#TBT - Grassroots Distribution: Defining Grassroots

Last week, we revisited Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald's white paper on Grassroots Distribution to look at the challenges posed by "grassroots distribution." This week, we take one more step back to define what "grassroots" means, especially in the context of independent filmmaking. 

We got close to a definition by remembering Josh and Michael's claim that, "in order for that film to stay alive, it needs to be supported by constant work, strategy, effort, enthusiasm on the part of the filmmaker and the filmmaker's team," but that is just the beginning. 

For most people, and for Josh and Michael initially, grassroots has well, roots, in community organizing as well as social and political movements. In order to make more sense of an elusive term, Josh and Michael interviewed Jeremy Bird, 2012 Obama For America Field Director and student of Marshall Ganz. According to Jeremy, grassroots operations provide:

1. Access to data and information. A surprising first descriptor, but in the context of political campaigns, it makes sense. Before the Obama campaign of 2008, campaign workers did not have access to the information they do today, which makes the 2008 phenomenon as much about the technology that was suddenly available as it was about a sea change in enthusiasm about a candidate.
2. Real responsibility and goals at the local level. In other words, a palpable sense of accountability. Trusting that the larger goal would be met not by a few leaders at the very top of a hierarchy, but by each ground-level operation spread across the map doing its part to meet its own goal. And by endowing people present at that ground level with responsibility.
3. The ability to scale and make your campaign accessible. Going off of the last descriptor, this means that you can take the campaign anywhere. It is not tied to some antiquated or traditional geographic centers of power. It is nimble and can move, engaging people wherever it is. 
4. A fundamental belief that volunteers can change the outcome. All of this grassroots, community organizing bluster is just a phony brand that is not worth applying unless you actually do subscribe to the belief that a volunteer force—someone there not motivated by wages—can move the needle towards your goal. With self-distribution of films, volunteers may be all you have available, so it’s a definite they would make a difference.

What does this mean for independent filmmakers? It could be as re-simply stated as:

1. Access to data and information. Build a web presence: website, social media, available press. Apply Google analytics. Find out where your audience is and make sure you stay in touch with them. Find out how much it costs to do that, and be sure to use your resources efficiently. Knowing where your audiences are and where your money goes enables you, the filmmaker, to make advantageous partnerships with people who can and want to help you get your movie out there. 
   • Caveat: Data is hard to come by. Check out Colin Whitlow's writings about his Film Finance Index and quest for data transparency, and keep an eye out for a larger industry demand for better reporting to independent filmmakers. 
2. Real responsibility and goals at the local level. Assemble a team of people to support your film in myriad ways - on set, in the community, online, in the press. Trust those people to "spoke out" from your film's story to find access points and alignments across media channels and audience influencers. 
3. The ability to scale and make your (film) accessible. Bring your film to the people to help your career grow! Stewart Thorndike did this with LYLE - she released a feature for free to raise money and awareness for her next feature and it worked! Check out her interview with producer Alex Scharfman here and here. 2014 CRI Fellow Artel Great is also following this principle by bringing multicultural films to multicultural audiences via the Project Catalyst mobile app!
4. A fundamental belief that volunteers can change the outcome. Make your audience your advocates! Stewart did this by converting her free-to-watch LYLE audience to PUTNEY backers. The BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD team made the immediate community the first audience and the strongest advocates. FORT TILDEN's small, committed crew converted their pride in the film into broad buzz across personal networks, creating a loosely-connected but consistently passionate conversation around the film. As Josh and Michael write, "The extent to which a grassroots entity is successful as such depends not on the fulfillment of these basic characteristics but rather on how each entity or person involved is respected, empowered, included, and, in turn, takes ownership of their part in expanding the movement."

Remember: "The structure of a grassroots entity takes the form of the Snowflake Model, with each module of organized activities both an extension from another and its own center of many others." Don't be afraid of branching out beyond your film and its narrative. A film can be many things to many people. 

ChemStuff

Cargo Collective

alk back! Have you applied these principles to your own work? What do you do to motivate the communities (paid/unpaid, professional/bystander, etc.) around your film?

Jeremy Bird, 2012 Obama National Field Director, Talks Grassroots Organizing and Film: Part 2

In our previous post we talked to Jeremy Bird, the former National Field Director of the Obama campaign in 2012, and discussed best practices from the Obama campaign that could help filmmakers distribute their films. In this post we will discuss our takeaways and conclusion from the interview. Takeaways

From our interview with Jeremy Bird, it is clear that filmmakers have 3 main disadvantages compared to political campaigns: 1) In film it is hard to access data and it is not clear what data sources will be most effective for targeting audiences, 2) You need experts that can interpret and use data to create models and 3) Models have to be customized to a specific campaign and this takes a lot of money and resources that independent filmmakers do not have.

However, Bird also recalled that when he first worked for the Obama campaign as the Field Director of South Carolina during the primary, they had to build their network and entire operation from scratch like many independent filmmakers when distributing their films. Bird went on to highlight 4 best practices from the campaign that filmmakers could adapt to distribute their movies.

1) Empowering volunteers by sharing access to more data and giving them real responsibility. Bird stressed that volunteers form the foundation of any true grassroots organization and need to be motivated through a sense of trust, responsibility and ownership. One of the major reasons the Obama campaign was able to effectively collect data and target persuadable voters was because organizers recruited an army of volunteers to call and knock on doors to figure out who in the universe were supporters. Without volunteers on the ground to collect information about voters, the data team would have had a far less accurate model of targeting persuadable voters.  This can only be done by giving real responsibility to volunteers and making them understand they are an integral part of the campaign.

