SpringBoardMedia

Cross Media Film Contest

2009-07-09T12:11:00.003-04:00

My friends at Power to the Pixel have launched their pitching contest for cross-media projects. From the website:

The Pixel Pitch is Power to the Pixel’s ground-breaking new pitching forum for up to ten of the best UK and international cross-media film projects.

We are looking for stories that can span film, TV, online, mobile and gaming to be presented to a select group of financiers, commissioners, tech companies, online portals and media companies in front of an audience of PTTP participants.

The selected project teams will compete for the
BABELGUM PIXEL PITCH PRIZE of £6,000.

A great opportunity for the right project.

IndieScreenings Tool

2009-07-06T16:00:00.006-04:00

While in Edinburgh, I got the chance to speak with one of the main folks behind The Age of Stupid. This was pretty lucky for me, since I've been talking about their fundraising model in some of my presentations and wanted to learn more about how things are going. Great, it seems.

In case you don't know the story, check out the link above, but the short version is that they have used the web and social networking to raise a lot of money for both the production and distribution of their film. They are now showing the film across the UK and Ireland, and will soon be expanding internationally. In order to facilitate screenings, the've built a pretty cool online tool for booking screenings. It allows you to book the film for anywhere from 1 to thousands of viewers in multiple types of settings. Right now, it's only screening in the UK and Ireland, so to experiment with the process, just pretend you are booking it somewhere there. I imagine they'll expand this to other cities as the film rolls out.

I think it's a great start for a tool to help book events - not just films could use this, but also other cultural orgs, letting the audience tell them where to book the screening or event. Taking a lot of work off the shoulders of the producers/distributors as well. It's something Four Eyed Monsters did as well, and I hope to see more tools like this.

My new gig

2009-07-03T14:36:00.002-04:00

As many of you might have seen in IndieWire yesterday, I've decided to move on to new things. In the spirit of open communication that is the web now, I'm posting the info I sent my friends and colleagues on Friday announcing my departure.

After five years leading NVR on the path to becoming Renew Media and then joining forces with the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI), I have decided to leave the organization. I am thrilled we could combine these two great organizations into one Institute with impressive, innovative programs in support of filmmakers, youth and their audiences. I am particularly proud of the launch of the Reframe project last year. I feel that the organization and these projects are now in a place where I can leave them in the hands of my extremely capable colleagues here at Tribeca, where they can continue to flourish.

As many of you know, I have quite an entrepreneurial spirit and want to now explore other opportunities. I will be launching a consulting business focusing on business development projects in the entertainment and cultural industries as well as helping filmmakers, artists and organizations to distribute content and connect with audiences through innovative uses of new technology.

Hopefully, you'll hear more hear soon.

Edinburgh and new models for filmmakers

2009-06-29T09:13:00.003-04:00

Just back from the wonderful Edinburgh Film Festival, where I was participating on some panels for Power to the Pixel. Video will be up soon and I'll try to add it in. I had a great time, and the panels were a mix of old and new world folks discussing how to deal with the transformations of digital. I spoke about how filmmakers can continue to make money for their creativity in a world where things are trending towards free - not just free through piracy, but also where returns from ad supported sites are too little to live on, and where even the traditional models seem broken. Here's the slides, but a quick note - I tend to free-form deliver these, so the notes aren't everything that I talked about. Once the video is up, all will be revealed.

Filmmakers making a living with Free

View more documents from Brian Newman.

I also spoke about our Reframe project as a new business model that is actually working well for our partners. I focused more on how it is helping consumers by being a trusted source to find quality content. The slides are below. While there I also spoke on a Shooting People panel, but there's no slides from that presentation, which was kinda a mix of how Reframe works, and what new models exist for indie filmmakers in the digital landscape. Here's the Reframe slides:

Reframe Overview For EFF

View more documents from Brian Newman.

Open Video Conference Speech

2009-06-18T20:40:00.003-04:00

I'm speaking at the Open Video Conference tomorrow, and then immediately boarding a plane for Edinburgh to speak (3 times) at the Power to the Pixel event at the film festival and at a Shooting People event. Then I take some much needed vacation in the Highlands. So, I am posting for all (4) of you lucky web readers, my open video presentation the day before. Wow, look out! it's short, they call it a "lighting talk" ... and it is at 5 minutes.

It's very simplistic, almost like a beginner's powerpoint. It's a style I borrowed from Jenny Toomey of the Ford Foundation, because I was about to present without any slides, but decided a few simple ones could help the flow. Nothing fancy needed here. I'm going to be pretty much ad-libbing about what I see as failures of the open video movement - mainly a lack of attention to the bigger picture, of which open video is just a tiny part. As well as a complete lack of real business models, and an unhealthy disrespect of the "dinoasurs" of old media, who are quite ready to beat the open folks into submission. Don't get me wrong, I'm on the open side, with a dose of realism against the utopianism, but when I looked at the schedule, it seemed like a bit of a love fest in need of a reality check. Here it is, and the Edinburgh ones soon:

Open Video Conference Present.

View more OpenOffice presentations from Brian Newman.

