Transmedia case study-Guidestones
By Sheri Candler
In the continuation of our look at recent cross platform/transmedia projects, this case study will be particularly relevant to those working with low budgets and ambitious plans. Writer/director Jay Ferguson’s initial inspiration for Guidestones came from his late father’s fascination with serialized shorts. Growing up in the thirties and forties, Ferguson’s father went to the cinema and was ‘hooked’ on serialized shorts where bad guys tie distressed maidens to the train tracks and such. Ferguson thought that the internet would be an ideal place to try to recreate that experience for this century.
Again, thanks to Storycode.org for providing the video presentation (found at the bottom of this post) from which these notes were culled.
Jay Ferguson, writer/director, 3 o’clock TV
Synopsis
Two journalism students, investigating an unsolved murder, uncover a global conspiracy centered around the mystery of The Georgia GUIDESTONES, an enigmatic monument nestled in a farmer’s field in rural Georgia and inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. The story is based on a real monument and on the real account of a Toronto woman’s experiences.
GUIDESTONES uses elements of transmedia and ARG storytelling to take viewers on a thrilling chase that crosses two continents and three countries in search of the truth. The project uses a hybrid mix of traditional narrative and formal and non-formal documentary styles. Shot vérité style in Canada, the USA and India, the series moves seamlessly between the real world and the fictional account of how a young woman named Sandy stumbled upon a murder mystery.
Three minute episodes, 50 in total so far, with audience participation elements.
Intent:
Ferguson wanted to tell stories by professional storytellers that would guide the audience an online and offline experience. He observed that, though audiences wanted to participate in the story somehow, no one wants to pay for online content. Also, how to keep audiences coming back? Too many webseries start out with the first few episodes being ok then die with audience numbers. Ferguson and his team have endeavored to keep up a fast paced, engaging story that pushes the audience to continue the journey.
Funding:
A mix of self funded, Canadian Independent Production Fund, some matching grants from the Ontario Media Development Council , sponsorship from Samsung, Carbon Clothing, Major League Baseball/Toronto Bluejays, Pizza Pizza (Canadian Domino’s). The online platforms (Hulu, Youtube) did not put in any money. The total budget is around $300,000 CAD. Estimate to reproduce at market value would be $1 million.
Revenue streams:
Product integration, merchandise/music/ringtones, rev share from Hulu. Recently launched on iTunes and considering a DVD to sell.
Audience demographic:
While there were certain demographics in mind, the production recognized that different audiences will want to interact with the series, so different ways to view the project were developed. In the Push version, one can sign up for the show and have the episodes delivered via e-mail to experience in ‘real time’ as the characters are exploring the mystery. The Linear version is for those who want to be more passive and treat it like a traditional serialized show.
Background of the team:
Jay Ferguson is an award-winning filmmaker who has contributed as a writer, director, producer and cinematographer to over 15 feature films. His work with institutions such as The National Film Board of Canada has garnered him several awards, including the top cinematography award at the Atlantic Film Festival (Animals, 2005) and from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers (Inside Time, 2008). He was nominated for a Gemini Award in 2005.
Jonas Diamond is the CEO of iThentic, joining the team in the fall of 2008. Jonas is producer of the award-winning animated series Odd Job Jack (52×30). The series received a Gemini, CFTPA Indie, Banff Rockie and Canada New Media Award for Best Cross Platform Project. Additional Accolades for Odd Job Jack include a nomination for Best Interactive Program (2006) and Best Animated Show (2005) at the Banff Rockie Awards, second prize for Best Interactive Design (2006) at Vidfest, Best Convergent Project by the Banff Institute as well as multiple Gemini and Canadian Comedy Award nominations. Jonasʼ producer credits includes Odd Job Jack, Hotbox and Bigfoot for The Comedy Network / CTV, Pillars of Freedom for TVO, Turbo Dogs for CBC / NBC, The Dating Guy, skatoony, Sons of Butcher and the upcoming Geofreakz MORPG for Teletoon, The World of Bruce McCall, and the interactive storyteller Legends of Me as well as many other projects for various platforms.
Actress Supinder Wraich plays Sandy in GUIDESTONES
Development phase:
It took 3 years from conception to launch.
Thinking through each platform:
50 webisodes were shot and edited for use as video links, the main storyline.
50 different websites were needed to house the clues for each webisode.
Content was hidden online for viewers to research the clues given during the webisodes.
One of the really hard things was creating 50 story arcs. Each episode is on average 3 minutes long and it is difficult to find an interesting opening, build the story and then a climax to lead into the next episode in such a short space of time. For feature films, you may only have to do one or two of those, but 50 is a lot. The interactivity was very difficult to make happen…very time consuming.
Production workflow:
The production used a very small crew and shot with a Canon 7d digital SLR in order to have flexibility and adaptability when on location. It allowed them to get into places that you regularly would not be allowed to shoot. In India, there were some places that do not regularly allow filming, but they were able to shoot some scenes in a few minutes and not bother anybody.
8 months in production, with 8-10 hour days
Location shooting: 3-4 weeks Toronto, 1 week in Georgia, 1 week in India
Post production meant bringing together all the elements of web and film. Before locking an episode, online properties needed to be created and sites linked to other sites so that the minute it was live, everything was in place for the viewer to experience.
Digital team included:
A graphic designer
Website builder
1 person to buy and manage urls
people to develop online presences on Linkedin and MySpace
2 editors full time
2-3 editors part time
a media manager
effects supervisor
effects editor
Brad Sears who designed the Push system and email system.
Deployment strategy
They launched the “push” system in February 2012. The viewers sign up via email address on their website to follow the episodes. Links are emailed to them with the episodes. Emails are timed to coincide with the happenings of the characters (if something happens at 9am, the email is sent at 9am). It takes the viewer a month to experience the whole thing and it is evergreen which means anyone can start it whenever they like. There is no “starting” and “ending” period.
After launch, the team received a lot of feedback from viewers. High schoolers in particular were impressed that they could Google things they had seen in the show, and something was actually there online. Also found that high schoolers do NOT use email like adults do. They communicate more via Facebook. Production team then modified the “push” system to run on Facebook.
For older people, they complained of too much email (50 episodes plus supplemental info). Some complained not enough episodes being released fast enough. They modified their release pattern/experience. Now viewers can choose to experience via Facebook, email or in a linear version where they just watch the episodes on their own time instead of following along with the characters. The linear version is on Hulu and on iTunes.
Building the Audience
Ferguson concedes that not enough money has been spent on publicity. Largely marketing has been a mix of public speaking, interviews in publications on the process, word of mouth by the viewers with a tshirt promotion for those who bring in 5 viewers. Brand sponsors are doing some of the promotion, particularly Pizza Pizza who play a 30 second ad for Guidestones in each of their stores across Canada. They are hoping that being on Hulu will help garner a larger audience for the project due to its large amount of traffic. Both Pizza Pizza and Samsung have done prize promotions on their Facebook pages for the show.
Achievements
-The clue finding is actually going very well. People really love it and get excited looking for the content. The first season really taught lessons in how to create on-line interactivity…now the team wants to take it further and have many ideas on how to get even more interactive.
-Through connections gain on other projects, the team was able to broker an agreement with Hulu to host the series and have an advertising revenue share.
-The series is now selling on iTunes in the TV show section. The whole season download is priced at $9.99 or one can buy them per episode for $1.99.
-The acting is critical to the storytelling and the believability of any story. Supinder Wraich (Sandy) and Dan Fox (Trevor) have a real honesty that is hard to find in actors. Both can act really well directly to camera because they are able to empathize with the characters and that brings this very genuine quality that audiences respond to, it is very hard to fake that emotion without the audience feeling it. Ferguson’s tip in casting is that when watching the actor closely, don’t worry too much about the words or the actor’s look necessarily, look into the eyes, see if there is a true belief in there. If they believe it, so will the audience.
Challenges
-To the conventional viewer, the non-totally immersed viewer, the Push system adds up if they are not able to get to the emails often enough and that became frustrating for some people who didn’t realize there was a more linear way to watch.
-The team was surprised that the South Asian community has not taken to the series yet as the “Sandy” character is a great character for the South Asian community. The series still struggles to get any real traction there.
-Promoting the show for a bigger audience. Most of the limited funds had to go into production. This is the classic conundrum for lower budget productions…all your money goes into making the thing and none into promoting it.[editor’s note: A word to the wise, budget in significant money for a publicist (traditional and one geared toward reaching fans directly), online advertising, video seeding, promotions, Facebook promoted posts, etc].
– Post-production has been about a year long with four working on it full-time and six or seven people working on it part-time, unlike editing a 120 minutes of content which can be done in a few months. Every single step of the way requires so many elements – a ringtone, a song, a site to house that audio, a site to house a different type of clue that has to be searchable only in a certain manner… all these things are endless and each has to be built because there is no preexisting system.
-The only way they’ve been able to do this on a low budget is that the studio where they work [for day job projects] has audio people, graphic designers, visual effects artists, people who can build apps, all in-house. While they set out with a specific road map and 60 to 65% of that might have remained the same, about 40% has definitely had to change in post-production because they found certain approaches don’t work and when one things is changed, all the elements have to be adjusted since everything is built together. Everyone on the team understands that they’re trying to prove a point with this, build a new model, but it is really hard to do unless you have infrastructure behind you. At one point, Ferguson thought if grant money and sponsorship money didn’t come in, he would still try to do this on his own, but he now concedes this was a ridiculous notion! “It would have taken me 15 years to do and I wouldn’t even have the skills to do most of it.”
