1. Broadcast Network => Group Forming Network

We’re seeing a gradual decline in television audiences while people are spending more time on social networks and this is wreaking havoc on business models. A traditional broadcast network grows in value along a linear scale, therefore the community value can be calculated based on the number of viewers. The value of social networks (a.k.a. group forming networks) grows along a very different curve as dictated by Reed’s Law. The significance of Reed’s law is that eventually the network effect of potential group membership can dominate the overall economics of the system. David Reed discovered that the community value of large networks–particularly social networks–scales exponentially with the size of the network. The number of possible sub-groups of network participants is 2 to the power of n, where n is the number of participants. This explains the phenomenal growth in the value of social networks. Adding an additional 100,000 viewers to a television audience of 1 million is no big deal, but adding 100,000 network participants to a 1 million participant social network has a significant effect of the value of participation in the network. Networking pioneer J.C.R. Licklider wrote in 1968, “we form communities of common interest, not common location.” David Reed explains these concepts in the article “Weapon of Math Destruction: A simple formula explains why the Internet is wreaking havoc on business models” (Context Magazine, Spring 1999, link) along with “That Sneaky Exponential—Beyond Metcalfe’s Law to the Power of Community Building,” a companion article originally published as an online suppliment to the “Weapon of Math Destruction,” article.

2. Institutional Funding => Crowd Funding

The internet and a growing number of people paricipating in a variety of online communites is making it possible to raise money for creative projects online. Two services that stand out inlcude: IndieGoGo and
Kickstarter. These services differ in siginifiant ways in terms of how they operate. Kickstarter is a community limited to fundraising projects that meet their curatorial goals, and projects don’t receive any money unless the fundraising goal is reached. This is good in terms of providing funders confidence their money will go to a project that will be completed. On the other hand, IndieGoGo is an open community allowing anyone raise money for their creative project. If you don’t make your goal, you can still keep the money you raised to put towards your project, however, a lot of funders might not like they’ve given money to a project that does not have the funds needed to be completed. To some people this seems to give Kickstarter the edge with their all or nothing approach. At this time, Kickstarter is only available for projects made in the United States and you must have a U.S. bank account and a U.S. place of residence in order to use the service (even though contributions can come from anywhere in the world). In favor of IndieGoGo is that it’s open to any project (not just creative, and no gatekeeper) and they have a more global perspective with campaigns in almost every country. This year (so far) fourteen films have made it to top festivals after crowdfunding on IndieGoGo, see: “IndieGoGo Films Showcased at World-Class Festivals in 2011” (Adam Chapnick, Tribeca Future of Film, September 30, 2011). There’s a rapid rise in the number of creative professionals leveraging crowd funding to support their work. One of the most impressive examples to date is Jennifer Fox’s Kickstater campaign for My Reincarnation in which she raised over $150,000 in order to get her film into distribution, she shares what she learned doing in her guest post, “How MY REINCARNATION Broke All Kickstarter Records & Raised $150,000” on Ted Hope’s blog.

3. Independence => Interdependence

In our connected world, filmmakers are moving away from the paradigm of “independent” filmmaking and embracing the notion of “interdependent” filmmaking. Unlike many industries, we’re not in competition with each other and we can benefit more from cooperation. This idea is being championed by Tiffany Shlain, Her film Connected is about the impact of the Internet on our lives and a call for to embrace a new philosophy of interdependence, for more details see see: 10 Big Ideas for the Future of Film by Tiffany Shlain (Mediashift/PBS.org, April 20, 2011) and The Power Of One: Food For Thought 2011 by Sawn Parr (Fast Company, Jun 1, 2011).

4. Oligopoly => Constellation of Gatekeepers

Once upon a time talented filmmakers and/or promising projects would be discovered and/or packaged by the Hollywood studios. With high barriers to entry (e.g. specialized knowledge, scarce resources, a lock on distribution, etc.) the major studios has a tight control on the industry and operated like an oligopoly. With access to inexpensive digital technology for production and postproduction–along with social media making it possible to establish a connection with an audience–filmmakers with the talent and drive to make it have the ability to take themselves from a state of being unknown talent to becoming popular with an audience through a process of lots of hard work developing an audience on their own. It used to take an influential executive at the studio to give you a green light for a project, now you can take your work directly to an audience an see if what you’re doing resonates with them. It may still take lots of money to make a film, but the ecosystem is growing into a constellation gatekeepers working a variety of levels, for example, film production is not within reach of many organizations who may choose to fund films that promote their agendas. One example that stands out is Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007) a supernatural horror film. It was originally produced as an independent feature with a home movie camera, but was later acquired by Paramount Pictures after a representative saw the film and was impressed. It has become a very profitable film along with a very effective social media marketing campaign, see “Paranormal Activity Rides the Social Web to Millions at the Box Office” by Christina Warren (Mashable, October 13, 2009). Realistically, cases like Paranormal Activity are the rare exception to the rule, it’s still as hard as ever to find an audience, but it you have a film that resonates with an audience, there are less factors in your way, as the oligopoly has given way to a constellation of gatekeepers that are more attuned to enabling rather than limiting your potential. Scott Kirsner’s book, Fans, Friends And Followers provides a good survey of how various people have developed their audience in the new media landscape.

