Zen Films

New Business Models for Filmmakers

Here's the Lance Weiler presentation from last week's Power to the Pixel conference in London in which Lance shares his view about where storytelling is going.

What's very interesting to me is that I've been looking at the same issues and coming up with similar conclusions. Where I believe we share a common outlook are:

• discovery is the single biggest issue facing filmmakers
• movies are going to be free for most people (as music is now) but just giving the movie away isn't going to help it get found
• to crack the discovery issue we need to go transmedia and this ultimately means we need to think of our movies as "services" rather than "products"
• our future business model lies in enhancing social experiences (but that still means someone can enjoy the experience in solitude)

Why do we need to go transmedia? Well, because the same story can reach out to many different audience segments (via the different media) and for any given segment it potentially increases the number of touch-points (meaning that the more someone sees or hears about your "movie" the more likely they are to take an interest in it).

Why does transmedia result in services rather than products? Well, because building relationships and creating experiences means an ongoing commitment to the audience and not just a final product that's put on a shelf to be sold. This is already evident with RPGs where people have invested hours of time playing and building their own internal world. And I can say from my own experience that if someone doesn't develop a Commonwealth expansion pack for Fallout 3 so I can see what's happened to Dr Li then I'm going to be very upset!

In designing the open-source Parasites transmedia project, I've taken the audience' social needs as the starting point for developing the project, as the diagram below shows.

Show me the money

Lance presents the idea of leveraging the data that surrounds your "movie" and using the information you collect about the audience to make money. There's definitely an opportunity here and it's an approach already being taken by many companies (see Free by Chris Anderson for the examples).

The problem with building a business plan on data comes if you need to sell it to a third party; because then you need the permission of your audience to capture and sell it. And of course you need someone willing to buy the data that isn't directly enjoying the experience you created. Both invite conflicts.

You could, however, effectively sell the data back to the audience in the guise of an improved experience but then the data is an enabler rather than the service that's bought.

My opinion, as built into the Parasites business model, is that there is evidence that people will pay for the following:

• utility - think benefits of physical book over digital book or download over streaming
• convenience - pay to get it in this place, right now vs I get it for free later
• personalization - pay to get a bespoke, tailored version vs the free general version
• merchandise - pay for physical products that fulfill social needs (to look cool, insider/outsider)

These are the four pillars of future business models and it need not rely on massive audiences. But it does rely on a greater understanding not only of audiences but of people.

If you're in any doubt about these ideas, ask yourself why people pay premium-prices for a cellphone ringtone that lasts a few seconds but won't buy a three minute song?

Movie Merchandising for Indies

If you're like me then you've probably been saddened at the way Hollywood movies spin-off a ton of merchandise that, let's face it, nobody needs. Unfortunately I can't say "needs or wants" because there is demand for it. And while many people will watch pirated movies, they are still buying the merchandise.

So, while still refusing to embrace consumerism, there's a big chance that the future of indie film financing is in merchandising. Maybe not a plastic toy with every Happy Meal but maybe unique, cool stuff that isn't part of a million dollar franchise empire.

Take for example the Cosmonaut store as an example of cool, unique, beautiful...well.. stuff. Rather than just asking people for money to part-fund a movie, the merchandise gives something back - not just the physical product but the kudos.

T-shirts and other clothes have always been used as a public statement about the wearer's personality or opinions. Buying a t-shirt to support an indie movie or a cause buys you kudos among friends and gives a warm feeling inside that you've done something good.

Designing Your Merch

In working with Klatcher.com on the Mindflesh store, we've tried to create t-shirts that are unique but also that have a value outside the movie. That's to say even if someone hadn't seen the movie, the t-shirt would still be cool. Well, at least in some circles :)

The point being that you're not expecting the buyer to be a walking billboard for the movie. It's enough that they bought something from you to help pay back the financing.

Mindflesh being the movie it is, our designs are not for everyone but that's just why they're cool ;)

Where else can you make a statement with your shoes?!

