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Filtering by Category: Grassroots distribution

Data and Metrics in Film

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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Hollywood is historically risk-averse; marketing-wise it will always want to use what has been shown to work before, even if it might not be the right fit for a certain film. They would rather attempt a tried-and-true set of tricks than take the time to do some research & development (like the Obama campaign) and get the numbers right. What if independent filmmakers used the same data collection and social media tools that have been proven to work for political campaigns? Would this help filmmakers engage their audiences the same way Votebuilder and My.BO helped the Obama campaign communicate with volunteers and voters – and without the bottom line costs of a major Hollywood marketing campaign? It is well known that the Obama machine was entirely built from data. In the BuzzFeed article “Messina: Obama Won On The Small Stuff,” Messina points out that, "Politics too much is about analogies and not about whether or not things work…You have to test every single thing, to challenge every assumption, and to make sure that everything we do is provable." The Obama campaign had an intricate data collection process that occurred both online and offline. Data was collected online everytime a new volunteer pledge their support on the website, through My.BO or gave a donation from an email blast.  Organizers and volunteers also used a database called Votebuilder to collect data about supporters and undecided voters offline through canvassing and phone calls. This cycle of online and offline data collection played a key role in helping the Obama campaign adapt its strategy to the always shifting political climate. The more you know about who you are reaching, how you are reaching them and why they are interested the more you can figure out what outreach methods are working.  Also, using offline canvassing and phone call methods to follow up with supporters who showed interest online added a personal touch that motivated many supporters to do more than just pledge to vote or donate money.

Could filmmakers engage more effectively with their audiences by using a data and metrics system similar to the Obama campaign? In the article, “Why we should build our own nations,” Ben Kempas observes, “It was during last year's election campaign of the pro-independence Scottish National Party that I first came across powerful software called NationBuilder, geared towards political use but flexible enough to be used for all sorts of campaigns, including outreach to those niche audiences of documentary films.” NationBuilder provides nonprofit, government and political organizations tools to create volunteer sign up pages and online feedback forms, similar to the U.S. digital agency Blue State Digital (used by the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012.) As Kempas points out, filmmakers could also use these tools to interact and collect data from their fans. Even before a film is completed, filmmakers could engage with fans to grow their audience and gain insight into what methods would help distribute their film. Similar to the Obama campaign, filmmakers would then be able to shift resources and change their outreach strategy to best distribute their film.

However, the Obama campaign was able to collect its data through a massive team of organizers and volunteers that were doing non-stop voter contact -- to find out who in the voting populace (what places, and what demographics) were swaying their way, and to use their resources accordingly. These organizers and volunteers were able to be marshalled because they recognized and were energized by the urgency of electing the next president. In contrast, the cycle for a film’s distribution is often uncertain, much less nationally urgent, and, with independent films, certainly lacks the hefty "war chest" of resources that the campaign had. This leads us to ask, what can independent filmmakers do that is the equivalent of a voter contact program, to gage what kind of support it has amongst various communities of people? And when to start this: pre-production, production or after the film is made? What strategies could filmmakers use to keep their audience engaged before their film is completed? Does a film need to have a distribution plan before production, or like Four Eyed Monsters, can the filmmakers benefit from clever improvisation & properly pivot their campaign when the film’s process takes them in unexpected directions?

-Josh, Michael and Carl

Giving vs. Taking

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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

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

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

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

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

-Josh, Michael and Carl

Four Eyed Monsters- What didn't work

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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

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

Ideas for Improvement

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

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

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

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

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

-Josh, Michael and Carl

Four Eyed Monsters: What worked

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion 

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

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

-Josh, Michael and Carl

The Snowflake Model

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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In the 2008 and 2012 elections, the “Snowflake Model" was used by the Obama campaign to empower millions of volunteers across the country.  In this post we will introduce its basic idea for further contemplation about its relevancy for grassroots film distribution. Before the Obama campaign, many organizations had attempted to create vast volunteer networks through grassroots organizing but fallen short.  In the Huffington Post article, "The New Organizers, What’s really behind Obama’s ground game,” writer Zack Exley explains that, “Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or 'bottom-up"'organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning.”

In contrast to other grassroots campaigns, the Obama "Snowflake Model" offered an unprecedented amount of responsibility and ownership to volunteers, which in turn motivated supporters to reach their furthest level of involvement on the campaign.

Below is a flowchart that illustrates the Obama neighborhood team model, which is built out of the Snowflake Model.

Team Snowflake

"The Legacy Project," which was conducted by the Obama campaign in order to analyze its best practices from the 2012 election, defines the volunteer roles that consist in each snowflake.