Youth views on the recession

2009-05-24T13:03:00.003-04:00

I was going to stay un-wired for the whole weekend, but I have to give a quick shout out to the young folks from the TFI Youth program who had a stellar showing this morning on CBS Sunday Morning. The segment was focused on looking at the recession through the eyes of youth, and the ones they chose had all been part of our program (as well as a few other youth media orgs). Five NYC youth made short films about their experiences in the recession. They're all great, and the CBS segment focused on their experiences making the films and living through this recession. Congrats to TFI Youth Director Lisa Lucas and her team who helped them for the past two weeks in making their videos! We'll have them up on our website soon, but for now you can check out the report below:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Thoughts on the death of newspapers

2009-05-18T19:08:00.009-04:00

Yesterday, I attended a great panel/workshop at Philanthropy New York, an organization of foundations and other philanthropists, on the future of the newspaper. It was titled "Internet to Newspapers - Drop Dead" but that was just the lead, teasing you in for a good discussion. The panelists were a pretty smart bunch -

Steve Coll, President of New America Foundation, and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine
Nicholas Lemann, Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor, Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University
Victor Pickard, Senior Research Fellow, Free Press
Vincent Stehle, Program Director, Surdna Foundation (moderator)

Although I hope they don't represent the future of newspaper's diversity as a bunch of white men (sorry, but this is an ongoing problem on these panels), I do think they had good thoughts on the future. Two of them are well respected journalists, one a leader of a big journalism school, one a leading researcher on the field, one whose organization cares greatly about the future of democracy and one who helps support all of this as a funder and advocate. The audience was a great mix (and relatively diverse) - with journalists, heads of major foundations, heads of newspapers and community leaders, so the discussion was pretty good.

Essentially, everyone seems to agree that good journalism is important to our civil society and to democracy and that it needs to exist. No one seemed to really care if that takes the form of an actual newspaper, or some new type of news organization although it seemed many in the room still like print, they're pretty much over it if need be. There's also pretty general agreement that the model of newspapers is failed. I don't think I have to summarize any of these arguments, as that's all pretty self-explanatory.

What no one can agree upon is a solution, or whether the current solutions being proposed are worth much. The most comprehensive look at possible solutions just came out last week as a report from the group FreePress and is available here as a PDF. I think it's worth a read, because many of the struggles of news organizations are the same as those faced in film. One newspaper owner in the room said that while all media is suffering, the death knell at newspapers is palpable, to which I responded that these fears are just as palpable in the film world, we just don't get to write our own news about it.

While I am greatly simplifying the possible strategies, they seem to boil down to these (mainly from the report, but some from in the room):

1. Allow new ownership structures - this would mainly allow newspapers to become nonprofit organizations and/or low-profit L3C alternatives. No one was saying that every paper should be a nonprofit, but rather that in all other media we have a mixture of both, commercial and non, for profit and non and the tax code needs to allow for this conversion in newspapers. There are some good models already, my favorite being the newspaper I grew up with, the St Petersburg Times owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute. This would allow newspapers to get certain tax breaks, receive donations and foundation grants, etc. Many people seem to favor this model, but I am not so sure (see below). Senator Benjamin Cardin has introduced a bill that would allow this, so it's getting some traction.

2. Have the government subsidize newspapers. The government would give tax breaks and direct monetary support to the sector. This would recognize their value to our government. While this has big problems - how free would such a press be to report on said government, etc - it's being heavily promoted now and is being seriously considered. It's worth noting that government support isn't actually new - the press has been subsidized in the past, and continues to be - free airwave spectrum to broadcasters, reduced postage for mailings, etc.

3. Give incentives for divesture - this essentially means that you'd encourage local ownership, diverse ownership, and other new structures through structured bankruptcies of dying media. They may actually consider it, because the owner's shares are becoming worthless;

4. Put up a pay wall - The ongoing call for this is ridiculous, but so often repeated that I must address it here. The idea is that you'll pay a subscription or micro-payment for newspaper content. While many are skeptical this will work at all (and the Free Press report addresses these arguments well), it will definitely only work if every newspaper/print/online news org does it at the same time. This means they'll need antitrust exemptions. The newspaper owner in the room felt that nearly every paper could be saved "if only people were charged and would pay a fair price." Yep, that's exactly the dilemma... and thus far nothing has worked.

5. Fund journalism training - Train journalists better with more funding, whether they are writing for a big media company or a little blog;

6. Create an R&D fund for journalistic innovation -this idea is one I like. Essentially, government and foundations, etc would invest in experiments in new models. One major, very major, journalis funder in the room confided that he's tried to get traditional big media companies to experiment, with their underwriting, and none would do it, they're just too resistant to change. But such a fund would allow for more experimentation, and lord knows we need some new models, so this idea is great;

7. Fund new public media - transform public broadcasting by greater investment, so you ensure a robust journalistic environment. No one thought public media was doing a good job, but all thought there was a chance for some improvement.

I was not so sure any of these answers will work. My frank assessment, which I shared with the group is that if these are the best ideas we can come up with for journalism, then perhaps we should let them all fail and just invest in the new folks coming up with supportable models. As someone who runs a nonprofit, I can say that the nonprofit model is seriously broken - I continually preach that what we need more of is for-profit/nonprofit collaboration and thinking, mixing the best of both models. So sure, let's explore some hybrids, and thus the Cardin bill is a good first step, but to think that becoming nonprofit will solve your woes is wrong. If your underlying business model - using news as a way to sell cars - isn't working, then you will just as surely fail as a nonprofit as a for profit. Nonprofits also must make money, they just don't give it back to shareholders. And in case you haven't noticed, foundations are struggling so don't count on them for a bailout. On top of that, there's plenty of bad management in nonprofits, so that won't solve your management problems. Nonprofits must also raise lots of earned income - many now bring in more than 50% through sales - of tickets, tshirts, cookies, etc. So, newspapers will still need to earn a profit from some form of sales (although perhaps ancillary items, not news).

