Up Next: DocAviv and building a roadmap for the future of Docs

I'm finally settled into the new apartment, and have found the buried computer cables. No, I didn't go completely offline thanks to my Android, but I am not much into typing the blog from my phone. While the rest of the film industry preps for Cannes, I'm now busy with a few filmmaker clients and with preparing for my next masterclass/workshop in conjunction with the DocAviv Film Festival, scheduled for May 18, 2011.

I'm working with Hypermedia to put on a full day workshop on the future of the Documentary. Here's the English version of the description and you can find the Hebrew version here or here. If you are in Tel Aviv, register and/or stop by and say hello, and tell your friends who might live there. While I hope to offer some new insights into the possible future of the doc, I'm really looking forward to learning from the audience how the film industry there sees the future, because their doc community is pretty strong and vibrant.

Here's the description:

Roadmap for the Documentary Filmmaker

Why try to predict the future when you can simply invent it?

Digital technology, new business models and a plethora of innovative production and creative tools – all these are combined together and promise many exciting years of research and challenges in the realms of documentary filmmaking. What are the possible directions in the field? Where do we go from here? How do we find the path to success in the new world?

This practical all-day seminar will lead the participants into the future districts of the field and provide filmmakers with a concrete, practical and up-to-date tool kit for turning an era of change into an era of new opportunities.

Content editor and producer: Ari Davidovich.

Wednesday, 18.5.11, at ZOA in Tel Aviv

Fee required, please register in advance.
For details and registration:
www.hypermedia.co.il/future

Slides from my speech at Sofia Film Fest Meetings

Image via WikipediaI've been having a fantastic time here in Sofia, Bulgaria. I've met many great, talented people – producers, distributors, filmmakers, festival folks, etc. I've learned a lot from them about the state of film in Bulgaria (flourishing, yet having funding difficulties), of film financing and distribution in Europe (too much to share here now) and about Bulgaria generally. I highly recommend the Sofia Meetings to anyone interested in international co-productions, or to anyone who just wants to meet some great European film industry folks.

As usual, I spoke a bit fast at my lecture and many people asked me to share the slides. So here they are. If you've been to some of my recent lectures, there's not much new here, but some things have been updated, including some stats on Facebook usage in Bulgaria (strong). The speech was a general overview of changes to audience expectations, digital disruption and how artists are using these new tools to build their audience and make new business models. I didn't know my audience was going to be distributors until I arrived, but as I explained on the spot - nearly everything I mention here can be used by distributors, film fests and organizations as well.

Sofia: Inventing the Future of Film

View more presentations from Brian Newman.

Making it Happen: Vimeo Conversation

Late last year, Vimeo invited Ted Hope and I to speak at their awesome Vimeo Festival. We decided to each give a brief speech followed by a conversation about the future of film and media - or a few of those possible futures. The whole thing was one hour long, and is embedded below, but for those of you with less time on your hands, the trusty folks at Vimeo have edited together a little highlights reel that clocks in under ten minutes. If you take the time to watch either video, I'd welcome your thoughts and feedback.

Making it Happen (Highlights) from Vimeo Festival on Vimeo.

Here's the full length version

Making it Happen from Vimeo Festival on Vimeo.

Beyond the Game, VoDo and Cinema Purgatorio

As I've mentioned before, I am a big fan of VoDo - the folks who are using PTP sharing as a way to get money to filmmakers. If you haven't checked them out, you should, but the short version is that you can get their films for free, just like a pirate does, but they've built an easy mechanism for you to donate money to that film. They've also built a reward system, the Do, for those who share these films via social networks, spend money on films, etc.

I've not written as much (at all?) about another company I like, called Cinema Purgatorio (CP for short). CP was founded by Ray Privett, a very smart, capable distributor who is a true filmmaker's friend. He has done everything from running the Pioneer Theater (and making sure filmmakers got paid there before it went downhill (without him)), to working with distributors, theaters, etc. CP is a filmmaker friendly distributor - a very rare thing - and he prefers to work with the quirky, little films (usually) that need special care and attention in finding their way in the marketplace. And he does an amazing job with these films. Check out his website, he's currently working on Zenith, a great transmedia project by Vlad Nikolic, and he's done films like Christmas on Mars featuring the Flaming Lips and Bjork's Voltaic concert film. His website sums up his company like this:

"Cinema Purgatorio brings movies to select audiences via custom-crafted theatrical and semi-theatrical releases (including press campaigns), and mass audiences via output VOD and disc deals. Every season, Cinema Purgatorio films screen publicly in more than 40 cities; be on the VOD menus of over 10 million homes; and are released far and wide on DVD and Blu-Ray."

