It’s no coincidence that SXSW’s Film and Interactive conferences take place simultaneously, before the hefty barrage of musicians rock and roll into town for the second half of the festival. With Internet-based tools no longer merely an option for all filmmakers to get a handle on but a requirement, the usual discourse on industry issues like distribution and marketing belong squarely within the progressive region of the interactive conference. Even certain Film conference panels not directly advertised as taking the film/interactive crossover approach still had to address a number of questions about the evolution of the industry in the face of new media paradigms. Here’s a snapshot look at some of the more potent themes that emerged at the Austin Convention Center last week. At least, these are the ones that stood out on my notepad; feel free to share yours in the comments section below.
All parts of the industry are not changing in unison. My ears perked up when Withoutabox’s Christian Gaines told me that every time a movie submitted to festivals through the company’s submission engine gets recognized by a festival, the movie automatically gets an IMDb page (IMDb bought Withoutabox last year). It gets better: Filmmakers can tweak the IMDb profile for their films by adding all kind of relevant details, including video content. In certain cases, an entire movie can be uploaded to its profile. The next day, I unloaded a series of questions on Andrei Gregor, IMDb’s product manager for distribution: What if filmmakers decide to take a cue from IFC’s Festival Direct strategy and premiere their movies online on the same days as their festival premieres? Even if most sensible filmmakers wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t giving the filmmakers this option tick off a lot of festivals? Have IMDb or Withoutabox heard from sales agents, distributors or other members of the industry worried about losing their roles in this process now that Withoutabox is introducing the possibility of bypassing such services? Gregor basically just shrugged: That was somebody else’s problem. The potential conflict shouldn’t take away from the merits of Withoutabox/IMDb’s progress, but it does serve as a reminder that many people are trying different things all at once, leading to any number of potential conflicts that filmmakers should keep in mind. Contradictions are more likely to happen now than ever before. Speaking of which…
The Internet made things cheap, so now they’re expensive, but really they should be cheap. “You have four or five paradoxical things going on at once,” said perennial film festival drifter Jeff Dowd — aka “The Dude” — during a Q&A following former Picturehouse head Bob Berney’s public conversation with producer/producer’s rep John Pierson. Dowd was addressing Berney, now a free man looking to launch a new distribution company in the near future. Quoth The Dude: “The economy is worse than it has been in awhile. You’ve got people changing their viewing habits: They’ve invested in their home computers. You’ve got the Internet stronger than ever, with Obama and everyone else. You’ve got…all kinds of shit. How does a visionary like you take those factors, particularly the viral things, and use them to change, keep ahead of the times and all that?” Got that? Well, The Dude tends to ramble. He basically meant that great things of monumental importance now take place online at little to no cost — but with everybody finding a voice on the web, how does a single work of art stand out in the crowd? At least, that’s what I got from the question.
Pierson turned to Berney. “You’ve been challenged not to give a bad answer,” he said.
So Berney talked about his experience with Memento in 2000, when he managed to release and market the film with Internet buzz for a mere two million dollars. It eventually grossed $25 million and landed a Best Screenplay nomination for Christopher Nolan. Berney, then running Newmarket Films, heard from a lot of his colleagues. “Fox Searchlight called us and said, ‘How did you get it out for two million?’” he recalled. “The answer at the time was, ‘We had no money.’”
“That’s the answer to why,” Pierson said. “Not the answer to how.”
