I Need Your (special, engaged, aware) Mind For a Moment...

I've spent my first three months as a CRI fellow surveying the space I want to research and analyze as comprehensively as an ever-evolving field will allow, which is the strange new world where online content, community, discovery and curation meet. A critical and ongoing component of my CRI project, I will write a biweekly column that will live on various sites and systematically analyze this world (based on a rubric that I will share in my next post). Each column will focus either on a specific platform, or on a category of platforms (see list of POTENTIAL PLATFORMS FOR ANALYSIS below). I will create a malleable overview of this space that explains how any particular app or platform functions and helps (or doesn’t help) filmmakers and fans within it. Since I want to ultimately answer this research with my own platform, the column will further expose the challenges of answering a need and the barriers to entry that an every-evolving field involves.

My big problem now is that this here list is crazy long and still probably lacking some key platforms that I've either overlooked entirely because my radar is over-saturated or whose Beta test I don't know about because I'm not special enough to have received the invite.

SO, Special folks: Please leave a comment here, email me at claireharlam@gmail.com, or twittertweet @Harlam if I've left a key platform off of this list, or if you have suggestions as to how I can better focus or categorize this beast of a list.

I am trying to look at platforms that address this space (where, again, online content, community, discovery and curation meet), but I am not focusing on independent (or not so independent) film-specific platforms for the very reason that I don't think these platforms have gotten it right (and some recent Beta test suspensions would suggest that their founders would agree).

You should therefore please feel free to throw anything that interests or excites my way (anything, ultimately, that involves content and community).

There are so many interesting platforms out there right now, (almost) each with its own unique perspective and thus lesson. Help me figure out which of these lessons are going to help our filmmaking community the most.

Herein, that (beast of a) list:

(updated 6/14)

CRI POTENTIAL PLATFORMS FOR ANALYSIS

(by categories which themselves are also up for (need) debate)

DIRECT DISTRIBUTION PLATFORMS AND TOOLS

• MOPIX (direct distribution)

• “Your video app marketplace”
• A framework for content owners to quickly and easily distribute, brand and sell their content in a social-enriched marketplace via web and apps
• Users will discover, watch, experience and own content from any device they choose

• INDIEFILMZ (direct distribution for shorts)

• “Facilitating a direct and rewarding connection between the creator and audience during ‘the short phase’ of the filmmaking career”
• Direct distribution platform for short films

• VEAM (direct distribution via app)

• “Films direct to audience. Profits direct to you.”
• Filmmakers post content, filmmaker sets the price of the content, Veam creates an app for the filmmaker to distribute his content on app stores, filmmaker profits

• INDIEBLITZ

• You make films. We do the distribution dirty work. We send you money and reports. You keep making films.
• Boutique film distribution company that offers brick and mortar and retail digital distribution, and direct-to-consumer fulfillment services.

• DISTRIFY

• “Distrify turns film sharing into sales and your fans into a community”
• It’s a video-playing tool that allows whomever watches your film to buy or share it immediately from within the video player

• DYNAMO

• “Powering Independence” “Because good content is worth paying for”
• Video playing platform that can be embedded anywhere and has a seamless payment process through PayPal or Amazon.

• EGG UP

• “Sell Films Securely”
• You've put blood, sweat, tears and lots of money into your film. Now it's time to bring it to the world. Eggup provides a secured platform to help you promote your film, connect with fans, and build a business.

• DISTRIBBER

• “Your film in profit, fast”
• Pay for seamless distribution to major online digital marketplaces and Cable VOD

• SNAG FILMS

• “SnagFilms.com offers the broadest collection of great independent movies you can watch right now, on demand, for free, and share with others – films that entertain and inform, engage and inspire, satisfy every taste, encourage discovery and create community.”

• FILM BUFF

• For Filmmakers: We act as both asset and advocate to our filmmakers, partnering with them to capture an audience for their creative work. Provocative, distinct and fresh content is our focus.
• For Audience: FilmBuff pushes the boundaries of digital distribution to provide audiences with the widest possible range of viewing options. We work to  provide the online content consumers demand to all possible devices on which they could choose to view it.

STREAMING SERVICES (CURATORIAL, SOCIAL, DISCOVERY)

• PRESCREEN (curated, social, discovery, VOD) **SUSPENDED***

• “Discovery one new movie each day, stream on demand”
• Filmmakers submit films, prescreen features streaming for a low price, users get an email promoting one film every day

• CONSTELLATION (curated, social, discovery online theater)

• “Constellation is your online movie theater”
• Users purchase tickets to attend schedule showtimes, or create their own showtimes for social viewing (VIP hosts, friends, etc.)
• Unclear how/if filmmakers can submit

• MUBI (curated, social, discovery)

• “Your online cinema. Anytime. Anywhere.”
• An online movie theater where you watch, discovery, and discuss  auteur cinema.