Well, now these two great companies are working together and CP also brings films to bajillions of homes through VoDo! You can now get the CP film Beyond the Game by Jos de Putter on Vodo. The film, which I haven't yet seen, follows two of the best players of World of Warcraft....and that's no easy feat to accomplish. Here's the film's description:

"Warcraft III is the most popular real-time strategy computer game, thrilling over 2.5 million North Americans and 10 million people worldwide everyday. The game creates an alternate universe, where players challenge each other with a mythically-charged online world of humans, orcs, the undead, knights, and elves.

In Beyond the Game, we meet - in real life and within the game - two of the game's leading figures, known as Grubby and Sky. Acclaimed filmmaker Jos de Putter tracks these Kasparovs of a new generation and a new game across the world all the way to the world championships in Seattle."

I really like that Ray is willing to take a chance and experiment with this new distribution model. Most people are afraid of piracy and PTP, but let's face it, your film is going to get pirated no matter what - fighting it won't help, so you might as well turn it into a business model. It also gets a film seen: Beyond the Game already has had over 300,000 downloads! That's some serious viewer numbers for a doc, and by using VoDO, they have a chance to help invent new business models as well. As Ray/CP describes on the VoDo page:

"Support of this release helps Cinema Purgatorio with its next generation strategies to bring movies to theatres, discs, and downloads, seeing downloads (and torrents) as a "legitimate" release method."

Amen. I hope it works!

You can get the film at VoDo or pay for it directly, and support a filmmaker and a film curator/distributor/innovator at Cinema Purgatorio.

Film Fests still matter

photo © 2010 | more info (via: Wylio)
Apologies in advance to every film festival programmer, staff person and volunteer for my stating the obvious in this title and throughout this post, but trust me, I speak daily to filmmakers and film world people who argue that film festivals no longer matter. Sure, they might give you that a premiere at one (especially one of the top tier fests) can be helpful, but then they slide into the venom about how the rest don't matter, should be paying filmmakers (or paying them more if they already do) and yadda yadda. I don't just hear this from rejected and angry filmmakers, but even from some very established folks.

I'm not going to address the myriad complaints about film festivals here. That would take a book, or a series of podcasts. Instead, I'm just going to say why they matter to me, and I think to many other people - I just can't get that sense of discovery and excitement anywhere else. In fact, I am getting to the point where I don't even care about seeing a film on the big screen if it's not during a film festival. Yes, there, I've said it. Even though I live in one of the few cities with multiple options for watching indie films on the big screen, I often can't be bothered.

Why? Not because I don't like seeing films on the big screen, but because like everyone else, I have a lot of other viewing options that are, quite frankly, much better enjoyed at home. I have more choices than ever before, and better viewing equipment. Getting out to the theater takes too much time, and is often a disastrous, unenjoyable experience (whether at the art house or the multiplex): If I am paying you $13 for a ticket, you should be able to have more than one underpaid, clueless high school kid staffing your concession stand (where I'll spend another $13 for a coke) at prime screening time; likewise, I shouldn't have to put up with crappy seats or a subway running practically through the screen to watch that foreign arthouse picture.

When I am at a film festival, however, I have left my usual life behind and am dedicated to doing nothing but watching cinema. (Well, usually. This recent Sundance was nothing but meetings, but that's another story). I've usually got an All-Access pass, for which I've paid or (for many in the business) my company has paid, meaning I don't think about the cost, or didn't really pay at all. (Side note - it's interesting that most people in the industry who decry piracy have never personally paid to see a movie!) Unless I've been relegated to the ungodly P&I line at Sundance, I am generally able to get in to whatever I want, and not feel bad about leaving to go to something better.

I will drop whatever I am doing, or change what I was going to see, at the last minute for a film that has been recommended by someone I trust, or who looked trustworthy in the line for the popcorn. I also get a (often false) sense of being the first one to find a gem. Humans are selfish beings, we like feeling we have privileged knowledge and then gossiping about it. That sense of discovery, of being in on something that few others know about, is like a drug. I never get that feeling when I watch something later at the arthouse - it is old news, especially now when tweets arrive with reviews before the end of the film. While I love me some Twitter, it still doesn't replicate the chatter between screenings and at parties found when attending a film fest (it is coming close though).

