Yet Another Struggling Writer (& indie filmmaker) Blog

How Little I Know

2011-03-14T12:55:00.000+11:00

A big part of me writing this blog has been because I’m searching for answers. I thought if I examined enough indie filmmakers, transmedia storytellers, and content creators who are doing innovative things, it would soon become obvious what does and doesn’t work, and the path forward would become clear.

I have a young daughter who, when faced with a new situation - be it a party, a new game, or a group of kids she doesn’t know - won’t join in at first. It doesn’t matter how exciting it looks, how much fun everyone else is having - she stands on the side, reluctant to join, watching, waiting, trying to decipher how it works and the unspoken rules of the game or social situation. She only steps in once she understands it fully, and sees an opening for herself. I know where she gets it from.

See, I’m not in any way shape or form an “early adopter.” Rather I stand a safe distance, observing as others dive in head first, dash their brains out, learn from their mistakes, and forge a path through the muck. That’s when I’m ready to join the journey – after the blood has cleared.

For the past two years I’ve been watching, learning, and thinking about innovation in storytelling and the business behind it. I’ve also been developing project ideas and underlying business plans, however, the “path forward” hasn’t necessarily become any clearer.

Some of the innovative people I’ve blogged about, who had good ideas, have ultimately failed to meet the goals initially laid down. For example:

Biracy: This was the “pilot project” on the SoKap platform, with the goal to create an indie feature film using a sustainable crowdsourcing platform to raise proper budgets ($1-20million) and reward the investor horde both financially as well as creatively, as they would be able to contribute to the filmmaking process in a number of ways.

Follow up: Biracy failed to engage or communicate properly with their members, they didn’t share creative choices but rather forged ahead with their own project, internal ideological differences saw the core team split, and they privately admitted defeat that they were not going to be moving forward with Biracy in January this year (yet the website itself says nothing of this). The underlying SoKap platform has morphed into just another IndieGoGo / Kickstarter / Pozible micro crowdfunding platform.

The Artifice: This was a mystery project that racked up millions of Facebook friends in a short period of time, all watching the count down to launch with great anticipation. Digging up the dirt, from what I could gather it would be a transmedia story that included a film, a game, and crowdfunding.

Follow up: The launch date came and went, many promises of it being imminent, but eventually was pushed back by 7 months. At this point a social media game was released on Facebook, within 12 minutes their servers collapsed under the load, and it took almost a month for them to get it back up. They’ve since released more content on their website, alluding to various things they’re working on all under the banner of “The Artifice” however their core concept is still unclear, there is a point when the audience becomes impatient, and content released thus far has been anticlimactic rather than living up to the promise inherent in the tease. The project is not over yet so it may prove me wrong again.

My Million Dollar Movie: The goal was to raise one million dollars in cash (by selling film frames) by December 2009 so that they could make a rom-com called ‘Free For All But You’. If they failed they would return money, less their expenses.

Follow Up: The deadline came and went, over a year later they have now raised enough money that they plan to shoot in June 2011 – however now it is a Zombie rom-com, ‘A Little Bit Zombie,’ that is being made. Along the way communication has been sketchy, and there are obviously huge ethical and legal issues involved with taking money from people under one set of conditions and then spending it as you please in contravention of those conditions.

I could go on with many more examples... but I am trying to get to a point.

These and many other projects have failed at what they initially set out to achieve. However, in that glass half empty/full manner, these projects have also had successes along the way, even if it hasn’t played out how they intended. They are the ones dashing their brains out, yet surviving the ordeal to rise in another incarnation.

I have huge amount of respect for these people in giving it a go – as mentioned, I’m not as game as they are. And, in my own quest to find ‘The Answer’ of a creative sustainable business model for indie filmmakers and storytellers to use, I have failed. The deeper I dig, the more questions I have.

And maybe I just have to get used to that.

Steve Peters @ Transmedia Victoria

View more presentations from Christy Dena

If you look at slide 23 & 24, Steve Peters points out that it took over twenty years from the moment the film camera was invented until people worked out how to make a feature film. And of course there’s also been a huge amount of evolution and sophistication to occur in the hundred years since. In the mix has been everything from amazing life changing films to completely unwatchable trash.

In the transmedia space, making use of internet, social media, games, mobile phones, locative devices, augmented reality, crowdsourcing, video sharing, and so on – we are still in infancy, sorting out what technologies we want to use to tell stories, and we simply haven’t had time to find a common form – much less the ‘right’ business model. With the fast pace of technology, perhaps from now on we’ll always be in this state of flux. Experimentation is the only way forward.

This of course scares me shitless. I like to have a solid plan in place, which will get modified along the way but at least presents the semblance of control. However in this area of practice I often feel like the more I learn, the less I know, and I am sick of innaction.

Perhaps the only way to move forward is to step onto the ever shifting plates fully expecting to land flat on your face – because we will have many more failures in front of us before we get a bitter grip on this form. And amongst the many failures, a few successes will emerge. We just don’t know which will be which, so we have to try everything.

On that note, I’ll end with this from Seth Godin.

Waiting For "Superman" | Pledge Now

2010-08-17T10:00:00.001+10:00

The film Waiting For "Superman", by the same filmmaker who made The Inconvenient Truth, is a great example of an indie documentary that has well targeted itself towards an audience outside of the 'film vertical'.

The topic of the film is the decline in the American public education system, and Waiting For Superman has made these smart steps:

1. Partnered with organisations
They partnered with organisations that support the topic, e.g. Get Schooled and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to name a few. This means the film gets free PR and promotion via each of these organisations, who will inform their members/customers about the film (who, as indicated by their affiliation with these cause related organisations, are in fact the core target audience), as well as pump out the association via media release and social media to the larger public.

2. Got behind a Cause
They created a 'pledge' campaign that draws a connection between someone pledging to see the movie to the gift of resources going to public schools. They've had 30,000 people pledge to see the movie since May.

People are therefore persuaded to see the film knowing that the money they pay contributes to the cause.
Evidence that the filmmakers are really behind the cause, not just making a movie about it
A competitive element breaks down the pledges by city, so you can see if your city is getting behind the cause or not, and feel civic pride or shame (the latter spurring you to action).
A pledge board reveals how much has been achieved thus far, amount of resources going to public schools, whilst aiming for even loftier targets
The campaign goes further than the film, giving people options to help in further ways

Participant Media appears to be a key player in this element, from their website:

The Social Action campaign for Waiting for "Superman" will work with advocacy organizations, foundations and policy-leaders to offer initiatives for people to explore and be a part of long-term strategies that offer systemic changes. It will also engage audiences in immediate, tangible actions to help students in under-performing schools achieve better educational outcomes.

And the strategy for the Cause additionally invites people to volunteer at a school, donate books, mentor a child, or fund school supplies.

3. Conversation

Their blog, facebook page, and twitter account are a pretty great examples of "What to do". It's engaging multi way discussion, not a monologue just flogging the film (as so many other filmmakers make the mistake).

On twitter they've got a #MySchoolNeeds tag going, so teachers and schools can raise awareness of the resources they are lacking. @WaitingSuperman retweets these to their own followers. On a side note, many teachers are doing this via Donors Choose, an education crowdfunding site "connecting you to classrooms in need."
Their blog/news keeps up to date on education action issues that their audience would be interested in (n.b. this is rssed in from one of their campaign partners, so perhaps not as engaging / personalised as could be)
Their facebook engages conversation by asking questions that pertain to their audience's life, such as "What was the best life lesson you learned from a teacher?"

4. Spreadability

One thing I like is they've created a widget that is easy for people to share on their blogs, and helps spread the pledge campaign.

5. Lots of PR coverage
If you google this film, you'll find tonnes of references on blogs and news sites to the various aspects of the pledge campaign, and positive reviews of the film itself. I'd say they've been successful at spreading their story in advance of release.

Now, I should point out that the film was picked up by Paramount in advance of Sundance in January this year, and it is probably their marketing team and Participant Media who have put all this into action, rather than the filmmakers. However, there's no reason why indie filmmakers can't emulate this strategy.

What can be improved

What I don't like, is that the only way for me to 'share' photos or the video is by email, twitter or facebook - no embed or download options. This is such a small thing to do to help bloggers and journos talk about their film, so a big thumbs down on that regard. (The poster and trailer here on this post are from scouring the net, rather than from official sources!)

The filmmaker's own website (http://www.davisguggenheim.com/) has no mention of the film on it, and when I first looked at his wikipedia stub last week, there was nothing to reflect that this film existed (Wikipedia has been updated in the last couple days, and now has a reference to Waiting For Superman). This seems like quite an oversight, and one that is easy to fix.

At the moment the film is doing the festival circuit, with a New York & Los Angeles release on 24th September. It looks fantastic. But, this release date was something I had to search for, and I want to know when I can see it, here in Australia. If the audience can't find it legitimately, in cinema, on dvd, or by download, will they be tempted to turn to file sharing?

Out of curiosity I had a look, and found that it's been available via torrent since May. It hasn't racked up a huge amount of numbers - perhaps their target audience are not the average downloader.

It does seem to me that an audience should be able to easily find out where they can see the movie via official means. And if the film isn't being released in certain territories, then to allow them to purchase via the internet. And, noting that in this day and age every film is likely to end up on a torrent, create a way for people who watch the film via torrent to then be able to pay for it after the fact (as the filmmakers behind Ink did).

Be Inspired...by Alternate Reality Games

2010-08-13T22:00:00.000+10:00

I'm constantly coming across articles, links, videos, and presentations that inspire me... so I decided I'd group some of them that belong together to share with you.* Today I'll begin with Alternate Reality Games (ARG).

If you've never heard this term before, don't feel too bad. It's more often used by academics and professionals in the field than the person on the street, and it lacks a simple handle, like 'movie', 'game', 'book', that would make it catch on.

Wikipedia's definition is pretty good:

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.

ARG's can also be bundled within a 'transmedia', 'multiplatform' or 'crossplatform' project.

Probably the most cited ARG of recent times is 'Why So Serious' for the Dark Knight. This transmedia project gained over 10 million participants in 75 countries, using hundreds of web pages, interactive games, mobile phones, print, email, real world events, video and unique collectibles. Words can't convey this experience nearly as well as the below video.

The Dark Knight Viral Campaign from Red Dune Films on Vimeo.

Other notable and much talked about ARGs that were created by the same people (of 42 Entertainment) include:

Year Zero to promote the Nine Inch Nails album.
"Launched in February with a cryptic message on a tour T-shirt, fleshed out in dozens of websites, scary voicemail messages, Morse code blips, murals, fliers and other real-world propaganda, "Year Zero" reaches a peak (but not its conclusion) with today's album release. There's never been such an extensive or well-planned campaign involving a major pop release. But "Year Zero" represents something more than just killer marketing." Anne Powers, Los Angeles Times

Nine Inch Nails Year Zero viral Campaign from Red Dune Films on Vimeo.

ilovebees to promote Halo 2.
"Widely dispersed players coordinate to find and answer thousands of ringing pay phones all across the United States and provide correct answers to recorded questions.When all the answers have been supplied, the latest episode in an internet-based War of the Worlds-esque radio serial is unlocked and made available to its rabid fans." Daniel Terdiman, Wired

Want to know more about ARGs? Here are the best resources on the net:

Christy Dena ARG Stats : Great stats and resources.
ARGNet : Alternate Reality Gaming Network
ARGNetCasts: Web podcast series talking about ARGs with leading
Unfiction: Forum, links and resources.
Deaddrop Blog dedicated to Alternate Reality Gaming

*Well, that and I realise that my usual epic long posts can become a burden when I get busy... I really must master the art of shortform one day :)

Wellywood Woman

2010-08-10T10:09:00.000+10:00

On a side note, filmmaker Marian Evans asked me to comment on an Inside Film article where Martha Coleman expressed concern that not enough emerging female filmmakers are putting up their hand for funding under Screen Australia's Springboard initiative. Marian has posted my response on her blog Wellywood Woman, if you're interested in reading it.

Marian has written a PhD about how to narrow the gap in the New Zealand film industry between the number of male and female filmmakers. On her blog she discusses the gender gap in film from an international perspective, with some illuminating statistics and insights.

Also of interest - Marian is raising money for her film, Development, using a fiscal sponsorship concept inspired by Women Make Movies and From The Heart - where donors receive tax benefits. Donors targeted are those with an interest in female equality, and the sell is that all primary cast and crew are women, and the topic of the movie is female filmmakers working together to get their movie made. All cast and crew are paid the same day rate ($150 per day), bringing the film budget to $100,000. The film will be available to download free - initially only for donors, then to all.

The Tunnel Case Study - Part 2

2010-08-04T10:00:00.020+10:00

Continuing on from Monday's post about the crowdfunded film The Tunnel - with it's plans for release via torrent - today I'm talking specifically about their marketing, social media, and community management. Or lack thereof. It's an area in which they've made some achievements, though still have plenty of space for improvement.

While the key producers Enzo and Julian appear passionate about creating a community of fans around the project, they have left the marketing and social media plan to Executive Producer Ahmed Salama at DLSHS, so unfortunately when I met with Enzo and Julian a couple weeks prior to the shoot they seemed hazy about what is planned in this area.

I’m kind of against totally outsourcing something as important as marketing and social media, especially when your business model so relies on word of mouth. It’s no doubt useful to have a consultant determine the strategy, and even oversee it, but I think the filmmaker really has to know what is going on, especially in the case of social media, which works best coming from the horse’s mouth.

I emailed their contact at DLSHS asking for a chance to meet up, or receive more information about the marketing, and my query went unanswered. Hmmm.

[ Edit: Ahmed at DLSHS gave me a call just now and explained that he hadn't received my email, and apologised for the lack of response. Poor guy has a nasty case of bronchitis, has been off work, and - for the cynical - you can't fake that kind of raspy cough down the phone line. I hope he gets better soon.
Ahmed also clarified a point I'd misunderstood when I originally wrote this post: Ahmed is an Executive Producer on the project, DLSHS is investing a lot into the marketing of The Tunnel, and as such they are working as a core part of the team rather than as an 'outsourced' service (as I earlier described it) ]

No, I'm not miffed about this lowly blogger being ignored, but I am puzzled that the company in charge of promoting the project doesn't even mention The Tunnel on their website...

