Lead up to Cannes: Digital Distribution Beyond the Old World – May 15th, 2012

This post was originally published on the Sundance Artists Services blog on April 23, 2012. This is an interview between Rights Stuff’s Wendy Bernfeld and The Film Collaborative’s Orly Ravid on the state of digital in Europe

In the past, many new media and VOD platforms – whether based on pay-per-transaction (TVOD), subscription (SVOD), free to user/ad supported (ADVOD) or download to own (DTO) — came and went, to the disillusionment of those brave souls trying to explore and develop the new sector and audiences.

Some filmmakers, sales agents, distributors who dared to license were wonderfully pleased with surprisingly good results for particular films (and not always the same ones that were mainstream successes in traditional media), but on balance, let’s face it, most were underwhelmed with the lackluster performance or transience of the various sites, and eventually became jaded about the whole sector. But it’s no longer a viable option just to sit back.

Over the past 18 months particularly the digital/VOD sector (including internationally) has finally begun paying off well for filmmakers, producers, distributors, and sales agents… at least for those who are willing to take the time to navigate (alone or partnered with others) the complexities of the sector, play with creative ”windowing’’ while balancing opportunities from traditional media, and accept initially more modest revenues from multiple smaller deals across various platforms and regions (yielding cumulative revenues in a largely non exclusive sector).

In addition to traditional media deals and VOD deal potential with IPTV, telecom, and cable offerings, and larger American sites (e.g. Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, iTunes), your film may well find interested audiences and homes on EU/international platforms…even if not picked up in the USA.

HOW IS INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL DIFFERENT FROM THAT IN THE USA?

The EU (beyond UK) deals with multiple languages, different tastes and appetites, different windows (vs consistent release patterns/dates per country), different platforms to navigate and balance against multiple different traditional media buyers, and, to be honest in general more work for smaller potential revenues from each deal/window.

But on the plus side, films can find homes overseas in many markets and windows, even if not ending up in the mainstream or major US/UK platforms.

The UK is at the moment probably the more stable and lucrative for English (the VOD market is already very competitive, with large platforms like Netflix, Lovefilm, BSkyB, FilmFlex, iTunes, and Blinkbox) but as soon as you ripple out to EU, digital distribution will take more work and art and generate relatively less money, especially if your film is only in original English language, and not already exposed in terms of promo/PR (theatrical, DVD release in the region etc.). However, there is indeed a growing appetite by now for art house, festival, docs, quality indie films, and foreign language films, if well curated, e.g. around festivals/brands/themes rather than as one-offs.

WHO’S OUT THERE in EU and what are some of the key territories where digital is meaningful?

Digital is immediately more meaningful in the UK, France, the Nordic region, and in Benelux, where there are already pc/mobile and tech-savvy customers and a willingness to view films in English with subtitles (vs. the dubbed regions of Germany, Spain, Italy etc., where one has to invest more to get the languages to cross over).

Although publications often refer to figures noting several hundreds of VOD platforms in Europe, in my view there are only probably 100 or so that are worth talking about when discussing licensing—half of which the main revenue generators, and another half of which are still potentially significant buyers(depending on the film of course)

In Europe, as in America, transactional VOD (pay per view) platforms are more established – some regional (per country), and others multi region (e.g. Acetrax, UPC/Chello, Headweb, iTunes, Playstation Network Live, Voddler, Xbox Live). Outside of the UK, one obviously enhances possibilities if addressing customers in their own languages and tailoring content to local preferences such film classification, advertising, and general consumer and cultural tastes.

iTunes has only recently (in autumn 2011) begun to expand its footprint into Europe, including in the following EU countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Non-English stores include: Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, and Portugal. They also just recently launched in Brazil / Latin America as well.

