I want to talk a bit about online film distribution, true independent film, and Apple’s opportunity to transform the landscape, not just shuffle things around. First let me lay out a few facts:

1. The iTunes Store is currently the #1 music retailer in the world.
2. Apple describes iTunes as ”a free application for your Mac or PC. It organizes and plays your digital music and video on your computer. It keeps all your content in sync. And it’s a store on your computer, iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV that has everything you need to be entertained. Anywhere. Anytime.
3. Steve Jobs stated in his Sept 1, 2010 keynote when unveiling the next generation appleTV that “people don’t want [to watch] amateur hour” (referring to the desire by consumers to watch “Hollywood” movies on demand with their digital TV technologies).
4. Independent musicians (that is to say, self published) can easily get their songs or albums in the #1 music store by paying a nominal fee to a distributor like Tunecore or CDBaby. (Yes, you still have to promote it, but it’ll be there in the world’s #1 music store.)

Let me lay out a few more facts, specific to video and other media in the iTunes Store:

1. Similarly with music, filmmakers can pay a fee to FilmBaby (same company as CDBaby) to make your feature film available in various channels (including iTunes).
2. There are short films on iTunes, but they are either Disney/Pixar films or distributed through Shorts International. Everyone else is barred, even through a distributor like Filmbaby, from selling shorts through iTunes. There are a couple exceptions of shorts done directly, but not many, and most are awful.
3. You may contact Apple directly about selling your feature film individually through iTunes. In most cases (mine included), they will sit on your request for 6-8 months before saying “no thanks.”
4. Any individual can sell books through iTunes’ iBook Store.
5. Any individual can sell Apps thorough iTunes’ App Store.

There are a few potential reasons for these inconsistent and silly rules, and several unfortunate effects.

One reason may be that Apple wants to set a very high barrier for entry to sell films, and requiring that all but a precious few films be feature length is certainly one way to do it. It’s tremendously difficult to make a feature film (having done a couple), and Apple is less likely to have moronic student films inundating the channel (however, notice that YouTube is prominent on the new appleTV.). However, this is akin to having the greatest music store in the world and only allowing operas to be sold. Short films are not a lesser form, they are a different form, and allowing exactly two flavors of short film (awesome Pixar films and overwrought Academy Award fare) deliberately excludes some of the most exciting cinema out there. There are astonishing works of experimental film, video art, and un-categorizable storytelling that should be seen more widely.

Not wanting “amateur hour” may be another reason behind it. Furthering the “walled garden” concept from the App Store (a concept that I agree with). However, it’s easy to find utter crap at the iTunes movie store (random search: I found “Miss Conception”… Rotten Tomatoes gives it 8%), not to mention the App Store (insert boob/fart app here). One speculation is that films (such as my shorts and features) submitted directly to Apple get rejected if they are or had ever been available for free (as mine are). This may be true, but is not logical or consistent. That venerable institution of safe indy films, Sundance, offered many videos on iTunes for free (not though the ignominious invisibility of video podcasts, through the actual store) and are now selling them (like the excellent “This Way Up“). So wait, was limited-time-free thing supposed to spur future sales or kill the ability to charge for it later? Pick a lane! (oh, it’s distributed by Shorts now. So I guess it’s ok then.)

*deep breath*

There are reasons to give films away, I am all for it, I’m doing it now. What I’d really like to do is give-some-sell-some work away under the banner of the currently greatest media store in the world. I’ve got a huge track record, I’ve got awards out the wazoo, so do many of my friends who make brilliant and obscure work. So why not make it possible for video artists to compete on the same playing field, just like they do in the App Store?

Why not? The infrastructure is there. What harm could come from it? Unless the restrictions are part of private negotiations with film and TV studios in their ongoing attempt to restrict the channel as much as possible. I’m guessing this is the case. Film studios have never and will never want individual makers to be able to connect to audiences directly and actually profit from it, they maintain that they much be the gatekeepers of profit, and everything else must be relegated to “amateur hour.”

That said, I pre-ordered a second-gen appleTV. It’s a brilliant agent of chaos, and I want it to destroy the current film distribution landscape. I have hope: when the iTunes Music Store started it had DRM all over it and limited selections, but as it wrestled control from the stultifying uncreative music labels, it began to reshape the music world. Jobs wrote his treatise on DRM and within the year it was gone. It’s now unfettered by bullshit DRM and and the art form is a little bit more free.

May it be so with film and video art.

Photographers Rights Gray Card Set – PetaPixel Store

Keep in mind, however… these only work for sure in the United States. Also note in right #10: an easy way around it is to arrest you.

Ross’s philosophical exercises get to the heart of the reason the industrial studio model of movie production in the US is doomed. His extended reasoning and logical exercises lead to the inexorable conclusions that a.) “free” is merely another price and b.) it’s probably the best price you can set for a work of media… but the conclusions hold firm regardless of model, “industrial” or “indy.”

I started making my films available for “free” in the late 90′s (when it was a lot harder to get it to work, and even harder to be sure that people would be able to watch!). I distinctly remember a moment at a film festival where a moderately well known pseudo-avant-garde filmmaker (who I will not mention because I think his work is awful) was publicly berating me for “giving my films away.” In his mind, I was doing irreparable harm to him and to filmmaking in general by making it so that people would expect films to be free.

I knew it was bullshit, and that this guys was having a get-off-my-lawn moment with a young whippersnapper who was daring to try and impinge upon his God-given spotlight. But I didn’t really know WHY it was bullshit, and didn’t feel inclined to figure it out. My thanks to Ross Pruden for articulating it.

(For those who care about the details, Vimeo finally released an embeddable HTML5 player, only 8 months after they first started hinting about it.)

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America

But how can we keep the current system of capitalizing on discoveries alive if these assholes are focusing on HEALING?

I’ve been looking forward to this since last August. As I write this, members of the University Film and Video Association are convening in beautiful Burlington, VT. Just walking down to help install art in the New Media galleries, I ran into friends I’d not seen in a year… a few I hadn’t seen in even longer… and I remember why I keep coming back to the UFVA Conference. People, people, and people.

Champlain College is small, lovely, and it’s all ours this week. Karen Klove and her colleagues have done exemplary work setting up this conference. The events you know and love are back in full force, there are a few new events, and maybe a few surprises.

I strongly recommend that you spend some time with the online schedule, and take advantage of the ability to build a personalized schedule with the new “My Conference Schedule” function.

Some things I’d like to point out that might not be obvious to conference attendees this year:

• The Welcome session on Wednesday morning will serve as your orientation to the conference, as well as a marvelous surprise guest speaker.
• Saturday at 3:30pm there will be a “Fond Farewell” session to remember pioneering members who passed away this year: Herb and Bea Farmer, George Wehbi, Skip Landon, and Ned Hockman.
• Saturday at 10:30am we have a new session that we are experimenting with… the UFVA Awards / Kodak Scholarship Screening! At this brunch session we will screen highlights from the UFVA Juried Screening Awards of Merit, Carole Fielding Grant winners, and the Kodak Scholarship winners.

As you go about the conference, I hope you’ll take advantage of some of our social media endeavors:

• UFVA on Facebook
• The UFVA Flickr Group
• Mark your tweets with #UFVA on Twitter

It’s going to be a great conference… I look forward to spending time with you this week!

Simon

–
Simon Tarr
UFVA Conference Vice-President

(actually, please don’t give me this. I am the very person who would accidentally pour coffee onto the front element of my actual lens.)