A huge thanks to Jay Ferguson for sharing his details for the benefit of all who are interested in these new forms of storytelling. Below, please find his presentation
Other sources used in this post:
http://www.ithentic.com/p/2012/01/17/commentary-jay-ferguson-guidestones-webseries-tips/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xedqq/iama_creator_of_a_web_series_alternate_reality/
http://wildeffect.com/jayferguson/
Sheri Candler October 25th, 2012
Posted In: transmedia
Tags: 3 o'clock TV, ARG, Brad Sears, Canada, Canadian Independent Production Fund, Canon 7d, Carbon Clothing, case study, cross platform, Dan Fox, Georgia Guidestones, guidestones, Hulu, India, iThentic, iTunes, Jay Ferguson, Jonas Diamond, Major League Baseball, Ontario Media Development Council, Pizza Pizza, Samsung, Storycode, Supinder Wraich, Toronto Bluejays, transmedia, USA, YouTube
Transmedia case study-Totally Amp’d
By Sheri Candler
To coincide with 2 large events of interest to the cross platform storyteller, London’s Power to the Pixel and Los Angeles’ Storyworld Conference, I wrote up this case study of a cross platform project that was featured on the Storycode site. For the visual learners, there is a video of the presentation at the bottom of post, but it does run over an hour and a half.
Cross platform case study from Canada
Jay Bennett, VP of Digital/Creative Director, Smokebomb Entertainment, Toronto
Project: Totally Amp’d
Totally Amp’d is a mobile-only (Apple devices) series created by Smokebomb Entertainment and the first App of its kind for the underserved tween (ages 8-14) mobile entertainment market. Telling the story of five talented teenagers who are brought together to become the next big pop group, Totally Amp’d comprises a 10-appisode live-action musical comedy series, an original soundtrack, and a suite of interactive activities designed to fully immerse kids in the action.
Intent:
To make an episodic show inside of an app which would incorporate all sorts of interactive elements including music creation, movie editing and fashion design. Also, to experiment with the idea “We are the broadcaster” and see if it is possible to bypass traditional television gatekeepers and connect directly to the audience.
Funding:
Production funding came via the Canadian Media Fund Experimental Stream which supports the creation of innovative, interactive digital media content and software developed for commercial potential by the Canadian media industry or for public use by Canadians. Grant award was less than one million dollars (CAD) of which the video production budget was by far the majority of the budget, around $500K. The app technical development fell between $50-$100K. With an inhouse team this could have been lower, but they used a third party developer.
Audience demographic:
They intended the series to target 8-12 year old girls and focus on music and performance, capturing the American Idol/Glee set. Aim was to create the show for an older girl, a 14 year old, because then the 8-12 year olds will watch.
Background of the team:
Bennett came up through the ranks of digital advertising agencies conceiving and executing ARGs, puzzles and finding code in URLs to tell stories. He disagrees with that approach to storytelling because he sees himself as the average user, not someone used to looking for the magic rabbit hole in a story. He wanted the story to be more accessible through video because it is a medium the average user understands. While he believes that there are opportunities for deeper content, he would rather spend the majority of the budget on video content and much less on puzzles, games, ARG type experiences.
Smokebomb Entertainment is the digital division of Shaftesbury Productions, a leading Canadian TV producer. Totally Amp’d is their first completely original project to launch.
They brought in Karen McClellan as head writer with experience in the children’s TV market as well as writers from from the young adult market to give the scripts a more mature feel. The cast they chose played within a year of their real ages, not having 22 year olds play 17, in order to have more authenticity.
Development phase:
During research, they found a lack of good content apps aimed at the female tween demographic.
Though they started out thinking conventionally ( a webseries with some interactivity as an app), the research showed that most people now have smartphones and tablets or would have them very soon so they decided to take the whole project into the app space and viewable on a mobile device.
They only developed the project for Apple products (iPod touch, iPad, iPhone) because they felt that when people think app, they think Apple iTunes. There was a revenue incentive as well since people expect online content to be free of charge, but they don’t expect all apps to be free and they are used to paying via their iTunes account for music and other downloads. This would alleviate the need to access another way (like via credit card or Paypal) for people to pay.Since music was the major focus of the project, they brought in a professional composer who could create pop music worthy of its own release. Kids would know if they were being given “adult” music masking as teen pop and they wanted the music to be a revenue generator so it had to be top notch.
Also, they brought in a production designer to give the set a look that would be remarkable on a small screen. The result looked half real life, half cartoon, a bit like rotoscope. Elements of the set were painted on real glass plates that cost about
$2400 a piece to create, though much of the time they ended up using green screen and VFX which was even more expensive.
Thinking through each component of the app:
This an episodic show about the musical arts so possible elements to include would be music, music videos, fashion, community where kids could discuss the content together, an avatar to use in the community, game to build up points within the community, unique production design that would make the project stand out and sharability on social platforms.
But legal concerns got in the way of building a community forum because legally they needed a moderation team, especially for kids. Big broadcasters have this, but if you don’t have that support (YOU are the broadcaster, remember?), do you have the resources to do it? Also, the avatar idea was dropped because of the cost of building an avatar generating system, the game idea was dropped due to budget concerns and as was social sharing because of deadline issues and the ability of the app to handle pushing out that size of a file to a Facebook or Twitter page. Dropping social sharing was probably a mistake when it came to promotion.
Typical shoot for the video episodes:
6 days, 16 cast members, 72 shooting pages, 58 minutes of content, 10 episodes with an average of 5 minutes per episode, 2 RED cameras, 7 music videos.
The App
They intentionally tried to keep the app simple to use due to budget constraints and due to the age of the audience who could be as young as 5 years old. They needed something very intuitive. The app encompassed both the episodes and the activities. At the end of each episode, a new piece of video content would unlock.
There is a music studio with all the songs from the episode. One could remix the songs with a choice of different instruments, save the creations and play them back, record your own voice singing the songs so you could be the star.
There is a video studio for the music videos. There are 3 screens showing different camera angles of a video and the viewer can edit them however they want. Editing was just a series of touching the screen and the app would remember the sequence and play it back.
Finally, the design studio for the fashions. Viewer is given the blank outline of the outfit and given a choice of material patterns, colors, decorations then dress the characters from the show, a la digital paper dolls, and put them in a scene background from the show. The creations can be saved and turned into wallpapers, screen savers etc.
Deployment strategy
With file sizes like this, wifi connection is a necessity. Although putting the whole app out at once would be a huge download issue, the team thought making kids wait episode by episode would tax their patience. The file size was one gigbyte, about a 20-30 minute wait for download on iTunes.
They put out the first episode for free on Youtube, but to get the whole package, the viewer had to pay one price and it opened the whole app with all of the episodes and special content.
Deciding on a price point
Free was out of the question and 99 cents still felt like free. It would be difficult to raise the price if it started at 99 cents. For an hour’s worth of content plus the extra material, the price they settled on was $4.99. That is the median price to rent a movie on iTunes and so it would be a comfortable price point for most consumers.
Building the Audience
There was a 2 prong strategy; getting attention from the industry/technology audience and from kids/parents of kids who would actually use the app. Parents often browse the app store looking for interesting content for their kids. Since Smokebomb was the broadcaster, they had to be the promoter too.
For industry attention, they used the in house Shaftesbury Media publicity department. In the US, they used a company called One PR.
They received lots of coverage from industry press and business press.
For kids/parents attention, they enlisted the help of mommy bloggers. They did a press junket for a group of 8 influential mommy bloggers to come to Toronto to watch a shoot, see the making of the videos etc. This cost about $15000, but in hindsight they would have bought Facebook ads instead. Not that the goodwill hurt, but to spend that money to get these people to write reviews, it is likely they would have written about it for free just like any other journalist.
For social media interaction they worked with Fisheye Corporation. Tools they utilized included Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, own website with videos and contests.
Created 73 video assets of behind the scenes of production in order to get viewers to know the characters more intimately with backstories and explanations on using the app and what the show would be like. This was slowly dripped out in the lead up to launch.
The team released iPhone recorded videos of music recording sessions, dance rehearsals, cast doing demos of the app to show how it worked. Prize giveaways consisted of asking viewers to record themselves singing one of the songs and uploading it to the Facebook page for a chance to win. They Livestreamed the launch party on Facebook so the audience could join in and people could ask questions with the cast standing in front of the camera to answer. A street team was deployed at local pop concerts happening in Toronto with flyers promoting the show. This was all done in the lead up to launch day in order to build up audience anticipation.
Partnered with Wattpad, a young adult fiction site where amateur writers upload their stories without pay, but some writers have millions and millions of followers. They worked with 5 of the most popular writers and gave each a character from the story and had them write a backstory that did not previously exist. All the backstories led up to the first episode the viewer would see.
They promoted it on Wattpad with character videos explaining what the app was, encouraging viewers to read the backstory on Wattpad, and promoting the launch date and Facebook page.
Deployment implementation
Episode one was released for free on Youtube on Christmas Day. They released lots of teaser clips in the lead up to the first episode release. The clips were featured on AOL Kids which helped the episode reach 320K views. Official launch was January 26, 2012.
There is a risk with doing this. If the audience doesn’t like the first episode, you’ve lost them forever.
Successes
-the project actually launched, and on time
-strong press and critical praise
-industry praise from broadcasters at MIPCOM who said they beat Disney and Nickelodeon to the punch
-Disney wanted to buy the app, but Smokebomb said no because when that offer came, the project hadn’t launched yet and they wanted to see it through. Also, they would have to get agreement from each department head involved at Disney (broadcast, interactive, music etc) and that is very arduous and would take another year to sort out. Also, Disney would own it, there is no revenue share with them. In other words, you get one check and any revenue success Disney has on it (or lack thereof) belongs to Disney.
-launched to great success with fans asking for more! This was a mixed blessing because there wasn’t anything else being created in the immediate future.
Lessons learned
–Danger of the all at once release strategy
After 3 hours, the viewers had burned through all the content and wanted more. The danger in allowing binge viewing is all the build up dissipates in a short amount of time. If they had dripped out the episodes, which they hadn’t wanted to do because they felt the audience wouldn’t be patient, then they could have done more to stoke up the conversations in between episode releases and that would have taken 10 weeks to do, instead of 3 hours. As it was, the audience ate up all the episodes and then were gone to the next thing.