NETFLIX, Amazon (via Lovefilm), and Hulu are expanding their international footprint too. Netflix, for example, recently launched in UK/Eire, and is anticipated to roll into other regions such as Spain thereafter, and has already extended its occasionally original production commissioning activities to EU (e.g. Denmark – Lillyhammer deal, and more recently France (Gaumont etc) – Hemlock Grove series funding ). Lovefilm already has a presence beyond the UK (in Germany and Nordic), and is anticipated to expand regions. Hulu has not yet launched in EU but did launch already in Japan. As part of its competition rampup (in the US against Netflix in the SVOD market, it has also began commissioning original programming, (Day in the Life – Morgan Spurlock, for example, which was just picked up by Fremantle for distribution thereafter)….and also continues seeking special films or shows to do stunts around. We understand that they are trying to acquire more Spanish rights for the US…an important strategic move for other US players trying to expand their footprint in EU as well. Meanwhile in early 2012 the UK became a hotbed of activity for SVOD, with deals that would formerly have been nonexclusive (with e.g. Netflix, Lovefilm) being now struck on a lucrative exclusive basis, following the example of the competitive SVOD vs. Pay TV market in the US.

So what are the other key EU platforms? Trends?

Various international platforms are now becoming increasingly interested in licensing more art house, niche and festival films–not just mainstream titles. It is expected that some of the larger brand sites this year (e.g. those in UK like Netflix, Lovefilm, etc.) will expand the indie/art house and festival category further, and also be open to foreign language films (dubbed or subtitled as applicable per country audience as above). Most deals for art house/fest films, where not locally versioned or released in theatres or DVD, are on a non exclusive rev share basis, and in some cases where there is particular acclaim or cast, it can be coupled with a modest upfront, while if on an SVOD basis, flat fee deals apply (similar to non-exclusive Pay TV licensing deal parameters).

But in countries where the Pay TV incumbent is competing against a new web player, such as a traditional Pay TV player “vs.” SVOD (like Netflix “vs.” HBO in the US, or Lovefilm/Amazon “vs.” BSkyB in UK), as above, the fees can be more lucrative, in the form of true flat license fees in the Pay TV range. – whether on exclusive or non exclusive basis, and thus matching or exceeding the normal price ranges before the competition. As well, when competition heats up over one category of title, it’s also not unusual to have the competitors round out, extend, or diversify their consumer offer and move into other genres, to try to distinguish themselves from the competition. This is happening in more and more countries– for example the Netherlands, where HBO /Ziggo just launched in February and the local incumbent, Film1, responded by adding a branded art house/indie thematic channel (Sundance Channel).

Key note: Deals are generally non-exclusive and thus if carefully staggered, one can license the film sequentially through various windows (TVOD, SVOD, AVOD, and if applicable, DTO) and in multiple regions.

An example: one can first license a current film for transactional VOD (TVOD) on a rev share basis to cable and telecom VOD platforms (like France Telecom/Orange, UPC, etc) as well as (simultaneously) web based players (e.g. iTunes), then to subscription -based windows (premium Pay TV (e.g. HBO, Viasat) and their corresponding “TV Everywhere” offerings, thematic Pay TV, and/or standalone SVOD services . Thereafter, the film can move to other ad-supported services (free to consumer, web based, e.g. YouTube AVOD). This pattern can apply in multiple countries.

As mentioned above, there are hundreds of local European platforms —both standalone web-based services and mainstream and/or local telecom and Cable VOD platforms that have online offerings of their own. VIASAT, for example, was historically a premium pay service, but now offers not only conventional Pay TV and ”TV Everywhere” but also standalone thematic offerings to non-subscribers (SVOD to PC). Similarly, BSkyB just announced the upcoming launch of NOW TV – also aimed at non- subscribers (“Cord Nevers, and/or Cord Cutters”) – a thematic SVOD/low pay offering of films.

Opportunities will only increase in 2012 and 2013 as more from USA players, sites, and OTT box offerings beyond Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon gradually cross over to EU/international markets particularly if the new services don’t limit themselves to mainstream offerings and tastes.

Getting to the platform: As in the United States, some of the larger platforms (such as LOVEFILM, BlinkBox, Netflix, itunes) only take larger packages of films with a minimum volume, and are unwilling to deal direct with producers and distributors for “one off” deals. Until recently, most of the larger sites also focused mainly on mainstream films. In general, these services steer filmmakers towards conventional distributors, or aggregators/digital distributors like Movie Partnership (UK); but sometimes will accept dealings direct for certain films, or will go via an agent working on a flat fee basis (like Rights Stuff / Film Collaborative). In the latter scenario, the film IP remains in the filmmaker’s/distributor’s name, the money from deals flows to them directly and they get access and paid advice through third party consultants/agents/advisors.

