The Film Experience Hackathon (and why you should attend)

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Chris Dorr

Yesterday my twitter feed brought news of an event taking place on October 13-14 in NYC that anyone interested in film should attend.  As described on its web site:

The Film Experience Hackathon is a weekend-long event whereby hackers, filmmakers and visual artists will join forces to create new and innovative ideas in how technology can enhance the world of film.

The goal of this hackathon is to build hacks that bring together technology, multimedia, and data to enrich the end-to-end movie experience. Hacks must improve the overall experience of seeking out, watching, and engaging with movies.

Kudos to Marc Schiller and Bond Strategy and Influence for pulling this event together. Borrowing from the well known tradition of hacking within the software community, this hackathon hacks the movie experience.  It asks the question, how can our connected world more effectively discover and experience movies in all their forms–online and offline?

There is no one easy answer (or hack) to this question. A  hackathon is a practical approach to find solutions that have eluded us. It fosters group collaboration between people of diverse technical backgrounds whose creativity is focused over a short time frame to create ideas and prototypes.   This process accelerates learning and can lead to real products.

Innovation, experimentation and collaboration are sorely needed in the film world. This is a great example of how they can be fostered.

Here are the details.

It is free, so join in.

Posted in Hollywood, Independent Film, Innovation, Internet, Movie Theaters, Social Media, Storytelling | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Cartoon Shows Filmmakers The Right Social Media Strategy

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Chris Dorr

Sheri Candler wrote a post aptly titled,  “Are you brave enough to shun social media?”  It is a must read for any filmmaker.

Sheri develops and executes effective marketing campaigns for movies and works to help film artists gather their audiences.  And that is not an easy job, as many filmmakers resist changing the way they market (or more properly have others market) their movies.  As she says,

“Most artists do not have a commitment to building up strong ties with an audience, they do not use social tools for “listening” and researching what audiences respond to…”

She then reprints a cartoon that elegantly lists “5 types of social media strategies”–see it below.

It elegantly captures the problem many filmmakers have with social media. (Though there are a few that are good at it.)  Most believe that their “social media” job is simply to talk about their movie, and yes, themselves.  This is a mistaken belief and shows that they deeply misunderstand the nature of social media.

They need to focus on the panel in the lower right hand corner of the cartoon.

“How can we help you be more awesome?”

This line captures perfectly how every artist should engage with their audience.  Nothing in the traditional idea of how a filmmaker markets her movie prepares one to do this. In fact, everything in the traditional model conspires against it. So one has to abandon that mode of thinking in order to successfully use social media. So my suggestion to any filmmaker is the following.

Memorize it, understand it and execute it.

When filmmakers do, individually and collectively, they will start to build a real audience for their work.

 

Find other insightful cartoons by Tom Fishburne at marketoonist.

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Can Indie Film Achieve a Network Effect?

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Chris Dorr

In a recent post entitled Networks And The Enterprise, Fred Wilson explains how his firm Union Square Ventures invests in networks. He included this line.

My uber goal of writing this post is to explain that the wired and mobile internet is a global network and it powers all sorts of smaller networks to get built on top of it.

These networks connect people with each other.  Each network gains value as more users join and as each user contributes value to the network which in turn becomes available to every other user. As he points out with respect to one of their investments,

Every time a new participant in the ecosystem joins the Return Path data network, their systems and tools get smarter, making the service more valuable for everyone. That’s a classic network effect and it is very powerful.

Achieving a network effect is the holy grail within the world of technology.  The network grows in size, power and value.  Kickstarter, one of the companies funded by Union Square Ventures, is approaching this holy grail.

James Cooper has just published an ebook entitled Kickstarter for Filmmakers: Prepare and Execute Your Next Crowd Funding Campaign.

Every filmmaker who has thought even briefly about using Kickstarter or other crowd funding platforms to raise money for a film should spend the $1.99 and read it immediately.

Cooper provides an overview of the state of crowd funding for film and then uses the crowd funding campaign from his own short film Elijah the Prophet to provide examples of what worked.  He also takes the reader through the various stages of a crowd funding campaign and highlights keys to success.