5. Auteurs => Collaborations

Normal Hollyn, an editor, teacher, and author of The Film Editing Room Handbook (now it a 4th edition) wrote a delightful blog post titled, “Collaboration and Why The Auteur Theory Is Bull,” in which he argues that, “it’s impossible to make a film by yourself.” He points out that not every idea the director is going to have is good, and not all good ideas are going to come from the director. Film is a highly collaborative art form. Hollyn suggests the ideal way to work with any creative person is to, “come to the table with an idea (the ‘thesis’), let that person come up with a different idea (the ‘antithesis’) and then to let those two opposing notions contribute to a third, usually better, idea (the ’synthesis’).” Hollyn argues that directors who think they are the, “sole auteurs of their work, and are too afraid or guarded to open up to other ideas, will generally miss out on those ‘third, usually better’ ideas, and their work will suffer.” Today it is easier than ever with email, Twitter, Facebook, DropBox, etc. to share and communicate and keep an open dialog as a project develops over time. But these just facilitators. The important trend is a change in mind-set in terms of what it means to be an “auteur” vs. “visionary” director. A visionary director can articulate a clear vision while orchestrating the process of synthesis that Hollyn discusses in his essay, which leads to the best work. Even Orson Welles, perhaps one of the greatest “auteurs” in Hollywood history, surrounded himself with amazing collaborators who made significant contributions to his films. He had so much respect for Greg Toland’s cinematography that he shared a title card with him. Behind the most successful “genius,” whether it be an Orson Welles or a Steve Jobs, is not an auteur in the classic sense of the term, but a visionary who collaborates effectively with creative people. There’s a huge difference between the two, and the difference boils down to creating an environment that supports synthesis.

6. Media Objects => Media Fabric

I believe Blu-Ray disks are the last physical media distribution format consumers will ever see. Everything is moving to the cloud. I love the convenience of Netflix streaming and I find it annoying I still have to wait for many movies to arrive as DVDs. Why can’t they all simply be streamed to my Mac or iPad? While licensing deals will keep a lot of media tied up in knots for a while, eventually it will all end up on the cloud. See “Apple, Hollywood Close To Streaming Movie Deal?” by Thomas Claburn, Information Week, October 13, 2011) and “Movies in the Clouds” by By Michelle Kung (Wall Street Journal, October 11, 2011). But the concept of Media Fabric (which I borrow from Glorianna Davenport) goes way beyond the notion of media living on the cloud. Davenport’s idea is that of, “a semi-intelligent organism where, lines of communication, threads of meaning, chains of causality, and streams of consciousness converge and intertwine to form a rich tapestry of creative story potentials, meaningful real-time dialogues, social interactions, and personal or communal art- and story-making.” The idea is that media is becoming something integrated into our everyday lives, connecting us in new ways that we are shaping through the very process of our interaction with each other. See “Media fabric — a process-oriented approach to media creation and exchange” by Glorianna Davenport, et. al.

7. Specialized Competence => Media Literacy

Media was was once the domain of specialized individuals working in specialized organizations. Today, the trend is towards media production and dissemination becoming a core competency of every organization, as well as every individual. Many of us shoot a lot of casual video to share with friends, which helps us develop a sense for working with a camera. Increasingly we are purchasing smart phones equipped with spectacular cameras. Small videocameras like the Canon VIXIA provide high-quality high-definition images in the form-factor of a small camcorder. Things like smart-auto focus with face recognition makes it easy to produce good, sharp, point-and-shoot video. The ubiquity of video cameras has made it easy for anyone to pick up a camera and try their hand at media production. In the late 1990s it was essential for everyone to have a web site. Today it has become essential to enhance that web site with video. With video sharing sites like Vimeo and YouTube, we have at our fingertips an easy way to share video with others. With all the traditional barriers gone, writing with a camera is poised to become almost as ubiquitous as writing with a word processor. See my blog post, “Cinema will eventually become a flexible means of writing.”

For additional perspectives on these trends, see my companion post, “Researching Seven Macro Trends,” which provides a survey of the background research I did while preparing for this presentation. It includes micro-interviews with: Patricia Aufderheide, Perry Bard, Philip Hodgetts, Brian Lucid, Caroline Blair, Charles Papert, Steve Garfield, Chuck Green, Geo Geller, Jon Goldman, Julie Mallozzi, Kathryn Dietz, Kevin Brooks, Lee Morgenroth, Nathan Felde, Philippe Lejune, Ryan Evans, Slava Rubin, Zak Ray, Anne Marie Stein, Audrey Kali, and Brian Henderson.

This post was revised on October 17, 2011 to fix some typos and links.

I’ve been contemplating the evolution of the documentary this summer and I was delighted to see that The MediaGuardian’s recent Sheffield Doc/Fest 2011 coverage includes ten articles providing a refreshing perspective on how documentary makers are finding new ways to reach their audience. These articles provide a view into a crystal ball in which we can begin to see a vision of the future. Here are links to the articles, worthwhile reading and a good starting point for further reflection and discussion.