Film festivals let the non-industry, average-Jane audience get this same feeling. In fact, I still believe this is why many in the NYC film industry hate(d) the Tribeca Film Festival - they could no longer hold their noses up when speaking with people about a film at some NY cocktail party and say "oh I saw that first at Cannes." It was a leveler, much more so than the NYFF (full disclosure - I've worked at the Institute affiliated with the Tribeca Fest, so I am biased). I'll never forget during that first year's festival, seeing my non-film-industry friends proudly wearing fest badges - that were just maps of the venues, not actual credentials - around town. They were a part of the fest community and wanted to show it off, whereas the industry hid them between entering venues!

In Park City this past week, I was constantly in meetings. I found myself with twenty minutes to spare at the top of Main Street, so I walked by Slamdance to say hello to the founders. Within seconds, each of them had told me I must see Gandu, that it was already twenty minutes into the film, but I should stand in the back and watch what I could. I walked in and watched maybe 10 minutes of the film and was blown away. I had "discovered" a voice, curated by the Slamdance programmers from the 3000 submissions, and I got that excited festival feeling again (...then I left for a meeting, yeah!). That only happens at a film festival. I've now tweeted and blogged about it several times, and I only saw ten minutes. I am quite sure a few of my followers will now watch this film they'd otherwise never hear about. My parents recently retired to Durham, NC and have started attending the Full Frame film festival and are positively giddy telling me about the films they've discovered and the filmmakers they've met. Guess what? They too will end up pushing a few of their friends to see these films later. This gets replicated at little fests like Flyway all around the world.

Now, many will argue that you can duplicate this effect with event-based releasing, and indeed you can capture some of it - the one night only, special event that you must attend to experience. I am a big fan of this, and I'm also a fan of the idea of releasing your film to theaters and/or VOD as quickly as possible after a festival premiere, but....

One of the great things we've (mostly) lost in indie cinema is the old ability to gradually release a film and build up word of mouth. The festival circuit has allowed for that audience building, but in our rush to maximize revenues and get it to everyone quickly, many people are switching tactics and skipping most of the festival circuit entirely. Trust me, I am not being old fashioned or sentimentalist when I say this will usually be a mistake. We need a lot more experiments with giving audiences access, but that shouldn't be to the detriment of one part of the model that works.

Do I think filmmakers should submit wildly to film festivals and play ever single one before releasing their film online and on VOD? No. Like everything in film, success will come from being more strategic. But this post isn't about windows and new models. It's about recognizing a couple of things. In an (internet) age of ubiquity, where what is most valuable is my time and attention, what is needed most are exactly what film festivals offer: curators, discovery tools, a communal, participatory experience and a sense of excitement. Good film festivals offer all of these. They always have. Sure, they need to get with the program and do more of this year round and a few other things, but if you ignore this, as a filmmaker, you do so to the detriment of your film and the audience's experience of it.

In thinking about the new paradigm for film, and in building it over the next few years, we should be thinking a lot more about how film festivals (especially the regional, non-industry ones) fit into the picture, because they're really good at providing what people want - now more than ever.

Sundance - The Kid's Alright

I just returned from Sun/Slamdance and have to say - I feel pretty good about the state of things in indie land. Last year, things seemed pretty grim and I thought that perhaps only Peter Broderick and Jon Reiss were figuring things out. This year, the energy felt different. I get accused of being a downer in some of these posts, and about the industry generally, but this post is nothing but happy, so put on your smiles!

Even the Sundance organization, late to every digital party thus far, has come up with a pretty good system for helping out indies. (Late? Yes, I had digital projection two years before them in Atlanta, they've botched their previous online partnerships, etc. etc.) Just today, they announced a new partnership with Facebook and Kickstarter, hired away the very smart Chris Horton from CRM and hinted at rumors of more distribution initiatives down the line. From what you can parse between the lines and from the bit (very little) I was able to pick up from behind the scenes, Sundance is doing this smartly. They aren't becoming a distributor, but instead are building on their strengths to help filmmakers. It's curatorial - starting with their alumni, but they hint it might expand later. It's educational - building on the labs to help train artists in how to best use Facebook Pages, for example. It's about bringing their brand and attention to their artists. No, none of this is new, but it shows a maturation of the space, and if Sundance does this right it will be good for everyone. The key here, by the way, is whether or not they keep fees low for artists, which they should.