So, they might have an amazing strategy that I just don’t know about... however, from an outsider’s perspective:

The Good

Their story has received good coverage online amongst film and horror sites and also in the Australian trade press. That’s a big tick!

A production diary blog keeps people up to date, scores another tick.

Twitter & Facebook are set up (606 followers & 530 likes so far) so two more ticks.

Room for improvement

However the social media & blog usage are very 'me me me.' That's when all they do is talk 'The Tunnel', while these forms of communication are best for creating a dialogue.

As Sheri Candler and Jon Reiss would say, work on an 20:80 rule - where you only talk about yourself 20% of the time max. If people follow your project on twitter or facebook, they don't want to be spammed every time there's a media mention - but they will be happy to put up with all of that if you're offering them value 80% of the time.

What to talk about the rest of the time? Well, that will depend on who your audience is - something I'm not sure these guys have nutted out beyond the horror film vertical. Talk should be about things your audience will be interested in, whether that's other horror entertainment news, or something else they would follow. [I will talk more about this in another post later this month.]

I also don’t see The Tunnel doing anything to really harness that community of people, the people who are funding the project. If you bring people on early, you need to have a solid strategy to manage them, turning them from a $1 payment into your biggest fans who will both evangelise the project and convert to purchasing more than the base level. Looking at what Starwreck/Iron Sky have achieved simply by inviting the crowd to participate...

I would love to see The Tunnel harnessing the crowd’s creativity and participation on some level. That might mean a poster or t-shirt design competition, the chance to be an extra on set, or something themed to the film. At the very least, there needs to be more dialogue. The blog and social media are doing a good job of reporting where the project is at, but they’re not really stimulating conversation or building a two way relationship.

While they’ve sold 10,261 frames so far, which is a good result for crowdfunding, I imagine a fair proportion of that would be people who know them already or are Australians interested in supporting our local industry, and to raise the full $135,000 they need to go one big step further to convince many many perfect strangers that the film itself if worth investing in, even if it is only $1. I think that is infinitely more difficult to do without a proper two way relationship.

Overall, it feels like a bit of a disconnect is happening, and perhaps it’s that stuff that falls between the gaps when you outsource some stuff but not others...

For example, Enzo and Julian’s production company is called Distracted Media, but there is no link from that website to The Tunnel website (nor is there a link from The Tunnel website to any of the production partner companies).

And while you can go from The Tunnel website to the blog, there is no link I can see from the blog back to the main website that sells the frames - the blog is essentially yet another different website.

For a strategy that sells itself on simplicity, this is a good way to simply lose people while they were in the middle of exploring the website!

They also break the number one rule when it comes to promotion: they don’t have a digital media kit of any sort.

Digital Media Kit

Bloggers and journos are busy people, and you need to make their job as easy as possible by sharing the content you want them to spread. That means easy access to quality stills, artwork, video, logos, and facts of the project, all in one place accessed with one click.

However, with The Tunnel I had to go to vimeo to get the embed code, search Facebook to find posters & photos, and while I know they are already shooting I don’t know things like who the actors are...

In fact, I’ve seen more of the facts by reading other people’s blogs and articles (presumably from receiving a press release), rather than the official website!

A Twist?

I must admit that some of the gaps in the plan make me wonder whether they are in fact more intent on creating a “buzz” than necessarily carrying through with the stated $135k business model in entirety. Elements of their story do, in fact, make a good 'story'.

Why do this? It makes sense to generate buzz to pressure the distributors or financiers they’re already in talks with into giving them a better deal, or scoring a deal with someone they haven't talked to yet. Let's not forget that filmmakers such as Fede Alvarez have landed multimillion dollar deals off the back of a highly viewed Youtube video.

A strategy of creating buzz for a desired pickup is not in itself a bad move. It's a perfectly viable option worth considering by indie filmmakers strapped for cash.

However, it does mean walking a more traditional path than The Tunnel is letting on with the crowdfunding story.

N.B. I should point out, this 'buzz' strategy is pure speculation on my behalf. There are plenty of over eager indie filmmakers who dive in and make things up as they go along, which leaves someone like me sitting on the sidelines to make observations or jump to conclusions about lack of planning and what not.

The Tunnel may in fact be entirely genuine about fully funding the film via crowdfunding. I just don't understand how that can be the case if they are already shooting the film with only $10,000 of their $135k budget in hand.

In summary

I am excited that an Aussie production is striking out into unknown territory with crowdfunding and torrent release. The Tunnel is far more innovative in raising finance, talking to the audience, and distribution than most films are. The strategy outlined behind the $135k Project business model is to my mind every bit as viable as the crowdfunding plans of other features, such as The Cosmonaut, Iron Sky, and the Age of Stupid - with equal parts opportunity and obstacle within the plan.

Tell stories that are achievable on a tiny budget
Pre-sell frames to cover the production costs (low price, low risk, nice & simple)
Get the biggest audience possible by releasing for free online
Upsell a proportion of the audience to purchase dvds / merchandise / tickets
Negotiate traditional distribution as a last port, after the film has proven itself, and retain non exclusive self distribution rights so the filmmakers can still distribute direct to audience.

Crowdfunding is still an experimental form of raising finance, and there is no 'one' way of doing it. The measure of success of this type of model can only be properly reviewed once a number of films have raised the money, made the movie, and been released in a sustainable manner. Increasing numbers of filmmakers are now trying it around the globe, but it will still be a number of years till we'll have seen enough complete the whole process to make judgement.

As Enzo said to me about crowdfunding The Tunnel:

"This is definitely something we'll understand better in postmortem."

Having said that, I would agree with Jon Reiss when he says that the best proven value of crowdfunding [or crowdsourcing] to date is in the advance building of a dedicated fanbase.

That is why I am disappointed that The Tunnel hasn't made better inroads when it comes to engaging the audience, giving them the opportunity to be involved beyond purchase of frames, and creating a strong dialogue amongst fans.

It is however early days, and they may unroll a stronger social campaign closer to release of the film - or they may find themselves with backers who help with a more traditional awareness drive. Good on them for giving it a go.

[Edit: Ahmed has since talked me briefly through their plans, and there is much more to come. I note that perhaps one benefit of using a dedicated marketing company such as DLSHS is that they have built a custom platform for monitoring and promoting the campaign through social media, bloggers, and influencers. I don't know how this compares to a paid-for-service such as Radian6 or TruCast, however it is no doubt beneficial to have someone on your team who uses these tools and strategies on a day to day basis.

Coming from the point of view that I do, I consider their approach still a bit 'traditional' in their focus of marketing efforts around the November torrent release. Ahmed's thought is that it is still early days, and they'll hold off till they have more material to share, so they have maximum impact when they need it the most. They have also been in talks with torrent sites so that when the film is released they'll have it promoted heavily to those communities, who is their target market. This is all sound reasoning for a film marketing campaign, and stands a good chance of success.

However, my thought is that the minute you invite people in via crowdfunding, you are instantly in 'campaign' mode, and need to have strategies in place to keep them interested, involved, and talking for the duration up to release.

Overall kudos to them though : let's not forget this is a small budget film, they are smartly targeting the torrent community to gain maximum downloads (their goal) which should help their ability to monetise the film in other ways via merchandise sales and licensing, and even having a social media plan puts it in front of most Australian films. I am looking forward to seeing how this goes.]

Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

2010-08-02T13:44:00.000+10:00

The Tunnel is a low budget Australian project in the midst of pre-selling film frames to raise the $135,000 cash budget, with plans to release the film for free online via file sharing later this year. It’s exciting to see this happening on my home turf, and interesting to hear in person the reasoning behind their strategy.

Now, if you’re thinking that ‘selling frames’ sounds familiar, you might remember the case study I did on the UK filmmaker Casey Walker’s My One Million Dollar Movie, who is selling frames for $10 a pop. The similarity between strategies is merely coincidence, as the filmmakers behind The Tunnel, Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey, were unaware of Casey Walker’s earlier efforts when they decided to do this. And, apart from the ‘frame’ sale, their strategies are significantly different.

Enzo and Julian consider The Tunnel to be the first of several under “The $135K Project.” This is a strategy to crowdfund low budget films by preselling the frames. A ninety minute movie = 135,000 frames x $1 per frame = $135,000 budget.

The beauty of The Tunnel’s approach is in a word ‘simplicity.’ They chose a low price point in order to mitigate the sense of consumer risk. A film frame is a kind of cool original purchase, and anyone can afford to pay $1, right? What’s the worst that can happen - you lose a buck? Somehow the ring of $1 = 1 frame talks to us on a psychological level that any other price would create pause for thought.

Enzo points out that many other films that use crowdfunding techniques unintentionally create confusion through the complexity of multiple options. It takes quite a bit of mental effort for would be purchasers to determine exactly what they are getting for their money, and if it’s too hard, people simply walk away.

Now, $135,000 is not a lot of money to make a feature film. It helps that The Tunnel is a horror, which is a genre that works well on miniscule budgets. It also helps that this is only the “cash” component, and they have some in-kind/subsidised support from a network of industry people including Zapruder’s other films. However, more than anything, a low budget should be considered a matter of sheer pragmatism when you take into account the state of the Australian film industry.

We simply can’t afford to make films with budgets in the millions.

When Enzo and Julian first conceived the idea of The Tunnel they fully intended to make it through traditional funding channels. They had some support from private investors, however, when they began meeting with potential partners and distributors, and ran the numbers, they realised how unlikely it was that their film would be able to pay back investors via this route. As Enzo put it:

"We can’t in good conscience ask for 100k from someone, telling them it’ll make a profit.”

Enzo knew from previously working on Food Matters (a documentary that sold 120,000 dvds) that sales and distribution can be done very easily and profitably via the web.

He’s also aware that the greatest obstacle for Australian films is the sheer lack of public awareness. On a tiny (or non-existent) marketing budget our films can’t hope to compete against the barrage of Hollywood campaigns. Or at least, not via the traditional route.

These two key insights led them to crowdfund the film from people who wouldn’t need a profit return, and set the film loose via torrents to gain as much awareness as possible.

“Word of mouth is gold,” Enzo says.

Enzo and Julian realise that many will download via torrents who otherwise wouldn’t risk their dollars to see the film. A small proportion of those will help spread the word, and be upsold to purchase a high quality DVD and merchandise. Without “investors,” any money made at all can be considered profit.

And, they’re still in conversation with traditional distributors. They hope their film will get a cinema release and widespread distribution, but are of the opinion that if the film gains enough online buzz then the ‘traditional’ partners will come knocking, and they are hesitant to lock into a deal now that won’t serve the film.

Thus, this is the new indie film model that they propose, The $135 Project:

Tell stories that are achievable on a tiny budget
Pre-sell frames to cover the production costs (low price, low risk, nice & simple)
Get the biggest audience possible by releasing for free online
Upsell a proportion of the audience to purchase dvds / merchandise / tickets
Negotiate traditional distribution as a last port, after the film has proven itself, and retain non exclusive self distribution rights so the filmmakers can still distribute direct to audience.

There’s a lot to like about the simplicity of this plan.

"The Tunnel" - Teaser 1 from thetunnelmovie on Vimeo.

However, in practice there is room for improvement – as always!

Planning?
The team came up with the $135K business model eighteen months ago, they opened The Tunnel for investment mid June 2010, and then started shooting the film a mere five weeks later. Anyone else have a problem with this time line?

It seems to me that they must actually have some financial backing in place for them to be shooting prior to even raising 10% of the budget. This might be in the form of a loan, or a gamble – someone giving them money for production with the expectation that the crowdfunding scheme will work to pay it back. Or expectation that a distributor or funding body will ride in to the rescue.

I’m also surprised that so many elements are still undecided at this late stage:

a) They were still working on the script a week before shooting. Call me biased (I am a writer), but getting the script right is usually the easiest place to get bang for buck, and I can’t help but think less of filmmakers who undervalue it. Having said that, one of my favourite horror films, Blair Witch Project , was shot without a script, so what the hell do I know?

b) The business plan isn’t properly fleshed out in detail, and while traditionally there are elements you wouldn’t need to get specific about till closer to release date, with this type of early audience involvement you really need to have those factors in place early.

c) While they plan to make money from merchandising, they haven’t yet decided the ins and outs. Initially they considered using Zazzle POD, but after ordering a couple t-shirts they decided it was too low quality, and too little profit. The alternative requires cash up front for manufactoring, which they don’t have. Seeing as they have several thousand people purchasing frames, it seems odd to me they haven’t yet worked out the upsell options to capitalise on the interest immediately.

d) As mentioned, shooting when they haven’t raised the money yet – either a recipe for disaster, or they’re not being entirely honest about the finance.

While you have to admire people who jump in and get things happening, my thought is that proper planning is a foundation that shouldn't be skipped. What do you think?

I’ll continue this case study Wednesday, taking a look at The Tunnel’s marketing, social media, and community management – what they’re doing right vs what needs improvement.

Taking Your Content Glocal

2010-07-02T12:52:00.002+10:00

We frequently hold the conflicting desire of wanting our content to be globally relevant, yet to also be authentic on a local level. ‘International’ stories are meant to bridge this gap, consisting of a core theme or idea that is meant to unite audiences regardless of nationality – however, this approach doesn’t respect or celebrate the nuances of cultural differences. I’ve been thinking about ways to make content on a ‘glocal’ level (surprisingly enough, that is a real word).

A couple months back I wrote a hypothetical case study looking at ways that a property distributed internationally could create local chapters of content in each territory to make it more relevant to local audiences. I’ve been thinking more on this, particularly in light of transmedia and alternate reality game projects, where real time audience participation is encouraged.

Forgive me while I initially explain this from the point of view of an Australian.

