• With Apple’s new free content, what’s the future gonna look like?

  • Posted on 11th Oct
  • Category: Newsletter

  This week CNBC (and probably others) carried the news that Apple is going to be making a lot of original content available for free (h/t to Sundance’s Creative Distribution newsletter for the link). While they are “only” spending $1Billion on content this year, people suspect they’ll be spending more. Later in the day of this news, I was meeting with another film executive who pondered – with consumers expecting more and more free content, can any media company not attached to something bigger survive?

  I think it’s a valid question – prognosticators on Wall Street in particular keep betting that Netflix will sell after it starts crashing – and they keep getting proven wrong. But you gotta wonder – with Amazon and Apple and (eventually) Google and Facebook all being big enough to make content and give it away so you use their other services – where they make a lot of money – what happens not just to Netflix, but also Disney- even with the recent mergers – most other studios, and even a lot of broadcasters, etc. It’s not hard to imagine a world where we’re back to the Big Four, but with FAA(n)G being the last folks standing. And yes, I put the Netflix n in lower case because I am not betting against them yet, especially on their current streak. But I can see a world where they start missing subscriber growth as the economy cools globally, and then one of the others just buys the remains.

  I think branded content will push this trend along faster. Right now, only a few are doing anything more serious than some dalliances. But Pepsi, Lego, and I think soon – Lyft, Red Bull and many others are going to take a cue from Katzenberg’s Quibi (which will also be bought) and start upping their game with much bigger investments in the space. And they won’t need to sell their content. They can give it away, maybe just via Google or Amazon, and will be damn good at marketing it too. It’s gonna be an interesting few years ahead.

  WHAT I’m READING: FILM

  

  Per the above, Katzenberg unveiled the name of his new service and it’s Quibi, for quick bites. Dumb name, but the fact that he could even find a 5 letter word still available online is amazing unto itself. A lot of people keep poo-pooing this new company, but I think it’s damn smart to be making high quality short form content with big name creators like those he’s announced – Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, Antoine Fuqua and Jason Blum (but let’s see some women…). He’s basically doing what Vimeo could have done if Barry had been willing to invest more in the brand. Anyways, five bucks says Quibi will be a channel on Apple TV within five years.

  BRANDED CONTENT

  Joy Howard is the new CMO at Lyft. Ok, this isn’t branded content news yet, but I’ve worked with Joy at both Patagonia and Sonos – her previous jobs – on cool branded content, and as I’ve written before, Lyft is already doing cool things in the space, so expect to see more soon.

  Advertising Week was all about original content, and Forbes reports that brands are figuring out that in a saturated media world, distribution is f-n hard stuff. Welcome to my world.

• The Crisis in Indie Film History Viewing (and Preservation)

  • Posted on 4th Oct
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  I don’t normally link to IndieWire articles because I imagine everyone who reads this newsletter also reads IndieWire already. But this week, they ran a great little story about the Crisis in Indie Film Preservation, and I think it’s a must-read for the field, but it also points to an adjacent problem with no easy solution (although I’ll propose one) – access to viewing the history of indie film online.

  Chris O’Falt, the writer, does a great job of describing the problems, so read that first, and by interviewing IndieCollect and Ira Deutchman, he heard from the most knowledgeable people on the subject. But in short, the crisis is that the history of indie film is in danger of disappearing. Films shot on actual film are often degrading, improperly stored, un-findable, or perhaps worse – we might have the original negatives, but no one can figure out what company owns the rights anymore so no one can digitize and distribute it. And the situation is no better, and actually worse, for films that originated on digital because digital formats actually disappear more quickly than film (do you own a DVD player anymore, much less a floppy disc?).

  I take issue with only one point in the article – he says the crisis in indie film preservation was one that “no one saw coming,” which is ridiculous because almost anyone who is active in indie film has known about this issue for quite some time, and there have been efforts to fight this problem going on for decades.

  I launched a program called Reframe with Amazon and support from the MacArthur Foundation, back ten years ago (2008), and we managed to digitize and preserve almost 1000 titles, and I was late to the game back then. Since that time, multiple archives have been working on the issue, as have the Sundance Institute and now IndieCollect.

  

  But the problem hasn’t gone away, and is arguably getting worse because it’s just not sexy for Foundations to give grants to film preservation instead of film making (side note, this proves most grant giving is just brand building, but that’s another article).

  But one of the reasons it’s hard to spend the money it takes to preserve indie film history is that once you do the work, it’s impossible to make money back. As O’Falt observes in his interview with Ira Deutchman – “Netflix and the other profitable streamers aren’t interested (in these films), according to Deutchman – so the cost of preservation is a hardship.”

  This is a problem that goes beyond film preservation. In the past two years, I’ve had multiple filmmakers approach me because they’ve just recently gotten back the rights to their films, and have spent the time to make quality digital masters, but have found that no distributor wants them, because no platform wants their films. Netflix won’t license most of them, and as one distributor told me this week – their only option is to put the film on Amazon Prime via Amazon Video Direct, but the problem with this is that no one rents them and the revenues back aren’t worth their time and effort.

  So filmmakers are stuck with another “self-distribution” dilemma – they can put the films on Vimeo, or they can pay a service like Quiver a few thousand dollars and get them on Amazon, iTunes and some other outlets, but without a marketing budget, no one will find them, and this also takes time away from being an actual filmmaker.

  There’s no easy solution to this problem. The costs are enormous and the return on investment is likely small – there’s a reason Netflix doesn’t want these films. They aren’t the villain here; they just have the data to prove that people aren’t watching them enough to either pay for them or probably even store and deliver them to the small audience that wants them.

  But I’d like to propose that there is a solution to be had here, and while it isn’t easy, it’s the right thing to do. It seems to me that there are thousands of film festivals, indie film organizations, film societies and film theaters that have arisen on the backs of all of these films. Collectively, they showed these films, built an audience, and while they all have their struggles, they’ve become long-standing organizations with a somewhat stable footing. Some have become rather big institutions – IFP, FIND, Sundance, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, etc. And I’d argue it’s their (and our, as fans) collective responsibility to do something about this. There are multiple ways to go about this, but here’s just one idea. It may not be practical, but perhaps it will help start a conversation that leads to something better.

  Almost all of these institutions have members, who pay monthly or annual dues and often their primary reward is discounts on tickets and an email newsletter. These members also happen to be the main potential audience for these films. I’m pretty sure that most of these members don’t think they get much value for their membership, but instead see it as their donation to help a local group they care about, and most of them could easily be persuaded to pay a little bit more if they got something in return.

  If each of these organizations collectively raised their membership dues by $25 annually, this money could go to a pool for film preservation and access, perhaps managed by IndieCollect. They could then partner with someone like say, Kanopy, to provide free access to these films via their membership fee to their local organization of choice.

  I’m sure the numbers here have to be tweaked a bit, perhaps it’s a bigger annual fee or $5 a month more. And Kanopy needs financial compensation from the pool as well, but it also gains a lot of users, and titles, and has more to offer to Universities and library systems who will pay hefty fees for access. And of course, filmmakers need to receive some compensation. Like I said, the potential solutions aren’t easy, but we need to think about them.

  Perhaps a major foundation or three could help underwrite this as a clever joint for-profit/nonprofit collaboration. But something like this could help solve both the crisis in preservation and the crisis in being able to view these films, and take the onus off the filmmakers who are least able to deal with these problems.

  Hate this idea? Send me some others, my contact info is easy to find. Like it –let’s plan for a summit, sometime, to make this work.

