• Sundance Bound

  • Posted on 16th Jan
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  Well, it’s been just over six months since I’ve written a blog post. Been too busy with client work, and I’ve also not had anything interesting to say, I guess. But the annual trek to Sundance brings me back to some thoughts on what’s exciting me about the fest this year, and a little on the state of the industry.

  1. It’s a damn good time to watch indie film
  I can barely make it through the Sundance catalogue, trying to make my schedule. It will be another impossible year, with so many great films to see. I know of at least ten awesome movies that weren’t taken, and there’s likely thousands more I didn’t see. 2016 was a great year for indie film, and 2017 continues the tradition. While there are many brilliant docs and narratives (and VR, and…) I am most looking forward to seeing David Yow in I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore. Yes, David Yow of the Jesus Lizard, one of the best bands of the late 80s/90s. I saw them at least ten times live, and he’s got more energy than anyone this side of Shannon Selberg. Hope he does an impromptu show in Park City.

  2. It’s a damn good time to sell a film

  Buyers galore. Just like last year, you’ve got some deep pockets with Amazon Studios and Netflix on the scene, not to mention the usual suspects, plus you now have Neon, NatGeo upping it’s doc game (competing with Discovery), Bleecker Street, The Orchard, Cohen Media, etc, etc. I could name ten or more hot new-ish companies competing at the ‘Dance. And I hear we’ll hear some exciting news about Amazon Video Direct, and I bet Vimeo as well. BTW, it’s also a damn good time to raise money for films – plenty of film funds in place and launching, and (For some) an expanding economy, plus more people competing to get original content.

  3. The Women’s March

  The talk of 2017 is going to be all about how filmmakers react to the Trumpocalypse (in fact, the talk started the day after). I’ll likely opine on that later this year, but I’m glad to see a whole gang of bad-asses has put together the Park City Women’s March on Main (FB link). I’ll be there to lend my support, and wonder whether anyone will be in the theaters that morning? All P&I screenings should get a second screening to be safe.

  4. Climate Change 

  It’s on the agenda in a big way. With a new and much-reported section called The New Climate, Sundance programs 14+ films, shorts and VR experiences tackling climate change. I’ve helped make and distribute 10+ climate change related films in the past year or two (mainly with my client, Patagonia), so I can’t wait to see what everyone else is doing. I’ve also been pretty depressed post election about the possibilities of film changing the conversation at all, so I am hoping to get fired up and energized by these projects.

  5. Will DIY die in 2017 (did it in 2016)?

  Up until a couple years ago, everyone was speaking about the DIY distribution revolution. Now? Crickets. Sure, I know many filmmakers who hire bookers and do it themselves still, but that’s increasingly when they don’t get many other offers of any significance. It’s much rarer now to see the film that comes into Sundance already announcing they’ll be doing hybrid/DIY distribution. There’s also many fewer aggregator portals to work with (they all seem to want to grow into distributors now, and one’s for sale). I look forward to getting the latest reports from the field at Sundance, but also expect this conversation to continue through 2017.

  6. FAANG rules

  In the financial world, they refer to the FANG companies – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. I add an initial and say Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google. They rule the media world and are gobbling everything in their path. I don’t see how anyone can compete with any of them anytime soon. With Apple announcing they’re moving into original content, and Facebook rumored to be doing the same, you’d have to raise over 300MM to even begin to compete with them on a platform or film service, or as a content maker. In theory that means it’s a good time to be a filmmaker or content maker – and maybe even a distributor. They need films and content. But look at what they’re making. Aside from Ted Hope at Amazon (who for now is mainly making 15M+ films w/ established auteurs), most are concentrating on TV and original series. Talk in the distributor world is that Netflix is buying anywhere from 50-80% less docs than they used to, as well as indie films, and that confirms what it looks like from the consumer stand-point (I can’t find most of the films I want to watch).  I imagine distributors will see deep pockets ready for their better films, but there’s very few of them who understand marketing, especially in an algorithm world, so I could see them being bypassed pretty soon. It’s going to get interesting.

  7. Diversity not so much, but it’s got to change

  I haven’t had time to run the diversity ratios on the Sundance line-up, but I don’t blame them for the lack of diversity in the indie film world – they do a lot to try to help in this regard. While this year’s indie film landscape was pretty diverse – with filmmakers like Barry Jenkins and Ava DuVernay leading a list of great talent – the overall state of things for diversity, and women in film, remains pretty dismal. As Anthony Kaufman reported in July, 2016 in IndieWire: “This year’s first ever Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity, for example, stated that ethnic minorities constituted only 12% of film directors and only 9% of broadcast TV directors, while over half of all films and TV shows failed to include a single non-white character.”

