ITVS Commissioned Author Pens on the Changing Media Marketplace

One year ago, ITVS commissioned author Scott Kirsner to find out what independent filmmakers are doing in the field. ITVS has since published his eight case studies on the ITVS website––which highlight how independents are experimenting with new technologies and hopefully serves as inspiration to other filmmakers.

Kirsner has since published Fans, Friends & Followers, a comprehensive book that addresses how creative people can build audiences online and also create sustainable business models. In an email interview, Kirsner explained how the ITVS case studies sparked the idea for his book. “It started to occur to me that [the filmmakers] were living in a noisier marketplace than ever before, with more competition from other films on the festival circuit, online, in theatrical release and on DVD and television,” he said. “Some of the key challenges that seemed everyone was still grappling with was how do you cultivate an audience for the film you’ve made, how do you get that audience to support you in some way and how to you sort of carry that audience from one film to the next?”

As Kirsner thought more about how to address the challenge of cultivating an audience for a film, he branched out into other industries. “The more I started to think about that issue, the more I also wanted to talk to musicians and artists and writers–other people who were approaching the challenge of building up an audience in different clever ways. So I wound up talking not just to documentary filmmakers like Sandi DuBowski of Trembling Before G-d and Curt Ellis of KING CORN, but also musicians like Damian Kulash from OK Go and Jonathan Coulton, and visual artists like Natasha Wescoat and Matt W. Moore and even comedians like Eugene Mirman and Mark Day.”

Filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who is working on a very activist-oriented series of YouTube videos on the war in Afghanistan, told Kirsner, “The audience votes with their ‘forward’ button. If they see a video that they think has something to say, they forward it. All the money in the world and all the king’s horses can’t get them to do that. In that sense, it’s truly the free market.” In that sense, Kirsner said, engaging the online audience and turning them into collaborators who can spread a filmmaker’s message is one of the keys to succeeding in this new era. “It’s no longer about a multi-million dollar marketing campaign — it’s about that little seed of content you put out there that sparks debate and discussion and participation, and really connects with people,” Kirsner said.

Fans, Friends & Followers will be available on March 31.

Find out more information and how to purchase a paperback or digital copy >>

Tags: digital, Scott Kirsner