–Danger of the file size
Since the app was 1 gig and had a 30 minute download time, some may have given up before the download finished.
–Being the megaphone
In doing this without a broadcaster’s support, it is exceedingly difficult to reach millions and millions of people on your own, only a fraction of whom will actually buy and download. Undeniably, once the initial launch efforts were finished, the download count dropped. People are still downloading, but nowhere near what they were at the start. This is all down to having a strong and sustained publicity effort going. Once the promotional budget was spent and efforts ceased, the buying went down.
–Selling the rights in other territories
[editor’s note: I know many creators count on the revenue stream they are sure to get from broadcasters/distributors] No broadcaster cares about buying the rights to 10 episodes of a webseries. They will only get 10 weeks out of it on TV and then the show is finished. They don’t want to work at building an audience for only 10 episodes, they want 100 episodes. Same for selling broadcast TV syndication, you can’t sell a show with less than 3 seasons.
Axing the social sharing capability
By axing the social sharing due to budget, they also disabled the ability for free messaging by the viewers to spread their efforts wider. The purpose of social networking is sharing content you are excited about and they didn’t enable an easy way to do that. People did find a way around it, but it could have been done more easily.
Next steps based on those lessons
-Perhaps strip out the episodes and put them online for free to build the widest audience possible. Once you have that large audience, find opportunities to sell either advertising or to a broadcaster who will commission more episodes. [editors note: while this theoretically could work, many, many Youtube channels are already devoted to doing this and very few have accomplished it].
-Perhaps keep the interactivity portions to sell as an app, making the app shorter to download and cheaper, like 99 cents. With many more people watching, it is a much bigger pool of people to ask to buy a 99 cent download app.
-Extend the experience without making new content, new shows, because the production fund is spent so there is no money to make anything new. Perhaps they could build a website as a portal to discovery of other content already available online. Examples: existing unknown bands with the same music sensibility as the show and highlighting them; calls for UGC content as well.
-Look at this project as a pilot for TV or web series for a broadcaster. Truthfully, broadcasting is still where the audience is in a mass way. Are there viral hits on Youtube, yes a few, but the mass audience isn’t consistently on Youtube yet. The ultimate goal is TV, mobile, games, live event, the whole package.
Questions to consider
-How do you create an app that massively catches on when tons of people are creating new things and uploading them every day?
-Once your app is found, how do you keep people engaged from week to week? What mechanisms are you creating to keep your project top of mind?
Thanks to Jay Bennett for being candid about Smokebomb’s process and outcomes. For the video of his presentation including the post Q&A session, watch this
Sheri Candler October 16th, 2012
Posted In: transmedia
Tags: American Idol, app, Apple, ARG, audience building, Canadian Media Fund, Glee, iPad app, Jay Bennett, Power to the Pixel, Shaftesbury Productions, Storycode, Storyworld Conference, Totally Amp'd
Distribution of transmedia stories
by Sheri Candler
Lately, we have been getting inquiries on distribution strategies for transmedia projects in the indie film space. While it is my distinct impression that most of these “transmedia” projects are really marketing campaigns built around films and this extra material probably would not have financial value to a traditional film distributor, I want to investigate a bit more on projects that have launched as cross platform stories.
My knowledge about the transmedia space is limited only to what I have read about or heard about through those who have created such projects. Most of these people were hired by studios, game designers, or big corporate brands to create an immersive and interactive story experience often using digital tools and sometimes real world events to sell a product (a film, a game, a TV show, a car, a book, a mobile service etc). Within the realm of those who create these story experiences, there is disagreement about what constitutes a “true” transmedia project. Is it actually transmedia if it serves “the mothership” product as a sales funnel? Is it actually transmedia if it raises awareness and encourages activism for a social cause? Is it actually transmedia if it breaks a story into a million (or less maybe) pieces and spreads it out in satisfying chunks across many different, but interconnected spaces, online and otherwise? Is it actually transmedia if it provides the audience with a way to participate or interact with the story, perhaps offering the ability to influence the story being told?
The wikipedia definition:
“Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling or cross-media storytelling) is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies, and is not to be confused with traditional cross-platform media franchises, sequels or adaptations. From a production standpoint, it involves creating content that engages an audience using various techniques to permeate their daily lives. In order to achieve this engagement, a transmedia production will develop stories across multiple forms of media in order to deliver unique pieces of content in each channel. Importantly, these pieces of content are not only linked together (overtly or subtly), but are in narrative synchronization with each other.”
No mention of selling other products in this definition, but does it mean it can’t be used in that capacity? “Permeate their daily lives” is an interesting phrase though because it seems to suggest either bringing the story to life around the viewer or allowing the viewer to virtually, if not physically, step into a story being told or to have some life altering experience that would not have happened had they not encountered/participated in the story.
The man who coined the term Transmedia Storytelling, Professor Henry Jenkins, has offered his updated interpretation here.
Over the next few weeks, I will report back with case studies on what I have found through interviews with those who have been through the experience, launched projects into the world and lived to tell the tale. Also, I will review the newest book on the subject by Andrea Phillips called A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling. Hopefully, I will find people who are willing to be open about the process and how they succeeded or what they learned for next time. This is a very experimental space where either a lot of money is spent by way of corporate marketing budgets that will only see a return through sales of a product (and usually do not ONLY use a transmedia experience to advertise that product); or through new media funds where there is no expectation of return or favorable outcome; or through very tiny, self funded budgets where producers are gaining experience and expressing their creative ideas while directly interacting with an audience.
Stay tuned…
Orly Ravid October 4th, 2012
Posted In: transmedia
Tags: A creator's guide to transmedia storytelling, Andrea Phillips, Case studies, cross platform, digital storytelling, distribution, Henry Jenkins, independent film, Marketing, multiplatform storytelling, storytelling, transmedia
Experiments in open teaching
by Sheri Candler
As this is the beginning of a new school year for universities and film schools, it might interest you to know that several film and media courses are opening up their syllabi to the outside world. They aren’t just offering a public facing course description, but actually posting the assignments for their students and the reading materials being used in the class so that all may follow along regardless of where you are. No, isn’t the same thing as receiving one on one attention in class, but then again that’s a reason to pay tuition.
It is also interesting to see what tools instructors are using to communicate with students from wikis to Twitter to LiveJournal and Blogger to something I’d never heard of, Elgg, an open source social networking platform.
The following instructors are all on the cutting edge of the issues facing filmmakers right now; not the cameras or editing equipment or scriptwriting or film history, but the changing landscape of the business of entertainment and what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.
Columbia University Film Program
“Building StoryWorlds: the art, craft and biz of storytelling in 21c” taught by Lance Weiler (@lanceweiler on Twitter)
If you have been keeping up at all with latest trend in entertainment, you have probably heard the term Transmedia Storytelling. It was coined by MIT, now USC, professor Henry Jenkins in 2003 to describe the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. Filmmaker Lance Weiler describes himself as a story architect, someone who creates not one linear tale, but an entire world for his characters to live in and for audiences to participate with them.
In his Columbia course, students and global collaborators will work together to design, build, and produce an immersive storytelling experience. The whole process will be openly documented and released under a creative commons license in an attempt to gain a better understanding of what goes into creating immersive storytelling experiences.
To join in, follow this course curriculum and check his website Building Storyworlds to keep up with the happenings.
University of Central Florida Graduate course “Guerilla Film Marketing” taught by Randy Finch (@randyfinch on Twitter)
This is a graduate seminar about grass roots and non-traditional marketing strategies for film and media products. The emphasis is on unconventional and microbudget interactions with consumers. During the course, students will become familiar with how the new digital economy and social media tools are changing the landscape for filmmakers and other media producers in the twenty-first century. He requires the students to blog about guerrilla marketing and create materials that they might actually use to market their own films or other media projects.
As Randy told me “I am fascinated by the possibilities for New World film education online. It’s a large part of why I blog. In addition to making my own syllabi and assignments available online, occasionally I even write a post exploring how film education might evolve.”
For a look at the syllabus, use this Google Doc and read Randy’s blog for homework assignments.
Brown University
“Open Source Culture” taught by Mark Tribe (@marktribe on Twitter)
This course utilizes a wiki to disseminate the information. Where do we draw the line between sampling and stealing? What does it mean to call a urinal a work of art? This course explores the tension between artistic appropriation and intellectual property law, and considers recent efforts to use open source software as a model for cultural production. With the advent of digital culture spreading across the world at momentary speed, artists today need to be aware of the changing laws, consumer attitudes and ways in which creativity and communication are happening online. These changes affect business models in many industries, but very much in the entertainment industry where there have been attempts to curb audience access to online content deemed infringing on intellectual property.
For a look at the syllabus, go to this wiki page.
This one was taught in 2010 and I don’t know the status of it now, but the syllabus still lives online…
Georgia Tech
“Digital Media and Participatory Culture” taught by Melanie E.S. Kohnen, Ph.D (@_mesk on Twitter)
The course is an exploration of how digital media is used to participate in various aspects of contemporary culture. Examinations of social networks on the internet specifically matters of privacy, identity, and community formation. Also covered, how digital media is used to participate in culture with a focus on remixing, mash-ups, digital video production, and other forms of transforming existing media texts and how copyright regulations impact remix cultures.
For a look at the syllabus and reading materials, go to this online pdf. Even if the class isn’t actively being taught, there is so much one can do self directed.
If you like the look of that course, you may be interested in these on fan fiction and remix culture, .
If anyone would like to point out other film and media courses geared toward the 21st century filmmaker/artists being taught in an open method, please leave them and their URLs in the comments section.
Orly Ravid September 13th, 2012
Posted In: education
Tags: Brown University, Columbia University, educational resources, film school, Georgia Tech, guerilla marketing, Lance Weiler, Mark Tribe, Melanie E.S. Kohnen, open source culture, participatory culture, Randy Finch, remix, storyworlds, University of Central Florida
Are you brave enough to shun social media?