  A Note on the Missed Week: You might have noticed that I skipped last week’s newsletter. I’ve been trying to publish weekly, but the trauma of last week’s Kavanaugh /Ford hearings was just too much and I couldn’t imagine writing or reading a newsletter. I’m 100% in her camp and he proved himself unfit for Court, but I have nothing to add to this conversation that hasn’t been said better by someone else. Just letting you know why this was delayed.

  What I’m Reading: Film

  

  Free Solo is killing it at the box office, and also deserves an Editing Oscar. Free Solo just opened to the best Doc opening ever, and the best per-screen average of any film for the year reports Variety (among others). And it deserves it. It’s a great movie that you need to see on the big screen – and due to my work with brands in this space, I’ve seen every recent outdoor film and can say this is honestly one of the best; one that rises above the norms for the field and should be seen by all audiences. It also recently won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival, after playing Telluride (not MountainFilm, either) and coincident with a premiere at the Camden International Film Fest as well. NatGeo and Greenwich films did a great job here, as did the directors. But my vote is that it deserves to be nominated for Best Editing (Bob Eisenhardt) right alongside Hollywood films. I’m not even sure this is possible, but it deserves it. Bob’s editing keeps the momentum going for even the non-Climbing film fan, and even when you know the outcome. It’s truly suspenseful and very well done. Kudos to the whole team. Also, IndieWire has a great interview with Alex Honnold, the star of the film, and it’s worth a read.

  My friend James notes that I haven’t commented on MubiGo – which was announced in Screen in early September, but it hasn’t gotten much traction in the US since that time, as it’s not available here. MubiGo is kinda like a MoviePass for arthouse films in the UK, where if you are a Mubi subscriber you can go to one free curated movie per week. Mubi curates the films- so it’s not the same as MoviePass, but has some similarities. You have to download a separate MubiGo app (aside from the Mubi app), and Here’s the MUBIGo FAQ page if you want to learn more. My take: I like any experimentation. I assume this is coming out of the recent funding initiatives from the BFI and the EU for promotion of European films, and it it’s an interesting experiment to follow. It could be something for Fandor and the Arthouse Convergence to explore here in the US. I’ll try to report more as I get more info (which is shockingly hard to find online).

  Free SVOD Services are Growing in Importance in the US: It seems people are hitting a wall on paying for SVOD services after Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, and are now tuning in to free services like Pluto TV, the Roku Channel and similar services. I’ve heard from filmmakers lately that aggregators are getting more aggressive in wanting fast AVOD rights since Netflix is buying less indie films for SVOD, and this must be why.

  Netflix Adding Choose-Your-Own Adventure Interactive Features to Black Mirror and then to many other shows, reports AdAge among others. Gimmicky, yes, but interactive story-telling is (part of) the future, and that such a giant of the field is doing it already is kinda exciting. I just can’t wait til things get more interactive.

  Showtime Launching Doc about the NYT’s article about Trump’s Tax Evasion on Sunday: Ok, but seriously – if Showtime cared more about the country than branding, wouldn’t it have made more sense to do an Academy run and keep this thing in the news all the way through the Oscars instead of hitting at the same time as the NYT piece? You can’t possibly tell me they couldn’t afford to hire Abramorama or that some theaters in NYC and LA wouldn’t make room for this run at the last minute?! Come on.

  Blatant Self-Promotion Department: I’m distributing a new documentary called Long Time Coming which opens Oct 23rd at the SVA Theater in NYC and multiple other cities via a new system called Nagra MyCinema.

  Here’s some more info on the film: The players of the first racially integrated Little League baseball game in the South reflect on this revolutionary event, building a bridge to heal the social divide that exists in our country today. Featuring Major League baseball and civil rights icons Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, Jr., Gary Sheffield, Davey Johnson and Ambassador Andrew Young. The film opens theatrically Oct. 23rd Nationwide, the week of the World Series. Special one-night-only screening event in New York Oct. 23rd at SVA Theatre. Buy tickets here.

   ART

  
  

  Via Obvious

  AI Produced Artwork is Now a Thing: The “first” AI produced artwork is being auctioned at Christie’s next month, according to Recode. The French art-collective Obvious made the algorithm that made the work. The AI learned from old portraits and kept generating it’s own versions while a “discriminator” tool would keep rejecting them until it couldn’t tell the difference between man-made and machine-made images anymore. That final image is what’s being sold. I guess art isn’t what makes us human, after all. And it will come to movies next. Oh wait, that’s already been done as well.

  What I want to Read: Medium:

  

  The Big Disruption by Jessica Powell available on Medium now. When the former head of communications for Google writes a book about a fictional Silicon Valley powerhouse whose logo is a giant squid, count me as sold. Starting it soon, and hoping it’s at least half as good as Jarett Kobek’s I Hate the Internet, which is a must-read btw.

• Sub-Genre News, Sept 13: NY Indie Guy Retrospective, Camden Film Fest & More

  • Posted on 13th Sep
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  
  Columbia University’s Ira Deutchman: NY Indie Guy Retrospective

  In the “hey all film festivals, please-copy this” department:

  From the official release: On September 14-16 and 20-23, Columbia University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts will host a retrospective honoring the film producer and distributor Ira Deutchman, one of the essential figures in the history of American independent films.

   Since 1975, Deutchman has been a leader in distributing, marketing, and producing the work of independent directors like John Cassavetes, Barbara Kopple, Joan Micklin Silver, John Sayles, and Steven Soderbergh. Deutchman is perhaps best known for his work founding and running the distribution companies Cinecom, Fine Line Features, and Emerging Pictures.

  To find out about films and purchase tickets, go to arts.columbia.edu/nyindieguy.

  Films from the retrospective include both classics from the history of independent cinema and gems waiting for rediscovery. The celebration will also include panel discussions and an extensive exhibit covering Deutchman’s impact on cinema.

  My take: When I first moved to NYC to try to break into the film business, I begged the only person I knew with any film connections to help me get some job interviews. That person was Cara White, who had co-founded the PR firm Clein + White, which was arguably the most important PR firm of that time in indie films, and she introduced me to three people, and one of them was Ira Deutchman, who was then running Redeemable Pictures.

  I grew up traveling an hour from my home in Seminole, Florida to the little St. Pete Beach Theater (now closed, but there’s a movement to try to re-open it) to watch many indie/arthouse films that had the logos of the companies Ira had worked for/or run/founded on them, so that first intro was like being introduced to a bonafide celebrity for a film geek.

  His tenure at Fine Line (1990-95) roughly overlapped with my time in undergraduate film school (89-93), and includes some of my favorite films, which were their own little film school: 1989’s “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (Steven Soderbergh); 1990’s “Metropolitan” (Whit Stillman); 1991’s “My Own Private Idaho” (Gus Van Sant); 1992’s “The Player” (Robert Altman); 1993’s “Short Cuts” (Robert Altman) and you can’t not mention 1994’s “Hoop Dreams” (Steve James). And he worked on many more – too many to mention here.

  While I’ve never asked Ira if he remembers this, he did take a phone call with me briefly, even though he had no openings, and that was pretty nice of him because I had very little experience and he was a busy guy. Over the years, I was lucky enough to have many more phone calls and conversations with Ira about the indie film business, and these all shaped my understanding of the field immensely. He taught me indirectly, by way of example: that indie film has always been a crazy business; to support work that you love; to give back to the community via teaching; and most importantly, to keep innovating, which he always did through the companies he launched, and he continues to do with the film work he’s producing/directing now (more news on that should come out soon).

  When I’d complain about the state of independent film exhibition, he introduced me to the leaders of the Arthouse Convergence, so I could learn what was really going on there (a lot), and what else was possible. We’ve also brainstormed many distribution ideas together – and he’s helped me kill many a bad idea before it went too far. We’ve been on more than a few panels together at film fests, and I’ve listened to more than one of his keynotes, and he’s always one of the smartest folks in the room when it comes to thinking about the art and business of film.

