The Conversation Continues

I spent all day yesterday at Columbia University surrounded by filmmakers, social media gurus, distribution providers and a general “we can do anything” DIY spirit personified by the Workbook Project’s Lance Weiler. I went into the event a little unsure of just how much I’d learn considering I spend almost every waking moment plugged into some form of information source, soaking up everything and anything that people are doing successfully to raise money and distribute films. I have to say that The Conversation far exceeded my expectations.
While many of the panelists and discussion leaders were folks that I am connected to via Twitter, Facebook, FilmSpecific.com or resource book, I was slightly blown away by the pure transparency, inclusivity and true “we’re all in this together” spirit. I felt that I walked away with a ton of information, a few perspective shifts and the inspiration to take everything we’re working on to the next level.

I think the things that struck me the most was this pure drive to just “do it” and see what sticks. The analogy used through the day was that taking control of your own film is like going to the moon without alerting NASA.

There was no one on any panel or discussion group that I was a part of that claimed to have all the answers. Every story was told as a single experience, a sharing of the experimentation phase. Many of the strategies that work for a documentary would never work for a narrative and visa-versa. Ryan Werner of IFC let the group know that the most successful VOD product for them was ANTI-CHRIST and he went on in a second panel to say that true genre films and controversial films have much greater success than any other type of film. He also said that the independent American drama was for the most part having a hard time finding its audience.

One of the more fascinating panels I attended was in fact one that was shared by Ryan Werner of IFC, Adam of Distribber, Scillia of Indieflix, Dave from IndieLab, Matt Dentler from Cinetic and Jim from EZTakes. All offering distribution platforms, all offering the filmmaker the ability to work outside of the traditional distribution model, all sharing varying degrees of agreement and disagreement with what the other was offering. I would not say it was tense but I would say it was interesting to watch these names in the distribution space dance around each other and not use their “competition” as an example of how their system works better or differently which is what some of them do when the other is not in the room.

As someone who has spent my fair share of time trying to pull money and reports from the traditional distributors, I do have to say that the Distribber model excites me because of the direct access into their system. You don’t wait for reports; you don’t wait for your check. You log in and access it all. Adam is in the process of growing his distribution channels and with growth may come change but as long as you have that transparency and direct access which has eluded us before, there is something special there.

Another piece of information that I found interesting was hearing from both Kino-Lorber and Steve Savage of New Video that films are on average still selling 90% DVD product and 10% digital. They agree that this percentage is changing and will potentially dramatically change by 2013.

I could probably spend hours parroting everything that I heard or talked about during the day-long event but I guess what struck me most was an embracing of our responsibility to do absolutely everything not only to get a film made but to make sure that it is watched, marketed and sold. It is up to the filmmaker to consider the audience at the same time the script is written. It is up to the team to think about audience engagement at every level of the filmmaking process. This isn’t really new information but I think after yesterday my level of attention to it is new. As we begin to talk about our new project, I have already started making my mental lists of how I would do things differently and well, it’s exciting to consider.

One of my perspective shifts came in regards to crowdfunding. There was a true and genuine enthusiasm amongst people who were using it to get their films made whether it is Indiegogo, Kickstarter or their own platform. Tiffany Shlain’s enthusiasm for engaging the audience during the fundraising process and allowing them to be the cheerleaders for your project sort of sealed the deal. I am not sure if it will work for my projects but it can’t hurt to try.

My two favorite quotes of the day (and there were MANY) came from Fred Siebert who said “if the audience does not respond to your film, it’s not because someone did something to your film" and Richard Lorber who said “Everything is Possible and Nothing is Working.”

Today, I’m going to focus on the “everything is possible” part.