By Sheri Candler
It is a question I was thinking deeply about because I encounter filmmakers and industry players all the time who say that they put up a Facebook page, opened a Twitter account, started a Youtube channel, but the people didn’t come, views didn’t go up and the sales didn’t happen. So what’s the point? It doesn’t work, clearly. I know they opened those accounts because it is “the thing to do” and besides it was free which is totally budget friendly, but just opening up accounts with no time, commitment, team, strategy, budget to maintain and grow them and truly utilize what they are best at is not going to work and I recommend to go ahead and close them. Seriously!
Yes, social media is the newest communication tool (really it isn’t that new, but some still think it is) and Americans in particular spend almost 80% of their time on the internet (30% are online globally), with 22% of their time on social networking sites and 21% of their time in internet searches (there are over a billion search queries on Google every day!). I’m sure you can find another way to communicate with these people though, perhaps visiting door to door or cold calling or throwing obscene amounts of money into advertising all over the place and crossing your fingers (works for Hollywood). You’ve got that kind of time and money, yes? Honestly, start now thinking about what tools you will be using instead.
artists rarely use social media correctly
Once I look at what is being done with these sites, I am hardly surprised that it isn’t working. Most artists do not have a commitment to building up strong ties with an audience, they do not use social tools for “listening” and researching what audiences respond to, they do not post regularly except for “please make it happen for us on Indiegogo,” “Vote for my film on (name some film contest site),” or “my film is now available on iTunes.” Basically the chatter is all “do something for me” which is really tedious to read (I would say every day, but they don’t usually post regularly). For many publicists, this is how the channels are used as well; here’s a press kit, write about my client except that instead of only reaching writers, they are broadcasting to everyone and rarely listening at all.
I wrote some time back about how Facebook wasn’t a good sales medium and I still stand by that post though there have been changes at Facebook that affect showing up in a newsfeed and the use of landing pages. Facebook, of course, would have you believe that it is a good sales tool, after all they have the most to gain from perpetuating that idea in the business community.
If all you are using social media for is sales, STOP. I release you from feeling the burden of using auto tweeting and sending that same message through all of your profiles. No longer should you hire outside companies to do it for you either and pretending to be you. If you have done this, you already know it doesn’t work. Stop paying companies to send 5 prewritten tweets a day about your film to their 60K+ followers. You will not find that it makes much difference if that is the only effort you are making. Stop making inquiries for “some of that social media stuff” so your trailer will “go viral.”
Here is what the tool is very best used for; name/brand recognition, trust and loyalty building, sustained interest, long term sales and that most indescribable feeling of connection that begins to permeate. This is really an emotional space and it is something I would think independent artists would understand, you express ideas and emotions in your own work, right? And you hope to convey that to other people and elicit some kind of emotion from them. I know you don’t usually start from “I’m making a product that’s going to sell” point of view so why do you use social sites that way?
I say indescribable because you can’t point to that one “campaign” that brought your work to someone’s attention, it is an ongoing process that sinks deeper than “a message” or tagline and begins to spread and lasts far longer because little pieces of your thoughts, your connections and projects leave footprints behind online; not just on Twitter and Facebook, but everywhere on the internet globally. Someone who stumbles across your efforts, even years later, can find you and evidence of your work. No ad campaign or newspaper clipping is going to allow for that. Many people point to Twitter streams and Facebook newsfeeds as being fleeting and they are, but you can make more, endlessly. Can you do that for little money with an ad in the Times (pick a city) or a magazine cover story? While you may feel like you reach more people in a short amount of time, there’s a new cover story tomorrow or next month about someone else. There are only so many covers to fill, only so many talk shows to be on, only so much space in the newspaper or magazine for ads. Should you ever use traditional media? Should you ever use advertising? Yes, of course, but now you can have one more tool to use that is available to anyone, anywhere. You can choose to use it or not, but make sure you understand how to use it correctly and commit to doing it, every day. Also come to terms with the fact that if you are choosing not to use it, you are totally dependent on having third parties promote your work. New artists emerge every day and very few companies are truly committed to anyone.
Without a commitment to developing a community of supporters by using social media, save your time and possibly money and find another tool. You won’t be successful here.
Orly Ravid August 29th, 2012
Posted In: Marketing, Social Network Marketing, Uncategorized
Tags: Facebook, film marketing, internet, relationship building, social networking, Twitter, YouTube
Tribeca Wrap up
by Bryan Glick
Sandwiched in between SXSW and Cannes, it is very easy to dismiss or overlook the Tribeca Film Festival. Yet, last year’s crop of films included the world premieres of two of the highest grossing documentaries of 2012 Bully and Jiro Dreams of Sushi. However, most buyers seemed much more hesitant to strike this year.
Part of the issue is that Tribeca Films went all out acquiring The Giant Mechanical Man (starring Jenna Fischer and Chris Messina), Sleepless Night (France, estimated budget €2.5m) , Struck By Lightning (with Christina Hendricks and Dermot Mulroney), Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story (documentary), War Witch (Canada, estimated budget $3.5m), Resolution (estimated budget $1m), Side By Side (documentary, produced by Keanu Reeves) and Death of a Superhero (Germany/Ireland, estimated budget €3.8m) (The latter two premiered at Berlin and TIFF), so most major buyers settled for one title or none at all.
Outside of Tribeca Films, Sundance Selects and IFC Midnight were among the most active buyers. The latter took US rights to the world premiere Replicas (Canada with Selma Blair and Joshua Close) and US and UK rights for As Luck Would Have It (Spain with Salma Hayek) which premiered at Berlin. Meanwhile, their sister division, Sundance Selects, went for North and Latin America, UK, and Scandinavia rights to The Flat (Germany, documentary) and also grabbed the best narrative film winner Una Noche (US/UK/Cuba with Dariel Arrechaga) for North America. In addition, the fest also hosted the North American premiere of Beyond the Hills (Romania) which they acquired out of Berlin. IFC got in the game with US rights for Knife Fight (Sweden with Jennifer Morrison and Carrie-Anne Moss, estimated budget $7m).
The only other distributor to acquire multiple films was Film Buff. They secured digital distribution rights to Knuckleball! (documentary) and US rights to The Russian Winter (US/Russia, documentary)
The star studded Revenge for Jolly (with Elijah Wood, Ryan Phillippe & Kristen Wiig) got US and Canada covered courtesy of Sony Pictures Worldwide and the festival award winning The Revisionaries (documentary) was acquired for North America by Kino Lorber. Cinedigm continued its banner year with US rights to Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey (documentary about the band Journey who hired their new lead singer via Youtube). Another company making their presence known was, Entertainment One, who couldn’t resist getting North American rights for Freaky Deaky (with Christian Slater, Crispin Glover and Michael Jai White, estimated budget $10m). Meanwhile, Strand Releasing paid six figures for North American rights to Yossi (Israel, estimated production budget $500K), continuing a very effective partnership with the popular Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox. Other films to sell include Whole Lotta Sole (UK, with Brendan Fraser and Colm Meaney) which went to Arc for near seven figures, Room 514 (Israel) was bought for North America theatrical by Film Movement, and Unit 7 (Spain, estimated budget €3.5m) which sold for US Pay TV and VOD to HBO.
Presently, the Tribeca festival arguably does a better job serving as a platform for films that have already been seen elsewhere or have distribution in place. Films that had North American or world premieres, but were bought before the fest include Magnolia’s Jack and Diane (with Juno Temple and Kylie Minogue), a partnership that featured sports themed documentaries sponsored by ESPN Films with Broke, Benji, and Town of Runners, The HBO Doc release One Nation Under Dog, the Netflix exclusive documentary The Zen of Bennett (about singer Tony Bennett), Cinema Guild’s “Planet of Snail (Finland/Japan/Korea), and Fox Searchlight’s box office bomb Lola Versus (with Greta Gerwig and Bill Pullman) which to date has grossed just barely over $250,000 theatrically in North America. Two special release docs Wagner’s Dream (NCM Fathom Events) and Queen: Days of Our Lives (Eagle Rock Entertainment) were also a part of the slate. Another film to sell before the festival was the Morgan Spurlock documentary Mansome, which Paladin acquired for US Theatrical. It has since grossed a very wimpy $36,280 showing that the days of, “Super Size Me” have long since passed.
This Keanu Reeves produced doc opened last week
FINAL THOUGHTS: Several of these deals have only taken place in the past few weeks (though the fest was back in April) and there were fewer than five deals to report during the festival. There is still a lot of value to screening at Tribeca, but it seems it serves more as a pre-launch into the Cannes market. With Tribeca Films buying so many films both before and after the festival, it raises the question of what is there for other buyers? They have also yet to have a film that has broken out both theatrically and on VOD though “Struck by Lightning” has real potential to do strong business.
Conspicuously absent this year was Magnolia Pictures, Oscilloscope, and The Weinstein Company. All of them are based in Manhattan and TWC and Magnolia struck documentary gold with films they bought at last year’s festival. It is doubtful that any of them would jump into the fray at this point, but it does seem to hint that the commercial prospects for films this year at the festival were not perceived to match those of last year’s slate. The festival still has to figure out how to excite the industry in NYC and convince them that they should go to a festival in their own town.
All that said though, the amount of deals shows that the festival is an increasingly good alternative to Sundance and potentially even SXSW.
ADDITIONAL FESTIVAL DEALS
Since the last blog posts about SXSW and Sundance there are a few more deals to report and some DIY movement.
-Sundance saw a number of films announce deals or DIY plans in the past month.
-Wolfe Releasing secured US DVD/VOD rights to the Sundance documentary Love Free or Die. In addition and in partnership with Wolfe, Kino Lorber will handle the film for educational/non-theatrical screenings. It will have its television premiere on PBS stations nationwide as part of the series “Independent Lens.”