• FANDOR

• “Essential Films, instantly.”
• VOD streaming service for independent, international film for monthly fee.

• OPEN FILM

• “Where creativity meets opportunity”
• Openfilm showcases a fast growing collection of high quality, live action and animated films displayed in the highest quality available on the web. Our site provides a venue for users to watch premium content and for filmmakers to exhibit their works.

SOCIAL CONTENT DISCOVERY/AGGREGATION:

• VHX (social content discovery/aggregation)

• “We’ve combined the best parts of TV with the best parts of the web.”
• Users discover video through their social network—like Pinterest, but for video content

• CHILL (social content discovery/aggregator)

• “Discover the best videos in the world”
• Users discover video through their social network—like Pinterest, but for video content

• SQURL (content discovery/aggregation)

• “The best place to watch and discovery video”
• Users can aggregate favorite videos from the web and discover new videos from their featured content

CROWD-SOURCED EXHIBITION:

• TUGG (crowd-sourced exhibition)

• “Bring the Movies YOU Want to your Local Theater”
• Users create film events, spread the word, get enough RSVPS to watch the film together
• Has a library

• GATHR (crowd-sourced exhibition)

• “Theatrical On Demand”
• Users “Gathrit” (a button by films with limited distribution), spread the word, get enough RSVPs to watch the film together
• Has a library

• OPEN INDIE (crowd-source exhibition/discovery)

• “Theatrical distribution platform for independent film”
• Filmmakers add their films, fans discover new films and request local screenings. Next they hope to turn audience demand into screenings by digitally delivering films to venues.
• Depends more on independent filmmakers submitting their films than on an existing library/licensing rights

CROWD-FUNDING

• KICKSTARTER

• INDIEGOGO

OTHER CROWD-SOURCED ACTIVITY:

• SOKAP (crowd-sourced investing/audience-engagement)

• “A network of funding, marketing and distribution of big ideas in Entertainment”
• Filmmakers license territories to users in a tipping point crowd-sourced investment model
• “Engaged” users have more access to rewards and benefits related to the content with which they are engaged

• JUNTOBOX FILMS (crowd-sourced studio)

• “created to share, develop, and make films”
• allows filmmakers to upload projects they want to develop/finance/distribute; allows fans to track projects they are interested in

AGGREGATORS/TECH. BASED RECOMMENDATION:

• NANOCROWD (locator/tech. based recommendation)

• “we know WHY people like things”
• uses a technology called Reaction Mapping® to figure out what you like, and then it tells you where that content is available for streaming or purchase
• basically canistreamit but with tech-based curation/recommendation

• FILMASTER (locator/tech. based recommendation)

• “your movie guide”
• Recommends what you should watch tonight in theaters, on TV, or Netflix based on your unique taste

• SCENE CHAT (social video sharing (and tracking) system)           

• “socially ignite the videos on your website”
• allows advertisers or content creators to add a social utility to their videos—social is actually overlain within the video, so that comments can be left in real time

• WATCH IT (locator)

• “one queue, any platform”
• it’s a guide to what’s playing and where it’s playing, so that you can build a queue of movies you want to see, discover where they are playing online, share that with your friends

BIG PLAYERS (each gets its own analysis?)

• FACEBOOK

(• MILYONI (Facebook fan monetizer)

• “The leader in social entertainment”
• They help entertainment and lifestyle companies convert Facebook fans into customers through their “Social Cinema” and “Social Live” platforms.

• CINECLIQ (Facebook based film-on-demand platform)

• “Turn Facebook into Your Home Theater”
• Rent films in an online Facebook-based theater)

• YOUTUBE

• VIMEO

• PINTEREST

• TUMBLR

• TWITTER

THIRD-PARTY ANALYTICS AND SUPPORT

• ASSEMBLE

• “Build the perfect web-presence to gather your film’s audience and sell direct”
• “Clever software” that creates and manages your web-presence, gathers and tracks your audience, provides sales mechanisms to sell your film and products. Helps build your presence across many platforms.

• OOYALA

• “Powering personalized video experiences across all screens”
• Video analytics platform that tracks viewer engagement in real time across all devices for big companies. They believe the future of media is leveraging these crucial insights to create deeply personalized vieweing experiences that increase viewership and grow revenue.

CASE-STUDIES THAT ARE NOT FILM-SPECIFIC BUT DOING SOMETHING RIGHT:

• SPOTIFY

• COWBIRD

THANKS!