So What's The Problem?

The problem right now is not so much getting the merchandise made on demand - there are many sites like Zazzle - it's the cost base. Just like selling your movie on Amazon, the guy making all the money is not the movie producer who's typically only making 5% to 20% of the retail price.

With more data on what sells, when it sells, who's buying and why they buy, it'll be possible to bulk-buy merchandise and, in taking a risk that it sells, the producer will keep more of the money. Of course, it's not movie making, but if fewer people are buying movies then it's a case of having to find alternative products that they will spend their money on.

Mindflesh 360 Experience

Launching today is the Mindflesh 360 experience at Klater.com/mindflesh.

NB: Check out the official press release here and feel free to Digg it ;)

What does that mean? Well, working with the nice people at Klatcher.com we're experimenting with new ways to connect to audiences and find a sustainable business model.

This ought to beg two questions: what's Klatcher.com and what's the new business model?

Klatcher.com is a new media technology platform that integrates all the islands of content and social media that develop around a movie. It doesn't replace the need for a Facebook page and a YouTube channel but it can pull them together in a more cohesive way. And it also aims to simplify the management and tracking of content be it video, blog posts, photos etc.

As is typical these days with Internet services, the site is in continual beta but improvements are happening pretty much weekly so I'd encourage folks to give it a go a fire off suggestions to Johannes the Klatcher CEO.

So what's happening there with Mindflesh? Well the first thing you'll notice is that the feature-length movie have been chopped up into 22 webisodes. We've published six webisodes at launch and then we're publishing one every Tuesday and Friday for the next 8 weeks.

Below is webisode 3 which shows our hero first getting captured by the Guardians :)

So, the movie is completely free to watch as webisodes and although the movie wasn't designed to be webisized I think we've made a pretty good job of finding a good place to cut... if not always with a cliff hanger, at least an enticing hook.

We've also created a bunch of merchandising that includes these rather elegant, arty Keds!

When we were in post on Mindflesh, Matt the editor and I joked about all sorts of T-shirts we might do utilizing quotes from the movie. But I didn't implement any kind of merchandising because I have to be honest and say that I was rather uncomfortable whoring myself out like I was making Harry Potter or Star Wars. The bottom line unfortunately is... well, the botton line. Seems like people will buy unique and cool stuff more than they're inclined to pay for movies... but let me address this in another blog post.

Transmedia in Pictures

While writing an upcoming article for Indie Slate magazine on Transmedia I came up with this infographic that illustrates the difference between the typical..well..let's say "Hollywood franchise" that leaves us all disappointed when we consume all the media and a transmedia project in which each media should be satisfying in its own right but consuming all the media delivers that "wow!" factor.

Transmedia Development

Thank you to everyone that's been supporting the Parasites transmedia project and thanks for all the offers of help!

We will have more details to follow shortly but I wanted to reassure everyone that progress is being made. A lot of work is being done off-line or behind the scenes to provide the foundations that we can all build upon.

The diagram below highlights the complexity but most importantly our approach.

What we're in the process of creating is a Project Reference Guide. Those in the TV industry might think of this as the "bible" - the document that informs everyone where the story is heading across the season(s). "Bible" is a bit too religious for my liking so we're calling it by what it is - a reference source :)

To create the bible..*cough*.. reference guide, we have to first start with our premise and then work our way through describing and developing the world (a dystopian Britain 500 years from now ravaged by global warming and political corruption), the characters (various leaders, visionaries and crooks that inhabit this new world) and the plot (what drives these people and how do they conflict with each other? who is our hero?).

It would be easy to think that we could just develop a story and then implement it across multiple media and multiple platforms. But the media and platforms lend themselves to different interactions, form factors and uses. And we want to tie everything together as described in my earlier post.