– Fellow US Documentary competition title A Place At The Table (It was called “Finding North” At Sundance) was acquired for the US by Magnolia Pictures. They will release in partnership with Participant Media. The deal was negotiated by Josh Braun of Submarine Entertainment.
-Drafthouse films went for Wrong and will release the film in North America in 2013. It is only the third World Dramatic film to get distribution in the states from this years festival.
-Kimstim Films will be releasing Bestiaire theatrically starting October 19th. This makes it the second of the New Frontier films to secure a theatrical release this year.
-Grand Jury Prize winning documentary The House I Live In will be released theatrically by Abramorama with guidance by Cinetic. Snag films has acquired domestic distribution rights to the film.
-Earlier this month, world documentary competition film Big Boys Gone Bananas did a DIY theatrical, Oscar qualifying run in NY and LA.
There are still over two dozen films from this year’s Sundance that have yet to sell or establish DIY distribution. Of those, almost half were in the world dramatic competition section. Still, when compared to other film festivals, its sales numbers are fantastic! Over ¾ of the films that premiered at the festival this year have been acquired or announced plans for DIY distribution.
On the SXSW front, IFC Midnight decided to stick its teeth into The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (Formerly called “Jeff”). They acquired both North American and UK rights. The deal was negotiated by Submarine Entertainment. Producers Distribution Agency is betting on Brooklyn Castle which they will release in the US October 19th. Based on how their first three features The Way (BO gross $4.4m), Exit Through the Gift Shop (BO gross $3.2m) and Senna (BO gross $1.6m) did this should be one of, if not the highest grossing film to come out of SXSW. Finally, Tribeca Films could not say no to Somebody Up There Likes Me (with Nick Offerman). They took North American rights to the SXSW world premiere. The deal was negotiated by Gray Krauss Stratford Des Rochers LLP. Snag Films continues its best of fest approach and acquired domestic distribution rights to Grand Jury Prize documentary Beware of Mr. Baker Abramorama is handling the theatrical.
A full list of sales deals from Tribeca is listed below. Box office grosses and release dates are current as of August 19th.
| Film | Company | Territories | Sales Company | Box Office/ |
| Release Date | ||||
| As Luck Would Have It | IFC Midnight | US and UK | Premiered at Berlin | |
| Benji | ESPN Films | PRE FEST | ||
| Beyond the Hills | Sundance Selects | North America | Wild Bunch | |
| Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story | Tribeca Films | North America | Greenberg Traurig, LLP | |
| Broke | ESPN FILMS | PRE FEST | ||
| Death of a Superhero | Tribeca Films | $607 | ||
| Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey | Cinedigm | US | ||
| Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie | Magnolia | US | Submarine Entertainment | |
| Freaky Deaky | Entertainment One | North America | Paradigm | |
| Jack and Diane | Magnolia Pictures | Worldwide | ||
| Knife Fight | IFC | US | WME INDEPENDENT | |
| Knuckleball | Filmbuff | Digital Distribution Rights | September | |
| let fury have the hour | paladin | |||
| lola versus | fox searchlight | acquired pre fest | $252603 | |
| Mansome | Paladin | US Theatrical | $36,280 | |
| One Nation Under Dog | HBO Doc Films | PRE FEST DEVELOPED | ||
| Planet of Snail | Cinema Guild | US | Bought out of IDFA | $7978 |
| Queen: days of our lives | Eagle Rock Entertainment | PRE FEST ALREADY ON DVD | ||
| Replicas | IFC Midnight | US | Turtles Crossing LLC | |
| Resolution | Tribeca Films | North America | XYZ Films | |
| Revenge For Jolly | Sony Worldwide | US and Canada | UTA Independent Film Group | |
| Room 514 | Film Movement | North America | ||
| Side By Side | Tribeca Films | North America | Justin Szlasa and attorney Marc Simon | $6956 |
| Sleepless Night | Tribeca Films | US | Bac Films | |
| Struck By Lightning | Tribeca Films | US | Traction Media and ICM Partners | |
| The Flat | Sundance Selects | North/Latin America, UK, Scandinavia | ||
| The Giant Mechanical Man | Tribeca Films | US | $7,396 | |
| The Russian Winter | Film Buff | US | ||
| The Visionaries | Kino Lorber | North America | October | |
| The Zen of Bennett | Netflix | Exclusive | bought Pre fest | |
| Town of Runners | ESPN Films | PRE FEST | ||
| Una Noche | Sundance Selects | North America | ||
| Unit 7 | HBO | US Pay TV and VOD | Vicente Canales’ Film Factory | |
| Wagner’s Dream | NCM Fathom Events and the Met | Screened with The Ring Cycle in May | ||
| War Witch | Tribeca Films | US | Premiered at Berlin | |
| Whole Lotta Sole | Arc | US | ||
| Yossi | Strand | North America | Films Distribution partner Nicolas Brigaud-Robert |
NB: In an effort to put these films in a useable context for filmmakers/investors/distributors, we have provided information (when available) on country of origin, notable names involved, and estimated production budget. From this information, one can see where the sales trends seemed to be at the festival.
Orly Ravid August 22nd, 2012
Posted In: Distribution, Film Festivals, Theatrical
Tags: documentary, festival distribution, film distribution, foreign film, independent film, independent film distribution, independent film marketing, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, theatrical release, Tribeca Film Festival
Indie Game: a distribution case study
This article first appeared on the Sundance Artist Services blog on August 13, 2012
written by Bryan Glick with assistance from Sheri Candler and Orly Ravid
Indie Game: The Movie has quickly developed a name not just as a must-see documentary but also as a film pioneer in the world of distribution. Recently, I had a Skype chat with Co-directors James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot . The documentary darlings talked about their indie film and its truly indie journey to audiences.
Swirsky and Pajot did corporate commercial work together for five years and that eventually blossomed into doing their first feature. “We thought it would take one year, but it ended up taking two. I can’t imagine working another way, we have a wonderful overlapping and complimentary skill set, ” said Pajot. “We both edited this film, we both shot this film. It creates this really fluid organic way of working. It’s kind of the result of 5 or 6 years of working together. I don’t think you could get a two person team doing an independent film working like we did on day one. It’s stressful at times but the benefits are absolutely fantastic, ” said Swirsky.
According to Swirsky, Kickstarter covered 40% of the budget. “We used it to ‘kickstart’, we asked for $15000 on our first campaign which we knew would not make the film, but it really got things going. The rest of the budget was us, personal savings.” The team used Kickstarter twice; the first in 2010 asking for $15,000 and ended up with $23,341 with 297 backers. On the second campaign in 2011, they asked for $35,000 and raised $71,335 with 1,559 backers.
The hard work, dedication, and talent paid off. Indie Game: The Movie was selected to premiere in the World Documentary Competition section at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival winning Pajot and Swirsky the World Cinema Documentary Film Editing Award . “[Sundance] speaks to the independent spirit. It’s kind of the best fit, the dream fit for the film. Just being a filmmaker you want to premiere your film at Sundance. That’s where you hear about your heroes,” noted Swirsky. “Never before in our entire careers have we felt so incredibly supported…They know how to treat you right and not just logistics, it’s more ‘we want to help you with this project and help you next time.’ It was overwhelming because we’ve never had that. We’ve just never been exposed that,” interjected Pajot
They hired a sales agent upon their acceptance into Sundance and the film generated tons of buzz before it arrived at the festival resulting in a sales frenzy. The filmmakers wanted a simultaneous worldwide digital release, but theatrical distributors weren’t willing to give up digital rights so they opted for a self release. “There were a lot of offers, they approached us to purchase various rights. We felt we needed to get it out fairly quickly and in the digital way. A lot of the deals we turned down were in a little more of the traditional route. None of them ended up being a great fit,” said Pajot.
Several people were stunned when this indie doc about indie videogame developers opted to sell their film for remake rights to Scott Rudin and HBO. Pajot explained, “He saw the trailer and reached out a week or so before Sundance. That was sort of out of left field because it wasn’t something we were pursuing.” Swirsky added, “They optioned to potentially turn the concept into a TV show about game development…As a person who watches stuff on TV, I want this to exist. I want to see what these guys do with it.” The deal still left the door open for a more typical theatrical release. However that was only the start of their plan.
“We had spoken to Gary Hustwit (Helvetica). We sort of have an understanding of how he organized his own tours. We had to make our decision whether that was something we wanted to utilize. Five days after Sundance, we decided we would and were on the road 2 weeks after… Before Sundance this was how we envisioned rolling out…[We looked at] Kevin Smith and Louis C.K. and what they’re doing. We are not those guys and we don’t have that audience, but knowing core audience is out there, doing this made sense,” said Swirsky.
Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky
They proceeded to go on a multi-city promotional tour starting with seven dates and so far they have had 15 special events screenings of which 13 were sold out! This is separate from 37 theaters across Canada doing a one night only event. They also settled on a small theatrical release in NYC and LA. When talking about the theaters and booking, they said theaters saw the sellout screenings and that prompted interest despite the fact that the film was in digital release. They accomplish all of this with a thrifty mindset. “P&A was not a budgetary item we put aside and if an investment was required, we would dip into pre orders. We didn’t put aside a marketing budget for it,” said Swirsky. Regarding the pre order revenue, they sold a cool $150,000 in DVD pre-orders in the lead up to release of the film. From this money, they funded their theatrical tour.
While the theatrical release was small, it generated solid enough numbers to get held over in multiple cities and provided for vital word of mouth that will ultimately make the film profitable. The grosses were only reported for their opening weekend, but they continued to pack the houses in later weeks.”I don’t look back at the box office. The tour was more profitable than the theatrical…They both have the benefits, having theatrical it gets a broader audience. It was more a commercial thing than box office,” said Swirsky. “We are still getting inquiries from theaters. They still want to book it despite the fact it’s out there digitally,” said Pajot. “We had this sort of hype machine happening. We didn’t put out advertising. Everything was through our mailing that started with the 300 on our first Kickstarter and through Twitter,” said Swirsky. Now the team has over 20,000 people on their mailing list and over 10,000 Twitter followers. In order to keep this word of mouth and enthusiasm going, the filmmakers released 88 minutes of exclusive content – most of which didn’t make the final cut – to their funders, took creative suggestions from their online forum and sent out updates on the games the subjects of their film were developing over the course of the two years the film was in production.
