Keeping Up with the Digital Distribution Joneses

Tags: digital distribution, distro, IndiesLab, internet, Nielsen, startegy

Introducing ITVS’s 2011 Digital Survey

By Matthew Meschery

The following is an excerpt from the executive summary of the 2011 ITVS Digital Survey. The findings, which are available for download below, offer new trends on the digital media environment with a particular focus on independent producers.

Who put the audience in charge? Technology, demographic shifts, and a globalized economy have all shaped a 21st century media ecosystem where power has shifted away from traditional broadcasters and gatekeepers. It’s a shift that’s revolutionized where, how, and why people use media. And content makers and distributors are playing catch-up, trying to figure out ways to reach viewers, make money, and break through the deafening noise of the marketplace.
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Tags: business models, digital distribution, Digitial, matthew meschery, new media, revenue, Social Media, technology

Anyone Can Make a Film. Now What?

On Monday, July 25 at 7:30PM, ITVS and the San Francisco Film Society will team up to present a panel on the ever-expanding field of digital filmmaking. From presenting on new approaches for crowdfunding to best practices for online distribution — Monday’s event includes filmmakers, festival directors, start-up founders, and digital innovators. Watch the event live and ask questions on Independent Lens’ Livestream channel.

The tools of production have been democratized. The world is flat. We get it. So now that anyone can make a film, will anyone watch it? Monday’s film arts forum called “How Soon is Now?” will be a conversation on the shifting terrain of filmmaking from the perspective of content creators, packagers, and distributors.

The panel, moderated by the Film Society’s Michele Turnure-Salleo, will include:

• Shawn Bercuson, Founder and CEO of Prescreen.com
• Carlton Evans, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Disposable Film Festival
• Jen Gilomen, Filmmaker and Director of Public Media Strategies at BAVC
• Jonathan Marlow, Co-Founder and Vice President of Content Development and Acquisitions at Fandor

Plus, ITVS veteran and Senior Programer Richard Saiz will deliver a keynote address in celebration of ITVS’s 20th Anniversary and continued support for independent filmmakers.

Tickets are only $10 ($7 for SFFS members) and can be purchased here.

Tags: 20th anniversary, digital distribution, film arts forum, ITVS, richard saiz, san francisco film society

Advice for Filmmakers from Doc TV’s Peter Hamilton

Peter Hamilton, editor and publisher of documentarytelevision.org

Peter Hamilton is a former executive with CBS International, New York. He is the editor and publisher of DocumentaryTelevision.com, which analyzes deals and trends in the ever-changing business of factual television. Because we know many of you are independent filmmakers trying to navigate the complex world of distribution, we spoke with Peter Hamilton last week to get some insights.

More than 25 years ago you co-authored a book titled Off-Hollywood: The Making and Marketing of Independent Films. How different might that book look if it were published today, and what about it would still hold up?

That’s a very good question. Off Hollywood was a groundbreaking work supported by The IFP (Independent Feature Project) and Sundance to provide the emerging independent film community with hard numbers about the production, distribution, and exhibition of independent films.

That was in the analog era when there were few windows available for independent filmmakers. Now, there are many more distribution platforms, television networks, DVD options such as Amazon, Netflix, pay-per-view, online, and many others. › Continue reading

Tags: cbs, com, digital distribution, distribution, doctv, documentarytelevision, independent filmmakers, indie films, ITVS, network, PBS, peter hamilton

Jon Reiss Says: Do It Yourself!

Named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch,” by Daily Variety, Jon Reiss has directed three feature films most recently Bomb It about graffiti, street art, and the battle over visual public space throughout the world. His experience releasing Bomb It with a hybrid strategy was the inspiration for writing Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era, the first step-by-step guide for filmmakers to distribute and market their films. Reiss will be conducting a workshop from July 31^st to August 1^st all about DIY distribution, at the San Francisco Film Society. BTB spoke with Reiss via Skype last week while he was in Melbourne, Australia.

How did you get started with DIY filmmaking?

Jon Reiss is the author of Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era

I guess I got started with DIY filmmaking back in the San Francisco punk rock scene. That’s how I got into film in first place. At the time, I was an Economics major at Berkeley and was a planning on getting a PhD in Economics at Stanford but somehow ended up living in a rat-infested loft in San Francisco shooting punk rock bands.

[I went] to Paris to show the videos and I thought, “Why not go to the rest of Europe?” So, I started booking tours throughout Europe and that was really my first experience with DIY distribution. It was also my first experience with creating events and using non-traditional venues — that I’ve now come to champion — which is, I believe, the future for independent films.
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Tags: Bomb It, digital distribution, DIY, Jon Reiss, trans-media

Lessons from the IndiesLab: Digital Survey in Review

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

This month, IndiesLab is launching a new feature, “Lessons from the Lab,” a regular blog with new marketplace data and observations about what’s working and what’s not in the digital space for indies. This month, we are building on the knowledge gleaned from our 2009 ITVS Digital Survey which polled nearly 1,000 independent filmmakers about their attitudes and strategies towards digital distribution and promotion. Here’s what we found:

Survey Finding: Only one in five respondents generated any revenue from digital distribution, and those who did reported income in the low four figures.