  If you are in/near NYC or can get here, the retrospective is a must-attend event. I especially recommend the “Conversation with” panel, where you can hear from him directly about the past, present and future of the industry. They also have 3 other panels scheduled on the current state of the field, Ira’s contributions to indie film, and the crisis in film preservation, that are all great events. Plus some of the best indie films of the past few decades will be screening, with many guest speakers.

  This is a program that I truly hope inspires others to copy it – I’d love to see a smaller version of this film series and panels travel to Sundance and to regional film festivals near and far. So programmers/organizers: take note and copy away.

  What I’m Reading: Film

   In the who has extra money for this crap department, The Wrap bought VideoInk, and is turning it into The Wrap Pro. This is so all kinds-of-expected-but-weird. My only hope is that the unnamed strategy here was an acqui-hire of their designers, because you couldn’t pay me to try to read The Wrap’s graphic design. Which is kinda sad, because in theory, I like what Sharon Waxman seems to want to build here with an in-depth news site, deeper dives via subscription and events to boot – but without a much better user-case than “ some accounts-payable team will pay for this” strategy, I don’t see why I’d fork over any money for this instead of the other trades and existing paid subscriptions that overlap enough for in-depth news, like The Information. The problem in this space is that it’s hard to bite the hand that feeds you, and fewer in film media are willing to do this than in perhaps any other space in journalism/advertising (again, here, they are almost always the same).

  I’m off to moderate the Points North Forum Pitch at the Camden Film Festival, for the umpteenth time: I’ve been doing this for who knows how many years now, and it’s become one of my favorite duties each year. I get to moderate a panel of about 15 film funders as they take pitches from six teams of documentary filmmakers who pitch for seven minutes and then get 12 minutes of feedback from the panel. Some people get money, most get made and all of them get great advice; and it’s one of the rare pitching forums that allows the general public to watch, making it quite a fun event all around. Besides that, the festival has awesome programming, a stellar team, a beautiful, destination town, and just might throw the best film festival parties, which is saying something since most festivals take their party programming as serious as their films.

   What I’m Reading: VR

   Forbes looks into the future of VR in retail and consumer experiences. Visiting with LucasFilm’s ILMxLABs, they look at everything from the future of virtual pets, to re-visiting the place where you got engaged – all in service of hyper-consumerism. Some interesting stuff here, if we ever get past the current bad-360-video-land and into the future.

   What I’m Reading: Branded Content

   Mattel has launched a film division: And they hired a great person to run it, Robbie Brenner, a producer of Dallas Buyer’s Club among many other things. But as Forbes reports, Mattel has been screwing up a foray into movies for a long time, and the company’s not doing so great. So this hail mary pass may not lead to a win anytime soon, but let’s give her a chance to do something cool with the brand.

  BrandStorytelling interviews Kari Kirschenbaum from Oath’s RYOT Studio about their work promoting MOTHER. (video link). She talks about how they worked with digital graffiti artist Insa to create a giant AR/interactive film poster and experience in London, which led to ancillary video content that was viewed over 57 Million times to help promote the movie. An older campaign, but a pretty cool activation.

  Beer Lovers Rejoice: Heineken and NatGeo have a new short-form text and video piece about the discovery of what they call the “mother” yeast in Patagonia, and they’ve turned it into some beer and content. My take: I’m not a fan of the brand’s signature beer’s taste, but love that they sponsor film fests and branded content, and am skeptical of branded science, but it’s a kinda cool little short about finding an undiscovered yeast – supposedly one of the missing links to the beginnings of all yeast – and turning it into a beer, and it fits the NatGeo mission, so it’s a (little bit of a) win for both.

  Nike’s sales went up 31% after the Kaepernick Ad ran, says Time Magazine. As I said before, that was a smart move.

• On not Submitting to Sundance next week, and other post-vacation news

  • Posted on 6th Sep
  • Category: Newsletter

  On Not Submitting to Sundance next week:

  

  
  

  

  Next Friday, September 14th is the official, public deadline for all projects to submit to Sundance (unless you asked for and received an extension). Which means just about everyone I know in the industry is rushing like mad-folks to finish a rough cut of their film that is good enough for Sundance.

  Up until a week ago, I was doing the same, with an unnamed team of filmmakers on an unnamed project. But then we realized we just couldn’t finish a good cut of the film in time for the deadline (even if we had an extension), and that there was a good chance we wouldn’t have the best cut possible for the festival in January. So we pulled the plug, slowed down, took a deep breath, and… it’s the smartest thing we’ve done, and I encourage more of you to do the same.

  I’ve been involved in some manner with at least twenty, if not 100, films that have rushed to get a good rough cut submitted to Sundance by the deadline. And a few of them have gotten in and done just fine. But I’ve also seen way too many that not only didn’t get in, but had no business trying with the cut they had by the deadline, and I think it’s a mistake to succumb to the pressure. Heck, I see at least 3-4 films at Sundance that aren’t ready for viewing and feel like they need a few more rough cuts, and that likely would have performed better if the filmmakers had just waited for another festival.

  You only get one chance to put your best foot forward, and you’re doing yourself no favors by submitting something that was rushed and not ready for prime-time.

  Sure, you still have time to make it better before the festival, so why not give it a shot, you might be thinking. And I’ve been part of teams that had films accepted into a festival (not Sundance) based on a rough cut of just a segment of the film (yes, that also happens), but far more films are rejected because they weren’t ready than are accepted on a bad rough cut. Remember, Sundance isn’t the only great festival out there (I don’t need to name the others, we know who they are), and with the current changes in the marketplace, you could even argue that you might end up showing the film to buyers before a premiere elsewhere. You have lots of opportunities, but only one chance to premiere the best film possible, and no one knows you’re even close to done yet, except for you.

  We all thrive under pressure and deadlines, or we wouldn’t be in this business, but most films need a lot more time in post than anyone budgets for, and your film will have a better chance of getting in, and then getting seen and brought to market, if it’s as polished as possible.

  If your edit is really tight, and you’ve locked in most of the story and just have finishing work to be done, then by all means – submit by next Friday. But if you’re debating whether your cut is ready, it probably isn’t, and my recommendation would be to slow down.

  

  End of Social Media and Newsletter Writing Vacation:

  Every year, I take a break from all social media for the entire month of August and until just after Labor Day. And this year, I paused this weekly newsletter as well. I’m back from that vacation, but I am not back on social media. As I have hinted before, I am finding that I don’t miss Facebook or Instagram at all anymore, and have no interest in Twitter or other platforms at all. I have to use them for client work – part of my job is marketing films on these platforms because that still works (as of this moment, but it’s getting less effective daily); but in my personal life, I’ve found that there’s no news that I need to know about that doesn’t eventually make it into the NYT, trade publications, and/or a few other newsletters I read (Redef and Unsupervised Learning being my current faves). The updates I used to love from friends and family have been drowned out by the vitriol that’s taken the place of normal discourse. I’ve also found that every second not spent online is another moment I can use for something more meaningful and creative, and I’m much happier, so I highly recommend you consider doing this as well.

   

  What I’m Reading: Film

   

  NYFA made a series of videos about Audience Engagement. Eugene Hernandez moderates them quite well, and they’re worth a watch.

   

  Vimeo offering stock footage for sale: I guess if you can’t make a run against Netflix, then building more tools for creators is a good thing, and now Vimeo has launched a service where filmmakers can sell their footage as stock footage. This is actually something I’ve hoped they’d offer for a long time, so kudos to them. Hint hint: you get more for 4K and there’s actually a big market for that stuff.

