Grassroots Movie Theaters- Concluding Idea Series, #3

In previous posts, we have explored how grassroots and DIY exhibition could be a viable way for filmmakers to distribute their films instead of relying on conventional distribution deals.  However, many of the filmmakers we have interviewed have noted how exhausting it can be to spend time and money to both make their film and distribute it on their own. Before the digital age of film, it was easier for new filmmakers to get discovered since fewer movies were being produced.  With the influx of films that get submitted to festivals along with Hollywood's growing tendency to only distribute blockbuster movies that appeal to a global marketplace, it is increasingly difficult for independent filmmakers to distribute new and original films.

Since studios are taking less of a chance on distributing independent films in movie theaters, a potential solution is for independent filmmakers to create their own movie theater circuit.  In a previous post, we interviewed Jay Craven, who successfully distributed his films by creating his own screening circuit in rural New England towns. Jay was successful at screening his films this way by targeting the same rural New England towns where many of his films were set.  He was able to then tap into an audience that would be interested in the cultural aspects of his film.  He also targeted small rural towns where locals were more interested in attending major events in their hometown instead of going to see blockbuster movies in a theater that could be over a half hour away.

What if a collective of independent filmmakers and community organizers created their own distribution circuit, based in towns that are likely to have a strong base of independent movie goers? Not only would this help films that slipped through the cracks on the festival circuit get noticed, but the films that did well on the circuit would get publicity that could help attract a deal with major distributors by showing there is a demand for the film at the local level.

However, finding the right locations to establish these grassroots movie theaters would be key, along with an effective outreach strategy on the ground to publicize film screenings at low costs.  From our background working on the Obama campaign, organizers played a key role in building relationships with supporters and community leaders through one-on-one meetings and cold calling. Similarly, organizers could be hired to build relationships with people in a community to determine the best places to screen films and recruit volunteers to help publicize the screenings. Another key strategy in the Obama campaign was collecting contact information from supporters at rallies, house parties and other events so they could email and call supporters to get involved in future events.  Similarly, a grassroots distribution collective could collect data from audiences at the screenings to better target and market their films in the future.  The data could be shared among the collective so every time a new film is distributed the filmmaker won’t have to start from scratch.

In one of our previous posts, we interviewed Kate West and Jacob Perlin who manage Artist Public Domain and Cinema Conservancy respectively.  The objective of both companies is to enrich culture through finding new venues for independent film.  Jacob suggested one thing that could help independent filmmakers would be,

“Some type of affiliated network where there is someone representing different regions who have more knowledge about it. Like for instance, if you have a [certain kind of] film in New York the goal is Film Forum because it gets the biggest best audience.  But what happens if your film doesn’t get in there? Well the traditional thing was always you open your film in Manhattan because Manhattan is better than Brooklyn but that isn’t the case anymore. Also, do you open your film at BAM or Nitehawk?  Someone outside of New York is not going to know the difference…there are so many iterations that only someone here could know and advise a filmmaker.””

What if there were a group of organizers who worked to distribute a slate of films in the non-traditional venues Jacob discussed in the quote above?  If done effectively, the films could attract buzz for independent films that big studios would never take a chance on since they lack the big stars and the special effects that appeal to a global marketplace.  Furthermore, running local campaigns for independent films based on word of mouth and grassroots strategies like cold calling and one-on-one meetings, might be a cheaper and more effective way of reaching the niche audience for an independent film compared to running a traditional movie theater P & A campaign, which is often expensive and targets audiences that are more interested in seeing blockbuster movies.

There is no doubt an effort for independent filmmakers to create their own screening circuit would take a tremendous amount of time, money and resources.  However, in the long run, it could have a greater impact than Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites that may help a movie get made but often fall short in helping an independent film get seen by a major audience, which after all is the most critical step for gauging whether or not a film is successful. A collective of filmmakers that create their own screening circuit and use grassroots organizing to target their audiences locally may be the secret weapon independent filmmakers have been looking for to help balance the recent tide of blockbuster movies flooding the theaters.

Grassroots Film Collective- Concluding Idea Series, #2

As we get closer to the end of our fellowship, we are publishing a series of blogs that propose would-be final project ideas related to our research on grassroots film distribution. Although we have decided not to turn these ideas into our final project, we hope the series will spark a conversation about possible grassroots tools that will help independent filmmakers distribute their films.  Part 1 of our series was a site that would serve as a Pandora for movie trailers, offering users the ability to type in their favorite movie and instantly watch trailers that relate to that film.  You can read more about our idea by clicking here. Our second CRI final project idea is a Grassroots Film Distribution Collective.  In our study we have found that many independent filmmakers, especially first time directors, feel overwhelmed when they distribute their films.  One of the many directors who we interviewed that felt this way is Marcia Jarmel who co-directed and self-distributed the documentary, Speaking in Tongues.  Although the film had a successful distribution run, Marcia commented, "I started out thinking I could do everything myself, and made myself pretty nuts for a while. It is much, much easier to have an army of people helping you. I think most filmmakers do not have that.”

This lead to us wondering if a film collective could be formed so that when audiences 'opt-in' to a film project--i.e through a crowdsourcing site like Kickstarter, or if they give their information to a volunteer at a community screening, the information is shared and passed on to a group of filmmakers that later use the data to target their audiences in future campaigns.  The mission of the group would be to build one big audience for a slate of films by sharing distribution information and resources with like minded filmmakers.  This is different than the normal distribution plan to build a big list for one film and then never use it again or wait to use the list for two to three years later when the director makes another film.

