For films buffs and documentary lovers out there, we have some good news to share. PBS will be offering the best documentaries on iTunes at 50% off from October 4–17.

Visit iTunes and search for PBS Indies and you’ll find what you’re looking for. From the hilarious film Men Who Swim, to Meghan Eckman’s cult-favorite The Parking Lot Movie, and the latest documentary behind a cultural comic-book phenomenon in Wham! Bam! Islam!

There is more than enough content on PBS Indies to keep you entertained. Visit PBS Indies on iTunes from October 4-17 and be inspired through the power of documentary film.

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins runs through the digital successes achieved by the Independent Lens film, The Parking Lot Movie.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the mission of IndiesLab, it is a joint initiative of ITVS and PBS and our goal is to test and devise strategies for filmmaker success on emerging online distribution platforms. Our distribution partners include iTunes, Amazon Video-On-Demand, Hulu, YouTube, SnagFilms, PBS Video, and several other video-on-demand services on cable.

In IndiesLab’s first year, we focused on establishing and strengthening relationships with these new partners. We spent much of our second year placing great ITVS and Independent Lens titles onto these platforms. In year two, we learned that just because a film resides on a prominent platform does not necessarily mean it will break out. It turns out the keys to success are: first, making a film available digitally when it is most visible elsewhere; and second, support it by concentrated online marketing and smart, tight windowing.

This strategy aims to maximize revenue first while striving to reach the widest audience possible down the road. This year’s season of Independent Lens gave us an opportunity to put our theories into practice. And we witnessed some extremely positive signs with Meghan Eckman’s The Parking Lot Movie and its initial release on iTunes.

Meghan did the hard work months ago by hiring friend and social media consultant Howard Arnn after the film’s critical praise at South by Southwest. Arnn’s goal: to revamp her website with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and e-mail newsletter buttons to grow her core base. Short video was key.

Meghan says,  “At several points along the film’s career, we created a first-person video of me in our communications just conveying our strategy and telling the audience what we needed them to do. We told the audience that we’re a small, independent film and we could use their help.”

As we mentioned in previous case studies on Beyond the Box, we noticed iTunes appears to have a “virtuous cycle” where robust rentals and sales in the first few weeks help create a longer tail over time. So we recommended to Meghan that the most effective thing she could do is reach out to her fans and get them to rate and review the film on iTunes.

On the ITVS and PBS side, we deployed Google, Facebook, and PBS.org banner ad campaigns and Facebook fan outreach to promote the film’s availability on iTunes. This resulted in millions of impressions for Meghan’s film and tens of thousands of clicks to The Parking Lot Movie’s iTunes page.

Meghan also kicked her network into high gear during the film’s first week: “After the Independent Lens national broadcast on PBS, my e-mail list and Facebook fans doubled. So I sent everyone in my network another video and said, ‘Even if you’ve already seen this movie and you liked it, help us make it a bigger hit, by renting it for $2.99 on iTunes. I sent a movie poster to whoever rented it in the first week.”

In the first month after its debut, The Parking Lot Movie cracked the Top 10 on iTunes documentary list for three weeks straight. Through grassroots efforts, Meghan and IndiesLab helped stimulate more than 81 ratings and dozens of reviews. In two short months, The Parking Lot Movie has sold or rented more than 1,300 units on iTunes alone. The strength of its iTunes performance also helped IndiesLab in its discussions to get the film on Netflix and cable VOD.

What we are learning at the lab is there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to a successful online debut, but creativity, collaboration, and coordination can really help kick-start an independent film’s digital career.

Last month Indies Lab Director Davin Hutchins went back to school to learn about “do-it-yourself” (DIY) distribution and filed this report for BTB.

If you haven’t heard of the phrase “do-it-yourself” or “DIY distribution” then perhaps you have been too busy fundraising, shooting, or editing your latest documentary to notice. Or perhaps you live under a rock.

With traditional theatrical, broadcast and DVD distribution channels for independent docs in serious decline, everyone is talking about “DIY distribution,” also known as “hybrid distribution.”

Independent filmmakers in New York City debate the prospects of digital distribution of cinema at Distribution U.

The concept, coined most famously by Paradigm Consulting’s Peter Broderick, suggests that there is no cookie-cutter approach to the successful distribution of a film. Each approach should be tailored. Custom strategies like these were the main focal points at the east coast installment of Distribution U., a one-day crash course held by Broderick and journalist and CinemaTech blogger Scott Kirsner.

