1. On how to utilize the current state of distribution as a
filmmaker: "Our general feeling at Cinetic -- and we say this on a daily
basis -- is that all good films have one community in common: Cinephiles. Which
are people who just love good films. But if you push through that and go beyond
it, every film has other identifiable communities. What the promise of infinite
storage in cyberspace brings -- together with the ability to market directly to
the core community for your film -- is this idea that you can now go out and
monetize. You can go find the eyeballs that we meant to see your film even if
you don't get the interest of the various distributors that usually pay money
to pick up all the rights and release films theatrically."
2. On the importance of a theatrical release (or lack thereof):
"If you want the most amount of people to see your film, it isn't
something you'll necessarily accomplish by insisting on that it go through a
theatrical release. There are films that lend themselves to theatrical release
because of their spectacle or subject matter. But if you go to New York there
are 22 films released every weekend and 18 of them just die a painful death.
And I think those films actually get damaged in the after-market from having
been released theatrically."
3. On handing over
transactional rights to broadcasters: "The short answer is that you should
be mindful of this as a filmmaker. The default position of any broadcaster is
to take all the rights, but most of them will get off that position if they
really want your film."
4. On what to look out for with digital aggregation: "I'm
sick of the opaqueness of Hollywood accounting. Of distributors who basically
tell you you are on a need-to-know basis. There are different components to
aggregation. There's optimizing the film and being smart enough to know what
the sequence of windowing and where the film should be so you can optimize the
revenue. I'll give this example. I sold two films at the same time. One was
"Freakonomics" and one was "Client 9."
"Freakonomics" did huge business on iTunes and no business on
cable/VOD. "Client 9" did huge business on cable/VOD and almost no business
on iTunes. There's a lot of accumulated knowledge that comes with putting those
films out and knowing what the sequence is. Can you do a stunt on Hulu for a
day that functions as a word-of-mouth for transactional? It's sort of the wild
west now... There's so many ways you can stunt and sequence a film to optimize
it. And I think an aggregator should know that."
5. On how the filmmakers role does or doesn't change in the VOD
space: "I don't really see the filmmakers' role changing. I think
filmmakers have an obligation to shill for their movie. And I think anyone who
doesn't see it that way deserves the consequences. Especially in documentaries.
You can have the subject and the subject can be out there selling the film. But
it's about storytelling. The business we are in is storytelling. If the
storyteller basically can't get out and tell the story about the story they are
telling, then why are they doing it? I've always taken that point of view.
6. On expectations for documentary filmmakers in particular:
"If you're not Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, you're not necessarily
going to immediately make millions of dollars. I mean, Alex Gibney made serious
money off "Client 9" but made almost nothing off 'Taxi From The Dark
Side,' which is the film that won him an Academy Award. You have to responsibly
look at the subject that you're writing about and whether it is a commercial subject. Not everything is."
7. On piracy: "Piracy is a drag. I believe in copyright. I
know that's probably unpopular point of view among the youth of today. But I'm
very concerned about it. I've always said that I'm not concerned about the
demise of the DVD. I'm all in favor of economic efficiency. If the right price
for content is $1.99 then that's what it should cost. The free market system
should determine that. If you have something that is completely viral and
people have to have it and you want to charge $50 or it, then more power to
you. But the only thing that cuts against that is piracy. Piracy is a big
concern. My own point of view about it -- and I don't know if people feel the
same -- is that it is less about the desire to have something for nothing than
it is about the desire to have something when and where you want it.
8. On how that applies to the film industry today: "The mistake
the music industry made was thinking they control when people would listen to
music. If iTunes had started the same day as Napster then the music industry
may look very different today. The equivalent of that in the film space is the
insistence of theaters on windowing. On having there be four months between
when you can see something in a theater and when you can see it at home. If say
to a 25 year old today who can just go to BitTorrent that they can't buy
something even if they wanted to. They're gonna say screw you and they're going
to download it... It's a real concern. I am a huge advocate of collapsed
windows. Most studio heads are, oddly enough, huge advocates of collapsed
windows. The only people who aren't are the people who own movie theaters."
9. On what kind of films do well on various platforms:
"There are certain films that do well in general on VOD and those are
films that are genre or have movie stars in them. The films that do well on
iTunes are the ones that skew younger because of the sort of broadband utility.
The people who tend to watch films on cable and VOD tend to be older and less
technology savvy. There's a better, more specific answer to that... But that's
sort of at a top level what the difference is.
10. On crowdfunding: "I am a gigantic fan of crowdfunding.
I'm super annoyed I didn't do the first mega one... the Veronica Mars or Zach
Braff. I'm also very concerned that left to its own devices, it's going to be
sort of tarnished by being used incorrectly... Someone said something to me
very early on that really resonated with me. Which is that crowdfunding is less
about raising money than it is about building community. To finding the people
that really support what you do. What I love about crowdfunding and what I'm
dedicated to seeing happen is to use crowdfunding in essence to build loyalty.
And I think the best use of crowdfunding is pre-selling. I've been making this
point to filmmakers lately. The notion that there's some guy who needs to give
you permission to make a film -- that being the financier -- and then the film
gets consumed is a very primitive notion in a universe where you can now go to
the people who will eventually consume the film and get them to help finance
the movie."
No comments:
Post a Comment