Unlike other non-profit consulting, this would be a group of independent filmmakers who pool together resources to distribute their films. The group would focus on developing a volunteer structure similar to the neighborhood team model, in which Jeremy Bird, former Obama National Field Director, discussed in our interview here. In the interview Bird suggested community organizers could help distribute films by connecting with non-profits, recruit volunteers to help set up community screenings and call through consumer data to identify target audiences for certain films.  This is similar to an approach that filmmaker and political activist Sandi DuBowski, who we interviewed in a previous post here, adopted to distribute his film, Trembling Before G-d.  Building a grassroots film distribution collective would take significant time, but overtime, if the films did well the data and grassroots resources pooled together by the collective could become invaluable and possibly compete with the publicity campaigns of major studios.

We look forward to your feedback on our second CRI final project idea in the comment secant below. In Part 3 we will discuss an idea for a website that enables filmmakers to plug in information about their film and find out which campaigns would be most effective to distribute their film.

A Conversation with the Filmmakers of Four Eyed Monsters- Does Digital Mean Distribution No Longer Matters?

Following our case study on the independent film Four Eyed Monsters, we decided to interview the filmmakers themselves, Susan Buice and Arin Crumley.  Four Eyed Monsters paved the way for DIY and online/grassroots distribution.  After the film premiered at Slamdance in 2007, the filmmakers found themselves in territory familiar to many independent filmmakers, a successful festival run followed by no distribution deal.  Susan and Arin then decide to market the film themselves by using innovative online tools like a videocast that documented their struggle to distribute the film.  They also created an online petition where fans could sign up to show their support for the film in order to convince local movie theaters to agree to screenings. Eventually Four Eyed Monsters successfully grossed a total of $129,000, $100,000 of which came from online sales. Below is some select excerpts from our interview with Susan and Arin, followed by our key takeaways.

MG: With Four Eyed Monsters it seemed like where you succeeded was on your own and not with the traditional gatekeepers of independent film.  When you look at the big picture of the independent film industry, how do you guys characterize what you did and how it's different?

SUSAN BUICE: A lot of what we were doing was a reaction to the feedback that we were getting on the film festival circuit…We ended up talking to distributors and they said “We like your film but you’re not famous and we can’t really sell a romantic comedy with no famous people in it to an audience; it’s too hard to market.’ And so we were like: we’ll become famous.  We’ll make people 'like us.'  We’ll make this video podcast; we already have this footage. And it wasn’t like ‘Oh we’ll get in this for fame,’ we [said to ourselves] we’ll make something so people have that connection and want to watch a film about whether these two people end up together or not together… So we knew we had this content that was leading into another project and we figured that other project would just be a continuation of Four Eyed Monsters because it was documentary stuff as opposed to narrative stuff.

We were telling distributors ‘we still want you to distribute the film but we’ll just take care of the marketing’ and they [told us] 'That’s not proven, let’s not do it.'  And after we got kind of shut down we [asked ourselves if] we still think it’s a good idea, do we believe in the idea enough ourselves that we would distribute it ourselves if it works. And that’s when we decided to move to my parent’s house and start making video episodes.

MG: You guys got an audience actually in the wake of trying to put out a film and then it ironically allowed you to put out a film in a profitable or break even way. Let’s say I'm not making that film whatsoever [a comedy\drama about online dating]; how do I structure my campaign in a way that uses the takeaways from you guys?

ARIN CRUMLEY: There’s this kind of dream that there’s this social medium button you press and it all works…The difference I believe is the volume of additional content.  Like how much extra stuff other than the movie exists.  And in our case we had more media than the film itself.

You need to create a story world, story universe. And that is maybe not something the filmmaker has planned for. They were hoping they could just get a consultant to come on in and read a little manual and then they’re going to get all the answers and they just have to do that and they’re all set.

For people who love the cinema medium there’s this resistance like “I don’t want to go design video games, that’s not what I do. Why do I have to do that?” No one said you have to do that. I mean in our case we got to make a video podcast that we wanted to make and other documentary media that was really fun to work on. So I think that should be the design challenge. What would be cool that relates to your project that you can make and create a media presence around it?

[For example:] create a trailer that is similar to a Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign that creates a campaign to distribute the film.  It shows the trailer and then the director pops up on camera and says, “I can’t release the film; sorry, but I would love to… If you can simply request and tell me where you guys are we can do this and we can bring the film to your town”…And they did this with Paranormal Activity after we did this with Four Eyed Monsters and they got like a million people to request local screenings which gave the studio confidence to spend money on a wider release.

MG: Cause that's sort of the magic of Kickstarter, though you're technically raising money what Kickstarter also does is identify an audience. In a way what you're basically saying is you don't need the actual funding part you just need to manifest demand for it?

ARIN CRUMLEY: We are now in an era of post-crowdfunding explosion. So what does that mean? Crowdfund everything? Not necessarily. I think it means something else as well.  There are phases to your production, and different phases that previously wouldn’t have involved marketing of any kind now might.

And this is the idea of [Arin’s website] OpenIndie and other sites like Flicklist -- an app that lets you list films you want to see.  And they're working on a bookmark where on any page any filmmaker could put this universal button [that communicates] “People, hit this button -- this is the only way we’ll know what platforms to put this on or what cities to put this in or what countries this should go to”... Just ask, who are the people who want to see this thing.