Up until now, having had a DVD and/or local theatrical release was quite important for enhancing deals. But increasingly now online sites are willing to handle more innovative windows, e.g. premiering films online, or Day & Date with other windows (or shortly thereafter). Lesser-known or library (catalog) films can usually find a home on a non- exclusive and on ad-supported (AVOD) basis, but more current films usually start with transactional (TVOD) basis and/or subscription platforms (SVOD)… If filmmakers have titles already encoded to the expensive iTunes spec, this can be helpful in wider distribution, but it’s not essential; many digital platforms are now willing to take delivery of indie or art house films even via DVD or a hard drive/ digital master.

In terms of deal models, some aggregators (middlemen) take larger %s but then take care of all encoding and delivery fulfillment, while others who are more in an advisory or agent role take a lower share for deal making and platform access but leave you to arrange the encoding separately. In some countries (e.g. Brazil), platforms may not take English versions unless local subtitles or dubs are available, and work with distributors who create versions where necessary. These distributors co-curate packages with filmmakers based on experience of what “moves” best in the region so as not to invest in encoding or language versioning for films that may not generate enough revenue to justify it…

A side note regarding subtitling, by the way: Film Collaborative is looking into software that helps facilitate dubbing in the same voice as the actor/speaker, but meanwhile in any case, subtitling for digital is getting less and less expensive and can be done via relatively inexpensive software or labs. If one has shown a film at a film festival in another country and plans to then distribute the film there, we’d recommend you ask the fest for access to the subtitles (if cleared for other distribution). Traditionally, Nordic, Benelux, and some other regions are fine with and prefer subtitles, while others (such as Germany, Spain, and Italy) require dubbing. However, in the higher-educated arthouse/filmfest world, one can often get away with just subtitled versions even in the dubbing countries.

As indicated above, for better platform access, one may want to pick or join with new media /digital distribution specialists – particularly if your traditional sales agent or distributor, strong in conventional media (theatrical, video etc.) is however not active or savvy in the VOD landscape above (platforms, deal terms, contacts etc). Otherwise it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy that you then ”don’t make money in digital’’. It’s a balancing act of cost vs. services, and a lot of work in international!

And filmmakers, whatever you choose to do with respect to your digital distribution, do not forget that one can also reach the whole wide world via one’s own website(s) and social networking pages by utilizing DIY digital distribution services (for more on this topic please refer to numerous past blog posts about digital distribution and DIY platforms and services at www.TheFilmCollaborative.org/blog and/or the Resource Place at www.TheFilmCollaborative.org/ResourcePlace).

As for piracy: in various cases filmmakers can tap into or derive indirect benefit from these online communities. See for e.g. Sheri Candler’s case studies in www.SellingYourFilm.com, Some filmmakers partner with Bit Torrent, Pirate Bay etc to launch their films online, tapping into the audiences already there (e.g. Nasty Old People, The Tunnel, Yes Men Fix the World).

LET’S TALK ABOUT POTENTIAL FUTURE TRENDS:

Diversification, Cross Platform/Transmedia: We believe 2012 will see continued consolidation of platforms and fuller diversification within the genres offered. Also as above, some key platforms (such as Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo, Endemol/AOL, Nokia, Canal+, Orange, ARTE, Channel4, ) are now also selectively commissioning transmedia and/or branded film opportunities (YouTube has not begun funding outside US yet). New funds and educational bodies (including MEDIA, Power to the Pixel) are increasing the emphasis on digital as a 360 proposition from inception of the film production process.

Multi-Layered Business Models: Platforms’ business models are also starting to become more multi-layered to handle different genres, consumer price points, and windows. For example, AVOD platforms such as YOUTUBE and SVOD platforms such as Lovefilm are now adding premium transactional VOD (TVOD) in order to handle current films. And as above, SVOD players are expanding their offerings beyond just library titles, beginning to buy newer and newer films in order to compete against premium PAY TV. This trend is continuing in the newer launching countries, e.g. Holland and Brazil where new PAY TV and localized SVOD and AVOD entrants have launched (e.g. YouTube regional sites). YouTube is also commissioning Made for Web content (MFW), although first in English language countries.