I also don't think going to the government will work so well right now. If we think of the government as the representative of the people, then you've got a lot of funders/public who think that journalism failed them recently in the lead-up to Iraq, and the lead up to the financial crisis, etc. There may be good journalism and journalists out there, but try telling that to a general public that usually rates journalists as just barely above Dick Cheney in the admiration and trust columns. Seriously, passing this by the American public won't be easy. Not to mention all those freedom of the press worries, etc. So, we should try some government subsidies, but only if they support really innovative strategies, not the status quo.

This public support will also lead to a very real question - if good journalism is so important to our democracy, important enough for the taxppayer to help foot the bill through taxes, tax breaks, etc then why do you want me to pay for it twice by then paying a micropayment or subscription? Not that I will, or that anyone likely will, but there goes that business strategy. But this is the real kicker of the whole debate - payment. Real news gathering (not the opinion pages, and the like) is expensive to produce and someone has to pay for it. The industry keeps saying the public must pay, but sorry folks, as much as we want micropayments and subscriptions to work, they just don't.

Advertising has fallen, and it may not even work very well, but this is capitalism babe, and it ain't disappearing altogether. And while people may not pay for your content the same way as before, at the same levels, they will pay for very valuable content. What's becoming increasingly clear is that journalism can survive, and even a new version of a newspaper, perhaps a news organization that uses multiple delivery mechanisms, but it may not make enough to keep a small monarchy system in place. I know that in my field, film, I could easily spend very little money and hire some of the best film writers out there and within months put the leading industry publications out of business just by being more nimble, having low overhead and by being willing to experiment more. I don't have time for that, but someone will soon. The "big media" in film, Variety and Hollywood Reporter, just can't get it right, and have bloated costs from their legacy models. If you can do this in one industry, I'm sure you could do the same for international news. Yes, you'd face the eyeball problem - getting the eyeballs that a New York Times has, but look at how quickly eyeballs have accumulated on many a start-up from YouTube to Twitter. You don't need a printing press, don't need a fancy new building, don't need a subscription team bugging me every day, don't need a network of delivery drivers who miss my delivery half the time, don't need a lot of things. I'm being very simplistic, but you get my drift.

The problems facing newspapers are not unlike those facing film and other content media. We all know the digital problems and possible solutions. But they're also similar in another way - both suffer from some incredibly bad management and inability to change. Many of the problems facing newspapers have nothing to do with digital, they are legacy problems - things like focusing on gossip instead of hard news, declining readership as people have more options, media consolidation that favored less quality work, the fact that haf of advertising doesn't work, and we're learning through better metrics what half that is, etc. Frankly, however, there's been a lot of inertia because in most towns things settled into a system where one paper ruled the day, and if you owned a printing press you could essentially print money. Lots of it. You had no reason to change, no reason to think about the future. No reason to invest in the future. And if you were making money hand over fist on soft news, who cares about the "public good" of good journalism. Now that the economy has, in the words of Warren Buffet, taken the tide out and shown us who is wearing clothes and who isn't, many a bad business model is being exposed.

I obvously don't have all the answers, and I don't expect them to have all the answers either, but this is their industry and someone in it should be able to come up with a business plan that's better than trying to put the genie in the bottle and start charging micropayments for their content. They've tried it before and failed. So if we're going to think of giving newspapers a foundation or government lifeline,then we need new thinkers with better models. I read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in print every morning before I start work and I care about good journalism and its importance to civil society, but I don't think we should suffer fools for long. While there are many great employees at many newspapers, there's an awful lot of bad thinking at the top (and I know there are exceptions). So that's why I think the smarter investment in our future is in the start-ups and the more nimble, usually smaller, press around the country. I don't expect all the big media to implode, and don't want some of them to go away, but I do think that the most profound changes will likely be too hard for the big guys to stomach - to embrace those changes, they'll need to undercut their existing model even more. I do think that the crisis is serious enough to warrant some intervention, but like the recent bailout, any such intervention should come with some serious strings attached that ensure that what media survives isn't just more of the same old schlock, but more of the journalism we need.

These aren't my final thoughts on the subject, just my initial ones from yesterday's conversation. Got any good ideas on what should be done? Leave some comments.

Photo Credit - Thomas Hawk

CwF + RtB=$$$ + $500 = dinner at sizzler

2009-05-06T11:18:00.005-04:00

My last tweet on Mike Masnick's presentation got a lot of retweet's and he reached out to say there's an even better version online now. If you haven't watched the earlier one I linked, watch this, and if you have, watch the last ten minutes where he talks about how Trent Reznor's way of building a fan base and making money can work for "smaller" artists.

For those of you wondering WTF?? CwF +RtB = $$$ is a simple equation saying Connect with Fans and add a Reason to Buy and you can make money online with music, film, etc. Pretty simple, and I could elaborate, but well, there's this video you could watch instead. My favorite RtB - Josh Freese's offer to buy you dinner at Sizzler if you give him $500 towards his album!

Leadership Music Digital Summit 2009 - Mike Masnick keynote address, 3/25/09 from Leadership Music Digital Summit on Vimeo.

Pirate Bay and Filmmakers

2009-04-30T11:43:00.002-04:00

How would/do you feel about your film being pirated?

Those are the results just in from Shooting People, who just recently released their poll about what filmmakers think about piracy and the Pirate Bay verdict. I have a lot of opinions about this which I may write about later, but everyone should read this. This is the exact kind of research more film organizations should be doing. I met with their great team while all were in town (one is a sublettor, so that was easy) and we agreed to work together with others to do this more in the future. Kudos to Shooting People for being such a great service org.