Claire

"Torso" Consumption?

Will head end hit and long tail niche content producers battle to reap the audiences and revenues of the media consumption curve "torso"? Without a promotional budget and/or curatorial guide, it seems neither camp could have much success. Still, this is an interesting look at "torso" models for content with inherent audiences (anime, bollywood, south korean drama, etc.). The Power of Torso TV (Why Media is Racing to the Middle)

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Suster (@msuster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster on his Startup Advice blog: Both Sides of the Table

Chris Anderson wrote a really influential book some years ago called “The Long Tail” that shaped how many people think about emerging Internet markets. If you haven’t read it you should consider adding it to you library.

It was especially influential in my mind in thinking about media.

At the simplest level you can think about markets in terms of the number of times media is consumed and/or purchased by people plotted against the total number of content of that media type that is available.

At the left of the graph is the “head end” of the market, where the “hits” are produced for mass audiences. This was how companies who produced media became big before the Internet.

Why is that?

When you have limited distribution, the costs of distributing media are so prohibitive that only the largest of media producers (and distributors) are relevant.

The book profiles markets like those for books. When you had physical stores selling books, the bookseller would have to stock the shelves with those books most likely to sell so consumer choice was more limited. It was by definition a hits-driven business.

This changed with Amazon because you could stock books in warehouses and ship them when ordered greatly reducing the costs of housing books and thus you could stock a much greater variety.

Now as an author you can actually publish and be able to sell only a thousand books. Even a hundred. That couldn’t happen without the advent of lower cost production & distribution. And as we know the book industry is moving fully electronic with the advent of the Kindle making the costs of production & distribution nearly zero.

Think about music as another example.

In the early days of music you had to produce records, which was expensive. You had to promote them via music venues by playing across the country to get your albums purchased. And with the rise of radio you then had to get airplay on radios to promote your music (leading to payola).

If audiences liked your music then you had to sell them physically at Tower Records or similar. That was the only way. And you would promote your music through expensive and limited media channels (radio, who had a strangle hold on market) and retail shops (who could control placement and promotion).

In the “head end” market you can make a lot of money if you’re a content producer. Mostly everybody else languishes. You also can make a lot of money if you’re a distributor to head-end markets, mostly these are monopolies, oligopolies or sometimes even mafia run businesses (for a great book on the emergence of these businesses read Lew Wasserman, The Last Mogul. Sadly, no Kindle edition).

In the “long tail” you can become enormously valuable if you’re a platform. Less so if you’re a content producer. It seems appealing at first since you can “ring the cash register quickly” and it feels good. But as every blogger, musician, novelist or YouTube emerging talent knows … it doesn’t add up to much unless you go big time.

TV was the same. You first had broadcast TV through local terrestrial broadcasting towers. The spectrum was so limited that as a child of the 1970′s we only got 4 TV stations. There were no physical forms to store the media – VHS, DVDs then DVRs have obviously changed this. Distribution strangleholds have dramatically decreased with cable & satellite (and now fiber) but distribution until recently has been very limited.

And then there’s film. It has been expensive to produce film on celluloid reels and then these had to physically be shipped to theaters (which were also, obviously, limited). When you think about “time windows” of film distribution you literally need to think about the fact that you would open a film in the US and later ship the physical reels to London then Europe to open overseas.

Physical limitations on both production AND distribution produced the hits driven business that many people associate with the media industry: Film, TV & Music.

We all know what happened with music when production costs went down (ProTools) and distribution costs went to zero (Napster). It had the effect of greatly reducing the industry size but also of allowing some less known artists to reach audiences that previously would be unthinkable due to cost constraints.

To some extent this lowering of production & distribution costs has been part of the YouTube phenomenon and more broadly of UGC (user-generated content) itself. YouTube has done a phenomenal job in aggregating audiences, which is why I have taken to calling YouTube the new Comcast and believe it will be a huge disruptor in the TV market .

To give you a sense of scale: 800 million people visit YouTube.com every month. 4 billion videos are watched daily. In 2011 YouTube had 1 trillion views, which is the equivalent of every human watching 140 videos. Put simply: YouTube OWNS the long tail. They own the audience and that is enormous asset to leverage, but more on that in a moment.

Netflix, Hulu & HBO Go are coming from the opposite direction – the Head End. Yes, it’s true that their deep libraries are virtual and therefore fit the long-tail properties. But their core asset (other than great tech & management) has been exclusive windowing of premium content that people want to consume.

They had to negotiate these rights with the major content owners – the studios. And this makes them definitionally more vulnerable than having control over a massive audience that turns up every month regardless of “hits.”