Berney elaborated. “Well, we were able to do it with Internet campaigning, using less television, and having the hook intrinsically in the film — you had to see it five times to get the whole thing. I think we have to rethink and step back a little bit. That’s why a lot of these companies are in the ground.” In other words, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on a web-based marketing strategy, even if you have that money at your disposal. “The thing I’ve seen is people just adding on [costs], and it makes the release more expensive,” Berney said. “I think we have to adjust the whole way we market films in terms of money, and bring it back to a way that enables us.” Of course, the cheapness sets up a different problem:
Because things are cheap, it’s pretty damn hard for most filmmakers to make significant profits from digital distribution. Note to panel organizers: If you want a frank discussion about the viability of releasing movies online, put Morgan Spurlock on a panel. At the TED Conference in Long Beach last month, Spurlock told NewTeeVee that he made a paltry $1200 from streaming Super Size Me on SnagFilms for six months. During SXSW, where Spurlock appeared on a panel with SnagFilms’s Rick Allen, Cinetic Rights Management’s Matt Dentler, and several others, he repeated the problem. “This isn’t where we’re going to be making money now,” he said. “The reasons the numbers aren’t released is because the numbers are pathetic. It’s getting to a point where it’s down the road from being profitable, but we’re just not at that point yet.” Then again, there are case studies to disprove Spurlock’s blanket decree, many of which can be found in Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age, a new collection of interviews by Scott Kirsner (the moderator of the SXSW panel where Spurlock appeared). Anyway, monetary issues shouldn’t become the chief concern of filmmakers, because…
Artists should focus on their art. There are a number of new and exciting ways for audiences to discover movies, and many people will urge filmmakers to locate those audiences before they even complete production. But veteran indie distributor Richard Abramovitz of Abramorama says this can create an unnecessary distraction if it eclipses the main goal of making a movie. “It’s always a delicate situation to talk to filmmakers about finding their audience beforehand,” Abramovitz said on a panel about self-distribution. “Presumably, you’re making art. To think about the end user in that particular way is kind of a corruption of the process. It’s the producer’s responsibility to work off the director and understand who the audience may be.” But once you figure that out…
Choose your venue wisely. It’s always intriguing to watch the ubiquitous Cold War between various indie distributors, each of whom champions a different approach to making movies succeed in the current climate, where experiments often trump precedents. Nobody knows anything, so everyone knows everything. This creates many exciting new possibilities, but filmmakers need to take certain cautions. That was the gist of Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker’s energizing monologue during a general distribution panel at SXSW. Joined by reps from various other distributors including IFC and Magnolia, which both employ video-on-demand strategies, Barker may have felt like he was relegated to the stature of resident Luddite — especially when moderator David Garber introduced him as “the most conventional” distributor of the panel. So Barker took the emphasis off SPC and made a broad, lengthy observation that really put things in context:
For independent filmmakers, it’s no different from what it’s been for the last fifty years. One is getting your film financed, two is getting your film distributed. It’s really the variables of toughness that changed with the times. I’m only saying that because I don’t think, from the filmmaker’s perspective, it is a worse time than ever before. I think, in some ways, it’s a better time, especially if you are involved with lower budget films. A lot has to do with the money, which no one seems to be talking about here. If you have a lower budget film, you see the number of opportunities for your film to be distributed. There has been no more exciting time for distribution today. Twenty-five years ago, fifteen years ago, there were literally only two models for which you released a film. One was to release it platform — it’s an independent film, an art film. Another was to release it for television in a very mainstream sort of way, which is the customary studio way. Now with the new technologies, you have many opportunities to get your film seen. There is a perfect opportunity for your film, but where the danger is — is if you choose the wrong model for your film.
Speaking those last six words, Barker leaned especially close to the microphone, giving his voice a sudden and rather ominous reverb effect. People in the room seemed to perk up. Barker continued:
Or if a distributor chooses the wrong model for your film, because there are many more than ever. The idea of [SPC] being traditional — we do have traditional [theatrical] windows because that is the way we get the most revenue possible. However, we certainly are involved with all of these new technologies — albeit in a different way than all of the companies you have up here. The fact of the matter is, every company has its own character, and its own character has to do with the agenda of that company. You can see that with IFC, you can see that with Magnolia, you can see that with — how do you say it again?
Barker turned to Oscilloscope’s David Fenkel, who pronounced his company’s name. After the laughter subsided, Barker concluded his thought.
“These are new trends that are certainly models that work, but the worst thing you can do is to assume that one model fits all,” he said. “It does not. More than ever before, the idiosyncratic nature of your film is what has to be addressed. You have more opportunities, but you also have more opportunities to make a mistake.”
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