   

  Alamo Drafthouse is opening in Lower Manhattan. YAY! I’ve been saying for years that we need a great theater in Downtown Manhattan now that it has become more residential than commercial/business oriented (it’s stroller central down there). And now Deadline reports that Alamo is taking a space on Liberty Street, along with a video store (with free VHS – yes, VHS- rentals to boot). The smartest folks in the business make another smart move. Will Amazon buy them before the end of 2019? That’s my bet, and you heard it here first.

   

    Kenny Shopsin has passed away. Ok, this is tangential to film, but if you’ve been around the festival circuit as long as I have, you’ll never forget seeing I Like Killing Flies, the great documentary about the legendary Kenny Shopsin of Shopsins. I was lucky enough to meet him a few times, thanks to a regular who had an office next door to me years ago, and took me for multiple profanity-laced life-lessons over awesome meals (every obituary is about name dropping…). I’ve also become quite a fan of his daughter, Tamara Shopsin’s books. If you haven’t seen the movie, watch the film. Here’s a great clip where he explains why you’re a piece of shit (I am too), and that’s ok. Trust me. Watch the film.

  Blatant self-promotion: I’m producing a new film, The Outside Story, with Frank Hall Green from director Cas Nozkowski, and while I was on vacation, we announced that Brian Tyree Henry (Paper Boi from Atlanta, among many other roles) has joined the cast. We shoot in November, and I can’t wait.

   

  What I’m Reading: VR

   VR is Dying… because of short-term thinking. Or so says Nicolás Alcalá

  in a fantastic post from early August announcing both the death of his VR company and the many reasons why he thinks the industry is struggling. His main message: we didn’t say the iPhone was dying when it “only” sold 1.39M units upon launch and 11M the next year. And we shouldn’t say VR is dying when Oculus Rift launched in 2016 with 6M units and is now at around 20M. It takes time. And it takes a big investment in great content, places to see it, and in marketing to see it. My take: Amen brother. I’ve been a fan of Nicolás’ work since The Cosmonaut days, and he’s always ahead of his time and right about what needs to be done. Content and marketing are the answer, along with thinking bigger. And best of luck to him on his new venture.

   

  What I’m Reading: Branded Content

   AdWeek Reports on Grindr’s moves into content: By far, one of the most interesting talks I’ve seen at a conference was Grindr’s Editor in Chief speaking at BrandStorytelling about the launch of their digital news magazine. Now AdWeek has a great little article about what they’re doing. You wouldn’t expect great content from a dating app, but you’d be wrong.

  Nike and Kaepernick: This is more of an ad than branded content, but kudos to Nike on making the smart move of the year with Colin Kaepernick in their new ads. AdWeek has a rundown about lessons learned, but let’s be honest – Nike is just taking a page from Patagonia (another client), with their smart embrace of controversial causes – such as suing the President and announcing he “stole your land” in their ads. Nike isn’t dumb. They know their younger consumers want brands to stand for something, and take on controversial causes. They also know that the backlash from Trump supporters is just amplifying their message to the consumers that matter. It also gives them quite a press/buzz bump at a time when they’re struggling from poor sales and poor management (with a #metoo problem as well). The lesson for brands is clear – don’t be afraid to be an activist company, because that’s what your core customer wants. From my perspective – brands are having more impact on social issues lately than the usual players (foundations and nonprofits), and it’s about time.

• Sandra Schulberg gets a Gotham and other Sub-Genre News for Sept 21

  • Posted on 5th Sep
  • Category: Newsletter

  
  Sandra Schulberg honored with an Honorary Gotham Award  – Another week, another indie film legend and dear friend honored in NYC – and this time it’s Sandra Schulberg who founded the IFP and IFP Market – which just had their 40th anniversary. She also co-founded First Run Features, and has produced and financed many indie films, and now founded and runs IndieCollect, which is helping to save the history of indie film. Sandra was one of the first people I met in indie film via the IFP, and she’s been a trusted advisor and friend since that time. I was briefly on the board of IndieCollect as well, and highly recommend you consider supporting their mission too. Read more about Sandra’s contributions to indie film here. Congrats to Sandra, and smart move, IFP!

  What I’m Reading: Film

  Spotify is allowing artists to Directly Upload and Manage their Music When will this hit the film world? Spotify is allowing select artists to upload, manage, track and receive payments for their music on a transparent platform. Right now, it’s limited, but will likely roll-out to the public. As my friend Eric Stein said on LinkedIn, this quote is quite an understatement: “Should Spotify eventually roll this out as a public feature, it could have a great impact on the indie music market.” We can see this coming to the film world already via Amazon Video Direct, and I could see it working well for iTunes and other platforms. Netflix is taking a curated approach, but DIY direct UGC uploading and selling of film should be next (beyond Vimeo).

  Stephen Follows analyzed how many festival films get distribution. And it’s a pretty cool little study, although it only looks at the top Global fests (Sundance, Cannes, etc.) and only at narrative films in competition for the Grand Jury Prize. But it shows that a good percentage do get seen.

  How will Disney’s Version of Netflix likely work? The Hollywood Reporter delved into it, and I think most of their guesses are correct.

  Should Movie Studios buy Movie Theaters to keep control of the business? Zach Evans thinks so, and he thinks they should do it as a consortium to offset costs and allow for more flexibility as a group to try new models. My take: I agree, they should, because it allows for more direct to consumer offerings, and they can re-create a MoviePass type experience, with a SVOD option as well. Plus, the Justice Department has made it clear they’re open to re-evaluating the old laws against this stuff. Further – Indie distributors should be looking to do the same with art-house theaters, before it’s too late.

  But FAANG Groups should not buy legacy media companies, says Matthew Ball in a tweet-storm on Redef. And his argument is pretty convincing, but I think one will do so anyway. Why? Because it often seems easier to buy your way into a business you should be in than to build it from scratch. And FAANG needs to grow its content businesses.

  

  A few Start-ups are helping Indie Filmmakers get their projects made, according to TechCrunch (h/t Redef). Some of this is old news, but it has a good run-down of sites like Tongal that help you pitch brands, LegionM for crowd-sourced funding and promotion of feature films, MovieCoin for blockchain funding of films, and a good write-up of how WattPad is getting stories discovered by Hollywood. Worth a quick read if you don’t already know about these sites.

  Dinner and a Movie: Vox takes a surprisingly deep-dive into the world of movie theater concessions, restaurants, bars and how/why this is all growing so fast.

  What I’m Reading: Branded Content

  Jordan Kelley posts his second update on the conversations from the BrandStorytelling: Elevate Conference. A great recap on what brands are thinking about when it comes to distributing and evaluating the performance of branded content. A lot of this advice holds true for people in the non-branded film/content space as well, and is worth a read, because distribution and measurement remain the toughest parts of the business whether you’re an indie or a brand.

• Sub-Genre News July 26: BrandStorytelling & August Social Media Vacation Edition

  • Posted on 26th Jul
  • Category: Newsletter

  Updates from the BrandStorytelling Conference:

  I’m writing this week from the BrandStorytelling Conference – a twice-a-year, somewhat exclusive gathering of brands, producers, agencies, production companies, etc. that work in branded content, broadly defined. Many of the sessions are closed door so people can share things openly, but I’ve gotten permission from the speakers to cover a few items that I found particularly interesting, and my thoughts on these are below.

  Overall, the conference is a great event. It is organized quite well by the presenters – kudos to Rick Parkhill and team. While they can’t fit everyone who wants to attend (literally, there isn’t enough space), you can follow what they are doing and what they are writing on their blog, or by subscribing to their newsletter here. I highly recommend it. So here’s two brief case-studies and some general take-aways.

