The Blame Game and the Glut-ter Punks

The favorite thing to do on the internet amongst indie film journalists this week seems to be to tear apart Manohla Dargis' piece in the New York Times, "As Indies Explode, an Appeal for Sanity." We don't want to uselessly add to the cacophony, but rather it might benefit to consider the problem that Dargis poses from the perspective of grassroots distribution. And it is a real problem; however, the glut of films she bemoans at  Sundance and then in New York theaters does not just manifest itself out of nowhere. It's simply a natural byproduct of the glut in production that there is generally right now. In fact in a recent survey of film professionals by Thom Powers, Janet Pierson mentions off hand that it seems like there are more people interested in making films than in walking to their local theater to see them. Basically, let's not pretend like the bottleneck is clogged up just at Sundance or New York theaters, and it's not that buyers are trigger-happy. Quite the opposite actually - every year Sundance programs more films and a smaller percentage acquire formal distribution (hence the increasing importance of exploring self-distribution through grassroots methods).

A directive like "take a moment and consider whether flooding theaters with titles is good for movies and moviegoers alike" assumes a couple things and overlooks some others. A simple raised hand might point out that this situation might only describe the situation amongst the traditional theater houses of New York or Los Angeles, dismissing what the spread of films is like in venues in every other city in America. But the easiest criticism has been to say that this statement neglects "four-walling" -- when a film's promoters buy out a theater in New York for the opening weekend. The next logical leap is to point the finger back at Ms. Dargis' own publication, because many use four-walling to exploit the Times' policy that they will review any film that opens theatrically in New York.

But let's look a little deeper. One thing we've often asserted in this fellowship that the glut of production makes branding, or curation -- anything that filters the massive choice that a viewer has to make when gazing upon this sea of films available -- more important and front and center to "distribution" than ever (and in fact distances it from the actual practice of distribution). For better or worse, a New York Times film review (due to their policy) is a form of that curation, precisely because it says "This film had a theatrical release." So the massive number of films available don't render that review less relevant; in fact it exacerbates its importance. And because it's essentially purchase-able via four-walling, it becomes an increasingly artificial symbol of success.

That is the real problem -- that the theatrical release is still being endowed with that (false symbolic) power. But the dynamics of self-release and grassroots distribution only add to it; a film's release in a New York theater is an event, and if grassroots campaigning depends on events to motivate action, a New York release is the equivalent of Election Day! However, if a film's calendar is peppered with events -- ie regional releases supported by the filmmaker doing a Q & A in person, selling merchandise, offering something special, like a candidate on a campaign trail -- then the importance of New York, as just one city, can be slightly diminished. A film's release should be a constant campaign with momentum consistently maintained around various benchmarks, not one long one that leads to a singular box office day and one write-up in the Times.

But what's most striking is the zero sum game that seems to be at play in Dargis' article between theaters and films (not to mention the false dichotomy of "good film = theater / bad film = VOD" that's assumed here). It's as if the number of theaters has stayed flat while the number of films we're trying to cram in them has skyrocketed. Probably the latter is outpacing the former, but the real opportunity for grassroots bottom-up disruption in the film industry might be located in the exhibition space. We've considered this in our idea for a Yelp-type app for film venues. If a filmmaker, after much deliberation, decides that a theatrical release is really important to their film's campaign (and not just a quick four-wall cash-grab for a review), then they have to open their mind to what kind of space their film can play in. Money that goes to four-walling traditional venues could instead go to promoting the actual run of their film in a less traditional space, or creating and building a real volunteer force to get word out based on that constant fuel of grassroots anything: sheer enthusiasm.

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On behalf of Josh, Michael, and Carl, we just want to say it's been a great year writing about the film industry as it continues to change in unexpected and interesting ways. We're extremely grateful to John Tintori and everyone on the board at the Cinema Research Institute for the fellowship and the opportunity to think out loud in this corner of the internet for the last 12 months. And thank you to anyone who has tuned in, shared their thoughts, sent along articles, agreed to being interviewed. Grassroots filmmaking is all about community, and you all, along with the people that make CRI happen, are our community. Thank you.