Kickstarter is a big name, but their little competitor IndieGoGo launched a cool new partnership as well, by marrying their Distribber platform to Brainstorm Media, they can now offer any indie filmmaker the ability to get their film on every VOD platform for a fee. Yes, the fee is reportedly $10,000 and that seems high at first, but if you have an indie film that will make good money it might be a much better deal than the typical percentage splits of other middle-men. Sure, some little indie is going to do this and not make back the 10K, but I bet at least one will hit gold and fulfill their (Brainstorm/Indiegogo) stated wishes to be made to look stupid!

It was also clear that the business was back at Sundance - in every way. Audiences were up, press and industry screenings were too long for many to get into their choice films, sponsors were all over Main Street (alongside the bimbos in high heels in the snow, per usual) and the buyers have been buying films like crazy. It's too early to tell what the final deal count will be (I can't believe I am typing such lame words....), but everyone seems to agree that things are better. More importantly, however, in conversations with many of these "dead" distributors, as many in the DIY world have been proclaiming them, it is clear that yes, they "get" some things about the new world and many (not all) are hiring people to help build better audience engagement tools and test a few models. Yes, just like the music industry, we're still in for massive disruption, but not everyone is as dumb as they look (or recently looked).

I also heard from many new companies launching- some with "old" distribution models, many with new, and it seemed every Q&A had someone launching into a pitch for their new Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Quora, freakin-robotified new tie-in company. Many of these will no doubt fail, but I finally saw a bit of the energy of SXSW on the streets of Park City, and that was nice.

Even the little indies were doing well. Slamdance held another Filmmaker Summit, and despite there still being a couple people in the audience just learning about using the crowd (for funding, distribution, etc), it was also clear that 95% of the audience was smarter than the panelists this time around (okay, they're always smarter than me). Lance Weiler could talk about transmedia without an hour-long definition (that's his project in the photo above), and no one seemed to blink when Greg Pak showed off his comic book and we learned that the Ford Foundation was behind his transmedia vision (Vision Machine, that is). Hell, even Levi's is in the transmedia game with Miss Representation by Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

But probably my favorite thing was that the mood among the DIY indies was so upbeat. People were clearly ready to make their own new system, they have the tools and case studies to help them and were, frankly, completely unafraid of the new world order. I've always hung around this crowd a bit, so I get that people have been happily doing DIY for a long time, but this time it was clear that DIY had gone mainstream. People are slowly starting to "get it" a bit more and every single day I learned something new from a filmmaker doing something different. That's a good thing.

Another good thing this year was that Sundance had "31 documentaries, narrative features, and short films featuring diverse stories that include African and African American talent and/or directors in this year's line-up" according to the Blackhouse Foundation. I think the number of directors was 18, but I'm not sure; anyway, that's great for Sundance. I'd like to know the percentages for other diversity statistics, but it's great to see the nation's premiere film fest looking more like the rest of the country (note: they have had other good years for this too). While it remains difficult to convince Hollywood (or even Indiewood) to make certain stories, and there remains quite a power imbalance, the sentiment of the panel that I was on at the Blackhouse was clear - it's never been a better time to be a diverse filmmaker, make a diverse film and/or find its audience than now.

I was also pretty upbeat about the festival because I discovered a new writing talent in Alicia Van Couvering in Filmmaker Magazine. New to me, that is - she's the producer of one of the most popular movies of the indie world this year, Tiny Furniture, but hey, I don't get out much. Her article on a certain tendency of the American indie film (turn of phrase hat tip: Robert Ray and Truffaut) as of late is quite simply some of the best writing on indie film out there right now. This paragraph might be the single best paragraph on American Indie Film that I have ever read, in an article that comes darn close as well:

Let’s define the circumference of the navel at which we’re gazing (turn of phrase hat tip: James Ponsoldt.) Most Sundance films are directed by members of an extremely small urban artistic class seeking respect within their own tiny community. The reach of these films only occasionally spreads beyond the walls of the New York and Los Angeles neighborhoods where their makers reside. (italics mine) They are a concentrated example of a whole swath of American youth experiencing periods of extended adolescence — choosing careers late, marrying late, buying property late. Like some bizarre capitalist mutation on red diaper babies, these young people are encouraged since birth to find their inner specialness and sing their special song to the world. The fact that the world does not, in fact, want to hear their song, and worse yet, that they have no special song to sing, sends them reeling into a whirlpool of thwarted narcissism. It is, to be sure, the bubbliest of champagne problems.