MG: Because you were one of the first pioneers to build an online audience, do you think you will distribute your next film by yourself and possibly skip the film festival route? Or do you still see value in those gatekeepers and possibly getting a distributor?

SUSAN BUICE: I still see value in film festivals but it's different than I initially thought. Pre-Four Eyed Monsters I thought you could go to festivals to prove your worth and get picked up.  Now I look at going to film festivals as a way to generate buzz and as a way to meet people for your future career.  Not even to help your film necessarily, but to help you get a job on another film or to help you make your next movie.  I think if we go to film festivals with our next project that is going to be our goal.

ARIN CRUMLEY: It's like a non-event to distribute something. You will, in the process of authoring a film, distribute it; you will put it in a format that is distributable and that is distribution -- you're done. [With] digital, it's invisible.

The conversation about distribution should really just stop. It's so easy. There really should just be a conversation about marketing… The question really is marketing. And I think the answer is… media brand. Sundance is a media brand, HBO is a media brand.  And I think the opportunity right now is to create those media brands.

Key Takeaways:

In conclusion, our interview with Arin and Susan brings up the possibility that distribution has become so easy through digital and online tools, that the process of trying to get a "distributor" to pick up your movie could be more about branding. For example, getting your film distributed by Sony Pictures Classics isn't meaningful in terms of the actual practice of distribution -- ie delivering the film itself to the theaters.  Technology is increasingly making service they provide look more and more overvalued. The P & A costs spent by the distributor often means the filmmaker never recoups. However, the advantage of having a distributor like Sony Pictures Classics is that your film has been validated by the SPC brand. Just like your film playing at Sundance is kind of an award-like validation -- it helps legitimize and market your film but doesn't actually have anything to do with your distribution. Eventually anyone could have the power to digitally send their film to a theater. So what is a distributor left to do? Marketing. Something else that can be increasingly done on the internet.

However, when more and more people have the ability to market, brands mean even more because they help a customer make sense of the chaos of the marketplace.  This explains why festival submissions have increased over the years and major studios still dominate the marketplace.  Since new technology has made it easier and cheaper for people to make movies than ever before, there is a growing need for studios and festivals to act as the curator to the influx of independent films produced over the years.

Nevertheless, Arin highlighted the potential for filmmakers to build their own brands through creative online content like the video podcasts they created for Four Eyed Monsters. The Obama campaign was able to adapt a similar strategy to supersede the conventional news and media markets by generating its own media channels through YouTube and online listservs.  This enabled the campaign to communicate with its supporters efficiently at inexpensive costs and successfully build its own identity. Could filmmakers gain more creative and monetary control of their films by designing their own marking campaigns online instead of relying on studios and conventional movie theaters to brand their films?

However, the Obama campaign was only successful at moving its online community to action through a massive offline effort through phone calls, one-on-one meetings and door to door canvasing on the ground. Recruiting such a large grassroots team for distributing a film does not seem feasible.  Still, the success of the Four Eyed Monsters' videocast reminds us that we should not underestimate how creative online content can be used to build relationships and loyalty with an audience – just like the creative videos of the Obama campaign contributed to a feeling of community and loyalty. Furthermore, with film, it is likely there may be less of a need for as much on the ground organizing as that which is required by a political campaign.

In future posts we plan to further explore creative and resourceful ways filmmakers can build their audience online without relying on the traditional gatekeepers to brand their film.

A Conversation with former Digital Politics Guru Nicco Mele- Has the Internet Really Changed the Game?

In our next interview we talked to the former Webmaster of Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid, Nicco Mele. While working for the Dean campaign, Nicco helped pioneer the use of social media in political campaigns to fundraise. After the campaign, Nicco co-founded a digital strategy consulting firm called, EchoDitto, that offered service to non-profit and corporate clients like Barack Obama’s Senate campaign, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Sierra Club. Nicco is currently a professor at Harvard where he teaches graduate classes on the Internet and politics. His book, The End of Big: How The Internet Makes David The New Goliath explores the consequences of living in a socially connected society. In our interview, Nicco questioned whether the Internet had transformed political campaigns and the film industry for the better. He referenced three books that he teaches in his Internet and Politics class to outline how the Internet has impacted political campaigns: The Move On Effect by David Karpf, Taking Our Country Back by Daniel Kreiss, and Victory Lab by Shasha Issenberg.

The first book Nicco discussed in our interview was The Move On Effect, which proposes a three-pillar theory for running an effective digital political campaign. Nicco recalled,

“One is build a big email list. You need a big email list because people live overwhelmingly in their inbox. The average American spends more than 30% of their time in their inbox… The other thing about email is that it’s measurable and repeatable and you can build behavior models to increase interaction. You can’t do that on Twitter or Facebook. If I tweet something I have no idea if you saw that tweet or not and so I can’t go back to you in a contextual way to tell you a greater story. Whereas with email I know if you opened the email, I know if you clicked on it and I can build a model to deal with you.”

“The second core pillar is online community. Karpf talks about this pretty exclusively in terms of blogs but I think it is a much broader decision besides just blogs. Online community is some sense about feeding the most rabid people in your community. The care and feeding of evangelist is essential in online success.”