Why Studios Don’t Care if Hollywood Movies Tank and How Grassroots Exhibition Could Rescue Independent Film

My name is Carl Kriss, and I have been working as a research associate for Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald’s CRI fellowship on grassroots distribution.  Like Michael and Josh, I worked on the Obama campaign for both the 2008 and 2012 cycles and have been fascinated by how grassroots models from the campaign world shed light on new ways to distribute independent film. In fact, I've noticed a connection in the current struggle between independent filmmakers and Hollywood studios and the challenge Obama faced in the 2007 primary when he was running against the establishment-backed candidate, Hillary Clinton. In the early days, Obama and his team were at a major disadvantage in fundraising and name recognition, but the campaign was able to employ a historic grassroots operation on the ground and online that empowered volunteers to get out the vote and set records in fundraising by reaching out to small donors. This made me wonder whether a film collective could use grassroots organizing methods to distribute a slate of independent films that would normally not be seen in traditional movie theaters. The first step towards answering this question may be to figure out why studios are so interested in funding blockbuster movies over independent films in the first place, especially when many big budget flicks like Disney’s Lone Ranger and Sony’s After Earth continue to tank.

A recent article in the New York Times titled “Studios Unfazed by Colossal Wrecks” sheds light on why studios continue to spend more resources to distribute blockbuster movies instead of indies. In the article, Anita Elberse, a professor at Harvard Business School observed that even though more films are failing at the box office than before, it still “turns out to be a winning strategy.  It makes sense for the studios to spend disproportionately on a select group of the most likely winners. And they are the big budget franchise films with identifiable characters and global appeal.”

So studios seem to be intent on saturating the box office with blockbusters and sequels.  The article notes,"The studios collectively released 17 blockbusters between May and the beginning of August.  The summer season has rarely supported more than nine hits, according to Doug Creutz, senior media and entertainment analyst for Cowen & Company, who predicted this summer would generate numerous box-office flops."

Mr. Creutz adds that,

“The major media companies are so big that nothing but a blockbuster really makes sense. Say you make a low-budget comedy and it brings in $150 million. So what? That doesn’t move the needle. You make a blockbuster, you market and promote it, and it plays around the world. You can do the sequel and the consumer products and a theme park attraction. The movie itself is almost beside the point. All Disney is going to be doing is Marvel, Star Wars and animation.”

This is where grassroots distribution can rescue independent film.  With the advent of digital distribution, it has never been easier to screen movies at a low cost. A collective group of filmmakers and community organizers could distribute a slate of films at venues like drive-in's, union halls and school auditoriums for low costs and help prove to studios that there is a demand for independent films at the local level. We plan to explore this idea further in our next post for our 3rd Concluding Idea Series.

B-Side and “Super High Me” (Interview)

In this post, we present our conclusions from our interview with the former Marketing VP of B-side Entertainment, Liz Ogilvie. Although the company went out of business during the recession, it was a top priority for us to learn about B-side, given their apparent success in using grassroots outreach and community screenings to distribute the film “Super High Me,” which grossed over 3 million dollars with almost no marketing budget. The Start of B-Side

The inception of B-Side Entertainment came from Chris Hyams who previously worked as the V.P. of Engineering at the software company Trilogy. Chris became interested in exploring new ways to distribute independent film when he noticed that his brother John Hyams would screen his documentaries at sold out film festival audiences -- but then the theaters would be empty when studios distributed his film at large. Liz explains: “Chris decided it must have something to do with the audiences that is going to the festival and the experience the audiences are having at those festivals. Is it the element of discovery; is it the fact that the filmmakers are there? … Chris decided that he was going to find a way using technology to seek that answer.”

