  • Posted on 11th Jan
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  I attended the madhouse that is CES for the first time this year, and it will likely take me a week to process all that I saw and learned. While I took some meetings, and did the requisite networking, I spent a lot of time on the floor gazing into our future. The few film industry people I knew seemed to spend most of their time in their booths or in meetings, and wondered why I’d spend so much time on the floor. But as my good friend, and trusted guide to all things CES, Meyer Shwarzstein (of Brainstorm Media) told me - you have to visit the floor because that’s where you’ll see what’s happening next in our business.

  Unless you are a brick, you probably heard a lot of the news out of Vegas, but the big things this year were: all things Artificial Intelligence; robotics; VR and AR; 5G; Privacy; 8K screens; drones; IOT and smart homes; Virtual assistants and self-driving/flying transportation. But here’s my quick takeaways:

  8K Screens are game-changers: Yes, we’ve all seen big screens, and we’ve had 4K and great sound-systems for quite some time, but when you stand in front of the new wall-sized 8K screens from Samsung, and roll-up OLED TVs from LG, you really wonder why the fuck anyone would go to a movie theater again. Aside from artificial windowing practices delaying my purchase, and the slight delay we’ll get before people can pay for and adopt these new screens, they’re simply better than any theater screen and all arguments in favor of theaters fall away (oh, it’s a group experience...I have Facebook, and can invite over my friends, etc.).  And yes, I am drooling over that roll-up screen.

  

  VR/AR works...for games: Oh, the high hopes we had for VR. But at CES, it was clear that people have made some cool games, but not much else. As CNET put it so well, “In 2019, VR is a sideshow in a theme park, a marketing stunt, a slide in a PR PowerPoint presentation, a niche hobby for people locked in rooms with a ton of money to spend, and -- worse -- no one seems to know what direction we're headed in, or even what virtual reality should be.” Maybe my upcoming trip to Sundance’s New Frontier will change my opinion, but at CES, VR was best when being used for a cool game, but most of them weren’t games you’d pay for more than once, or want to own.

  Autonomous Vehicles are here, want them or not, as are Autonomous Cameramen: You could get an autonomous Lyft, although everyone else will swerve around you - killing others in the process, because they just don’t trust them. There was an autonomous 16-wheel big-rig, autonomous delivery robots, drones, prototypes for autonomous flying cars. That’s all well and cool, and it probably means I’ll be catching up on more films while a robot drives me to Vegas in the future. But the autonomous/robotic tracking cameras were also all the rage. Multiple companies debuted cameras that can follow individuals with or without sensors - and from tiny cameras on your phone to gigantic camera arrays that can capture an entire sporting event, or drone cameras that can follow any mountain climber up a wall without getting tired. Lots of company’s essential pitch was: you can’t afford to hire a film team, but our robot cameras can do the work for you. Look out my filmmaker friends.

  Distributors wanted: Attending CES with a new product, no matter how good, is a bit like making a little indie film and going to Cannes (or Sundance/Toronto/Berlin): it’s easy to get lost, and hard to stand out, yet thousands attempt it every year against all odds and a few make it.

  The parallels with the film business are unending - the big guys have bright and shiny booths, they take out ads all around town and have armies of people trying to grab your attention to buy their new shiny object. The little folks are stuck into Eureka Park, itself a cavernous building with thousands of competitors, and they get a tiny booth to hawk their wares. No one has taught them how to market themselves, they don’t have any sense about how to pitch their own project (because they just focused on making it), and to make matters worse - the biggest movers and shakers can’t be bothered to even visit “the floor,” instead preferring to take meetings in suites and do business away from the plebes.

  There are country-sponsored zones, where Holland or Japan spends money to promote its industry (just like we have Unifrance with a booth at Toronto). And you can spend your lifetime crafting something unique and cutting edge, only to be placed next to some gimmicky crap that draws away all of the attention. Right next to these robotic chicken heads, clapping away… a poor guy who built an open-AI with deep learning that can teach itself to locate humans or cell-phones or your watch in a video in real time (or anything else you want it to do, actually). He tried to be good natured about it, but admitted “people seem weirdly attracted to the clapping robot chickens.”