  Lyft’s Brand Partnership with The Equalizer 2 (And 1): Did you catch The Equalizer 2 like everyone else did this past week? Turns out that whole Denzel being a Lyft driver plot-line was not by accident – it was a brand partnership put together by Lyft. Austin Schumacher of Lyft told us that it was the first product integration that Denzel has ever done, which is pretty cool, and shows it was a partnership with the talent as well as the producers/studio.

  I love this article from CinemaBlend that points out that Denzel had to learn how to use Lyft just to play the part, but the partnership worked because it made sense – it fit the story naturally enough not to seem like a gimmick. In fact, in my searches online, people don’t seem to even know it was an official partnership, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t given the brand a boost.

  It’s very smart product integration – Lyft was mentioned in almost every review of the film, received multiple articles about Denzel learning to Lyft in Boston, and they were able to carry out some cool promos for the film, including one to let some Lyft “Driver Heroes” see the movie for free. Which also fits Lyft’s marketing goals – they market both to drivers and consumers, so keeping drivers happy is a smart move as well.

  I have no data, but the earned media had to be through the roof. I did some research and found out Lyft did some promotions around Equalizer 1 as well, so they must have tested the concept and improved upon it this year. Kudos on a great campaign, that went far beyond product placement.

  

  They also showcased the new season of their partnership with Kevin Hart – Kevin Hart, Lyft Legend on the Laugh Out Loud Network. It’s a great little short-form, episodic series with Kevin picking up unsuspecting real passengers, in disguise as Donald Mac. It’s in keeping with Lyft’s more humorous brand (Uber would never do this), and again, it’s a true partnership because Lyft gains from the association with Kevin on some smart marketing, but Kevin Hart also gains as he builds his Laugh Out Loud network with comedy. Austin told us that Kevin agreed to 15 hour days and didn’t request his usual extra payments to promote it on his social media – because it was mutually beneficial. Again, a great campaign.

  NatGeo and BMW take branded content “further” with Behind the Shot: John Campbell of NatGeo took to the stage to discuss their recent partnership with BMW on Behind the Shot. It’s great.

  

  NatGeo is the number one brand on social. Their main Instagram (they have a few channels) has 89.4 Million subscribers, and as I mentioned last week, they are doing some great things on IGTV. How do they do this? As John explained on stage, they have done two important things: 1) they moved from a monologue to a dialogue with their consumers – participatory culture; and 2) they let their photographers curate their Instagram instead of the brand curating it – they give some control to the artists, so they can do their job and be authentic.

  And they also have a mission/purpose, which for NatGeo is called “Further,” showing people doing amazing things and pushing the envelope to do something better, epitomized by their Further Community. Or as their website says: “This year, as one of the largest and most trusted global media brands, we’re partnering with a new class of influencers to create original stories around travel, culture, science, innovation, and wildlife. These are stories told from the human angle and about motivation, survival, discovery, wonder, and mind-blowing courage and bravery.”

  For this project, NatGeo worked with four different photographers and each one had an assignment. For example, Anand Varma followed bees and used a newly developed tiny camera to go inside the hive and capture them in never before seen shots. You can watch that episode here. In each case, the photographers also captured BMW, usually by going to the locations in a nice new BMW X3. It’s not subtle brand integration, but it helped make some cool short form content.

  Most of the series was launched on Instagram Stories, meaning it’s disappeared from there by now, but you can watch most of the videos online and on the Facebook page for the project. There were ten chapters on Instagram and they ended up with 56M+ impressions, 3M+ video views, 85K social impressions, and this in turn led to a significant lift in awareness of the X3 redesign and 37% of people surveyed associated BMW with the “Capable of More” tagline. This is pretty impressive for any kind of campaign like this.

  Important takeaways: Stories are super popular now on Instagram, and most people at the conference agreed that Stories beat the feed by far. While NatGeo and BMW are big brands, anyone doing content online should follow their lead – IG Stories, giving artists some freedom, be authentic, have a mission, and you can have a big impact via social stories alone – this didn’t need a broadcast component at all. Campbell reported that after NatGeo CEO Gary Knell spoke about the project with a large group of photographers, they all went from skeptics of branded content to seeing the power of using brands to amplify their message, and we’ll be seeing a lot more of these projects from NatGeo in the future.

  Other takeaways from the conference: Brands are starting to make bigger investments in this space. Whether it’s episodic, short form, long form or even text based stories, managers are putting a lot more money and time (and people) into branded content and “upping their game.” Everyone also wants better metrics – but no one is sure what matters most, and the consensus is that each brand is making up their own, with a heavy lean on earned media as being more important than impressions. That said, just like in the traditional doc world, there’s a lot of boredom with the metric movement. More brands are launching in-house studios, and will work with freelancers, but are coming up with more IP and guidance internally (me: they should also act like studios and focus on what they know best – branding and marketing). Very few people are doing long-form content that can end up on Netflix, but that’s everyone’s goal (ironic since Netflix doesn’t give you numbers).

  Marriott has been super active in this space and had some of the best advice: move towards owning your IP; look at content that can be franchised; Monetize; Own your library; live content is a growing area (concerts, etc.); and their digital magazine has given great ROI – content is not just video. And they’ve done such a great job that now other brands want to be featured in Marriott’s branded content, which is a nice sign of success.

  Overall the space is maturing and people are setting best practices and moving towards some smarter measurement, but right now are going with their guts that this stuff works. I’m already looking forward to the next conference in January.

   WHAT I’m READING: FILM

  5.4 Million Customers will cut the Cord in 2018: Making for a loss of $5.5 Billion for the industry, and bringing the cumulative total to 18.8 Million cord cutters, according to a report from cg42 in MarketWatch. Me: So who is watching all those shows being made on those channels? How does anyone compete with Netflix, et al.? Fun times.

  

  Did your Congressional Reps sell you out on Net Neutrality? Find out how much money your representatives took from big media against Net Neutrality in the FFTF Battle For the Net Congressional Scoreboard. It shows who voted for what (For/against) and how much money they got to do so, and also helps you thank the good folks and slam the bad. Nice little tool, but buried under a lot of requests for donations from the Org – they do good work, but beg more than PBS.

  Where should you premiere your short film? Everywhere, all at once, says Short of the Week (ht/Sundance Creative Distribution Newsletter), and I agree 1 million percent. The article is a great study of festivals vs. online, with many case studies and lots of data to back up their argument. Be ubiquitous.

  BitTorrent Acquired by Blockchain Company, Tron: Nearly every single blockchain for film proposal I’ve seen sounds like BitTorrent 2.0, and now Tron has realized that too, and just went and bought them (reportedly for $126 million via Variety). Another move for a decentralized web/film platform, but the real story here for now is that you just can’t kill BitTorrent, though many an owner has tried.

  VACATION from the newsletter/blog and social media – Ever since 2010, I’ve been taking a vacation from all social media and blogging/writing the newsletter during the month of August. And I go off email for 2 weeks in late August. It’s a much-needed break from the interwebs and busying my mind with often useless stuff that distracts from real creativity (imho).

  

  A couple of years ago, I came back from vacation, but dropped Twitter permanently. Last August, I came back and decided to take everything except Instagram off my phone and only use social media on my work computer. Around the time of the election, I decided to drop Instagram off the phone too, and in January, I pretty much stopped using everything completely. And I don’t miss it at all. I highly recommend taking an extended break. If you read a real newspaper, you won’t miss any news items, and I guarantee you won’t miss the vitriol or FOMO. Weirdly, I’ve been using LinkedIn a bit, which I used to hate. But I’ve found that more and more people are using it for work related posts of relevant info, and they tend to avoid politics. I post this newsletter there and check posts from some key, smart friends once a week.