Following the success the film has enjoyed in various settings, Indie Game: The Movie premiered on three different digital distribution platforms. If you were to try and guess what they were though, you would most likely only get one right. While, it is available on the standard iTunes, the other two means of access are much more experimental and particularly appropriate for this doc.
It is only the second film to be distributed by VHX as a direct DRM-free download courtesy of their, ‘VHX For Artists‘ platform. Finally, this film is reaching gamers directly through Steam which is a video game distribution platform run by Valve. This sterling doc is also only the second film to be sold through the video game service, where it was able to be pre-ordered for $8.99 as opposed to the $9.99 it costs across all platforms. This is perhaps the perfect example of the changing landscape of independent film distribution. Every film has a potential niche and most of these can arguably be reached more effectively through means outside the standard distribution model. Why should a fan of couponing have to go through hundreds of films on Netflix before even finding out a documentary about couponing exists, when it could be promoted on a couponing website?
As they are going into uncharted territory, both Pajot and Swirsky avoided making any bold predictions.”It’s just wait and see. It’s an experiment because we’re the first movie on Steam. We’re really interested to look at and talk about in the future. I don’t want to make predictions…I do think documentary lends itself to that kind of marketing though. We’re trying to not just be niche but there is power in that core audience. They are very easy to find online,” said Swirsky.
Just because they are pursuing a bold strategy doesn’t mean they were any less cost conscious. “The VHX stuff, it was a collaboration, so there were no huge costs. Basically subtitles, a little publicity costs from Von Murphy PR and Strategy PR who helped us with theatrical. Those guys made sense to bring on,” said Pajot. “A lot of our costs were taken up by volunteers. If they help us do subtitles, they can have a ticket event, a screening in their country,” added Swirsky.
They also note that a large amount of their profit has been in pre-orders. 10,000 people have pre-ordered one of their three DVD options priced at $9.99, $24.99 and a special edition DVD for $69.99 tied with digital. While the film focused on a select few indie game developers, they interviewed 20 different developers and the additional footage is part of the Special Edition DVD/Blu-Ray. That might explain why it’s their highest seller.
All this doesn’t mean that any of the dozens of other options are no longer usable. Quite the contrary, they have also taken advantage of the Sundance Artist Services affiliations to go on a number of more traditional digital sites. Increased views of a film even if on non traditional platforms can mean increased web searches and awareness and could be used to drive up sales on mainstay platforms.
The real winner though is ultimately the audience. For the majority of the world that doesn’t go to Sundance or Cannes each year, this is how they can discover small films that were made with them in mind. The HBO deal aside, this is bound to be one incredibly profitable documentary that introduces a whole new crowd to quality art-house cinema. “We are still booking community screenings. If people want to book, they can contact us…We are thinking maybe we might do another shorter tour at some point,” said Pajot.
Here’s to the independent film spirit, alive and well.
Update Feb 2013: The creators of Indie Game have written their own case study discussing the many tools and techniques they used. Head over to their website for the full study.
Orly Ravid August 16th, 2012
Posted In: Digital Distribution, Distribution, DIY, Film Festivals, iTunes, Marketing, Publicity, Theatrical
Tags: crowdfunding, DIY distribution, documentary, game developers, Gary Hustwit, independent film, Indie Game, James Swirsky, Kevin Smith, Kickstarter, Lisanne Pajot, Louis C.K., self distribution, Steam, Sundance Artists Services, Sundance Film Festival, VHX, VHX for Artists
The harsh realities of becoming a *responsible* filmmaker
by Orly Ravid
It is difficult to definitively explain what The Film Collaborative (TFC) does in a few sentences. Often, when asked for a company bio for a speaking engagement, we are asked to sum up in a few words, but here is the thing…we do different things for different films and that is what makes this non profit company devoted to independent film distribution different. We are a membership organization and we offer a menu of services that are separately available. For our members, we are largely an educational and informational organization. We will work with any film/filmmaker to provide consultation and educational resources which are included in our membership fees.
We can provide services such as: worldwide festival distribution, worldwide sales, domestic sales, worldwide direct digital, domestic theatrical, limited domestic educational distribution, grassroots / social network marketing services, and contract negotiation services. These are all subject to additional fees so the filmmaker must have significant budget to allow for the labor and expenses incurred and our acceptance depends on the workload currently undertaken by the company.
We also serve in a sales agent capacity with SOME films. Due to this dual nature (educational and service oriented), we are very discerning about the films we take on in this capacity. We can work on any aspect of distribution, but with a strong emphasis on direct distribution being part of your overall distribution strategy. We can connect you with service providers/buyers we think are right for your film, and ones we trust and recommend, but WE NEVER OWN YOUR RIGHTS and filmmakers can cancel the service at any time. This clearly sets us apart from other sales agents and can be confusing to those who are accustomed to typical sales agent arrangements. The deals we make are almost always between the buyer and the filmmaker. The only exception to this are bulk deals whereby doing the deals individually is just tortuous for all involved. We are very boutique in our sales agent offerings, not wanting to disappoint or take on more than we can handle. If we don’t think a title is suited to our strengths and our mission to offer quality films of artistic merit with strong distribution potential, then we don’t take them on for sales representation. Which brings us to merit…
Not all films will have distribution potential, not all films are good, not all films have an audience, or not a significant one. There, we said it! Time and again we see filmmakers willingly, enthusiastically going into debt, either raising money from investors or credit cards and coming to us for help in getting their creations out into the world. Sometimes those creations just won’t have a life out there and no matter what is spent in time or money, a significant audience won’t be found. We drill down into every member’s film in order to give the best assessment, but there are times when the prognosis is not favorable to the kind of success they are seeking.
For members’ films, we remove our personal tastes from the equation and try our best to determine WHO in the world would be enthusiastic for the film and how many such folks are out there? And where are they? And can they be reached given the resources available? When you made the film, were you thinking of an audience? When you came to us expecting the film to: get TV sales, international sales, a nice Netflix fee, a theatrical release, a theatrical even after you did a DIY DVD and iTunes release, were you basing that on another film that is similar? Do you understand the decision making process involved in the buying of films for release? Was any research at all conducted BEFORE the production started? With the amount of information on our site and thousands of others online, there is no longer an excuse for not knowing the answers to these questions well before a production starts.
I am starting to want to be the tough love nursemaid and say we don’t want your babies to be orphans. Filmmakers now have to educate themselves a bit before conception and well before giving birth so they will be able to cover all the rearing their film baby is going to need to claw its way through the mobs of other film babies, their TV siblings, Webcontent cousins, and the rest of their multimedia distraction family. As with conceiving real babies, it is all fun and games until the reality of raising a child sets in. You need to be fully prepared for the long haul.
We have information, we keep up with the current shifting sands of distribution, we receive opportunities because we represent quality films, we have contacts, years of expertise, we’re friendly, we’re not gonna f*ck you over, but we cannot save every film from oblivion nor can we convert every film into a success however you define it. So much of that has to start with you, being clear and honest with yourself, before you say “action”.
photo credit: Adam Foster | Codefor
Orly Ravid August 8th, 2012
Posted In: Digital Distribution, Distribution, International Sales, Marketing
Tags: artistic merit, consultation, Digital Distribution, direct distribution, educational resources, festival distribution, film distribution, film sales, independent film, non profit, sales agent, TFC
Tips on producing Creative for your film
by David Averbach, Creative Director, The Film Collaborative
In the past two and a half years, The Film Collaborative has worked closely with hundreds of films. When it comes to Creative, such as key art, trailers, web sites, press kits and stills, we see a lot of small and not-so-small mistakes. As Creative Director of TFC, it’s my job to flag anything that could pose a problem, whether it’s on the film festival circuit, being presented to film buyers, or being prepared for digital distribution. In the coming months, I’m going to try and tackle many of these items one by one in depth. The first blog, if it indeed will fit in just one post, will focus on the technical, aesthetic and practical concerns involved with creating key art. In the meantime, I offer some teaser “tips”:
Trailers.
If your film is having a theatrical release, or even if it’s not, chances are that you will want it to be on iTunes one day, either in the iTunes store for sale/rent, or on iTunes Movie Trailers before your theatrical. Apple is very strict with their trailer specs: you’ll need to produce either a 1080p or 720p .mov file that is either uncompressed or outputted in ProRes HQ. They will not accept up-res’d or otherly compressed trailers. So make sure you leave room in your budget to produce such a file, because you may need your lab to do it for you. The good news is that a 2 minute trailer will generally fit on a data DVD, or a USB thumb drive, so you won’t need to buy a special hard drive to submit.
But there is one more catch: the trailer needs to basically be PG, or approved for appropriate audiences. Remember, trailers are not behind Apple’s pay wall. Apple will reject trailers that have expletives (even in subtitles) and nudity of any sort (including sex toys), and could reject a trailer for the same things that the might cause the MPAA to give the trailer anything but a green band if it were ever to be submitted for a rating, such as underage drinking, pot smoking, excessive violence, etc. So while cursing and nudity will definitely be rejected, for those of you who point to other trailers on iTunes with someone snorting cocaine in them, I would respond to you this way: why risk it? Are these things so essential to your trailer that you would want to have to pay your lab or editor to redo it, while at the same time postponing getting your trailer up? Remember, the majority of Apple’s trailers come pre-rated by the MPAA, who is known for being wildly inconsistent when it comes to their rating rationales. I have no reason to believe Apple is any different, and we know so little about their process that it doesn’t make sense to take chances. So if you want to create a racy trailer, that’s fine. Just also remember to create a squeaky clean version as well.