“Relationships among team members held the snowflake together and ensured the team was communicating frequently and working toward common goals…In the center of the team snowflake was the Field Organizer, who managed multiple Neighborhood Team Leaders. In addition to the NTL, each team ideally consisted of at least three Core Team Members, or CTMs: a Phonebank Captain, a Canvass Captain, and a Data Captain. Many teams had at least one other state or turf-specific CTM, such as Voter Registration Captain, Digital Captain, Youth Captain or Faith Captain.”

Leadership titles like Neighborhood Team Leader, Canvass Captain and Phonebank Captain etc, helped delegate responsibility among volunteers.  The "Snowflake Model" also encouraged supporters to become invested by offering more responsibility and access to volunteers who demonstrated they were committed.  For example, someone could start off just as a voter, sign up online, volunteer, become a Neighborhood Team Leader and then work as a staff member on the campaign.  This created a sense of ownership and trust that cultivated thousands of neighborhood teams across the country that canvassed undecided voters, registered voters and ran its massive voter turnout operation on Election Day.

This causes us to wonder if the "Snowflake Model" can also be used to channel the enthusiasm of movie fans towards distributing film. What is the equivalent of a voter in the film world? The equivalent of a volunteer? Neighborhood Team Leader? Do these positions exist in the film distribution already, in different forms? If not, could they be created?

Throughout the year we will explore ways the Obama Snowflake Model can be applied to film as well.

-Josh, Michael, and Carl

Online Vs. Offline Organizing

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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What is the difference between Online vs. Offline Organizing? Online organizing uses the web to motivate people to get involved in a campaign, whether it is through email blasts, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or an interactive website with a blog that features. These serve as tools to focus on a certain action item, or to make a certain “ask” of the supporters. In contrast, offline organizing focuses on motivating people to get involved through human interactions that take place outside of the web, i.e. one-on-one meetings, canvassing, phone calls etc. From our background working on the Obama campaign, we saw firsthand how both offline and online organizing methods worked best when they complemented each other. Filmmakers and producers however rarely consider offline organizing tools when talking about grassroots film distribution. In the article “Independent Film Distribution IQ,” Angelo Bell discusses the importance of developing a niche audience; however he focuses mainly on using online, instead of offline organizing tools. Angelo advises independent filmmakers to “develop and cultivate our fans and audience relationships through rich teaser content on mediums such as YouTube and Facebook.” Although online teasers may be helpful for promoting a film, their impact could increase exponentially if used properly through relationships fostered in person (See our previous post in which we mention the misguided tendency to use the term “grassroots” as a euphemism for merely any action taken through Facebook or Twitter – mediums that are par for the course for any distributed product these days).

In contrast to Bell, Bajir Cannon’s dissertation “The United States of Unscreened Cinema,” suggests that filmmakers using offline organizing tools are able to significantly increase their online audience. One of the filmmakers Cannon interviewed was Tom Quinn who made a film that is set during the Mummers’ Day Parade in Philadelphia. Quinn recalls that to distribute his film he “went around to a good chunk of the Mummers clubs, and talked one-on-one with them about how we were going to donate part of the proceeds back to the parade, and the Mummers organization got behind the film doing press as well, which was huge. I think our Facebook fans went from 200 people to 2,300 people in one week.” The irony here is interesting: offline organizing led to a rise in online metrics. But we can see this as a success because we know that that increase in “likes” (a metric that by itself one should be wary of) reflects a community that was actively engaged in a deeper way. They felt the personal touch of the campaign, and “liking” the film on Facebook is just one reflection of that.

Similarly, the Obama campaign deployed thousands of field organizers to meet one-on-one with local supporters to connect their interests in the community towards promoting the message of the campaign. The personal contact of one-on-one meetings helped give a face to the Obama campaign, motivating people to sign up online and get involved further. The new media director of the Obama campaign, Joe Rospars, explains “The relationship that Obama built with individual supporters and between them was the unique part. Our tools were sort of the glue for the relationships, but if you’re not running a campaign where people understand that those relationships are central to winning, they don’t care about tools on your website.” Joe is not suggesting online organizing is not effective, but instead highlighting how offline organizing plays a critical role in making the online components of the campaign more relevant to the public and personal. Although the offline organizing techniques for film will obviously differ greatly from the standard canvassing and calling done by political campaigns, filmmakers like Quinn are proving that the combination of offline and online organizing methods are very effective for distributing film. The leads us to ask, what specific combination of offline and online organizing techniques are most effective for distributing film?

