Filmmaker Discusses Creative Marketing, Freeing Up Movies, Embracing New Business Models
from the sounds-cool dept
Nathan Smith alerts us to an interesting interview with filmmaker Sally Potter, discussing her new movie Rage, which has a variety of unique and interesting facets to it. The movie -- which has a bunch of famous actors, including Jude Law, Judi Dench, Steve Buscemi, Diane Wiest, John Leguizamo and others -- is being released first on mobile phones, with a different part of it released each day for a week (I believe this past week). The film is supposed to be from the view of a cameraphone, so that makes sense. But, Potter has also worked hard to cultivate a strong fanbase through a variety of online methods. And, of course, she's all about embracing "free," embracing what the technology enables, and thinks the rest of Hollywood is a bit silly to live in fear and try to lock everything down:FNB: It's true, everyone is talking about this, what is the economic model? Is there one?Indeed. We've been pointing out for the better part of a decade that going to the movies is a social experience, and the best way to do that is to make that experience better. Many theaters have started to catch on to this (finally).
SP: Not yet. The music industry is slightly ahead of us and had to go through the same thing already and it's shock, horror, terror, everyone's going to go bankrupt because everyone can have everything for free. Lots of resistance, I'm talking about filmmaking now, legislating against copyright and everything is watermarked, anxious, anxious, and all that. And I think my attitude is, go the other way. Open the gates, say "okay have it." It's free, it's yours and then if you want me to go on and make other things, you're going to have to complete the circle by going out and buying the DVD. Maybe in the future it will be some sort of subscription model but I always wanted to do that with this one.
FNB: There was a recent article we read that said the next generation of digital consumers still wants to pay to go to theaters. It's not mutually exclusive, which is calming to know that just because one is succeeding doesn't mean the other is going to disappear.
SP: Its not either/or, it's AND. It might make cinema owners and distributors sit up a little bit, and make it a more pleasant and thrilling experience to go to the theater, make the quality of the projection better, the seats more comfortable, make it back to the real beginnings of what joining together in a big group is all about. Similar people can have their own access to watch it home on Blu-ray, its one of the things that I do. I have a good screen and I watch things together with a group of friends. Comfortably lying about. And that feel just as true of a cinema experience as going to some wonderful cinema.
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Filed Under: business models, economics, free, movies, sally potter
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Attn. Mike
Potential T-shirt alert.
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We just need to get you guys to put a Creative Commons logo or something of the sort on your work so us dumb consumers can know whose side your on. We'll then promote it through our channels appropriately.
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Wow...
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How Is This Sustainable Though?
Although I suppose taking out the enormous cost of theatric distribution might help recoup some of those untranslated sales, I just don't see this working all THAT well in a culture where entitlement is increasingly becoming the norm.
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Re: How Is This Sustainable Though?
Spot on. How would you begin to redress the copyright industry's belief that it is entitled a century long monopoly? That it is entitled to control every aspect of our culture and heritage. That it is entitled to constrain free trade and progress. Would simply repealing the DMCA do it?
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Re: Re: How Is This Sustainable Though?
The only other alternative would be the death of the current media companies from refusal to change their business models, but somehow I doubt that will happen; there has already been a handful of traditional companies utilizing new media market strategies and others are likely to catch on, but more importantly: they like money too much.
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Re: How Is This Sustainable Though?
The entire business relies on whether people want to see the movie or not.
Theatres are all about people wanting to see a movie a few months in advance (or maybe just going out with friends). DVD sales rely on people liking the movie enough to want to buy it. I could go on, but the point is that the movie industry already relies on people shelling out extra cash when they don't have to.
And, perhaps more importantly, if it's true that "only 1/100 people will pay", that's all the more reason to give it out for free. Why? Because the volume of viewers will increase substantially when there is no price.
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Re: Re: How Is This Sustainable Though?
But in that sense, every industry is a "maybe pay" industry. The entire computer software business relies on whether people want to use the program or not. The entire soft drink business relies on whether people want to consume soda or not.
The point I am making is that this model takes previously-monetized groups of people and removes them from the picture entirely, namely: casual moviegoers and people didn't like the movie.
The current model works roughly in this fashion:
This model, however, would work something like this:
Again, I can maybe see this working with the reduced cost of production/distribution using an all-digital workflow (something the industry has been slow to embrace), but two other things also have to happen:
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Re: How Is This Sustainable Though?
I'm not saying it's "the rule." Just pointing out what one filmmaker is doing.
Not sure why every time I show yet another example people start complaining "but this will never work for...."
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Re: Re: How Is This Sustainable Though?
I'm not sure what you're getting at though. This example was used in relation to moviemaking in general, was it not? "Creative Marketing, Freeing Up Movies, Embracing New Business Models"... that doesn't sound very specific to me. Besides which, if we aren't meant to discuss how these practices might be applied elsewhere then what's the point of bringing them? To say "oh, neat"?
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Re: Re: Re: How Is This Sustainable Though?
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Mindset change needed
The way John Cusack's "War Inc" was launched (organically, with hardly any marketing budget) allowed a lot more word of mouth and less overhyped media reviews. I bet few people who saw it were disappointed because they were effectively going on crowdsourced recommendations, from people like them.