What I find most remarkable is the level of detail he provides on his own campaign.  He tells us which team member brought in how many dollars through their efforts and the number of people who contributed that no one on the team knew and how much these strangers contributed. In other words, he provides complete transparency into what his team did and how they did it.

It is worth noting that Cooper has done something that is really quite unusual within the film industry.

He actually provides real numbers.  There are no approximations and no spin. He simply says here is the data and here are my conclusions from that data. And by doing so, he provides real value to all independent filmmakers.

Now I ask you to imagine, what if there was really a network of independent filmmakers who did exactly what Cooper did and then did it repeatedly over all their projects? 

I mean the kind of network that Fred Wilson suggests in his blog post.  One where every participant provides knowledge to the network that every other participant can access.

This is a model from the  technology world that needs to borrowed by the indie film world and used to transform the way indie film is created, financed, distributed and marketed.  I would also argue further that it even needs to transform the way indie film is discussed.

Primarily indie film is viewed as if it is a disparate group of individuals who battle all odds and surmount great obstacles to finally get a shot at the brass ring.  Each filmmaker is seen as the lone auteur who has climbed the mountain.  At festivals each spin their tale of triumph as they court audiences.  It makes for great copy (and is often true) but does it help move independent film forward?  I am not sure. To me, it is not sufficient. Something more needs to be done.

Independent film needs a new metaphor.

Instead of a group of disparate individuals,  indie film has to be seen as a network. One which is powered by the wired and mobile Internet.  A network with participants who add value for each other participant.  To paraphrase Fred Wilson, each participant in the ecosystem needs to help the services get smarter and therefore make it more valuable for everyone who is part of the ecosystem.

This requires transparency and the sharing of real details–by everyone.

James Cooper has created a model of how to begin.  Others need to follow his example.

Then indie film might begin to achieve a very powerful network effect.

And every independent filmmaker will benefit.

Posted in Distribution, Independent Film, Innovation, Internet, Mobile, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

“These pictures, by now familiar to the Court, remain the basic story of our case.”

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Chris Dorr

The verdict on the Apple–Samsung lawsuit was delivered last Friday afternoon.  Many people are weighing in with verdicts on the verdict.  Some proclaim the end of innovation, others proclaim it is about to begin. Some try to pick the winners and losers beyond the obvious ones of Apple and Samsung.

The patent system has been praised and it has been pilloried. The list of subjects and narrative of the verdict will go on for quite awhile and make for some great reading.  Those who are fascinated by the epic battles being fought in the mobile world and the implications for consumers will have much to digest, debate and spin from their view of the world. I count myself as one of those who share this fascination.

For now though,  I am most fascinated by how Apple won over the jury. How did they get several human beings to vote for them?

I would argue that Apple did in court exactly what it does with its products.  Apple kept it very simple.  The legal team employed by Apple realized what Apple consistently realizes itself–you must tell a simple story if you are to convince anyone that your product is worthy of consideration.

In Apple’s legal case they created a chart with three sections, moving from left to right (note: the direction we naturally read if we read English).  On the left they pictured several Samsung phones created prior to the introduction of iPhone, in the middle they placed a photo of the iPhone and on the right they displayed four Samsung phones created after the iPhone hit the market. (See below.)

Image credit: AllThingsD

The visual story is simple. Before the iPhone, Samsung phones did not look at all like the iPhone, after the iPhone appeared in 2007, Samsung phones began to look just like the iPhone. Clearly Samsung had copied the iPhone. Why?  Because that is what your eyes told you!  A juror could quickly move her eyes from left to right and see the story for herself.

After all the complex patent assertions and rebuttals were heard, a plethora of devices  were shown and many abstract arguments were dissected, all a juror had to do was remember that chart. The Apple legal team made sure that the chart was frequently shown to the jurors at different parts of the trial, including the closing arguments.  We all know that repetition helps our memory.

