provocative.objects: the extradition is co-curated by lou suSi and yours truly, working with the Bureau of cyberSurreal Investigation. Together we have selected for you a collection of works by a diverse array of artists, designers, and performers. Come experience an immersive sound installation, interactive sculptures, live performances, a video loop, and music, along with an assortment of tasty snacks and beverages. this one-evening exhibition/event will close with live music by local rockers stereo soul future, featuring christopher field.

Exhibiting artists include: Phillippe Lejeune, Ellen Godena, Alberto Negredo, Alison Kotin, Chris Basmajian, Christopher Field, Colin Owens, Courtney Brown, Courtney Lockemer, cyber sir eel kolectiv, Daniel Buckley, Daniel DeLuca, Dwayne Butcher, Elizabeth Mead, Ellen Lake, Joseph ‘Puppy’ Wight, Joshua Dolby, David Tames, Laugh Foundation, Laura Amador, Lauren McCarthy, Leigh Wells, Lewis Gesner, lou suS, Mary Rachel Fanning, Mauri Lehnoten, , Scott Murray, Stacy Scibelli, and X Y.

The event is presented under the aegis of the Dynamic Media Institute (DMI) at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. DMI offers a creative environment wherein graduate students from many disciplines explore the evolution of interactive art and communication design through new media. Through events like provocative.objects: the extradition, students, alumni, faculty, and friends of the program explore interactive storytelling, documentary, dynamic media design, video games, performance art, musical composition, and more.

I hope you will be able to join us for this special evening, for more information, point your browser to provocativeobjects.com (the site is evolving and will become the exhibition catalog by the end of November).

Original post: The annual must-attend event for professional film, video, and new media makers in New England is right around the corner! Register now for Making Media Now 2010, hosted by Filmmakers Collaborative. This year the theme is “The Changing Media Landscape: How do we keep up?” The conference will kick off with a reception & networking event at The Microsoft Center (One Memorial Drive, Cambridge) on Friday evening, Nov. 5, 2010, followed by an all-day conference at the Boston University School of Management (595 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston) on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2010. Visit the Making Media Now 2010 web page for more details and to register for this event. The lineup of speakers includes: David Grubin (David Grubin Productions), Diana Ingraham (Silverdocs), Joel Coblenz (DP/Executive Producer), Bill Gentile (American University), Arin Crumley (Open Indie), Cynthia Lopez (P.O.V.), Ted Richane (Cause & Affect), Shaady Salehi (Active Voice), Peter Rhodes (editor), and more! If you are involved in the film, video, or new media industry in New England, this is where you will want to be on Saturday, Nov 6th.

Check out this link: www.berwickinstitute.org/bri/bumpkinisland for more details and information about the special Art Encampment boat shuttle that will deliver you directly from Boston to the island and back to the mainland! If you’re thinking of going, reserve a space on the boat now, as it will fill up and the alternatives are painful for they involve changing boats, the direct ferry is the best way to get there and back!

I’m involved this year as a project fellow documenting the Encampment. I will make the footage accessible to both participating artists and the public, working with interested collaborators to develop a participatory documentary on the project. If you visit this weekend, please consider making media (sketching and/or taking photos and/or recording audio and/or shooting video and/or writing) of your experience and sharing it with me. Contact me if you would like more details about my project.

Update, October 12, 2010

Here are some of the photos I took at the encampment this year:

Photo: Kate Dodd, “Ebb and Flow, ” 2009 Bumpkin Island Art Encampment, photo by Patrick Johnson.

There’s something for everyone: Get your feet wet with Documentary Video Boot Camp, hone your camera skills with The Documentary Camera, learn the ins and outs of producing with Producing the Documentary, study the art of editing with Editing the Documentary, make a complete short film from concept to fine cut (with a public screening in the Fall) in Documentary Project Studio, or take your editing skills to the next level in Advanced Editing with Final Cut Pro. Each of these classes provides a special opportunity to learn from practicing filmmakers who not only have a breadth and depth of professional experience, but are also passionate teachers who will challenge and inspire you to learn and grow in ways not easily done on your own.

MPFV230 The Documentary Camera
Instructor: Steve Maing
Meets: Jun 28 to Jul 2, M-Tr,9a-5:30p
1.5 cr. $614 Info/Register
Have you already taken Introduction to Video Production, Documentary Video Boot Camp, or the equivalent? Now take your camerawork to the next level with this class! Learn how you shape your film through the camera, and how that shapes the message. The week will include daily hands-on exercises, viewing and critique, and a segment on on-location sound.

MPFV232 Editing the Documentary
Instructor: Bill Anderson
Meets: Jul 6-Jul 9, Tu-F, 9a-5p
1.5 credits, $449 Info/Register
This workshop uses exercises to cover all stages of post production for both documentary and dramatic film editing: capturing media; logging; first cut; revised cuts; sound (production, effects, and music); visual effect; color correction. Familiarity with Final Cut Pro is helpful but not required.

MPFV208 Producing the Documentary
Instructor: Maria Agui Carter
Meets: Jun 21-Jun 25, M-F, 9a-3:30p
1.5 Credits, $449 Info/Register
From defining the parameters of a producer’s responsibilities to learning how to maximize production dollars, this is an invaluable crash course in how to take a film from idea and proposal to reality.

MPFV217 Documentary Projects Studio
Instructor: Yours truly
Meets: Jul 13-Aug 31, Tu, 6p-10p
3 Credits, $908 Info/Register
A studio course for students who want to produce their own short documentary and already have basic camera and editing skills. Through weekly milestone meetings you will be guided through the phases of research, planning, production, post-production, and distribution of a short documentary

MPFV218X Advanced Editing with Final Cut Pro
Instructor: Janet Gilmore
Meets: Jul 31-Aug 8, Sa & Su, 10a-4:30p
1.5 credits, $524 [Info/Register]
This course takes an in-depth look beyond the introductory level at the art of editing using Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Techniques will include motion effects, compositing, project management and finishing techniques.

MPFV225 Documentary Video Boot Camp
Instructor: Yours truly
Meets: Jun 14 to 18, M-F, 9a-4:30p, optional editing lab, Th, 4:30p 8:30p
1.5 credits, $614 [Course Full]
An immersive, hands-on experience for beginners who want to dive into learning the fundamentals of video documentary. Exercises, screenings, discussions, and critiques will expose you to a range of storytelling, aesthetic, and artistic issues. This class is currently full, however, it will be offered again during the January 2011 inter-session.

Check out additional Film/Video courses at MassArt this summer. What better way to spend one or more weeks this summer?

On Sunday, before returning to Boston, I went to MoMA to see “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present,” a retrospective of four decades of her performance art presenting a fascinating mix of documentary films, objects on display, interviews with the artist running in a four-hour loop, live re-staged performances of some of her works including “Nude with Skeleton,” “Luminosity,” and “Imponderabilia,” and the centerpiece of the exhibition, “The Artist is Present.” In the vast MoMA atrium, we find Abramovic live and in person dressed in a minimalist flowing blue gown. Visitors can sit across from her at a table and lock gazes with her in silence, surrounded by museum goers, bathed in intense white light coming from four directions (provided by eight 1,200 Watt HMI lighting instruments blasting through four large silks placed in the corners of the space, the lighting geek in me could not help but notice how the performance was lit).

It’s quite a challenge to document and/or preserve performance art, which is such an ephemeral medium, and the live re-creations in a museum setting not only offers us a glimpse of her work, but also offers a meditation on the role of live performance in our completely media-saturated culture, elevating this exhibition way beyond what a documentary film or the run-of-the mill documentation-oriented show can accomplish. I think there is a real hunger for liveness in our culture, a response to the overly commercialized mass media experience, with so many of our interactions mediated, even when they are personal. One of the pieces is four hours of interviews with Abramovic and it was quite fascinating to take a break from the tumultuous exhibition, put in the headphones, and listen to her words for a while.

You can’t really document performance art, but in terms of degrees, “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present” comes about as close as one can expect and is a show worth spending lots of time walking through, perhaps even a second time (as I did after listening to her interviews for a while). I’ve become interested in the challenge of documenting the ephemeral, and to see how her work was documented in a museum context both live and mediated was fascinating to me. If you live anywhere near New York, you should make the trek to this exhibition and allow yourself plenty of time to take it all in.