The Data Behind B-Side

Chris formed B-side in an attempt to use digital tools to discover a more effective way to monetize and distribute independent film. It began by offering an interactive, online festival guide that allowed audiences to plan their experience by organizing their own schedule and then reviewing films. In this capacity, B-Side became an invaluable resource for festival organizers and goers alike, eventually partnering with 245 film festivals, representing the largest online audience dedicated to film festivals. The company did this for free in exchange for the email addresses and other information collected from the audiences that used their program. Liz explains how the data process at festivals worked, “you would go in and be able to do recommendations, comments and reviews and see who else is buying tickets and see how popular the films are … And behind the scenes Chris and a group of tech engineers would be looking at all the data that was coming in.” This gave B-Side valuable information about what films were drawing the largest audiences and what kind of audiences were going to what kind of films. Chris and his team were then able to mine through data to find undervalued films to distribute. Also, half of the more than 3 million people that used the B-Side program opted into their email list, which resulted in B-Side collecting a massive online community they could tap into to help them distribute their films.

The Distribution of “Super High Me”

In 2007, Red Envelope, the distribution branch of NetFlix, decided to partner with B-Side in an effort to distribute the documentary “Super High Me.” In order to avoid the expensive cost of conventional film advertising campaigns, B-Side created their own “Roll your own screening” website that empowered users to host a screening on the celebratory marijuana holiday, “4/20.” Liz explains, “Everybody felt that this was really special and the fact that they were being allowed to do this. They just thought it was the coolest thing imaginable. And the website that we created was really funny… I think people thought that they were involved in a movement that only they knew about and I feel like that is the reason we got so many people talking about it.”

B-Side used its massive email listserve of over 1 million festivalgoers to spread the word about the “Roll your own screening” campaign. Just as B-side built its email list from audience surveys taking at film festivals, the Obama campaign gradually built its massive listserv though offline sign-ups at events, field offices, or canvassing, and by offering things like bumper stickers to supporters on their website. From taking advantage of “opt-in” moments like these, the self-fulfilling cycle of data collection helped both the Obama campaign and B-side grow huge online communities, which in turn made it easier to publicize anything occurring at the community level, with almost no expense. To complement this outreach, B-Side contacted and built relationships with the top pro-4/20 organizations to further publicize the screenings offline.

The diagram below explains how B-Side would identify and target the passionate supporters of a film, and empower them to spread the word of screenings to others through grassroots tools on their website.

You might notice that the graphic resembles the Obama campaign’s Snowflake Model we mentioned here. The Obama campaign similarly empowered volunteers by giving them more access and ownership of the campaign, that made them want to reach out and engage others.

The Success of “Super High Me”

Social media and digital marketing tools helped ignite a word of mouth campaign that equaled the impact of traditional film advertising. Ultimately, the “Roll Your Own Screening” campaign lead to over 1600 screenings on April 20 (the highest number of same-day screenings for a documentary ever) and cost only $8,000 (paid mostly for DVD’s) in print & advertising. For a point of comparison: that is significantly less than what one full-page ad in the New York Times would cost. As word of mouth spread from the screenings, the film sold 85,000 DVD’s in the first year of its release according to Rentrak, resulted in 650,000 NetFlix rentals and grossed a total of 3.4 million dollars. To date it is the second most watched title available on NetFlix Instant.

Lessons from “Super High Me”

B-Side was able to successfully distribute “Super High Me” while avoiding expensive marketing costs by combining three key ingredients: data, social media and grassroots organizing. 1) B-Side gathered data and contact information from audiences at festivals, 2) they created a social media site where fans could easily sign up to express interest in hosting or attending a screening of the film 3) B-Side staff met offline with pro-4/20 organizations to convince them to help publicize the screenings.

B-Side sets an important example of how innovative social media and grassroots methods can save filmmakers millions on marketing costs while at the same time organically build their audience at the local level. In addition, building for local events open up new revenue opportunities for filmmakers. Similar to how bands sell their CD’s and other merchandise when on tour, filmmakers could sell their DVD’s, t-shirts and other merchandise at community screenings to gain more revenue. For example, in B-Side’s distribution proposal for the documentary “Under the Great Northern Lights” about the band The White Stripes, they proposed a t-shirt contest and DVD sales at their “flash” screenings.