Here's the poll, and here's the text of their press release (which I can't find online):

For immediate release. Friday 24 April 2009

* Shooting People reacts to jailing of 'download pirates'

* Independent filmaker networking community speaks out about the future of free downloads

* Results of poll of members announced

In response to the news of the jailing in Sweden of four men behind Pirate Bay, the world's most high-profile file sharing website, Shooting People polled its members - thousands of them holders of intellectual property in their films - for their reaction.

The poll found the members of the 35,000-plus strong network of independent filmmakers divided.

The majority of Shooting People members did not welcome the Pirate Bay verdict.

48% disagreed with the court's decision, and 62% thought the jail term was too severe. 26% thought it was a justified sentence and 12% thought the ruling was too lenient.

As a network for the independent film community, a perhaps unsurprising 35% said they would never download a copyrighted film without paying, whilst 17% would consider it if there was no easy way to pay. A fair proportion have also been on the other side of the fence, with 30% claiming they have had their film pirated. For those that hadn't, 21% said they would be bloody furious if it happened to them, but 35% said they would be happy for the extra distribution.

For the last week, the debate has raged in Shooting People's nine Daily Bulletins: "it's been like discussing politics over Christmas lunch", observed Shooting People co-founder Jess Search, who has strong opinions on the issue.

"God did not give us copyright - society chose it as a progressive way to organise things at a particular time in our industrial development (1710 in Britain). Yet people talk about 'rights' as if they are inalienable human rights. Surely it's an issue of pragmatism? If the digital economy makes copyright almost impossible to defend - except by throwing increasingly large amounts of state intervention at the problem, it's probably time to concede that new business models are needed to fund creativity. Once your fans are also your enemy, you know there must be another way to configure the equation." (Jess Search, in the UK Filmmaker Bulletin).

"Piracy is theft. Whatever way you look at it, it is stealing. Now I don't think the big companies are losing as much as they claim, because in reality more than half the people who download something for free would not download something if they had to pay for it. All artists are entitled to a fair return for their work and the people who want to enjoy their creativity without paying for it don't deserve the pleasure creative people give to them". (Shooter Ron Aberdeen, in the Screenwriters' Bulletin).

"Pay artists so they can continue to make your life better than the crappy round of bills and mortgages it will be without it. We are not the dregs of society and we are not pursuers of pointless whimsy. We contribute to the soul of existence and if you think that's not worth a token fee - then throw away every album you have bought, break every film you've purchased and burn every book on your shelf. If you don't think the creative forces and imaginations behind these works deserve a little kick-back - then you don't deserve to own them". (Lee Kern, filmmaker and editor of the UK Filmmaker Daily Bulletin).

"A fan base represents value - either because they'll buy your products / services or because brands will pay to get access to your particular demographic. Pirate sites don't generate much revenue and they don't provide viewer data. But they can be useful as a shop window and lead generator to send your audience into places where you can ask for their email and offer them something to buy. It's all about the audience ...". (Caroline Bottomley, in the UK Filmmaker Bulletin).

"As someone who has had a film extensively pirated, I can't tell you how galling and unpleasant it is to see this pirating happen and be powerless to stop it. Life is tough enough for indy film-makers anyway. In future we will hopefully all be selling our work online and therefore this judgement and sentence is an unequivocal victory for us. These are criminals who happily ripped off film-making talent. Throw away the key, I say!" (Stuart Urban, in the UK Filmmaker Bulletin).

The myriad issues raised were discussed at length in Shooting People's blog, edited by filmmaker and writer Ben Blaine: http://shootingpeople.org/bensblog.

The question posed and full results are here:

Do you welcome the pirate bay verdict??

No (48%)
Yes (34%)
Neither (18%)

Do you think the judgement is correct in law?

No (31%)
Yes (45%)
Don't know (24%)

Is the sentence proportionate?

No, too severe (62%)
Yes (26%)
No, too lenient (12%)

Would you ever download a pirated film?

No, never I think it's wrong (35%)
Maybe, if there was no easy way to pay (17%)
Maybe, if the price was unfairly high (15%)
Maybe, if I knew the filmmaker was already rich (9%)
Never, I wouldn't want to get caught (2%)
Definitely, because I don't have a problem with it (22%)

Has your work ever been pirated as far as you know?

No (70%)
Yes (30%)

How did you feel about being pirated?

Happy to be getting extra distribution (35%)
Bloody furious (21%)
Not particularly happy (19%);
Resigned (19%)
Don't know (6%)

Will the pirate bay verdict reduce piracy?

No (70%)
Don't know (18%)
Yes (12%)

Notes to Editors

Shooting People is the international networking organisation dedicated to the support and promotion of independent filmmaking.
The organisation's 35,000 Members share tips, recommendations and news, and cast and crew their films using the nine Daily Bulletins. Members can upload their work for video streaming. Over 300 films are cast and crewed every week using Shooting People.
Shooting People maintains the Independent Film Calendar, hosts interviews, podcasts and free filmmaking resources, and Members-only special offers. Shooting People publishes books, DVDs and distributes independent film releases, DVD collections of award-winning short films 'Best vs. Best'.
Patrons of Shooting People include Mike Figgis, Morgan Spurlock, Richard E Grant, Sally Potter, Danny Boyle, Stephen Woolley, Christine Vachon, Nick Park, Martha Fiennes and Stuart Beattie.