2) Organizing consumer data to target potential supporters of a film. This can be the starting point for creating a data set of supporters for a specific film. For example, Bird mentioned the Obama campaign was able to look at consumer data and determine that someone who drove a Prius car is environmentally friendly and therefore a likely Obama supporter. The same type of modeling could be helpful for independent film, i.e. someone who liked the cult film Blue Velvet might also want to see another cult film like, Donnie Darko.  Examining consumer information further, someone who subscribes to Filmmaker Magazine or the Sundance Channel are avid indie movie goers and far more likely to want to see your independent film compared to the average consumer.

3) Creating multiple narratives about your film that market to both broad and niche audiences. The Obama campaign was very creative in forming many sub constituency groups like, Students for Obama, Latino’s for Obama and Veterans for Obama just to name a few. These constituency groups helped attract a diverse range of supporters by making them feel included. At the same time, the Obama campaign used messaging like “Change We Can Believe In” to appeal to a broad audience. In contrast, filmmakers often limit themselves by trying to decide if they should market their film as a story that appeals to the masses or only small niche audiences. The example of the Obama campaign suggests filmmakers might not have to chose and should market to both mainstream and specific groups. For example, filmmakers could cut multiple trailers of their film, one that appeals to the mainstream and other trailers that focus on certain themes that appeal to specific niche groups.

4) Using commit cards to motivate audiences to opt-in to watching your film at home. The Obama campaign increased the turnout of sporadic Democrats, people who have a poor record of voting; by asking them fill out commit cards that were eventually mailed back to their house to remind them they committed to voting. The same strategy could be used to motivate audiences to watch a film at their home. Filmmakers could create a sense of urgency around signing commit cards by sharing goals for number of VOD rentals, or hits on YouTube. For example, “commit to watching ‘Glory at Sea’ March 30th, and help us break our goal of 10,000 views.” Once someone signs an online commit card to watch a film on a certain date, it would then be sent back to them in an email to remind them of their commitment to see the film.

Conclusion

At the end of the interview, Jeremy Bird explained that with digital media the Obama campaign was trying to

“Create our own channel. When you have 20 million people on your email list, you’re no longer reliant on the establishment. We weren’t scared of things that were said about us in the bubble world because we had our own mechanism to distribute information.”

We have studied many independent filmmakers that have created their own distribution channels in order to overcome the established marketplace of Hollywood. However, many of these filmmakers are at a huge disadvantage from the start since there is no organization that can provides them with the necessary data, resources and knowledge they need to run an effective film campaign.

In contrast, political candidates can hire companies like 270 Strategies for consulting advice, and organizations like OFA and the DNC already have large voter databases and email lists they can tap in order to build their campaigns. This makes us wonder if a similar consulting firm like 270 Strategies or an umbrella hub like Organizing for Action, might be helpful for the film world.

However, how would the organization build its email lists and tap into data sources that independent filmmakers could use to grow and target their audiences? Would the organization consist of mostly of people in the film industry, or people from the non-profit and community organizing world? We plan to explore these questions in later posts.

-Michael, Josh and Carl

Four Eyed Monsters- What didn't work

What Does not Work Although the majority of the Four Eyed Monsters’ profit came from online sales, its theater run played a critical role in fueling its online support. Other websites like “Prescreen” have tried to emulate the Four Eyed Monsters model but have only focused on online outreach and sales. In the blog TechCrunch, Leena Rao explains Prescreen’s distribution model, “Prescreen offers users the ability to subscribe to a daily email alert, which will inform them of one Indie film per day. The user can then visit Prescreen to view trailers for free and if interested, can rent movies to stream on demand for up to 60 days.” However, prescreen was recently shut done since it was unable to attract enough subscribers.

Mass emails and trailers are simply not enough to effectively grow an online audience that will purchase the film. Prescreen did not have enough of an “active” campaign that utilized both offline and online organizing tolls like Four Eye Monsters.  See our post on "Offline vs. Online Organizing" here.

Ideas for Improvement

What if the Four Eyed Monsters’ “tipping point” distribution model could be applied to other independent films? If enough people purchase a ticket to see an independent film in their city, the film is screened in theaters. The distributor can ensure people will see the film, and the filmmaker gains an exponential amount of publicity for their film that leads to future DVD and merchandise sales.

The Obama campaign was fortunate enough to have its own database called Votebuilder, which contained massive amounts of information about supporters and voters to determine which regions in battleground states had enough support for a field office. Filmmakers on the otherhand would have to create their own metrics system to determine which cities have enough support to screen their film. However, the makers of Four Eyed Monsters have proven that by complementing online data with offline theater screenings, it can be done.

The “trapdoor” theory also played a critical role in Four Eyed Monsters late blooming success. The "trapdoor" theory is based on the idea that you need to get each person in the organization motivated to their furthest level of involvement. For example, the Obama campaign used the trapdoor theory in the following way. Someone starts off as a voter, picks up a yard sign, signs up to support Obama online, is contacted by the campaign to volunteer, becomes a super volunteer, then may even work on staff. Four Eyed Monsters applied the trapdoor theory to get their fans to opt in to the film after they failed to get it distributed. You like the webseries? Opt-in to see the film in your area. You like the film? Donate to get us out of debt. This step by step process is critical for building a relationship with your audience so they get more and more invested in supporting the film.

Four Eyed Monsters also utilized the "collective buying power" theory that websites like Groupon use to offer consumer deals on products. The "collective buying power" theory focuses on selling products and services at a discounted price if a minimum number of consumers are willing to buy the same item. Four Eyed Monsters used collective buying power to convince movie theaters it was in their economic interest to distribute their film.

This leads us to ask, can the Four Eyed Monsters’ distribution model combined with the "collective buying power" theory help distribute a slate of independent films in movie theaters?

-Josh, Michael and Carl