Social media influences documentary-makers
Social media have had a truly revolutionary effect, enabling film-makers and citizens to disseminate their own stories

Adam Curtis: happy to be different
The maker of classic documentary series such as The Trap and The Power Of Nightmares believes he is still learning his trade

New technology opens up documentary-making
Recording devices are always evolving – from 16mm cameras to iPad apps – offering film-makers the chance to innovate

Jay Hunt: Social media promotes a better viewer experience
Using multiplatform and social media is an incredibly important part of what we’re doing at Channel 4

Can you make a film and a profit?
Making money from documentaries is no easy task, but there are some business models that are generating revenues online

How the internet is galvanising support for social justice documentaries
Films that form part of a campaign for social justice are regularly appearing online – greatly increasing their reach and impact

Tools of attraction: creating multimedia content for games and TV shows
Audiences now expect stories to be told in new ways across different platforms, but commissioners often fail to produce compelling ‘transmedia’ content

The impact of Twitter on TV shows
For producers, posts on Facebook and Twitter are seen as indicators of success – but do they influence ratings?

BBC documentary boss wants programmes that do more than entertain
Commissioning editor Charlotte Moore favours quality and craft over feelgood and populist

Steve James hails a ‘golden age of documentary film-making’
Prior to his visit to the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, director says attitudes towards docs have changed

Image credit: Crystal Castles by Frogman (2008).

www.savetheinternet.com/fcc-comments

Net neutrality is the network design principle that has made possible the Internet’s rapid innovation and unprecedented open access. It protects your right, without interference from the network provider, to use any equipment, send or receive any content, run any application, or access any service. If you are not familiar with the Net Neutrality argument, check out the following:

• Why You Should Care About Network Neutrality, by Tim Wu (Slate)
• Network Neutrality FAQ by Tim Wu
• Net Neutrality: This is serious, by Tim Berners-Lee
• The End of End-to-End: Preserving the Architecture of the Internet in the Broadband Era, by Mark Lemley and Lawrence Lessig
• Is Net Neutrality a Trojan Horse?, A summary of EFF’s concerns with the FCC’s new neutrality proposal.
• Regulatory Capture, How the entertainment and media industries are often able to exert undue influence on the FCC.
• EFF Weighs in on Proposed FCC Net Neutrality Rules, A summary of EFF’s full comments to the FCC.

[Note: The last three links above were added to this post on 2010.01.18]

In August 2009, Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458). This landmark legislation would protect Net Neutrality under the Communications Act. Phone and cable companies have hired hundreds of lobbyists in Washington to try to stop this bill from becoming law. Citizens can make a difference, Take Action now!

This book will help you think about new business models, how to build an audience around you work, and challenge the old notion that independent media makers should think of themselves as auteurs waiting to be discovered by the record, movie, or television industries or a forward thinking curator. The mainstream is interested in commercial product, the lowest common denominator, the latest fad. Once upon a time you had no other way to find an audience, the gatekeepers ran the show. Today you can find your audience using your own unique voice, rather than trying to fit someone else’s mold. It’s a brave new world and Scott’s timely book provides practical insights into carving your own path towards nurturing fans, making friends, and building your own following. We may always have mainstream media, however, today, as both audiences and media makers, the internet has opened up an alternative channel of distribution full of possibilities, most of which we have yet to see, which I hope will bring us a viable alternative to industrial media product, and instead, hand-crafted, authentic stories, unique messages with new points of view, and personal media to enrich the soul of a new generation. What do you want to express? You have the answer deep inside of you. What can you do to get your expression out to an audience? Scott’s book provides an introduction to how people have been doing that.

Purchasing the book through the links on this page provides Kino-Eye.com with a much appreciated commission, thank you.

1. Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee presents a detailed account of the origins and evolution of the web, and who better to tell the story than the inventor himself, who is currently Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (the organization responsible for setting web standards) at MIT. In the 1980s while working at CERN, Berners-Lee defined the core standards and wrote the first web server and browser that began the growth of the Web, which transformed the Internet into a document universe (similar to Ted Nelson’s docuverse but much simpler in design) by allowing users to hyperlink between documents that can reside on any computer connected to the Internet. The design of the Web balances decentralization and centralization in a manner than retains simplicity and allows for unrestricted growth and innovation. Berners-Lee’s writing is clear and concise, which should appeal to a wide audience. A lot of books have been written about the web. You have to be very careful when reading histories of the Internet and the World Wide Web, there are many articles, and even books, that present misleading histories. For example, Architects of the Web: 1,000 Days that Built the Future of Business by Robert Reid gives much of the credit for the development of the World Wide Web to people who did not actually invent it and fails glaringly to properly credit, and sometimes even ignores, those who played key roles in the design, development, and evolution of the Web. For example, Tim Berners-Lee receives very little space in the book and other important figures are completely ignored. On the other hand, Weaving the Web is written with tremendous humility and grace and helps to set the record straight.

2. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler might at first appear to be a dense academic tome best left on the shelf, however, don’t let that stop you from making the effort to read it cover to cover. It will reward you with a comprehensive and insightful perspective on the networked information economy. The book passionately discusses how the Internet empowers individuals and groups working outside of the market economy to become (in some contexts) more productive than for-profit organizations. Examples include projects like Wikipedia and Linux. The production of information, knowledge, and creative works outside of the market system has profound implications for democratic discourse, culture, and justice. There are serious dangers posed by government regulation that protects old-world information companies, for example, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Benkler makes a persuasive argument that non-market production and innovation is a good thing that should be allowed to exist and thrive alongside the industrial information economy. The book provides a clear picture of the state of the internet and shows the Internet enriches peoples lives and has become an essential component of a free and open society. If we want to remain a vibrant liberal democracy, we must push back the dangerous encroachment of corporate interests that want to restrict the free flow of information on the Internet which is critical for the proper functioning of an open society and continued technological innovation. Benkler demonstrates a clear understanding of the information economy worthy of the title which is evocative of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Lawrence Lessig wrote that The Wealth of Networks is “the most important and powerful book written in the fields that matter most to me in the last ten years.”

3. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger provides a fascinating definition of the Web as an idea rather than a technology and discusses how it is challenging fundamental concepts of our culture. Weinberger writes: “If the Web is changing bedrock concepts such as space, time, perfection, social interaction, knowledge, matter and morality–each a chapter of this book–no wonder we’re so damn confused. That’s as it should be. A new world is opening up, a world that we create as we explore it.” The book provides thoughtful answers to questions such as: Why do we perceive the Web as space when it’s not? How is the Web threading and weaving our concept of time? Why does Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web, say it will always be a little broken? How does the web resolve the contradiction between viewing ourselves as members of a mass culture and as unique individuals? How does the Web change our concept of knowledge? How can the Web be so social and meaningful while traditional notions of technology has been that it’s alienating? How does the hyperlinked architecture of the Web reflect the structure of morality? David Weinberger answers these questions with clarity in a manner that will delight readers from both technical and humanistic backgrounds.

4. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins explains how media convergence is changing the relationship between audiences, producers, and creative work in the context of the emergence of participatory culture. Jenkins stresses this is not a technological revolution, but instead it is a cultural shift from a focus of literacy as individual expression to a process of community involvement. Jenkins presents examples like Survivor and The Matrix to demonstrate how participatory culture can be harnessed by big media who up until now have not been able to capitalize on fan-generated content, which has flourished outside of commodity economics, but is now in the sights of big media.

There are lots of excellent books on this and related topics, but this is my short list as of 2008. In future posts you can expect me to discuss more titles worth a read that cover specific applications and issues related to the Web and Internet.

Note: If you plan to purchase any of these books, I would appreciate it if you start from the links to Amazon on this page, as this will provide a small commission to Kino-Eye.com that goes towards hosting and production costs. Every little bit helps to keep this blog going. Thank you!

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.

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)

 Play Video (19:01, Flash Video, note: if a video player does not appear in your browser, visit the blip.tv video page to see the video.

Special thanks to Steve Garfield for providing me with the video he shot with his Nokia N95. I had originally planned this to be an audio interview, but when Steve Garfield gave me his video of the discussion, it became a video. When I combined his video and my audio, I was impressed that the audio sync drifted less that a frame from start to end. Many of the little cameras drift a lot (like my Canon TX1). The N95 is an impressive little camera.

I spoke with Philip Hodgetts at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas and asked him about his new venture, the Open Television Network which I blogged about several weeks ago.

 Play Video

Music by Colin Owens.

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.

Related to this presentation, see also my previous post, “Notes on the Interview” (January 23, 1006). This is a set of notes I’ve collected that I use to remind myself of things to think about when I’m preparing to do an interview.

View slides (on SlideShare): Art of the Interview PC3

Download slides as a PDF (from SlideShare): Art-of-the-Interview-PCB3

List of example clips screened and discussed (year, description, roles):

“Student Activities Midway” (2006, video podcast story segment, MIT ZigZag Episode #10, Co-Producer, Director, Editor)
“MIT Freshman Experience” (2007, video podcast episode, MIT ZigZag Episode #14, Producer, Director, Editor )
“Journey to MIT” (2007, excerpt from series produced for 2007 MIT pre-commencement show, Co-Producer, Director of Photography)

Some of these clips can be viewed at: kino-eye.com/about/reel/

Google said the log should not be handed over because of privacy concerns, in their submission to the court Google said: “Plaintiffs (Viacom) would likely be able to determine the viewing and video uploading habits of YouTube’s users based on the user’s login ID and the user’s IP address.” But the court ruled these concerns were “speculative”. So much for the judge’s respect for rights to privacy.

The copyright thing is out of control, no, not copyright law per se, but how corporations are using it in a desperate attempt to stem the tide of media change. Another argument why we need a more vibrant, competitive, user-driven media ecosystem. And this can happen if you embrace the change, make the change, be the change. This summer, avoid Viacom channels like Nick@Night, TV Land, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Bravo, etc. and go out and make your own media and watch the great media that’s being made by your fellow citizens. Check out the great shows on blip.tv. Check out the wonderful short films on YouTube. Be the media, or encourage those citizens who are.

One thing I found interesting about this report is that it found that Democrats are more positive about the role of the internet. Online Democrats are more likely to say the internet helps them feel connected to their candidates and the campaign. In contrast to online Republicans, both independents and Democrats who use the internet are more likely to agree with the statement, “I would not be as involved in this campaign as much if it weren’t for the internet.” One-quarter of online independents (26%) and Democrats (23%) subscribe to that view, versus 16% of Republicans.

Steve Garfield spoke about the debates on television last week, Dave Winer opened up a chat that Steve participated in, 30-40 people chatting during the debates, they will be doing it again, Steve really liked it, check out Scripting News (Dave Winer’s blog) for info on joining the IRC chat. Chatzilla works if you don’t want to do IRC the old fashioned way. Steve will be at SXSW this week blogging, shooting video etc. so keep an eye out for that.

Steve also mentioned that the Independent Film Festival of Boston (which takes place on April 23-29, 2008) wants Boston media makers involved with the festival this year. They will be attending the April meeting to talk about that.

John Herman is launching Gravityland tomorrow, has been working on it for six months, first two episodes debut tomorrow. They will be posting episodes once a week and blogging five days a week.

Philip Kliger (unclephilms on YouTube) had a camera attached to his head and was shooting video of the meeting, which he’ll use in some way. He showed us the camera/recorder he was using, the Archos 404 Pocket Digital Media Player and Camcorder that has an internal 30GB disk for long recording times (limited to battery life, which is under two hours while recording). It can play a variety of video formats and records MPEG-4 (AVI 640×480 at 30 or 25 fps). It appears to work only with it’s own proprietary camera. Too bad it can’t record from any video camera. In addition to his YouTube presence, Phil is an actor working on Gravityland, does the Uncle Phil Music Show as well as Tune Buggy, kid-friendly rock music.

Alecia Orsini is a filmmaker (Combustible Russ), artist, and is currently working with the Miele Law Group which represents artists, entertainers, and inventors. They do a lot of free consulting, they share a lot of information with media makers, it’s good to say, “I know a lawyer” whenever you have to negotiate contracts with other parties. She started working with then when she was swamped in paperwork, they helped demystify the legal process.

Scott Lebeda is also working with the Miele Law Group, he does research for them, he’s a filmmaker, does graphic design work, and starting up a multimedia site for film, art, etc.

Also mentioned in the group was the Citizen Media Law Project and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

Yours truly talked about the upcoming 18th Annual Pro Video Show taking place at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts on Friday and Saturday, March 7-8, 2008. Read my blog post about the show for a description of the three seminars I’m doing at the show.

Brian Alves produces The DV Show, a weekly podcast dedicated to answering questions related to digital video. The DV Show has been running since March 2005 and has become a respected resource on the we. They will be streaming some of the free sessions from the 18th Annual Pro Video Show, very cool.

Jessica Burko does design and arts marketing for other artists, she encourages us to sign up for her mailing list, it’s one email a month with info on shows and art events. She’s also involved with Boston Hand Made, a gathering of colleagues who create a variety of handcrafted art and every spring they do an artisan fair in Jamaica Plain.

Steve Sherlock has a number of projects underway, including sherku, his form of haiku. As Dorothy Parker once wrote, “brevity is the soul of lingerie.” So here goes an attempt to write a haiku about the meeting (19 syllables):

media makers meet
each first sunday to share
knowledge, ideas, and cheer.

Joe Cascio is a software engineer who is currently working on SociaLogic, an experimental system devoted to research and development in social networking that among other things can help us manage our online social network memberships and identities, he’s also working on a better SPAM filter, a new email protocol, all sorts of cool stuff. This summer he’ll be sponsoring the Social Media BBQ (look for it on upcoming) at his house in CT. Some locals who are bummed they can’t attend SXSW this year have started up their own virtual experience, NONE (North by Northeast). Joe is also involved with two blogs, Start Rocket and Media Disruption

Reiko Beach of TRB Design talked about Stixy, an online bulletin board (which they call Stixyboards) that allow you to create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks organized in whatever way makes sense to you. You can share Stixyboards with friends, family, and colleagues. Are there other tools out there she should look at? Some folks suggested JotSpot (Google recently acquired them), Big Tent, and Remember the Milk. Another thing that works well for simple collaboration is Google Docs. Tom Beach mentioned they are looking for someone to help them put together a customized WordPress template for their new site.

Rick Burns working on a site called 9neighbors designed to feature locally created on a neighborhood level, they are currently covering the Boston area (including Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, and Brookline). You can add your feed and they will filter it. It’s a new way of surfacing content that has local relevance. Check out their site, they are currently looking for feedback as they refine what they are doing.

Rachel Happe is a technology analyst at IDC who leads research on the digital business economy, and she blogs at The Social Organization.

Ted McEnroe is an Executive Producer with New England Cable News. He’s looking around to see where broadcast television is going, he just moved over to work on the NECN web site, recently relaunched as a video-driven web site, and he hopes to take it beyond where it is now, do more aggregating of media from across New England as a whole, he’s thinking about the best way to bring in community voices from around the region.

Dale Cruse is a website developer who does Drinks Are On Me, a popular wine blog and he’s also the weekly drinks columnist for Bostonist (a blog covering news, events, bars, and restaurants in Boston).

Pam Rosenthal is a social media consultant helping companies use online communities to engage in meaningful conversations with their customers. She’s interested in connecting with folks who do video as she may need to develop content in the future along the lines of customer testimonials and training videos.

Mike Walsh is working on putting together another Barcamp at MIT or a similar venue soon, possibly in April.

Rekha Murthy is an interaction designer, radio producer, and graduate of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, check out her blog, Punctuated Equilibrium. Her research at MIT focused on street media in urban spaces, urban annotation practices, and more with a focus on Central Square in Cambridge, and this may evolve into a book, she’s open to people’s experiences and ideas in terms of book agents and self-publishing options.

Adam Weiss suggests we check out the Museum of Science exhibit on baseball coming in June put together with the Baseball hall of fame, in addition to his work at the Museum of Science, Adam does Boston Behind the Scenes, an excellent podcast. He’s is looking for new adventures in new media and podcasting if you have any ideas for him.

Nate Aune is working on Jazkarta an open source videos sharing application, your own branded YouTube, your own logo, commenting, rating, tagging, etc. Check out an example at plone.tv. He’s also working on BostonJazz.net, a site to showcase Jazz Music in Boston.

Matt Searles continues to work on Asymmetric Biz Cult, a fascinating podcast that mixes philosophy, art, business, new media, and provides unique perspectives on what is most commonly called convergence. Who else has managed to include Michel Foucault, Carl Jung, and Jack Welch in the same podcast?

And on that note, I’ll remind you that the next meeting will be on April 6, 2008. Boston media makers gathers once a month on the first Sunday of every month at Sweet Finnish Cafe in Jamaica Plain. We go around the table and people talks about what they are up, ask questions, announce events, and more. In addition, there’s plenty of mingling before and after the meeting.

OTN lets viewers subscribe to an RSS feed so they can see the titles of new videos in iTunes. When the viewer clicks on a particular item to download it, their OTN account is debited the price of that video. This is done through a technology called KlickTab. Media makers can add buttons on their site that when users click on them it add their RSS feed to iTunes. Before viewers can buy content they will have to obtain an account with OTN (OTN starts new users off with a $5.00 credit as an incentive to try it) and then whenever they click on content in iTunes from an OTN publisher, their account is debited the price of the video. Like PayPal in the early days, people are going to be hesitant to give their credit card number to an unknown entity, but I think that if OTN can collect a critical mass of interesting content, viewers will start to see the value of being part of the network. What OTN needs is a killer hit that everyone will want to download, or some free content that requires opening an account, so viewers can see what’s in it for them.

There are many things I like about the OTN model. They provide small publishers a way to get paid for their media, they are putting it into iTunes, which offers a seamless user experience for getting media to iPods, iPhones, and AppleTV that most people can manage. There are no content gatekeepers (except for clearly inappropriate content like pornography). No DRM. OTN charges a reasonable 15% fee from the money they collect, unlike other services based on old media that want to take much higher percentages. Last time I checked internet transactions were super efficient, so the percentage distributors take should drop precipitously, not stay the same.

Some media makers may be concerned about no DRM, but OTM is perusing a positive model and counting on the goodwill of most viewers out there that want to support media makers doing good stuff. Rather than worry about protecting your media, small publishers should worry about getting their media out there and sold. User convencience should be the priority. Long tail publishing actual benefits from some sharing among viewers, for that spreads the word of mouth. And as Philip Hodgetts of OTN said at last week’s Final Cut Pro Users Group Meeting in Boston, it’s about making it, “easier than piracy and almost as cheap.”

The music industry made a big mistake when they introduced CDs at a price higher that LPs rather than lowering the price. That was the beginning of the end. The video industry was much smarter in the transition from VHS to DVD by lowering the wholesale price of DVDs, and the home video industry took off. Now Apple’s iTunes music store is selling videos for too much money, are they repeating the mistake of the music industry? I think the price of a video should be low enough as to constitute an impulse purchase. Only a small segment of the population is going to pay $1.99 for a TV show. There’s an untapped market out there. The long-tail content publishers that OTN is building their system for will have an open marketplace to sell their goods. Right now they have none. The democratization of production and post production is not enough. You need the democratization of distribution. OTN is trying to take care of that. So far advertising has not earned much for media makers distributing their video online, however, for specialized an niche content, OTN might help media makers make a decent living making videos for specific audiences who are not served by the major studios.

It was another inspiring, interesting, and entertaining meeting of the Boston Media Makers , which has become carved in stone in my calendar for the first Sunday of every month. We meet at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain with founder and master of ceremonies Steve Garfield. This month Steve used Mogulus studio to stream today’s meeting. It’s a little TV studio on the mac, allows you to stream live, add lower thirds, on the broadcast site you can take comments, it’s all early software, it crashed a couple of times, but it certainly points to where web-based streaming is headed. We went around the room doing updates and show-and-tell.

I mentioned that on Art Film Talk (my audio podcast) I recently posted an interview with Marshall Herskovitz on the topic of Quarterlife, a “television-style” episodic on the web that’s been generating lots of buzz in both industry and new media circles.

My show and tell this month was my Tram-50 Lavalier Microphone and its many accessories, including Rycote’s Lavalier Windjammer designed to reduce wind noise on Lavs worn on the outside of clothing. The Tram-50 delivers smooth, rich sound and was the first piece of audio gear I bought. Three video cameras have come and gone in the time I’ve owned the Tram. Good sound equipment is a worthwhile investment from which you will reap dividends for many years. If the Tram breaks your microphone budget, a good source of affordable, good quality, small microphones is Giant Squid Audio Lab.

I’ll be participating in the Web Video Summit coming up on December 10-11, 2007 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, on the Lights, Cameras, Sound: How to Get Great Results panel (1:00pm-1:50pm on Monday) where we’ll be discuss stratagies, tactics, and techniques for better video and sound that will not break your production budget. I offered a free conference pass to the first person who asked for it and Steve Albanese was the lucky winner. Congratulations Steve!

Len Edgerly showed us iYule on his iPhone, a 30-minute Yule Log video available for iPod, iPhone, and more. A holiday fireplace experience with crackling sounds for those on the go. Len is intersted in hearing about interesting uses of the web, video, and social media by artists. Some suggestions came up including a recent Wall Street Journal article about a visual artist using YouTube and Exit Art, an interdisciplinary laboratory for contemporary culture that explores the rich diversity of voices that continually shape art and ideas. Len has been documenting how artists and art organizations are using the web. Check out his podcast and video blog.

Bryan Person made a plug for Len’s podcast, saying “he’s a great storyteller.” Bryan is organizing monthly social media breakfasts that meets every 5-6 weeks in town or somewhere outside, network and talk, kind of on his radar are seesmic and utterz , how are these working for you? The next breakfast, Social Media Breakfast 4 will take place on Monday, December 17, 2007, from 8 to 10am at The Wine Cellar at the Mooo Restaurant in Downtown Boston.

Nate Aune from Jazkarta is building community media portals using open source software offering organizations a way to aggregate multimedia content including screencasts, he’s also recording bands, interested in promoting local boston based bands. They are building sites running on Amazon EC2, offering a scalable media cloud for your application.

Martin Freeth from Windfall Digital is a media producer from London who works on science videos, they are doing Choose Your Character, a museum exhibit project in genetics, visitors pick a card, and move through changes to your character, you learn through walking in the shoes of another person. They are also doing an IPTV story on genetics. He used to work in the BBC and set up BBC online and he dragged himself kicking and screaming into new media. Windfall Digital develops media for all platforms. He showed a wonderful one minute film titled “The Conundrum” from a series of short pieces were designed as instertitials between TV shows but now are perfect for the web. He often comes to the states where lots of good science work is being done. This is the third time Boston Media Makers has had a visitor from London.

Mark Hanser has a new web site, The Mark Hanser Show, different from his current sute, he’s getting into vlogging, exploring these woderful tools, coming to Boston Media Makers and Podcamp and learning to apply these tools as an artist and as an educator. Matt is doing the editing.

Rafael Lanfranco is working with John Coyne on Nuovomedia laboratory’s New Americans Web Site project for immigrants in the US, they are producing media for hispanic-americans, initial focus on Peru, with content on things like how to become an american citizen, how to manage personal finances, encourage them to create their own media, build this template and move to other hispanic groups, working on alpha site right now, should be live within the next week or so. In spanish. Their model public service, advertising and sponsor support. John Coyne and Rafael Lanfranco are building MixItUp, a database to bridge between talent and companies that need the takent by building list of peolle and groups of people interested in working on interesting projects with Nuovomedia.com. They also have a group on Facebook.

Bill Wendel, The Real Estate Cafe, is working on a Real Estate Unconference and has bought an Ice cream truck he’s turning into a mobile podcasting / mapping studio for use at events like real-estate open houses. Sounds really cool.

Zach Braker, Quiver and Quill, is looking to interview people on his blog. He’s working with a business partner who interviews people on management, they are interested in the intersection of life online and life offline.

Jack Hodgson has been doing uncontrolled airspace , a weekly podcast on general aviation, the podcast is literally hangar flying. It’s a very good podcast. He’s also working on Voxci , an alpha prototype that add spoken word to the web, literally word of mouth for the web. Bryan said that bookmarks become richer when there’s an audio description to go with them. Anyone can sugn up and play with it. The main thing Jack is asking for is feedback to help them improve the site.

Tom and Reiko Beach, TRB Design, need in setting up WordPress MU. They want to support multiple gymnastic coach’s blogs. It was suggested checking out WordPress for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the book includes help on every aspect of installing and using WordPress and insights from bloggers who use WordPress. Steve suggests that the easiest way to learn about videoblogging is to click on the “Learn About Videoblogging” on his web site. For people just getting started, Bryan suggested the Flip camera, a.k.a. the soccer mom cam, a low cost alternative for shooting video. If your looking for a miniDV camcorder, David LaMorte and I sugggested the Canon Elura 100 becuase it’s an inexpesnive, small, easy-to-use camcorder that has an external mic input. Using an external microphone is critical for getting good sound. Len’s been happy with the Sanyo Xacti HD2, a tiny 720p camera with an external mic input. If you’re using one of the tiny digital cameras without an expternal mic input, you can always do “double system sound” (recording audio and video separately and synch them up in the editing), for example, Len suggested the Edirol R-09 and I suggested the MicroTrack II. The Samson Zoom H2 and Samson Zoom H4 are also popular choices for small digital recorders.

John Herman in the short
film The Future

John Herman has a show coming up on Thursday, he’ll be doing short-form improv with Gameboyz at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square. Also, starting on December 28 he has a new show starting, producing one man show based on the atoms in the void podcast with Sean Hurley. They have compressed 29 eposides down to a story, performed in character. Catch the show at The Player’s Ring in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it’s a small venue, so order your tickets now. John also started production last week on Gravityland, an 18 episode web show.