Again what we see from Apple is the total dedication to simplicity even within the complex noise of a drawn out legal case.  Apple knows that simplicity is what drives human behavior and thought.  We crave it in our stories and in our lives.  We revel in it.  Give us a user interface that is easy to understand, give us a screen that we can command with our finger and yes, give us a story that has a beginning, a middle and end.

And best of all, tell it with pictures.

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Movie Theaters Should Think Like Netflix

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Chris Dorr

This piece appeared on the Future of Film blog in April of 2011 and was by far the most successful post (measured by traffic, comments, tweets and likes) during the blog’s first year of existence.  It is a “what if” piece which speculates on how Internet driven innovation could radically improve the movie going experience.  The success of this post highlighted the continued importance of the theater experience to film goers.  People really want to see movies in a physical space with other people.  They just want  innovations that improve that experience. And not in 20 years.  They want to see it now. Sadly that innovation is still very slow in coming.

Movie theaters need to increase attendance. Here is how they can do it.

Over the last two years Netflix has become available on every Internet enabled screen sold in the United States. Desktops, laptops, tablets, TVs, and phones can now be used to view the Netflix streaming service. And if you can’t find the movie you want on their streaming service you can always have the DVD sent to you via the US Postal Service and watch it on your old fashioned non-internet-enabled DVD player.

The consumer price for the service that supplies all these screens is $7.99/month for streaming only and  $9.99/ month if you want to order DVDs. At the end of 2010, Netflix reached 20 million subscribers, up from 12.3 million in 2009.

The only screen that Netflix doesn’t reach is the screen at your local movie theater. Unlike Netflix’s subscriber count, movie theater attendance is not going up. Instead, it is going down. In 2010 US theater attendance was the lowest it has been in 14 years at 1.35 billion tickets sold, 5.4% below 2009. So, in the same year that the Netflix subscriber base increased by 65%, theater attendance declined by 5.4%.

Movie theater admissions should be going up. For filmmakers and film goers, theaters are an essential part of the movie experience. In fact, movie theaters are the lifeblood of movies.

What if we could create a new model for going to the movies at your local theater that is as consumer-friendly as Netflix? Could this dramatically increase attendance?

Imagine this service.

You go to a website or download an application to your device that gets you a list of every movie theater in the United States. From this list you get to pick two movie theaters.

For example, I would pick the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 and the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, both on Broadway in Manhattan. One shows mainstream Hollywood fare and the other shows foreign and independent movies. Both are my local theaters.

The key point is this: each customer gets to create her own access point at any theater across the entire United States. Think of it as choosing your own screen much like Netflix allows you to do.

Then I put in my credit card and agree to pay $10 per month ($120 per year) and receive a movie pass to these two theaters. This movie pass allows me to go to any movie at any time at each of these theaters.

Yes. I did say “any movie at any time.” I have to show up like everyone else and get a ticket, but I don’t have to pay because the movie pass I purchased allows me access.

When I check in to receive the ticket, they log me in and record which movie I am seeing. This allows them to allocate some percentage of my subscription to the distributor of that movie.

If I don’t go to any movies in a given month, the money from my subscription gets split between the two theaters and allocated between all the movies they have shown that month.  In other words, the movie theater and the distributor make money even if I don’t show up.

Now the movie theater has a real relationship with me, the moviegoer. It has my email address, my zip code, my credit card and whatever else I put into my profile. It also knows each movie I attend. This service will allow me to rate the movies I see, so the theater can recommend other movies I might like to see that are appearing on its screens. Sound familiar?

A movie theater subscription service can go even further than Netflix because each theater is located in a very specific neighborhood. Restaurants and shops of every type surround each theater. Theaters also continuously gather people in one place with a common interest.

This service can add a social media layer that appeals to people’s constant desire to connect with each other and connect with services in the neighborhood. Groupon, Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare are all a natural fit.

What does the movie business get out of a service like this?

Let’s do the numbers.