Although B-Side folded, Liz was confident that if they had stayed in business for six more months they would have been out of debt and making money for their investors. This leads us to wonder if another company could further develop B-Side’s model of distributing independent films in crowdsourced, locally organized supported screenings to effectively avoid spending millions on advertising for conventional movie theater distribution runs. Additionally, the experience of B-Side begs the question of what other ways start-up distribution companies – not to mention filmmakers individually – can access the kind of similarly huge data set that B-Side was working with? Is it necessary to create technology that has an altogether different use entirely (as they did) in order to gather such information?

-Josh, Michael and Carl

Giving vs. Taking

Does embracing a sense of service to others move people towards action more effectively than material rewards? That is one question psychology professor Adam Grant explores in his new book, Give and Take, that sheds light on a new form of motivation that focuses more on giving than taking. In the New York Times article, Is Giving the Secrete to Getting Ahead, Susan Dominus writes about how Grant discovered that creating a culture of giving leads to productivity at a call center. “Given that one of the center’s primary purposes was funding scholarships, Grant brought in a student who had benefited from that fund-raising. The callers took a 10-minute break as the young man told them how much the scholarship had changed his life…A month after the testimonial, the workers were spending 142 percent more time on the phone and bringing in 171 percent more revenue.”

This reflects the power of a principle that was practiced effectively on the Obama campaign that originally comes from the President’s original mentor in community organizing, Marshall Ganz: sharing your story. Every community organizer was taught the importance of letting potential volunteers and voters know why he or she was personally motivated to work for the President’s campaign, in the form of a story. Volunteers were encouraged to share as well. Online content would reflect this emphasis on personal stories. Online and offline, the Obama campaign was able to install a “higher sense of service” in order to grow their grassroots army of volunteers and set historic fundraising numbers. Here is a video the campaign sent in an email blast to supporters during the 2008 campaign.

In the video, a donor named Greg Smith starts to get teary eyed as he explains how his mom left for Jamaica and almost was not allowed to bring Greg and his sister to America because of immigration laws. Greg explains, “Mr. Obama’s stance is that you can’t separate families… I think my fulfillment as a human being is only coming into play because of that fact that I was reconnected with my mom and able to now take part of the American dream.” Greg’s sincerity is very moving and turns the action of donating to a political campaign into the greater idea of investing in the American dream.

This leads us to ask if you can make a movie that is more than just a film. Similar to how the Obama campaign became more than just a campaign by inspiring supporters to remember the importance of community and empowering others. Can a film campaign also start to embody an idea greater than itself and motivate people to act? Are only issue related films able to spark a movement, or can non-issue films also go beyond just being a film? Already, those at Kickstarter will encourage potential fundraisers to do the equivalent of “share their story” in their videos.

This lessons of the campaign and the experiment mentioned in the Times could lead us to two possible answers to these questions. 1) If filmmakers shape the message of their fundraising efforts towards a higher purpose related to the issue or themes in their movie they are more likely to motivate people to contribute. 2) If filmmakers don’t have a higher purpose to their film, just being upfront and personal with why he or she wants to make that film (and what it means to them) can be a powerful tool.

-Josh, Michael and Carl

Four Eyed Monsters: What worked

As with many independent films, the distribution process for Four Eyed Monsters got off to a shaky start.  After going through the normal festival circuit, filmmakers Susan Buice and Arin Crumley walked away feeling that Film Festivals "suck."  Their takeaway was that you can spend all your resources and energy touring around with a film, but unless you’re in the high profile festivals, traditional distributors are not going to see your film.  However, instead of giving up, the filmmakers launched one of the first online DIY distribution campaigns that eventually brought in a profit for their film. Can Four Eyed Monsters’ DIY distribution model help independent filmmakers today? What Worked

The filmmakers of Four Eyed Monsters employed four online grassroots organizing tools to successfully distribute their film: 1) Producing a Four Eyed Monsters web series 2) Creating an online petition for theatre screenings 3) Investigating the metrics involved in how manifested online support translated to actual ticket sales 4) Selling DVDs and merchandise on their website.