What makes it even better is that she goes on to redeem this same tendency by showing that masterful filmmakers can make this a legitimate problem to explore. That said, the problem I have italicized above is a real one. It's why we need more diverse voices and it's why I am also glad that Gandu by Q was the only (bit of) film I saw while in Park City. Yes, unfortunately for me, I was in Park City for meetings, and even with a badge I only saw 15 minutes of one film (and 20 minutes past its start time) at Slamdance. I walked into the back, having been tipped off by some folks that it was gold. I am quite positive based on just those 15 minutes that this movie is brilliant. It was 15 minutes of pure amazement - punk, fun, exhuberant, black and white and with an amazing energy. It's a film from Kolkata, about kids in KolKata and it is unlike many other Indian films I've seen (but I am no expert). Here's the synopsis from Slamdance, and the director's bio:

Gandu hates his life. He hates his mother. She is the mistress of a local businessman. As his mother sells sex in the apartment the man has let them live in, Gandu picks the man’s pocket. In his dream, Gandu raps out the hate, anger, dirt and filth of his existence.

One day he finds a friend, a strange Rikshaw-puller, a devotee of Bruce Lee. Together, they dive into a dark fantasy. Smack, rap, porn, horror. And, within that, a glimmer of hope. This delirium meets with harsh reality checks, and the end of the mother-son relationship.

The narrative becomes fragmented and abstract, a head rush of emotion, graphic sex and finally Gandu the rapper getting a breakthrough. We do not know whether it is dream or reality. Surreal and bizarre come together, as the two friends lose their grip and the film takes over.

Director's Bio:

Born and raised in Kolkata. An arts graduate from Calcutta University. Worked in advertising for twelve years in India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Directed over fifty, winning various awards on the way. Then, inspired by the independent films of Europe and Japan, retired voluntarily and shifted trade and city. Back in Kolkata, Q started a progressive art house namely OVERDOSE, a production, design and music company. He produces, writes, shoots and directs films. He works hard on his sense of humour to keep him afloat.

Here's an interview with him, which is also pretty amazing.

Gandu Q&A with director Q from Slamdance on Vimeo.

Here's the trailer:

Gandu Trailer from moifightclub on Vimeo.

Now that isn't the same niche as many American Indie Films.....or is it? A different take on the same theme of not wanting to grow up, and with a sex scene that's supposedly pretty hot (I missed it), perhaps this can find its audience here too. It plays Berlin next, and I bet it does well there.

So there you have it....my wrap report from Sundance. My guess is this is gonna be a good year for indies.

Photo Credit: Me, of Saskia Wilson-Brown and Gregory Bayne exploring Lance Weiler's Pandemic experience at Sundance.

Video of my NYFA Lecture

I recently spoke at the New York Foundation for the Arts or NYFA, a great artist support organization in New York City. They've posted the video of my presentation:


Reinventing the Arts Through Technology from NYFA on Vimeo.

You can also check out and download the slides from Slideshare. 

Piracy Helps Potter

There was a story in today's NYT about the phenomenal opening weekend of the new Harry Potter movie - taking in about $330 million at the box office. Midway through the article there's a nice little paragraph about how this was accomplished in spite of some recent piracy of the film:

Early last week, the first 36 minutes of “Deathly Hallows,” about a quarter of the movie, leaked onto the Internet, prompting a fresh round of hand-wringing about piracy and leading to some worries that the movie’s opening weekend would suffer as a result. Mr. Fellman said that the studio was investigating but that the pirated footage did not appear to hurt the release. (If anything, the news media coverage of the leak helped.) 

Good to see that piracy has once again helped a movie find success! Hollywood (and the RIAA, etc) keep wringing their hands about how piracy is ruining the business while more sober people keep pointing out that if anything, piracy seems to correlate with success and not hamper business at all.  But really, I'd be surprised if Dan Fellman wasn't smart enough to purposefully leak those first 36 minutes - what an excellent teaser to get you to the theater and what pirate stops with one quarter of a movie?