The diagram below shows the relative amounts of brainpower we're spending on the different elements. The game, you see, potentially provides the most immersive experience and hence requires the most consideration and planning. The movie on the other hand only allows the audience to view through one window on to the world. It's also fair to say that a lot of what would be done for script development like character backstories etc. that would be evident in the movie if not explictly shown is being done under the "game" heading even though we know it'll be used for both.

The gameplay and social interaction through the game is amazing. Hoping to have something to share for everyone to comment on soon...

Parasites: Exciting New Writing Talent Joins The Team

I'm delighted to welcome superb writing talent to the Parasites team in the form of Shad Clark. Not only does Shad have a number of optioned sci-fi and horror scripts under his belt but he's also contract writer at EA Games, developing narratives for The Sims and working most recently with Spore.

Shad is a wonderful guy and his involvement really strengthens the project.

As the integration between script, game and live events thickens... stay tuned for more announcements :)

Creating Social Media for Indie Film Marketing

The purpose of this post is to explain how to market your indie movie correctly and avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made. This is a practical piece but it helps to understand the reasoning behind my suggestions. I’ve spent a couple of years now investigating and experimenting with social media on my own movies and not always getting it right! Much of the research and exploration I’ve done has been inspired by Henry Jenkin’s whitepaper on spreadable media, from the Workbook Project and a mountain of social media presentations on SlideShare!

I’m going to assume that as indie filmmakers (a) you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on advertising campaigns (although more on this in a later post) and hence (b) that you want to use word-of-mouth to make people aware of the movie ahead of it being seen.

So here it is: You have to create marketing materials – social media – that make a contribution to a person’s (online) social life. Audiences don’t build their world around your movie or your marketing materials - they take your movie and media use it for their own (social) purposes. That means (borrowing from Jenkin’s paper) you have to create media that allows your audience to:

• express something about themselves or their community
• express a deeply held perception or view of the world
• determine who’s in and who’s out
• conduct some kind of social function – like sharing, referring, alerting, gossiping, debating (etc.)

The problem with the usual trailer and movie poster is they can only work in this way if you’ve got the kudos built into the project from the beginning – like a named cast or named director, maybe a popular franchise. Then those well-known elements all bring a message or meaning which fans use to express themselves. And, media built on these elements has a social worth as a gift or tribute.

For example, if I decorate my MySpace or Facebook page with a poster from Old Boy or La Haine, it’s communicating something about me – I’m using the poster not to promote the film but to signal the type of person that I am and the people I’m interested to meet. Similarly, if I forward the link to a trailer to a friend, I’m doing it to reinforce the friendship because I think this gesture or “gift” will be appreciated and they’ll think kindly towards me. It’s not really because I want to promote the film (unless I know the filmmakers of course), it's what the trailer is doing for me.

So, if you’ve got an indie film that nobody’s heard of, your trailer isn't punching at the same weight – your trailer and poster are not performing those necessary social functions in the same way or as effectively. Worse still, until there’s a body of opinion that says your film isn’t lame, whoever carries your colors is going out on a limb under the threat of ridicule from the community. Not everyone’s ready to do that.

What to do?
First, recognize that you’ve got a problem. Second, break down all the elements in your film that you do have – start with the cast, the crew, the genre, the premise and the subject matter. Maybe the special effects, stunts, car chases? Look for all the things in your film that can contribute to various people's (social) life and perform one or all of the roles above. Third and finally, think how you’re going to make it easy and convenient to facilitate all those functions – the sharing, the referring, the debating etc.

Don’t think about it as though you’re selling or promoting the movie: you’re trying to add value to someone’s life by giving them a piece of media that they can use for their purposes. If your media doesn’t do that then its spam.

So, for example, if you’ve got a great car chase or a great stunt, upload that clip to YouTube and find people interested in cars. It doesn’t matter that your film is a crime thriller or a horror and not really about cars at all, it’s got that chase and that clip can form the basis for social interaction – it’s a gift from you to the car community. Avoid at all costs spoiling the video with urls and logos – put that information in the description field. If it looks like an advert then it’ll spoil the value of the gift.