If a million people subscribe per year, $120 million annually flows back through theaters into the movie industry, at 10 million subs, $1.2 billion and at 20 million subs, $2.4 billion. In other words, if done well, it can scale and a lot of money will be generated. And as you remember, Netflix hit 20 million subscriptions just last year.

But is there a company out there that has the expertise to pull this off?  A company that has dealt with all the movie distributors, has expertise in database management, credit card collection, knows something about recommendation engines, deals with vast numbers of movie lovers on a daily basis and knows exactly where they all live.

Let’s think for a moment. Netflix maybe?

Posted in Distribution, Hollywood, Innovation, Internet, Movie Theaters, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

At the Olympics, NBC Brings Us Survivor: We Really Want the Super Bowl

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Chris Dorr

The Super Bowl shows us every year that no matter how “new” media advances in our lives, there is nothing like a live sporting event to get us to gather around the old fashioned TV and have a great time. Everybody seems to win (except the losing team)– the public, the network and the advertisers who pony up big dollars to entertain us with their 60 second spots.

We, as human beings, seem drawn to the grand live sporting event for the same reason we are drawn to great drama in all its forms.  We don’t know how it all ends and we want to go on the journey together in order to find out.  So we cheer, scream in agony, and try to hope and  guess who will ultimately win.  We escape our regular lives for a short time and live vicariously in the competitive lives of other human beings. With the advent of twitter and Facebook, we can now share our emotions and thoughts with others as the drama unfolds in real time, thus heightening the experience even further. Here old media, new media, audience and advertisers all fit  together.

At the London Olympics, NBC brings us Survivor instead of the Super Bowl.

Every day during the Olympics NBC constructs for us a reality TV version of the games that is more akin to the way Survivor is shown to an audience than the way we see the Super Bowl.

Survivor and TV shows like it feature contests that are interspersed with competitor interviews and background information on the contestants.  The interviews and competitions are prerecorded and then edited together for maximum dramatic effect.  This compilation is  then released over a several week period and loaded up with commercials.  This works for reality TV because we don’t know who really has won–the participants and staff all sign confidentiality agreements and leaks typically do not occur.

Let’s look at what occurs in London.  The events are scheduled throughout the day–London time of course.  The marquee events–those that will appeal to the US audience (the one advertisers covet) are not put on the air when they occur.  Instead, they are held back and are given the “Survivor” treatment for an evening prime time show.  NBC knows the result and therefore surrounds the recorded event with human interest background and drama that will build to that result.

They do this to create the maximum amount of TV Ad space in their prime time TV schedule. However, there is only one big problem. Unlike Survivor, we already know who has won.  All we want to do is see the race–and the network has deprived us of the pleasure of seeing it unfold in real time.

Here is how we want to see the Olympics.

Bring to us the Super Bowl style broadcast–in real time with social media wrapped around it, so we can all experience it and talk about it together.  We want the real drama of the event as it actually happens.

The problem is simple to see. At the 2012 Olympics, the advertisers, the viewing public and the broadcast model are misaligned with each other.  For the Super Bowl and Survivor they work perfectly together. NBC just has to realize that the Survivor model just does not work for the viewing public.

Instead they need to get with the Super Bowl model.

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Storytellers and Audiences: Back Together Again

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Chris Dorr

Storytellers and audiences have entered into a new relationship with each other as the Internet continues to reshape our mass media landscape.  Whether it is the ability of a fan to directly fund a creative project, comment on a show, share a video with her social graph or create content that selects from a favorite film, audiences are now more closely linked to storytelling than ever before.

We have a difficult time understanding this process as it seems to be so diffuse and new.  To some content creators, it even seems bothersome, if not down right intrusive.

Steve Coulson argues in his wonderful talk, TEDxSheffield 2012 – From Butlins to Tiki Bars… that:

1. This “new” relationship harkens back to the old days of storytelling and,

2. All storytellers should work to embrace this relationship–not reject it.

He points out that for eons, storytelling was a shared activity, whether around the campfire, watching a Greek play in the round or yelling at a bawdy performance of Shakespeare at the Globe Theater. He even details how Tiki Bars were built as immersive story worlds in which each participant played a role of his own imagination as he “went native”.  Yet Tiki bars came into existence just as a new mass media was taking off and created a “new” relationship between the storyteller and audience.