Adventures in Plymptoons!

Thanks to the power of social networking, I was alerted that one of my online "friends" - someone I've never met, but hope to someday - is doing a pretty cool documentary project on the great animator (and real world acquaintance, if not friend) Bill Plympton. The filmmaker, Alexia Anastasio, sent me to her Kickstarter campaign where she is trying to raise funds for the film.

I get a lot of these emails, and while I check them all out, I rarely have time to give a plug even to the good ones, but I watched her video and I really like it. It's also clear that she has the support of Plympton - he's very much a part of her campaign, so I figured I'd tweet about it soon. Today I woke up, however, and saw this great post from Bill himself over at Ted Hope's blog where he talks about being a serious animator and the trials and tribulations of releasing a good, grown-up animation today. I highly recommend you read his post, and it made me decide to give a plug today to this documentary.

So, check out the Kickstarter campaign. Kick in some dough (as opposed to Do) if you have the inclination. Then, go out to the IFC Center and spend some dough watching Bill's film, Idiots and Angels. If you like it, tell others, so they spend their dough and Bill can make back the money he is spending on the release. You'll get an added treat - the film is prefaced by a short Bill made called The Cow who wanted to be a Hamburger, which I saw when I was on the jury for short films at the Florida Film Festival. I loved it, the jury loved it - we gave it a prize, which qualified it for Academy consideration. You'll like the whole thing and will, hopefully, decide to go back and give more money to Alexia's Kickstarter campaign and then see Idiots and Angels again. Or so I hope.

Here's her campaign:

Vo.Do and Distribution

I had the distinct pleasure to moderate a post-screening discussion and Q and A with director Gregory Bayne and screenwriter and actor J. Reuben Appelman after the screening of their film Person of Interest at the Open Video Conference. I highly recommend both the film and the conference (it's over, so check it out next year if you missed it), but what I really liked was all of the news from VoDo - the P2P distribution system for indies.

In the spirit of seeing opportunity where others see a threat, Jamie King and friends have created a pretty spectacular little system for harnessing the power of P2P file sharing, the generosity of the Commons and the apparently ubiquitous human desire to collect meaningless rewards in order to benefit those indies who give their films away for free. On purpose, that is, because all of you give them away for free like it or not. Once a film is shot it will be pirated. If it isn't, you have proof that it sucks because no one bothered to pirate it. With VoDo, however, all hand-wringing over this situation stops.

Shared Film - Panel with Gregory Bayne at Open Video Conf.

This Saturday, I'll be attending the Open Video Conference to moderate an after screening talk with Gregory Bayne about his film Person of Interest. Bayne has been taking an alternative approach to releasing his film - he's toured it garage style, given it away for free, you can buy it in multiple formats on his website now and he's doing a bigger tour of the film beginning next year. You can read more about what he's done in this excellent Filmmaker Magazine post, but I'm most interested in getting his thoughts on how filmmakers (and other artists) can use Peer-to-Peer and other free mechanisms to build an audience and still make a living. I'm sure he'll have a lot to tell us, and I can't wait to finally sit down and talk with Gregory Bayne.  Check out the conference website to learn more about the events - two days of great speakers and some great films. Here's the trailer for Person of Interest:

New business models for film & transmedia

I'm here at the Power to the Pixel - Pixel Transmedia Lab in Cardiff, Wales. Thank goodness, because it's only 70 degrees here and NYC is apparently in a heat wave. I'm also sitting on a hotel balcony looking over a beautiful bay (of which I would provide a photo if I only had a camera (!!!) on my Blackberry). I've been learning a lot from the excellent experts they've assembled, as well as from the project participants and other attendees. I'll post more on that soon, but for now, here's the slides I'll be presenting tomorrow at my speech on developing new business and financial models for transmedia production. While this group is made up of largely transmedia producers, many are starting with a relatively traditional film, and I think the slides are relevant to anyone thinking about new business models for the production of any media. As with most of my talks, there's not a ton of detail in the slides - most of it is what I say, so I hope to have video to post or link to soon. I think these are easy enough to understand, however, and you can always contact me directly (in comments here or on Facebook) if you have questions. I should be clear  - I'm not presenting anything here as clear, hard facts - the business models are being invented (here at the Lab, for one), but these are some thoughts and observations:

Transmedia Biz Models, Pixel Lab

View more presentations from Brian Newman.