We here at the IndiesLab are sort of obsessed with the digital aspect of DIY distribution — that nexus where fan-building, advertising, and promotion intersect with online platforms like iTunes, Netflix, Amazon VOD, etc. We’ve been monitoring filmmaker conversations online and at events like Distribution U. to see if people are thinking seriously about digital DIY approaches.

It appears confusion about digital distribution persists. Until two years ago, internet film viewing was confined to a browser. Now, with the advent of “lean-back” boxes like iPads, Apple TV, Roku, Boxee, and Google TV — driven by on-demand services like iTunes, Netflix Watch Instantly and Amazon VOD — real opportunities for filmmakers may be materializing.

Yet, too many filmmakers remain uninformed.  During our roundtable discussion at Distribution U., many filmmakers we polled didn’t realize that Netflix even had a streaming service or how to place their films on iTunes on their own.

By overemphasizing declining DVD sales in DIY strategies, filmmakers may be missing out on the sea change about to take place. For example, documentary filmmakers might collectively lobby semi-closed platforms like Netflix to make the case that real demand for great documentaries exists. Through crowdfunding and community engagement, each film can demonstrate a built-in audience.

Then, it may be possible to get films licensed to Netflix at decent annual fees and build new revenue models. In 2010, Netflix gained seven million subscribers — eight times as many subscribers as cable or satellite added in the same period! Consumers will be choosing these services over DVDs and sooner than you think.

IndiesLab’s data suggests Netflix and iTunes is where new digital business models will emerge first. Filmmakers and their films should factor this into every DIY strategy.

One of the more notable documentaries in our stable of IndiesLab films is Art & Copy, which recently aired on Independent Lens on October 26. In case you haven’t seen it, the film pays homage to the groundbreaking advertising campaigns of the 60’s and 70’s in an aesthetically-pleasing walk down memory lane — in this case, Madison Avenue.

Art & Copy emerged on the scene in January 2009 at the Sundance Film Festival to generally positive reviews from critics and strong word-of-mouth buzz. The film made its way online onto iTunes in May 2010. Since its launch, we’ve spotted a couple of interesting patterns in this film’s career on iTunes that you might want to consider when plotting out your online digital distribution strategy.

In an interview with IndiesLab and Beyond the Box, director Doug Pray said that he had no idea about the online possibilities for his film.  “My attitude [toward digital distribution] was much more conservative and wary. One year ago, I would have been cautious and said, ‘Oh know we’re going to cannibalize this other thing over here.’ Now, I’m just sitting back and going ‘wow.’ …The old school rules aren’t flying so much.”

By the time the film appeared on iTunes in May 2010, its reputation as an elegant film worth watching definitely preceded it. Art & Copy began selling straight out of the gate with brisk sales — between 150 and 250 purchases or rentals per week. The film was consistently in the top five of our entire PBS Indies library for months; sales hardly dropped off.

Why? Well we noticed that the iTunes user interface seems to have a built-in “virtuous cycle” which helps best-sellers keep on selling. In iTunes, films or songs that sell well tend to float to the top. For example, our PBS Indies iTunes page ranks our top-selling films first by default. Because of strong initial sales, Art & Copy always appeared as one of the top five thumbnails. This high placement, in turn, encouraged more sales. Eventually, Art & Copy appeared a few times in the Top Charts column.

So it behooves any filmmaker with plans to put their film on iTunes to concentrate any promotional, Twitter and Facebook power they have to the film’s landing page. (You can find it by clicking on the Rent Movie bar and scrolling down to Get Link.)  Filmmakers should encourage sales, reviews and ratings from their devoted community in the first week or two of the film’s debut.

It also didn’t hurt that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings actually chose Art & Copy as his demo film to showcase searching on the iPhone Netflix app at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in May as well.

Soon after its iTunes debut, the PBS team figured that Art & Copy shared some of the same glam-ad nostalgia that has made AMC’s Mad Men such a nationwide obsession. So we sold iTunes on a limited promotional discount for Art & Copy to celebrate the Mad Men’s 2010 season premiere. Art & Copy began rotating in the main iTunes documentary carousel thanks to consistently strong sales. Lowering the price temporarily had a pronounced effect. Sales of Art & Copy nearly quadrupled for the duration of the promotion and were elevated for few weeks afterward. So, strategic discounting in narrow windows may also be helpful in stimulating a film’s sales.