That is why Hulu has invested so much in building its Hulu Plus subscription service. With what is rumored to be around 2 million consumers paying $8 / month that is now a $200 million per year not including their ad revenue business.

Very smart people are running these online video businesses and they know that they need to diversify by either creating or sponsoring the development of new content. Hulu announced $500 million to fund new content and Netflix has, for example, resurrected the hit / cult show Arrested Development.

Interestingly Netflix plans to release the entire season all at once. Take that traditional time windows!

So to some extent I believe it will be a race in video will eventually be to the middle. The Torso. I know the big players still think of the next mega hit. But the fact that Netflix focused on Arrested Development tells me they are likely thinking more like me.

And I believe the torso is much more valuable than people perceive because it is growing rapidly with globalization and with the breakdown of physical distribution barriers.

Several years ago I became fascinated in the “torso” part of the media market.

...

Full article:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/06/the-power-of-torso-tv-why-media-is-racing-to-the-middle/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

"Torso" Consumption?

Will head end hit and long tail niche content producers battle to reap the audiences and revenues of the media consumption curve "torso"? Without a promotional budget and/or curatorial guide, it seems neither camp could have much success. Still, this is an interesting look at "torso" models for content with inherent audiences (anime, bollywood, south korean drama, etc.). The Power of Torso TV (Why Media is Racing to the Middle)

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Mark Suster (@msuster), a 2x entrepreneur, now VC at GRP Partners. Read more about Suster on his Startup Advice blog: Both Sides of the Table

Chris Anderson wrote a really influential book some years ago called “The Long Tail” that shaped how many people think about emerging Internet markets. If you haven’t read it you should consider adding it to you library.

It was especially influential in my mind in thinking about media.

At the simplest level you can think about markets in terms of the number of times media is consumed and/or purchased by people plotted against the total number of content of that media type that is available.

At the left of the graph is the “head end” of the market, where the “hits” are produced for mass audiences. This was how companies who produced media became big before the Internet.

Why is that?

When you have limited distribution, the costs of distributing media are so prohibitive that only the largest of media producers (and distributors) are relevant.

The book profiles markets like those for books. When you had physical stores selling books, the bookseller would have to stock the shelves with those books most likely to sell so consumer choice was more limited. It was by definition a hits-driven business.

This changed with Amazon because you could stock books in warehouses and ship them when ordered greatly reducing the costs of housing books and thus you could stock a much greater variety.

Now as an author you can actually publish and be able to sell only a thousand books. Even a hundred. That couldn’t happen without the advent of lower cost production & distribution. And as we know the book industry is moving fully electronic with the advent of the Kindle making the costs of production & distribution nearly zero.

Think about music as another example.

In the early days of music you had to produce records, which was expensive. You had to promote them via music venues by playing across the country to get your albums purchased. And with the rise of radio you then had to get airplay on radios to promote your music (leading to payola).

If audiences liked your music then you had to sell them physically at Tower Records or similar. That was the only way. And you would promote your music through expensive and limited media channels (radio, who had a strangle hold on market) and retail shops (who could control placement and promotion).

In the “head end” market you can make a lot of money if you’re a content producer. Mostly everybody else languishes. You also can make a lot of money if you’re a distributor to head-end markets, mostly these are monopolies, oligopolies or sometimes even mafia run businesses (for a great book on the emergence of these businesses read Lew Wasserman, The Last Mogul. Sadly, no Kindle edition).

In the “long tail” you can become enormously valuable if you’re a platform. Less so if you’re a content producer. It seems appealing at first since you can “ring the cash register quickly” and it feels good. But as every blogger, musician, novelist or YouTube emerging talent knows … it doesn’t add up to much unless you go big time.

TV was the same. You first had broadcast TV through local terrestrial broadcasting towers. The spectrum was so limited that as a child of the 1970′s we only got 4 TV stations. There were no physical forms to store the media – VHS, DVDs then DVRs have obviously changed this. Distribution strangleholds have dramatically decreased with cable & satellite (and now fiber) but distribution until recently has been very limited.

And then there’s film. It has been expensive to produce film on celluloid reels and then these had to physically be shipped to theaters (which were also, obviously, limited). When you think about “time windows” of film distribution you literally need to think about the fact that you would open a film in the US and later ship the physical reels to London then Europe to open overseas.

Physical limitations on both production AND distribution produced the hits driven business that many people associate with the media industry: Film, TV & Music.

We all know what happened with music when production costs went down (ProTools) and distribution costs went to zero (Napster). It had the effect of greatly reducing the industry size but also of allowing some less known artists to reach audiences that previously would be unthinkable due to cost constraints.