“The third pillar is online/offline. Politics is really a face to face business and you really have to be able to use the Internet to drive people to meet face to face.”

Nicco also mentioned that to be successful at these three things, you need a nimble operation that contains a willingness to take risk, has strong analytic skills and aggressive in measurement. “Part of being successful on the internet is taking advantage of when things go viral. But who knows what makes things go viral? That’s obscure and impossible to measure. So you have to try a lot of things hoping some of them go viral and you have to measure them so when something starts to go viral you can poor gasoline on the fire and then you have to be able to measure that.”

Nicco then contrasted Karpf’s three-pillars theory for running a digital campaign with a list of 5 key elements that go into running any campaign (regardless of its digital component)

   1) Raise money    2) Have a message    3) Communicate the message through media    4) Deal with press    5) Field or turnout operation

Examining the list, Nicco posited that perhaps the internet has only had a significant impact on one of those elements: Raise money.

“It’s fundraising and that’s where both Dean and Obama broke through. They used the Internet to build an alternative vehicle for fundraising. And the message is still crafted with polling. The message is still delivered by television… And I bet if we made a list of the 5 essential elements of pulling off a film we could figure out how the Internet or digital changes those things. Pretty clear Kickstarter and Indiegogo, etc., are having some impact on the funding of films. Although exactly how much impact and whether it’s good is a big question for me.”

This causes us to wonder if the only thing filmmakers can really learn from the Dean and Obama campaigns, as far as digital goes, is that the internet makes it extremely easy to raise money. However, the Obama campaign was known for recruiting a historic number of volunteers to knock on doors and make calls for the campaign, and many of these volunteers were recruited through offline phone calls and one-on-one meetings with organizers on the ground -- not email. However, translating money into action is usually harder. Nicco pointed out that out of the approximately 6 million people who donated to Obama’s campaign in 2008, only approximately [400,000] people or around 10% made phone calls to their members of Congress to support Obama’s signature healthcare bill 8 months later. Nicco noted,

“There is this bizarre paradox which has probably never been true in American or maybe human history which is [that right now] giving 100 dollars is easier than doing anything else. Which is kind of lunacy and probably bad for democracy. It is definitely not healthy.”

Nicco is suggesting that although the internet has made it easier to contribute to political and film campaigns than before, it has not had a significant impact in motivating people to take action in politics or in film. For example, an astonishing 80% of Kickstarter films that get funded are social issue films, but how many Kickstarter donors volunteer to bring about meaningful change for the social issue film they donate towards?

This led Nicco to draw a contrast between the internet, which he views as an intentional medium and TV, which he defines as a persuasive medium.

“From a political tactical perspective, TV is persuasive in a way that the internet isn’t. I think the reasons are: 1) the internet is intentional and requires focus and television is not and the second thing is just scale and repetition. Television’s reach and scale still dwarfs the internet and everyday it’s shrinking. But I could buy commercials on 300 television channels and effectively reach two thirds of America. And to reach two thirds of America the online ad buy is essentially inconceivable [as far as] what would be required, and probably practically impossible. At that equation of scale and repetition is where TV trumps the internet. And the gap is so giant that TV could decline for 10 years and still be a more effective way in reaching people in a mass media kind of way than the internet because the internet simply isn’t mass media at all.”

In this quotation Nicco offers 2 insights about the new media vs. old media. 1) The Internet causes people to dwell overwhelmingly in the present. This leads to people not caring about traditional narrative structure -- everything from reality TV to how it influences the message. 2) Television is still the most effective way to persuade and reach a mass audience since TV networks and shows have a much larger audience than websites. Although the audience for TV is steadily decreasing, it will take a significant amount of time for websites on the Internet to pass viewership on TV.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our conversation with Nicco causes us to wonder if online organizing is perhaps not the most effective platform for driving people towards action. Although the Internet has been proven to be an effective tool for fundraising, the intentional nature of the medium results in people searching for ways to contribute through small actions like donating instead of offline action like volunteering for a cause. From our experience working on the Obama campaign, complementing online organizing with old fashion door knocking, phone calls and one-on-one meetings played a key role in motivating supporters to act beyond just simply donating online. This makes us wonder if filmmakers should consider how offline meetings or phone calls with their online supporters could motivate the audience to get involved in distribution beyond just donating or watching a film. We plan to explore what approaches are most effective for building offline relationships with audience members in order to propel them towards the action of distributing films in future posts.

A Conversation with Kate West and Jacob Perlin about Grassroots Distribution and Exhibition

We recently interviewed Kate West, who is the Managing Director of Artist Public Domain, and Jacob Perlin who is the Director of the Cinema Conservancy. The mission of Artist Public Domain is to support independent cinema through three core programs: Production, Cinema Conservancy and Education.  The Cinema Conservancy is a branch within Artist Public Domain that focuses on releasing and preserving film projects that have historical and social significance and for some reason have slipped through the cracks of traditional exhibition networks or venues.  What makes Artist Public Domain and the Cinema Conservancy unique from other production and distribution companies is that their main objective is to enrich culture through supporting independent film instead of serving their own commercial interests.  For example, if there were a hot film in Sundance, they would not try to distribute the project since it would probably have a conventional distribution run at the hands of more traditional distributor. In our conversation Kate and Jacob encouraged independent filmmakers to think of grassroots distribution as not only social media, Kickstarter, YouTube and blogging, but also as grassroots exhibition.  Jacob pointed out,

“If you can get your film on the screen in Hartford Connecticut at like Cinestudio, which is a traditional audience, yeah they are going to have a built in audience and then you can use grassroots to get people there. But another way to do it is you find a non-traditional venue that is more in tune with what your film is… I think the future will be about identifying other types of venues that aren’t necessarily only movie theaters.”

Often filmmakers spend a significant amount of their time and resources trying to get their films into a straight-up movie theater when a more unconventional venue might appeal more to their target audiences and require less effort.  For example, in our case study with Jay Craven, he attracted new audiences that normally would not go to the movie theaters by screening his film in school auditoriums and gym’s that were more accessible to people living in rural towns across New England.

Kate noted, “Maybe the issue is not finding your distributor but finding your audience.”  The advent of digital screenings has made it easier and cheaper for non-traditional venues to setup their own screenings. A good venue can save thousands of dollars on P & A and the countless hours it takes to convince a conventional distributor to screen your film.

However, with so many screening options it can be difficult to determine the best venue for your film. This may be especially true when the filmmaker is unfamiliar with a city. Jacob raised the possibility of creating a network of organizers in different regions who are familiar with the non-traditional venues available to screen films.  Jacob stated,

“You have to have someone on the ground. I think some type of affiliated network where there is someone representing different regions who have more knowledge about it. Like for instance, if you have a [certain kind of] film in New York the goal is Film Forum because it gets the biggest best audience.  But what happens if your film doesn’t get in there? Well the traditional thing was always you open your film in Manhattan because Manhattan is better than Brooklyn but that isn’t the case anymore. Also, do you open your film at BAM or Nitehawk?  Someone outside of New York is not going to know the difference…there are so many iterations that only someone here could know and advice a filmmaker.”

From our experience working on the Obama campaign, field organizers played a critical role in communicating the most effective places to have staging locations that were accessible to volunteers so they could make calls and canvass for the campaign.  Similarly, a network of organizers could help filmmakers determine the best place to screen their film at inexpensive costs and appeal to their target audience.

This led Jacob to consider the possibility of making information about movie venues more transparent so filmmakers could know ahead of time what exhibitors are worth their time to pursue. Jacob reflected,

“Think about it, you’re a filmmaker and you have one person on your team who is doing all this.  Do you want them to spend 10 hours trying to get the film to play in one place where you’re never going to get the money from? Or do you want them to spend that 10 hours trying to set up other things.  There’s certain venues, why wait?  Or just try another venue in that town.  There’s no reason it shouldn’t be public. If it would take two bookings in the amount of time it takes to do that one booking, that’s the kind of information that should be known.”

One could imagine a website similar to Yelp where filmmakers rate and review different exhibitors.  This would help filmmakers determine if screening their film at a certain venue will play to their target audience, and match the time and funding they have available for the screening.  The website would also keep exhibitors in check and more sensitive to the filmmakers needs for screening their film.

Conclusion:

Our conversation with Jacob and Kate reminded us of how important it is for independent filmmakers to consider non-traditional venues for screening their movies.  As Jacob noted,

“I think that everyone is just so wrapped up in the idea that they want to have their film in the theater where the lights go down and the trailers come on and everyone has popcorn, [but] that’s just not going to happen any more. With the screens left, the stuff that is going to be dominating the screens is going to be major stuff like Fox Searchlight.”

Many renowned filmmakers have talked about how the film industry is crumbling; most recently Spielberg talked about the industry crashing because even big budget movies that dominate the box office are tanking. What if the future of independent film isn’t in movie theaters, TV or on Netflix but in the non-traditional venues that Kate and Jacob are using to distribute independent films for Artist Public Domain and Cinema Conservancy?  This of course would require organizers who are experts in non-traditional distribution to set up screening venues. In future posts we plan to explore how the grassroots volunteer structure of the Obama campaign might be able to support a system of grassroots exhibition so independent filmmakers no longer have to rely on traditional movie theaters to screen their movies.

A Conversation with Chris Dorr- How Filmmakers can go around the Gatekeepers

In our next interview, we talked to Chris Dorr about his insights on how the film industry has evolved in the digital age of distribution.  Chris has a broad background working in both the independent and studio film world. He started his career at Film Arts Foundation where he raised money to support independent filmmakers and then worked on bigger studio films at Disney and Universal Pictures.  Chris is currently working as a media consultant for MTV Networks, Tribeca Film Festival and the Canadian Film Center. Below are three questions our interview with Chris raised that relate to how the film industry is adapting to emerging digital and grassroots tools.

Q1) How do you determine if your film is better on or off the festival circuit?

Chris suggested, “One might argue the only films that really benefit from Sundance are the ones like Beasts that are the few two or three that get big, big attention and [for] everyone else if you went there or not doesn’t really matter…” Therefore if your film is unlikely to win big on the festival circuit and if you already have at least the potential for a built-in audience, you might want to consider self-distribution.

In our recent post on the feature documentary Honor Flight, we learned that they were able to set the Guinness World Record for the largest film screening by tapping into a built in network of veterans who were interested in seeing the film, which documents the compelling story of war veterans who visit the WWII Memorial in D.C. as part of the Honor Flight program.  However, when the Honor Flight team took the film on the festival circuit, the momentum for the film slowed down since they were unable to top the excitement generated by their massive debut.  In addition, festival rules inhibited them from selling DVDs at screenings or online. This makes us wonder if more independent filmmakers should consider ways to distribute their film directly to their audience instead of relying on the traditional gatekeepers at festivals to give their films recognition. Especially since the multitude of ways to distribute your film digitally has changed the traditional process of getting buzz and attention for your film.  Filmmakers can often get more attention for their film by posting a trailer on YouTube or running a Kickstarter campaign instead of waiting for a critic to review their film at a festival.

Q 2) Can you generate your own distribution circuit online?

This next questions Chris raised relates to the possibility of using digital and grassroots tools to not only fundraise, but also distribute your film.  Chris pointed out,

“One of the reasons why people want to go to Sundance is Sundance is heavily covered by all kinds of media all over the world… Now there may be the same way to gain that kind of attention without going to any of the festivals. I think there will continue to be ways to of getting around the typical gatekeepers that people can use to build their own audience. But what you have to be able to do is figure out how to get mass media attention without spending mass media dollars.”

Digital tools like Kickstarter and blogging have enabled filmmakers to avoid the traditional publicity and marketing costs that go into a festival or movie theater run. In our recent interview with self-distributing filmmaker Gregory Bayne, he discussed how he was able to gain publicity for his film, Driven, which tells the story of UFC legend Jens Pulver, by making the film available to watch online during a limited time for free.  This lead to Mixed Martial Arts websites and blogs giving the film free publicity and later Warner Brothers acquired the film so they could distribute it on demand.  Greg was able to save thousands of dollars on marketing by hosting free online screenings that made it possible for more people to see his film than any film festival could provide.

Q 3) Does the independent film industry’s financing paradigm place it in a third category, somewhere between non-profit and for-profit film? If so what does that look like, and are there precedents?

The last question our interview with Chris raised relates to why people donate to projects on crowdfunding sites like Kickstater in the first place.  Chris recognized that Kickstarter is

“Neither for profit or non-profit; it’s somewhere in the middle.  In certain cases, you’re getting X, Y or Z which are actual things, certain incentives that are built in… I think we’re wrong in thinking something is for profit or non-profit.  It’s just different kinds of subsidies.”

This insight brings into question whether people donate out of an altruistic desire to help the filmmaker which is similar to a non-profit, or to simply obtain a DVD or movie poster, or do people donate because it appeals to both their altruistic and consumer desires. The idea that using Kickstarter lies somewhere in between running a for profit and non-profit company reveals that filmmakers should not limit their film campaign to run like either. Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites give filmmakers the potential to attract supporters who wish to donate out of an altruistic need to help others and/or their desire for a material reward.  Although there is not yet a term for this kind of fundraising, it has been utilized by many film campaigns and is especially useful for independent filmmakers who need to take advantage of all available resources to get their films made and distributed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our interview with Chris lead us to discover that although the emergence of digital tools is changing the film distribution rapidly, it also opens the door for independent filmmakers that are not afraid to go off the beaten path. However, it can be tricky to figure out which path to take when there are so many options.  This leads us to three questions we think will help independent filmmakers determine whether their film is best suited for a traditional or non-traditional distribution model, 1) Is my film likely to perform well at a top festivals? 2) Is there already a built in audience behind my film? 3) Will I be more likely to reach my target audience online or through community screenings?

Although these certainly are not the only questions filmmakers should be asking when distributing their film, it hopefully starts the process of thinking about whether you should go the traditional or non-traditional route. In future posts, we plan to look at the different categories of non-tradition distribution models and explore what models are most adaptable for certain kinds of independent film.

“Trembling Before G-d” Director Sandi DuBowski Discusses Organizing Around Film

Following our conversation with Obama guru, Jeremy Bird, we interviewed activist and independent filmmaker Sandi DuBowski. Sandi is known for directing and producing the award winning documentary, Trembling Before G-d.  The film tells the compelling story of several gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews who are trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. Trembling was very well received on the festival circuit and at the box office, winning seven awards including at the Berlin Film Festival and Chicago Film Festival, and broke the Film Forum’s opening day box office record by grossing more than $5,500 on the day of its single screen New York debut. Sandi later took the film on a town hall-style screening tour to schools and synagogues across the country to spark a conversation about LGBT issues among Orthodox Jews.  Similar to how Obama veteran Jeremy Bird gives consulting advice on grassroots organizing for political campaigns through his firm 270 Strategies, the success of Trembling has resulted in Sandi becoming one of the leading consultants for “issue” organizing around film. The distribution campaign for Trembling focused on the act of screening the film itself instead of an external action like passing a law or signing a petition.  This is a different approach than other issue-based films we have studied in our research like Participant Media’s film, The Visitor, which attempted to engage its audience in a number of external action campaigns on its website, i.e. offering free legal seminars to lawyers to learn how to defend immigrant detainees.  In contrast, Sandi decided to focus the campaign on distributing the film itself because, “Trembling was something that had a lot of resistance, so it really was about building a conversation as opposed to something like having the court law come in and change how the U.S. military deals with rape…” Sandi was able to channel the enthusiasm of LGBT community towards the action of distributing his film by focusing the goal of the campaign to break the silence of a community that many people felt needed to be more vocal. Sandi then formed metrics to gauge the progress of distribution and translate the success of the film to supporters and investors.  Sandi reflects,

“There is a whole growing field in  ‘How do you evaluate this? How do you measure it?’ And for me it was like, if I could create a conversation in a public institution that never had a conversation before, that for me was like a statistical marker of success. If I could get a school that never discusses homosexuality to really have all the teachers have a conversation about it with the principal and social workers, that was a victory.”

From our perspective working on the Obama campaign, metrics for canvassing, phone calls and fundraising played a critical role in giving supporters an understanding of how their time and money contributed to the campaign’s success. Similarly, Sandi shared the stories about people who went through transformative experiences at Trembling screenings to translate the success of screenings in Jewish Orthodox institutions.  These stories helped motivate supporters to contribute money and time to the distribution of the film.  As Sandi states,

“We consistently had a proven track record.  Were able to tell the story of the success about how people’s lives were really changing. It was very much turning a movie into a movement… That strategy for fundraising was throughout the whole process of the film, so it just felt like a continuation of the way I had worked.”

Instead of waiting on a distributor to support his screenings financially, Sandi raised funding on his own so that he could hire a network of outreach directors that helped organize screenings throughout the country.  Sandi discussed, “Everywhere we went, I would hire outreach directors.  I got my distributor to pay me to be an outreach director.  I hired in New York, I hired in Boston, I hired in L.A, I hired in San Francisco, I hired in Chicago, so I built a whole team nationwide, as well as in Canada.”  This is similar to how the Obama campaign hired organizers during the primary.  Sandi would hire organizers 6 weeks before a new screening so they could build publicity and work with different organizations to plan for the event.  He was able to sustain his team of outreach directors by tapping into various financial sources during the distribution process through grants, private donors, grassroots emails and donations.

Sandi also touched on the recurring theme in our research that new technologies make it even more critical for filmmakers to build a team that help manage the many tools available for distribution. Sandi observed,

"Now there’s such a menu of options to mobilize an audience…I think capturing the audience is really important, capturing the data in that room. And really being able to record that data, and having someone on board who can actually do all that social media work and that data recording and that data basing is what we all forget, and then we’re all flooded with information, flooded with data and we have no way of organizing it….I think team building, capacity building is so important right now, and it’s really important to think about how we’re going to run like a mini NGO with our film.”

Sandi’s example proves that filmmakers can build their own distribution team by being nimble with financing and embracing a grassroots structure. We wonder if Sandi’s successful distribution strategy of hiring outreach directors to organize community screenings could be expanded even further through empowering a team of volunteers.  In our recent interview with Jeremy Bird, he highlighted four key grassroots principles that emphasized the importance of data and sharing real responsibility with volunteers. Bird mentioned that what separated the Obama campaign from other grassroots operations in the past is the inherent sense of ownership and trust built into the core of its volunteer structure which is named “The Snowflake Model.’ In the ‘Snowflake Model’ volunteers were assigned to neighborhood teams and given specific roles like Phonebank Captain, Canvass Captain and Neighborhood Team Leader that each played a significant role in the historic turnout efforts of the campaign.  Could a similar model be adapted to empower audiences to get more involved in the distribution of film?  We plan to explore this question in future posts.

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

How to Set a Guinness World Record and Sell Your Film

Background and Context In this post we interviewed Clay Broga, one of the producers of the feature documentary Honor Flight, which set the Guinness World Record for the largest film screening. Premiering on August 14th, 2012 at Milwaukee’s baseball stadium, Miller Park, Honor Flight drew 28,422 attendees. The film tells the story of the Honor Flight program, which raises money so WWII veterans can fly to the nation’s capital for free to visit the WWII memorial. The storyline focuses on a group of Wisconsin veterans who are flown out to Washington, D.C. to see the WWII Memorial, which was constructed in 2004.

The Honor Flight Network is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that has 117 hubs across in the U.S. They are primarily funded by individual donors, fraternal organizations like local the American Legion, and various corporations on a local level. Priority for Honor Flight trips is given to World War II veterans and other veterans who may be terminally ill.

The filmmakers started on the project independently by producing a YouTube clip of veterans from Wisconsin visiting the WWII memorial thanks to the Honor Flight program. When the filmmakers published the clip online on Veterans Day in 2009, it went viral, receiving over 30,000 hits on YouTube on its first day. The filmmakers later decided to turn the project into a feature-length documentary and the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight chapter, which is a Milwaukee based Honor Flight hub featured in the film, volunteered to act as a fiscal sponsor by raising a significant portion of the budget to help produce the film. The filmmakers and the Stars and Stripes Honor Flight chapter agreed to split the future revenue of the film, until the filmmakers recoup their production costs. At that point, the remaining revenue would go to SSHF.

Key Takeaways

There are three key takeaways that can be learned from the grassroots distribution experience of Honor Flight. 1) Working under the umbrella of an existing production company or agency gives filmmakers the significant personnel and outreach advantage, 2) Creating a sense of urgency gives a film’s distribution process the constant momentum of a campaign and 3) For films that appeal to a specialized audience, trying to squeeze into the traditional distribution process and pipeline for independent film may not pay off, both in audience reach and in financial returns.

1) After the first video clip about Honor Flight went viral, producer Clay Broga and director Dan Hayes started their own company, Freethink Media, to produce similar videos for issue advocacy organizations. Through this company, they were able to get other work such that they had an operation already in place when they went into the making of the feature, Honor Flight. This umbrella organization expanded their ability not only to raise money for the film, but, with a personnel beyond just the filmmakers, Freethink Media was able to do outreach and establish the media contacts necessary to help distribute the film after it was produced.

A common theme in our research is that filmmakers often have to build their own workforce and contacts from scratch every time they produce a film. But for Clay and Dan, Freethink is “kind of like a production company creative house,” so “by the time the film was done we had already built a full-time team and we had started to build more of a marketing capability as well.”

2) The marketing team at Freethink Media worked with the SSHF chapter in Wisconsin and the National Honor Flight Network to build a sense of urgency around the release of the film. The filmmakers released the trailer before Memorial Day, using it as a deadline to ask supporters to help the trailer reach a certain number of views on YouTube. Clay reflects,

“[We] made the language, ‘Help us get 50,000 views in honor of these veterans for Memorial Day. Showing that you care, send this on to 5 friends and family.’ And we posted it through Facebook Causes… And that worked beyond our wildest dreams. Within a few weeks we had 4.5 million views, and it was all earned and organic through Facebook.”

In addition, as a result of the trailer going viral, Freethink Media received $13,000 in unsolicited donations through Facebook Causes.

The team then created a sense of urgency to help build for the premiere of the film by announcing the goal of setting the Guinness World Record for the largest film screening at Miller Park. Freethink Media combined its network of online supporters and media contacts with the network of Honor Flight chapters to advertise for the screening. In addition, the local radio host Charlie Sykes of AM 620 WTMJ in Milwaukee, who is a partner of SSHF and is featured in the film, played a significant role by persistently promoting the event on his show. Ultimately, the cause inspired 28,442 people to attend, surpassing the previous Guinness World Record for the largest film screening by more than 1,000 attendees. The team decided to hold back on selling DVD’s at the screening since they did not want to limit their options for a theatrical and DVD retail deal and also a possible Academy Award run.

3) However, since Honor Flight had a built in-group of supporters through the Honor Flight Network, and such successful online word of mouth already, a non-conventional publicity campaign from the start might have been more profitable and effective for reaching their target audience. In addition, the choice to go for an Academy Award run meant 1) that the filmmakers had to pay for a PR firm to maximize their exposure and increase their chances, and 2) that they had to hold off on selling DVD’s until after a theatrical run (per Academy rules). Therefore, a traditional theatrical run, though it was brief, ended up costing P & A dollars as well as potential DVD units sold.

Still, it is also important to note that when the filmmakers realized the conventional distribution model did not fit their film they capitalized on the broad attention they had received by taking the film to communities across the country – an example of nimble, non-traditional thinking when it comes to self-distribution. Clay explains, “Basically our approach was to do big blowout events (like mini versions of the premiere) that we’d attract a large grassroots audience to, and try to make the events really special with big name people, speeches and bands and WWII vets from the film at screenings, etc…”

Through hosting unorthodox theatrical and community screenings, the Honor Flight team successfully held a high profile screening at the US Capital with 500 attendees, a 1,000 person screening at the Byrd in Richmond and a 1500-person screening at DAR Constitution Hall. For this national initiative, the Honor Flight team decided to mix their own screening tour while simultaneously partnering with the website Tugg.com. The Marketing Director for the film, Jo Jensen, explains how members from Honor Flight hubs and other supporters would request screenings through the Tugg.com website:

“Once they selected a date for the screening, Tugg talked to the national movie chains that they were affiliated with --- about 75% of all movie theaters --- to locate a venue. And then the screening had to meet an attendance threshold, usually about 70 people. The organization that hosted the screening received 5% of the proceeds and had the opportunity to raise funds for their cause. So we routinely raised $600-$1,200 for an Honor Flight chapter through these Tugg screenings.”

Tugg was helpful in offering the filmmakers the tech and online platform needed to successfully book a theatrical screening of the film. However, other times if the Honor Flight team wanted a bigger venue than a normal theater they found it more effective to host the screenings themselves along with other partners. Furthermore, the theater screenings set up through Tugg were effective in raising funds towards the cause, but not in generating revenue for the filmmakers. Tugg is premised on local theaters and organizations hosting (and benefiting from) the screenings – in addition to Tugg itself. So between the filmmakers, the hosting organization, the theaters, as well as the Honor Flight chapters that received proceeds, the revenue was split across so many partners that the profit left for the filmmakers proper was limited.

Conclusion

In the age of digital media and the web, there are so many tools for filmmakers to distribute their films it can be difficult to choose, and it is always tempting to go the conventional route. Clay points out,

“When we made some of those early decisions (like not selling DVDs at the premiere) it was because we were still considering more traditional options, conventional theatrical for instance, and wanted to leave the door open. But as we progressed we realized those weren’t good options for us and went the more unconventional route.”

For example, any criticism about not selling DVD’s at the premiere should come with a large caveat, because very recently, in another example of savvy marketing around an urgent initiative, the filmmakers were able to leverage their considerable body of fans such that the film debuted as the best-selling documentary on Amazon and the top rated film of all DVDs (measured by customer reviews).

In our study, we have seen films like Four Eyed Monsters and Honor Flight find their own audience through improvising and essentially creating their own distribution mode. However, we wonder if there might be a way to offer filmmakers a toolbox to help them chose the best grassroots distribution model for their specific film. This is one goal we hope to work towards and share with filmmakers at the end of this study.

-Michael, Josh and Carl