Wreck & Salvage, New media panel

2009-04-29T14:20:00.004-04:00

Last night, we had a great panel at the Apple Store for our TFI Youth program. I was able to come by for the latter half of the event, and have to say - it was the best panel of the entire Festival. I tweeted about it like crazy because the panelists were saying the most brilliant stuff. I wrote about the panel line-up earlier this week, but really encourage everyone to check out the websites for the panelists:
Wreck and Salvage
Jessica Ann Peavy
Zabet Patterson (this one's just a bio)
Jay Smooth
Kenneth Hung

After the panel, my good friend Kent Bye sent me a note on Facebook pointing out this great video from the Wreck & Salvage guys that excellently condenses/summarizes all of Good Morning America in less than 6 minutes. Hilarious, definitely worth a look.

Good Morning from wreckandsalvage on Vimeo.

My using new tools 2.0 speeches online

2009-04-28T13:39:00.002-04:00

When I gave my recent speech at TAA, several people asked me for links to some of my other talks. Here's a short snippet of the talk I gave in Scotland to Creative Scotland, a new org mixing the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen. The crowd was general arts groups, not just film.

Find more videos like this on Partnerships 2.0

Here's the link to part one of my talk, and you can find all of them (and those of my co-presenters) here. I'm looking forward to a return trip to Edinburgh where I'll be speaking at the Power to the Pixel event at the Festival on June 23/24th.

When I Walk - MS On Screen

2009-04-27T15:27:00.002-04:00

I've been meeting with many filmmakers this week at our Festival. Today I had brunch with many, and sat with one of our TAA filmmakers, Jason DaSilva. I'd read about his project in advance, and we'd talked briefly many times, but I didn't know that he's already started a vlog diary of his experiences. He has about 6 episodes up now, mainly dealing with how he's coping with having MS. I highly recommend you watch the videos, go see his short playing at the Festival (First Steps) and keep him in mind. He was at TAA pitching the feature version of his short, to be called When I Walk. He's building audience online with the vlog now, and will be posting episodes from TAA soon.

Beyond the Reel: Explorations in Media

2009-04-27T14:57:00.003-04:00

Over at my day job, which this week is my entire life..., TFI Youth Director extraordinaire Lisa Lucas has put together a great panel on new media. It's for our TFI Youth program, but this one promises to be good for anyone interested in where things are going.

Hear from Wreck & Salvage along with many others. Here's one of their videos:

The American Man: What of Him? from wreckandsalvage on Vimeo.

APRIL 28, 7:45-9:15PM @ THE APPLE STORE IN SOHO (103 PRINCE STREET)

In an age where you can watch a blockbuster on YouTube and a rooftop can become a movie theater—the way that we view films and filmmaking will never be the same again. The internet has transformed how people watch and interact with moving images, while galleries and new venues for video art have created the chance for multi-screen projections. By bringing together four very different but extremely exciting artists who are expanding the definition of “filmmaker”—this interactive event will give students the opportunity to meet with artists like acclaimed hip-hop video blogger Jay Smooth and mashup masters Wreck & Salvage. Join us for this experimental evening as we explore spliced archival footage, vlogging, film installation, and video games.

Comparing Screens, Big and Small

2009-04-23T15:36:00.004-04:00

Over at Reframe, Teri Tynes has a great post comparing big (theatre) and small (Macbook or smaller) screens. Teri says:
First, I would like to profess my conviction that the online world, the place of the computer screen where we increasing watch moving images, is a venue, just not a traditional one. As I have been screening many of the Reframe films through video on demand within this website, I've come to appreciate and enjoy the experience. Where sitting in the auditorium and watching a film in company of others brings the pleasure of the shared experience, watching a film online on a much smaller screen (I have a Mac Book), especially with headphones that cut out ambient sound, offers an intimacy and pleasure that has surprised me. I know people sometimes crowd around a computer and watch a VOD or DVD, and that’s fun, too, but I've grown to like my one-on-one experience with the artists I’ve been discovering through Reframe. While struggling to describe the experience, I feel a heightened personal reaction to what I see online, and perhaps I’m even a less self-conscious in this venue about holding my emotions in check.

I agree. While I am a lover of films on the big screen, I've always found that I can enjoy them differently on my computer, an ipod or even my cellphone screen. I know many people disagree, but her post is worth a read.

TAA Presentation - Online Tools, making money and building audiences for film

2009-04-21T12:01:00.002-04:00

A few friends asked me to post the presentation I gave yesterday at Tribeca All Access. So here it is. I think I've credited all sources/photos/etc but let me know if I'm missing anything. Also, keep in mind that this was an audience that had some beginners and some experts, so it's nothing new for those of you really immersed in this stuff. And the last caveat - I ad lib most of my talk, so the notes are not completely on track with what I say - but you'll get the basics from this.

Tribeca All Access - Online Tools, making money and building audiences for film

View more presentations from Brian Newman.

Statusphere and Filmmakers

2009-04-13T15:34:00.006-04:00

I have become obsessed with the future of newspapers these days. Everywhere you turn, there's another story about their death, or their new ideas to generate revenue or their senseless attacks on new directions. I barely have time to keep up, what with our festival around the corner, but I think the conversation is crucial for filmmakers (and their supporters in the industry) to follow. What's happening to journalism (and music) is also happening to film, just at a somewhat slower rate. We can fault the papers for not having the foresight to come up with new business models before it was too late, but only if we hold ourselves to task and make sure we are doing this now.

Brian Solis has a great article over at TechCrunch on the future of journalism. He relates that he asked Walt Mossberg (of the WSJ) whether newspapers should be saved. Walt's reply:

"Walt thought for no more than two seconds and assertively replied, "It’s the wrong question to ask. The real question we should ask is if whether or not we can save good journalism.” He continued, “Think about it. Of the hundreds, thousands, of newspapers around the country, there are really only a few that matter. Good journalism and journalists, on the other hand, are worth saving.'"