Press Kits.
Do you NEED a “designed” press kit? You know, the kind that has edge-to-edge bleed? The short answer: probably not, unless your film gets into a top-tier festival in Europe with a film market, such as Belinale/EFM or Cannes/Marché du film. Because if you don’t, it will be like showing up in a tweed jacket to a black tie wedding. Those Europeans have really nice press kits, with all of their fund and film foundation logos, so it’s best to play the game. And I believe that Berlinale asks for a certain number of printed copies to be sent to them in advance, and Cannes makes their press kits available for download right from the film detail page, so make sure you keep this in mind. Otherwise, there’s really no reason why your press kit can’t be a PDF of a Word document.
But that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Why not use the same or similar fonts to the ones in your key art (you can even ask your designer to give you the fonts or your title treatment for this purpose) and create a really good-looking press kit yourself. But if you’re doing it in Word, don’t despair too much about how it looks when it is printed out. Very few people will do this, so don’t import hi-res photos into Word…it will only weigh your final document down. Use web-res photos (72 dpi sized down to no larger than 7.5″ wide) so that they can fit in your document and your file size can still remain relatively low. The last thing you want is a 12MB press kit…it’s just bad form. Keep it under 2MB, but absolutely no more than 4MB. Also keeping it in Word allows you to update it more regularly with new quotes or laurels. If you need samples, there are many examples of good-looking press kits on the TFC site.
Press Stills.
The stills you include in your press kit do not have to be the same set as the ones you make available to the Press and to film festivals? Why? Because in your press kit, they will be viewed as a group. In a review article or in a film festival catalog, there will be no more than a handful, and more often than not, they will only choose one, and you won’t get to choose which. Regrettably, many filmmakers send us photos to put up that are just plain dull; that have unreasonable copyright restrictions; or that are lo-res or poor quality. So, what questions should you be asking yourself when accessing photos? Here are a few: Does this photo represent the film well enough if that’s the only photo used? Will this photo make anyone want to see my film? Is this photo compelling? Engaging? Do you have a famous or recognizable star in your film? How will that photo look when placed next to six others in a festival catalog? Am I thinking about marketing when I chose this photo or am I thinking about art? If this were the only photo shown, does it make sense in conjunction with the synopsis I’m providing about my film?
Another recommendation: Embargo the main still you choose for your key art. Otherwise, your campaign can look unnecessarily narrow. If you look at the film carousel on TFC’s home page, you’ll see that each film has a different image as the main image in the carousel than from the image used most prominently in the poster.
And if you are using 1080p stills, which are only 1980 pixels wide (about 6.5 inches at 300dpi) do not crop your images, as festivals may need to use every inch to fit the design spec of their catalogs. Many festivals like having 16:9 images.
And for Pete’s sake, do not be stingy with your press stills. Make them available. Easily. Don’t require passwords or permission or complicated ways to download. You don’t have to offer every still this way, but you should have 5-10 that can go out into the world without complications.
Key Art.
Design your posters to be 2:3. Not the proportions of 8.5×11, or 11×17, or something else. This will give you the greatest flexibility as you move forward with marketing.
So, if we’re talking web-res, like for IMDB of if you’re submitting for VOD, 1200×1800 is a great size to give them, although Apple requires 1666×2500. They don’t display the art this big, but they appreciate being sent these sizes, not tiny thumbnails.
But even before you are submitting, have your designer output samples in a variety of sizes, like 600×900, 300×450, 200×300 and 150×225 (all multiples of 2:3), or resize them yourself in Photoshop or Apple’s Preview app. Why? Because you need to access your art and see how it’s going to look in a variety of sizes. What will it look like when it appears in the iTunes store or Netflix or Flixter next to an array of other titles? What happens when you see it a little bigger, like on a detail page? Can you make out the title and the main image? This is probably the most important question you need to ask regarding the value of your key art, and you need to do it in the size it will be when it’s finished.
How about printed one-sheets? Printed posters in the U.S. are either 27×39 or 27×40. It’s close to 2:3 but not exactly. And you may need up to a .25” bleed on all sides. So tell your designers to design to 27.5 x 41.25. That is 2:3, so you can then take your huge poster file and resize it down to your webres sizes. Make sure to leave plenty of room on all sides, so you’ll be able to crop it to the size your printer can print, and also you won’t run into the risk of having the edges of your poster blocked by a marquee and making your poster feel unnecessarily cramped.
Website.
Do you need a website? Yes. Will people think less of your film if you throw up a generic-looking WordPress site? Yes. Stay away from flash sites…they are pretty but costlier and harder to maintain and not viewable on many, many mobile devices. The best sites integrate Facebook, have a trailer, provide a list of where the film is screening, and have a place where film festivals/industry can go to get what they need. This is the minimum. I believe that it’s better for your site to inspire confidence by good aesthetics and do less than for your site to do everything under the sun and look like heck. Because there’s always your Facebook fan page as well. I’m certain that our Director of Social Network Marketing has a lot to say on this subject, so maybe in the future, you’ll see a joint blog post where the two of us can hash out the relationship between website form and function.
I hope these tips were helpful. And TFC members, keep in mind that if you need advice about any of your creative, you can request that some of the hours you receive for distribution analysis with your TFC membership go toward advice about your Creative.
David Averbach August 1st, 2012
European distribution series: OnlineFilm
By Sheri Candler
Here is the second part in a series on European distribution tools. I met OnlineFilm AG CEO Cay Wesnigk, based in Germany, while attending the FERA General Assembly in Copenhagen. Like most people in attendance, he is trying to understand the repercussions and opportunities of the online space to the film industry. His response was to come up with a solution that allows filmmakers themselves to profit and to spread their work to territories outside of their home country by using the internet.
SC: What does OnlineFilm hope to accomplish for European filmmakers and film audiences?
CW: The Onlinefilm.org System is a multilingual marketplace for films and an application service provider for digital distribution and marketing services, owned by a collective of independent producers/ filmmakers. Any rights owner from all over the world can use its technology to offer films as download to own and stream to rent or both.
To reach these goals, we want to strengthen and enlarge our network of national partners that are running the Onlinefilm.org system in their territories and run national websites that use the same technology to develop local markets. Together with our partners we want to develop new tailored ways of marketing by using social media and viral campaigning in their languages and territories and then learn from each other and teach our best practice examples to the film makers to empower them to use the onlinefilm.org system in the best possible way to market their films.
Our motto is “Films are made to be seen” and we want to make it possible for the international audience to access the films they are interested in and find those they did not know existed, helping the makers to find and access their audience.
SC: Do you think the audience is ready to start watching full length films online or on mobile devices?
It should be added to the question, “legally aquired” films. I think it is a proven fact that our audience is watching films on those devices, just go through a train in Europe and you will notice how many people are watching films on laptops and tablets, some even on smart phones. In catalogues of supermarkets, hard disks are offered that have a connection to regular TV and a remote control as well as Network access that make it easy to bring downloaded films to the TV screens. For us, the question is not if there is an audience out there for our films, the question is, is there an audience willing to pay for them?
But there is another angle to your question, a topic for online watching of films is the deceleration of the audience. It is difficult to watch 90 minutes linear programming with no interaction expected on a computer or tablet when the IM Messenger pops up, the Skype rings and your email program reminds you that a new mail has arrived in your mailbox… For that we need to find ways to decelerate our audience. One is the easy connection of the device with the TV set as mentioned above. Leaning back in front of the TV with the mouse out of reach is half of the trick. The other half still has to be developed.
SC: There are already many online streaming platforms for films, many of them are free streaming and ad supported streaming. What is the plan for driving audience interest to OnlineFilm?
CW: A film is a little bit of celluloid and a lot of marketing…
We have experienced that many film-makers do not promote their films once they have upload them in to the system by using the tools and strategies actively that we supplied for them. Some of them do not even link to the films from their own homepages, let alone think about how to promote their films through other channels that would generate audiences for them. Even a good Google ranking for film titles searches that we can supply does not bring the revenue, since for that, the customer has to know that a film exists and must actively search for it. So we have drawn the conclusion that we must act more on the filmmakers behalf to create more sales and such make the option to offer films through the Onlinefilm.org system more attractive. One measure we took was the cooperation with other outlets and websites by offering them tailored Mediatheks for their visitors, creating more outlets and chances that audiences will find a film by chance.
The next step will be to create best practice examples through social media campaigns that will lead to more sales of the promoted example films.
We offer tools to the filmmakers to help them create their own audiences. We offer at the same time a Platform for curators, for the hunters and collectors. They can use the search tools the site offers them to find the raw diamonds. They can browse through the categories, use our full text search in German and English or search for directors or film titles they might already be aware of.
Film of the week on the OnlineFilm homepage
The film of the week section on the landing page of www.onlinefilm.org can change its focus on three different film categorie; Docs, Short- or Feature films, or offer a mixture of all of them (default). With this preselection we want to promote films to people who just drop by our platform with no special film or interest in mind. We often change the selection and try to keep the offer interesting and diverse so every visitor should find something of interest to him and, if not, might be motivated to dig deeper into the catalogue, to find out more about its wealth of topics and genres.
In the second line “the featured films”, the recommendations also changes accordingly once a customer selects where his point of interest lies (docs, short, feature). If someone tells us he is interested in shorts, the site will offer him different shorts. If he tells us he likes docs, he will be offered mainly docs. This is how we try to keep our first time visitors on the site and offer them selected films out of our large catalogue that might be of interest for them. The more we get to know from a visitor on the site, the more we want to tailor the offers made to his interests.
Our national portal Strategy – many different editorial lines
If a visitor decides to “explore the Network” he will be guided to the overview map with all national sites that are active so far. He can then select one of them, where our national Partners have the editorial control, offer national content or content they consider interesting for their fellow country man. Their editorial line is subjective. They will offer the films from their country and others they have found in the system and deem interesting for their audience. We plan to extend the editorial possibilities of the partner pages so the partners will also have their own film of the week and other editorial possibilities to promote certain films on their sites.