  This must change. The indie film world can’t continue to look like me (white male), and we continue to need more diverse voices in front of and especially behind the camera. Nearly every film organization has a program to address this issue, something Kaufman explores in his very good article above. But the situation isn’t changing, which probably means we need to hold these initiatives for indie film programmers, buyers, execs and theater bookers instead of for filmmakers. I’m willing to bet the diversity ratios for decision makers in this business is even lower than the statistics above, and that influences what gets programmed. For example, there’s been no room for a black female mumble-core (not that they’d want to make that), because these up & coming filmmakers often don’t feel they can even submit to these fests, programmers wouldn’t be inclined to like them nor distributors to find their audience. Tyler Perry made a fortune making films for the underserved Black Christian audience. Well, there’s many more of these underserved niches just waiting for their films, and many mainstream audiences getting tired of only a few Moonlight‘s per year.

  8. Subtitle purgatory

  Sundance, and most film festivals, have a great selection of international, foreign language cinema each year. And a few big (Sony Classics) and small (Lorber, Grasshopper) distributors take the bigger ones out each year. But there’s a wealth of great foreign films, especially documentaries, that never make it to US audiences in any meaningful manner. I was once a doc buyer for a TV broadcaster, and was told to just avoid most subtitled films. That might be because 14% of US adults can’t read, 29% read at a basic, 5th grade level, and only 13% read at a proficient level (!). Or because subtitles don’t show up well on your iPhone, where 33% of consumers watch streaming services. Or it could be because so few Americans seem to care about foreign countries (64% of American citizens don’t have a passport). But the arthouse audience already skews towards an audience that does read and does travel, I’d bet, but if we watched these films, Netflix and their competitors would be buying more of them. It’s also not a lack of good content – attend any international film fest, and the American fare is often much weaker. Methinks this means there’s another underserved niche to be served. I know EuropaCinemas has an initiative to bring more undistributed films to the US this year (I consult with them a bit), but we need some more initiatives here too.

  9. M&A City

  Sundance 2017 promises to be M&A city – but meaning not mergers and acquisitions (ok, that applies as well), but mergers and announcements. Everyone launches new products, ventures and endeavors at Sundance, and this year, announcements should be plenty. I expect some new SVOD services, new original content, expansions of existing players, new film funds (I know of at least 4 in development), new slates, new divisions, new films of course, and mergers. We’ve recently seen the acquisition/merger of Gunpowder & Sky and FilmBuff, and earlier last year was Vimeo and VHX. Gravitas has announced it’s looking for a buyer. And that’s just what’s public info. I suspect we’ll see a lot more of this in 2017 while money is flowing, and we might see many announcements in Park City.

  10. Virtual Reality and new Media test year

  Sundance has what looks to be an amazing line-up of new media – VR, AR, art and panels. I’ve been attending the New Frontier (I think) since it first started, and the past few years it’s been the most exciting and most trafficked part of the festival. I heard a rumor that more people went through New Frontier last year than any other venue (would love to know if this is true). People are genuinely excited about the possibilities when you attend. And of course, billions of dollars have been spent in the sector, with a lot of activity going on. Amazon is moving into the space in a big way in 2017 too. I believe in VR’s long-term importance, but I’ve been unimpressed with nearly every experience I’ve had in VR (but some interesting ones in AR and art), and overall consumers aren’t flocking to it as expected. I think we’ll learn a lot about what’s working at Sundance this year, and 2017 will be a big year for figuring out whether this version of VR will take off or if we need another 5-10+ years of experimentation before virtual becomes reality.

  Them’s my quick thoughts heading into Park City 2017. If you are attending, I hope to see you there.

• Stephen Follows on Windows and how Hollywood makes money

  • Posted on 14th Jul
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  I’ve been following Stephen Follow’s writings on film data for the past couple of years, and he’s doing a stellar job. He recently published this excellent long-read on How Hollywood makes money (or whether if they do) on Blockbusters. It’s a fascinating read, and he breaks down everything you could possibly want to know, from budgeting to production, marketing to windows, and everything else. He promises to write one soon about other types of films, indies, etc. but while a lot of this is particular to Hollywood Blockbusters a lot of it is useful for indie filmmakers as well.

  In particular, I think no one has done a better job at defining release windows for films. Here’s a nifty chart Stephen made:

  
  

  Windowing via Stephen Follows

  Over at the article, he breaks down how each of these work, and how the revenue comes back to the studios. It’s pretty much true for indies, albeit with smaller numbers.

  He also debunks a myth I’ve often believed about marketing costs. Here’s the graph and relevant points:

  
  

  Via Stephen Follows

  It is often claimed that marketing a Hollywood movie can cost up to twice of the cost of the film’s budget, however from the numbers above we can see that this is untrue. Across my dataset of $100m+ movies, the average budget was $150.6 million and the average combined marketing spend was $121.1 million (i.e. 81% of the budget).  

  When expressed as a percentage of the total costs involved with making and selling a movie, marketing accounts for an average of 29% of costs.  Across my dataset, the largest proportion of total costs going towards marketing was 40% and the lowest was 24%.

  With both P&A and Marketing all together, it remains close to  the same as the production budget. This is something indie filmmakers need to realize as well  – you need to spend almost as much on marketing and you do on making your film.

  There’s a great need for more transparency around the numbers in film. I’ve helped Sundance on this with the Transparency Project a bit, but more work needs to be done, and Stephen is doing a great job. Read the whole article here.