Festivals: Some European festivals have also recently started offering select titles on a TVOD basis. Rights Stuff recently worked with IDFA.tv to put around 100 films online—some on an AVOD basis and some on a TVOD basis—and in future more will follow. Certain other festivals (such as IFFR) have also begun to follow the US festival path of offering limited TVOD around or during the festival. This can open many doors for filmmakers, but also requires careful juggling and balancing when figuring out distribution patterns for conventional vs. online and new media….the balancing act is always key.

Traditional Players add VOD as well: As to the more traditional PAY TV players, last year after EPIX began licensing international festival documentaries it then turned its focus more to co-productions instead of acquisitions. And over 2011/12,As in the US, many traditional PAY TV platforms are going cross-platform and on multiple devices (a la “TV EVERYWHERE”, and similarly the nonlinear online channels are often seeking multiple device rights and/or at least have an App). Thus balancing traditional PAY TV sale vs. digital media requires more attention in rights grants and windows, but offers more opportunity correspondingly. In terms of trends, it still seems like the bigger funds and platforms are still more focused on more mainstream content, however as above this is starting to expand in EU to a wider net of content and genres.

REGIONAL EXAMPLES: VOD LICENSING PLAYERS AND WINDOWS in EU:

For bigger indie titles and mainstream ones, there are usually about 5-8 or so VOD outlets that one can target per country. Most of these will buy TVOD rights and sometimes also SVOD and/or AVOD. Platforms include television-related services (IPTV, Telecom/Cable companies, etc), as well as online and/or mobile sites, OTT box offerings, and consumer electronic (e.g. connected TV) portals.

For e.g. in Holland, a film or TV show can have various TVOD deals, not only with MSO like KPN, Tele2, Ziggo, and UPC, but also with web based services like Cinemalink.nl (for art house), iTunes, and the newly launched service from theatrical distributor Pathé (a Rights Stuff client), pathethuis.nl a bold move by a traditional theatrical exhibitor to also launch and embrace TVOD for a fuller offer to its film-loving audience base.

That would then be then followed by Premium PAY TV and/or SVOD sales (e.g. Film1, Ziggo/HBO, Ximon, Mubi.com), then AVOD (YouTube, IDFA.tv) with various competing players per region. The same film can also attract interest of foreign platforms not yet launched in the region but scaling up behind scenes, poised to launch there (e.g. those seeking to next move after UK into, say, Spain or other Benelux regions/Nordic). And this is on top of the broadcaster based proprietary VOD services (e.g. RTLXL and Veamer (from SBS and public TV catchup sites.

There are also various local equivalents of genre sits like Fandor or IndieFlix in certain EU regions. MUBI (www.Mubi.com) (co-owned by the rights holder to one of the most expansive libraries of art house cinema, Celluloid Dreams) is technically available everywhere, and is sometimes syndicated as an SVOD channel to telecom platforms (as in the case with Belgacom in Belgium). It is also on Sony Playstation. Last we checked, 60% of its audience was the US and most of the rest in Europe. Revenues from it for our films (TFC) have been small to-date, low 3-figures but it’s a good pedigree platform and perhaps revenues will increase.

A few others in EU include e.g. Orange, Canal Plus, (France and, multi region), Telenet, Belgacom, (in Belgium), SF Anytime, Voddler Film2home, Headweb , Viasat etc in Nordic /other regions), Telefonica, … Maxdome (Germany), Sony-related Qriocity, Daily Motion (many countries in EU), Movieeurope, Zattoo. Sales agent Wild Bunch has also recently launched a platform service called FilmoTV.

And as an aside, in Brazil/Latin America, the market has been heating up intensely in late 2011/12, with various TVOD and IPTV platform launches players, as well as competitive new PAY TV and SVOD services (eg Netflix, Netmovies, Terra) springing up or extending VOD. NewPAY TV laws (from fall 2011) are resulting in more potential competition, which is good news for filmmakers seeking new audiences over there. Our recommended approach to filmmakers seeking deals in this region is to partner locally, e.g. with ELO Distribution, with whom we work traditional and non-traditional (new media) players.