By creating sub portals with a special focus, it is also always possible to follow a new editorial line if enough films to justify that are in the system..
Our Greek partners www.greece.onlinefilm.org are the most advanced, they have been with us right from the very beginning of the project in 2007 and they also have made the most out of the technology that onlinefilm.org has offered them so far. As an example, on their editors page, they made their own sub categorisation and such made it possible to browse through the films via topics they have selected on their own.
Greek director Roviros Manthoulis’ collection page
They also have published the Roviros Manthoulis collection and make it possible to browse through the films of this renowned Greek filmmaker. Both serve as an example for an individual editorial line of a partner portal.
Another example is Ireland.onlinefilm.org. Our Irish partner has chosen quite a ew titles from the system and publishes them on his site. Among them a French/Greek film called IRLANDE: LA MEMOIRE D’ UN PEUPLE about Ireland and its music in the 70s. This film has become quite popular on the Irish website and no one in Ireland would ever have known about this document of Irish folk music if it would not have been uploaded by our Greek partner and found and published by our Irish partner. Also interesting to note is that our Irish partner translated the site into Gaelic language, another way to make the site something special. We use a multi language editor that makes it possible to translate any of our sites in as many languages as necessary.
Since it is always also possible for any rights owner to upload any film from anywhere, we have many films from countries where we do not have a partner installed yet. The more films we get from one country the more active our search for a partner there becomes. We always offer anyone who uploads at least 30 films to get his own Macro shop. This would entitle him also to get a promoter percentage of 8% for any customer that enters the System through his shop. If the relationship develops well and we see the person is active and well connected, he can apply to become a national partner and will then be able to also add other films he has not uploaded into his shop. If he is willing to invest into the cooperation, he can apply for full partner status that would also guarantee him part of the revenues any film uploaded from his territory might generate as a partner percentage. An example of a tailored Macro shop of a German distributor is here: www.filmgalerie451.onlinefilm.org
This is how we slowly built our Network of national partners and built more and more local outlets with their own editorial line.
Some more examples you will find here
www.kurzfilmtage.de/videothek the Videothek of the Oberhausen Shortfilmfestibval, run with onlinefilm technology and with Onlinefilm films
www.freitag.onlinefilm.org A videothel of a German Newspapers Website, run on onlinefilm technolog and with Onlinefilm films
SC: Is this platform mainly for German films or is the focus on all foreign language films?
CW: Any one can upload a film no matter where he or she comes from. We encourage people to upload the film in its original language version and in English. Subtitles are sufficient. More language versions can be uploaded and offered for different self chosen conditions. We even offer a tool ( in Beta) with which one can create subtitles to a film which is uploaded into our system and save and offer them. Subtitles can also be imported into the tool and exported into many formats if produced with the tool. The subtitle tool is designed in a way that a filmmaker could ask a professional or friend in another country to create the subtitles of a film he has uploaded. We are also planning to create a system to allow a person who has created subtitles to opt in and get a piece of the revenue as remuneration for his work, any time the film is watched with his subtitles.
SC: What prices are being asked of the audience to pay?
CW: The price per download or stream is defined by the rights owner who offers the film via the onlinefilm.org system. Over the last 2 year,s the average download price per title has increased from € 2,50 (2008) to € 5,00 in 2010 and to € 6,00 in June 2011 (from a range between € 0.99 and € 16,00). Our bestseller right now costs € 8,50 per download (around $10 USD).
SC: How do you handle payments on the system for all different currencies? Can those not on the Euro still use the OnlineFilm system? How about those who don’t have credit cards?
CW: Right now you pay via Paypal in Euro, that works also with a credi card via Paypal guest status, then you can stream or download the film direct when redirected by Paypal after the payment is done on their server. We are looking into possibilities to offer films in different currencies viaPpaypal right now and hope to offer that kind of service in the near future!
As an alternative, we already offer payment through international bank transfer via IBAN and BIC to our account in Germany. Once the money is sent to our onlinefilm account, the buyer sends us a pdf with the view of the online money order ( screen shot or what the online banking software offers) and we sent him or her the download links via e mail or put the film for streaming into his or her account at onlinfilms under “my films” This sometimes takes a few hours to fulfill but it is better than nothing. So far it has been used mainly by Paypal haters.
SC: What is the revenue split for filmmakers? Are there any fees that have to be paid for the films to use OnlineFilm?
CW: No fees are asked just to offer the film on onlinefilm.org. If you just use the system to host trailers/teasers and use our promotion tool to send free downloads and streams to selected people, but you do not offer the film for payment to a general audience, we would ask you to pay for used bandwith and storage. But there is a free amount of traffic per month, sufficient for trailer hosting of average films, that anyone can use before that happens.
The revenue is split as follows. 51% of the turnover always goes to the producer/ rightsowner. If the rightsowner buys 1.000 shares of the Onlinefilm AG and such becomes co-owner of the system ( option) he can get 5% more which then ads up to 56% . If he sells the film via an embedded shop or Macro shop from his own page and opts in for the affiliate percentage, he will get an extra 8% which then makes his or her revenue climb up to 64% of the sales price (the Affiiliate system still has to be implemented).
SC: What kinds of films are doing well at the moment? documentary, horror, drama? What might these successes all have in common? Do they have notable names, festival accolades, strong coproduction deals that have given lots of promotion, great mainstream media reviews?
CW: We mainly have quite old films on the platform so far, this has many reasons in copyright issues unclear, release windows and power play of the old gatekeepers trying to hinder the films going online all together. Only very few of the films could profit directly from any marketing campaigns.
The films that are successful right now have a campaign behind them or at least some promotion mostly done by the filmmaker via personal website or mailing list. The others are just occasional sales by active seekers for exactly that title. They live on their past time fame.
One very successful 15 year old film Deckname Dennis is a first part of a film called Die Mondverschwörung presenting the same character and using the same technique, that has been released theatrically recently. Through the press the new film received and by creating a social media campaign for the new film that clearly stated its predecessor was available online (Facebook, Youtube, a website, Twitter) we made that film popular again. You might say it went viral and made quite an impressive turnover for its rightsowner. To download the film, the price is 8,50 Euro. We were extremely happy that through a good text the director posted in the blog of a pirate site where the film was also available, we got them to link to our legal offer and take down the illegal offer. Through our link statistics, we can see that many people come from there to us.
SC: I know that the German film industry is particularly concerned about online piracy, how does a site like OnlineFilm help alleviate this concern?
CW: We do not use DRM systems simply because we do not believe in them and we do not want to make it difficult for the customers. Also we do not want to greet our customers as criminals that we do not trust. We follow the principle of “digital rights fair trade” in short “do not bullshit your audience and your audience won’t bullshit you”. Our download is DRM free, whoever buys it will also be able to download the film again, when he needs to. He just needs to log in with his username and it will be in the “my films” section. Since our streaming technology is “dedicated flash streaming” it is not quite as easy to save the stream as with other techniques. The stream is rented for 48 hours and usually cheaper than the download, but it can also be offered solely if people want to better protect their work and do not want it downloaded.
SC: Is there a geoblocking mechanism on OnlineFilm so that if a filmmaker has sold a online sales territory or has a sales agent looking to sell a territory, that territory is blocked? I know that many sales agents ask for a hold back timeframe on titles so they can sell those territories around the world. Is the site mainly to exploit titles that are no longer active in the marketplace? In effect, taking films out of the “library” mode and putting them back out into the marketplace?
CW: At the moment we do not offer geoblocking. Anyone half clever seems to be able to enter any system with a false IP and ridicule these mechanisms. Secondly, we think if a customer wants to legally purchase a film we should sell it to him and not tell him to go elsewhere (namely the pirate sites). We will nevertheless implement an IP scan and geolocation tools in the near future. We have to since the industry seems not to change its ways as fast as it should. We hope to be able to serve the customer by offering a revenue share with the person or distributor who has the rights in the territory where the customer comes from. But this might still take while to program and implement.
SC: Does OnlineFilm do any marketing on the part of the titles? Or is the filmmaker expected to conduct their own marketing strategy to drive traffic to the site?
CW: Onlinefilm does marketing for the site and through the many partner sites also tries to drive more traffic towards the films. We also market some titles that we select via our onlinefilm Facebook page and via the film of the week and the recommendations on the landing page. We have a space on the Kulturserver Network where we can promote individual titles.
When our staff has time left, we also try to encourage links to topic driven films from topic driven websites. We offer marketing support for filmmakers that are open for it, but we ask for a fee if they want a campaign run by us. Then we try to build a social web campaign with them and show them how to, or do the job for them depending on their skills and time or money they want to invest.
This is something we definitely need to put more energy in because far too many filmmakers here do not know how to self promote their films and rather invest their time in making a new one. The revenue made online with many of the films is so far not big enough to encourage distributors or filmmakers to invest a lot of time or money in extra marketing. But since we see that the turnover with films is growing constantly, we hope that this will change and lead to an exponential growth of sales once people will be willing to invest more in marketing once they see the potential.
We are preparing a social media campaigning and online marketing handbook. At the same time we are trying to connect with people who specialize in the craft of online film marketing. We want to develop business models with them that will work for them and the rights owners possibly also on a revenue share basis.
My thanks to Cay Wesnigk for taking the time to talk with us and explain how his company is helping European filmmakers make the shift from a primarily cinema driven distribution model to an online one.
Orly Ravid July 25th, 2012
Posted In: Digital Distribution, Distribution, Distribution Platforms, Facebook, Marketing
Tags: Cay Wesnigk, Copenhagen, download, DRM, European Digital Distribution, featured films, FERA, geoblocking, Germany, Greece, Ireland, online film distribution, OnlineFilm, Paypal, Roviros Manthoulis, streaming