The media needn't be a clip or graphic, it could be an opinion piece, a comment on someone's blog, insider information (gossip) - any form of communication that adds value.

A point to note when uploading to YouTube (and other video sharing sites of course) is to give the video a title that reflects what’s in the clip, not the name of the movie. So in this case, it might be called “Car Chase on Wet Road” – it’s much more likely to be found by people looking for car chases. They’re not going to search for the name of your film because as yet nobody’s heard of it. You can actually see this at work with London Voodoo: a fan, without my knowledge or blessing, ripped the DVD and uploaded a collection of clips titled “Woman Possessed”. His video views far exceeded our “London Voodoo Trailer” because he tapped into the popular search term “possession” and into a subculture of people interested in possessed women.

Now, of course you’ll want a trailer and a poster but these are there to provide further information or increased involvement for anyone who wants to take their interest to the next level.

Please stay tuned for more in subsequent posts. I've started here with the assumption that your movie is already finished but I'd like to discuss how you might approach the project differently from the beginning now that you know this. And I'll discuss the media we created and why it worked and when it didn't.

Why & How We Chose to Self-Distribute Our Film - Part 1

Where We Are Now 

MindFlesh went on sale to the public last week. We're selling a 2-disc special edition DVD via Amazon & CreateSpace and the movie can also be downloaded via Caachi to personal computers and portable devices.

The film in all formats is DRM-free (except via Caachi's streaming service). Later this year the movie will be available on other download and streaming sites and a couple of video-on-demand (VoD) pay-per-view TV channels in Europe.

 

Anyone discovering the film on Amazon, a download site or VoD will have no idea or reason to care that we're self-distributing the movie. Potential customers can watch our trailer or various clips from the movie and they can read our excellent reviews. On the MindFlesh site I've tried to provide as much information as possible for the viewer to make an informed decision about whether they'll like the film before they buy.

 

This blog post is about how we got to this position. In subsequent posts I'll discuss the various marketing activities we have underway and their relative merits.

 

Should I Self-Publish My Work?

In any other industry except book publishing and movies, cutting out the middleman would be viewed as a good thing! Why give away x% of your revenue if you don't have to? And yet there seems to be some kind of stigma about self-published works - as though those who choose this route do so only to satisfy their vanity or because they weren't good enough to get a "real" distribution/publishing deal.

It was great to see that Lance Hammer took his Sundance film Ballast and decided to self-distribute it because maybe this will encourage a change in perception.

 

My usual response is, talk to people who have distribution deals and ask if they're happy with the money they're making or if they're happy with the marketing the distributor/publisher is doing. Very few will tell you they are. Many authors I know that are with big publishers still find themselves working hard to promote their own work. Why not take that little extra step and cut out the middleman? Cut out the distributor and speak directly to your audience? The problem of course is knowledge & resources to do the promotion and distribution efficiently (e.g. to sell the book or film with the minimum time and money).

 

Market Background - Independent Films

After the success of London Voodoo on DVD (now available in five languages and 21 countries; and we also had a small theatrical release in USA and Singapore) I'd been planning to sell MindFlesh to various distributors around the world for a minimum guarantee and then walk away. Approaching and selling to distributors is very easy - they're looking for product they can sell and they're open to any film that might make them money. It's a simple as that and it should be. So what changed?

 

Well, several things happened or increased in prevalence over the two years if to took to shoot and post-produce MindFlesh:

•  Internet piracy is stealing DVD sales - why buy the DVD if you can download it for free?
•  NetFlix, LoveFilm and other rental companies that offer "all you can eat" subscription-type services have reduced DVD sales - particular for independent titles that have always been seen by the public as a bit of risk
•  user-generated video sharing sites like YouTube are satisfying viewers' needs for original content. Further, because there is so much to trawl through, it's created what some have called a new "Attention Economy" where everyone publishing any kind of content is struggling to get some of the viewer's time.