Related:

• Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, MoMA exhibition page, show runs March 14th trough May 31, 2010
• “Performance Art Preserved, in the Flesh,” exhibition review by Holland Cotter, New York Times, March 11, 2010
• “Who’s Afraid of Marina?” by Randy Kennedy, New York Times, March 19, 2010
• “The Anxiety of Influence,” by Tatiana Berg, BOMB Blog, March 29, 2010
• “Fragments from The Conversation 2010 (March 27, New York),” previous blog post

Vendors showing gear at the show include Panasonic, Canon, Sony Professional, JVC Professional, Aja Video Systems, Manfrotto, Sachtler, Sennheiser, Anton Bauer, Shure, GlideCam, and several others. In addition to the vendor booths, there are a variety of workshops (fee based) and vendors seminars (free) scheduled during the course of the two days. This year I’ll be doing three of the workshops, two are new, one is an update from last year bought back by popular demand:

The LED Lighting Revolution [NEW]
(Friday, March 12, 10:00 A.M. to 11:50 P.M.)
In spite of energy savings, reduced carbon footprint, and long life, LEDs continue to be under utilized in video production, primarily due to their high initial cost. We’ll take a look at recent advances in LED lighting by leading light manufacturers and demonstrate how you can incorporate innovative LED lighting in your production today and in the future. This session will consist of presentation, discussion, and demonstration of several LED lighting instruments currently available on the market. The session is designed for both beginners and intermediate videographers.

Seven Habits of Highly Successful Interviewers
(Friday, March 12, 1:00 P.M. to 2:50 P.M.)
The interview is a fundamental element of many documentary films, podcasts, and corporate videos. Through examples and discussion this session will cover practical strategies and techniques including how and why to use interviews, how to choose the right interview style (e.g. walk-and-talk vs. formal sit-down), how to choose a form of address (e.g. first-person vs. third person), tips for preparing for an interview, suggestions for putting subjects at ease, and most importantly, the seven habits of highly successful interviewers. The session is designed for both beginning and intermediate videographers and documentary filmmakers.

The Hatchback Production Kit [NEW]
(Saturday, March 13th, 1:00 P.M. to 2:50 P.M.)
I will discuss my compact video production kit, which is designed to fit completely in the hatchback of a compact car. It has been optimized for air-travel, and can be transported by a single person in a pinch. I will demonstrate and discuss the tradeoffs that went into selecting each item in the kit, as well as range of viable alternatives to accommodate your own set of requirements or preferences. The complete kit includes camera, lighting, grip, sound, camera support, and even make-up! If you’re a videographer trying to achieve the highest production values with a modest amount of gear, this session will provide you with the strategies, guidelines, and recommendations that will help you achieve that goal.

If you’re planning to attend the show, I look forward to seeing you there!

You can view more photos and a rough cut of Alice Apley’s video “Traces” by visiting the project page at kino-eye.com/traces/

Shooting at the farm house on Bumpkin Island

Podcamp Boston 4 will take place this weekend at University of Massachusetts, Boston – Campus Center. Here’s some info from the site: “If you’re wondering what’s next in social media, there’s no better place to find out than at PodCamp, regardless of whether you’re just getting started or you’re a veteran practitioner. Unlike other conferences which are just talking head affairs, PodCamp gives you the opportunity to learn, share, and grow your skills at any level, helping your community as it helps you. This year, we’re aiming to answer the question of what’s next – what’s next for podcasting, blogging, social media, and the crazy 2.0 world we live in. We’re featuring sessions specifically focused on your questions and the answers to them – provided not just by “experts” but by your peers and colleagues as we all learn, share, and grow our social media skills.” Here are the essential links:

• Podcamp Boston
• Registration ($50 registration fee, you must pre-register as they will not be registering people at the door)
• Schedule of Events
• Directions to University of Massachusetts, Boston Campus Center
• A helpful post from Jeff Pulver on how to get more out of Podcamp

Please be sure to follow @podcampboston on Twitter for up to the minute changes/details.

See you there on Saturday!

HERSKOVITS AT THE HEART OF BLACKNESS, 57 minutes, 2009, Produced by Llewellyn Smith, Vincent Brown and Christine Herbes-Sommers, a co-production of Vital Pictures and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Executive Producer for ITVS Sally Jo Fifer.

For readers in the Boston area, HERSKOVITS AT THE HEART OF BLACKNESS screens as part of the Roxbury Film Festival on Saturday, August 1st, 2009 at 3:30 PM at Wentworth University. It’s currently making the rounds at film festivals, so you should be able to catch it soon in your area. It will also screen on PBS stations as part of the Independent Lens 2009-2010 season. An institutional and educational DVD edition (see link below) is available from California Newsreel. I think that every library and school should consider adding this film to their collection.

Links:

• Trailer on YouTube
• Roxbury Film Festival Site
• Purchase Tickets for Roxbury Film Festival screening on August 1, 2009
• California Newsreel
• Vital Pictures

Register now for this must-attend event, and do it now to avoid higher last-minute registration fees. I plan to be there on June 5th, and I hope you’ll consider joining me for this wonderful day. The event is organized by Filmmakers Collaborative, a non-profit organization that has been serving independent filmmakers for over two decades and Making Media Now has become the premiere New England independent film conference.

Practical Sound Recording and Editing Techniques For Better Video
Friday, March 20th, 3:00pm to 5:00pm, Poolside Room, Fee: $25.00
(REGISTER NOW)
Sound is half the picture, yet most often it receives only casual attention. Viewers can’t articulate what’s wrong, but quite often it’s the soundtrack that either engages or distances them. This session will present practical techniques and a guide to the tools for recording and editing sound for video that will improve your work whether you are a beginning or intermediate video maker. Real-world problems in a range of shooting situations and their solutions will be presented. Discussion topics include microphone selection and placement, recording strategies for noisy locations, improving intelligibility of dialog, mixing in music without interfering with dialog, making sure your video sounds good on a wide range of devices, and doing it all in a manner that flows nicely with video editing. Special attention will be paid to working on a tight budget and getting the most out of modest gear.

Lighting Techniques for Better Documentary Interviews
Saturday, March 21st, 3:00pm to 5:00pm, Room TBA, Fee: $25.00
(REGISTER NOW)
This session will present through discussion, examples, and demonstration a practical approach to lighting documentary interviews ranging from low-budget existing light and one light techniques to classic three-point lighting and beyond using professional lighting instruments. The first half of the session will cover lighting fundamentals, a survey of popular lighting fixtures, screening of examples with a discussion of aesthetic and technical tradeoffs, and suggestions for putting together a kit based on your specific needs. The second half of the session will consist of demonstration using a variety of lighting gear so participants can gain some practical experience with the topics discussed during the first half of the session.

If you live in the Boston area and are interested in video production or post-production, this is the place to be on March 20th and 21st, 2009. A schedule of workshops (for fee) and free seminars is available at the Camera Company web site in the near future.

The Berwick Research Institute joined with the Island Alliance and Studio Soto to present the 2nd Annual Artist Encampment, a "homesteading" experience on Bumpkin Island, Boston Harbor Islands, on Labor Day weekend, August 28-September 1, 2008.

Ten artists and artist collectives were each given one plot of prime, arable land on Bumpkin Island. As island "homesteaders" during the five days, they built temporary shelters on the land, lived on the land for four nights, and improved the land via site-specific project or performance. The various installations I managed to see (text borrowed from artist encampment project descriptions) while I were:

New England Expeditionary Alliance: Dedalus Wainwright, Bryan Long, Michael Andelman and Jeff Cleary – A scientific mission that mapped Bumpkin Island’s metaphorical, literal, and sensual parameters, Alliance members lead expeditions, generated hypotheses, established a classification system, created analysis, and gave lectures on their findings.

Astrodime Transit Authority: Bebe Beard, John Gayle, Ali Horeanopoulos, Mary Ann Kearns and Sam Smiley – C Celebrated the 150th year of the first attempt to lay the Transatlantic Cable by creating Bumpkin Island’s first "trans-gut" phone.

Spirits in the House: Then & Now: Sharon Haggins Dunn explored change and continuity of natural and human forces over time and the spirituality of place in an installation based mostly on materials from the ruins of the children’s hospital that was operated on the island.

The Camoufleurs: Hanna Rose Shell and Dan Hisel: Drawing on artisanal weaving techniques, military concealment strategies, and bird nesting practices, the camoufleurs transformed their land, and its particular human and natural ecology, into a camouflaged homestead environment.

Stone House, Urban City: Wenxiong Lin, Lynn Lee, Jens Stenger, Annie Wilker – Juxtaposing two themes of time (history and modernity; reality and romanticism), the artists created a model urban city in the stone farmhouse ruins, and framed windows of the naval mess hall ruins with brightly colored curtains.