As he states in his talk;

“Then came Radio, TV and Film.  A technology thru mass media that for the first time really separated the storyteller and audience through time and place.  For the first time, audiences were told to sit down, shut up and pay attention as the storyteller weaved his story, a kind of dictatorship of the auteur.”

Coulson argues further that:

“I think we will look back at the 20th century as that blip in the storytelling history where the audience lost its ability to participate. Mass media will be that small section because things are changing dramatically…”

Coulson then looks at what has emerged in the last five years with the growth of the web, social media and mobile platforms and sees it as much more than a technical revolution. Instead he focuses on:

“the gradual reemergence of the voice of the audience that had been shut down by mass media, as we turn from consumers to producers…and start participating and collaborating in that storytelling process.”

Coulson looks at something “new” and tells us we need to see it as something “old”. He tells us that we are now sitting around a campfire, as our ancestors used to, but we just don’t see it–yet.

He shows us that a new world is emerging that takes us back to older forms of human interaction.  Most importantly, he provides us with a series of anchors, little vignettes, “stories” if you will, that allow us to glimpse this new world through an old lens and thus see it more clearly.

As Clay Shirky once wrote:

“The change we are in the middle of isn’t minor and it isn’t optional, but nor are its contours set in stone. We are a long way from discovering and perfecting the Internet’s native forms…”

Everyone should take the time to watch Coulson’s talk because he has identified a key thread of this new (old) story and helps us see how we can discover its native forms.

Posted in Innovation, Internet, Mobile, Social Media, Storytelling | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Everything You Wanted to Know About Cord Cutting but Were Afraid to Ask

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Chris Dorr

This review also appears on PBS Mediashift.

We have never really liked our local cable company.

Over the years, many of us have wasted time waiting for the cable guy to show up to install or replace the box that doesn’t seem to work or been placed on eternal hold while customer service takes its sweet time. And to add insult to injury, every year our basic cable bill goes up while our cable company adds more channels into a bundle we did not ask for and don’t want to watch.

We end up feeling trapped by the cable ecosystem where we just pay the bill and get what they dish out. It would seem that there is no escape from the Comcasts or Time Warners of the world if we need to watch some TV.

Author Janko Roettgers tells us otherwise in his new e-book, “Cut The Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable.” One of the first releases from a new e-book venture at the technology site GigaOm, Roettgers’ e-book explains how we can get TV without having to pay for cable.

“These days, almost anything you’d want to watch on TV is available online for free or at a low cost. You don’t want to watch TV on your computer? No problem. A new generation of devices makes it easier to bring TV shows and sports events to your big screen TV,” he writes.

Over the past 15 years, a new media ecosystem has been constructed and is beginning to challenge the legacy system of cable. Building on the distributed network of the Internet, it originally deployed video only to the desktop computer but can now provide TV to every screen you own, including the biggest screen in the house, the TV.

“Cut The Cord” is a highly readable and very informative guide to this new ecosystem. And given the jumble of screens, tools, services, and gadgets that populate this new ecosystem, a guide is sorely needed. (For more on cutting the cord, PBS MediaShift ran a popular week-long special back in February of this year.)

Roettgers conveniently breaks up his e-book into two main areas: “Where to Watch” and “How to Watch.” Plus, he gives us some anecdotal examples of how he and others navigate the many options available to viewers.

Where to Watch

A number of new services aggregate TV shows and movies in a variety of ways. Many of us have sampled a few, others none at all. Roettgers takes us through them, from Netflix, Hulu, Hulu Plus, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, to YouTube. He breaks down their pricing, their offerings, and the good and the bad of each service. He also lets you in on each service’s secrets and tells you which devices to use for each service.

He also breaks down the categories of News and Sports to reveal the ins and outs of how to follow your favorite sports or sports team and get your news online. As he admits, the sports part can be tricky but is still doable after you cut the cord.