• Hocus Pocus – Know your advertisements from your journalism

  • Posted on 27th Jun
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  I do a lot of work in “branded content” – working with brands making films. Call them what you will, even when they’re great, and even when the brand truly cares about making a difference, or making some good entertainment, you can call them what they also are: advertisements. I can argue all day that if the filmmaker has creative control, it’s not much different than a commissioned piece for the BBC (I believe this to be true, but that’s another post), or one funded by MacArthur (again, I believe this to be true), but regardless, the clients I work with are pretty transparent about their relationship.

  Every brand I work with prominently displays their logo at the beginning and often says “Brand X Presents…” so you know that what you’re about to watch is funded by a brand. In fact, we’re all proud of the films we sponsor, and we think they’re great films – that’s what we call them, films. You can quibble with how indie they are, but they’re good short or feature films that happen to be funded by a brand. Some call them films, some call them content, some call them branded films or branded content, but one thing we would never call them is journalism.

  Apparently, the NYT doesn’t share this ethical standard. I awoke this morning to read the NYT in print (old habits die hard), and on the back page of the paper was a full page advertisement, congratulating themselves for the Cannes Lion Grand Prix for Mobile for their VR app, and Grand Prix for Entertainment (italics mine) for their VR film “The Displaced.” It closes:”Congratulations to all who were involved in bringing our journalism to a new frontier.” (italics mine again) Here’s a photo:

  
  

  Ad/Journalism Awards

  Journalism? I nearly puked up my breakfast. That’s the hocus pocus I’m referring to in the title, but let’s call it “virtual reality…” The Cannes Lions are awards specifically for advertising. Or as the NYT’s own Jim Rutenberg describes it in the next section: “On the surface, this festival is a great bacchanalia the advertising industry holds with its clients and business partners in Big Consumer Goods, Big Entertainment and Big Journalism.” Nothing celebrated there could remotely be called journalism. And neither the NYT VR app, or this film is either. The app may be used for journalism someday, but make no mistake, their plans for it are mainly for advertisers. That’s why the app’s description is under their marketing URL: http://www.nytimes.com/marketi...

  And in the case of The Displaced, while you’d have a hard time knowing it from the NYT itself, it is branded content. As Cannes Lion jury president Jae Goodman, chief creative officer and co-head of CAA Marketing so elqouently states (quoted in AdWeek):

  “From the beginning, he said, the judges followed these criteria: The work had to be high quality, have a powerful relationship to the brand, attract an audience and not be interruptive, and be entertainment in its form and not just entertaining in its effect.

  “The Displaced,” which immersed the viewer in the lives of three child refugees, was extraordinary both as an editorial and a marketing piece, said Goodman. Rather than describe its power, he urged the journalists assembled to watch it for themselves, but he did say that it satisfied one criterion in particular—the brand connection.
  “This is a piece of entertainment content that moves the brand and the business that created it forward,” he said.”

  Wowza. How’s that for journalism? It is high quality, but it’s branded content, meant to build a brand connection (here with Mini, GE and Google).

  Why do I care? Does this matter?

  I think it does matter, and I care because the future of our journalism, our advertising and our entertainment (and education, and enlightenment…) are being built now, and when you get your peanut butter in my chocolate and call it journalism, you’ve gone a bit too far. As John Oliver has pointed out, “Ads are baked into content like chocolate chips into a cookie. Except, it’s actually more like raisins into a cookie—because nobody f-‍-‍-ing wants them there.”

  I have no problem with brands making content, obviously, because I promote it all the time. I have problems when this is hidden, or when someone really important (like the NY F-n Times!!!) pretends that it’s just another form of journalism. There’s a lot of ethical standards built up around journalism, and you’d expect our leading US paper to at least pretend to follow them. But in fact, the NYT is probably the most egregious rule-breaker here of all.

  As I’ve shown in many of my branded content lectures, the NYT T Brand Studio – a relatively new entity at the NYT, built to work with brands on “native content” has been up to these shenanigans for awhile.

  Here’s a photo of one of their earliest efforts:

   

  

   

   

  Note that you can easily tell that it’s sponsored content. Well, that didn’t go over so well with advertisers, as was soon reported in AdAge:

  
  

   

  So then they came up with a new format:

  
  

  Note here that the branding is much smaller. You could almost not notice that this great article on women in prison is really an ad for Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, which is how it becomes “native” or icky… Remember, this isn’t journalism. As the NYT T Brand Studio says on their home page: “We create and distribute insightful brand content and experiences that shape opinion.” It may shape opinion, but it’s still an ad.

  Now they just come out and say that they’re VR story sponsored by Mini is journalism. But it’s not. It’s an advertisement. It may be cutting edge, and it may be important, and it is likely the future, but can we please just call is what it is?

  In the meantime, if you want to watch some good films that are clearly branded content, and not journalism, and are honest about it, watch some of my client’s films here or here. Oh, and that’s an advertisement I just wrote, not journalism.