Lab Report: Although it is true that the revenue we are seeing for the average-performing film is very modest. The overall revenue generated by our library is increasing as a result of careful branding under the newly created “PBS Indies” brand, the addition of high-quality titles, and the growing consumer adoption of devices suited for long-form viewing, like iPads.

A few of our films have broken out. These exceptionally good films share another characteristic: filmmakers who thought about digital distribution and promotion from day one. Their production workload included managing a blog, growing a Facebook page, building a Twitter following, and creating digital enhancements as part of production activities. Our survey indicated that nearly 40 percent of producers have a blog, and 35 percent of domestic producers use Twitter, compared to 23 percent of international producers.

Lesson: Keep in mind, the people who follow you during production will be the film’s future marketers and market. If you wait until broadcast to think digital, you lose valuable audience-building time.

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Tags: digital distribution, documentary, independent films, Social Media

IndiesLab participates in The Conversation at Columbia University

The Independent Digital Distribution Lab –– IndiesLab for short –– is a joint initiative of ITVS and PBS designed to help filmmakers navigate the marketplace and to generate revenue streams while also having a social impact. Last weekend, IndiesLab’s Director Davin Hutchins, attended The Conversation, a one-day conference held at Columbia University to create a dialogue and an exchange of ideas around social media, digital distribution and the future of film.

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

This past weekend in New York City, several hundred filmmakers descended upon Columbia University for The Conversation. Although years have passed since the first Conversation was held in Berkeley, California, this year’s pow-wow – organized by Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain and Cinematech blogger Scott Kirsner – featured many luminaries from the independent film world. The goal: to seed new ideas and pollinate older ideas to chart a course of online distribution.

Clear answers on the best direction forward were elusive. IndiesLab shared the stage on a panel with Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management/FilmBuff, Scilla Andreen, CEO, IndieFlix and Ryan Werner, VP of Marketing, IFC Entertainment. When pressed by the moderator on what constitutes a successful online film title in monetary terms, our panel fumbled for encouraging data.

One of the most sobering thoughts came from Ira Deutchman, head of Columbia University’s Producing Program. He asserted that because inexpensive production technology and free distribution is available to everyone now, the democratization of filmmaking is in full-force. But that’s a double-edged sword. Hundreds more auteurs in the marketplace does not necessarily mean hundreds more Michael Moores. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; it takes that much more talent to rise above the noise. Deutchman suggested that the independent filmmaker’s future career may more closely resemble that of musicians or painters, where tens of thousands eek out a subsistence living while only a few dozen secure critical acclaim and lucrative returns. Richard Lorber, CEO, Kino Lorber, summed up online distribution this way: “Everything is possible and nothing is working.”

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Tags: Columbia University, digital distribution, IndiesLab, Social Media, The Conversation

Top Five Predictions for Films and Digital Distribution

The Independent Digital Distribution Lab –– IndiesLab for short –– is a joint initiative of ITVS and PBS designed to help filmmakers navigate the marketplace and to generate revenue streams while also having a social impact. Indie Labs Director Davin Hutchins shares his first of five predictions about the future of films and digital distribution. Be sure to visit Beyond the Box over the next several months to hear more predictions.

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

As independent filmmakers proceed with their projects for 2010, I thought I’d take a crack at making some predictions for the New Year.

PREDICTION 1: Creative Destruction Will Continue… And That’s a Good Thing

Video site Veoh Networks imploded this month. Not Chapter 11, mind you; it was a Chapter 7 liquidation. Veoh was an ad-supported, user-generated video site aspiring to be another YouTube. Even though it wasn’t a player in the indie film game, its demise is significant in that the company had burned through $70 million dollars of venture capital and was co-founded by former Disney chair Michael Eisner. This begs the question: if a guy like Michael Eisner with $70 million can’t make a video site work, what can one expect from smaller niche sites that have raised considerably less funding?

Traditionally, there have been two ways for film startups to make money off independent films –– charge a rental fee to view an entire film or run ads against films that are offered for free. The real challenge going forward is this: data suggests few consumers seem willing to pay a rental fee for an independent film when there is so much free content available on the Internet or TV. And with the glut of video on the Internet –– from professional films to semi-professional shorts to user-generated video –– ad rates are driven lower and lower by an endless supply of video (and much of it mediocre). Both major film platforms and startups will face these same challenges. In the past ten years, many indie film startups have imploded, were acquired, or radically changed their focus in order to survive: Atom Films (re-branded as Atom.com), iFilm (re-branded as Spike), Jaman, and GreenCine. All promised more or less the same thing –– filmmaker and film lover nirvana –– but significant dollars haven’t really materialized.

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Tags: digital distribution, Hulu, independent film, IndiesLab, iTunes, SnagFilms, tips, Veoh