Leave one for your ancestors, one for your children, and take one: Tiffany Dumont, Else Eaton, Raymond Garrett, Rory Jackson – Artists foraged island materials to create interactive, multimedia installations based on past, present and future. Artists encouraged visitors to add to the pieces, forage responsibly, and participate in performance.

Tactilist Theatre: Erik Conrad engaged in sensory deprivation for a week on the mainland, allowing him greater sensitivity as he identified island objects according to their tactile values. Arranged on the island in "theatre of touch," the artist, in the role of impressario, invited visitors to engage in a narrative performance based on a tactile values.

Survival Kit: Gabe Moylan & Rachel Roberts: Living off only the bare-bones survival kit provided by the Federal Emergency Management Association, the artists will use island-found objects to recreate family photos, common domestic objects and items of spiritual value often overlooked in disaster recovery.

Navigating The Distribution Divide

Lance Weiler (filmmaker and DIY Days co-organizer) gave a presentation comparing traditional independent film distribution and a hybrid DIY model. Much has been written about the erosion of the independent film distribution business over the past year, including the widely circulated and discussed “Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling” message delivered by Mark Gill at the Los Angeles Film Festival’s Financing Conference.

Many distribution companies have closed, specialty films are experiencing lackluster box office results, and with the replacement of video stores with big-box retailers, shelf space for independent films is shrinking. And all of this is happening at the same time the supply of independent films is skyrocketing due to the democratization of production, post-production, and distribution. Here’s a juicy quote from Mark Gill’s piece in IndieWire:

Here’s how bad the odds are: of the 5000 films submitted to Sundance each year– generally with budgets under $10 million–maybe 100 of them got a US theatrical release three years ago. And it used to be that 20 of those would make money. Now maybe five do. That’s one-tenth of one percent.

Put another way, if you decide to make a movie budgeted under $10 million on your own tomorrow, you have a 99.9% chance of failure.

OK, so we have a problem, but where are the new business models? What models can independent filmmakers use to get their film in front of an audience?

Lance’s presentation slides are available as a PDF download: diydaysBoston.pdf (the two charts in this post are from the presentation).

Lance began his discussion with an explanation of current release windows, which is rapidly compressing due to changes in the marketplace. Right now, mainstream distributors think in terms of the following windows and in this order for the most part:

1. Festivals: indie filmmakers have traditionally seen this as a gateway to a distribution deal and did not have to worry about the other windows, I think a classic example of the old way is Darren Aronofsky’s Pi, the film premiered at Sundance where it picked up an award and the producers quickly sealed a distribution deal, however, this is rarely the case for independent filmmakers, these stories are exceptions to the rule, and it’s becoming more and more rare with the decline of speciality film distributors. Arin Crumley and Susan Buice’s Four Eyes Monsters, provides a classic example of the more realistic and difficult DIY model, none of the specialty distributors saw a way to make money with the film, however, the film did indeed find an audience, but the filmmakers had to take distribution into their own hands (which at this point has been written about widely, it has become an excellent case study).
2. Theatrical: classically this has been the window after festivals, but a lot of studios now start with a single festival and go right into wide release, classically the independent filmmaker’s goal was to get a distribution deal that included a theatrical release, and this “builds value in the ancillaries” and is an effective marketing campaign for for all the other forms of release of the film (home video, pay-per-view, etc), but this is becoming more and more expensive to do, and independent specialty films are being shut out as the number of screens for specialty films dwindles, distributors are taking less risks, and audiences for specialty films are increasingly watching them at home rather than in a theater.
3. Pay-Per-View: 90 to 100 days, only a few ways to get into cable and telcos, only a few players here, pay-per-view has been good for Lance, he’s managed to negotiate deals for this, his suggestion is to carve out each release window and negotiate rights separately, this can be very complicated, but worth it in the end, as you retain control of the destiny of your film.
4. Home video and DVD.
5. Pay cable, black-out deal, no competitive releases are allowed.
6. Basic cable.
7. Network TV.
8. Internet. Right now this is seen as the last window, but this is certainly on the verge of change with a growing number of aggregators and online distributors experimenting with direct distribution models. There is lots of room for innovation and experimentation in this window.

This multi-tiered strategy offers exclusivity to each exhibition and distribution entity in the value chain during its particular stage of release. In essence, each tier operates as an exclusive window in which an exhibitor or distributor may screen the film. Day and date, on the other hand, eliminates exhibition and distribution exclusivity, as more than one entity in the value chain (e.g. theater chain, DVD distributor, internet aggregator) is allows to show the film at the same time. Historically theatrical releases have had the largest advertising budget because it clearly helps create value in all of the other tiers down the chain

As release windows shrink, theatrical release no longer operates as effectively as an advertising campaign for releases in other formats and therefore this may have a serious impact on the viability of theaters, who have depended on the traditional model for their survival. As the release window model is undergoes change, traditionalists feel it’s a problem to move the Internet window sooner in the process, however, this perception is changing among some people, you can do an internet release sooner, in fact, why not consider doing it immediately after a successful festival screening that might have gotten you buzz and press for your film (as Scott suggested in his session)?

Lance urges filmmakers to make sure that in any distribution deal you make, negotiate caps on expenses, marketing, and promotion. Otherwise you provide the distributor with a way they can have a creative accounting loop.

Lance stressed that it’s very important to make a deal with an exit strategy, this is critical, you need to be able to walk away with your rights if the distributor does not perform, otherwise they might shelve your and you can’t exploit it. The moment a distributor thinks they are not going to make lots of money on your film, or think they will lose money, they will abandon it, they are in a portfolio management business, you film is just one of many assets they are exploiting at any one time, and often good films get shelved and end up in distribution limbo. Sometimes distributors do this to take a competitive title off the market.

If the contract does not have the distributor releasing the distribution rights to you after a certain amount of time, you can’t exploit your own film, so make sure you negotiate an exit strategy. I know of several films which ended up stuck in distribution limbo and the only DVDs that have been released after the theatrical run are bootleg DVDs made by the director himself, this is a horrible situation to be in, unable to distribute your own film and giving away bootlegs which in theory the distributor could sue you for releasing.

Lance thinks it’s essential when dealing with a distributor that you look and see what other films have gone through the process with them and ask the filmmakers what it was like to work with a distributor. I would add to this you need to find a good entertainment lawyer with experience negotiating with distributors. Some even will take a percentage of their fee now and the rest when a deal is made. It’s always good when your critical partners have skin in the game. Share the risk and reward. Lance also discussed what has become a horrible stumbling for many independent filmmakers: the average $15K to $20K cost to prepare all of the deliverables for a distributor (these figures are for small films in the under $1M budget category). I suggest looking over a couple of deliverable contracts to see what kinds of things are expected. They vary from distributor to distributor, what Lions Gate expects is very different from what ITVS expects. Sometimes you might get an advance to cover the cost of the deliverables, but this is not always the case.

Lance reminded us that if you give something away, you get nothing below it, therefore Lance’s strategy is to carve it all up and break it down, multiple deals across and have movie revert back to him and this allows him to repackage his work again and again. Lance provided some ranges of figures you can expect from distributors for specialty films:

• Overall global rights: $0 to $450K
• General domestic rights: $0 to $250K
• Home video rights: $0 to $60K
• Video on demand rights: $0 to 40K
• Pay cable rights: $45K and up
• Basic cable rights: $5K and up
• Internet rights: $0 to $5K

Try to cut a deal with at lease a $15K advance towards delivery costs, which can kill you. You will spend between $8K to $12K for E&O Insurance. Get E&O rolled into the deal is an option, so try to negotiate for that. Transfers can run you $3K to $1K for HD, DigiBeta masters etc. Music and effects tracks can run you $1 to $2.5K. Clearances and title search, music clearances and release forms and contracts could cost you $1K to $100,000K for this. Legal fees $2K to $30K. In other words, many first-time filmmakers fail to account for the cost of finishing their film from a legal and distribution perspective. If you want to get your film out into the world, you need to know what it costs, in summary, traditional delivery averages around $15K, with a wide variance depending on your specific film. Original music, for example, is much cheaper than negotiating music rights and clearances. Look at a sample deliverables contract, all sorts of arcane requirements, you typically get paid for all of this at delivery.