• Saving Indie Film History – IndieCollect and the Apparatus Films

  • Posted on 22nd Jun
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  He Was Once (1989, 16min) via IndieCollect Kickstarter page

  Filmmakers – Do you know where your negatives are? Didn’t shoot on film? Do you know how little time digital masters are expected to last if you don’t keep migrating them to new formats? The history of independent film – especially its current history – is in jeopardy. As an industry, we’re always focused on what’s new and what’s next, but our indie history is just as important as what’s around the corner, and the reality is that the majority of independent films aren’t properly stored, archived and indexed (so they can be found), and current indie films are being shot on digital formats that disappear quickly (remember floppy disks?). Sure, it seems like you can find just about anything on YouTube, but actually, you can’t and even those films online are usually not being preserved for the future.

  Sandra Schulberg has a solution – IndieCollect, and when Sandra comes up with an idea it always goes somewhere – she founded the IFP, and has been a leading figure in the indie film sector (and is also a filmmaker). She realized that the history of indie film needs to be saved, and she’s gathered up a posse of like-minded people, including me and some others – to help out. IndieCollect is indexing, archiving, preserving, digitizing and making available the history of independent film. They’re partnering with existing archives (such as UCLA, the Academy Film Archive, the Library of Congress and others) to ensure that indie films are properly stored, and finding homes for those that are in danger. They’re rescuing thousands of films that were close to disappearing, and they’re working on solutions to make sure that filmmaker’s work can always be discovered, and that (whenever possible) filmmaker’s can get paid for that work.

  IndieCollect recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to save some super cool films from early indie film history – the Apparatus films of Christine Vachon and Todd Haynes. Check out the Kickstarter page to learn more about what IndieCollect is doing, the Apparatus films they are saving and more. If you want to learn more, read this NYT article on IndieCollect, and if you like what they’re doing, please contribute and/or spread the word.

• Windowing & Piracy

  • Posted on 4th Feb
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  Another year, another bogus analysis of piracy in indie film. The latest is this gem from Adam Leipzig (who I actually like a lot), and Entertainment Media Partners in Cultural Weekly. The report came out just before Sundance, but I was too busy to even take a look until now. Adam does a pretty good job of showing the numbers for indie films at Sundance this year – how many applied, got accepted, possible budget ranges, etc. I like it when anyone tries to explain data in indie film, so kudos for this.

  The problem comes when he starts to analyze piracy’s impacts on indie film. He shows a lot of lost revenue, but his calculations are based on a pretty interesting assumption – that 5% of illegal downloaders would have purchased the film at $3 per transaction. There is no evidence, or even theory, presented as to how he arrives at this percentage. But my bigger problem is the logic – let’s just pretend for a minute that 5% of the 12M+ people who illegally downloaded Whiplash would have purchased the film for $3 meaning $1.825M in lost revenue (per the infographic)… well, that assumption leads to another, that there would be a mechanism for them to actually make this purchase. But that wasn’t an option for anyone who pirated Whiplash (he doesn’t offer transaction dates, so let’s assume most of the piracy occurred early in the film’s release). If they wanted to pay $3 for the film instead of pirating it, they couldn’t.  There was no button, no availability, because of old-fashioned windowing practices. This is true of every film on the chart.

  What the study actually shows is not that piracy hurts anyone, but rather that millions of dollars are lost each year because of antiquated business practices. If pirates could buy the films for $3 they might, and if 5% of them did, the business would see millions in new revenues. In fact, for the 14 films from Sundance 2014/5 that he studied, that’s over $6.5M dollars lost because of a crap business model. Seems to me that if we studied this a bit more, we might focus less on piracy and more on getting rid of windows.

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• Predictions for 2016

  • Posted on 11th Jan
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  Every year I send out my predictions for the New Year, and I have to be honest, I don’t have the best track-record. Sure, I was correct last year that it was an important year for Net Neutrality, but no, Chris Dodd wasn’t forced out of the MPAA, and Facebook didn’t launch original content (not to the extent I meant). But I do think I predicted some trends, so I guess I’d take this list more as some predictions for the future, but they might not happen in 2016. Gotta be ahead of the game!

  1. This will be a boom year for indie films, especially for documentaries, but…it will also presage a major crash. Gotta take the good with the bad. First, the good. With Amazon, Netflix, the Orchard, CNN, AJA, Broad Green, Gravitas… and my Grandmother … all funding original content and buying up indie films like crazy, it’s a great time to have an indie film for sale. We might see another year where almost every Sundance film gets distribution, and regardless, I bet Sundance sales will be gangbusters. This is great, and I hope it works for everyone. So what’s the bad? I don’t think it’s sustainable. We have more distributors and platforms than ever. And sure we have more content for all of them,but it’s a crowded market-place and they can’t all make a return on their investment. Amazon and Netflix can wait it out and keep building their base, but a lot of others can’t. So while I think we’re safe for 2016, I am willing to bet that by 2017, we’ll start to see some major flame-outs among distributors. Until then, Party On!
  2. Virtual Reality will also boom and bust. I’m not the only one saying this, but we’ll see more VR companies and products launch, and people will snap them up like crazy. But when the nausea sets in, and customers get bored with most of the actual experiences (yes, once you get over the hype, most are pretty yawn inducing), we’ll see a major back-lash. Probably not enough to kill it, as so much has been invested already, but there will definitely be a dampening. This will lead to a few people/companies going back to the drawing board and coming up with some amazing shit, so it’s a good thing. Plus, it also means there’s never been a better time to build a VR company, get funding and/or sell it and make a fortune. That’s what I’d do if I could.
  3. There will be an ongoing explosion of branded content. I am biased here, as I work almost exclusively in this arena now, but it’s booming and it won’t stop anytime soon. Every day another company launches a new division to make films, or a major initiative. Here’s just a sampling: Levi’s, Patagonia, Starbucks, Marriott, The North Face, Red Bull Media House, GoPro, Timberland, Pepsi, Nike, Chevy, GE, Yeti are all doing some serious films now. Many are actually quite good. This doesn’t even count all of the branded content being made by places like T Brand Studio (the NYT), Conde Nast, etc. Or the Foundations and major nonprofits making content. It’s now a major competitor to other films and TV for at least our attention, and this will only grow as more people come into the space. And brands know marketing, so they know how to build an audience. I suspect we’ll see even more of it in 2016, if not a major push by someone into fiction films as well.
  4. Theatrical will gain in importance. There’s been way too much hype about the death of cinema. Force Awakens proved people will still go to the theater. But more importantly, everyone is realizing that save for a few instances you simply can’t get the buzz and attention you need unless you have a theatrical. This is partly because of the way critics and the press work – they still pay undue attention to theatrical releases over online – but it’s also because it reaches the core audience who then spreads the word to those of us who might not go to the theater and will wait for the digital release. Yes, windows should usually keep shortening, but theatrical remains a crucial part of the pie. Plus, I am coming around to believing that as people begin to find the cacophony of online overwhelming and too much more of the same, they’ll keep seeking out more genuine experiences. I expect we’ll begin to see a small uptick in younger audiences over the next few years as more of them seek something more rewarding than their cell screen or VR goggles. Luckily, here in NYC we have a few new theaters opening, like the Metrograph, so perhaps this prediction will come true, at least here.
  5. The end of aggregation options for filmmakers or The Death of Aggregators or The Death of DIY Distribution. Ok, this one has really already happened. Just two years ago, I could steer filmmakers to half a dozen or more aggregators who could help them get their films onto iTunes, Netflix and other platforms. But now, most of those places have become distributors, and they are increasingly turning down a lot of indie films. True, a couple still exist, but options are thinning. On top of that, most of them now demand to take your direct-to-fan sales through Vimeo or VHX as well. Why? They claim it’s competition with them, which it utter bullshit – if someone finds your film on your site, it’s because of your work and they wouldn’t have found it from The Orchard’s work (or anyone else), so why give them a cut? Because they need it? From my perspective, it’s never been a worse time to be a self-distributing indie, unless you already have a massive fan base. The partners you used to have are disappearing, becoming distributors or becoming much less friendly. That said, if you need someone good, try Quiver.
  6. Facebook buys Vimeo. Ok, this one is a stretch as supposedly Vimeo isn’t for sale. But Barry Diller has thought about it before, and while Facebook can clearly build the system themselves, they would gain an easy path into owning their own set of channels, with a very loyal customer base. They’d gain a mass of quality content that comes cheaper than Youtube or Yahoo, and with much better brand value than the latter. They could turn the VimeoPro features into Consumer-Pro features and have a subscriber base, and they’d automatically have a home for quality video. Facebook will become a network – they are one – so something like this is coming, and it may be the best possible exit for Vimeo anyway.
  7. Video Start-ups die or are acquired. There’s a lot of tiny video sell-through, rental and SVOD sites out there. They’ve been plugging away for years, but none of them have come close to the user base they need to survive in today’s VC investment environment. I think many will run out of cash, and a few will be acquired. I have some thoughts on who these might be, but I’ll keep that to myself for now, but I do think this is their year of reckoning. That said, we’re long overdue for a well-funded Netflix competitor, so perhaps someone will launch one this year as well?
  8. HBO is spun off from Time Warner. Everyone else is predicting this as well, so perhaps it won’t happen just because everyone thinks it should. But HBO would arguably be much more valuable that way, and hey, I need at least one of these predictions to come true.

  That’s it. I’ve only got 8 predictions for 2016, but I’d love to hear some predictions from others. Send them my way.

• The Coming DSM Wars

  • Posted on 24th Sep
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  The DSM wars are coming! WTF is that? Digital Single Market. The European Union is proposing new rules to create a single, unified market for the selling of goods, and that includes film. For consumers, this is a no-brainer – I should be able to buy a film in Paris and watch it in Berlin, no matter what service I’m using. For platforms, it’s much easier as well – Netflix could license titles for all of Europe instead of doing individual deals for every territory. As a film industry person, I’ve also been hampered by the current territorial system when I’ve been sent screeners – as a judge for a film fest – but couldn’t watch them because the DRM (digital rights management aka bullshit tech) wouldn’t allow me to view the content based on the country I was in at the time. From a business perspective, anything that makes it easier for consumers and new businesses to operate easily should win, but…it’s not so simple.