  

  
  

  

  And what sign did hundreds if not thousands of start-ups have on their booth? Distributors wanted. Please, someone, anyone with any knowledge of the market, please help me bring this to the masses - I know they’ll like it. And unfortunately, most of those distributors aren’t even visiting their booths.
  

  We are the Robots: But if I learned one thing, it’s that the robots are already taking over by...well, turning us into the robots. Take for example the multiple kitchen tools - that read you the recipe, and tell you what to do and where everything is, and whether its fresh and how many calories...so that you can do the cooking. Shouldn’t the robot be doing that?

  Example after example of this dynamic was on display at CES, but to be honest, you need look no further than your likely email program - Gmail. Now that I have auto-complete turned on for my emails, my only reason to exist is to push the tab button, approving the text it has already guessed for me. Again, I’m the robot, and we’re barely into this revolution.

  This message was written by my robot. I just typed the words it dictated to me.

  WHAT I'M READING: FILM

  Sundance’s Creative Distribution team surveyed film distributors about what they want, and how they operate, and published the results online. This one has been making the rounds, but just in case you missed it, it’s a great service to the field (done in conjunction w/ the great Dear Producer newsletter, which you should read if you don’t already).

  The Big Winner of the Golden Globes? Netflix and Hulu. And they did it by giving the consumer what they want, producing an overwhelming amount of content ,and by just generally breaking all the rules.

  WHAT I'M READING: AR/VR/TECH:

  We’re stuck with click-bait, intrusive ads, no privacy and data collection, because that’s all that works online, right? Bullshit, says Zeynep Tufeki in a great little article in Wired. And it can be done through a little bit of innovation. Me: It’s high time we stop believing the old arguments and push for some new ones.

  Meanwhile, a few AI experts tell us what's ahead for 2019: As expected, some feel that we are more years away from the innovations that companies like Google are promising, others feel that the future is foreboding, while others see Ai enhancing user daily life.

  But at the very least, A robot (AI) can now spot art forgeries by just one brush-stroke. Next step - making the same art (forgery?) from what it's learned about famous artists…

  Brooklyn/AR:

  

  Sony just launched an Augmented Reality app-based adaptation of an exhibit formally at the Brooklyn Museum. David Bowie Is will allow users to explore the full museum show in detail from their own home, and for about half the cost.

  WHAT I'M READING: News, Media and Culture:

  Wall Street has an idea on how Disney could beat Netflix: But guess what - it’s about getting rid of windows for its own content. But it’s clear that Disney will not do that as Iger is fond of keeping theaters happy (for now).

  Disney’s Bob Iger Talks Streaming, Park Plans, and Learning from Kodak. Iger is one of the few big media honchos who deserves his job - he’s smart - so listen to this podcast or read the interview to see what he thinks is next for the Mouse and culture.

  The BBC reminds us that Golden Globes and Grammy's aside, the gaming industry is bigger than video and music combined.

  And it all comes down to three properties in 2019: Fifa 19 (A realistic soccer simulation), Red Dead Redemption 2 (An open world western ala Grand theft Auto), Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (A military shooter riding on the coattails of this years most popular, but also free to play game, Fortnite). It goes to show that gaming is currently the most innovative entertainment category, and most profitable, and it doesn’t even have a televised awards show.

  Germany’s Far Right Upset over Receiving free tickets to Schindler’s List

  Steven Spielberg’s decision to bring Schindler’s List back to theatres all around the world to spark discussion has been seen as an attack from Germany’s far right party AfD. But what can you expect when most young people (18-35)  know “very little” about the holocaust.

  Podcast from Mass Media Expo:

  I recently spoke on a panel at the Mass Media Expo in Boston, and the great team from the GoCreativeShow Podcast was there interviewing the guests.

  They've just posted the interviews, and they are a great run-down for anyone interested in the current state of media, and what's going on in media in New England.

  My segment is in Part One (55:00-1:05:00) and other guests in that episode speak a lot about the rise of branded content. Check it out at these links

  Part 1

  Part 2

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