These are just a few categorical examples…there are plenty more buyers and platforms emerging internationally, including consumer electronics manufacturers (such as Samsung and tablet and connected TV manufacturers in EU and internationally who are getting into the game either on the licensing front or occasionally even funding/commissioning Transmedia or mfw (Made for Web). However, these usually license fuller sites (like a Lovefilm or Snagfilms) and not individual one –off titles.

Overall, there are a lot of small markets and platforms, and all this takes a lot of work, but if one has built community around a film and awareness then the effort may pay off and add up to a nice revenue stream. Once the first deals are in place with platforms (deal structures, relationships, contacts, contracts) it’s easier to build on that and add new films to the deals with just short amendments or riders, so the effort at the front end makes years of future dealings run smoother.

TRENDS RE: OTHER GENRES:

Aside from art house, festival indie films, and docs, one area that we expect to see more SVOD licensing around is kids’ films. Various smaller sites also have a strong appetite for gay/lesbian, martial arts, and horror programming, graphic novels, and made for web/cross platform/Transmedia original productions…but one has to be selective. As to documentaries, the combination of a large number of doc sites in the EU with the heavy exposure of docs on public and conventional TV in EU means docs can be relatively harder to monetize here, unless well curated and packaged, for e.g. under a larger brand/festival, like IDFA.

WINDOWING:

Typically films follow the sequential windowing described above when moving through the Transactional, Sell Through, Subscription, and ADVOD windows. But for certain films it it can be clever and compelling to have windows intentionally reversed or out of sequence. For example, premiering a film ONLINE or day-and-date with another cross-promoted window ahead of theatrical, and heavily emphasizing social media marketing can allow producers to build (and engage with) the audience before the film is even out. The key is to know your audience and try to tailor the marketing and distribution patterns accordingly…producers can be more active these days to heighten the chances of film success.

More and more platforms are open to this REVERSE WINDOWING (which began successfully in the US, e.g. with Lars von Trier’s Melancholia), . For example, in Holland, the film Claustrophobia launched online first and its success via social networking ultimately brought it a theatrical deal. In another case, Submarine NL’s film ‘’Molotov Alva’’ (a second life documentary released online virally first) later secured a HBO sale on premium pay tv, and in another film we worked with (the documentary Surfing and Sharks), intensive social network/audience engagement before and during the film’s festival exhibitions helped not only to enhance the potential audience for the film ahead of commercial released, but also to attract wider sponsor support. Ultimately, the visible online appetite for the film (including the number of Twitter and Facebook followers amassed in a very short time) helped result in a stronger all-rights distribution deal as well.

There are various new platforms focused on these models that are launching and expanding reach in EU– e.g. EU1 (The Makers Channel), which just launched in the Netherlands and will soon expand to other EU regions. One part of the site is business-to-business (geared towards talent, directors, actors, producers, etc.) providing for online pitches and related crowd sourcing and crowd funding (like Kickstarter). The other component is business to consumer, and allows exhibition of works online, on a rev share VOD basis… which will be coupled for the first time with TVOD exhibitions on UPC/Chello/Ziggo (the Cable TV VOD platform partners) thus giving much wider audience reach than conventional web VOD to PC. In some cases films can also combine a theatrical (conventional or event theatrical local) release for the films “day and date” with or in staggered creative windows. We are working with two English film cases in NL already, and as this site expands to other regions and to wider English crossover, this will open up many more opportunities (in some ways similar to what you see already in the USA on Tribeca/Sundance with exhibitions on cable households (TVOD).

SHOW ME THE MONEY:

Even where indie features have no theatrical or DVD release, if there is some cast and acclaim from festivals, and the film is new/current, TVOD is possible . This is usually on a rev share basis (with %s ranging from 50-50 to 70-30, with various deductions to negotiate). In SVOD/PAY TV, flat fees are normally paid instead of rev share, usually, along lines of comparable non-exclusive PAY TV license fees for indies. For example, in medium sized, non-English language EU countries, we’ve seen SVOD flat fee prices range from 5K-50K per title where it’s been theatrically or DVD released, etc, while with less exposure or more niche, sometimes the flat fees can be lower and more aligned with AVOD. In AVOD, deals are usually rev-share, (50-50 to 70-30) with sometimes a small upfront fee. In a medium-sized EU region, MG’s (Minimum Guarantees), when given at all for indie film, can range from a few hundred dollars (plus rev share) to 1-2K for higher end material. The very largest platforms may get away with no upfront fees at all due to their scale and reach, but smaller EU sites may well, depending on the film, offer something modest. When you do multiple nonexclusive deals, these can add up and help defray some costs of versioning, digitization, deliveries, etc.

As to revenues generated from VOD once the license is done: again it is platform and film specific, and one cannot generalize. We’ve seen certain cases where niche foreign language art house films yielded 40K in 2 months of non-exclusive TVOD revenues across a few platforms, , while other titles from the same distributor yielded only 1-2K in the same deals/time period. Things are similar with SVOD – fees can range in one small non-English EU country from 5k to 40k for a single SVOD window license fee (non exclusive) – so the key is still in our view still to engage in a reasonable number of deals in each country across various windows, platforms and business models.

IN SUM: SOME TIPS FOR GOOD RESULTS IN DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION:

  1. We strongly advise building audience for the film before release, even while the film is still being made. Engage in social media marketing around the themes of your film and the cast: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (promos) etc. This not only enhances the audience and reach of your film, when it is released, but potentially your distribution and/or digital deal making as well.
  2. Once a deal is done and even after the film is sold, it still helps for the producer or distributor to take an active role in social media marketing, e.g. to direct attention (via social media etc.) to scheduled exhibitions of the films on various platforms licensed. Many platforms in EU are still showing viewers EPG’s with clumsy alphabetical “listings’’(as opposed to the type of creative Netflix/Lovefilm recommendation engines and suggestions), so helping viewers find the film will in turn increase returns.
  3. As for digital deals: We’d also recommend that individual producers who cannot afford tailored individual advice consider combining forces via producer groups to collectively fund some serious upfront advice – help each other curate more attractive packages of their better material, so easier to sell on to platforms directly or indirectly – and grouped in many different ways (theme, genre, category, audience etc.).
  4. If necessary, try to have “split rights’’ deals. If the person to whom you are entrusting the film in an “all rights” deal is less strong in digital and likely to “sit on” new media rights, you can explore splitting these rights /sharing them non exclusively with the distributor and another specialized digital distributor, case by case. Rights Stuff has often done this working with sales agents and distributors and producers directly to maximize digital distribution.
  5. Work with festivals (both traditional and online), who can play an increasing role in EU as they cross over to the digital space and VOD offerings. But be careful about the scope and duration of rights granted vs. other traditional and digital media, to maximize potential in all areas.
  6. Don’t abdicate completely, ie don’t’wash your hands of the film once you put it in someone else’s hands (the conventional sales approach) – keep involved along the way, gain as much learning as possible, split revenues, resources, knowledge base, contacts … and lever the outcomes to your next and future films.

Final notes: Pricing of films on the transactional side is relatively commensurate with that in the US, however non USA SVOD and AVOD markets are smaller with lower revenue per deal. . We did not include VIEWSTER in this article but feel free to check them out. They are a consumer-facing platform that also supplies other platforms (i.e. functions like an aggregator). They seem to favor films with cast, more commercial films and those with a bigger profile. www.Viewster.com

 

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Posted in Digital Distribution, Distribution, Distribution Platforms, Hulu, International Sales, iTunes, Netflix

Navigating digital distribution, 11 things to consider – May 8th, 2012

This post by Orly Ravid was published originally on the Sundance Artists Services blog April 15, 2012

1.  CARVE OUT DIY DIGITAL:

Distributors and Foreign Sales companies alike often want ALL RIGHTS and including ALL DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS.

No matter what, at least CARVE OUT the ability to do DIY Digital Distribution yourself with services such as: EggUp, Distrify,  Dynamo Player, and/or TopSpin, off your own site, off your Facebook page, and also directly to platforms that you can access.  Platforms and services can almost always Geo-Filter thereby eliminating conflict with any territories where the film has been sold to a traditional distributor and often times a distributor will not mind that a filmmaker sells directly to his/her fans as well in any case.