In Australia we consume a lot of quality overseas content, which we enjoy, but we also need to see our own Australian characters, who share our values, sense of humour, accents, slang, and spelling ;) However, the economic reality is that Australia has a small population of just 21 million, so it’s not financially viable for us to create big budget productions, particularly not for niche audiences. This results in most of our local content being smaller stories, often at an inferior quality, which explains why our audiences mostly consume American and British entertainment.

Audiences can’t help but feel a bit left out when film and tv gets a good run overseas before arriving on our shores many months or even years later - especially when we hear about amazing participatory experiences, such as Why So Serious, only after the fact. In recent years the internet has allowed us to become more closely aligned to these properties – legally or otherwise – but it still can’t make up for the disconnect.

Or at least, it’s a problem when content creators continue to think and plan their content in terms of only their own geographic territory.

With the increase of transmedia - which may have a film or tv property at its hub, and includes multiplatform extensions and often a community of interactive fans – it makes it incredibly easy to have small localised chapters feeding into the greater story.

Thus, the bigger budget overarching story may remain ‘international’ in scope and be created by a particular nationality, but this can be partnered by a multitude of smaller stories and characters from countries all around the world. It is unlikely that any one participant would consume all the content – they would have no need - but those living in, for example, France would consume the big story alongside the French character’s vlog/blog/social media/event, creating a localised experience. For the audience, this provides the best of both worlds.

Now, I know, from a content creators perspective – it’s hard enough making a good feature film, television series, or alternate reality game, without having to contend with a huge amount of excess localised content.

The solution to this is simple: the primary producer, who creates the overarching story, is not the one who creates the localised content. This makes perfect sense: if you want content to be authentically local, you need to work with the locals. This takes the heat off the primary producer, whilst they remain involved in the international co-ordination to ensure all content is well aligned to the primary property.

Thus far I have only really spoken about how this benefits the audience. That’s because I think we have to put their needs first in order to succeed. It’s also because, if we get that right, there are numerous flow on benefits to the producer.

While Australia may import a lot of content, most of it is treated like a dog’s breakfast by local networks, thereby damaging its ability to create as large or devoted a fan base. TV is a good example – even a programme with a cult fan base will be shuffled into a late night time slot, shifted in the schedule to a different day without warning, have ad breaks at odd points that ruin the dramatic flow, and so on. That means lost audience and fans. Which means fewer sales and revenue. What producer doesn’t care about that?

Having someone on the ground creating buzz both locally and on the net, with localised content that speaks to them, translates to greater audience and fans, plus a funnelling of those people back to the hub that the primary producer has created. Casting your net wider and deeper.

The second argument people may have against ‘glocal’ would be that more content means greater costs, right? And no producer wants to have to scrabble round looking for another chunk of cash outside of their original budget.

However, I have some solutions to that issue too.

Firstly, the local producers mightn’t be engaged on a “for hire” basis, but rather as co-producers. This doesn’t mean they have control over the bigger project, but that they are producers of the localised content, and may be partly or entirely responsible for acquiring the funds for their local content. Depending on the country and your agreement, this could mean:

Access to government funds or tax rebates that will cover or subsidise the cost of locally produced content.
Local sponsors or advertisers, which may only be in evidence on the local characters blog/vlog, or might be viewed on the project hub (this is particularly easy with the internet, as you can personalise the content a visitor views on your website based on the geo location of their IP address, so different visitors would see different ads etc)
Merchandise : reaching a larger dedicated audience translates into greater sales. Some form of profit split with the local producer gives them incentive to actively generate sales in their territory, and they may have ideas for local variants that their nationality are more likely to buy than the ‘international’ versions.

Even when there is no budget at all for extra content you may well find an emerging producer who is happy to create local content for free just for the experience and credit of being involved in a large international production.

Or identify people amongst your fanbase who are capable of creating the extra content. You might elevate them to an official role as a leader in their territory with specific responsibilities, or crowdsource tasks en mass from fans on a casual basis.

An example of crowdsourcing content from around the world in a casual manner would be the fictional documentary “Lost Zombies." The filmmakers created a social network for zombie enthusiasts, and via regular contests they ask members to complete and upload tasks that can be used in the ‘documentary.’ It’s a clever way to engage their core audience, keep costs down, and achieve glocal content.

Find more videos like this on Lost Zombies

In a further post I'm going to write more about benefits of international co-production, in particular exploring the quirks and opportunities presented by Australia's Producer Tax Offset. If your own country has an interesting system that only a local would know about, I'd love if you could share details so I can do an international round up of co-pro opportunities.

Iron Sky & Crowdsourcing

2010-06-25T16:52:00.001+10:00

Iron Sky Poster

Iron Sky is the latest film from the team behind StarWreck (the Finnish amateur crowdsourced film released under creative commons and viewed over 8 million times before gaining a distribution deal with Universal). While some things have changed in the team’s approach - the most obvious being Iron Sky’s 6.5 million euro budget versus StarWreck’s 15,000 euros - director Timo Vuorensolo remains impassioned about the importance of creating an active community around film projects.

“Everything you do should involve creating community around the film. This isn’t just a marketing tool, it’s a way of life.”

Before I get onto Iron Sky I should do a quick run down of it’s predecessor – StarWreck - because this is a perfect example of how creating a fanbase benefits not only your current project, but future projects as well.

StarWreck
StarWreck began as a series of short animations made by Samuli Torssonen from 1992 onwards. Timo joined the team as director in 2000 to make the better known live action feature film (released in 2005). This film was made in a very haphazard manner, with the team learning on the go, however it had notable successes. The quality is amazing, considering: it was made by five students/unemployed people; the CGI was rendered on home computers; the blue screen was shot partly in the producer’s living room and partly in his mum’s basement; and so on. How they achieved such a feat falls in part to crowdsourcing.

A community of 3000 fans helped out. They donated props for the shoot, helped with concept design, screenwriting, chroma key, artwork, model design, ideas, research and a small amount of money. Just as important, this fanbase spread the word about the film, helping it reach one million downloads within the first week of release, and going on to be seen by over eight million people.

After StarWreck, Timos created www.wreckamovie.com, which provides a way for filmmakers and fans to crowdsource projects. This has its own active community, and is well worth a look – it really is amazing the help you can get for free just by inviting the audience in to be part of the experience.

Iron Sky
As such, Iron Sky has the benefit of inheriting an active international community of sci-fi fans thanks to StarWreck. However, this hasn’t led them to rest on their laurels. I met up with Timo, Finnish producer Tero Kaukomaa, and Australia Co-Producer Cathy Overett last week when they came to Sydney to talk to their fans at SupaNova. They felt this was a good opportunity to meet their audience face to face, but they also remain active online via social media, the Iron Sky, Wreckamovie and StarWreck forums, their blog, third party sci-fi forums, and they’re also always looking for new and better ways to engage.

This time round the team have taken a professional approach: they’ve secured an international sales agent, distributors in several European territories, and Co-Producers in Germany, Skandinavia and Australia. This has helped raise funds prior to production so that the film can be made to a higher standard.

There is however a partial shortfall between the funds they’ve raised traditionally and the intended film budget, and for this amount they have turned to crowdfunding.

They began selling “War Bonds” and merchandising three years ago to help raise funds for Iron Sky. This has raised about 50,000 euros to date, which might not sound like a lot of money, but it has helped support the core team while they’ve been working to develop the project and secure finance partners – they are now 90% funded.

Six weeks ago they opened a way for the crowd to become actual investors in the film, for as little as 1,000 euros, with the goal to raise the final 900,000 euros this way. This is going well, with 200,000 euros committed by crowd investors so far.

It’s important to note that this type of investment is far easier to arrange in Europe than under Australian or US laws. At the time of the interview they were still working out the legal T&Cs for potential Australian investors. Cathy has promised me an update on this when it’s been sorted. :)

Another thing Timo is excited about with the larger scale of Iron Sky is the ability for transmedia extensions. A computer game is in development, there are plans for a graphic novel, card games, merchandise, and he loves seeing the fan fiction spinoffs that occur when you invite the audience to participate on their own terms. Timo thinks of cross platform as a “big sandbox of possibilities,” and an area in particular that is ripe for crowdsourced collaboration.

He likens audience interaction to an onion: the outer layers of audience are bigger but have less involvement, and at the core are evangelical fans who are most important to satisfy and will be your greatest supporters.

A few tips from Timo on creating an engaged audience ( “participants”):

Create cool stuff that can be shared on Youtube – teasers, trailers, videos.
Be very active on all social media, relevant websites & forums, conferences, etc.
Go into a new area where your audience thrives (e.g. SupaNova) and get involved.
Create small steps into the world, such as a “Demand it” button or Facebook “like”. These work well to introduce a new person to the community in a low-risk low-effort manner.
Identify as many ways as you can to draw people in, and get them to dig in deeper, by meeting their needs. Come at the project from different angles, so while some involvement may ask for high skill or commitment (model design), others require less from the fans (vote), so they can pick their own level.
Constant communication is highly important, and this should be from the filmmakers themselves – there needs to be personality around the project, not corporate speak.

The one concern I myself have over the notion of “crowdsourcing” creative work is regarding quality control. So I put this to Timo. He agreed that collaboration can be tricky, however the key thing is in how you treat the community, that you must communicate from the beginning that you’re not necessarily going to use their work. In Timo’s words, the filmmaker can be a “creative dictator.” Thus, filmmakers don’t use substandard work, but still maintain community good will.

Talking to Timo, Tero and Cathy was highly informative, but this post is already too long! So expect to hear more in another post about their use of International Co-Production to help fund the film. Until then, have a look at the trailer - pretty exciting.

Art versus Commerce in Filmmaking

2010-06-17T16:31:00.000+10:00

A question that is often asked here in Australia is “What is wrong with the Australian film industry,” as there is a huge disconnect between the size of total annual box office receipts of $1.1 billion (Australians are some of the greatest film consumers on a per capita basis) versus the measly 5% of this that is spent attending our own Australian films. While the Australian film industry has some unique quirks, the core question is equally valid if you consider the “indie” film industry.

Over the past ten years I’ve found this question comes up in public debate at least once a year, and the main argument tends to focus on what kind of films we’re making. It’s the “culture” versus “commercialism” debate.

At one extreme, the arguments for supporting dark arthouse films are notions of “quality”, “culture”, “values/worthiness” and “art.”

Opposing the cultural elite, arguments for greater emphasis on commercial success include “financial sustainability”, “making films that people want to watch”, and being “less pretentious.”

I’m a bit of a fence sitter, and I refuse to believe that filmmaking must sit at either extreme of the “art” versus “popcorn” continuum. However, the peculiar inverse nature of the Australian film industry – where arthouse films of a particularly dark and ‘worthy’ nature receive the majority of funding and critic support – sways me to side for becoming more commercial in line with the greater public.

Think of it this way: being indie is greatly important for giving minorities a voice when commercial production is servicing the masses. But what if the masses aren’t being serviced at all? What if the ‘masses’ aren’t having their voice heard? This is the problem we have in Australia.

So dominant is the power of the cultural elite in Australian filmmaking, that even people like myself – who love international arthouse films – find the local variant frequently too dark, dreary, and worthy. My desire as a viewer for something with more heart, more laughter, more light, suddenly sees me lumped in with the masses who would rather watch a blockbuster.

Forgive the rant - that’s just background to the point I’m getting to! It’s so easy to get caught up in arguments about the quality, values, and content of our films, who is right and who is wrong, and that argument is repeated year in year out. It never changes.

But the world is a big place, and I believe that there is an audience for every film, regardless of art or genre. The trick is knowing who that audience is, getting your content in front of them, and doing it in a way that is financially sustainable. This is what we should put way more of our time, energy, money and resources into - more so than the arguments, more so than script development, more so than production.

It’s natural for us to get sidetracked by the “content”, because we indie filmmakers do what we do out of a creative need rather than financial motivation – it is the story, the characters, the ideas that invade our every waking moment, and we can’t help but be emotionally obsessed about our projects.

However – what if no one ever watches your film? That might be okay if you’re a self absorbed narcissist who is happy talking to yourself...

Indie filmmakers repeat certain mantras to themselves to feel better about commercial failure. But if your film is so good, why won’t an audience back it?

Let’s be honest. Wouldn’t we all rather our work reaches the intended audience, regardless of niche or mainstream? Why do we stuff up when we get to that bit? Why, when a film fails to reach an audience, rather than learning from the experience, we get defensive and argue that the audience isn’t sophisticated enough, or blame lack of a marketing budget, or too much competition... anything but take ownership ourselves.

Here’s a word to the wise: marketing doesn’t begin as an advertising campaign four weeks prior to your premiere. Marketing begins at day one - the day you decide you want to make something. I don’t care what topic or genre the film is: on day one, you start by doing your market research.

Yes, that’s before you’ve written the script, or lined up the actors, or begun shooting.

You find out who your audience is, how to reach them online and in the real world, the key bloggers, influencers, ambassadors, you begin building a relationship with them, and you make sure that the film you are making matches up to what that audience wants in a film.

If you get this one thing right, it more than anything else will ensure your film reaches its audience successfully. And I won’t even care if it is another dark dreary ‘worthy’ Australian arthouse film. Just so long as it reaches its audience... whoever the hell they are.

Further reading:
Eight Steps to Building a Fanbase

Australian Film Industry Debate:

The Year In Pictures, by Gary Maddox
Screening the Same Old Dreary Story, by Michael Coulter
Cut! Time for a free kick for niche Australian movies and their makers, by Rachel Ward
Ward Off Criticism, by Lynden Barber
Bar Still Too Low For Australian Films, by Jim Schembri & Richard Wolstencroft
Australian cinema-goers? Ah, ‘stuff ‘em!’ They only buy tickets, by Phyllis Foundis

Diary Update

2010-06-11T15:45:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,

Want to apologise for having gone such a long time without post... have been flat out developing a multiplatform project, working on the business plan, and so on. Will fill you in with more details soon...