-Josh, Michael, and Carl

Introduction: Our Background

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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At its core, our desire to explore this area of research comes not from our experience as film producers, but from the time we have spent in political campaigns and specifically in our time working for the Barack Obama presidential campaigns of both 2008 and 2012. In fact, ever since graduating from college, both Josh and Michael have oscillated between endeavors in the political realm and producing work in the independent film world. Before our roles as producer and executive producer on Court 13’s short film “Glory at Sea,” respectively, Josh worked in Michigan on a Senate campaign, while Michael worked at the think tank Center for American Progress in Washington D.C. After the short film had its festival run, we both were brought into the fold of the Obama for America apparatus, which at the time was working with grassroots ideas in new, pioneering ways. We both worked as New Media Directors—each in separate swing states—and were asked to return as Digital Program Managers at the national headquarters of the launch of the 2012 re-election campaign. (Between the campaigns we developed and produced “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” as well as worked our own separate film projects). We each have experience in the field organizing aspects of political campaigns, which plays into our prior knowledge of how these methods and structures work. None of this is to imply that politics and film are one in the same as they differ greatly, and a political campaign can and should have a very different audience than a film outreach program; nonetheless, there is much to be taken from and learned from the expertise of these movements in reaching people and generating excitement and advocacy. And more than anything, we would like to explore the relationship between what works in political campaigns and what can work in film campaigns. However, as producers, we have had experience that has led us to want to explore this topic as well. During our time on films, we have come to appreciate that the same skill set that is required to mobilize enthusiastic voters into becoming volunteers or taking action offline or online is very much at work as a producer. Though the focus of our exploration will be on distribution, consider some parallels at play in the stages of a film’s life that come before its release. For example, though the pre-production and production of Benh Zeitlin’s "Glory at Sea" (on which we served as producer and executive producer, respectively) was entirely unorganized, unstructured, and extremely chaotic, there was definite energy and commitment amongst the crew that got the whole project eventually done – it was the kind of personal emotional investment you can find on the best kinds of grassroots campaigns. However, while on Glory this enthusiasm did not have a real structure in which to operate, on "Beasts of the Southern Wild" we were able to formalize an operation that would best fit for it. During development, before we logistically or financially able to staff up our crew, we mobilized would-be crew members around the Herculean task of finding our young star – more than ten different eventual crew members auditioned almost 4000 young girls all across the state. Similarly, we set up pre-production such that the crew would all be living together, on location along the bayous, with a home base at our headquarters that was social as much as professional. This created a community feeling that was key to our success on the film; everyone became familiar and friendly with each other through the task of building what our movie needed. Finally, the structure of various departments was set up so as to allow room for and encourage creative people who wanted to be working on the film to come down and do it. The production had the feel of a summer camp, where we were all committed to the monumental endeavor of pulling the film off, and each crew member was there because they wanted to be there. It was not a job; it was a community project. (More on Beasts in future posts).

So too are all grassroots campaigns community projects – even political campaigns. It takes a well-run structure to properly organize the enthusiasm of many around a common goal, and campaigns tend to be more structured with this in mind than film productions and distribution operations. We are interested in taking this parallel further, by exploring what other of these campaign methodologies we can put into place in the “community project” of putting out an independent film.

-Michael and Josh

Introduction, Context and Goals

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

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

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

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

-Michael and Josh

Political Campaigns vs. Film Distribution

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

To continue our discussion on the relationship between grassroots political campaigns and grassroots film distribution, here is an interesting blog on an independent film called, Grassroots. The blog compares the process of distributing an independent film without major studio support to running a grassroots campaign to elect a political candidate. Similar to a political campaign, the production team tries to form partnerships with organizations that resonate with the social issues in the film. The film Grassroots is about an underdog candidate that runs for city council in Seattle, so outreach was done to colleges to screen the film and talk about the importance of young people running for political office. Although a studio eventually purchased the rights to the film, the distribution run for the film was shorter than expected. Part of the reason could be that vague goals were set for school screenings, social media hits and ticket sales. In contrast, the Obama campaign had a very complicated and precise matrix system put in place to calculate the number of TV ads, doors knocked and calls needed to persuade someone to vote for Obama. The Washington Post article, “Obama’s ‘Moneyball’ campaign,” reveals the depth of data the campaign used to target voters and raise money for the campaign.

This article reveals the data and concrete goals set by the Obama campaign served as a road map to victory for organizers and media teams in all ten of the battleground states. Clear goals gave the campaign direction, helped keep thousands of political operatives and volunteers accountable, and allowed the campaign to shift resources to states that needed help.

This leads to our third question for this blog. Can the intricate matrix system created by the Obama campaign also be applied to grassroots film distribution or is the data needed to do so too abstract?

-Carl, Michael and Josh

‘Veronica Mars’ Phenomenon

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

In our recent post “What is grassroots?” we began the larger question that we’ll explore throughout the year: “What kind of grassroots methods work for which kinds of films?” In our second post, we will examine the unexpected success of Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign, which raised close to four million dollars in less than a week. The film does not seem like a normal candidate for grassroots donations since it was on a network television show owned by a major studio.  However, through effective messaging, the filmmakers were able to set a new fundraising record on Kickstarter. Here is a link to the kickstarter page that is still going strong. Rob Thomas, the creator of the show explains in the Kickstarter page that after meeting with Warner Bros, “Their reaction was, ‘If you can show there’s enough fan interest to warrant a movie, we’re on board.’ So this is it. This is our shot. I believe it's the only one we've got.” With this quote, Thomas is turning his struggle with the studio Warner Bros into a grassroots cause that creates a sense of urgency for fans to contribute to the film. We learned in the last blog post about the important role urgency plays in the film distribution campaigns We Were Here vs. Henry’s Crime.