Walt's comment is spot-on, and it also applies to media - television stations, studios, film festivals and even filmmakers. As I've said before, I have little interest in saving any industry from the radical changes of digital. People need to adapt or disappear, but I am interested in what's good for audiences/society and what's good for filmmakers. And the changes happening online are (for the most part) really good for filmmakers. But Walt's comment also implies something else - it's not about saving all journalism/journalists, but those that are really good. Now I'm not going down the slippery slope of qualifying what makes a "good" filmmaker or film, but I think we all can understand that the same applies here. Luckily for savvy filmmakers who think they are good, there are more tools than ever to build your own brand and your own fan base without needing some big system supporting you. As Solis explains:

"It’s not unlike the renaissance currently underway in the music industry. Artists are discovering that they have a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) channel to reach fans and cultivate relationships. Those in touch with technology and the cultures of online societies can bypass traditional music production and distribution altogether."

This is equally true for film, but it only works if you are an industrious filmmaker willing to take the leap and embrace this change instead of following in the same old patterns. Many filmmakers (rightfully) resist this new paradigm - they are creatives and shouldn't have to think about marketing, how to use Facebook, etc. But increasingly, unless you are one of the lucky few to get a big distribution deal, you have to learn this stuff. And even if you do become "big," I'd argue that it's still important because it builds your fan base for anything else you do. As Solis says in the article, "Personality, motivation, determination, and the ability to embrace risk and venture into unchartered and unpredictable territory is the only way to champion change and influence the direction of professional adventures"

Solis finds hope for journalists in what he calls the statusphere, that continuous stream of Facebook (and Friendster and Twitter, mainly) status-updates, which he defines as:

the new ecosystem for sharing, discovering, and publishing updates and micro-sized content that reverberates throughout social networks and syndicated profiles, resulting in a formidable network effect of movement and response. It is the digital curation of relevant content that binds us contextually and through the statusphere we can connect directly to existing contacts, reach new people, and also forge new friendships through the friends of friends effect (FoFs) in the process.

(he continues...)

This is the new way of building audiences and fans.

If you are a journalist, it’s now your responsibility to create a dedicated tribe that supports, shares, and responds to your work and personal interaction in both the Statusphere and also at the point of origin. It’s the only way to build a valuable and portable community around you and what you represent.

I think this is true for filmmakers (and film journalists/reporters/businesses) as well. You simply have to get involved actively in promoting yourself, building a fan base and using this network to push people back to your content - your films. Can the statusphere save indie film? I'm not sure, but it's one more thing to keep in mind as we try to build a better system for indie filmmakers to reach their audiences.

What all of this means for filmmakers is pretty clear, but as a person more on the industry side, I also think it gives us an important mandate. As I said before, not all filmmakers are good at this stuff - they are good at being creative. So how can we, as an industry, use our value in the statusphere to better serve society? Meaning, for any of us in the industry to be worthwhile to society and filmmakers we should be using our roles in the statusphere to bring more attention to quality filmmakers/films. This is, obviously, what many film festivals, distributors, critics, theatres and broadcasters have been doing for years. I'm not arguing that we haven't. But we've mainly been doing this in the physical world - as opposed to digital - and if we're going to stay relevant in the future we need to be doing this better online. This doesn't mean just adding more Twitter feeds to our institutional websites, getting a Facebook page, etc. Of course we should do all of that. But we're only as good as the filmmakers we are supporting, so we need to find ways to incorporate their voices into our message - actively. They need to be part of the conversation we are building with our audiences. In regards to publishers, Solis suggests that:

Savvy publishers and content producers will also benefit from the extended visibility and vibrancy of the supporting conversations and should in turn build and support campaigns and presences that promote the individual in addition to the media brand to create a dynamic and blooming human collective. Monetization is then influenced by the earned social capital and currency that is valued and measured through relationships and dialogue.

So, perhaps it's time more distributors, festivals and other start thinking about how they can use the Statusphere to help their filmmakers find the right audience.

The economy, the internet, scams and Sugar

2009-04-03T19:07:00.007-04:00

Reading the NYTimes this Friday morning - in print as I always do before I leave home, being so old fashioned - two disparate articles really hit me. The first was an odd feature for the front of the business page, an interview with Raymond Vaughn, one of the wittiest, most prescient thinkers on the economy to grace the Gray Lady. Really. Vaughn is out of work and trying hard to make a change in his life. You can get the full details of his story from the article, and you should, but this quote from him is probably my favorite quote about the economy thus far this year:

“For me, it’s always been a recession,” Mr. Vaughn says. “I’ve always struggled to find work and pay my bills. And now we’re hearing recession this, recession that, and I’m like, yeah, now that it’s hitting the rich people, it’s officially a recession. They’ve got to give up eating in those fancy restaurants with their $100 chicken dinners, and now they’re stuck eating Church’s with me.”

Amen. I'm not in his shoes - I currently have a job, and have been lucky in this respect, but what he says is 100% correct - the boom didn't ever hit for many in this world. And his quote neatly sums up what I bet a lot of people feel. Reading this also reminded me of something completely different at first glance - Mark Gill's famous speech about the film industry's sky falling, and how every filmmaker I knew wondered what took him so long to realize what we'd already known about the indie film business - that it was overpriced and underperforming, and that for most filmmakers, these companies would never buy, market and make money from their films, so his troubles were irrelevant to the most of us. And most of these filmmakers weren't making any money through the indie boom, the doc boom or the mumble boom.