 

The result of this has been a huge reduction in the number of DVDs purchased.

This in turn has meant that those most likely to sell are the Hollywood titles and those other titles with big marketing budgets that buy attention through print, cinema and TV advertising. 

Hence:

• the big retail outlets now only carry a narrow range of titles. (For more information about what's happening in retail, watch this video or visit the "Save the Indies" MySpace page)
• independent DVD distributors have gone bust because of lost sales through piracy, subscription-based rental and they're squeezed out of retail outlets.

Some people may be able to point to exceptions of course - smaller titles in a Virgin Megastore for example -  but these titles come from the bigger distributors that have long-standing relationships, a bigger library of titles and hence more leverage – "take our turkeys" they might demand "or you won't get the better titles". This bundling of dross with gloss happens everywhere – in TV and in film festivals: take these weaker titles or you don't get the titles you want. It further squeezes out the indie.

The bottom line for us then is that the market for indie films is smaller and more risk-adverse. We knew going in that MindFlesh was never going to be an easy sell because we set out to make something completely original: it doesn't fall into a neat pigeon hole because it's part sci-fi, part horror with a storyline that allows parallel interpretations because it's a film about parallel realities. It's based on an excellent Buddhist horror novel, White Light. 

 

We screened in Cannes and although many distributors loved the film they confided "I don't know how I'm going to sell it".

Of course we'd anticipated some distributors reacting in this way but had hoped to sign with some niche distributors who sell kinda fetish/art-house/genre cross-over titles. But in a smaller market (by which I mean less money being spent) these guys are going bust. For for the bigger distributors still in business it's not about "good films" vs "bad films", it's about "sell same product to known (but dwindling) audience" vs "sell something unusual to a hybrid audience" - they can't be bothered to take the trouble. 

Sure we have a niche audience but the audience for MindFlesh is very easy to identify - it's those people who like films by David Cronenberg, some of those who like David Lynch and some Buddhists. Look at Cronenberg's fans - they're not all horror fans or all sci-fi fans; some would just say that they're fans of great cinema.

 

Thankfully we'd anticipated this outcome from the moment we signed up the book rights which means we'd already started our audience building long before we'd started shooting, never mind selling.

 

Coming Next

In the second part of this blog posting I'll discuss all our social media audience building work including our YouTube blogs, widget building, newsletters, MySpace page, Facebook application and so on.

HDCAM vs HDCAM-SR

There's a fair description of HDCAM and HDCAM-SR on Wikipedia but I couldn't find a simple quick reference guide - so here's just the comparison table I needed:

                       HDCAM              HDCAM-SR
frame size    1440 x 1080           1920 x 1080
color space    8-bit 3:1:1            10-bit 4:4:4
audio            4 chans 48KHz       12 chans 48Hks

A-Bomb in Wardour Street

Wow - what a weird feeling. I'm sat in Starbucks on Wardour Street after having handed in my harddrive to Stanleys. I finally did it. It's going to cost about £600 to get the film transferred to HDCAM (£200+VAT) then the HDCAM transferred to DigiBeta (£200 + VAT) and then the digiBeta transferred to DVD so that I can watch it all back at home to check the transfer. Obviously I can't check the quality of the transfer, just that it has been transferred and both the stereo audio channels synced correctly.

Of course this isn't the end of spending... for the film festivals I'll have to get digiBeta and HDCAM-SR clones made (so that I retain the masters) and I'll have to get the same again in NTSC. My plan is to wait until I'm in San Francisco to get the NTSC transfers - popular rumour has it that it'll be cheaper. Stay tuned to find out.

The first chance I'll get to check the HDCAM-SR transfer is at the cast and crew screening in November - we're projecting the hidef tape via a 2k projector. Nice... I hope.

It feels strangely nostalgic updating the blog in this Starbucks. It was two years ago in this coffee shop that we discussed shooting MindFlesh in Thailand... how different the film would have been! :)