2.   PLATFORMS ≠ AGGREGATORS ≠ DISTRIBUTORS:

Platforms are places people go to watch or buy films. Aggregators are conduits between filmmakers/distributors and platforms. Aggregators usually focus more on converting files for and supplying metadata to platforms and that’s about it.  Marketing is rarely a strong suit or focus for them but it should be for a distributor, otherwise what’s the point? Aggregators usually don’t need rights for a long term and only take limited rights they need to do the job.  Distributors usually take more rights for longer terms.  Sometimes distributors are DIRECT to PLATFORMS and sometimes they go through AGGREGATORS.  It makes a difference because FEES are taken out every time there is a middleman.  Filmmakers should want to know the FEE that the PLATFORM is taking (because it’s not always the same for all content providers though usually it is other than for Cable VOD, for example) and know if a distributor is direct with platforms or goes through an aggregator.  Also, filmmakers should have an understanding what each middleman is doing to justify the fee.  On the aggregator/distributor side, we think 15% is a better fee than 50%, so have an understanding of what services are included in the fee. If a distributor is not devoting any time or money to marketing and simply dumping films onto platforms, then one should be aware of that. Ask for a description in writing of what activities will be performed.

3. THINK OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS AS STORES AND CUSTOMIZE A PLAN THAT IS RIGHT FOR YOUR FILM:

A film should try to be available everywhere however sometimes that is too costly or not possible and when that is the case one should prioritize according to where the film’s audience consumes media. Think of digital platforms as retail stores. Back in the DVD days (which are almost gone), one would want a DVD of an indie film in big US chains such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video but especially a cool, award winning indie would do well in a 20/20 or Kim’s Video store because those outlets were targeting a core audience. With digital, it’s the same. While many filmmakers want to see their films on Cable VOD, some films just don’t work well there and delivery is expensive. Some films make most of their money via Netflix these days and won’t do a lick of business on Comcast.  Other films do well on iTunes and some die there whereas they might actually bring in some business via Hulu or SNAG. Docs are different from narrative and niches vary. Know your film, its audience’s habits and resolve a digital strategy that makes sense. If money or access is an issue, then be strategic in picking your “stores” and make your film available where it’s most likely to perform. It may not be in Walmart’s digital store or Best Buy’s. Above all, if you dear filmmaker have a community around you (followers, a brand), your site(s) and networks may be your best platform stores of all.  Though there is something to be said for viewing habits so I do recommend always picking at least a couple other key digital storefronts that are known and trusted by your audience.

4. TIP FOR CABLE VOD LISTINGS:

By now many of you may have heard that it’s hard to get films marketed well on Cable VOD platforms. Often the metadata either isn’t entered or entered incorrectly and it’s nearly impossible to fix after it goes live. Hence, oversee the metatags submitted for your film and check immediately upon release. Also, since genre/category folders and trailer promotion are not always an option for every film, it is the case that films with names starting in early letters of the alphabet (A-G) or numbers can perform better. Then again, there’s a glut of folks trying that now so the cable operators are getting wise to this and not falling for it. All the more reason to focus on marketing, marketing, marketing your title, so audiences are looking for it and not just stumbling upon your film in the VOD menu. There are only going to be more films to choose from in the future, not fewer.

5. ART for SMALL:

Filmmakers, if there is one thing I must impart to you once and for all it’s this:  TAKE GOOD PHOTOGRAPHY!!!  Take it when making your film. Remember, most marketing imagery if not all for digital distribution (which will be all of “home entertainment”) must work SMALL so create key art and publicity images that also work well small and in concert with the rest of your campaign. Look at your key art as a thumbnail image and make sure it is still clearly identifiable.

6. KNOW YOUR DIGITAL DISTRO GOALS AND PLAN AHEAD:

I have seen distribution plans wasted because a vision for the film’s path was not resolved in time to actualize it properly. If your film is ripe for NGO or corporate sponsorship and you want to try that, you will need loads of lead time (6-12 months at least!) and a clear distribution plan to present to potential sponsors (who will always need to know that before agreeing).  If making money is a top concern, then know how YOUR FILM’s release is mostly likely to do that and plan accordingly. It may be by collapsing windows or it may be by expanding them. All films are different and that’s why it’s best to look at case studies of films with similar appeal to yours. And if showing the industry that your film is on iTunes matters to you for professional reasons more than financial then know that is your motivator but know that getting a film onto iTunes does not automatically lead to transactions, marketing does.