  As Variety and others have reported, and most in the industry know, the film business is built in myriad ways on territorial licenses. A producer might raise money to make a film by pre-selling rights in certain territories. Sales agents make money, and this flows back to filmmakers (in some dream scenario) by selling licenses in different territories. Many films wouldn’t make back their budget, not to mention any meaningful profit without this system. There’s also a cultural argument to be made – this would mean only big players (Netflix) could afford to license titles for all of Europe, and that would decrease competition and likely decrease the diversity of content offered. The fight is shaping up now, and promises to be interesting. Of course, the whole idea could collapse with the entire EU the way things are going lately in geo-politics, but this is an important thing to watch for American indies as well – at least those lucky enough to make foreign sales.

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• More on Blockchain and Film/Arts

  • Posted on 15th Sep
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  My last post on Blockchain and the future of content led to many interesting exchanges – people emailed, people scheduled meetings, and many of them were way ahead of me in terms of thinking about how blockchain, the technology underlying Bitcoin, might be used to change various cultural industries, especially music and film. While there are still some problems with this theory, I’m increasingly convinced that blockchain could completely revolutionize the business models here, just as it might in finance and other industries. There are a lot of vested industry players that will fight this tooth and nail, but I think it’s worth exploration. Here’s some of the ideas I’ve learned about, and what I think is needed.

  Perhaps the most interesting take on this has come from the musicians Imogen Heap and Zoe Keating. No surprise there – I feature Zoe in almost all of my lectures, and Imogen has been very tech savvy. Imogen Heap proposes a new service she calls Mycelia, which would be a blockchain based digital eco-system for the connection of artists and fans, eliminating many of the middle men. She explains it on her site (note, it seems to work best on Safari, not Chrome), but the best summary of this comes from George King, who has been writing a series of posts about blockchain and the future of music and the arts on Forbes. I recommend reading all of these articles. Among other things, her system would use the blockchain to tie-in payment info, artist info (who played the bass on that song, how do I find their other music?) and track derivative works. It would eliminate many middle-men and allow for much greater transparency in how the money flows – something Zoe proposes as well. Using blockchain as a way to track derivative works is precisely what is most interesting to me – in theory an artist could embed how much you must pay for using a sample or a film clip in the actual source file, and you could complete this transaction without any lawyers, agents or even an email, as it would all be handled on the blockchain. As a leader in the transparency movement, I am all for the idea of using this for greater transparency- in theory, an artists could see every way their work was used and accessed and payments could go directly to them (and sub-artists in the contract as well, such as your actors). But Imogen’s idea is even bigger – I think of it as a Library of Alexandria, mixed with Wikipedia, Kickstarter, Amazon, Creative Commons and the ledger of blockchain. Mycelia would feature all music, and all aspects of that music in a giant interactive database that allows for artists to set transaction rates, give you more data about their project and anyone involved in it, and trace its evolution, so to speak.

  The idea of blockchain revolutionizing music and arts has gotten enough traction that Billboard has written a must-read article on how bitcoin/blockchain can change the music industry. A few businesses have launched specifically around this idea as well. ProMusicDB is proposing a system for better tracking of credits on music, and Ujo (no active site yet), is building an open source technology for tracking rights-holders and payments to artists. Because it is open source, it could also be used for film or any other art form. The Billboard article explains it a bit more. I also suspect many more businesses will launch as a result of Richard Branson’s blockchain summit, which Zoe attended, and I’ve had meetings with at least three other companies that are building businesses in this area (but who want to remain confidential for now). If you really want to get wonky, read The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto. While the book is ostensibly about why capitalism has worked in the West but not so well elsewhere (it comes down to how we build property systems, but read it), it has become the new blueprint/Bible for those thinking about how property changes in the future, perhaps under Blockchain, and its extremely relevant to the future of intellectual property (I found the book by way of Zoe Keating’s writings).

  To my mind, all of these ideas are great, but we need to combine them to make it work for film and other arts. Perhaps this could be built as part of Ujo, since it’s an open-source project. Artists and organizations supporting them should be getting behind these ideas, as they have great potential to help build a better business model for artists and to bring more (real) transparency to the financials. Here’s just a few of the things I’d like to see in this space. If done properly, it should include (at minimum, and here for film, but you can see how it works for other fields):