I also found myself nauseated reading the article - this gentleman is now putting his bets on an online training program to become an expert in medical billing. The article's author clearly isn't sure this is the best idea, but doesn't seem to tell him that. (and I'm really wondering about journalistic ethics now...stand idly by??)Now, I hope I am wrong for Mr. Vaughn and wish him only the best, but it also kinda reminds me of all the film reporters not willing to tell filmmakers what's really going on out there for fears of angering a company and inviting a lawsuit or dashing a dream. It also reminded me of all the get rich quick through internet magic schemes being sold to filmmakers today, 99% of which will fail soon, and which also won't make filmmaker's rich.

Then I read this great review of the new film Sugar, which I can't wait to see. A.O. Scott writes this great line:

"There is something undeniably noble and beautiful about the love of sports: the appreciation of grace and excellence for their own sakes, the pleasure of competition, the discipline of training. But the practice of big-time sports is often cruel and corrupt, a business built on the exploitation of young people and the peddling of impossible dreams."

And this too reminded me of the state of film today. A lot of hard working filmmakers, just wanting to tell their story, learn the craft and reach an audience. And a big, corrupt business often exploiting these dreams. And I don't just mean Hollywood, it's in many aspects of the indie film world as well.

Boy, depressing stuff this print media. Luckily, I work with some great people, and know many others, trying to be real about the business and help dispel these myths. (boy, the hotlinks I could put for the word "myths," but there's those lawsuits...) We need more of it in the film world. Anyway, just thought I'd share these random thoughts on the interconnectedness of all this.

Image - NYTimes, Fernando Calzada/Sony Pictures Classic

Advertising a cow

2009-04-01T20:56:00.003-04:00

By way of my friend Joe Summerhayes, who I must admit mentions me in his post so this is rather incestuous, links to a great TED talk from Seth Godin that is more about marketing than anything, but again touches on the continued failure of advertising online - this month's fave subject du jour, but it's worth a watch. So what's that cow about? Watch about halfway through when he compares advertising to your general response driving by any cow (that's not purple). Brilliant stuff and relevant for anyone thinking about how to market film and whether advertising can support it.

What could happen to Google

2009-03-30T13:39:00.002-04:00

Found this great slideset online about possible threats to Google. Not saying I endorse these views, but I do find them interesting.
Why Could Google Die...

View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon.

More on advertising failing

2009-03-26T14:11:00.001-04:00

Boy, the internet is alive with more buzz about the failure of advertising online. Two great articles, one in the Economist and one in Ad Age are worth reading if you care about this subject. And somewhat related, see this for problems at Documentary Film Network - not related to his advertising, but that advertising could never support the niche films he was showing, and he had huge traffic numbers. Seems we need some more new business models.

The Failure of Advertising?

2009-03-23T10:12:00.003-04:00

By way of Techcrunch, a great article on how advertising models are failing on the web and that the internet is actually killing advertising (his words, not mine). The author, Eric Clemmons, is a prof at Wharton and the article is a must-read for those in film - especially now as many folks are touting advertising as the savior of film online. I've never believed this - if advertising works for niche content online it would have worked for it on tv. I also find that in my personal experience online, I completely ignore ads (of course, I do this in print as well) - and they are very easy to ignore - Whenever I watch internet video that has ads, I simply watch something in another tab until the forced advertisement is over. I also think it's been made abundantly clear by TiVo that people will pay a premium to avoid advertising, but Clemmons argument is more sound than any I've made. My favorite quote from the article:
"My basic premise is that the internet is not replacing advertising but shattering it, and all the king’s horses, all the king’s men, and all the creative talent of Madison Avenue cannot put it together again."

So if advertising is being shattered, how are people going to make money online? Clemmons thinks from three things: selling real things, selling virtual things and selling access. He explains this further in the article, but what he ends up supporting as possible business models are:

"Selling Virtual Things: People will pay for superior, timely, original content and for superior online experiences.
Selling Access - providing the customer enough info to make the informed choice they want to make"

I agree completely. These aren't that far from the "generatives" described by Kevin Kelly which I described in an earlier post. I'm pretty sure advertising isn't dead yet - people will keep trying it for awhile, and a few will even make money with it - but only in aggregate as a large company, not for any individual film. I think the film business would do well to consider the implications of the possibility that Clemmons is right though - because we definitely need good business models and don't have time to waste on trying to reuse old ones that may ultimately fail.

Thinking unthinkable on the film biz

2009-03-16T11:11:00.002-04:00

By way of O'Reilly Radar, I just read Clay Shirky's great piece on "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable" on the future of publishing. I highly recommend this for anyone interested not just in the future of newspapers or the web and publishing/blogging, etc but also for anyone interested in the future of the film business. The parallels are pretty clear. Shirky's best line is:

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place...

And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.

The same thing is going on in film. The old system of making and distributing films is broken and it isn't coming back. Arguing for how we can keep theatres going, or preserve the DVD market or the margins or the profits are asking for the lie.

But if we shift the question away from how do we keep doing the same old thing to what really should be done, we start to get interesting answers. As Shirky continues (and O'Reilly pointed out as well):

When we shift our attention from ’save newspapers’ to ’save society’, the imperative changes from ‘preserve the current institutions’ to ‘do whatever works.’ And what works today isn’t the same as what used to work.

Amen. In film/media, I think this means let's focus on - "what do audiences want" and "what best connects filmmakers to these audiences" who are also producers, participants and even filmmakers by the way....