Roettgers also provides a TV show cheat sheet that allows you to find out where to find some of your favorite TV shows online and what it will cost you to get them. This kind of comparison highlights both the promise and challenge of accessing TV exclusively online. Here we see that if we cut the cord, we replace a simple bundle (albeit expensive) that is relatively easy to access with a patchwork system within which we must create our own bundle. Cheaper, perhaps, but it is also more complicated. We plunge into a bigger thicket in the next section.

How To Watch

This is the geekiest section of the book and fortunately for most readers, Roettgers tries to keep it as geek-free as possible. He takes you through Roku, Apple TV, Boxee, Google TV, Xbox, PS3, Wii, Smart TVs, iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook, Android Tablets, and even shows you how your PC can be hooked up to your TV and used as a DVR.

Most of these alternatives will not apply to most readers. Thankfully Roettgers keeps it short and simple, so you can skip over the game console you don’t have and go to the one you do, or forget Apple if you are not an Apple user but dive in if you are. He emphasizes that your personal solution is what matters in this new universe, not a generic one-size-fits-all. (After all, if you become a cord cutter, that’s what you’re trying to leave behind.)

Roettgers’ analysis of the devices and tools is fair-minded. He does not push one solution over another and emphasizes the strengths and weaknesses each represents. So if you do not currently own an Internet-enabled TV or Roku box, he does not insist that you go out and buy one in order to catch up. Instead, he shows that many different approaches can give you a satisfying and hopefully less expensive alternative to cable TV.

Can You Find Your Own Way?

Roettgers re-emphasizes the customized approach when at the end of the e-book, he profiles three people who take very different approaches to cord cutting. Jim Romenesko, Peter Rojas, and Patrick Norton each discuss what they did to escape cable and how they did it. What they have in common, though, is a very sophisticated understanding of the technology world and all its related gadgets. So one comes away with the sense that cord cutting is still limited to people who possess greater technical knowledge than the average person.

Today, many people take what I call the middle approach. I would put myself in this category. I have a cable TV subscription, but I also have Apple TV, with which I access Netflix and iTunes on my TV. I also view Netflix and stream online TV content on my iPad. Think of it as putting a toe in the water. Am I ready to completely cut the cord? Not yet, but I am getting closer.

And I also know this to be true: The services and devices that show TV and movies online and deliver them to every screen imaginable will continue to rapidly improve. They will become simpler to install and use. As a result they will become an even more formidable foe against cable. Larger numbers of average people will cut the cord.

And Roettgers’ e-book will be a valuable guide to those who decide to take the plunge.

“Cut The Cord” is available on Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble.

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Movie Theaters: The Last Unconnected Screen

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Chris Dorr

We are in the midst of a vast transformation driven by the Internet that is radically changing how we view visual entertainment.  Every screen we use daily, be it a smart phone, a computer, a tablet or a TV is hooked up (or about to be hooked up) to a high speed data network that sends us moving images.  These images will continue to come to us at a faster rate, at a higher quality and at a much lower cost as each day goes by.

This rapid innovation comes from a thousand different sources; from individuals who are known and unknown, from companies big and small and some companies that are old and some that started in a bedroom or garage a few months ago. This change is reshaping many parts of the film world and creating opportunities for filmmakers and film lovers.

Yet there is one screen that is not getting connected, where there is little innovation and where the future is being delayed.  The industry (the major movie studios) that controls this screen restricts innovation and is holding off the future.  I am, of course, referring to the last screen to be connected to the Internet—the screen at your local movie theater.

Ira Deutchman wrote an excellent blog post, Indie Theaters Face Digital Mayhem that documented the many problems faced by small theaters in their conversion to digital and how these problems are created by the major studios.

There was another piece from Business Week entitled For Small Theaters, the Digital Future Is Dark that covered the same topic and contained the following paragraph.