Bob Sherriff is an independent producer (without a web site) in the Boston area who has started to immerse one toe into the social media area, getting into corporate videoblogs, an area in which he would like to find someone to work with clients, determine capabilities, help them publish, help them put a lot of different things into their video blogs, get into different areas, right now he’s social media light, wants to become social media hevy, develop corporate blogs for mass publication, he thinks it’s an area that is growing. Most companies still just want to get their message out, they don’t understand the two-way nature of videoblogging, but other companies get it. It will be their competitive advantage.

Some book suggestions that came up in the discussion today include: The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler, The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott, The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger, The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom.

Matt Searles is ediring Mark’s new video blog and he does Asymmetric Biz Cult (a.k.a. ABC), a fascinating podcast tagged, “a new philosophy of art, mind and business.” Matt’s been doing collaborations with Mark thinking business and new media from an artsists perspective, in his words, “a rich tapestry.”

As I cleaned up these notes I listened to ABC Episode 12 Out in Left Field in which Matt talks about how his new Zoom H4 recorder which allows him now to record in the field, he’s no longer limited to recording in the studio, so this will allow him to try some new things. The episode explores what is ABC about? In a nutshell the business of media in the social media space. Around 09:46 and 13:20 you’ll hear “intros” he recorded to help express what ABC is all about. Engaging in the world through both new and traditional forms of art. At 18:00 the Matt goes into who are you? What is your personality? What is your unique approach? How do you market somethign that is so unique that there are no established channels of distribution? This is a big question for Matt. At 22:00 he goes into “modes of being” and suggests that social media is reconfiguring society. Around 25:00 he goes into organizating principles, evolution of the language, the categories that we use to put things in, something to do with idea of custom in the Heidegger sense. Trippy, interesting stuff.

Dave LaMorte is in graduate school and produces Teaching For The Future, a podcast for teachers about implementing technology education and media literacy.

Andrea Mercado is the blog co-manager of PLA Blog, the official blog of the Public Library Association She’s also the Reference and Techie Librarian at Reading Public Library in Massachusetts and author of the LibraryTechtonics blog. PLA Blog is the first blog sponsored by a library organization. She’s preparing a presentation on social media tools and came to the meeting to be inspired. She suggested checking out the Second Life Library System.

Steve Albanese, Tutorial Depot, is offering tutorials on the web available for a range of media devices. Content is geared to music technology, but he’s looking to branch out into other areas. The offer video podcast, some free and others paid. He’s also been doing a video show every Friday at 5pm called Friday Brew with friends, right now more of a fun thing, though it might go into a regular podcast at some point. He’s using the Adobe Flex player.

Well, that’s it for this month, whew. Lots of notes. First photo courtesy of Steve Garfield. Photo of John Herman courtesy of John Herman from the short film, The Future

Renew Media is a not-for-profit organization established in 1990 by the Rockefeller Foundation with the goal of supporting the creation, distribution, and awareness of independent media in all forms and to connect those works to a broad audience and soon they will be launching Reframe, providing a platform that supports curatorial acitivities and digital distribution. Reframe will help independent filmmakers, artists, distributors and archives by digitizing their content in order to make independent media easier to find. Much of what Reframe is digitizing will be available to the public for the first time. They are doing this by talking small percentages of the transaction fees while offering generous royalties to media owners (specific details are available on their site).

Reframe is building a website that will help viewers easily find titles, filmmakers or distributors, as well as browse to discover new works and they will have collections that are curated. They are not a distributor per se, they plan is to make content available through multiple distribution and delivery channels. Their arrangement with filmmakers and collections is non-exclusive, you can continue distributing media directly or through other outlets. One thing independents will really benefit from is free (video) or low-cost (film) digitization, this is to help archvives that have precious assets that are sitting on shelves rotting away (videotapes, especially older formats, have rather short lifetimes).

At first, titles will be available through Amazon’s DVD on Demand and Unbox digital download services, allowing users to purchase or rent titles. For each title you can set various purchase and rental prices to accommodate, for example, the educational market and personal purchases. consumers. This all sounds good on the surface, but lurking under the shiny surface is the world of DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Thus the partnership with Amazon Unbox is problematic. The terms-of-service of this video-on-demand service are among the worst that unwitting consumers have been suckered into, in which you’ll surrender your rights to privacy, the integrity of your personal data, and control over your own computer. If you’ve not already read it, now would be a good time to read “Amazon Unbox to customers: Eat shit and die” by Cory Doctorow.

Fortunatelly, Brian said they are also talking with other digital media distribution entities, like the Participatory Culture Foundation, whose Miro player just came out of beta. The idea is that if you place your content with Renew, you can opt in to each of the media distribution options. Nothing is “forced” upon you in terms of how your media gets out there. If you don’t want to help bring forth a DRM-induced Orwellian media nightmare, you’ll probably opt out of things like Amazon Unbox and go with a more rational distribution option. Why is DRM a problem for independent filmmakers? Does it not prevent theft of intellectual property? The movie studios are using it, why shouldn’t independent filmmakers do the same? I’ll try to provide my answer that question in a future post. Stay tuned.