  Why am I telling you all this? Two reasons. First, the newsletter/blog is going on hiatus until the week after Labor Day. Hope you enjoy the break from my writing as much as I will. And two – to encourage you to do the same. Take a break for one month sometime. If you work in media/arts, no one seems to work in August anyway, so it’s a great time to try it.

  Til September…

• SubGenre News, July 20, Netflix, New Cash, China and Cheeseburgers

  • Posted on 20th Jul
  • Category: Newsletter

  This week’s news is dominated by multiple reports on Netflix, due to their stock gyrations and a bevy of press. But we learn of a new film fund, and new ways brands are using Instagram TV (IGTV). More original thoughts next week, when I’m not offsite with clients all week. Until then, here’s the news:

  WHAT I’m READING: FILM

  New money for film via The Eyeslicer Radical Film Fund: The folks at the Eyeslicer – a traveling, variety film show – raised some money on Kickstarter for their next season, and are giving a fair bit of it away to filmmakers. It’s not a ton of money, but they are commissioning short films for their site, and pay you for non-exclusive rights, so you can exploit it elsewhere. Read all of the rules on their blog and the easy – and free – application form.

  Is Netflix Falling Off a Cliff? TechCrunch and almost everyone else seems to thinks so, since they missed their own subscriber growth estimates and Wall Street “shaved some $10 Billion off its market cap” this week. While the subscriber graph is scary, I say don’t bet against Reed Hastings, because he keeps on winning. Wait for 250M subs.

  

  
  

  

  Netflix spends more on marketing than many rivals do on content – AdWeek Reports Netflix is spending at least $2Billion on marketing its projects this year. Compare that to Apple and Facebook’s $1B spend, and it’s almost as much as Discovery spends for content now. Colossus. That isn’t headed towards a cliff.

  But they don’t care about Net Neutrality anymore – as TechDirt reports, Netflix is big enough to pay to get the speed it wants and doesn’t care about the Net Neutrality fight anymore, even if they know it’s important. Thanks guys. My take: they probably support its death because that means less chance of competition (though who the f-ck is that gonna be?).

  Chinese Film Slams Drug Prices…and is winning. The WSJ (possible paywall) has a great article on how a low-budget Chinese dark comedy film – Dying to Survive – is taking the box office in China by storm with a message against Novartis and drug prices. The film had brought in close to $374M USD (2.5 billion yuan) since just July 5th, and is already the 6th highest grossing movie in Chinese box-office history. It essentially slams Novartis for raising the price of a leukemia medication, making it harder for Chinese patients to get the medicine. It’s based on the true story of Lu Yong, who smuggled in cheap version from India to save lives. In a weird twist, the Chinese government is also fighting this issue, and is supportive of the film. Novartis is apparently none too happy. Sounds like a film that needs to be duplicated here.

  WHAT I’m READING: BRANDED CONTENT

  IGTV is getting weird, and long: AdAge and Gartner report that brands are making super long videos for Instagram TV (IGTV) the vertical, long-format push from Instagram. Some of it’s weird shit like Netflix filming a Riverdale star eating a cheeseburger in close-up – for an hour – and getting over a million views. You can’t make this shit up.

  But NatGeo is going all-in on episodes to some success. From the article: “National Geographic put a whole episode of One Strange Rock on IGTV, runtime 45 minutes, called “One Strange Rock,” about the many wonders of planet earth. The same show is available on television show, but the network reedited it so it could be viewed in vertical form on Instagram. It had 360,000 views in the first 24 hours, and now tops 1.3 million views since being posted last month.”

  

  My take: long, form’s time has come thanks to better mobile service and against all odds, vertical is winning audiences. Smart brands will move away from gimmicks soon, but they’ll work for awhile just like in the early days of YouTube. Expect more quality stuff like the NatGeo experiment to start dominating.

  

  
  

• SubGenre News: Finland sets the Branded Film Standard and more

  • Posted on 5th Jul
  • Category: Newsletter

  
  

  AR Milk Carton

  Finland for the Win in Best Branded Content maybe ever, with The Unknown Soldier: I don’t know how I missed this, but AdWeek tipped me off this week (read their article, it’s great), and the film premiered back in October overseas. In what I think is a first, the filmmakers behind The Unknown Soldier, funded the majority of their film with multiple brands, who also supported the marketing of the film in a big way – helping the film to become the largest box office success in Finland (and it did well elsewhere). Sure, lots of brands have sponsored films, but this goes to another level.

  
  

  Via AdWeek

  The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna (1954) is Finland’s most popular book, and it had been made into a movie twice before, as well as plays and an Opera. But 2017 was the 100th Year of Independence in Finland, which was a great time to re-make the film and get the entire country celebrating the Centenary. The book, and the film, tell the story of Finland fighting to keep its independence from the Soviet Union during WWII (they may have to do this again now that TrumpPutin are meeting in Helsinki soon…). So as AdWeek quotes Eka Ruola, the CEO of Hasan & Partners, “We want to make sure this story does not go forgotten—because it’s one of the most important stories for the Finnish national identity. We needed our Saving Private Ryan.”

  So director/producer Aku Louhimies worked with ad agency Hasan & Partners to help produce the film and approach brands for support. Multiple big Finnish brands joined on, with about 26 corporate partners (by my count from their website), along with traditional media partners and Finnish broadcasters, distributors, film funds and investors. Brands included a food companies, a milk company, Land Rover, and many more. WikiPedia says rumors have it “that Rafale International, a defense aviation manufacturer whose Dassault Rafale fighter was one of the aircraft in consideration to replace the Finnish Air Force‘s fleet of F/A-18 Hornets, was the film’s main partner.”

  Because it was a historical film, none were able to do product placement, but Louhimies and the team built a platform where each brand could activate around the film leading up to its release. So Land Rover didn’t have its vehicles in the film, but Louhimies made short form content showing the cast and crew using their vehicles in the production. The National Lottery, Veikkaus, sent emails to its best customers to help cast the roles of 3000 extras – and ended up with 14,000 video submissions.

  
  

  via AdWeek

  Each brand got very creative with how it supported the film. According to AdWeek again: “Other activations, all supported on social media, included national TV campaigns from different companies including food brand Jalostaja, and beverage brand Meira. A special edition of the Finnish magazine Tuntematon, by media brand Alma Media, was released in August 2017 and songs were recorded, including one from a top band that reached  No. 1 in the country.” Local milk producer Valio also produced an AR piece that could be viewed on millions of milk cartons distributed throughout Finland (see the video from Vimeo below, and sample products/sponsors below the text).

   

  ARILYN x THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER MOVIE x VALIO from ARILYN on Vimeo.

  
  

  Product Sample 1

  All of this worked so seamlessly in support of the film because they started working with brands 18 months in advance. In an interview with CNBC, the producers say that the combined impact of this marketing gave them 10 times more visibility compared to its own marketing budget. And that led to success – in fact, it’s one of the most successful films in Finland. Their goal was 700,000 viewers, but sold over 1 Million tickets – in a country of just 5.4 Million people. They had over 20 Million social views and a box office of over $14 Million (as AdWeek noted, Titanic is the second highest grossing film there with $8 Million in box).

  
  

  Product Sample 2

  That’s quite a great success story, and one that I hope could be copied in the US. For example, we need a massive effort to combat a lot of what Trump is doing – on immigration, public lands, civility, the Court, okay- the list is unending. But instead of disparate efforts, it would be great to see a similar collaboration here.