  • Deep rights agreement tracking systems: track all artists/people involved in a film and any payment agreements, license agreements, etc with them, as well as other agreements such as locations, music licensing, clip licensing, releases, etc;
  • Allow for micro-transactions with them – set how each of the people involved get paid;
  • Expanded linking to items/artists involved in a project – allow you to connect to these artists involved in any project in other ways – see a dress in the film, know the designer and also see her info and not just buy the dress but also commission a design for your film, etc (and trace the history of this engagement);
  • Micro and advance Licensing terms  – license a clip with a compulsory license, pre-paid – down to the clip level; You could agree in advance to pay an amount based on the future views of your subsequent film. Payments can go back to the source film and any sublicensees/artists, etc. What I pay back varies based not just on total views, but what type of views, whether they were at a nonprofit, theater or other venue, or person at home, etc.; This is essentially the same as the derivative works proposals from Imogen Heap and Zoe Keating, but for film, and would allow a whole new business to be built upon sampling, mash-ups, remixes and bring greater ease to clip licensing. A work-around for fair-use would need to be developed, but that should be technologically possible;
  • Expanded, artist-centric payment schemes & term setting – facilitate payments directly to the artist, but not just for this film – I can pay for the film, or for the song in the film, or can subscribe to the artist’s future work, make donations, or whatever else the artist has set up, and the artist not only sets the terms but can see how the money flows along the way. For example, the artist could set what iTunes must pay them as a percentage of any sale, and know how many transactions there were, or even turn them down if they don’t agree to her terms;
  • Permission levels, so that I can share work privately and authenticate who watched it, for how long, etc, as well as share contractual information, fee payments etc based on various permission levels; This should include permission based data sharing as well – perhaps I want to share how many downloads I had publicly, or from what regions, all of this could be shared via this system;
  • Authentication of originals vs copies, etc. Consumers don’t care about originals vs copies, but it would be a way to combat piracy, as well as to assign value to the original work; One could theoretically build a system as well that allows for only authenticated devices to play content, meaning that I could share a rough cut and if it’s pirated, I would know where it leaked (this has major DRM implications, I know);
  • Usage tracking and types of usage (not just for payments, but to see impact, subsequent uses, what types of eyeballs watched my film, etc);
  • Ancillary content – version tracking, ancillary materials access (poster, etc), unlocking of bonus content, etc.

  Some of this is blockchain related, some is just stuff that we need that can be done technologically now with or without blockchain, but the ideas represented by blockchain could help build a smart eco-system for film. These are just some preliminary thoughts, but I’m becoming increasingly convinced that blockchain has relevance for the film business in myriad ways and is worthy of further exploration. Care about this at all? Send me your thoughts.

• Funding Individual Artists – some ideas

  • Posted on 15th Jun
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  While it’s a great time to be an artist in so many ways, it remains difficult to raise money for making art, much less for sustaining a career as an artist. In fact, funds for support of artists have been drying up over the years. In film and new media, where I work, there are just a handful of places to turn if you aren’t making very commercial work or social issue documentaries – Creative Capital and Jerome being the most prominent. There are others like LEF in New England, and Sundance, which also offers support through labs and services, but not nearly enough support is out there for interesting artistic work. I’ve worked in artists support organizations for most of my career, so I think about this often, and lately I’ve been dreaming up a few things I’d love to see. Here’s my wish list for new types of grants for artists (particularly media artists) that I’d love to see, in no particular order:

  1. More money to those supported – the more money vs. more people supported debate always rages on, but to my mind, that’s just because grant givers haven’t been able to truly keep up with inflation and use the more people argument as an excuse. Minimum grants should increase, and I’d love to see more funds giving greater than $50,000 USD per grant.
  2. General Operating Support for artists – Every nonprofit complains about wanting more general operating support and less funding tied to specific projects. This should be true for artist grants as well – fund artists for their career success and/or potential, not just their proposed project. Underwrite their living expenses for a year. Here’s a good place to start:
  3. Give the same amount you pay in salaries to the same number of artists. Have an ED/CEO making the big bucks? Give that same amount to one artist per year, to support whatever they want to do that year. Hell, add on what it would cost for insurance and benefits as well. Then pay as many artists as you have staff the same average yearly amount. This would bring some needed transparency to the process, and would actually be a great concept for fundraising.
  4. Commit to diversity, in all ways – racial/ethnic/sexual orientation/geographic/artistic practice, etc. Not that these are all equal, but you know what I mean. Sure, everyone says they do this, but not enough grants shake out this way. Don’t have enough applicants or nominees? That’s your fault, do better outreach. I could find 15 lesbian, African-American artists making cutting edge art or film in Georgia alone, but I’m not seeing that many of them on grant rolls, festival screening lists, in galleries or other artistic venues. I think this is an organizational failure – of improper scouting, not enough use of good nominators (not at the expense of open-calls), not enough outreach and an accrued liability where many people don’t feel they fit into established grant maker’s giving histories and thus don’t bother to apply (this last one is especially true for the lack of diversity on the film fest circuit).
  5. Increase support for established artists. Everyone loves emerging artists, and I’m not saying anyone should cut back support for them, but I know way too many “successful” artists over 40 who have won nearly every award and who can no longer get grants, but they still struggle to pay their bills and make their art.
  6. Portfolio Training – I’ve been on numerous grant panels, and you’d be shocked at the difference in the presentation skills of various artists. You can tell which ones went to schools that teach how to present their portfolio and those who didn’t, and it severely impacts how their work is received. Multiple grant organizations should conduct regional training workshops on how to apply for grants and how to present a portfolio. They should also agree on a common application form (this is in the works in many places), and every grant giver should be required to have a sample, successful application available on their website.
  7. Use the Crowd: I’ve seen numerous proposals for this, with this one being my favorite, but to my knowledge almost no one has embraced the crowd in their grant giving. You know, because their program staff are such experts (ahem) that they don’t need any help. There should be a fund available only to people who have completed a successful Kickstarter (or similar) campaign. There should be funds where the majority of applicants come from crowd-sourced nominations. There should be grants that come with a guaranteed minimum and a match for up to X amount of dollars raised from the crowd. And support for the campaign as well. There should be much more experimentation with participatory grant giving. Not to the detriment of other giving, but come on – Kickstarter is six years old now, and we’ve had no new funding mechanism invented since that time. That’s leadership for you…
  8. My personal bias here – there should be a fund to support media about art and artists. Almost no funding exists if you are making a documentary about art. We need more films showing great art and artists, and these works rarely get support. This should cover all disciplines and practices, and it should not just be film, but also new media.
  9. Travel grants – Fund artists to travel around the world. Not just to attend some conference, lab or retreat, but just to travel the world, live, think and perhaps make art as a result.
  10. Shake-up the decision-making process – Almost every grant program has a panel process. But panels don’t always pick the best art, they pick the art everyone can agree on (this is also true of festival juries). I’d love to see a different process, perhaps where each panelist can pick one artist they want to see supported whether or not anyone else agrees, and then the rest are decided by the committee. Let the panelists, especially the artists on the panel, take some risks and support some artists that not everyone can agree upon.
  11. More funds for exhibition, promotion, marketing and audience development. All of this work is falling to the artists themselves now, so let’s fund it separately from the funds given for production. Let’s have grants that go towards hiring a publicist, mounting an exhibit in Manhattan, touring a work or marketing a film.
  12. More funds promoting collaboration. Let’s recreate the Bell Labs without Bell. Let’s fund more artists to collaborate with scientists, with start-ups, with other artists in other disciplines.