1) Producing a “reality TV-style” web series about the filmmakers’ struggle to finance the film helped grow their online audience by making the film more personal to their fans. Here is a link to the webseries: http://foureyedmonsters.com/. The web series helped give background about the cast and crew, making the project more engaging and relatable. This in turn, led to more attention from online blogs and reviewers like the New York Times.

The filmmakers tried to put their movie out through the normal festival channels but it led them nowhere.  However they happen to document their struggle when new online formats were emerging like videocasts, youtube and facebook. Similar to how the Obama campaign would later use online video to persuade voters and encourage volunteers, the supplementary material from Four Eyed Monsters helped the filmmakers connect with fans and motivate them to become more invested in the film.

2) Creating an online petition to see the film in theaters channeled the support of their online audience towards theater distribution. Below is a picture of the Four Eyed Monsters Theater sign up page.

The filmmakers promised to screen the film in cities that obtained 150 or more sign ups. This helped create a concrete goal and sense of urgency that motivated fans to encourage their friends to also petition to see the film. Ultimately, Four Eyed Monsters received over 8,000 online requests to see the film in theaters. The hearts on the map helped signify geographic “posts of support” that enabled fans to connect and build momentum for the film at a local level.  The Obama campaign applied a similar strategy though the online organizing tool Mybo and Dashboard, which displayed dots on a map to signify new field offices. This gave supporters a visual understanding of the support in their neighborhood and where they could go to volunteer.

3) Translating petition signatures to ticket sales convinced more theaters it was in their economic interests to screen the film.  The filmmakers compared the number of online sign ups to ticket sales and determined 1 sign up led to 1 ticket sale. This led to 31 theaters across the country agreeing to distribute the film.

Metrics systems are common in political campaigns, but rarely utilized by filmmakers to distribute their film.  The Obama campaign used a wide array of metrics for calculating what emails and call scripts effectively communicated the message of the campaign to voters and supporters.  This helped the campaign adapt quickly and shift resources amidst the rapidly changing political climate of a presidential campaign.  The filmmakers of Four Eyed Monsters also used their own metrics system to focus theater distribution to cities with the highest level of support for their film.

4) Allowing audiences to buy DVDs and merchandise online helped direct enthusiasm from the film in theaters towards making a profit on the film afterwards. Interestingly, the film made more money from people interested in buying shirts, DVDs and other merchandise online than on ticket sales in theaters. However, theater screenings helped the filmmakers mobilize support offline, which later led to them raising money through sponsor websites like sprout.com which paid the filmmakers $1 for every new who signed up.

The film eventually grossed a total of $129,000. Over $100,000 came from online sales.

Conclusion 

The Four Eyed Monsters distribution model is a reminder that not every film can use the same distribution methods and expect to succeed.  In a way the Four Eyed Monsters Distribution model was a happy accident.  The distribution process worked, but in reverse to the normal process. The filmmaker made the movie, then they produced behind the scenes material (via a new medium - videocasts), that built interest in the film, leading to the effective release of the film in theaters and finally the Kickstarter-esque campaign to actually pay for the film.  This is as opposed to the normal distribution process of raising money for the film, making the film, finding a distributor and releasing behind the scenes promo material to promote its release.  Although there may be no cookie cutter way to distribute your film, the DIY distribution campaign for Four Eyed Monsters proves that if you are flexible and innovative  you can find creative solutions that lead your movie towards its target audience.

In our next post we will analyze why other online distribution models have fallen short compared to Four Eyed Monsters. We will also look at how new theories like "the trapped door theory" and "collective buying power" could be applied to independent film distribution.