Open Access Hijinks

2009-03-03T15:31:00.004-05:00

Just learned this from Lessig's blog - John Conyers has reintroduced an insanely stupid bill that would outlaw any public agency from requiring that tax payer funded research be made available free. Instead, you'd have to pay a publisher for it. From Lessig:

The Huffington Post is running a piece about H.R. 801, the latest version of John Conyers' awful idea. The law would forbid entities like the NIH from requiring that recipients of government grants make the product of their research openly accessible. (The current practice requires articles be freely accessible after 12 months.) Instead, Conyers' proposal would require that after the American taxpayer has paid for the research, the American taxpayer must pay publishers to get access to the product of the research.

The first important word to emphasize in the last sentence is "publishers." For unlike the ordinary market for creative work, here, the author isn't paid for his work through the copyright system.

This is a ridiculous bill. The simple reality is that the science publishers aren't needed anymore. Of course, no one likes to hear that their jobs aren't needed, and this group is smart enough to run to Congress and try to pre-empt technology from changing their business. This isn't directly related to film, but I'm pretty passionate about the need for open access to educational resources, especially those funded by taxpayers. I'm also pretty sure that what happens here will impact what can happen in the future with access to films. So, for example, the movement to make fully-funded PBS films available to the public for free could be made illegal by a similar act.

Anyway, if you care about this, you can find more info at the Open Access News blog which also tells you how to take action.

Boxee and Future of TV

2009-02-23T14:00:00.003-05:00

As many people already know, Hulu (at the behest of some content holders) recently asked Boxee to pull their shows from its service. If you don't know about this, read about it here, but the short version is as follows. Boxee is a great little open source program that helps you get your entertainment from your computer to your TV. Using it, you can watch everything you've downloaded on your tv, but also (until recently) tie in programs from Hulu, Netflix and others. You can also listen to music, look at Flickr photos and a bunch of other stuff.

Of course you can do all of this without Boxee, but it makes it a little easier as you can use your remote. Many people apparently have been using it to watch TV shows from Hulu. Apparently, some lawyer got wind of this and within days got Hulu shows pulled from Boxee. This is beyond stupid - as other bloggers have suggested before me - you can almost imagine what happened. Some idiot lawyer who doesn't understand the internet or where things are going heard that Hulu programs were on Boxee. At first, s/he thought, wow this boxee thing is great - more people watching our programs on Hulu means more eyeballs, means higher CPMs and that's great for us - more money. And they're watching it on their computer, what a crappy experience, so it won't cut into our business. Five days later, someone showed them that they could easily watch the same shows on their TV and the little lawyer's brain melted as it tried to comprehend this scenario - wait, they're now watching our tv programs on a tv and it isn't through our existing deals with affiliates and/or cable companies - yikes. That people can do this anyway, lost on this poor lawyer, so out go the cease and desist letters.

Sounds a lot like the smart business moves the music industry has made online. Already tons of people are saying screw this, I'll just go back to pirate networks. The netowkrs/content-holders could have helped build the future, but is instead fighting it. Hulu apparently understands how stupid this is, but they are stuck in a bad situation. Boxee is stuck in an even worse situation, but they are trying to do something positive about it. This weekend, they launched a wiki where anyone can help them build an argument, or pitch, to broadcasters about why they should work with Boxee. It's a great way to involve your audience in making your case, and I applaud it.

Right now, this argument is just about Boxee and Hulu, but as this debate widens it will likely affect how we access content in the future, or at least be one of the pieces of the puzzle. As cable companies start floating ideas like having their own free portal where you can access this content only if you pay for their broadband and/or cable service, such arguments become much more important. Eventually, this all ties in to net neutrality, as well as to the future of distribution - which at the end of the day effects the small indie player as much, or more than, the broadcasters. So, if you care about how these things pan out - join the action on the wiki!

Curation and Find

2009-02-17T12:03:00.006-05:00

I keep telling people that the future of the internet if find. Everyone looks at me like I'm speaking in tongues, but what I mean is that if the last decade has been dominated by search, think Google, then the next will be dominated by find. Meaning we often spend lots of time on the web searching for what we really want, only to be inundated by lots of crap we don't want. Services that help you find what you want are becoming more and more important.

In film, we're all seeing thousands of movies migrate online, and I've been on many panels where the woe of the year seems to be that there's too many movies being made. But I've always felt like this is a ridiculous argument - I never went to the record store and said, damn, there's too many bands and albums out there. And I don't feel that way in the online world.

Instead, I've always relied on trusted sources to help me find the bands/music I really want to hear. Their recommendations, be it friends, magazines, zines, blogs, radio, or whatever - helped me navigate through the crap to find the good stuff. That's exactly what I think will define the best online services moving forward, especially with video - finding trusted source folks to help you find the gems you really want. This will take multiple forms, but over at my day job, we've been building a system to help people use this idea to find the videos they want. It's not perfect yet, heck we're still in beta 2.0 of a soft launch, but it's getting better.

Reframe is build around the idea of curation. We know there's tons of film sites out there, but hopefully Reframe can be a place, probably one of many, where you can go to find quality films that you want to see. We've got lots of great curators helping us - filmmakers, film critics, film professors, average joes, writers, walkers, and out staff, all curating lists of the best films, or their favorite films, on different topics. We selected the first batch, but now it's open to anyone, with the idea being that you can select who to follow and perhaps someone you never knew will become a trusted source.

Check out this post on how it works if you're interested and join us as a curator.

photo from Reframe - "Screening Room With Stan Brakhage" a film from Documentary Educational Resources directed by Robert Gardner