The Obama campaign in 2008 used a similar tactic to fuel its grassroots campaign by building the narrative that he was a party outsider running against the Washington establishment. This gave Obama’s candidacy a higher purpose, particularly among young, anti-establishment voters, that inspired his supporters to not only vote for Obama but also volunteer.

The question deserves to be asked: what is the equivalency between Kickstarter supporters and the supporter of a political campaign, in this instance? Is it a literal equivalence – ie the donor towards the Veronica Mars campaign is the equivalent of a donor to the Obama campaign? Or rather is it that this Kickstarter campaign has created a moment of “opting in” that the studio needed to see in order to know it could move forward with development? The moment of “opting in” is key on political campaigns because in lieu of the actual vote which comes later, it is a vote of support and of commitment, that can be used to extract valuable information from a supporter (email addresss, contact info) that can be capitalized on for later campaign initiatives. Similarly, by “opting in” to the Veronica Mars campaign, supporters’ contact information will be put on a listserv that the producers & Warner Brothers are sure to use to their advantage during distribution.

However, unlike the Veronica Mars Kickstarter page, many Obama supporters volunteered without the promise of receiving a material reward for their work. Instead, the campaign was able to motivate volunteers by giving them an unprecedented amount of access to the goals and campaign strategy, which made volunteers feel like they were playing an integral part in making history. In short, the Obama campaign inspired millions of people to volunteer by giving them a higher purpose that added meaning to their lives and not by offering a material prize. A lot of people wanted health benefits or an end of war in Iraq for example. People felt they would be getting something for their work, even if it was not as tangible as a t-shirt. The “return on investment” for Veronica Mars supporters is the existence of the tangible film itself, which will be given as a reward to those that give a certain amount of money.

This raises a more troubling element to the Kickstarter phenomenon, as far as how it intermingles with studio-backed projects. Are the fans who are opting in right now paying for the ability to pay again to see the film in a theater when it comes out? Or will they be content with the copy delivered to their (physical or digital) doorstep, and thereby the campaign is a way of “pre-selling” the film to its fans (ie using guaranteed distribution to pay for development).

What’s clear is that the Veronica Mars campaign has been successful because, to a certain extent, it was able to turn a potential film into a movement. This leads to our second question for this blog. How do you make your movie a movement, even if it is not about social issues?

 

-Carl, Michael and Josh

What is grassroots?

Michael Gottwald, Carl Kriss & Josh Penn

What is grassroots? After the success of the Obama campaign in 2008 and 2012, the term “grassroots” has become a buzzword in both the political arena and in the realm of film -- both in its production and distribution. But what does the term grassroots really mean? In their article, “’A Tree Falls in the Forest’ and Other Ruminations on Social/Community-based Marketing,” film distributors Orly Ravid and Jeffrey Winter of the Film Collaborative assert that these days “every person with internet is a distributor”; this is undeniably true. But it’s precisely because of that fact that the “grassroots outreach” plan they prescribe to filmmakers feels pretty par for the course. It goes without saying that one would strive to use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to spread word about a film.

Are these platforms truly “grassroots” tools? In our study, we aim to parse out the current discourse about grassroots distribution to separate the signal from the noise. With our background in electoral politics, we will approach this conversation with particular consideration towards the potential of the methodologies and structures of the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012 when applied towards film distribution. We aim to discover what paths are effective, and for what kind of films.

In that vein, Ravid and Winter’s article becomes more useful as it turns toward a particular case study between two very different films.

The article suggests that films about social issues create a sense of urgency that is crucial for igniting grassroots film distribution campaigns. The article compares two different films to illustrate this point: We Were Here, a documentary about HIV awareness, and a romantic comedy titled Henry’s Crime. Although both films apply similar grassroots methods by reaching out to core constituency groups to help promote the film, We Were Here had a much more successful distribution run. This is because the issue of HIV awareness generates a sense of urgency that motivates supporters and advocacy groups to spread the message of the film. In contrast, even though Henry’s Crime tried similar grassroots tactics like reaching out to the fans of stars in the movie to help promote, there was less urgency surrounding the romantic comedy, and the film flopped.

A number of questions result: could Henry’s Crime have succeeded had different grassroots methods been used for it than were for We Were Here, given that they’re very different films? Can you create urgency around a film that isn’t rooted in issues? This is just the beginning of what’s sure to be a long and interesting conversation. We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

--Carl, Michael and Josh