In the traditional distribution model, there are lots of players taking a piece of the pie, which is why in the traditional model the filmmaker get a very small percentage of the retail DVD price. Along the chain you have: Consumer DVD « Retailer/Rental (Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Netflix, etc.) « Distributors (e.g. Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Studio Labels, entities large enough to talk with major retailers) « Sub-distributor (with enough volume to talk with the big distributors) « Filmmakers. It costs $20K for endcap placement in a large retailer, lots of pressure in the marketplace to sell mainstream, not specialty, titles. So what’s an independent filmmaker with an excellent specialty film to do?

Lance showed a digital distribution version of the chart, with iTunes, Voodo, Amazon, aggretors, studio labels, sub-aggregators, indie distributors, and with the exact number of steps, the same number of gatekeepers as before. So there remains lots of layers in the “value chain” between filmmaker and audience, each step extracting value at each stage and leaving very little for the filmmaker at the end of the chain, which reminds me that there are some similarities with the specialty coffee business, with retailers taking a larger percentage of premium prices so the coffee growers don’t see as much additional revenue as they should for their premium crops.

A new model may be evolving, from Festivals to Home Video DVD + VOD/Streaming, cable/sattelite/online + Pay or Basic TV. Shrinking release windows. Retailers might have issue with you being online, but From Here to Awesome is experimenting with this approach. Head Trauma started out as a virtual reality game before the film came out, then did the festival circuit, Lance did theatrical on his own. Lance also mentioned how Four Eyed Monsters did a podcast on their distribution saga. These have all been attempts to invert the model. DIY is flexible. Lance talked about 50/50 split vs. four-walling (you take all the risk) for doing theatrical screenings.

There’s lots of experimentation with new models going on right now. With Brave New Films Robert Greenwald has changed his style and distribution techniques based on political needs, clear calls to action, spreads the political message, he’s building a strong relationship with his audience, in contrast to Hollywood which has a hollow relationship with their audience, most of the interesting stuff that comes out of Hollywood properties like fan fiction are things that the Hollywood studios have nothing to do with, at least traditionally. I think the studios are getting smart and understand the value of storytelling across multiple media forms (known as transmedia storytelling), but so far, they’ve only controlled the movie and commercial tie-ins, not fan-generated media, however, in the near future I’m sure you will see some serious attempts to create new transmedia experiences by the studios, but but what makes fan fiction and fan media special is that it is NOT commodified media production, it’s all labor of love, so it will be interesting to see what happens when the studios try to step into this world. Some researchers at MIT are providing guidance in this area.

Lance believes that Audiience 1.0 was about traditional “broadcast” one to many marketing and distribution. Now with the emergence of Audience 2.0 the audience becomes part of the distribution network, they can amplify the message and become distribution hubs, all the people who help make a movie can become distribution points for the film. Examples of this include Wreck a Movie which provides a way to creating a film through connecting people and spreading information which was born from the film Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning. The producers of the film worked with people across the Internet to make and distribute the film. Lance reported that 3,000 people worked on the movie for 7 years, there’s real value in “crowd-sourcing” and all of those people can become distribution hubs. Another example is Swarm of Angels, driven by creative crowdsourcing and peer production, essentially a people-powered film studio.

Lance provided an excellent list of things to think about in terms of how to build an audience for your future:

1. Consider your own viewing habits
2. Who is you audience and why do they care?
3. Spend time thinking like your audience, how do they consume media?
4. Create a two-way conversation
5. Be prepared to spend time responding, this is huge, and time consuming
6. Build trust
7. Think of your audience as collaborators, never think you are smarter than them, they can revolt at any time
8. Have a clear call to action, consider the Dr. Horrible example, let your audience (collaborators) know “this is what I’m doing and why, help us spread this was the message,” this turns out to be one of the things people click on the most, consider why the Obama campaign has done well online, they offer people need simple steps in a call to action
9. Reward and respect the audience
10. The audience can not be controlled, can’t be stressed enough
11. Some tools are not for everyone, social media, it will not build the audience for you
12. Creating accounts won’t build the audience for you
13. Be willing to experiment
14. Share your findings openly with other filmmakers, this is the most important part and what DIY Days is about, this will help everyone in the community, this is about cross-pollinating audiences, and this can lead to real numbers

Lance also suggested five web tools that every filmmaker should understand:

1. Blogging with WordPress: blogging tool, make active, not static sites, updating constantly, people can subscribe, repost your content, other blogging tools include Blogger, Typepad, and Moveable Type (I think WordPress is the best among them), see wordpress.org if you want to host the blog on your own server
2. Sharing updates with Twitter: Lance uses it as an update tool, now CNN is twittering, lots of people are getting into this wonderful “micro-blogging” tool which is excellent for timely updates known as “tweets”
3. Content syndication with Feedburner: let people pull, easy to have blog posts sent as email to people, people can get your blog via RSS or Email
4. Social bookmarking with Delicious: share the things you enjoy, share with others, the more you share, the better, actively engage with the community, be conscious how you use these communities, sharing bookmarks is wonderful
5. Photo sharing with Flickr: this has helped Lance for high-res photos on presskit, prepared to link for photos, different versions of images, etc. document your work

I would add a sixth item to to this list, any one of the popular video sharing site like blip.tv, Vimeo, or YouTube, provides excellent way to embed trailers of your film on your web site or blog without dealing with any video hosting or bandwidth fees, also a good way to give away free shorts and behind-the-scenes materials.

Members of the audience suggested other sites that filmmakers should be aware of: Exposure Room for sharing your work and/or reel online for exposure and Seesmic for asynchronous visual conversation kind of a Twitter meets Video kind of thing, which was used successfully at Cannes. There’s also direct distribution start-ups doing interesting work like Caachi and Super Indie Films. All of these tools are a new part of the distribution and publicity mechanism available to independent filmmakers. There is a tipping point, the more you use it, the more people will help to amplify, many people think the filmmaking process is glamorous, tap into that using social networking tools.

Lance believes that “audience direct” is the future, especially for international distribution, some DIY solution providers worth looking into include:

• IndieFlix is a one-stop shop for non-exclusive distribution with a focus on community and discovery. They provide multiple revenue streams via PPV, sponsored streaming, download and DVD delivery direct from IndieFlix.com, and via third party delivery partners all at no cost to the filmmaker.
• B-Side is a technology company that provides acquisition, marketing, and distribution services to filmmakers, festivals, and distributors. Their mission is to find great films at festivals that fall through the cracks of the traditional distribution system and connect them with distribution opportunities.
• Breakthrough Distribution helps content creators maximize their distribution possibilities via online, retail, theatrical, broadcast, and other channels. Its independent producer platform provides rights holders with services, tools, and strategic frameworks to leverage new business models, technologies, and marketing approaches on a global basis.
• Neoflix is an integrated e-commerce, fulfillment, and customer support platform created specifically for self-distributing independent films.
• E-Junkie provides you shopping cart and buy now buttons to let you sell downloads and tangible goods on your website, eBay, MySpace, Google Base, Craigslist and other websites using PayPal, PayPal Pro, Google Checkout, Authorize.Net, 2CheckOut, ClickBank and TrialPay.
• CreateSpace, formerly CustomFlix, acquired by Amazon in 2005, allows you to sell directly through Amazon,and now Without a Box has become an Amazon company, they are buying lots of movie companies, interesting huh?

From Here To Awesome Filmmakers Roundtable

Arin Crumley led a discussion with From Here to Awesome filmmakers Matt Von Manahan, Zeke Zelker, Raffi Asdourian, Javier Prato, and Fritz Donnelly on how social media is working for them, how has the festival experiment changed the ways they think about making and releasing their films, and what they learned from “day and dating” their films.

Day and date is a release strategy in which a film is screened theatrically on the same day it goes into home video and/or broadcast (cable, broadcast, video-on-demand) distribution. This strategy been tried with films like Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble and Ten Items or Less. One reason for the day and date strategy is to maximize economies of scale in marketing and distribution expenses for films that are not expected to have a long theatrical run. Given current distribution trends and shrinking release windows, many experts predict more and more films will be released theatrically, on the internet and on home video formats at the same time. The day and date strategy diverges dramatically from the traditional release window model that Lance discussed in his presentation.

For Javier, From Here to Awesome was “the only festival” he submitted to (presumably because as a short film his piece has it’s best chance to find an audience online). Raffi said, “the results has been amazing.” Zeke said it was good for his film since it was “too controversial [for traditional distribution]” and people are “afraid of the [sexual] content.” Matt shot his film on 35mm and made in his parent’s basement. From Here to Awesome is a “user generated film festival,” viewers curate what films come in, filmmakers do their own social networking and see what opportunities are available, and they can get other filmmakers in this pool of opportunities. Javier said, “I had no idea of all these tools,” for him the “experience [was] amazing,” and he said, “I think this is a revolution and it’s happening, it’s just the beginning, it’s basically a school, a little bit of effort in learning all this amazing tools to get your work out there.” The panel also mentioned tools like Hulu and Our Stage for getting your work out there. Matt said that “YouTube was a good fit for us, 170,000 subscribers,” so he plugs his movies through videos on YouTube, which he said was a “creative way to market the film [that] does not cost anything.” Fritz said he sold his film To The Hills the on the streets of New York one on one and sold 3,000 copies that way, a lot for him, his perspective coming into this, screenings in little venues, movies in the hallway. When Matt was asked why in this day and age an indie filmmaker would shoot 35mm, he replied, “I wanted to it to look like a real movie,” but lamented that it involved, “dealing with the sacrifices, so much of the film was one or two takes” and apparently he would not do that again, because “the medium should not dictate the story that you tell.”

The panel spoke of a need to start establishing standards and best practices for DIY distribution and to get the word out how important it is to clear rights before putting the film online, especially if you worked with SAG, who starts chasing you after you start with making money with your film. It would be good to have more resources on DIY and the law, another example is that filmmakers need to establish best practices for brand inclusion as that has gotten several filmmakers in trouble. Some brands see inclusion as free product placement, others see it as trademark infringement.

There is a strong need to broaden the community, we’re not watching each other’s films, why not? We should be watching each others films and helping each other out in terms of distribution. My take on this has always been, people watch lots of movies, the competition is not really among indie filmmakers, it’s between the majors with the large advertising budgets and indies that have to vie for attention, but people have time to watch more than one indie film, so cooperation in this endeavor of distribution can go a long way in floating everyone’s boat.

An Open Conversation About Workflow

Andy Williams (Executive Producer, DIVE division of Shooters Post & Transfer) discussed the workflow involved in making and releasing a film and preparing deliverables that digital and traditional outlets require. The process of making and releasing a film can be a complicated process but a clear workflow path can ease the pain and reduce anticipated costs. In this session Andy took questions and comments from the audience and provided advice and suggestions. There were several questions about the new Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) specification for digital theaters and Andy said mastering for this is a pain in the ass, it adds significantly to delivery costs, and you should do whatever you can to have the distributor pick up the cost if they want to release your film to an emerging number of digital theaters that are using this standard. So much of the DCI standard is about piracy protection rather than digital distribution, so it’s complex as a result. Standardizing on your video and audio formats for finishing your film in post and knowing what your deliverables are going to be will help you streamline your workflow and reduce costs.

Related post

On a related note, take a look at my post Distribution in the Digital Age for various lists of interest: Resources for independent filmmakers, Good blogs to read, Organizations, and start-ups doing interesting things, Related articles and interviews, and a list of industry publications.

Modern Filmmaking

Arin Crumley presented an indie filmmakers perspective on recent technological changes and how it has changed the creative process. In spirit the presentation was in the context of the possibility of a two way conversation between filmmakers and their audience (or better yet, community). It’s a recurring theme: create a dialog around your film, what does something like that look like? Arin talked about his Four Eyed Monsters experience and his travel around the world of conferences and filmmaking seminars (the case study has been covered extensively so I will not repeat here) and it’s a fine example of finding a community (rather than an audience) for your film which fits in nicely with the theme of DIY Days.

Arin had just returned from Burning Man where he was collaborating with Mike Hedge on a documentary about the event titled As the Dust Settles, that’s been his focus for the past few months, now in post. They shot with the Red camera and it’s a participatory documentary project designed to allow any individual who attended Burning Man to contribute their photos, videos and edited segments to the project as well as share in any proceeds from the project as well. Given the journey Arin has been on with Four Eyed Monsters, I’m looking forward to see what happens with As the Dust Settles.

Arin asked the audience about examples of interesting use of new technology and techniques in filmmaking, lots of examples were provided, including:

• _Cellular_ Cinema, a cellphone film festival;
• Todd Verow’s Hooks To The Left, a feature-length film shot on a cellphone
• David Redmond and Ashley Sabin’s documentary Intimidad, the film mixes cinéma-vérité footage the filmmakers shot and home-movie footage their subjects shot with a camera the filmmakers gave them in order to shoot their lives when the filmmakers were not around
• Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That a Beastie Boys concert film shot at a concert in which the band distributed fifty camcorders to the audience with the instruction, “keep the tape running” and the result is a ninety-three minute film with over six thousand cuts
• This is What Democracy Looks Like, a film shot by over a hundred cameras in the streets of the Seattle WTO protests providing multiple perspectives that could not have been created prior to the introduction of the consumer camcorder.

Film becomes more subjective, rather than objective, what does an individual see? There are an increasing number of participatory filmmaking projects starting up, the idea of a community participating in making a film is exciting, film is inherently a creative and collaborative experience and new tools are making this easier to do. From the old model of “Filmmaker, Subject, Audience” we are moving towards “Collaborators in Conversation.” Is it still “filmmaking” or is it something new? I’m reminded of Janet Murray’s list of characteristics that make computers an ideal medium for literary expression: they are Procedural, Participatory, Spatial, and Encyclopedic, which she discusses in her book Hamlet on the Holodeck.

Some of the “cool new tools” that were discussed includes the new Scarlett from Red (what the Red One Digital Cinema camera is to 35mm the Scarlett will be to Super16, small, hand-holdable, etc). And a new generation of D-SLR cameras that can shoot video, nice form factor, optics with cinematic depth of field, things are leaping in terms of technology. Apple Final Cut Pro has made non-linear editing easy and affordable, cheap hard drives you can record to directly, disposable cameras, give cameras to your subjects, you can now take crazy risks with cheap cameras, and things like Google Docs support internet-based collaboration, project planning, writing and more. And let’s not forget LED lighting, and portable digital audio recorders like the Zoom from Samson. Cheap hard drives. And Media Indexer Software allows you to browse indexes of your removable media as if they were inserted in your computer. This makes the process of finding your archived files fast and supports indexes export.

Some tools Arin is using on As The Dust Settles includes the Red camera (great for interviews, hard drive, long interview times, straight to a hard drive is a lot better, yet the camera is so heavy, it can be a pain in the ass to shoot with cause of the weight of the camera, but there’s a quality trade-off to be made), the community around the Red camera is a cult bordering on the insane, an amazing open source community around the camera, lots of feedback, corrections, you don’t get that from Sony or Panasonic (I think you get something like it but not as intense from Panasonic), Red really gets the concept of community.

Arin talked about collaboration at a distance and explained the process of emailing FCP project files (each person has a copy of the media files on identical hard drives) and using Google Docs for collaboration (this is how I collaborated with my editor Elissa Mitz while editing Smile Boston Project in order to avoid Boston cross-town traffic). It’s not up to the filmmaker how the audience experiences the film, viewers will do what they want, give full control to the audience in this case, a way they can experience it the best waty and have then decide the scaled down experience. From Here to Awesome is making a list of digital screen 600 movie theater database, so people know where they can show their films, an environment where filmmaker taps into a network. Arin is supportive of open codecs, DIY Filmmakers should be using open source codecs.

The Era Of Digital Creativity: Opportunities & Challenges

Scott Kirsner talked about living in the era of digital creativity: ideas can take shape and reach audiences with an ease that was not possible one generation ago. Now the tools of production and the channels of distribution have been democratized. The old forms like half-hour TV shows, hour-long dramas, 90 to 120 minute feature films don’t seem to work as well in the new environment. So Scott asks: What forms and storytelling strategies might replace them? What will evolve on the internet? And most importantly to everyone who was at the confernece, how are we going to build audiences for our work and earn a living?

One problem, however, is a glut of independent movies competing for audience attention. Scott shared an interesting statistic: in 2000 973 independent films were submitted to Sundance, in 2007 the number grew to 3,624. There’s a lot of noise out there, and I’m always reminded of this sobering point: viewers still have the same number of hours each week for their leisure activities, and not only are there more movies to choose from, there are many new media forms. In spite of this, Scott suggests that “this is the best time ever to be a storyteller” and he presented the audience with five challenges and five opportunities.

