First Things First: Pick the Right Platform

By Brooke Shelby Biggs

We will be offering weekly tips for independent filmmakers and public media entities on getting the most out of social media. Visit BTB Thursdays for some good advice for your Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking strategies.

No matter if you are a filmmaker, a station, or a public media brand, the very first place to start is by creating (or switching to) a Facebook page. Note, I say page, and not group or profile. This is an absolutely crucial distinction.

A Facebook profile is designed to be the outward-facing real estate for an individual human being. In fact, brands that use profiles rather than pages are in violation of Facebook’s terms. While Facebook has not yet shut down brands using profiles, they have made clear that it is within their rights to do so, and it’s not worth the risk.
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Tags: brooke shelby biggs, Facebook, filmmaker tips, multiplatform engagement, Social Media, tips, Twitter

Create Your Multimedia Documentary Dream Team

ITVS’ Steve Goldbloom reports from the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston.

Kara Oehler is the Executive Director of Media and Place Productions and the co-creator of Mapping Main Street — a collaborative documentary media project that creates a new map of the country through stories, photos, and videos recorded on actual Main Streets. The goal is to document all of the more than 10,000 streets named Main in the United States.
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Tags: collaborative documentary, documentary, mapping main street, media, media reform, ncmr, tips

Tip of the Day: Engage Beyond the Broadcast

The internet is completely revolutionizing all kinds of media by freeing creators from linearity and one-way paradigms. Here at ITVS, we’ve been working with filmmakers for more than a decade to create multifaceted and multi-platform projects that liberate the story from dusty old limitations.

It’s easy to get stuck in a familiar way of doing things, but when you begin to think of your audience as a collaborator, and technology as an ally, you break into new dimensions and open up fresh perspectives on your story. We have a large library of the interactive projects we’ve produced in the past 10 year, and encourage you to check them out for ideas and inspiration.

Tags: engagement, film festival, interactive, ITVS, PBS, public media, tips, tips of the day, web-original

Tip of the Day: Consume Indie Films on a Global Scale

Travel the world without leaving your sofa. Check out the Global Perspectives Project for films from over 75 countries.

The Global Perspectives Collection hosts more than 100 ITVS-funded films from over 75 countries. Films attached to the collection include the award-winning Waltz with Bashir and Last Train Home.

Visit the site to learn more about independent documentaries from around the world and the diverse, political and social issues they take on.

Tags: documentaries, gobal perspectives, indie, last train home, tips, walz with bashir

Top Five Predictions for Films and Digital Distribution: Second Part

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. In the post below, Indie Labs Director Davin Hutchins shares his second of five predictions about the future of films and digital distribution. Be sure to visit Beyond the Box blog over the next several months to hear more predictions.

IndiesLab Director Davin Hutchins

In my last blog post, I made my first prediction –– “Creative Destruction Will Continue… And That’s a Good Thing.” Over the next few months, as independent filmmakers proceed with their projects for 2010, I will attempt to share some tough love, sage advice, and cause for hope.

PREDICTION 2: Curation Will Become As Important As Technology

When I lived in San Francisco, every Friday I would stroll down the street from my apartment on Russian Hill to Washington Square and check out the video wares at The Film Yard. My mission: to get an indie flick for my wife and me. There was usually one clerk. I don’t remember his name but let’s call him “Brad.” Even on a busy Friday night, Brad usually remembered me and my last rental. Brad could even make insightful recommendations based upon my body language when I hovered near the “documentaries” or “20th century period pieces” aisles.

The main problem with online film delivery platforms today is there is no “Brad.” At best, there’s an algorithm mixed with a cookie cross-referenced with my purchase history. Usually when I watch a video online, a crude piece of code will analyze the keywords in the video I just watched and then regurgitate the five videos with the closest metadata. Four of those are usually user-generated drivel. More sophisticated platforms like iTunes or Amazon do feature technology like “Genius” recommendations or “Customers who bought this item also bought…” But the front of the store still connotes the New Releases rack at Blockbuster. What I crave –– what we all crave I think –– is a site that knows me right as I walk in the door. Something like my.hulu.com.

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Tags: curation, filmmaker resources, technology, tips

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

IndiesLab: Supporting Independent Filmmakers in the Digital Marketplace

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.

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Tags: Hulu, independent film, IndiesLab, iTunes, SnagFilms, tips