I've also begun looking into moving this blog to something more versatile like WordPress. Obviously my posts tend to be on the long side, more "article" than a typical blog, and Blogger is too limited in layout and options for it to be how I want it.

While I'm at it I need to rebrand the blog so its more accurate to what I'm writing about now. If you have any name ideas, I'd love to know. One name I'm tossing up is Digi Showbiz: the business of storytelling in the digital age. Whadaya think?

Stop, take a minute, write in the comments section "Yes" or "No". That's an order ;)

Something you might be interested in is a blog response I wrote over on Dennis Peters Blog about Marketing Strategy for Independent Filmmakers.

Importance of building your personal audience, with my thought being that you also need to be wary not to confuse your personal audience with your project audience, as they're not always the same.

What are your thoughts on the topic?

Promise I'll be back soon with a real post :)

Paranormal Activity Case Study

2010-04-27T10:00:00.000+10:00

If you haven't heard of Paranormal Activity - the $15,000 movie that went on to make over $100 million - you must have spent the past year under a rock. This is a movie that did so much right in engaging an audience with a teaser campaign to build hype prior to release. There's a lot that other indie filmmakers can learn from them.

A fantastic case study has already been done by Martin Walsh, who wrote:

"I want to highlight this film for three reasons:

1. The size of the budget isn't necessarily a panacea for our problems - at the end of the day you still need a good, entertaining story that's told well.
2. They got the marketing right - knew their audience, embraced digital & traditional marketing
3. They turned the film & artform into an experience.
Paranormal Activity didn’t just promote itself on the cheap; it promoted itself in an intelligent way to the right audiences and through the right channels with the right messages. It's a campaign which was also authentic in the sense that Paramount didn’t try and make out that the film was some slick $30m Hollywood film, it is what it is.

By using existing social media options in combination with some traditional media to inspire and energise the conversations and ultimately to publicize the film, it has achieved substantially better per dollar ROI by giving fans a sense of ownership and a place to share their enthusiasm.

The filmmakers and marketers have facilitated the ability of fans to truly embrace the film and its success or failure as their own and have given them a sense of engagement and participation which is crucial in today’s digital and participatory era."

Martin's full article The Future of Filmmaking: Seizing back control of the Six Pillars is well worth the read, and covers several interlinked topics:

- Failures of the Australian film industry
- Paranormal Activity in detail (begins one fifth the way down the page)
- Ted Hope on the "Six Pillars" of the future film industry (from half way down the page)

A Hypothetical Transmedia Case Study

2010-04-20T14:35:00.000+10:00

This semester I've been doing AFTRS's Graduate Certificate in Multiplatform Content to get my head more around the area - and a month ago we did a weekend incubator that involved brainstorming a transmedia project that has direct relevance to the film industry problem of file-sharing.

My team (myself, Jane Arandelovic and Alex Bathur) identified a common problem for the local TV networks that screen overseas content here in Australia after the US air date. The audience most likely to become fans tend to seek these shows out online or on DVD prior to the Australian broadcast.

For networks, such as Channel Nine, the problem of securing audience loyalty to their channel, when the same content is available online through someone else, is similar to the question of how filmmakers can turn file-sharers into loyal purchasers.

We used the television show "V" as an example. This is a sci-fi series that began screening episodes in the US last November, while it wasn't till March 2010 that it broadcast in Australia.

Our goal was to increase ratings of the show on Channel Nine despite the delayed broadcast. We took the position that we were standing in late 2009 trying to work out how to win over viewers (rather than mid way through the series as it is now).

1. Give more than just the TV show

If all you're broadcasting is a TV show, and fans can get it free online or purchase the DVD without having to deal with schedules or advertising, then you're going to lose a significant proportion of your audience. However, what can you do that they can't get elsewhere?

The Australian TV industry simply doesn't have the budget to compete with that size of show, which is why we import so much from the US. However, while this show is US centric, the story world has a situation that is meant to be occurring worldwide: Alien spaceships are hovering over every capital city in the world.

This gave us the opportunity to imagine what would be happening in Australia, create local characters, transmedia subplots, and real world events that compliment the TV series whilst being a unique local experience (The V Experience).

The Australian content begins as an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) with two interlinking story paths: Join the Ambassador program, or the rebel Fifth Column. Teaser elements are seeded months prior to the broadcast in Australia, then starts properly two weeks prior, and continues until the season concludes.

The Ambassador program is aimed at the mainstream audience, with obvious online dashboard navigation, mini games, competitions, points and rank, and a murder mystery aboard the virtual spaceship environment. Players can dip in and out, they needn't complete everything.

Those joining the rebel group have a more challenging free form experience, with cryptic clues coming to them in multiple formats across the web, social media, and real life guerrilla media, in creative ARG fashion. They have to hunt down information, and some puzzles are too difficult for them to solve alone. This group consists of a smaller audience, but a tightknit one who enjoy the challenge and the community that grows around it.

The story element for the rebel player is for them to help the rebel leader, who is in hiding, to determine how to overcome the V's. Tasks include uncovering which prominent Australian's are actually V's in disguise, and tracking down a the traitor in the group who is leaking information to the Vs.

A battle between these groups rages across Youtube, Facebook, FlickR, Twitter, blogosphere, to win over the Australian public: welcome the V's, or fight against them.

Flash mobs see Ambassador's handing out leaflets promoting the V's, and rebels demonstrating against them.

There is a count down to the V's arrival in Sydney. This is marked by a huge 'live' event outside the Sydney Opera House (did I mention: for the point of this exercise we didn't worry about budget!) where the fans wait to see the first glimpse of the spaceship. Ambassador's wear V jackets that they've bought themselves. All can use an App on their smartphones to watch as the UFO comes to hover by the Harbour Bridge (can snap photos of themselves and their friends with the UFO in the background, and upload to social networks).

The V's use their superior technology to make the Sydney Opera House disappear for ten minutes, replaced by a portal glimpse of the V's home planet [this is done using facade projection mapping - really cool lighting/video trick].

The pilot episode of V is screened, top and tailed with additional Aussie content: Channel Nine News talks about the V arrival as if it were real; 'William' (the V's representation in Australia) addresses the crowd to tell them about the prizes they can win by becoming an Ambassador; Ryan Park (the leader of the rebels) interrupts with a message about needing to fight the Vs. The crowd is asked to SMS "Welcome" or "Go Away" to tell the V's what Australia thinks of them - with new players diverted into the ARG paths.

As each episode of the series is screened on Channel Nine, an additional couple minutes of local story content is screened at the beginning, end, or during typical "advertising" time - making the Channel Nine broadcast unique from the US or DVD version. Further content is available on Channel Nine's promotional V website, driving traffic there, and the show is screened online to capture online viewers wanting to watch at a time convenient to them.

The V Experience leaches into real life. Some of the ideas we came up with to make this unique:

- Facade mapping projection [ a live event spectacle on the Opera House]

- Augmented reality [Spaceships seen through the mobile phone. The mothership moves around Australia throughout the six week screenings, so ‘sightings’ can be tracked by keen spotters.]

- Live role playing events [Flash mobs, arg events, the arrival at Sydney Opera House]

- Gigapan infinite zoom technology [Clues hidden in crowd photos that need to be zoomed in to find the details ‘uncover V’s in public office’, ‘which cricket player is a V’, etc]

- Bing Map augmented reality [allows players who aren’t able to attend the live events to experience it through their web browser in a 3D environs]

- User Generated Content Fan Fiction [Players create and share their own stories about experiences with the Vs in Australia]

- Spaceship spotting – all sightings are displayed by location on Bing Maps, tracking their movement, and showing USG photos of the UFOs in situ.

- Involving Australian personalities in the background story content: Kerri-Anne interviews William, the Footy Show argues about whether the V are good or bad, a Domestic Blitz disaster because the rumbling of the spaceship made a cake sink...

2. Build a fanbase amongst the core audience

We applied the principles I wrote about in my last post (Eight Steps To Building A Fan Base), seeking out hard core sci-fi fans. This genre has spawned a multi million dollar "fan" industry, where people wear costumes, go to conventions, pay for actor autographs and photos, learn an alien language.... and watch and rewatch their favourite TV series' and movies.

If we can connect to these people, and form a relationship with them, then it is possible they would be happy to watch the show on Channel Nine even after they've already seen it online, and even form viewing "parties".

We decided to develop a relationship by drawing them into additional content that incorporated this target audience's love of theatrics and role play. As the series prepared to go to air in the US, Aussies started grumbling in online forums and blogs about the delay. This presented a fantastic opportunity to tap these individual core fans with an in-story PM that invited them into the ARG ahead of anyone else.

Their involvement with the ARG makes them active participants rather than a mere audience, and their actions

create buzz across both viral and mainstream media, raising awareness in the mainstream audience.

3. Create multiple revenue streams
A commercial network like Channel Nine relies on advertising to keep it afloat. In the traditional film industry, we rely entirely on a user-pay system. A mix of models creates greater sustainability.

To be affordable, the expense of creating the V Experience had to be offset by additional revenue above their normal advertising returns.

a) Gaining and maintaining a larger audience would increase advertising rates to an extent... but what we figured would be better is to approach advertisers in a new way.

Rather than running normal blanket ads, we propose approaching advertisers prior to broadcast and secure their support to interweave clues and story elements into their ads. These ads play both on the TV during V broadcast, and online in a gallery - ensuring that they are studied repeatedly as additional content. This type of advertising is sold at a premium.

b) Merchandise related to the game, such as Ambassador jackets and rebel protest t-shirts, provides an additional revenue stream. You could charge a low fee for the spaceship AR app

c) Towards the end of the season the Aussie story content can be compiled into a short feature and bundled with the V series DVD when purchased via the Channel Nine website. This give the network a cut of DVD sales that they would not usually profit from.

d) Technology partners such as Gigapan and Bing may be willing to become sponsors or pay for the production of elements that showcase their technology - recognising the increased public awareness this will bring them.

4. Reuse audience for future projects
Perhaps most importantly, this experience puts Channel Nine in direct contact with their audience. With the communication lines now open, they are able to retap this audience when the next season of V begins, cross promote similar programs that will be of interest, or use this group as a test market.

The V Experience is effectively a prototype that can be replicated across other imported titles to create a unique local take on big budget stories. The issue of how to get people to watch local TV, when the same show can be watched on DVD or via an overseas online channel, can be solved by rethinking what it is exactly you're offering the audience - and how you can create better value for advertisers too.

***

Obviously this is a hypothetical plan, and it was nutted out over two days, so there are flaws: no access to the series scripts to have better correlation; big budget elements may not be worth the cost, dealing with an overseas copyright owner who may not care about the local audience, asking advertisers to think outside the box, some of the technology (e.g. Bing Maps) isn't up to scratch in Australia to the level showcased at the Ted talk...

But it's something worth thinking about, as I expect we'll see more of this type of thing in the future.

Eight Steps to Building a Fan Base

2010-04-01T20:03:00.001+11:00

A question that keeps coming up is how do we build audience for our indie films and content. Without the huge marketing budgets of Hollywood films, so few people get to hear about our indie films much less see them. Today I'm going to take you through it, with some free online tools to help, step by step.

Step 1: Identify your core audience
You might be sick of hearing this, but you'll keep hearing it till we get it right :) Us filmmakers like to think that everyone will like our film, so when defining audiences we are wishy washy with statements like "18 to 45 year old men, but, women will like it too, and my dad likes it and he's 65, so..."

Be specific: who do you know - absolutely know - will love your film? Think niche first - they are easier to target than the vagaries of "mainstream."

I tend to believe that age and gender are poor ways of defining an audience, and it's better to concentrate on shared interests or values. So identify what your film is about, what topics it covers, what values it expresses, who is it about?

A few weeks back Kelly Chapman was speaking about one of her projects, which is set in a drug rehab facility. She identified several niche audiences that revolved around this material: a) former drug addicts, b) friends and family of former drug addicts, c) current drug addicts d) friends and families of drug addicts, e) recreational drug users, and the vaguer f) mainstream.

It's easy to find ways to connect with an audience if you've really clearly identified them, while you'll flounder if you try to go after everyone in general. That's not to say your film won't have mainstream appeal, but begin with the subgroups who will have the greatest connection to your material, they will become your dedicated fanbase who then help you to reach a larger audience.

Step 2: Identify influencers
Going one-to-one with every single person in your core target market is obviously too time consuming to be practical. Instead, work out who the main influencers are - the people who will disseminate information to your core audience if they think it is of value to them.

There are two primary types of influencers:

a) Professional/specialist - someone who your audience considers an authority on a topic. They might be an individual 'guru', or a trade magazine, etc.

b) Peer leader - in every community there are a minority who fall into leadership roles: they are not specialists on a topic, but are respected, liked, and listened to. They might write a blog, have engaged twitter followers, lots of facebook friends, be an active forum member, or frequent contributor to a recommender community.

There are a lot of cool free tools to help you find where your audience hangs out online, and who they listen to. First use key words and phrases that relate to your film and core audience to compile a long list of relevant blogs, websites, and forums, using one or more of these tools:

Google Search (or your preferred search engine)
Forum Search Engines: Board Reader, Board Tracker, Omgili
Blog Search: Technorati Google Blog Search Twingly
Twitter Search & WeFollow

Then evaluate this list of sites and people to determine which have the most influence with your core audience. Note how many friends, followers, members, and unique visitors these individuals, organisations, and websites have. Some tools to help you with this (or a more comprehensive list here):

Compete lets you compare multiple websites and find out their number of views and visitors.
Alexa gives you information on the rank of the website and some basic demographic information of the visitors.
Twitter Analyzer and Tweetalyzer will show you a twitterer's metrics in a lot of detail, such as how much influence they have (this is more important than the number of followers).

Step 3: Stalk your audience
Not in a creepy way... ;) It's important that before you jump in flogging your film, you watch, listen, and learn. Get to know the personalities and opinions of the key influencers, and how your audience responds to them. That means reading the blogs, the comments, the articles, and learning the etiquette of the community.