Let me know what you think.

Future Think Edinburgh

I'm off to Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Film Fest, which remains one of the better fests out there and which is jam-packed with good panels and activities. I'll be speaking at a few events with the film festival. First, this Sat at 1pm is a panel called "Free for all" and you can guess what that's about - free, piracy, etc. I'm really looking forward to this one, as there's a rep from the MPAA there, and while I am sure he is nice and great, I'm also sure we'll disagree on this issue! I can't find a link online for this one, guess it's too hot a ticket.

Then on Sunday, I'll be speaking for Shooting People as part of their Digital Bootcamp. From the website: "For filmmakers, the internet is changing everything. Shooting People presents this half day session designed to help you and your film navigate the rapidly evolving digital and web landscape. The session is aimed at those for whom these tools are somewhat of a mystery, and know they need to understand them. Alongside a presentation from new models in funding and distribution expert Brian Newman, and a thorough case study of The Last rites of Ransom Pride by festival filmmaker Duncan Montgomery, the event is a comprehensive survey of resources, websites, social media, systems, tracking, crowdsourcing, funding, distribution, exhibition, outreach … and more."

Monday the 21st has me with Shooting People, BAFTA and the Fest again for Short-Sighted, where I'll lay out more of my thoughts on how to make a living by incorporating free into your business model. There's a lot of other great speakers as well, and I look forward to learning some new things. Immediately after that is FutureThink (Mon 21st) - a discussion on the future of cinema. From the catalogue online: " a look at the future: Where will our industry be in 10-20 years time? The world will always want visual stories but how will we view them and where? Will the rise of digital technology mean that cinemas become obsolete?" I'm pretty sure they won't, but I think there's lots of other changes in store, so it should be a good discussion. 

Anyway, there's a lot of other great speakers, so if you'll be in Edinburgh check out those links and look me up in town. 

ATL-PushPush Distrib/Fundraise 101

Just back from my old stomping grounds of the ATL, where I did a few private consults and one big, long workshop for filmmakers at PushPush Theater. The experience, for me at least, was great. My slides are embedded after the fold, but first a few words of thought on Atlanta. Having been there, I'm not telling anyone who lives there anything new when I say there's some serious talent in that town. Sure, we all know about Tyler Perry, Rainforest Films, Turner and all that, but the ideas I heard from several producers/directors were pretty incredible. I also like the fact that they have great resources in town like GSU's DAEL center, the Atlanta Film Festival, a top-notch new media/gaming sector and with an amazing tax incentive, there's arguably few places better to shoot right now.

They also have innovative thinkers like PushPush Theater. Yes, I am biased as they paid me to consult and to speak, disclaimer enough? That said, I don't know of many other theater companies that are thinking about community and creativity like they are doing. They aren't just a theater company. Sure, lots of people open their doors to improv, to people showing film screenings, to training, to actors who might want to go from stage to screen. PushPush, however, is going further and thinking about how their projects can become multi-platform transmedia productions. This kinda started with a program they did called Dailies, which helped a group of filmmakers workshop a series of short film experimentations into what became Pop Film's The Signal.

50,000 films is a great thing, post on The Wrap

My first post for The Wrap just went online. In it, I discuss how the ever increasing flood of films is a good thing. Say what? Aren't they just crowding up the house? I don't think so, and explain why. Let me know your thoughts, either here or at The Wrap (and expect some more zany thoughts there soon).

For those too lazy - here's the article, pasted below:

For a few years now, the topic du jour at panels and conferences has been whether or not the sky is falling on the film business. Most panelists seem to settle on a common culprit contributing to the malaise: Too many films being made.

Case in point: During a recent conversation between Ted Hope and Chris Hyams, hosted by TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman, the panelists bemoaned this fact, and when Waxman commented that more than 3,000 films were submitted to Sundance last year, Chris Hyams quickly interjected that the Sundance submission number grossly underestimates the real numbers. Based on his analysis of unique, individual entries from the thousands of film festivals that used B-Side’s Festival Genius software to run their websites, Hyams estimated that as many as 50,000 films were made in 2009.

Audible gasps were heard in the room, and judging by the questions and comments from the audience, on Twitter and from those watching the streaming feed, it was clear that everyone agreed that 50,000 films might be 49,850 too many.