“For the past decade, Hollywood’s biggest studios have been working on a new standard for digital movies that could save them $1 billion annually in printmaking fees and shipping costs. The movies in the new format are shipped on hard drives that hold hundreds of gigabytes of data and are connected to a super-high-definition projector. To unlock a movie, the distributor sends the theater a code that controls where, when, and how long it can be played.”

I urge you to read this carefully again and focus on this phrase “movies in the new format are shipped on hard drives…”

 Hard drives?  Are you kidding me?

At a time when companies in every major industry in the world ship vast amounts of highly sensitive data via the Internet, the major studios ship their precious cargo on hard drives?

What makes this even more insane (and yes insane is the right word) is that these hard drives require a very expensive digital projector and a cumbersome key system to unlock the movie. At a time where digital innovation is driving costs down in data storage, memory and processing speed all over the world, the movie studios have found a way to keep costs up and suppress digital innovation.

If there were a vibrant market for true innovation in the movie theater business the cost of digital projection would immediately drop.  What costs $70,000 today (and is already outmoded, as it relies on hard drives) could be dramatically lowered and rely on the Internet for its mode of transport.

The innovation in movie theaters should mirror the innovation that is taking place with every other screen in our lives.  Simply put, movie theaters need to use the multi directional, fully distributed network called the Internet to facilitate connection inside and around the movie experience.

Movie theaters need to use the Internet to:

1. Show movies

2. Connect to their customers

3. Connect movie creators to moviegoers

4. Connect moviegoers to each other.

For the sake of finding the possibilities inherent in this simple proposition do the following thought experiment: imagine every experience that could occur in a movie theater if the movie screen was as connected as your smart phone, tablet, TV or laptop.

We should then ask the owners of movie theaters to try the same thought experiment and then reshape the movie theater experience based on their new found insight.

It is not too much to ask.

It is called innovation. Businesses do it all the time.

An earlier version of this post appeared on the Future of Film blog on Tribecafilm.com.

Posted in Distribution, Hollywood, Innovation, Internet, Marketing, Movie Theaters, Social Media | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Filmmakers Need to Find a New Lens

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Chris Dorr

Yesterday Sara Kiener wrote a great post on Hope for Film on the pros and cons of Kickstarting for Theatrical Distribution.  It led me to write this comment on the blog which I repost here in modified form.

I have been asked by many independent filmmakers some version of the following question. Can I raise $400,000 on Kickstarter? (Plug in various amounts for the question.)

I always answer by saying you just asked the wrong question. The right question is how many fans do I have?  If a filmmaker is not already active on social media, the answer to that question is either I do not know, or better yet, none.

Now the essential question is how do I get fans?  Why? Because without them, you will not get any money on Kickstarter.  There are many answers to how to get fans.  And unless a filmmaker is prepared to work very hard and explore and use social media to find the answer that works for them, they will never get anywhere with crowdfunding.

But to do so, they have to fundamentally change the way they think.

Strangely enough most indie filmmakers share a mass media mindset with the people who run major movie studios. Both groups falsely believe that people are passive consumers who simply want to watch what you give them. The Internet has changed all that.  Now people are powerful users who want to engage with and share media.  Passivity has been thrown out the window.

The question each filmmaker has to ask is this–Do I want to take on the arduous task of really engaging and empowering those people who like or might like my work? Do I want to involve these people in my process from creation to distribution?

Or am I just going to ask them for a buck?

Do independent filmmakers really want to grab a new mindset, grapple with social tools and thereby really connect with people?  Are they prepared to find a new lens through which to look at themselves and at their audience?

In order for more to do so, they have to cast aside the mass media mindset. They have to not only look at their potential audience in a new way, they have to look at themselves in a new way.  They have to get rid of their own passivity. Those filmmakers that take the leap and really work hard at it, have a chance to gather fans and create a sustainable business. But changing the fundamental way you think about the world and how you see the world and therefore how you act in the world is very hard to do. Most indie filmmakers, to date, are not doing so.

And the indie film world (composed of filmmakers and film lovers) suffers as a result.

So find a new lens.

Posted in Distribution, Independent Film, Innovation, Internet, Marketing | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments