DIY Days Boston, October 4, 2008 (conference notes)

The DIY Days Boston conference was held at MassArt on October 4, 2008. The conference drew a full-house of both seasoned and emerging filmmakers and media artists who came to learn about online tools, techniques, and strategies for building and sustating their audience. DIY Days follows an open source model, the conferences are produced with the efforts of the organizers, volunteers, and generous supporters like MassArt Professional and Continuing Education for the Boston event. Lance Weiler said, “if there is anything that you find valuable [we ask that] you share with someone else, that’s the cost of admission […] embed it and share it.” Some of the gems from the conference include Lance’s suggestion (I’m paraphrasing) that “your movie is only a seed from which to build a community” and he is urging filmmakers to stop thinking of themselves as being in competition with each other and helping each other, creating a new community of sharing ideas and films and strategies from the ground up, this is what the Workbook Project is all about. Slava Rubin of IndieGoGo put it in terms of DIWO (Doing It With Others). Here are some of my notes from the sessions.

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 continue in this post: DIY Days Boston, October 4, 2008 (conference notes, part 2)

Inventing the Movies

Some of the things I love about summer are weekend trips to the Berkshires, taking time off for a vacation, and all that means more time available to read books. On my summer reading stack this year was an advance copy of Inventing the Movies, a new book by Scott Kirsner that takes you on fascinating romp through the movie industry’s hundred-year love/hate relationship with technology and innovators. The book is an entertaining read with fascinating historical research and fresh insights from interviews with a long list of contemporary luminaries including director Peter Jackson, computer graphics pioneer Ed Catmull, and entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

With a keen attention to multiple perspectives, Kirsner presents the view of industry executives who are reluctant to innovate, and contrasts their views with the innovators who have advanced the many technologies like projection, color, sound, non-linear editing, digital projection, internet distribution, etc. that have transformed the industry over a century of change and revived it over and over again for many generations of audiences. Inventing the Movies is a lively book of interest to innovators in any field, as well as people who love movies and want to take a look at the business and technological machinations behind the many screens in their life: cinema, television, home theater, personal computers, portable media devices, and video-enabled phones.

Last week I did an interview with Scott Kirsner about the book, how the project got started, and what he plans to do next. The interview is currently being edited will be posted on this blog sometime before September rolls around.

The book is now available from Amazon.com. The book is also available as an e-book from LuLu. Scott Kirsners blog post on the book is here.

Media Fabrics for Media Makers Symposium at MIT Friday, June 20, 2008

A celebration of Glorianna Davenport’s three decade effort at MIT focused on documentary storytelling and technology, “Media Fabrics for Media Makers: Realizing an Expressive Landscape for Digital Dialogues” is a day-long symposium to be held on Friday, June 20, 2008 at the MIT Media Laboratory.

The morning sessions will show what has changed in terms of technology, methods and forms as we have rapidly moved to what Glorianna Davenport calls the Media Fabric. After lunch, three panels of Glorianna’s students will address the following topics: “Learning by Design” focused on issues related to the multidisciplinary nature of learning in the digital age; “Making Media” a discussion among founders of design firms that span physical space and media, and “Video games, the big screen and the Media Fabric” which speaks to the interaction of business interests and the entertainment field.

Agenda and Announcement:
www.media.mit.edu/eventsreg/08gid-invite-fri.html

People interested in storytelling, entertainment, as well as new technologies will benefit in particular from this special event at MIT.

Space is limited, if you plan to attend please RSVP via email to: jk[at]media[dot]mit[dot]edu.

Facing Realities: Backyard and Operation Filmmaker

On Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. at the ICA in Boston the Facing Realities: Dialogues in Boston Documentary Film series continues with Ross McElwee’s “Backyard” (1984, 16mm, 40 min) and Nina Davenport’s “Operation Filmmaker” (2007, HDCAM, 95 min) in its Boston premier. Screenings will be followed by a dialogue with Davenport and McElwee as they discuss their works, the legacy of Boston documentary filmmaking, and the moral and artistic difficulties of filming “the other.”

Lowell Film Festival: April 4-5, 2008

The Lowell Film Festival will presents a series of documentary and feature films on the subjects of globalization and immigration this year along with panels on filmmaking. Always an “immigrant city”, Lowell stands today in the midst of a population transformation no less profound than the one that shaped the city in the middle of the 19th century. Come and explore what globalization and immigration means through films, locally produced shorts, and discussions with the filmmakers involved in the productions.

The Opening Night Reception is on April 4, 2008 at 6pm and the festival runs all day April 5, 2008 and admission is free. The headliner film on Friday night is Sacco & Vanzetti, a documentary about Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists who were accused of a murder in 1920, and executed in Boston in 1927 after a notoriously prejudiced trial. The screening will be followed by Q&A with producer Peter Miller. The headliner film on Saturday night is Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako, a fascinating film (which I saw a while back at the MFA) that deals with the World Bank and the IMF by telling the story of a trial court set up in the courtyard of an African home. Amidst pleas and the testimonies, life goes on in the courtyard.

Short films fare better in new distribution paradigm

Shorts have always gotten short shrift in distribution, with features pushing them aside, however, the web is changing the rules and paid downloads looks like a good way for shorts to have some life in distribution and earn a little cash for their makers. One evidence point for this trend is a recent story in Variety, “Sundance expands online plan” by Michael Jones reports that the 2008 Sundance Film Festival will be pay filmmakers in the shorts program for Internet downloads through iTunes, Xbox LIVE and Netflix. According to the festival, year some short films saw revenues in the “tens of thousands of dollars,” even after iTunes and the Sundance Institute took their fees.

A Conversation with Les Blank

While I was at the Woods Hole Film Festival this summer I had a chance to sit down and have a conversation with documentary filmmaker Les Blank. We spoke about his new film All In This Tea, his experiences with Werner Herzog, why he self distributes, and which of his films he considers his favorite. The interview, titled A Conversation with Les Blank, appears in the newly re-launched Independent (the publication formerly known as The Independent Film & Video Monthly, which ceased publication with the demise of the AIVF).

Shadow of the House is a rare and beautiful gem

This weekend at the Newburyport Documentary Film Festival I has the pleasure of seeing Shadow of the House, an intimate documentary by Allie Humenuk that presents a portrait of photographer Abelardo Morell. The film shows his process and daily life behind the work without interpreting it for you, presenting no experts telling you about the importance of Morell’s work, instead, you see that for yourself, as if you had walked into a beautifully mounted exhibition without placards or a program.

Read more

A soundtrack for the movie of your mind

Last year filmmaker Todd Verow asked Colin Owens to write a film score to run 84 minutes concurrent with an experimental film made from 10 second clips of mobile phone video. The result of this work is Hooks to the Left, Colin’s most emotional, complex, and provocative music to date.
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Les Blank comes to Boston to show two classics and a work-in-progress

If you live in the Boston area and love documentary, you will not want to miss An Evening with Les Blank on Wednesday, August 8, 2007 from 7:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. in the Bartos Theater at the MIT Media Laboratory (directions). Les Blank is one of America’s most important documentary filmmakers and we’re very lucky that he’ll be in Boston to screen two of his classic films, “The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins” and “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe,” as well as a sneak-preview of his work in progress, “A Portrait of Richard Leacock,” in which Les Blank turns his lens onto a fellow documentary filmmaking legend. Blank will also discuss his years as a documentary filmmaker. You will not want to miss this rare opportunity to meet Les Blank. Advanced tickets are strongly recommended for this event.

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