So bottom line: if you want a long-tail in sales on iTunes as a documentary filmmaker, do everything you can to create a large head during your first few weeks in debut.

Director Meghan Eckman will be online at 2 PM EST for a live chat about her film The Parking Lot Movie

Independent Lens kicked off its ninth season last night with the broadcast premiere of The Parking Lot Movie! The documentary, by first-time director Meghan Eckman, explores the rarefied world of one small parking lot in a college town, and the asphalt philosophers who work there.  Love’em or laugh at ‘em these overeducated attendants find a way to over think everything from license plates to the plight of the service sector worker.

Wherever your feelings lie, remember: It’s not just a parking lot. It’s a battle with humanity.

As a special treat for BTB guests and all our Independent Lens fans, we’re delighted to bring you a live chat with director Meghan Eckman. The conversation will start below at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET.

If you missed The Parking Lot Movie Tuesday night — or want to watch again — the film is available for download on iTunes as a part of our PBS Indies collection.

Big thanks to Meghan for joining us the day after her film premiere on PBS. Now, get your questions ready and enjoy the first of many live chats we plan to host on BTB.

***Cover It Live is a free web-based conferencing tool and a private company. Any advertisements and comments posted on the site are unrelated to ITVS.

Watch this music video from Meghan Eckman’s The Parking Lot Movie…

Tune in next Tuesday, October 26 at 10 PM (check local listings) to watch the real Mad Men (and women!) in the documentary Art & Copy.

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.

My hunch is that this creative destruction will continue… and that’s a good thing. It’s good because the firms that survive the next shakeout –– whether they are stalwarts like iTunes or upstarts like SnagFilms–– will do so by looking beyond the two obvious, traditional revenue streams and begin to adopt others. They will begin experimenting by convincing foundations or corporations to sponsor the delivery of indie films online. They will begin offering subscriptions for access to entire collections of curated films at affordable rates. They will begin the early release of films on digital platforms during festival runs when buzz is critical. They will begin offering personalized versions of their site so the films a person is interested in automatically rises to their customized homepage.

Many of the majors like iTunes, Amazon, and Hulu are already realizing the limited growth potential of relying on a single revenue stream and are actively trying to forge a second or third. Independent filmmakers gravitate toward any company bending over backwards to put independent films in front of the right eyeballs at prices audiences will accept. Once that happens, we will be getting somewhere.

In the next installment, I’ll take a look at the second of my five predictions for 2010: Curation Will Become As Important As Technology.

Davin Hutchins
Director, IndiesLab

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a sword that heals. [It] cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

At the heart of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s was the use of nonviolent direct-action protest. Inspired by the example of Jesus, and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi during India’s struggle for independence, black church and community leaders in the United States began advocating the use of non-violence in their own struggle. Beyond spontaneous and planned student sit-ins, several organizations were formed to fight for civil rights using Gandhi’s model of nonviolent dissent and action. Three of the most influential groups—the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—were pivotal in bringing about social change in America.

Read more about the life of King, Jr. on the Independent Lens website >>

Check out the PBS Indies page on iTunes where you’ll find these powerful films about the African American civil rights movement

Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Green
The unlikely story of America’s original shock-jock — Petey Greene — who battled the system and his own demons during a time of civil unrest in the nation’s capital.

Banished
From the 1860s to the 1920s, towns across the U.S. violently expelled African American residents. Today, these communities remain virtually all white. As black descendants return to demand justice, Banished exposes the hidden history of racial cleansing in America.

Each film is now available for rent for $2.99 or for purchase at $9.99.

Visit the iTunes store >>

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

Happy New Year and greetings from IndiesLab! My name is Davin Hutchins and I am the new director of this exciting joint initiative of ITVS and PBS now entering its second year –– the Independent Digital Distribution Lab –– or IndiesLab for short.

What is IndiesLab? It’s an ITVS-PBS initiative designed to help filmmakers navigate this marketplace and to generate revenue streams while also having a social impact. Many independent documentary filmmakers are unfamiliar with the lab, but we think that’s about to change. We’ve had some great achievements in our first year in raising the online profile of independent documentary films. Today, we are looking forward to implementing some ambitious digital initiatives in 2010 –– all in the spirit of advancing the mission of social issue, public interest documentaries, and the independent producers who create them.

PBS Indies section on iTunes.