Step 4: Engage with the community
Once you've got a good handle on it, begin interacting on their level. Prove your value by contributing in a way that shows that you 'get' them, building a relationship:

Commenting on blogs, and sharing them with others
Be active on forums, asking and answering questions
Tweeting and retweeting
Voting/liking people's comments and content
Sharing information, jokes, links, points of interest

Thus far you still haven't mentioned your film or tried to 'sell' anything.

Step 5: Present your content
Now that you're friends (or at least acquaintances), present your film to influencers in a way that fits within the conventions of the community. Bloggers often like the sense of a 'scoop', as do community leaders. If you're talking to multiple people, try to give them each a different angle on your story, so their content has something unique about it. Your content needs to be clearly of value to their audience and peers.

Plus - it is really important that you give content to these people in the easiest, most usable format so that they can publish or pass on the information without effort. This means emailing them what they need, with a link to further information should they want it.

On your website you should have the equivalent of a press kit that is easy to access. Content should be available for download as a zip, individual file download, copy and paste, and as links. Flash sites can be a pain for this, as can some video players. Items for inclusion:

Poster image, art, logos, video
Stills & behind the scenes photos
Logline, blurb, bios
Press releases with different story angles
Code for embedding the video, and links spelled out.
They may want to cut and paste text verbatim, so make it okay for them to do this from the website, and also supply as a .txt or .doc file (not pdf).

Step 6: Maintaining fans
Let the influencers break the news, then follow up soon behind with a public thanks to them for blogging about you. Make sure you appreciate the influencers, and keep the communication lines open: they can be your best friend or your worst enemy depending on how you handle yourself.

Respond to questions and feedback from the target audience, but also continue contributing value as a community member. Don't think your job is done just because the word is out!

Make it easy for fans to connect with the project and share content - a Facebook Fanpage, Twitter, Youtube channel, blog, forum, merchandise, membership to your website, and 'share' buttons. There are several benefits to this:
- they are empowered in their ability to seek a closer relationship with the content they like, helping them turn into a stronger fan
- you want to have a direct line of communication with them so you can keep them updated and upsell them
- their interactions with your content will be shared with their network, thus increasing it's reach

Find ways to give these fans extra value.

behind-the-scenes content
first access to information
online Q&A
preview screening
competitions & rewards
interactivity : let them have voting power over elements such as artwork, merchandise, auditions
crowdsourcing : can they contribute to the project in some way? e.g. a poster or trailer competition
discounts
exclusive merchandise
autographs
unique event or experience
blog, podcast, or vlog
transmedia extensions
information on things they like - this might have nothing directly to do with your film, but involve being a thought leader or trend setter in an area they're interested in. If they're environmentally conscientious, you might have regular tips on eco-friendly products, services, technology, documentaries, and so on.

Don't be afraid to ask your fans for a helping hand. The Age of Stupid got fans to screen the film in their own homes, The Cosmonaut is being financed by crowdfunding, Star Wreck was crowdsourced, and Paranormal Activity got one million people to 'demand' to see their film. Let them know what you need, set some milestones, and ask them to help you meet them.

Push your content out for distribution on a variety of social media platforms.

And remember, don't get snarky if someone says something you don't like. People respect transparency, and distrust defensive behaviour. Make sure you keep on the right side of your fanbase.

This is also the time to tell all your other friends, family, and colleagues via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. You should have about 500 people who personally know you (or another team member), have an interest in your work, and will be willing to pass on a trailer or video to others.

Step 7 : Going viral

Okay, let’s face facts: you can’t make content go ‘viral’, and anyone who says that is their plan is partaking in wishful thinking. Online media is not ‘broadcast’ like TV - the power is completely in the control of users who choose where they go, when they like, what to click on, and what to recommend to friends – or not. If your video happens to be one of these, fantastic, but you can’t make it happen.

However, if you've followed the above six steps, and your content meets the needs of the audience, then they will be viewing, liking it, and sharing it - thus they will make it go viral.

You can also help them, by making your content shareable (e.g. at the bottom of this post is a 'share' button so you can add my article to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and dozens of other options. hint hint...). Each of the above have their own communities, and some have the ability to get your content 'profiled' on the main page if enough people vote for it. One strategy to increase the chances of this is by becoming involved in the, for example, Digg community, voting up other people's Diggs, leaving comments, making friends, and letting them know when your web content has been Dugg so they might vote yours up too.

There are additional marketing techniques that will help the right people find your content online. It's best to read a dedicated book on this. A good one is "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" by David Meerman Scott, another is "Think Outside The Box Office" by Jon Reiss.

Step 8: Going mainstream
Now that you've got a dedicated online fanbase, you're ready to approach mainstream media and spokespeople. The mountain of online activity will give your project more respectability than you would previously have been afforded.

Some newspapers will find interest in stuff like how your trailer gained one million hits on Youtube in a week, others will write similar stories to what your influencer-bloggers did, or want a new angle. Continue to use the same strategy as before: begin at the centre, with the core media most relevant to your project, rather than wasting your time chasing every publication.

Make use of any professional organisations you or other team members are a member of (such as MEAA, SPAA, ASDA, AWG, MetroScreen in Australia) to spread word about the project on their website and newsletter. Some of these may be interested in a screening, Q&A or panel event for their members.

Similarly, contact the local media with stories about the local team members who were involved, contact school networks, and any one else who might have more than a passing interest due to proximity to cast and crew.

***

Do you have any extra tips? Cool tools to help?

Relativity - a Freemium Web Series

2010-03-26T15:14:00.001+11:00

I first became aware of the upcoming web series Relativity last December when I happened across an awesome teaser trailer on Facebook. I'm impressed enough by their emerging business strategy and indie spirit to share it here.
The creators, Jonathan Adams and Steve Fanale, cut together the trailer and released it early, even though it would be almost another year before the series would go live. This allowed them to start getting traction through social networks.

The pilot episode will first be shown to a live audience with a Q&A with the filmmakers [next Tuesday, for anyone in Sydney]. This creates an experience that is 'more' than simply watching a five minute webisode and begins word of mouth buzz.

Like myself, these guys are Aussies who love the opportunities that the internet presents as an alternative to traditional television and cinema channels. And not just an alternative 'broadcast' mechanism, but a new way of working. Here's what Jonathan had to say.

"I don't just want to use the web as a platform to get the "real stuff" [repurposed TV and film]. I'm trying to make the case that the internet can and will be the real deal, and could represent a potential revolution in how the independent film maker can self-distribute and make a profit.

Relativity is made up of 10-minute episodes, but it won't be long before 20-minute and 40-minute series, and even feature films, can be produced with the express purpose of web distribution."

"The key factor is the digital revolution. The same technology is available to independent film makers as many hollywood directors are using. The RED ONE for example, or Sony's CineAlta Range of cameras, not to mention Final Cut studio, all provide incredibly powerful tools that are truly no less advanced than the tools used on a Michael Bay movie or a Coen Brothers movie, but at costs that were inconceivable two decades ago.

Everyone who works on Relativity is paid in accordance with MEA guidelines, but with the freedom of digital technology we can limit our crew to under 10 people and still achieve high-end results. This is how we can produce our 10 minutes episodes for around $10, 000 each.

So there's simply no excuse now for film makers to sit around complaining about the state of Hollywood (or the Australian film industry) and about how no-one will give them their big break. All one needs is some talent in using those tools for a worthwhile purpose and one can craft a film with pretty competitive production values for the cost of a Toyota Camry. Now all we need is a mechanism to distribute these masterpieces. We shall be dubbed the "Web new wave" once this decade it out!"

How you are making sure it gets in front of the right audience?
"Initially, the plan is to effectively harness the power of all social media applications to form a core audience. One earliest decisions was to make Relativity highly accessible to a wide audience, but not to alienate hardcore science-fiction fans.

The issue at this point is that mainstream audiences need to become comfortable with watching original content on the internet. While web series do exist, they tend to aim for a small, "cult" demographic.

I understand the desire to aim for that, because absolutely that will become the main advantage of internet content in the future - it can be tailored to a very specific audience. But our thinking is that the audience needs to understand and become comfortable with watching something on their computer as they would on the TV.

And from my seat, as a writer and director, the best way to do that is to simply tell a good story with relatable characters and amazing sights and sounds. So we'll be hoping for a lot of good word of mouth!

One of my goals here, and this continues from what I said before, is to educate the audience on that potential by leading them in through an exciting and engaging piece of mainstream entertainment.

That is what I look for to the most, really. I want to show the audience a good time, give them something to watch during their lunch break at work or while they're putting off their homework or whatever. I want to make intelligent science fiction with a comic bent, and an old-school action-adventure serial all in one package. And I'd like to show the world you can do all of that without $200 million."

How are you monetising it?
"The initial plan is to gain corporate sponsorship through adbuys - a 15-second commercial will play in front of every episode, generating revenue at what I assume will a similar rate to that of network television spots (ie the bigger the audience, the bigger the revenue).

Episodes will be available in this format indefinitely, which is one advantage of this model over network television - our audience can continue to build once the series has been completed. The idea is that by the time episode 12 is "airing", episode 1 is still gaining viewership. So even if it doesn't break even after its 12-week run, it inevitably will at some point.

At the same time, episodes will be downloadable from iTunes in high definition for $1 each. Once the series has had its initial online run, it will become available on DVD and Blu-Ray for rental and purchase, and other potential ancillary merchandise may follow to help foster a genuine fan community. Of course this is assuming it is commercially successful and demand exists for such merchandise."

What I like about this:
- have created a strategy prior to production and release
- are integrating social media, as well as creating a live event experience for the launch
- have planned a way to monetise based on success
- they are running the series like a business, not a hobby, so all involved are being paid
- they're spot on that 'web' content can be made inexpensively and still look great - I'm really impressed by what I've seen of Relativity thus far (and I got a preview viewing of the pilot episode!)

Areas for improvement:
Keep in mind that this series is still about five months away from being released online, so some of the things I point out will most likely be readdressed in the near future:

Currently there is no website - just the Facebook fan page. Even a basic webpage would be useful, especially if there was a counter on it counting down the days till release. This gives people something more tangible to anticipate.

I'd like to see a more firm social media and marketing strategy in place... 'word of mouth' needs to be backed up with a plan to help it happen. I'll be posting some tools and tips next week that will help.

The concept behind this sci-fi webseries cries out for transmedia extentions. I know it's hard for indies to stump up the resources to plan not just a series but also come up with additional content, however a key benefit of the internet over TV is that fans will seek out extra content if it's available, become more enamored the more sticky the content is, and become your promoters if they love you enough. And that 'extra content' needn't be expensive - in development we often come up with backstory that is interesting but has no place in the film itself, this can be repurposed across the web in a number of ways. Some ideas:
- Facebook pages for the main characters
- Main character blog
- A low budget ARG or hint stream to run across twitter as the series is released for the first time.

Create a space where fans can discuss the series as it unfolds. Urgent Evoke has an interesting method for engagement with their comic book series, where an additional chapter is released each week, and they then say "discuss this" - people start looking at the media not just for entertainment, but trying to read the hidden meanings, and sharing their ideas with one another.

I for one look forward to seeing more of this series - and I hope you'll check it out too :)

More case studies available here.

Crowdfunding vs Free

2010-03-22T15:00:00.002+11:00

The digital age has opened a flood gate of experimental business models as indie filmmakers forge their way into the future. In one camp we have crowdfunding, that seeks money from fans before the film has even been made, and at the other end of the spectrum there are people giving their content away for free, hoping to upgrade a small portion to paying customers. On the surface these two philosophies seem contrary. However, I believe there's a way to harness the best of both worlds simultaneously.

Crowdfunding has two primary benefits: a) raising money, and b) creating a dedicated fanbase. The downside of crowdfunding is that the higher entry point minimises the audience size.

The key benefit of Free is that your content reaches a far larger audience, and a proportion of these will upgrade to paying customers. The obvious downside is the huge financial risk.

So, how do you gain maximum audience while minimising your own financial risk?

Let's compare a couple projects. Biracy and Fandom require a membership fee to participate. Before people are willing to part with their cash, they require a huge amount of persuasion, transparency, information, legal t&cs, etc. While I'm not sure how many people have paid for membership, going from Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube views:
Biracy - 856 & 453 & 1000 views
Fandom - 426 & 129 & 100 views

In roughly the same period of time a mysterious indie project called The Artifice has a teaser campaign that has attracted 3,139,986 fans on Facebook and 106,395 Youtube views!!!

I would love to tell you exactly how The Artifice achieved this phenomenal following, however the filmmakers behind it are keeping their lips sealed until after it has been launched on April 5th. [Watch this space, as they have promised to fill me in afterwards.]

However, I can take an intelligent guess. It is so much easier for someone to sign up to something when it is free - there is no psychological or financial risk attached. The Artifice didn't have to complicate the relationship with a huge amount of information, or contracts, or terms and conditions - they have only given a teaser campaign.

It's not even clear if it's a film, or a game, or an ARG, or an art project, or a mashup... it's all so very mysterious. But, with no money on the line, it's something that an audience can happily join out of curiosity.

While The Artifice has not asked for any money from these people, reading the producer's website, it's hinted that there will be a crowdfunding element at some point in the future. I suspect that The Artifice will give some content online for free, building a community of fans around the project, and then request fan funding for a larger component to be created.

This method makes a huge amount of sense to me. It's pretty hard to ask strangers for funding, but by first creating a community around free teaser content, building a relationship with a large audience, all you would need is a small proportion of these to upgrade for you to gain crowdfunding for the rest of the project.

Let's run some purely hypothetical figures:

Biracy = 1000 members x $25 = $25,000

Fandom = 600 members x $25 = $15,000

The Artifice (3 million with just 5% upgrade to pay) = 150,000 x $25 = $3,750,000

Even if The Artifice doesn't turn to crowdfunding, having 3 million facebook fans will open doors to other funding money. What investor wouldn't be impressed by a ready and waiting audience of that size?