-Josh, Michael and Carl

Introduction, Context and Goals

It is our intention to spend our year with a CRI fellowship studying and testing methods to combine grassroots political organizing techniques with film distribution. And here’s why. Most independent films are given a narrow one-way avenue towards finding their audience. So many times, a film over which a group of people has slaved for years, is pushed through the film festival circuit, only to come out with no distribution deal, no path to a bigger audience, and no way to recoup costs. These films may receive praise at a handful of venues, they may get glowing reviews, but they’re still relegated to an extremely limited audience, rarely even given the opportunity to see if they could play to a more diverse audience. We intend to explore a variety of grassroots tools and methods to explore how this audience wall can be pushed, if not even completely broken. First, it’s essential to establish what we mean by a “grassroots” organization before we talk about how it could be used in film (we’ll be revisiting this definition throughout our findings). No matter what its strict definition, the thoroughness of a grassroots operation depends on how each entity or person involved is respected, empowered, included, and in turn, takes ownership of their part in expanding the movement. The motivation derives from the sense of importance, urgency, and necessity felt within personally, rather than from top-down leadership that uses a financial incentive for those “below” them in the hierarchy. The organization subverts any standard corporate structure of power; no one dictates the specifics of what is done at every level, and everyone owns and determines what their responsibility is. How could this translate to independent film distribution? In short, it’s worth considering whether independent film fails to find its audience because it relies on a system that was developed for only certain types of films and was generally developed in a different financial and technological atmosphere. Essentially, we are interested in figuring out how to mobilize an audience through grassroots methods such that a film’s reception is not solely dictated or confined by gatekeepers such as film festivals, traditional venues (“arthouses” or otherwise), film reviewers and advertising. The goal of a grassroots operation with a film should be to use and facilitate the enthusiasm and advocacy of an already existing audience so that their support expands outwards, to then reach new audiences that may not normally be inclined to see independent film – but who are actually a good audience for that film.

The type of operation we are exploring should not only be a means to getting more humans in seats, but also a way to have a more meaningful relationship between the film/filmmaker and audience member. Grassroots models depend on enthusiasm and a shared feeling that this “thing” – be it a candidate or a film – is important and needs to be shared. Additionally, through outreach efforts, a person seeing a film can feel like they are closer to a filmmaker and be part of the film team much more than they would had they just seen a movie because of a trailer or New York Times review. Therefore, in not just one way, grassroots distribution also has the potential to drastically alter the relationship between audience and film. The audience is empowered to become part of the film, which does no less than escalate them beyond their status as merely the audience. Essentially, the audience, instead of being targeted solely as a “consumer” that purchases the film as a “product,” becomes part of the “project” (or, campaign) of the film. They are not only consumers of the film, but also potential advocates of it. There is not just creation and reception; a film’s exhibition and viewers become an essential part of its life instead of the end of its life, and therefore extend its life.

The attribution of the term “grassroots” to independent film distribution is not new, but we believe the tools, strategies, and processes we are interested in exploring have often not been implemented in the realm of film, and when used at all, tend to be applied towards so called “issue films” and are not known by many other filmmakers who could benefit from them. If done correctly, we wonder if a grassroots operation can increase both the volume of people that experience the film, as well as their variety, thus greatly expanding the scope and reach of the film and increasing the level of enjoyment and engagement an audience has watching the film. This increase in audience could open doors, not only for that specific film, but also for those new audience members to be receptive to whole new categories of film in the future. Our idea is not so much to design a cure-all method for all independent films to follow. It is, in fact, incumbent on any grassroots movement to not be formulaic at heart, as we believe these movements rely on a personal, genuine, and nuanced touch to be effective. But even so, much can be learned from the techniques of one campaign that could translate to the next, and if we were able to create a grassroots toolbox and set of best practices for filmmakers to utilize on their films, we could provide an invaluable resource for the indie world.

-Michael and Josh