(2009-04-11) Hope Future Indie Film

In September Ted Hope gave a speech on the future on Independent Film (Film Industry). For the last fifteen years our Community has made huge strides at demystifying the production process and providing access to the financing and distribution Gate Keeper-s. Some call this democratization, but it is not. This demystification of production was a great first step, but it is not give the filmmaker real power; generally speaking we are still there with our hat in our hands. In some ways, understanding the great behemoth that is production is also a distraction. It has distracted us from making really good films. And as it has distracted us from gaining the knowledge and seizing the power that is available to us. We have learned how to make films and how to bring them to market. We now have to demystify how to market and distribute films, and to do it in a way truly suited to the films we are making and desire to make.

If we want the Freedom to tell the stories we want to tell, we all have to start to contribute to build the Infrastructure that can support them. We need to step back from the glamour of making all these films, and instead help each other build the links, articulate the message, make the commitments, that will turn us truly into a Truly Free Film community. We have to stop making so many films.

We will reach out to the audiences that are hungry for something new, for something truthful, for something about the world they experience, for something that is as complex as the emotions they feel. We can let them guide us because for the first time we can have real access and contact with them.

If we want Truly Free Films we have to stop dreaming of wealth, and take the job of building the community and support system.

For the last decade and a half, we have been myopically focused on production. Using Sundance submissions as a barometer, our production ability has increased eight and half times over - 850% - from 400 to 3600 films in fifteen years. C'mon! What are we doing? Wasting a tremendous amount of energy, talent, and brainpower - that much is clear. If the average budget of Sundance submissions is $500K, that means the aggregate production costs are $1.8 billion dollars a year.

The business model of the current entertainment industry is predicated on Consumer-s not making choices but acting on impulses. Choice comes from research, from knowledge, and from tastes. Speak to someone from NetFlix, and they will tell you that the longer someone is a member, the more their tastes move to auteurs, to quality film.

A TRULY FREE FILMMAKER - be they producer or director - recognizes their responsibility is not just to find a good script, not just to find a good cast, a good package. A TRULY FREE FILMMAKER recognizes that they must do more than find the funding, and even more than justifying that funding. The TRULY FREE FILMMAKER now recognizes their responsibility is to also find the audience, grow the audience, expand the audience, and then also to move the audience, not just emotionally, but also literally: to move them onwards further to other things. Whether it is by direct contact, email blasts, or blogging, whatever it is, express what you want our culture to be. And express it to all you know.

Some of the comments raise the theater-vs-home User Experience.

• It's not just about Screen Size, but Rit Ual.

• Kinda reminds me of Printed Book vs EBook discussion.

• Weird idea: mini-theater spaces that basically have a super-HomeTheater setup based on a DVD. You reserve a space for a group to come at a certain time (have an online system for Group Forming). Maybe the Theater provides the DVD, maybe you bring it yourself. Shared Concession Stand. (Not allow "public performance" would get in the way of this, of course.) Will this be the Multi Plex becoming a Kilo Plex? Will NetFlix partner with StarBucks? Or maybe TGIFridays? Does MeetUp have a role? Other Third Place players?

  • heh, from his list below: 20. Grassroots has come to distribution. The Living Room Theater model advanced by Robert Greenwald's BraveNewTheaters empowers audience members and filmmakers alike bringing them together and invested in each others success. Filmmakers give the audience more power and control, and audiences recognize that they have to fight to preserve the culture they want. The Micro Cinema Movement's been at it longer and is still going strong.

He followed it up with a multi-part list of reasons for hope for the future. (6 7 8 9 10 11 12 )

• 13. A new turn-key apparatus is evolving for filmmakers who want to "Do it with others" in that they can hire bookers, publicists, marketers - all schooled in the DIY manner of working. Instead of hoping for a Prince Charming to arrive and distribute their film, TFFilmakers are seeking out the best and the brightest collaborators to bring their film to the audiences.

• 16. Filmmakers are recognizing the need to define their platform at early stage AND make it on-going. Be they producers like Bill Horberg or Jane Kosek , directors like Raymond De Felitta and JonReiss, or writers like John August and Dennis Cooper, creative filmmakers are taking upon themselves to find and unite their audiences at an earlier stage in the process. Okay, maybe it isn't so Machavellian; maybe they just want to talk to people. Either way, it is going to lead to more people seeing better films.

• 18. A feature film is no longer defined as a singular linear narrative told in under two hours. Filmmakers are recognizing the need to extend the filmic world beyond the traditional confines. Whether this is in Judd Apatow's YouTube shorts for KNOCKED UP or in Wes Anderson's prologue short for THE DARJEELING EXPRESS, the beginning of new models have emerged helping filmmakers continue the conversation forward with their audiences.

• 19. New models for production are being utilized. The most widely noted in this regard is "crowdsourced" (Crowd Sourcing) work. Massify has recently brought together the horror film Perkins 14. This year brought us Matt Hanson's and A Swarm Of Angels open sourced / free culture start-up THE UNFOLD; the trailer is mysterious (see below) and I am looking forward to the feature. These massive collaborative works are the ultimate union between audience and creator.

• (22: Financiers like ImpactPartners and Indie Vest...)

• 28. The embrace of the "1000 True Fan-s" model...

• 52. The great beacon of hope I find in the film horizon is the often TFF-cited Lance Weiler and his gang of collaborators at The Workbook Project and From Here To Awesome. The open source generosity and advocacy stemming from their platforms provide a plethora of information and point to the real possibility that artists everywhere can not only create the work they want but have the ability to find, access, and join with audiences everywhere. They show that power is not in the hands of the establishment but in the community. Lance and his team having taken a host of good ideas and put them into action - and it appears to be just the tip of an iceberg that we can expect to come from them. The revolution is being podcast; it's time you got the URL tattooed onto your soul.

Ted is involved in Hammer To Nail.