Connecting To Niche Audiences

2010-03-19T10:00:00.002+11:00

Another ‘niche’ indie filmmaker is D.A. Sebasstian - as you can guess by the title of his films: Hot Rod Girls Save The World and Rat Rod Rockers.

“I love cars and hot rods, and work with car clubs and other car enthusiasts who donate their time and automobiles to my projects. This is also my niche market, a market I understand. I don’t make Hollywood style films. I don’t want to try and compete with $50,000,000 film budgets. I make cool little movies that people really love and sell very well for what they are.”

Go-Kustom Films has taken the microbudget DIY indie route, using CreateSpace and IndieFlix as primary online distributors.

CreateSpace is owned by Amazon, so movies instantly become publicly listed with the world’s largest online retailer (great post here from GoKustom describing dealings with CreateSpace in detail). They have also recently done a deal with Youreeeka for mobile device downloads.

Other revenue streams include a store on CafePress to sell film merchandise to fans in a no-fuss manner, the soundtrack, and fan hosted parties. This last option gives car clubs and car enthusiasts the chance to fund raise while selling the DVD at a discounted price in a win-win-win situation. Go-Kustom gets sales, buyers get the DVD cheap, and the intermediary who hosts the party gets a cut.

Go-Kustom sold 1,300 Hot Rod Girls Save The World DVDs in the first year of release, continues to see growth in sales and traffic, and sales gets a bump whenever the film is mentioned in a magazine or on TV. They pocket about $4 per DVD (after expenses), and have covered the initial costs to make the film.

Go-Kustom has also released a television series on DVD and has another film due out later this year called Rat Rod Rockers. As they continue to grow awareness of their films, website, and blog, using local, niche, and online networking, with all content targeting the same audience, they can expect that sales of their next film will be larger still.

Targeting a niche audience can be both a curse and a blessing. Obviously there is a limited audience size, however, because people tend to seek out others with their interests, it can be an audience that is easier to pinpoint.

There is a small but passionate subculture known as “Kustom Kulture” that Go-Kustom’s films appeal to. It isn’t something that I’d heard of before, but put it into Google and you’ll quickly find a festival near you. Fans of this subculture congregate at festivals and car clubs to show off their cars, bikes, fashion, tattoos, and so on – which makes Go-Kustom’s strategy of targeting people in groups a good one.

One thing this brings to mind is the argument between various filmmakers over the value of digital distribution vs the cinema event. It really shows that the best approach depends on your project, and who your target audience is. Digital distribution allows everyone in the world access to your film in a low cost non fuss manner, but sometimes it’s better to build hype in person by giving your audience something more than just the film.

Go-Kustom has covered both angles – the films are available online for purchase or download, but most effort goes into inserting it into the social space that the subculture inhabits.

What could be improved:
Go-Kustom currently has several different websites and blogs, which I think fragments the audience and makes it more difficult to navigate. It would be well worth redesigning the website to cater for all needs, and put a forwarder through so people going to www.hotrodgirlssavetheworld.com are simply redirected to the relevant page on Go-Kustom’s main website.

Operating in the indie scene, it’s always a difficult balance between earning an income vs creating your art. While Go-Kustom has covered their microbudget production costs, nobody was paid for their time, which means production had to fit around people’s paying jobs and life responsibilities. It’s okay if you consider it a hobby, but it’s not a sustainable business model.

How to improve revenue? There are no easy answers, but here are some ideas:

Approach Kustom Kulture businesses for sponsorship (e.g. tattoo parlours, car dealers, mechanics, fashion labels, magazines – and check out who advertises in those magazines)
Ask festival stall holders to stock the DVD for a cut of the sale
Do a deal with a Kustom Kulture magazine where they buy the DVD cheap to bundle into a subscription promotion to boost their own sales
Partner with other Kustom Kulture creators, so both parties sell a bundle that is your DVD plus theirs, thereby increasing reach
Fan funded: it’s great to use other people’s cars for free in the film, but can you take it one step further by convincing car owners to pay you to put their car in your film? Car enthusiasts love showing their cars off, some pay big money to get professional photos taken of their car, would they like a video clip with their car centre stage? You make your film, and cut together a 2 minute showreel showing their car off – for a price.
Create an event around your film. Is there a drive-in theatre near you? Hire it to screen the movie, have all the cars on show, the actors walking around talking to people, an entry fee, selling autographed copies of the dvd and other merchandise, have people upload photos of themselves with the actors/cars to their Facebook accounts so word spreads.
Create or integrate with an online Kustom Kulture community forum, so anyone interested in it will naturally find the film.

Does you have any additional ideas on reaching niche audiences?

Can Indie Filmmakers Survive 'Free'?

2010-03-16T16:11:00.000+11:00

Prompted by a recent blog post by Mark Barrett titled "Doctorow, Anderson and Godin, Oh My" criticising the gurus who support the notion of giving content away for free, I thought I'd discuss the argument in terms of how it applies to indie filmmakers.

For those who haven't heard of Cory Doctorow, Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, or the theory of "Free," let me give you a quick run down: in the digital age, with the cost of file distribution next to nothing, these gurus suggest that authors, filmmakers, software developers, digital content creators, etc, can benefit more from giving away digital copies than they will by sticking to a traditional user-pay-per-item system.

The basic argument against 'Free' commonly involves misunderstanding what these gurus actually mean by 'free.'

Obviously it is unsustainable for filmmakers to create content and give it away without any financial renumeration. However, if giving away some things for free boosts overall revenue, that's a pretty good trade off, right?

First step to understanding Free, is that you're not giving everything away for free. As a filmmaker, you can gain revenue in any number of ways. Off the top of my head:

Ticket sales (user pays)
DVD sales (user pays)
TV licensing (network/advertisers pay)
Product placement (advertisers pay)
Merchandise (user or cross-promoter pays)
Sponsorship (advertiser pays)
Advertising (advertiser pays)
Government grants/investment (tax payer pays)
Benefactor (benefactor pays)
Membership subscription (user pays)
Collectors items (user pays)

The trick to successfully using 'Free' in your business model is to determine which bits to give away in order to increase payment in other areas.

What is an indie filmmaker's greatest obstacle to making money from their film? I would suggest, using Doctorow's words, "The greatest threat to an artist is obscurity, not piracy." It costs money to advertise your film, it costs money to run a PR campaign in competition against the big guns, it costs more money to get noticed by traditional means than most indie filmmakers have, and as a result indie films often simply slide under the radar unnoticed.

What if, by allowing people to watch your film online for free, you were quickly and cheaply exposed to a huge audience who otherwise wouldn't know about your film? You can very easily make the film free to view on the proviso that they register or log in - thus you gain an email address and the beginning of a relationship direct with your audience.

This close proximity to your 'free' audience works well as a test market. You can track when they watch the film, whether they watch it all the way through, reevaluate who your target audience really is, ask them directly what they thought of it, create a community around the film, and request those who like it to share their thoughts on twitter, facebook, their blog, to build even greater buzz.

The greater the numbers who see your film - even if they're not paying - the more bargaining power you have with potential sponsors, advertisers, distributors, exhibitors, both to exploit the film rights and get your next project up.

To earn revenue, you seek to upgrade a proportion of those people into paying customers by giving them a range of options:

Pay what they want (Coldplay is one of the most famous examples of success in this area)
Purchase the DVD directly from you (better return for the filmmaker than in-store purchases)
Purchase additional merchandise from you
Purchase autographed/ collectors items from you
Entice them to a cinema screening or Q&A near them
Keep their email on database, letting them know about future promotions, projects, and partner offers.

Now, this might all sound like 'pie in the sky' stuff. How do you know that you will gain a greater audience, rather than canabalise it? How do you know people will pay for the film, if they can get it free?

There are never any guarantees. However, using the traditional distribution method you also have no guarantees about bums on seats or revenue.

A bonus is that profits you make online go almost entirely back to the filmmaker, as opposed to only receiving a small cut from boxoffice, rentals and in-store sales. Instore a $30 dvd may only yield $3 for the filmmaker, while for online digital distribution, a $5 sale may well mean all $5 to the filmmaker. (Less if you go through iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, or Blockbuster, etc). This direct connection between indie filmmaker and audience obviously means a better deal financially for both parties, without the unnecessary expense of all the middle men.

Ink is one film I've mentioned before that had a bump in DVD sales after the film was pirated. By releasing the film yourself for free, you can circumvent 'piracy', and gain value in both enlarging awareness of your film and building a database of potential customers (something that usually costs a filmmaker money).

Still not convinced? Well, how about taking a leaf out of Anderson's book with a modification on the above plan. He released his book "Free" digitally for free - but only for a limited time. By creating a false sense of demand (only one month in which to access it) he got a huge amount of downloads immediately, created buzz, and thanks to the proportion who upgraded to purchase, the book became a New York Times Best Seller.

And while people wonder 'why' anyone would choose to pay if they could get it for free - there are additional things to consider. Firstly, the 'upgrade' options are offering more than the free version (read Ross Pruden here about additional 'value' beyond the 'movie'), and secondly, human behaviour is such that most decent people will feel a level of indebtedness if they are given something free (read Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion). If they like it there's a good chance they'll be willing to pay something for it, and if they love it they'll buy additional stuff.

Still not into giving your movie away for free? That's okay. There are other ways to operate within the realm of Free. Going back to that first list above, you'll notice that in some instances someone other than the user can pick up the bill - such as a sponsor, advertiser, or partner. What if a third party offered to pay you $2 per view on the proviso that they could stream it to their 2 million customer with 'Brought to you by' branding? Each of those viewers would get to see the film free, but you would still receive payment.

Free doesn't mean that you don't get paid, it just means you're leveraging what you have in the best way possible to gain a balance between audience size and income - knowing that the greater the first, the more likely the second. Your use of Free does have to be carefully considered, and backed up with a business plan that includes alternative revenue streams. At the end of Anderson's "Free" is a list of fifty different business models built on Free, and while you can argue that some of these might be a tad flimsy in using the word, it certainly gives indie filmmakers something to consider beyond the traditional distribution route.

Back to Mark Barrett's post for a moment - his primary complaint, apart from an initial misunderstanding of the theory behind Free, is that it's all very good and well for famous people such as Anderson (who is editor of Wired Magazine) to make the theory work when he already has a huge paying audience, but is is fair to tell this to individual writers who have no such audience?

He has a point. However, I am inclined to believe that an individual has a better chance of building an audience for themselves in this online 'free' space than waiting for a publisher to promote them. It may not be fair, but it is the way the world works now.

Making your content available for free helps it spread furthest and fastest. Where people would otherwise have to mitigate their sense of 'risk' over the cost vs value, when there is no upfront cost they have no barrier to participate, and are more likely to try new authors and edgier content.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I bought a couple books online from a 'risky' unknown self published author due entirely to the free content that paved the way as introduction - as indie filmmakers' biggest battle is gaining awareness, I think some aspect of 'Free' should be written into every indie business plan.

If you're interested in this stuff, I recommend checking out the Filmmakers Road Map to Free by Ross Pruden too.

Creating Communities Around Content

2010-03-12T15:03:00.001+11:00

A teaser campaign for a game, The Secret World, recently caught my eye. It's a game that has been in development for over three years now, with no launch date in sight, yet it has managed to grow an active community around it. What is their secret?

Before anyone knew anything about The Secret World (TSW) the developer Funcom began releasing teaser content in the form of a series of Alternative Reality Games (ARG).

A small but dedicated community formed in May 2007 to unravel the first ARG after receiving a mysterious email via gaming sites. There were numerous puzzles to unravel the first story, with one of the rewards unlocking TSW's official forum. This initial ARG ran for less than one month, but left off with the promise that more was to come.

It wasn't till two years later that the next ARG installment began with a clue posted to the TSW forum - a forum that people still frequented! At first it wasn't clear that these two different ARGs were connected - in the two year silence there had been many false leads as pretenders tried leading the community astray. However, once the community realised it was a real ARG they got behind it for the next two months that it took to play. On finding the last solution they were given a hint that more was to come, this time "soon."

Two months later clues were found in the Twitter stream of Ragner Tornquist, a creator of TSW. This lead to two weeks of speculation and buzz on the forum as they deciphered clues, till they realised it was a teaser for the game itself rather than information pertaining to the ARG.

The game's website was updated, with more information about it being drip fed to increase continual buzz.

I love how the teaser website engages its audience and seamlessly captures email addresses without the normal psychological barriers we put up. While it has the normal 'keep me informed' option, it also invites people to do an Initiation Test for the chance to win beta access to TSW game.

By answering a few questions you are drawn into the mythology of the TSW world, told about the three ancient secret societies, and which you are most suited to join. To become an initiate - for free - you put in your email address, with benefits of membership communicated in a way that sounds much more exciting and lowers your resistance to the thought of going on their mailing list.

Conversation on the forum now came to buzz with further discussion on what they knew about the upcoming game, their secret societies, with people claiming their alliances and starting to form Cabals (guilds). More people were drawn into the swirl through the "reveal" of information in the press and the teaser website.

Four months later (January 2010) the next ARG installment began, and still continues. There is a detailed community created wiki that explains all the clues and story to date if you want to get up to speed and join in.

The ARG is being played out over twitter, blogs, Flickr, Youtube, the community forum, and simply designed websites - no expensive production values here other than the teaser (which seems to use screenshots from the gameplay). It's the story and puzzle content that makes it sticky and draws in more and more players.

At the time of writing this there have been almost 300,000 posts on the official TSW forum, not counting the wiki, fan pages, fan forums, fan fiction (role playing), Facebook fanpage, tweets, blogs, etc.

And this is all before they've even announced when the game will be out! Or how much it will cost. Or anything in any real detail.

What a tease :)

I think there's a lot that indie filmmakers can learn from this. So often we wait till right before release, and then strip naked rather than strip tease.

Give the audience some mystery, give them something to talk about, and let them become active participants in the 'reveal' - the ARG has their creative, collaborative, and problem solving juices flowing, and they're loving the anticipation, despite the long wait.

The only thing I do wonder, is whether those attracted to the ARG components are the same audience who will play The Secret World game once it is released? Your thoughts?