A few first-year achievements include:

• A dedicated “PBS Indies” section on iTunes where member filmmakers of IndiesLab offer their films for download-to-own or download-to-rent.
• Dedicated Independent Lens and Global Voices sections on Hulu –– a major ad-supported streaming platform.
• A dedicated ITVS channel on popular documentary platform SnagFilms.
• Competitive package for filmmakers.

The digital marketplace is complex and constantly evolving. We are taking these challenges head on. We have already opened the door for indie filmmakers on all major online platforms — iTunes, Amazon, NetFlix, Hulu, PBS Video, and SnagFilms — and we will constantly look out for new partnerships to generate audiences and revenue.

As the Lab’s director, my role is part digital strategist, part alliance builder, and part student of the changing marketplace. I make it a point to track dominant and emerging trends –– ad-supported versus rentals, social network marketing, mobile video delivery, Internet-compatible set-top boxes, and TVs.

As a community we need to gauge which way the winds are blowing. We will share important trends and developments on our IndiesLab Twitter feed, and in future postings right here on the Beyond the Box Blog. We will share best practices for filmmakers to pre-market their films online and develop online distribution windowing strategies with us. The IndiesLab team and I talk regularly with our partners –– iTunes, Amazon, NetFlix, Hulu, PBS Video, and SnagFilms –– to ensure independent documentary is reaching the communities that need to know about our films.

Many challenges lie ahead for us and all documentary filmmakers. Online revenues are growing, but not a viable replacement for traditional forms. Platforms come and go and often overpromise what they can deliver. We will regularly discuss the ways in which we navigate this landscape on Beyond the Box and the IndiesLab Twitter feed.

Here are the guiding principles for IndiesLab in year two:

• Achieve double bottom-line success –– Increasing revenues and social impact in measurably verifiable ways.
• Secure prominent placement of the PBS Indies collection –– Ensuring our filmmakers who want to participate are featured under the PBS Indies brand across all platforms.
• Expose films through social media campaigns –– Using ITVS and PBS online communities to drive traffic to films (more than 600,000 Twitter followers and Facebook fans).
• Get more films online more quickly –– Fast-track our lab films in the pipeline.
• Maintain filmmaker-centric attitude –– Open doors to filmmakers to answer questions, to educate, and to listen.

If you’re a filmmaker and want to learn more about IndiesLab, please contact ITVS’s Associate Director of Broadcast, Sreedevi Sripathy. I welcome you to IndiesLab and our ongoing conversation about the future of independent documentary online.

Good luck, and wish us the same!

Davin Hutchins
Director, IndiesLab

Check out the PBS Indies page on iTunes where you’ll find more than 20 indie films from Independent Lens, Global Voices and other public television series and broadcasts.

Each film is now available for rent for $2.99 or for purchase at $9.99.

A selection of films include: ADJUST YOUR COLOR: The Truth of Petey Green, THE ATOM SMASHERS, BANISHED, the Oscar-nominated DAUGHTER FROM DANANG, A DREAM IN DOUBT, LAKSHMI AND ME, THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS, MAPPING STEM CELL RESEARCH: TERRA INCOGNITA, MARCH POINT, MILKING THE RHINO, OPERATION FILMMAKER, POWER TRIP, RED WHITE BLACK & BLUE, A SON’S SACRIFICE, STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors and ESTILO HIP HOP.

Visit iTunes >>

New York Post: Origami and the Art of the Process
“If you’ve ever found it impossible to properly fold a road map, you will be absolutely astonished by what the folks profiled in Park Slope filmmaker Vanessa Gould’s new documentary [BETWEEN THE FOLDS] … can do with a single scrap of paper.”
Read full review >>

Indie Wire: Must See IDFA Doc: LAST TRAIN HOME
“[LAST TRAIN HOME] is an exceptional observational documentary that charts a dramatic Chinese journey affecting just one family but representing the challenges facing a changing nation and a troubled world.”
Read more >>

The Epoch Times: NO SUBTITLES NECESSARY: Laszlo & Vilmos
“[NO SUBTITLES NECESSARY: Laszlo & Vilmos] is truly a cinematographer’s film. It looks great and will foster an increased appreciation of the director of photography in general with its many clips of the classic films shot by Kovacs and Zsigmond.”
Read full review >>

The Wrap: iTunes Adds Indie Films From ITVS, PBS
“The collection of films, put together specifically for iTunes, offers diverse titles from filmmakers pursuing stories not normally told via mainstream channels.”
Read more >>