To some extent this lowering of production & distribution costs has been part of the YouTube phenomenon and more broadly of UGC (user-generated content) itself. YouTube has done a phenomenal job in aggregating audiences, which is why I have taken to calling YouTube the new Comcast and believe it will be a huge disruptor in the TV market .

To give you a sense of scale: 800 million people visit YouTube.com every month. 4 billion videos are watched daily. In 2011 YouTube had 1 trillion views, which is the equivalent of every human watching 140 videos. Put simply: YouTube OWNS the long tail. They own the audience and that is enormous asset to leverage, but more on that in a moment.

Netflix, Hulu & HBO Go are coming from the opposite direction – the Head End. Yes, it’s true that their deep libraries are virtual and therefore fit the long-tail properties. But their core asset (other than great tech & management) has been exclusive windowing of premium content that people want to consume.

They had to negotiate these rights with the major content owners – the studios. And this makes them definitionally more vulnerable than having control over a massive audience that turns up every month regardless of “hits.”

That is why Hulu has invested so much in building its Hulu Plus subscription service. With what is rumored to be around 2 million consumers paying $8 / month that is now a $200 million per year not including their ad revenue business.

Very smart people are running these online video businesses and they know that they need to diversify by either creating or sponsoring the development of new content. Hulu announced $500 million to fund new content and Netflix has, for example, resurrected the hit / cult show Arrested Development.

Interestingly Netflix plans to release the entire season all at once. Take that traditional time windows!

So to some extent I believe it will be a race in video will eventually be to the middle. The Torso. I know the big players still think of the next mega hit. But the fact that Netflix focused on Arrested Development tells me they are likely thinking more like me.

And I believe the torso is much more valuable than people perceive because it is growing rapidly with globalization and with the breakdown of physical distribution barriers.

Several years ago I became fascinated in the “torso” part of the media market.

...

Full article:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/06/the-power-of-torso-tv-why-media-is-racing-to-the-middle/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

2011 Digital Home Vid figures released- Netflix tops iTunes for first time

While there has been lots of talk about Netflix's pricing woes, new figures released from research firm IHS are showing that the streaming giant is still spending to get US content. For the first time, the streaming service surpassed Apple in terms of market share for total revenues derived from spending on movies, cutting Appls's share of homevid revenues to 32% (for reference, Apple's share was 61% in 2010). Key points about 2011 Home Video/Digital market

- nearly half of the online movie business comes from Netflix. SVOD represented $454M in total - Microsoft represents the 3rd place digital partner after Netflix and Apple - Electronic Sell Through remains soft (up only 2% over last year) - Physical disk business is down to $14.5B (from $16B in 2010)

Full article here: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118054901?refCatId=1009

2011 Digital Home Vid figures released- Netflix tops iTunes for first time

While there has been lots of talk about Netflix's pricing woes, new figures released from research firm IHS are showing that the streaming giant is still spending to get US content. For the first time, the streaming service surpassed Apple in terms of market share for total revenues derived from spending on movies, cutting Appls's share of homevid revenues to 32% (for reference, Apple's share was 61% in 2010). Key points about 2011 Home Video/Digital market

- nearly half of the online movie business comes from Netflix. SVOD represented $454M in total - Microsoft represents the 3rd place digital partner after Netflix and Apple - Electronic Sell Through remains soft (up only 2% over last year) - Physical disk business is down to $14.5B (from $16B in 2010)

Full article here: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118054901?refCatId=1009

12 Key Traits of the “Indie-Friendly” Director

I found this article yesterday from Indie Producer Mynette Louie. Take a read...

Video Village, Indie-Style

Not every director is suited for low-budget indie filmmaking, and that’s OK if you’re Terrence Malick or David Fincher. But chances are, you’re not…or not yet, anyway. I get a fair number of calls from biggish directors and producers who are having trouble raising money for their films and want to explore how to make them on the super-cheap. I’ve entertained some of these requests, collecting funny anecdotes along the way, like the director who wanted to fly in stars from another country and rent large trailers for them, but forego unions and production insurance. Or the producer who wanted to cast an actor whose agent demanded $12,000 worth of perks, when our entire costume budget was just $4,000. As much as I want to work with these namey folks, I usually end up politely declining because I know that it will be difficult for them (and for me, especially) to make a movie on a fraction of the budgets to which they’re accustomed.

Read the rest of her article on the IFP website: http://www.ifp.org/resources/12-key-traits-of-the-indie-friendly-director/

12 Key Traits of the “Indie-Friendly” Director

I found this article yesterday from Indie Producer Mynette Louie. Take a read...