Piracy : It's Wrong, Don't Do It (Pt 1)

2010-03-09T10:00:00.001+11:00

If you want to stop piracy, this particular argument has already proven unsuccessful on a number of other issues: “It’s wrong, don’t do it” didn’t stop masturbation, drugs, homosexuality, rock ‘n roll, infidelity, racism, elbows on tables... you get the picture.

Part of the issue is, not everyone agrees that it is wrong. As my last post on piracy pointed out, everyone is in breach of copyright on some level, we are all in the legal “wrong,” yet many of us believe we are morally correct in minor copyright infringements.
I’m going to examine this argument broken down by the piracy subcategories discussed in last piracy post (for better or worse).

Purchaser: This person has already paid for a legal copy of the film. Now, the Purchaser might want to do a number of things that are technically in breach of copyright:

a) Burn a copy of the dvd for personal use, so that their original copy won’t get scratched.
b) Create a digital copy for use on a portable MP4 player, media gate, or computer.
c) Lend the burned dvd to a friend for their personal use (their friend being a Previewer).
d) Lend the digital copy to a friend for personal use (which actually involves making another digital copy).

All these things are technically acts of “piracy,” however, are they all morally “wrong”? Is copyright law applicable to the mores of the digital age, or does it need to be updated?

As the purchaser has already paid the fee to own the dvd and watch the film repeatedly, why does it matter if they copy it for personal use into a form that prevents destruction of the original and allows them to watch it on a variety of media?

Lending it to a friend gets a bit murkier. There are two ways of seeing this:
- You can lend the original dvd to a friend, but not the copy. (Legal argument)
- Lending a copy in digital form should be no different to lending the physical version (alternative argument).

The quandary is whether there is a difference lending a physical dvd to lending/sharing a digital copy. This is a divisional point, and both sides have good reason for the stance they take. For the purpose of finding a reasonable middle ground, I suggest:
- It’s okay to give them a burned copy if it is a ‘lending’ situation: they don’t copy it for their own collection, and they give it back after watching it. Your original purchase stays safe in your archive.
- It’s not okay to give out multiple copies. The notion is that only one version is in use at any point in time – either one in your home, or one you have leant.

i.e. The friend can watch your copy, but not have a copy to keep – they have not purchased a user license fee, so can only watch it under yours. Much like lending a book, or a jacket.

Is that reasonable? Is that fair? Should laws be updated to allow this legally?

And what should the punishment be for breach of these terms? [Keeping in mind we’re just talking about a Purchaser at this point (I’ll discuss the more serious forms of Piracy in another post), and a good many of otherwise law abiding citizens will on occasion give a burnt copy to a family member or close friend... ]

How serious is this crime compared to others misdemeanours in our society?

Library fine $2
Parking fine $197
Shoplifting $235
Aggravated littering $375
Nuisance dog barking $880
Drink driving $1,100
Common assault $2,200

What are your thoughts?

The Cosmonaut Remixed

2010-03-06T15:00:00.001+11:00

The crowdfunded Spanish film, The Cosmonaut, has moved into their next phase of creative commons community involvement. Until the end of the month people have a chance to win prizes if they remix a trailer for the film. The goal is to get 500 entries to prove to the Spanish film industry that people are eager to interact with content.

Creative commons generally means that content is released to the public freely so that they can view, mix, mash, cut, reuse the material in any way they like, so long as it is attributed and not for commercial purposes.

We want you to re-interpret [the trailer] using these cuts, the soundfiles, and anything else (any audio, any extra footage) you want to splice in. You are encouraged to do remixes in as many formats as possible, from music videos to complete narrative cut-ups for mobile broadcast. You can use any technique, taking the trailer from simple re-working through to pure abstraction.

The competition is being run in conjunction with The Auteurs, a great online film community that supports indie film. If you haven’t heard of this website yet, do check it out. It has three parts to it: a) legally view all manner of classic, indie, and international films for free or a small fee, b) a community of film literate people discussing film theory and criticism, c) a place to workshop or gain criticism of your own films.

For the "cause," I've had a bash at the remix, hope you'll take shot too to help them get those 500 entries.

The Cosmonaut - Teaser from luci temple on Vimeo.

In addition to this, the filmmakers have indicated that The Cosmonaut is a transmedia project, so there will be more to come in addition to the film itself. They’ve had flash mobs in Sol, ran a free transmedia workshop, and created an exhibition to show all the ins and outs of their project. They’ve written a nice manifesto on their blog “The Next Ten Years of Cinema” predicting how they see the future of entertainment.

Sounds exciting :)

Please help spread the word.

The value of knowing your audience when self distributing

2010-03-04T17:00:00.001+11:00

Flatland is a niche animated film which successfully used a highly targeted campaign when self-distributing. By mainstream standards, the animation would be considered a hard sell: it’s half an hour long, and it’s about mathematics. I discussed the distribution strategy behind it with Flatland creator, Seth Caplan.

Flatland: The Movie trailer from Collection Agency Films on Vimeo.

Flatland was adapted from a copyright-expired book. It has been self distributed on both DVD and digital download, with the option of either a Home Use or Educational license. The educational version came with worksheets and a copy of the book, the Home Use DVD had additional interview extras with the actors. There is also a soundtrack available for download.

Please explain your distribution strategy, why you decided to sell Flatland yourself.
Before we'd even finished the script we set up a website where we offered $5 off of the DVD in exchange for a user giving us their name and email. At this point we didn't even know how much we were going to charge for the DVD's!

The theory was, if they won't give us their email, then we know they won't pay for the movie. At first it was very slow getting email addresses (1 per day at best). But as time went on and word spread the email addresses on our site increased in frequency. By the time we finished making the movie, 18 months after we launched the page, we had over 5000 email addresses. The email addresses confirmed to us that our key audience would be math teachers. This gave us the confidence we could sell the movie directly and not sell to a distributor. This was key to our success!

How did you connect with your target audience and build buzz?
The #1 way we connected with our audience was going to math conferences and showing early scenes of the film. It wasn't glamorous and required a lot more work, travel, and cost than social media but it made a big difference. Identifying our audience (math teachers) and presenting the movie to them in their environment helped us make a better movie for our audience and made our audience more loyal to our movie.

What sort of returns have you had (ratio of DVD to download)?
Download is our highest selling product. We sell more download versions of the movie than all the DVD's combined. Revenue is a different story, we actually make more total profit off of the DVD's.

Have you considered selling additional merchandise for fans?
Our biggest move in this area was to work with Princeton University Press to publish a Movie version of the book. We sell the book from our site and Princeton Press distributes it worldwide. We also put our composers soundtrack on our site. As for t-shirts, posters and other merchandise we have considered it, but I'm not sure teachers would or could spend school money on additional merchandise.

Any tips for other indie filmmakers?
I'd recommend to pick your goals for a project first. If you're goal is to make a profit, then identify your audience and get them involved early. Show the script, scenes, trailers...constantly listen to their feedback and pay attention to what gets them excited. That audience is your customers and they are king. If you have other goals above profit (exposure of a story or cause, professional reputation or promotion, self-expression) then you don't need to worry about audience as much.

Anything you wish you'd done differently?
Made the movie faster. I think we spent a lot of time working on elements of the movie that cost time and money but have had no positive effect on sales.

***

Seth has also done distribution the traditional way on other projects. In Search Of A Midnight Kiss is a live action drama film that had a great festival run, they hired sales agents for domestic and international rights, and sold the movie to distribution companies. However, the returns for it were “minimal”. While Midnight Kill may have grossed way more than Flatland, it was Flatland that reaped a profit for the filmmaker.

“Midnight Kiss has experienced great exposure and we have met some amazing distributors who have been a joy to work with. However, financially it's not a viable model.”

When I asked Seth if there’s anything he wished he’d done differently with In Search of A Midnight Kiss, he replied “Held more rights back. We are now in the process of trying to recoup as many of the digital rights as we can. We will soon sell the movie online to territories where we can.”

Seth’s next project is called Purim, and, like Flatland, it is a niche animation - this time aimed at Jewish schools, scholars, and synagogs. With the success of Flatland's strategy, for Purim they are similarly sticking to a tightly defined niche audience, and creating lesson plans and study guides to encourage purchase of the more expensive Educational license.They are crowdfunding the budget using Kickstarter.

***

The key things that impress me about all this:

- Building a relationship with the audience right from the very beginning, before the script was even finished, and keeping them involved. With 18 months lead time, an indie film actually stands a chance to build awareness cheaply.

- Gaining the data they needed to double check they'd identified the right target audience, not making any assumptions.

- Innovative way to harvest their audience's email addresses with a no-risk "$5 off" offer. This is brilliant!

And these points can be applied to any project, regardless of how niche or microbudget.

What could be improved:

Having an easy to access blogger/media kit on the website, so people who want to write stories can quickly and easily find usable photos, trailer, logline, etc. There is a gallery and trailer on the website, but embedded within flash in a way I couldn't use ( I had to google for the image and trailer I've got here).

Piracy : Everyone’s At It

2010-03-02T10:30:00.009+11:00

There’s a hot debate between those who are vehemently against any form of “piracy” and those who can see some benefits. Firstly, let’s call piracy for what it really is – copyright infringement. Actually, no, on second thoughts, let’s stay with “piracy” for the moment: it’s more fun, conjuring up images of walking the plank at sword point’s edge :)

The thing about copyright infringement: Everyone’s at it.*
Is indignation rising to the back of your throat, as you silently voice “I am not!” ?

Here’s a quick questionnaire you can take to prove that you, unlike all those nasty pirates, have not ever infringed copyright. On the other hand, if you answer yes to any of the below, you may have to consider investing in a wooden leg.

Have you ever:
1) Made an eighties mix tape?
2) Recorded anything off the TV?
3) Transferred music from a CD you bought onto an MP3 player?
4) Printed something off the internet?
5) Retweeted someone else’s comment?

Arrrrha, me hearties! You be welcome aboard thar great grand ship known as “Piracy.”

“But... but,” I imagine some people weakly stuttering, “that’s different.”

Why is it different? Copying something that you don’t own the right to is, in a nutshell, copyright infringement. While calling it “piracy” is new, the act of copyright infringement itself is not - it wasn’t created by the internet, and it certainly doesn’t doom the entertainment industry to financial ruin.

There are a number of common myths about the serious badness of digital pirates, and while some arguments have merit, others are simply uninformed regurgitated paranoia.

Main arguments against piracy seem to be:
1) It’s wrong, don’t do it.
2) You are robbing artists of their livelihoods.
3) The whole entertainment industry will crash, thousands of jobs on the line, no one will make movies anymore.
4) You’ll be caught and bankrupted by the fines.

Before I address each of these points, I should start by making it clear: I am not saying that “it’s okay” to breach copyright. Someone who creates something does deserve the right – morally and legally – to be able to control their content. I am one of those content creators myself, and I don’t want to be ripped off the one thing I do own.

However, rather than fighting against something that is a common practice in households around the world, and one we are all guilty of to some degree, I think it’s best we come out and examine how we can find a reasonable middle ground.

Obviously some acts of copyright infringement are not as bad as others. Just like when you kill someone, there are considerations when judging seriousness of the crime:

a) Self defence (didn’t have a choice)
b) Manslaughter (it was an accident)
c) Crime of passion (impulsive)
d) Premeditated (planned it)
e) Contract killing (did it for profit)
f) Level of brutality (pleasure in inflicting pain)
g) Mass murder (did it to many times and will again, given the chance)

Calling a one-off copier a “pirate”, and using the same term for an operation that mass produces and sells illegal copies, is like calling someone who acted in self defence a “psychopath.” The term is a clear exaggeration, and the lack of sub categories is a failure to accurately measure variations in the extent of the crime.

If we want to be able to discuss this topic properly, we need to ensure that we’re comparing apples to apples, not apples to sea biscuits. Here’s my first attempt at labelling different categories of digital copyright infringers:

Purchaser: someone who makes a copy of something that they have purchased, as a back up or for multipurpose use (e.g. listening on mp3 player).

Hostage: someone who acquires an illegal copy because there is no legal alternative (e.g. old tv show that hasn’t been released for purchase, but someone has uploaded a bootleg, or recorded it off the tv).

Previewer: someone who acquires an illegal copy and, if they like it, will convert to purchase.

Pauper: someone who acquires an illegal copy because the retail price is too high - they would like to pay for it, but the price needs to be reasonable.

Thief: someone who acquires an illegal copy with no intention of ever paying regardless of whether they like it or not.

Guerrilla: someone who takes pleasure in causing havoc for the “capitalists/establishment” by spreading as many files as possible, with the argument that everything should be free to the public, not lining someone else’s pocket.

Racketeer: someone who makes multiple copies to sell as a commercial operation.

What do you think of these categories? Have I missed something? Or got it wrong? Let me know, and then in a further post I will address the arguments for and against various forms of digital copyright infringement.

*And yes, I did "pirate" that line from a Lily Allen song. Out of context, of course, and with some degree of irony, seeing she herself launched an 'anti-piracy' blog.Oh, she'd be pissed...Unless, perhaps, she realised that I'm also a 'fan' of her music who has bought her CD and paid to see her in concert. Admittedly, only after first hearing her music for FREE on Triple J. Ah, this relationship between 'free' and 'paid' is more complicated than black and white.

Viral Marketing - On Meeting An Agent

2010-02-27T15:31:00.000+11:00

Last week reading Ted Hope’s blog I came across a clever, funny, short animation, which included a web address. Clicking through to the webpage, I learned that the animation was promotion for a self published novel. I was impressed enough with what I saw on that website to purchase two copies (yes, 2!) as birthday gifts (am hoping I’ll be able to borrow at least one to read myself!).

So, today I’m doing something a little different: blogging about an author who used viral animation to promote his work.

Roland Denning is the creator of “On Meeting An Agent”, an eight part animation series promoting his self published novel “The Beach Beneath The Pavement.”