The opportunities are:

1. Collaboration and Participation. The approach of “I have my crew, I have my vision, it’s my project” is being replaced with “everyone can help me.” For example, consider the model being used by Robert Greenwald and his collaborators, using field producers to conduct interviews remotely, collaboration, new ways to make films, an example of this is Iraq for Sale, anyone can contribute to a wiki, films cam be made by more than you and your team, it’s tapping into the “society of audience” to borrow a phrase from the MIT Media Lab used a long time ago before the web changed everything.

2. New Forms and Formats. Much of what we talk about when we say “I’m making a film” is the traditional 90 to 120 minute program designed to watch in one sitting, it’s crazy not to work in new forms and new formats, right now we see growing ways to distribute and not a lot of experimentation in forms. Joss Whedon, during the writer’s strike, made his own project, explores new forms and formats, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is well done video in the $100,000 to $150,000 budget range, 7 minute segments, what is the movie musical going to look like on the internet? Here’s an interesting example. New Forms and Formats are where it’s at. Try it.

3. New Tools and Software. Two examples are machinima going mainstream with things like the Red vs. Blue series in which the producers used video game software to render characters for their film. Another example of this is the wonderful new Red digital cinema camera that provides 90% of 35mm quality to independent filmmakers at a cost that’s at or lower the cost of shooting on High Definition video.

4. New Distribution Channels. A mix of established and new generation aggregators are getting films onto iTunes, for example, Michael Buckley satirizes American celebrity culture on his vlog What the Buck, one of the most popular shows on YouTube. He has makes more from YouTube than from his Day Job, which he recently quit, since he got a development deal with HBO. These new channels should not be overlooked by independent filmmakers. Theatrical has always been the holy grail, but in terms of what’s really practical, new channels are opening up much more interesting opportunities for filmmakers.

5. New Marketing Modalities. Lance Weiler developed a game around Head Trauma, his new film, a game is a way to market a movie, another example is the way the King Korn documentary has been marketed with online activities for fans.

And the challenges are:

1. Giving up control. Indie filmmakers might have to get used to being a ringmaster rather than an auteur, a good example is Brett Gaylor’s Open Source Cinema, a collaborative project with the goal to produce Basement Tapes, a documentary film. The site was launched in 2004 and serves as a repository for all of the footage for the film licensed under a Creative Commons license, which the audience is free to remix. The site also hosts user-generated remixes that have subsequently been edited into the final film.

2. Experimentation is really hard. It’s hard enough to make an independent film. It’s even harder to do it in an experimental manner and try new things. It’s a challenge, and at the same time an opportunity.

3. Rights and Windows Conflicts. It’s time to take advantage of the instant gratification culture of the internet. Sundance will get your film know, why not sell the film right then and there, release window conflict with home video or theater downloads, conflict one example is the film 10 Items or Less, tried to release 2 weeks after theaters on clickstar, the problem is no movie theater wanted to show it for that reason, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner are into experimenting with WIndows

4. Getting Paid is still a pain. This is a problem that will not go away, there have been various cases of aggregators not paying filmmakers, for example, Sundance recently ended its relationship with Mediastile, a new media aggregator, after the company failed to send royalty payments and traffic reports to the festival directors who screened films online through iTunes and Netflix. No matter what you do, you should always have rights revert back to you if an aggregator fails to properly distribute your film and pay you. This was good advice with traditional distributors (I know several filmmakers whose films ended up in limbo when the distributor decided to shelf the film) and it’s double good advice with new media distributors who may or may not be here tomorrow.

5. Being a filmmaker is really hard work. It’s a big job and add to that being an entrepreneur, which is also a big job. You have to ask what is the business model, what is the strategy, what is the target market for the film, this is a producer’s job, and if you’re lucky you will partner with a good producer, but for many of us, it’s hard to be an independent filmmaker doing it all ourselves. Two good examples of filmmakers taking matter into their own hands successfully include first-time filmmakers Josh Caldwell and Hunter Weeks’ 10 MPH, Tiffany Shlain’s The Tribe, and We Are The Strange by M dot Strange. All of these projects point to new ways to distribute to the market and it takes a lot of work.

So here’s a thought for filmmakers to consider. The whole world knows about movies when they play at their first festival, “you have to wait until we distribute it” then wait longer to get into DVD, Scott suggests that it is becoming absurd to wait, you need lots of time to market, the first time someone hears about it they want to buy it then, you can’t tell someone “coming in June” unless you have a serious marketing campaign, you have maybe 500 people see you film at a festival, 2,000 festival audience, still millions out there, lots of movies that play at top tier festivals are never picked up for distribution, no DIY strategy, no sugar daddy distributor, Scott’s point is for 80% of films that are not picked up, creating another moment like the SXSW premiere is not going to happen again. Holding out for theatrical, playing roulette at the festival, reality the odds are against you, the odds are not great, no money for festival screenings, sometimes you can get screening fees but it’s rare.

A Sundance premiere can get you the leverage to demand a screening fee from second tier festivals, but it’s very rare, festivals run break-even or at a loss (as Anna Feder, Director of the Boston Underground Film Festival was quick to point out), not a good source of money for your film, though there are exceptions as some filmmakers in the audience pointed out. Scott Kirsner a little while ago asked the folks at Sundance, is there any rule to prevent from selling during the festival, no rule against it, Sundance does want premieres, however, Sundance said no one had done an online release at the same time as a festival, use the big festival thing to be there you can see it on my web site, if you think about it, use a film festival as a launching point for an online release. I think this might become an emerging pattern. iTunes does not deal with indies at this time, but their top shorts have come through festivals.

My notes continue in this post:
DIY Days Boston, October 4, 2008 (conference notes, part 3) (added 13-Oct-08)

An Investor’s Perspective On Indie Film And Digital Media

The conference got off to a good start with Scott Kirsner (CinemaTech) moderating a fireside chat (sans fire, but the room did get warm) with Todd Dagres (General Partner of Spark Capital) and Lance Weiler (filmmaker and DIY Days co-organizer). Todd Dagres has a unique perspective on the funding of film and digital media. He’s led Spark’s investments in start-ups like Veoh Networks and EQAL and has also been involved in the production of several films including TransSiberian which was released by First Look Studios. Todd suggests that even though for a while it looked like technology was “king,” content is really “king,” and he chose to invest in creative properties because he wanted to be inside the circle rather than a looking from the outside looking in.

Scott asked Todd to share a painful lesson. Todd replied, “Once you’re done with your film you have to get it distribution, you basically give up control of the baby,” since distributors are people who “just want to make money, the second they believe they are not going to make money with your film they move on to the next film.” Todd sees lots of opportunity in disrupting the established industry and said, “the 30 second commecial is dead, TV programmed to a time of day is dead [...] I don’t watch TV when I’m supposed to, who watches commercials anymore?” And therefore he’s “investing in companies that are trying to break [the existing model].”

Scott suggested that all “these companies are still having trouble making a profit,” and Todd replied that we’re in the same place as the early days of TV, producing the content is expensive, sponsors are needed, and he said, “I can prove with data [that] monetization is not on par with what is being spent on the web.” And this creates a huge opportunity for people who figure out how to package stuff. Studios, for the longest time had a model based on extracting value from a library of content, and up until two years ago it was all about protecting the library, now they are broadcasting and allowing you to stream content, but still figuring out how to monitize their content, with a TV show you have ads. Todd mentioned that “on Next New Networks Obama girl gets more views [than most TV shows],” but Scott reminded us that “lots of gems are not there online yet.” Todd suggests that the networks are “still waiting to sell you the stuff in BluRay form.”

Lance suggested that community plays a big part, the new models have to be about viewer to engagement, the key to success on the web is community, if you are a traditional television or film person, you think of audience, you think of a demographic, that’s thinking in terms of a passive medium, people watch and then go somewhere else, Lance suggests, “forget the word audience, the new word is community,” and explained that content should be the seed that gets the community interacting with the content, and viewers must have some impact on what happens. It’s interesting that with most popular shows like Lost there are very active social networks with people talk with each other about the show, why would producers not want to foster that? Todd suggested that it’s because they are “still addicted to nielson ratings and ads,” since they can make a show for $3M and sell $4M in ads and make some more money selling figures and tie ins with McDonalds. What are the major barriers to new forms of distribution and reaching an audience? One of them are are guild and contract barriers, as Todd said, “great ideas can get bogged down by the Hollywood machines structures put in place by lawyers to protect them from other lawyers who are going to sue them.”

So in the end this creates many opportunities for doing shows in a new way, for reaching out to find your audience, or better yet community. It’s still very hard to convice investors they are going to make money with this, the odds are against you to be realistic about it, but you have to think out of the box. Todd brought up the example of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” which is one big product placement, they “almost pay for production” with the product placement. Very fertile ground for artists, not everyone knows what they are selling and how to sell it, Todd said, “the most relevant ad for me is content, things I care about and things I want to see,” which is good, but that seems to make more sense for episodic content, what about movies? The market is shaken, traditional models disrupted, things fragment, what happens is there is a natural consolidation to a few, that means we move from people with lock-in to people with new locks and then that wil be disrupted, but that will take a long time. How can we move to a new model so indie filmmakers can be more successful. Lance and Todd are suggesting that the community must start interacting more with each other and consume each other’s films, american idol of indie film, we could create a social network that would promote these films and share promotion and start to work on the problem of how to finance these things. It’s the same message I’ve heard ever since I first got involved in independent film in 1988, however, there is one thing that is significantly different now compared to then: the internet really does level the playing field. Instead of working through gatekeepers to find our audience, we can now find our audience directly, however, it’s not easy. It never has been. But building a relationship on your own allows you to capitalize on the relationship and own and control you own destiny. It still takes investors. And you still can’t promise anyone you’re going to make money. But I’d rather work on building a community than struggling to find a distributor whose agenda is at odds with my own.

If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead: Creating Value In A Spreadable Marketplace

Xiaochang Li and Ana Domb from the MIT Convergence Culture Consortium gave a presentation from an academic perspective how media spreads in the current landscape and how the audience engages with it. They suggest moving away from thinking about the “viral” and “sticky” metaphors because they strip users of their agency. Instead, they suggest a framework based on “spreadable media” which is in sharp contrast with older models that emphasize centralized control over distribution. They were hesitant to share their slides or research report because the research they did was supported by corporate sponsors, the very organizations that are being disrupted. Gone are the days when academics could share their ideas openly, now they give is brief overviews while the corporate sponsors get the juicy details. It was strange to listen to a presentation at a conference based on open source ideas and sharing that could not be shared with the participants. But this puts in sharp relief the tensions between private enterprise (which thrive on competitive advantage and secrecy) and professional organizations (that thrive on sharing of information and techniques among peers). Ana said that eventually the embargoed research will be made public. Of course the slides were videotaped, so you can get them that way, but no deck in digital form was forthcoming.

They spoke of viral concepts and memes as a unit of cultural dissemination. I’m surprised they did not mention Douglas Rushkoff, who has written a lot about these topics over the years, his Media Virus was one of my favorite books in graduate school and he’s written many others, and while some are now dated, they provide a valuable historical perspective on how this internet media distribution and media sharing thing has evolved since the early 1990s. But back to Xiaochang and Anna. They suggest more open ended participation in media distribution and that humans are part of the spreading equation, Social Networks, Web 2.0, Technology is an enabling agent for what people want to do. They provided a nice discussion of the moral economy, the gift economy, sometimes money takes the back seat (like professional conferences like this), sometimes money is front and center (like when research can’t be shared). My examples, not theirs.

It’s clear that big companies are freaking out, they are focused on commodity culture while people also engage in the gift economy, file sharing and piracy makes it hard for companies making sense of circulation of media. It’s not polite not to share what you have (social contract) when you can share it, but corporations want to sell you things again and again, they don’t want you to share a book, they want to sell a book to everyone. Producers work on economic dictates while many consumers work on social dictates. From an economic standpoint, companies think file sharers are stealing, but in a gift economy, not sharing would be socially damaging. This is all interesting stuff and I’d suggest reading The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler.

We are moving away from a filmmaker / distributor / audience model to a filmmaker / {Supporter, User, Consumer, Advocate, Investor, Fan, etc.} model. The relationship is becoming much more rich and complex. Media theorist John Fisk suggests that content is flows when it’s producerly, people can take the it as raw mateiral and communicate their own messages, so we have to start thinking of the things that we make as more open ended. Spreadable media good for active commitment, audience integral part of film’s success, online world of mouth, you can reach niche audience, communicate w/ audience in a way they want to be addressed and where they already are. This all results in building a stronger emotional tie with audience. As filmmaker Orlando Sena, a Brazilian Filmmaker suggests, “right now, imagination is much more important than information.” Mashups and remixing is huge part of this, giving audience a way to play with mashups, engage with the content, examples include Lance’s Head Trauma mashups, and sites like JumpCut and Kaltura that allow people to pay a part in editing your material and creating new things from it, our new role is to facilitate that process. Or, as Lance said, crete s seed from which to build a community.

Show Me the Money

Slava Rubin talked about crowdfunding and fan participation. Through a direct connection through social networks, email, blogs, house parties, twitter, etc. and a call to action, filmmakers can transform their niche audiences into a fundraising and promotional base. Slava’s own company, IndieGoGo, is helping filmmakers with a process they call DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) Funding and Filmmaking. They describe themselves very well on their web site, so I will not go into detail here. The film Flow, currently screening at Kendall Cinemas, was among the first films to use IndieGoGo as part of their fundraising and release strategy. In summary, Slava suggested filmmakers need the following to succeed in this new environment: 1. the medium by which you take your project viral, 2. the content has to be great, really great, and 3. a very clear call to action, what do you want people to do? Good resources for learning more include Kevin Kelly’s blog, Peter Broderick, Cinema Tech, IndieGoGo’s Blog and DIWO Guide Online, and the Workbook Project.

And then we broke for lunch. I’ll continue my coverage of the conference in a second blog post. Right now it’s time to go to sleep. It’s been a long, fascinating, wonderful day.

My photos of the event are on Flickr at: flickr.com/photos/kino-eye/sets/72157607770556279/ or check out all photos on Flickr tagged with diydays and boston

My notes from the conference are continued in two posts:

• DIY Days Boston, October 4, 2008 (conference notes, part 2) (added 9-Oct-08)
• DIY Days Boston, October 4, 2008 (conference notes, part 3) (added 13-Oct-08)

• 7:00 P.M., Friday, October 3, 2008
• Tower Auditorium, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
• 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston (Directions | PDF Map)
• Easy T access via Green E line (Longwood Stop) or 39 Bus
• For driving and parking directions, see note at the end of this post
• The screening is free and open to the public

A group of us will be going out to one of the local watering holes for a drink after the screening, so check in with Bren Bataclan or I immediately after the screening to find out where we’ll be headed.

This takes place on the eve of DIY DAYS Boston (the conference is also free, however, registration is required to attend the conference, but not the Friday night screening).

Screening Lineup for the Evening will be:

Smile Boston Project (2007, David Tames, 20 min.) In the summer of 2003 Bren Bataclan began leaving paintings of his colorful characters in public places with a note attached that says, “This painting is yours to keep if you promise to smile at random people more often.” The film examines the artists influences, his goals, and the reactions of people who have found, purchased, and critiqued his paintings.

Ring of Blood (2008, Javier Prato, 4 min.)
A mercenary hired by the Asian mafia to steal a diamond ring worth millions of dollars decides to go against them and keep it for himself. Starring Davis Choh as the unruled mercenary and Viktor Murakami as the villain. It’s only a matter of time to see who finally gets that precious ring.

Book of Caleb (2008, Matthew Von Manahan, 108 min.) Twenty-something Caleb Callahan, a crusader without a cause, ventures back to his homeland of suburbia where he reunites with his childhood companions: a mastermind serial prankster and a trusty sidekick. After one of their prank has consequences, Caleb is forced to be the hero, save his friends, and give his life direction.

Driving/Parking information
The best way to get to MassArt is via the T, however, if you need to drive, free parking will be available for screening attendees in the MassArt Ward Street lot on a first-come basis if you enter the lot between 6:00 P.M. and 7:00 P.M. on the night of the screening. Here are the details:

• If you’re traveling west on Huntington Avenue: as you pass the main campus on your right, take a left at the light onto Longwood Avenue, crossing over the trolley tracks. Go straight to the stop sign and turn left, then immediately turn right onto Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left. This is pretty clear if you take a look at the Google Map.
• If you’re traveling east on Huntington Avenue: take a right at the light onto Longwood Avenue, then a quick left and right and you’re on Ward Street. MassArt’s parking lot is short distance ahead on the left. This is pretty clear if you take a look at the Google Map.

This screening is made possible by the generosity of MassArt Professional and Continuing Education, DIY DAYS, and From Here to Awesome.