  That’s just twelve quick ideas. I could give twelve more, but let’s face it – what we really need are more funds for artists, no matter what the idea. Perhaps what we need most of all is a fund to promote the idea of giving more direct support for individual artists. Maybe we should fund a marketing campaign geared towards convincing more of these new dot-com millionaires to support artists.

  note: I can’t seem to get the wordpress editor to number the last ones 10-11-12, so sorry for the weird numbering

• Branded Documentaries Workshop at UnionDocs

  • Posted on 25th Feb
  • Category:

  Branded content has become a big story. I’ve been working for awhile now with many different companies exploring film and new media partnerships, and increasingly, I’ve been working with some of them on documentary films. Most notably, I recently helped Patagonia with the distribution and marketing of DamNation. It was a team effort, and I learned a lot, perhaps as much as I offered in advice. Now I get the chance to share that knowledge in a three day workshop at UnionDocs, and I’ll be joined by several other experts in the space. There’s an early bird discount until this Friday (Feb 27, 2015) as well.

  I’ve given a shorter version of this talk at IDFA, Sundance and IFP Week, but this is the first chance I have to spend a few days with filmmakers giving in-depth advice. We’ll cover a bit of everything: what is branded content? How does it work? Are you selling out? How do you keep creative control? What are the pros and cons? Can it help you have a bigger impact with your film? How do I break in to this work? We’ll talk about this and more.

  From the UnionDocs website: This seminar is a theoretical and practical intensive course designed for documentary filmmakers looking to develop their skill sets in the emerging field of branded content. Branded videos are on the rise, as clients are looking to engage with their customers through creative collaborations. Filmmakers can learn how to build a sustainable practice for financing their own works.

  Designed by UnionDocs in partnership with Mathilde Walker-Billaud, the seminar will explore new business models for documentarians. It will offer technical tools and strategies for working with clients while developing and maintaining a creative voice. The course is designed for graduate students and professionals in documentary and media arts (the audience is limited to 14 students).

  This seminar will bring together five guest instructors who are thinkers and practitioners from different disciplines: producers, marketers and strategists, entrepreneurs, documentarists and filmmakers. The goal is to expose a small group to a broad range of creative approaches to branded documentary, including audience engagement, online and cultural marketing, fundraising strategies, digital innovation and production/distribution.

  Here’s the breakdown of each day, and guest instructor bios are on the website – and seriously, these are some awesome people. I can’t wait to learn from them as well:

  Each day will explore one topic with one or two guest instructors:

  Friday – The filmmaker as an entrepreneur
  The first day of the seminar looks in-depth at the ways we produce and distribute films. How innovative is the branded documentary model?

  Instructors:
  AM: Brian Newman
  PM: Marc Schiller

  Saturday – New strategies for brands
  The second day of the intensive focuses on content and cultural marketing. How do the brands implement successful marketing campaign and generate audience engagement with the help of artists and filmmakers?

  Instructors:
  AM: Adam Katz

  Sunday – The final cut
  The third day explores the creative execution of branded content. What is the impact of brands on the process?

  Instructors:
  AM: Harrison Winter
  PM: Trish Dalton

  Register here.

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