Most of my working life I've been involved with film - initially programming art cinemas, then working as a freelance cameraman/director/ filmmaker.

A few years ago I decided to cut through all the hassles involved with filmmaking and write a novel. The idea came to me when I woke up one New Years Day in Barcelona having got very stoned the night before (I mean, I did know I was in Barcelona - I hadn't got that stoned). It seemed to me writing a novel would be much simpler than getting a film made - there'd be no one else to hassle or blame, I would be in control. It seemed so simple... yeah, right.

Years and many drafts later I finished the novel, now called The Beach Beneath The Pavement. But if that was hard, trying to get it published was worse.

During the ordeal, still trying to get an agent, I decided to publish the book under my own imprint using print-on-demand.

At around the same time someone sent me an animation using xtranormal.com on line software: This is as close as you can get to instant animation - you get ready built characters and sets, and voices and lip movements are created from the text you write. It is very limited - characters can't walk or sit down (although some can dance), you can only have two characters at a time and so forth.

I decided to fictionalise my experiences with a series of eight short animations called On Meeting An Agent, featuring a robot character called Roland, who had also written a book called The Beach Beneath The Pavement.

I hasten to point out that although Roland the Robot was very bitter and angry about his experiences, I was only mildly disappointed, and the agent I met was extremely nice and reasonable. However, mild disappointment isn't funny, whereas violently bitter often is, so I had to twist the facts for the sake of art.

These films seemed to strike a chord with many people (particularly other struggling authors) and, after I sent the links to some trade publications, they began to be Twittered and blogged all over the place. In fact, they became much more successful than the book they were intended to promote, although they do seem to have encouraged one or two people to buy the books.

So for very little effort (most of the animations were completed in half a day except the final one which incorporated live action and took two days), On Meeting An Agent seemed to be quite a success.

However, one thing I have learnt is that sometimes the internet can be a very small place; you may think you are reaching out to the world when really you are addressing a very particular and quite small community - in my case, other struggling writers (and I think it is often a similar case with independent film makers).

Roland Denning

(Still looking for an agent)

Roland has not so far had great sales response. [However, it should be noted, it has only been four months since he uploaded the animations to Youtube - there is still time!].

Why did I choose to buy his book? If you watch his animations, the trailer, visit his website, or download the first three chapters of his book – it is clear he is a smart, funny and indeed a ‘good’ writer. His personality, or ‘brand’, is evident in all these areas. The question isn’t why I bought his book, but rather – why are more people not?

If you watch the series, you’ll see the Robot answers this question himself – to a degree. The ease with which we can self publish (or self produce) means we are awash with amateur content, and potential buyers are suspicious about the lack of quality control. They don’t want to waste their money.

It also seems to me that perhaps Roland has marketed his book to the wrong audience: struggling writers have no money (believe me, I know!), and often have a book of their own to hoc. They are the hardest audience to convert to purchase.

I bought this book for two people who will have no idea that it is self published. I bought it for them because I think they’ll like it. Simple as that.

The book sells through Amazon and the Book Depository (free international postage by the way), so there’s no reason why a normal online shopper would label it as ‘self-published’ if they happened upon it.

Who is Roland’s best target market? It should be the fans of authors who write similar books. He should get involved in fan forums and dazzle them with his witty comments; send copies of the book (and animation) to his favourite authors, see if they will read it and give him a quote he can use; once he’s got that quote, he can send out “newsworthy” press releases.

With self published work, getting good reviews from credible people is important. It’s also hard to get, because critics are bombarded with marketing material from big publishing companies. However, targeting niche bloggers is one avenue, emailing the animation to relevant critics and columnists as an intro is another. After watching that animation, who would turn down reading the book? And if the book is good, the reviews will come.

I'm not trying to be glib, or pretend this will result in a tidal wave of promotion and sales - but these techniques should at least ensure that the people most likely to want to read it will find out about it.

I suspect this book is one that will activate a small but strong cult following. The importance then is to give those fans tools to show their love:

1) Merchandise. There are so many funny insightful lines on the website and trailer alone that deserve recognition on a coffee cup or t-shirt. And why not sell a premium bundle direct from the author’s website that includes the author’s signature on the book and the animation series on dvd? This will increase revenue per purchaser, and also help fans show their affiliation publicly.

2) Social media – create ways for fans to connect! Links to Facebook and Twitter are much needed, keep people updated on how things are going, don’t be afraid to ask them for help. They can spread the word, or be your test market.

3) Why not make a statement like : “I need X many votes before a mainstream publisher will take it on” or “I need X many sales for me to know it’s worth writing another book,” and ask customers to help by spreading the word, writing reviews, requesting the book at their local bookshop, etc. Put a counter on your website towards the goal so people can see progress. This gives fans a clear goal, motivation, and permission to be active.

4) Blog or video blog regularly, building a following who read and link to you. Consider this a “behind-the-scenes” extra, but one that is released now as part of the marketing. This will help sell future books as well.

Yeah, it’s a lot of work for one guy, who no doubt also has to do other work to pay his bills. However, this is one area that consistent effort does yield results. If you don’t have money for a marketing budget, you can still use social media to build a presence and residual word of mouth.

So – calling all fans – if you like the animations, or the book: tweet it, blog it, digg it, spread it.

And if you want to know more the author, here's an interview with Roland Denning

"Ink" Ink A Deal With Their Fans

2010-02-25T10:00:00.004+11:00

"Ink" is an indie feature film that gained traction last October after being ripped and downloaded by the bit torrent community 400,000 times in the first week, pushing it's popularity well past Hollywood giants released at the same time.

This wasn't an intentional strategy from the filmmakers, but they embraced the heightened awareness gained from it, and saw their DVD sales and rentals quadruple as a result. However, it was far from an "overnight" success.

Jamin and Kiowa Winan began with a fairly traditional hope: shop the idea to Hollywood to gain a decent budget and name actors. When this failed, they pulled together a business plan and presented it to people they knew, small time investors, and scraped together enough to make the film with no-name actors and a small crew.

On completing their film, they entered the film into a few festivals, gained a positive reception, and looked for a distributer. However, the economy had taken a downturn, and the only distribution deals offered for Ink were back-end deals, no money upfront, with little chance of Ink's investors seeing any money back. So Jamin and Kiowa turned these deals down, choosing instead to distribute the film themselves.

Having previously taken two indie feature films on the "festival circuit", they decided that they wanted to do something different with Ink: a very short lead time between festival, theatrical, and dvd/downloads to capitalise on buzz. They go into detail on this distribution decision on their blog here.

Ink opened theatrically in their hometown of Denver, drawing on a contact list of about 500 locals. They planned to screen it for 2 weeks at the local cinema (still at this point hoping to gain a distributor who would see stubs sales as proof for a wider release), but audience demand led to a nine week run, and they found people were travelling from out of town to see the movie.

The filmmakers gained interviews with local newspapers, radio, and television, and to create extra buzz some of the screenings included Q&A's, behind-the-scenes clips, and 'in-costume' event days. Screenings were then set up in other nearby Colarado cities, and the success of ticket sales allowed the filmakers to gain screenings at indie cinemas in other cities around the US. They made good use of social networking sites and their blog to mobolise fans to each of the screenings.

By this stage the filmmakers realised a distributor wasn't about to help them out. They wanted to convert their fans from theatrical to dvd purchase while they still had the opportunity, so they released the dvd while they were still doing screenings - selling it off their website.

It was at this point in time, October 2009, that the dvd was ripped by a buyer and put on file sharing sites - where it went off big time. In the space of a weekend, Ink jumped from #12,991 on IMDB to #16, ahead of most major Hollywood movies - and it stayed in the Top 200 for two months.

They've written a couple blog posts on their thoughts at the time on their movie being "pirated": on the whole they chose to embrace the publicity that came with it - it made their film way more well known. They also added a button on their website so that people who had watched the film for free could make a donation to the filmmakers (this was at the request of one of the file-sharing fans!).

Within a couple of weeks Ink was also added to Netflix, Blockbuster, iTunes (where it got up to #4) and Amazon as additional ways for people to rent or purchase the film. A month later Hulu picked it up for free viewing, if you are in the US [the rest of the world is locked out of Hulu thanks to geolocking :( ]

The official Ink store sells autographed copies of the DVD (with director commentary & behind the scenes clips), poster, soundtrack and t-shirt. They plan to edit the extensive behind-the-scenes footage into it's own feature length documentary for release later this year.

What they did right:
- Created a tightknit local fanbase
- Made friends with the local mainstream media (radio, TV, newspapers) as well as festival blogs.
- Added value to their screenings, so it became an event rather than just a movie.
- Took the local buzz online, communicating through social networking sites & blog that helped spread word of mouth.
- Simultaneous release, so if people liked it, they could buy it immediately (rather than forgetting about it and needing prompting a year or so later when they might be less interested).
- Great public response to the 'pirating' success - instead of getting those 500,000 people offside, they engaged with them, encouraged them to spread the word, and provided them with multiple ways to purchase or donate if they liked the movie.
- Added value to the DVD's they're selling through the store by autographing them all.
- Website makes it easy to connect to them through Twitter, Facebook and Youtube

What could be improved:
- They have made 3 different trailers, the last (and best one in my point of view) is not on their main webpage.
- The website needs a site map and a media kit... a lot of great information is buried in the Double Edge Film Blog, but this isn't easily findable for bloggers and media looking for quick facts and marketing collateral. Make it easy for people to write a story! And easier still to spread the trailer and poster image... I've had to search for both of these to get the right code for my blog.

By the way, while it might not be the easiest to navigate, their blog has a lot of great candid insights for budding filmmakers, cataloging their journey, and they've done a number of interviews where you can get more info about them.
Double Edge Films Blog
Torrentfreak interview
Hulu interview
Video 20 Questions Podcast (have to sit through some boring 'Mac' talk to get to the good stuff).

And thanks to Ross Pruden who tipped me off about Ink, he runs a great blog on indie film distribution and social media.

Biracy evolution

2010-02-23T16:08:00.001+11:00

Taking on board all the feedback and comments they've received, Biracy has redesigned their website, restructured information to make it easier to follow, and clarified several things. I'm really happy to see this project take form - the fact they are actively listening and responding to their audience proves they have the right attitude for this transocial media stuff :)

They've widely opened up communication channels, making great use of Twitter to source questions, with regular vlogs, and really get into the nitty gritty of why they are doing things the way they are.

One thing I loved in their new trailer is the explanation of the SoKap platform that the Biracy project runs off. SoKap will become available to other film producers to help them crowd fund and/or crowd source their projects. SoKap stands for "Social Capitalism" - they even explain the use of the "K" (SoKap instead of SoCap) in a manner that shows these guys are down to earth and likeable, rather than wanky and pretentious.

They've done a really good job of explaining it all in a number of videos, and I strongly recommend checking them out. Some of the things I didn't understand earlier are now clear, and I'm certainly appreciative.

Another thing I really like about Biracy and the SoKap platform is the focus on mutual benefit, for filmmakers and participants. Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing are buzz words at the moment, but for every well intentioned non-profit project, there is a commercial company using the technique in a fairly exploitative manner. For example, I get sick of advertising companies running "competitions" that ask for a large outlay of participants' time and energy (and sometimes money in the form of purchase & text messages), with one insignificant main prize, and no recognition to all the other participants.

Biracy has gotten around this by creating two different reward systems:

1) The first relates to sales / referrals - members gain a tiered commission for anyone they refer who purchases a membership. Once the film is completed, they can also gain a commission on any sales they make of the film. This is a cash payment back to participants.

2) The second reward system is a virtual currency. All members gain virtual currency for participating in the crowdsourcing efforts, whether through voting, polling, or contributing creatively by drawing a design for the film itself. This virtual currency has 'deferred' value - it is only after the film gains returns that it will be translated into a value that can be used. It is not ever translated into cash, but can be used to buy merchandise or membership into another film project on the SoKap platform.

There is also a huge prize to the member who accumulates the most of this virtual currency on Biracy: they will gain an Associate Producer credit and 1% or film profits.

It should be stressed, the above forms of reward are in addition to receiving a dvd copy of the movie. People not interested in the referral system or virtual currency still get reasonable value in so much that $25 pre-buys them a dvd of the film.

Biracy has explained why they have chosen this method of rewards, to skirt potential legal ramifications of crowd "investment", with Ross Pruden here.

That's something worth noting for anyone interested in crowdfunding: each country clearly has different laws, and while The Cosmonaut and The Age of Stupid could ask for "investment" and donations without legal implications, their systems won't necessarily work in the US.

And, it is a reason why I am further impressed with the SoKap platform : they seem to have engineered it in a manner that should work internationally. If Biracy achieves it's membership goals, we could very well see a whole swath of international indie films jumping on the SoKap platform.

While there are already tools for indie filmmakers to crowdfund, like IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, ChipIn, Flattr, and TipiT, I suspect many filmmakers using them haven't investigated potential tax and legal repercussions.

For peace of mind to those crowd funding the project, the SoKap platform (and biracy) have in place more sophisticated measures to lower associated risks. For example, all proposed productions are required to have a completion bond, insurance that the film will be made, differentiating legitimate projects from potential scamsters. This is an area that other crowdfunding projects have often overlooked - leading sceptics to argue that those raising the money may just take the money and run.

As I have mentioned before - full disclosure - I have purchased an Icon membership from biracy. I hope nonetheless that my comments here can maintain impartiality without being considered a "sell".

Or, at least, not too much of a sell.... Use my referral code: jibarmprojection87 ;)

There are still elements that in a perfect world I'd like to see modified, such as the ability for virtual currency to be paid out as cash if a member chose to, however I realise that there are legal quandaries that I only have a partial grasp of.

If anyone has more knowledge in this area - potential legal pitfalls of crowdfunding in various countries - please speak up. It's something I'd really like to investigate so we could put together some plain speak do's and don'ts for filmmakers operating out of Australia, US, and UK.

Previous posts on biracy:

crowdfunding-indie-film-biracy-case-study

biracy-crowdsourcing-model-part-ii