Who should attend? Anyone who makes creative work: film, video, music, games, especially if you would describe yourself as an independent filmmaker. The day consists of both structured and free form activities to encourage open discussion and the opportunity to break into groups and get everyone talking to each other. Register now, the event is free but space is limited due to the size of the venue, designed to encourage an active and participatory discussion among participants.

This conference, inspired by the success of “unconferences” in other professions, is quite special because it’s being organized by filmmakers and supported by generous sponsors, hosts, and volunteers, rather than driven by vendors. It started last year when filmmaker Lance Weiler (Head Trauma, The Last Broadcast) reached out to Arin Crumley (Four Eyed Monsters) and Mike Belmont (We Are the Strange) with the idea to create a virtual conference and festival. After a series of discussions they decided that the virtual event would be a way to connect filmmakers directly with audiences and the event itself could become a model for open content distribution, one which allowed filmmakers to have a say in how their films were reaching audiences. It also enabled them to take concepts from the Workbook Project (an open source project for content creators) and to put them into practice. To make a long story short, the virtual event evolved into an online and real world event in two parts: (1) The From Here to Awesome festival which is playing out in theaters, living rooms, online and via mobile devices and (2) a series of live conferences with participatory discussion know as DIY DAYS.

The organizer’s goal is to create an open discussion and debate that will evolve as the conference travels around to several cities. At the end of the process, the organizers intend to share the results and then go back to the drawing board to plan for year two. I’m excited that this conference is coming to Boston, and being hosted in such a wonderful location. See you there!

Anna Pinker works for a multimedia production company producing museum exhibits and blogs at stillindie.com which is building an interesting collection of posts of interest to independent filmmakers.

Julie Donnelly is a journalist with eight years of experience in radio and television, mostly with public and international broadcasters. She hopes to transition to a public affairs or media relations role. She is trying to learn as much as she can about new media and interested in fun video and audio projects. On Twitter she’s djcitymaus and she’s also can be found on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Steve Garfield is now teaching at Boston University and did a recent blog post on trying to mail in his Boston Absentee Ballot that got quite a few hits after he submitted it to CNN iReports. It’s quite a story. Check it out.

Steve mentioned that Bre Pettis has a new show pilot for the History Channel called History Hacker. Looks pretty cool (there’s a trailer on his site at the moment).

Yours truly mentioned that DIY DAYS is coming to Boston. How do independent filmmakers sustain themselves as filmmakers in this day of shifting film distribution systems? How do filmmakers monetize their work and get the word out without mainstream distributor support? DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of panels, roundtable discussions and workshops. DIY DAYS will be held in Boston on Saturday, October 4th, along with a screenings of From Here to Awesome films the night before on Friday, October 3rd. Both events take place at MassArt.

We’re looking for suggestions and/or volunteer presenters for upcoming Media Tech Tonic sessions, this is a series of monthly demos/seminars on media technology topics for media makers and artists held the third Wednesday of each month at MassArt which allows us to go into more depth on a specific topic than we can during Boston Media Maker meetings.

John Herman is a web video producer, artist, and teacher. He talked about the various web serial productions that he is working on. First looks at ‘Odd Noggin’ and ‘Thomas in Wonkyland’ are on his blog. He is also working a second season of interactive web series Gravityland and the energy conservation reality show EnergySmackdown. Apart from his web video work, he asked for support in promoting an exciting bipartisan grassroots Voter Registration Night that his brother Justin Herman is hosting at the Washington Nationals Stadium. Also John is the host of New Hampshire Media Makers and invites everyone to attend.

Chris Herot (blog | twitter) is an entrepreneur, consultant, working in the digital media space, video conferencing, digital video, digital music, etc. who is currently in the process of starting a company, something in the area of digital media, television, and the internet. He’s looking for creative people to collaborate with.

Jennifer Goodwin runs InternetGIRLfriday.com, a group of virtual assistants that will do your work (administrative, bookkeeping, marketing, websites, shopping carts, project management etc.) so you can have your free time back to do whatever you want with it. They can provide administrative assistants, graphic & web designers, bookkeepers, travel/event planners, marketing & PR gurus, receptionists, computer organizers, lead generators and partners of many business vendors. For freelancers and growing entrepreneurs, just-in-time personnel can help you remain small and nimble as you compete with “the big guys” delivering better quality and lower cost with more efficient resource allocation.

Matt Searles makes ultra modern super awesomeness type experimental electronic music. He also blogs on philosophy, archetypal psychology, comparative myth, music production, composition, aesthetics, new media, guaranteed to creep out a few of your brain cells, as I can attest after listening myself several times. You can keep up with him on Twitter too: mattsearles. Some people are x-axis or y-axis off center, but Matt is z-axis off center (that’s a good thing).

David DeBlaiso (dm Design started doing graphic design, moved to web design, 3D rendering, store redesign, hands-on work with owners, he’s now working at APC as a production designer, he’s interested in where television and the web is going. He suggested that MosaicGlobe is a good place for artists to place their portfolio sites with multiple pages, galleries, blogs, audio, and more.

Sean O’Connor is a filmmaker who made a short mockumentary which is in the festival circuit and is now in the process of writing a feature length feature, he wants to discuss issues of independent filmmaking, DVD release, and alternative distribution. He also wants to get his hands on a Red. So do I, but I’m actually waiting for the Scarlet which I think will be as significant to documentaries today as was the Eclair NPR forty years ago.

Cort Johnson is co-founder of goSwoop, a site that helps international students accomplish their education goals to study in the United States. The site started in Madrid and moved to Boston and now most of the team lives Dhaka. The site seeks to connect international students to students and institutions here and to talk with admissions counsellors, etc. They just launched a newsletter/podcast series, interviewing college counsellors, high school counsellors, and getting this information to interested to students around the world. They are interested in learning how they can get their word out more effectively to students.

Here are some resources associated with my session, “Practical Sound Recording and Editing Techniques For Better Video” recently given at the 4th Annual New Media Expo held in Las Vegas.

Presentation Slides

Here’s a copy of my presentation slides, available in two flavors.

Sound-Better-Video-4NME.pdf
A PDF of the presentation slides (34MB).

Sound-Better-Video-4NME-Notes.pdf
A PDF of notes to accompany the presentation slides (236K).

Dialog audio clips

The following files are available for download as a zip archive: dialog.zip (8.7MB)

David-123.wav
Recording made with an RE50 omnidirectional, handheld microphone, from three distances, 1 foot, 2 feet, and 3 feet. Note how the audio level falls off dramatically as we move farther away from the source, there’s also some background noise.

David-123-levelator.wav
The above recording processed with Levelator, notice how bringing up the level of the second and third recordings brings up the noise level too. Keeping the mic close the source keeps the level of the voice well above the room noise. The farther away the mic, the less difference between the dialog level and room noise level. Levelator is a good tool for quick and dirty balancing of levels of an audio track, but can sound strange when the original recording is not perfectly clean. Note how the three recordings are progressively worse, since Levelator has to deal with more noise.

Scott.aif
The baseline audio clip, recorded in a room with hard walls, note the reverberation that results, this is impossible to remove.

Scott-Levelator.aif
The Scott.aif clip processed through Levelator

Scott-3Comp-2Gain.aif
The Scott.aif clip processed with 3:1 compression and +2dB gain, zero attack, gentle decay

Scott-3Comp.aif
The Scott.aif clip processed with 3:1 compression, zero attack, gentle decay

Scott-6Gain.aif
The Scott.aif clip without compression but +6dB gain

MS audio clips

The following files are available for download as a zip archive: MSdemo.zip (11MB)

MS-1M-2S.aif
The baseline clip recorded with an MS microphone, M in Ch. 1 and S in Ch. 2. See notes in presentation for more details.

MS-M-only.aif
The mid capsule (short-shotgun) only. This is also good demo of how a source to the side and in front of a short shotgun sounds, notice how the off-axis sound is not only muted, but it’s colored. See notes in presentation for more details.

MS-S-only.aif
The side (figure-of-eight a.k.a. bidirectional) capsule only. Also a good demo of just how much side-rejection a bidirectional mic is capable of. See notes in presentation for more details.

MS-M+S-mixed.aif
The M and S channels mixed.

MS-Stereo-M+6dB.aif
The M and S tracks put through an MS matrix to covert Mid/Side to Left/Right, M channel given +6dB gain to emphasize the speaker in front of the mic.

MS-Mono-fr-StM+6dB.aif
The stereo MS-Stereo-M+6dB.aif track collapsed to mono. The +6dB gain added to the M channel messes up the stereo imaging a bit.