Video Village, Indie-Style

Not every director is suited for low-budget indie filmmaking, and that’s OK if you’re Terrence Malick or David Fincher. But chances are, you’re not…or not yet, anyway. I get a fair number of calls from biggish directors and producers who are having trouble raising money for their films and want to explore how to make them on the super-cheap. I’ve entertained some of these requests, collecting funny anecdotes along the way, like the director who wanted to fly in stars from another country and rent large trailers for them, but forego unions and production insurance. Or the producer who wanted to cast an actor whose agent demanded $12,000 worth of perks, when our entire costume budget was just $4,000. As much as I want to work with these namey folks, I usually end up politely declining because I know that it will be difficult for them (and for me, especially) to make a movie on a fraction of the budgets to which they’re accustomed.

Read the rest of her article on the IFP website: http://www.ifp.org/resources/12-key-traits-of-the-indie-friendly-director/

Lights. Camera. Invest! Putting Filmmaking in the Portfolio.

A good friend sent me this article because she thought it would be of interest to me and my CRI project. It basically talks about how to invest in film.

Here are the highlights I took from it:

• Make sure the the filmmaker will finish the film. Get a completion bond
• Understand that film has other rights besides the typical theatrical release. There is money to be made in these other rights.
• Think about investing in a portfolio, not a single picture.
• Invest films with more captive markets, i.e. IMAX films for educational institutions

Marc H. Simon is an entertainment lawyer at Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard, but over the last decade he has produced three well-received documentaries.

By PAUL SULLIVAN

Published: April 27, 2012

FOR most people, investing has not been fun these last few years. At best, it has been stressful.

But there are investments that have nothing to do with stocks or bonds or real estate that may be at least enjoyable if not always moneymaking. I’ve come up with about a half-dozen, and over the next few weeks, I plan to explore some of them, including investments as different as horses and restaurants. My goal is to see how people do this successfully — or whether they have a broader definition of success than just making money.

This week, I’m going to look at films, given that the influential Tribeca Film Festival is under way; it runs through Sunday.

Read the rest of Paul's article at the

New York Times.

Lights. Camera. Invest! Putting Filmmaking in the Portfolio.

A good friend sent me this article because she thought it would be of interest to me and my CRI project. It basically talks about how to invest in film.

Here are the highlights I took from it:

• Make sure the the filmmaker will finish the film. Get a completion bond
• Understand that film has other rights besides the typical theatrical release. There is money to be made in these other rights.
• Think about investing in a portfolio, not a single picture.
• Invest films with more captive markets, i.e. IMAX films for educational institutions

Marc H. Simon is an entertainment lawyer at Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard, but over the last decade he has produced three well-received documentaries.

By PAUL SULLIVAN

Published: April 27, 2012

FOR most people, investing has not been fun these last few years. At best, it has been stressful.

But there are investments that have nothing to do with stocks or bonds or real estate that may be at least enjoyable if not always moneymaking. I’ve come up with about a half-dozen, and over the next few weeks, I plan to explore some of them, including investments as different as horses and restaurants. My goal is to see how people do this successfully — or whether they have a broader definition of success than just making money.

This week, I’m going to look at films, given that the influential Tribeca Film Festival is under way; it runs through Sunday.

Read the rest of Paul's article at the New York Times.

More on Micro Budget Film Slates

Last year around this time Lionsgate announced their new initiative to produce a slate of micro budget (sub $2 Million). Their President of Motion Picture Production and Development Michael Paseornek thought that the productions would function as an incubator for new actors and filmmakers, getting to experience the best of the independent and studio systems. This rings very true to me as it is exactly what my research project gets at. Students at NYU will gain the necessary experience needed to make the transition to the "real world" and discover some amazing talent, both in front of and behind he camera. Our micro budget slates will give our students the ability to make the films they envision while still in the safety of the university system. Project update: We are moving along nicely. We have some interest from parties looking to help raise the necessary capital. I'm happy to announce that Jay Van Hoy of Parts and Labor has joined the CRI family as one of my project mentors.

Check out Parts and Labor on Facebook , twitter, and imdb.

Read the original press release about the Lionsgate micro budget initiative here: http://investors.lionsgate.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=62796&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1544330&highlight=

More on Micro Budget Film Slates

Last year around this time Lionsgate announced their new initiative to produce a slate of micro budget (sub $2 Million). Their President of Motion Picture Production and Development Michael Paseornek thought that the productions would function as an incubator for new actors and filmmakers, getting to experience the best of the independent and studio systems. This rings very true to me as it is exactly what my research project gets at. Students at NYU will gain the necessary experience needed to make the transition to the "real world" and discover some amazing talent, both in front of and behind he camera. Our micro budget slates will give our students the ability to make the films they envision while still in the safety of the university system. Project update: We are moving along nicely. We have some interest from parties looking to help raise the necessary capital. I'm happy to announce that Jay Van Hoy of Parts and Labor has joined the CRI family as one of my project mentors.

Check out Parts and Labor on Facebook , twitter, and imdb.

Read the original press release about the Lionsgate micro budget initiative here: http://investors.lionsgate.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=62796&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1544330&highlight=

As DVD pie crumbles, is VOD sweet? [VARIETY 5.712]

VOD is a growing component of domestic distribution deals but unlike boffo box office figures, such success adds no value for the international market. Indeed, releasing a film day-and-date on VOD and theatrical in the U.S. may diminish its appeal to foreign distributors, who still regard that as a sign of inferior quality. Plus, the secrecy surrounding VOD revenues undermines any positive reports regarding any business a film has done.

Full article: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118053065

As DVD pie crumbles, is VOD sweet? [VARIETY 5.712]

VOD is a growing component of domestic distribution deals but unlike boffo box office figures, such success adds no value for the international market. Indeed, releasing a film day-and-date on VOD and theatrical in the U.S. may diminish its appeal to foreign distributors, who still regard that as a sign of inferior quality. Plus, the secrecy surrounding VOD revenues undermines any positive reports regarding any business a film has done.

Full article: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118053065

Chris Jones on how to navigate digital distribution

Some interesting insights and ideas for how filmmakers should be thinking about the new economics of digital distribution to build an audience. http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2012/04/12-ways-film-distribution-must-change-for-distributors-and-filmmakers-to-survive-a-manifesto-for-change.html

Chris Jones on how to navigate digital distribution

Some interesting insights and ideas for how filmmakers should be thinking about the new economics of digital distribution to build an audience. http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2012/04/12-ways-film-distribution-must-change-for-distributors-and-filmmakers-to-survive-a-manifesto-for-change.html

A Slate of Microbudget Features

My Project: Creating A Independent Funding And Distribution Model For NYU Feature Thesis Films

New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts offers a world-class education that teaches filmmakers how to write, direct, edit, produce, and compose their films. NYU alumni have changed the face of Hollywood and independent filmmaking. Now it is our chance to change the façade of the business of movie making and create a new model for independent film. I am creating a model that will allow NYU to help raise a film fund through private equity for a slate of micro budget feature films directed and produced by current Tisch students and alumni as thesis projects and first features.  This seems to be the natural next step for Tisch as a leader in the world of independent film.

It seems that several universities have tried to put into place similar models. Here are some articles I found that have helped me figure out where to start in my research.

Chapman University creates film production company http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/31/business/la-fi-ct-dodge-film-20110331

Burnt Orange Productions http://www.nowplayingaustin.com/org/detail/26919/UTFI_and_Burnt_Orange_Productions_LLC http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117905955

All Hands-on Set Industry partnerships help film schools shift learning from the classroom to the sound stage http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117950842

A Slate of Microbudget Features

My Project: Creating A Independent Funding And Distribution Model For NYU Feature Thesis Films

New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts offers a world-class education that teaches filmmakers how to write, direct, edit, produce, and compose their films. NYU alumni have changed the face of Hollywood and independent filmmaking. Now it is our chance to change the façade of the business of movie making and create a new model for independent film. I am creating a model that will allow NYU to help raise a film fund through private equity for a slate of micro budget feature films directed and produced by current Tisch students and alumni as thesis projects and first features.  This seems to be the natural next step for Tisch as a leader in the world of independent film.

It seems that several universities have tried to put into place similar models. Here are some articles I found that have helped me figure out where to start in my research.

Chapman University creates film production company http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/31/business/la-fi-ct-dodge-film-20110331

Burnt Orange Productions http://www.nowplayingaustin.com/org/detail/26919/UTFI_and_Burnt_Orange_Productions_LLC http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117905955

All Hands-on Set Industry partnerships help film schools shift learning from the classroom to the sound stage http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117950842

Tribeca 2011

Tribeca Film Festival event programmers talk about the factors that influenced this year's competition pics. Among them: 1 - Smaller budgets 2- Kickstarter 3- The recession

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tribeca-film-festival-opening-robert-deniro-313698

Tribeca 2011

Tribeca Film Festival event programmers talk about the factors that influenced this year's competition pics. Among them: 1 - Smaller budgets 2- Kickstarter 3- The recession

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tribeca-film-festival-opening-robert-deniro-313698

What The Film Industry Needs: Transparency

My project in a nutshell... http://www.tribecafilm.com/tribecaonline/future-of-film/What-The-Film-Industry-Needs-Transparency.html#.T4MYedX4JX4

By Orly Ravid | 0 Comments | April 09, 2012 11:00AM EDT In today’s digital distribution market, which ranges from VOD, to iTunes and other smaller online outlets, the numbers are hard to find or verify.

Recently I was helping a friend with a business plan related to publishing. So naturally I needed to reference revenues in the publishing space. There was plenty of revenue data available.

However, when one reads film business plans one knows that data is often unreliable, unverifiable, or misleading. In my dealings with people from other professions and others in business, it always seemed to me that sharing real information was considered good business and led companies to learn from others.

I’m sure there are plenty of business that do not function transparently, but after 13 years in this one, I can say I know why people hide real information and why it’s bad for the film industry as a whole.

Box office grosses can be verified to a great extent but P&A expenses cannot and now with VOD revenues it’s anybody’s guess what really happened except for those seeing the actual reporting (and even then…). When DVD was a key revenue generator one could at least get a lot of the main sales data via VideoScan. It covered the retail brick & mortar sales numbers and Rentrak covered the rental business as well.

In today’s digital distribution market, which ranges from VOD, to iTunes and other smaller online outlets, the numbers are hard to find or verify.

Most of us probably criticized the mysterious banking practices that led to the economic downturn within which we are still presently mired. Yet the film industry perpetuates a system that hides information and makes the data mysterious when it should not be.

This mystery and obfuscation leads to incomplete or inaccurate business plans, an uninformed investor pool and an excess of supply that creates a glut. In the end no one benefits.

What and why people hide:

• Filmmakers will hide the fact that their distribution deal was a service deal because they want it to seem as if their film was “acquired”. Why does that matter to them? Part of it is ego and part of it is the desire to attract future investment. Even though a DIY model can actually generate more revenue, there is a stigma associated with it. Filmmakers often hide their revenues overall for the same reasons.

• Distributors try to hide or not make public their fees or the specific revenues from VOD. Why do they do this? Simply, it’s harder to analyze and compare options. When one can do this properly, you quickly realize how excessive fees are for certain rights categories and that there are extra middlemen who often serve no benefit to the licensor. Further you realize how little is done to justify the fees. When I write “excessive” I mean that one can get the same job done for a lower fee or smaller overall cost. I commend the distributors and the filmmakers who have been transparent but these are few and far between.

• Studios are less transparent and public about data because their dealings with Cable MSOs and key digital platforms are required to be secret (I am told this is a condition of the platforms and the MSOs). So we understand that their splits / terms (with MSOs and some platforms) are better but we do not always get the exact data.

• Platforms such as Netflix also do not like to publicize how they arrive at the fees they offer as their deals vary with various suppliers.

So where does this leave us?

• With a pool of often revolving investors who know little about distribution and rely on business plans that contain little statistical backup. My sense has been that many investors do not get their money back and are therefore not repeat investors.

• With filmmakers who struggle just to create and have a career. They usually prefer not to focus on distribution and either take bad deals or have to spend money on consultants to help them have access and make decisions. In short, filmmakers are losing money and often making poor decisions because of the lack of information. Digital distribution does afford more access to filmmakers but not as much as it could and one day may do.

• With a glut of films, many made by wide-eyed newcomers who don’t know the realities of just how competitive it is and how tough their odds are. This lack of transparency and real data perpetuates a mystique around the industry that increases the supply. It also feeds an economy of middlemen and consultants and hell, even us.

The choice by filmmakers to hide their real experience in distribution is a disservice to future filmmakers and investors as well as in some cases to the filmmakers themselves. It only encourages competition and thus increases the odds of future struggle and disillusionment.

The choice by distributors to not be transparent is obvious in its motivation. Personally I think this industry would be well served by a market correction and a drastic adjustment of industry standards in reporting and transparency. Obviously with a book such as ours, and business practices such as ours, we hope to be a catalyst in that direction.

I have said from the day I founded our organization that I would be delighted if we facilitated our uselessness. It would show that an industry change for the better had taken place.

What would be the benefit of greater transparency?

1. We could all learn from others’ mistakes and successes a lot more easily and with greater certainty.

2. Filmmakers and industry folk could spend less on business-to-business transactions and more on direct-to-audience marketing and community engagement.

3. We might actually see greater quality and less quantity--which would also positively impact audiences and create a more sustainable career for those who are the more talented.

4. We might see more innovative thinking around marketing for a change instead of having everyone rest on their laurels because no one can really evaluate what has or has not worked.