  
  

  Product Sample 3

  Imagine if NatGeo (the magazine and the broadcaster) teamed up with a major distributor like A24 and worked with Patagonia, REI, Keen, The North Face, the 200 folks who have signed up to support public lands, major consumer brands like Adidas, major foundations like Ford and MacArthur, nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy, and investors like Impact Partners, and they worked with Sundance to enlist a great filmmaker, and Omnicom to devise a marketing campaign, and all work together to make and release a gigantic film about public lands. That would have actual impact, and we need it – for this and many issues.

  
  

  Sponsors

  
  

  Sponsors

  
  

  Sponsors

   

   

  WHAT IM READING: FILM

  Trump Bites. Bill Plympton has made some awesome little videos for the NYT Op-Docs, called Trump Bites, as in sound bites, and he has a great Kickstarter going to raise money to make more with 110th St. Films.

  

  Trump Inspires Nicolas Winding Refn : Nicolas Windig Refn has been shooting in the US, and he thinks Trump has made America crazy and we need art to save us. As he writes in the Guardian about the launch of his new website ByWFN.com:

  “The future must be different. I want it to be an uncontrolled place of beautiful chaos, where everyone can create their own universe and is free to speak their own mind, without being overseen by big business. A place of free speech and free access. Over recent years, I’ve bought and had restored scores of old movies as a hobby. I wondered what to do with them. Then I realised I should share them for free, so I set up a website where they could be streamed. There’s no catch; you’re not being sold anything. Take it or leave it.”

  He continues: “Donald Drumpf was elected on the promise he’d make America great again. Older voters rushed at the chance to return to a comforting fairytale. But they are not the same people who will inherit the US and have to heal its divisions. And the past was rarely this scary.” Looks like an upcoming trove of trash and inspiration both.

  More Crowd-Funding I Like: Two campaigns to fund this week:

  Pete’s Candy Store: This is their last week, and it’s a great time to make a film about an Iranian immigrant to the US who has created a haven of diverse culture- and ice cream – in the East Village.

  The Motorcycle Man: He’s a bad-ass. Support their last dozen hours.

• Warby Loves Mister Rogers and more news for June 28

  • Posted on 28th Jun
  • Category: Newsletter

  

  
  

  Warby’s Postcard courtesy Derris

  Warby loves Mister Rogers. I’m four-eyed, and this past week, I had to get new glasses, which I picked up on Sunday from Warby Parker. Much to my surprise, the entire Rockefeller Center branch of the store was filled with marketing for Won’t You Be My Neighbor, the new Morgan Neville documentary on Mister Rogers. Focus Features made a brilliant brand-marketing campaign with the company, and it turns out it was bigger than just that store.

  
  

  Warby’s Front Door, w me

  But the store activation was great, and is a perfect example for what filmmakers should think about asking for from brands beyond cash. First, the front windows of the store had marketing for the film, which essentially is like having a billboard for your film right smack dab in the middle of one of the most trafficked parts of Manhattan – Sixth Ave at 50th street, right next to Rockefeller Center, the Jimmy Fallon entrance and Radio City Music Hall.

  Second, throughout the store, they had placed postcard stations – you could fill out a postcard with a message to any one of your neighbors or friends and mail it to them from the store. Each postcard was pre-stamped with a Mister Rogers postage stamp, and marketing for the movie. And it was tied to a contest – give your email and be entered for a chance to win a private screening for you and your friends, in your neighborhood. Bingo – marketing message prominently placed throughout the store, and you give your email, so now they’ve built a fan mailing list for the film and presumably future Focus Feature films.

  
  

  Postcard & Pen

  And even better – they provided pens to fill out the postcards, which were also branded with the movie’s name, and there were plenty of them available, encouraging people to take them and advertise the film elsewhere. And to finish it off – a bowl full of Mister Rogers “EncourageMINTS” to take to freshen your breath (and get rid of that marketing taste, I presume…just kidding).

  I emailed the marketing team at Warby, and their PR/Marketing agency responded with some more info about the campaign – which was super nice of them. They said they “launched the #BeMyNeighbor campaign, paying homage to Mr. Rogers’ life’s work and legacy of benevolence and inclusivity.” And they explained that in addition to the postcards, people could enter the contest online with the #BeMyNeighbor hashtag campaign. They held events in multiple cities for about a week, and if you search online you can find lots of local press – earned media – from the campaign. The campaign also included a blog post on the Warby website, and I would imaging more marketing that I didn’t receive.

  
  

  The Mints

  I did think of one lost opportunity – when Warby emailed me my receipt and again to let me know to come pick up my glasses, they should have marketed the campaign there too. I’ve done that with many clients and seen great success from including such campaigns in email receipts.

  But regardless, it’s a great tie-in campaign, and gives some great marketing ideas that any indie filmmaker could copy/replicate – you don’t have to be Focus Features to approach a brand with a great idea.

  WHAT I’M READING: FILM

  Stephen Follows has a great article on advice for filmmakers trying to break into the industry. I recommend the full post, but especially like this graphic he made of the 84 steps to making a narrative feature film.

  

  
  

  Peter Hamilton pens a depressing “anti-case-study” on the problems with investigative docs, by way of the film The Cleaners. It shows how a good film of investigative journalism can get broadcasters on board, premiere at Sundance and then 50 other film fests, and still wind up $400K in debt. Read it and weep. There’s much to learn here, but one big takeaway: don’t make your film without the full budget in place and hope for a big sale to Netflix at Sundance to close your budget gap. Those days are o-v-e-r.

  BitTorrent sold for $140Million to a Blockchain Company named Tron. Yes, you read all of that right. BitTorrent has been part of many schemes for revolutionizing content distribution, and most of them failed, beyond that spectacular piracy part. But as we move towards Blockchain as a potential basis for distributing content and keeping tabs on who needs to be paid, etc. this is a brilliant way for Tron to speed up it’s decentralized hub model. Very smart.

  MoviePass owner Helios and Matheson in more bad news. Business Insider reports that one of their board members and shareholders has been accused of defrauding creditors in India, has quite a controversial past, and gets paid $19K (!) a month to consult for them. This story just keeps getting better.

  What does Will Packer look for in a pitch? Diversity. As he tells Vulture, in an article with interviews with multiple gatekeepers, “I think about the potential diversity of a cast while I’m reading: “Quite a bit. The reason there’s been such a dearth of diversity in Hollywood is because a narrow group of writers have depicted their versions of reality. If I’m telling stories that truly reflect the world, I shouldn’t have to try to be diverse. Also, I’m not white; I didn’t come up in the Hollywood system. This helps me have a very different view of content creation. And I live in Atlanta — not Los Angeles — so I’m naturally around more so-called ‘real’ people, and that helps.” Smartest man in Hollywood, okay he lives in Atlanta, so listen to him. I’m biased though, as we both played football at the same high school in St. Pete FL (and boy has he done better!).

  WHAT I’M READING: BRANDED CONTENT

  Marriott is moving Alexa into hotels. Yes, you’ll be able to use it to dim the lights, order room service and change the channel on your porn-machine, I mean hotel television. But I wouldn’t doubt we see them do some cool story-telling with it in the future – get a bedtime story, or a Marriott-themed tale told to you via Voice as you wake up. Marriott is leading the way in branded content, so this is a logical next step.

• TAG as Branded Content & Other News

  • Posted on 21st Jun
  • Category: Newsletter

  
  TAG as Branded Content

  I went to see TAG this weekend, courtesy of my MoviePass membership, and while I think the movie is better/funnier than the critical reviews, what interests me most about it is the relationship the film has with the Wall Street Journal, and how it’s in some senses a big piece of branded content.