Some things I'd like to know

To my mind, the biggest problem facing the indie film field is the lack of transparency around the numbers. Which numbers? All of them. Until we know a few basic things, it's really hard to say what's wrong, what might work, what has worked and whether anything really is wrong at all. Everyone talks about box office, but we all (should) know that those are really the least important numbers. If we had better data available, publicly, on VOD, deal points, DVD sales, etc., then we could build a more robust indie film sector. We don't know these numbers for a lot of reasons - many people make their living off keeping these things confidential, but some of them we just don't know because no one who should be asking them has bothered - ahem, that would be you, lackadaisical film industry trades (all of you). So here's twenty things I'd like to know, in no particular order.

The Chicago Producers Series Slides

As promised, here's the slides from my presentation at the IFP Chicago Producer's series.

Chicago inventing Future Speech

View more presentations from Brian Newman.

Storming the gates, or can't we all just get along

Let’s all storm the fences. I’m mad as hell and I just can’t take it anymore. The tyranny of the gatekeepers has stifled all creativity and I can’t find any innovative or creative films. A secret cabal of festival programmers, distributors, IndieWire editors, producers reps, broadcasters, Apple employees, NYTimes reporters and theater owners is holding back the flood of original, amazing content.

Ok, anyone who’s worked in this business for more than say, a year, will laugh hysterically at the cat-herding thought of corralling that many movie geeks towards doing anything other than watching cinema. They can’t agree on what’s good and what sucks, much less what to suppress and what is genius. They seem to all agree on avoiding sunlight, but beyond that, no such cabal of gatekeepers exists folks.

Alright, there’s some truth to the whole gate-keeper argument. There is someone (many someone’s, actually) who has to weed through those 3000+ submissions to Sundance, and someone else who has to weed through the accepted films to figure out which ones might find an audience in New York City, much less in Topeka. You can choose to call them gate-keepers, but I like to think of them as shit-strainers - a big industry protecting me from all the crap out there. These poor souls watch more than 500 films a year on average, only ten or twenty of which might be worth me ever seeing, and for all that thank-less work, all they get is a bunch of name-calling in the blog-o-spheres (I could link to ten articles in the last week that are somehow related to this, but you’ve probably read them already).

We should be giving them a medal.

The trifecta that broke the internet as we know it

That deafening applause you hear is not from Durham, NC post NCAA, but rather from the MPAA and the representatives of other major content providers on both sides of the Atlantic cheering on what may be looked back upon as the trifecta week that broke the internet as we know it. Three momentous things took place simultaneously this week that combined are more important than most people realize - the Ipad was released, the UK looks poised to pass Debill and a federal appeals court ruled that the FCC doesn’t have the right to regulate broadband, thus possibly ending its ability to enforce network neutrality.

Nail number one. Lots of people went and got themselves an Ipad yesterday, and many in the film industry are debating whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for independent creatives. Big media is rejoicing, as they think this will be their savior - allowing them to put the genie in the bottle and start selling their content to huge profits again. Old world computer geeks can’t seem to stand the closed, one-way nature of the Ipad (consumption), but their grandma’s seem to love it. Indie lovers think that wow, now they can make an application and actually make money for their content, or get their films seen by more people on the Netflix API. I have serious doubts that indies will be served well by these developments. Sure, a lucky few will make cool applications off the API to serve up and charge for their content, but most of us will be stuck where we’ve always been  - begging some gatekeeper to get our content onto the most used platforms. More importantly, this is a consumption machine - no USB drive, so you can’t even bring in your own content easily, no camera in front, sanction needed from on-high in Apple HQ, yadda yadda. My personal hope - this is like AOL in the early days. Everyone will flock to the ease of use of the walled garden for awhile and then realize they can do much more outside of it. That’s probably a best-case scenario, because this thing is popular and it’s hard to convince a public looking at something cool that there could be something even cooler than what they have. I can’t blame them, and we’ll see if perhaps this becomes the consumption machine for those things created on laptops, etc., including those creations of independents. In the meantime, the main reason I’m not playing with one is less philosophical - price.

DIY Days - Reinventing Innovation Speech

I just wrapped my DIY Days speech (ok, hrs ago) and people have asked for the text and slides. So here they are. I am kinda commenting on the slides, and some slides are counter-points to what I am saying so the video will  be much easier to follow, once it is up.
Slides:

Diy Days Speech on Innovation

View more presentations from Brian Newman.

Here's the text, after the fold: