Pandora for Movie Trailers- Concluding Idea Series, #1

As we approach the end of our fellowship, we will publish a series of blogs that reflect ideas we came up with while discussing our final project for CRI. Although we decided not to pick these ideas for our final project, our hope is the series will spark a conversation about possible grassroots tools that will help independent filmmakers distribute their films in the future. The first for our CRI final idea series, is a website that acts like Pandora for movie trailers. Similar to Pandora, you would type in a movie you like, and the site would instantly create a station that plays trailers that are related to that film.  The user could then give the film a thumb up or a thumb down.  Based on your responses the site would try to figure out your movie preferences and play other movie trailers that you might be interested in.  The website would also provide links to sites like Amazon, Netflix and Fandango making it easy for the user to watch the film of a trailer they liked online, buy a ticket to see it in movie theaters or buy it on DVD.

In our research, a recurring theme is that a lack of data and transparency in distribution has inhibited filmmakers from being able to effectively gather information about their audiences and market their films.  This website would help solve that problem by motivating people to opt-in through an interactive and engaging interface while also collecting important data about their movie preferences. Filmmakers and distributors could then use the data to target their audiences and distribute their films without starting from scratch or spending millions on a publicity campaign for their film.

B-Side is a distribution company we studied early in our research that adopted a similar strategy by creating a website that festival goers could use to organize their schedule and review films.  They were able to then use the contact information and data from their website to set up a record 1600 screenings of the documentary Super High Me on 4/20 which later lead to the film selling 85,000 DVD's and grossing 3.4 million dollars in the first year. To date, the film is the second most watched titled on NetFlix Instant.

Furthermore, a Pandora for movie trailers website could establish partnerships with movie theaters, art houses and online distribution sites like Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu by offering free publicity for online and offline distributors.  This could potentially raise awareness for independent films and older movies that are often overlooked or forgotten about.

We look forward to hearing what you think about our first CRI final idea in the comment section below.  In Part 2 of our CRI Final Project Idea Series we will raise the possibility of a Grassroots Film Distribution Collective.

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.

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

Four Stories That Show Content Is Changing

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Hulu - The Booth At The End Vuguru TV/New Media studio Vuguru launches season 2 of it's acclaimed series The Booth At The End on Hulu. If you've been on the site, you'll notice the prime real estate the series has on the platform's masthead (impressive considering it's competing with network and studio content).

http://www.hulu.com/the-booth-at-the-end

Netflix begins production of new season of Arrested Development Need I say more?

Fanhattan 2.0 A major update comes to arguably the best content discovery app on iOS. Fanhattan may not be the ultimate answer, but it suggests a world where all your accounts are tied into one beautiful interface and all your content is accessible and discoverable. And word is that a desktop version is on it's way... download now and stay tuned. http://www.fanhattan.com/