  As most people know, the film is based on a true story, as reported in the A-Hed section of the WSJ in 2013. The original writer recently wrote up his experience writing the article and how it became a film – and why it’s called an A-Hed – and its worth reading. He is also not a woman who could be played by Annabelle Wallis, either, but that’s an understandable change (they also made one of the characters black, so yay for diversity and gender changes to sell films).

  Anyway, while I can’t find any articles online explaining the exact deal between the producers/studio and the WSJ, I am 100% convinced the film has a marketing agreement in place and that we should think about it as a big piece of branded content – even if the WSJ didn’t pay for it.

  The WSJ is mentioned umpteen million times in the movie, including in many awkward ways that had to be stipulated by a contract. And at the end of the film, they show the original article – but they change it from being an A-hed piece to a front page, top-of-the-fold main headline story. Which it wasn’t. A-Hed pieces are on the front page, but they’re always tiny and on the bottom, below the fold. So this was faked too.

  The WSJ also ran their story about the making of the film very close to the release of the film, which could just make sense from a timing perspective as the film is being released, except if you know anything about the timing of stories, you have to suspect this was also part of the deal. Joe Morgenstern was at least transparent about this relationship and being biased in his review, but the rest of the business deal is not too clear/transparent.

  I’m not saying anyone is doing anything wrong here at all – it’s a true story adaptation, and mentioning the WSJ is fair game. But I’m willing to bet that the number of mentions, and having some story come out from the author were part of the contract.

  As newspapers seek more of these deals, we can expect more of these stories, and it seems to me we should have just a little more transparency about the relationship between the parties and how things get reported, since the main stakeholder here is ostensibly an objective news outlet above doing things for marketing reasons alone.

  Regardless, it was a great tie-in for the Journal, even if it was awkward at times.

  STUFF I’M READING: FILM

  Diversity News: Sundance and Toronto will allocate 20% of their press passes to Underrepresented Journalists, says Brie Larson in Deadline; and Stephen Follows reports that only 36% of film buyers in the major film markets of Cannes, Berlin and the AFM were women, and only 32% were “high status” professionals (meaning CEO, managing director, etc.). His article has the full break-down by profession, country and over time, and it’s not been getting much better.

  Blockchain and Media Explained. Blockchain is the hot trend for the future of film and music, but most of the business proposals I’ve seen are complete crap. Why? Because they don’t solve a real problem any better than you can do without it. Benji Rogers of DotBlockChain Music spoke recently about this problem and how he sees the future of Blockchain working in music, and it’s spot on – and the best explanation I’ve seen yet of how it can work best for film. The video is about 20 minutes, but he shows the problems with most of the proposed solutions, and how the proper use of Blockchain can create a better system to distribute content and get people credited and paid for their work. Check it out. (h/t Redef.)

  Chinese Theater Moguls don’t see online/mobile Video as a Threat – that’s the word from the South China Morning Post (by way of China Film Insider to me). While the situation in China is very different than the West, Chinese theater owners (refreshingly) see online watching of films as additive, and building the audience who might also want to go see films in groups. That’s surely the case here, you just have to convince people (still).

  AMC launched a rival to MoviePass. It’s twice as expensive, but you can go to any format (including IMAX), book seats in advance (a big plus) and see up to three movies a week, including the same film again and again if you want. It’s mildly enticing, but only if/when MoviePass fails.

  Kickstarter for Oliver Sacks film: I rarely plug Kickstarter campaigns, but Dempsey Rice is one of my favorite doc filmmakers, and she’s making an animated doc film about Oliver Sacks: The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks, and she’s raising funds now. I’ve consulted with Dempsey a little bit on this project and know it’s gonna be awesome, and not your standard bio-pic, but more meandering and intimate, like Oliver’s books and talks. And she’s got great rewards, like an Oliver Sacks animated swim cap, so you can’t go wrong supporting this one.

  BOOK REC

   Best advice for creatives: Recently, a filmmaker I trust recommended that I read Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday. I don’t usually read marketing-type books, but this was a trusted, word-of-mouth recommendation and so I picked it up from the library…and couldn’t put it down. Holiday’s book is about how to create timeless creative work that lasts, and then how to position it and market it to reach a broad audience, and build that audience over time, all while building your fan base for your career.

  A lot of what he says overlaps with what I teach filmmakers in my lectures – the importance of word-of-mouth marketing and building and owning your fan base. But it starts with how to make great content- whether that’s film, a book or anything else really, and it’s very much about creativity not just marketing, and where they overlap.

  I dog-eared many a page, and took lots of notes, and highly recommend it for anyone who is trying to make great, lasting creative work and get it seen by a broad audience. It’s relevant for filmmakers, authors and other artists, and even for brand-storytellers and marketers. You can read it in less than two days, and I guarantee you’ll get something from it. I make no referral fees here, so I am honestly just pushing this because it is great. Here’s his site, or buy it online (but I recommend your public library, as those figure heavily into one of the story-lines of the book).

  STUFF I’M READING: BRANDED CONTENT

  Grindr makes films. That’s right, Grindr, the gay dating app, is making branded content, and it’s pretty good. Digiday has an article on it, and the launch of their content section called Into, and BrandStorytelling had a great session with them at their conference at Sundance this year, which is captured on their Youtube channel. I attended that panel this year, and think everyone wondered how the heck a dating app could make good content, but they’ve come up with some great editorial around lifestyle, travel, etc.

  Branded Content that Isn’t: Unbanned: the Story of AJ1, the film about Nike’s Air Jordan’s and the NBA, wasn’t sponsored by Nike, but had a lot of cooperation from them, and AdWeek thinks that’s one possible future for branded entertainment.

  The future of ads? Fox just launched more of their new ad formats at Cannes Lions, an as Variety reports, they’re focusing on telling better stories that theoretically are seen as less of a disruption and more as content you might want to watch. Soon, Fox, NatGeo and others will launch Unbreakables: inspiring stories about people overcoming adversity, sponsored by brands. TBWA will produce the ads, and EP the stories, and has come up with over 300 story ideas already, according to the article. Stories might be told in six seconds, or across multiple ads, and even into the social media feeds of each property.

  My two cents: Say what you will about Fox generally, but their ad team is seriously thinking about how to make advertising better, and telling better stories is one step in the right direction. On the other hand, I expect we’ll see a lot of green-washing/pink-washing, etc. as brands try to make themselves look better. The whole “overcoming adversity” trope is also getting a bit tired in the brand space, but people seem to like those stories a lot. So this is a step in the right direction – better storytelling with the potential to reach a lot of eyeballs, and maybe, if done right, the owners of those eyeballs won’t flick the channel and actually might stick around to see the story.

  STUFF I’M READING: NET

  Why AT&T really bought Time Warner, and what it means for consumers and net neutrality: Net Neutrality may be dead, but Ben Thompson over at Statchery has a great break-down of what government and the FCC should do to really protect net neutrality, all informed by the real reasons AT&T bought Time Warner: which was to increase the revenue potential of AT&T especially on OTT and mobile, not to increase the revenue potential of Time Warner (which is what the government’s suit got wrong). My two cents: Bingo, he nails it. As people shift away from cable and towards mobile, this content makes AT&T more attractive and keeps them competitive against Verizon and T-Mobile. The big problem for consumers here, potentially, also looks like a win – AT&T can start offering it’s own content for free (or not counting against data caps), which is called zero-rating. While this at first seems good, it also lets them lock in consumers to their brands, and makes it less competitive for others, meaning ultimately, less choice. It’s a somewhat complex issue, but read the article, because Ben’s proposed solutions are pretty simple and smart.

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