But my sister has spent her like making movies and I'd have to agree with the poster who said "it's tough enough getting paid as it is". Try asking your bank manager for a mortgage when your source of income is a movie that you haven't figured out how to charge for yet. Of course, an alternative business model doesn't mean that a canny investor won't put the money up to get it made. Just that it is unlikely an investor will put up the money and then sit back quietly while the arty types muse over whether to charge for the movie.
Bear in mind also that Radiohead have the luxury of a full bank account when they offer ""pay what you want". So I suspect does Sally Potter.
But it's not like the music industry. The capital outlay for a band to go straight to MP3 with a recording is nothing like what is required to make a decent movie.
We can all think of extremely low budget "Blair Witch" type examples (God knows my sister has made a few) but generally people don't want to watch too many of those.
And there are a lot more people involved in making a movie than an album, some of whom are simply contractors who want pay, not equity in some "maybe" down the line venture.
Imagine a silicon valley startup asking the minimum wage cleaners if they mind being paid only in stock options. Not everyone shares the director's belief in the project...
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It may not be that expensive
Colin cost $70 bucks to produce and it was a hit LoL
Besides that you have a lot of fan movies being made that have some pretty impressive quality like The Hunt For The Gollum or the inumerous takes on Star Trek and you have still people doing films using contributions from fans like the Durian Project that got all the equipment donated to them and cost paid by fans and you have open movies being made granted that most are not blockbusters yet but the point is there is potential to be great and cheap at the same time the old assumption that you need lots of money to do something is being challenged along the other assumption that one needs to control every aspect of something to make some money. I doubt people will do less movies when still profits are in the millions of dollars, the only people who hope to gain from strong laws and enforcement are the ones that needed it the least. General staff don't get royalties.
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"Colin" did not costs $70 to produce
You are presumably talking about actual stuff the chap had to go out and spend money on.
And yes, the odd unusual movie might be a hit, but noone wants to watch nothing but low budget flicks all the time.
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Colin Levy a kid without money
Another example comes form the guys from Detonation Films that I suspect are really just kids but have good stock footage that they give it for free and some of great tutorials explaining how to make white smoke with coffee powder to some really cool effects.
Match Moving Tracking also is not that difficult to do nowdays and you don't need to go Jurassic Park either(they did it by hand).
After being exposed to all of this I just got a feeling that the industry needs to do more then just sit there and say "it is ours we do as we wish", because there is a lot of competition coming soon to homes of consumers everywhere and if they keep these attitude up they could find themselves in route to obsolescence very soon. There are people out there with talent that don't dream with millions in profits and just do it for fun and could become really big players in a new paradigm.
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And why should a film be worth £300million dollars profit?? You could invent the cure for AID's and not get that off it!
Cinema's seriously need to up their game as well! Those sticky floored, over-priced, hard seated crap holes drive me crazy! You pay £12 to get in and £15 on popcorn and a drink to find you're films on the small screen where they're projecting it with a torch.
When I went to District 9 the first 20 minutes were ruined because they projected it in the wrong aspect ratio!
I was kept outside in a queue for 30minutes after the scheduled start of Dark Knight because of a 'leak'
The Ice Age's latest afair was marred by the advertising reel playing over the top of the middle of the film!
'You need to go to a new Cinema' I hear you say? Well they were all at different places! Lakeside's and the O2's View and Bluewater's Showcase.
I go to the cinema a lot because it's how a lot of films are supposed to be seen, but I feel like I've been ripped off every single time!
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Celebrating give it away and pray?
If nothing else this entire post proves that you cannot extend free endlessly.
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Re:
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Quality
Without sufficient budget and a reliability on internet distribution, quality suffers. Not only physically in terms of file size, etc, but in the necessary direction such a film must take to satisfy an internet audience. Films built to attract seeds and peers will largely use themes based on internet cultural references, even if they are determinedly opaque or based purely on the ruminations of the internet intelligentsia. This is a present day audience, which will be served, but there is a huge risk of being forgotten in the flood, and is a big factor in making would-be film makers hesitant.
The strange difficulty is, films which will succeed in today's market have to be made to stand the test of time, which requires excellent storytelling and narrative skills. They must, by the audience's nature, relate to a very disparate audiences. This is, of course, not entirely possible, and sometimes not desired if the film concentrates on a particular cultural or personal story. How to make a personal story open to all, and relate-able to all, and entertaining - that is still the mainstream, and where experience can help.
It's difficult, and it is a long game. In order to fund such a strategy without quality suffering, it must also answer to the short game - ie, a reason to see it at the cinema. The tradition of cinema is changing, as it always has, to public demand. If people demand a reason to group together in one place to watch a film, then the film must demand it too. This takes patience and trust, which is, as I have already mentioned, an essential part of the entire production model. And the money question? Well, I've already answered that.
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Great trailer
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However, this is not where we are today. That's the point. Current business models which reach towards this any-outlet future should be encouraged, but they cannot possibly predict long-term gains unless they adapt to include current revenue streams coupled with enterprising initiatives, however fragile they might seem.
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who is FNB?
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Movies all the time gets old too.
You are right, watching movies all the time gets boring that is why I use Miro TV.
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