7. TIMING IS EVERYTHING | WINDOW WATCHING:

Digital distribution often has to be done in a certain order if accessing Cable VOD is part of your plan. That is not the only reason to consider an order and an order is not always needed, but it can be a consideration.  Sometimes Cable VOD is not an option for a film (films often need a strong theatrical run before they can access Cable VOD) and, in this case, the order of digital is more flexible and one can be creative or experiment with timing and different types of digital. However, Cable VOD’s percentage share of digital distribution revenues is still around 70% (it used to be nearer to 80%) so if it’s an option for your film, it’s worth doing, at least for now.

It is very often the case that if your film is in the digital distribution window before Cable VOD (on Netflix for example), that will eliminate or at least dramatically diminish the potential that Cable MSO’s (Multi System Operators) will take the film or even that an intermediate aggregator will accept it.  There is more flexibility with transactional EST (electronic sell through) / DTO (download to own) / DTR (download to rent) services such as iTunes but much less flexibility with YouTube (even a rental channel) or subscription or ad-supported services such as Netflix (subscription) or Hulu (which is both). Films that opted to be part of the YouTube/Sundance rental channel initiative (such as Children of Invention) could not get onto Cable VOD after. The Film Collaborative has to hold off on putting films in its YouTube Rental Channel if cable VOD is part of the plan.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule due to relationships or a film proving itself in the marketplace, but better to plan ahead than be disappointed.

Companies such as Gravitas are also programmers for some of the MSOs so they have greater access to VOD, but they too discourage YouTube rental channel distribution before the Cable VOD window and they do Netflix SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand), distribution after. In general, people often do transactional platforms first and ad-supported last with Netflix being in the middle unless it’s delayed because of a TV deal for example. This is not always the case and some distributors have experienced that one platform can drive sales on another but in my opinion it depends on the film and habits of its audience.  You should know that Broadcasters such as Showtime will pay more if you do your Netflix SVOD after their window rather than before.

WINDOW WATCHING: If you stream or distribute digitally before Cable VOD for example, you will often lose that opportunity so timing is key.  And of course festivals will often not program a film if it’s available digital or at all commercially.  For documentaries, one has to be mindful about the EDUCATIONAL window (though this usually most relates to DVD).  Broadcast and SVOD are competitive with each other so compare options in terms of fees and timing for best distribution results and maximum benefits.  Sometimes VOD is best BEFORE theatrical (it’s called Reverse Windowing and Magnolia does that for example, sometimes).  Sometimes Ad Supported VOD (AVOD or FOD (free VOD)) (e.g. regular HULU) or Broadcast airings are seen as useful for maximum awareness, relatively significantly revenue generating, and/or good for driving transactional VOD.  Whereas sometimes AVOD or FOD is seen as cannibalizing business and is delayed.  So again, know your strategy based on both your audience / consumer and your goals.

8. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DEFINITIONS

DEVIL IS IN THE DEFINITION: Remember that the term VOD means or includes different things to different users.  The terms in the space are becoming more customary but they are not fully standardized so be sure to have ALL terms related to digital rights DEFINED.  And the space keeps changing so be sure to stay current.

There is no standard yet for definitions of digital rights. IFTA (formerly known as AFMA) has its rights definitions and for that organization’s signatories there is therefore a standard. But many distributors use their own contracts with a range of definitions that are not uniform. When analyzing distribution options, be aware that terms such as VOD can mean different things to different people and include more or fewer distribution rights and govern more or fewer platforms.

Consider the term “VOD”. In some contracts, it’s not explicitly defined and hence can mean anything and everything. IFTA is clear to categorize it as a PayPerView Right (Demand View Right) and limit it to: “transmission by means of encoded signal for television reception in homes and similar living spaces where a charge is made to the viewer for the rights to use a decoding device to view the Motion Picture at a time selected by the viewer for each viewing”.

However in some contracts, it’s defined as “Video-on-Demand Rights,” meaning a function or service distributed and/or made available to a viewer by any and all means of transmission, telecommunication, and/or network system(s) whether now known or hereafter devised (including, without limitation, television, cable, satellite, wire, fiber, radio communication signal, internet, intranet, or other means of electronic delivery and whether employing analogue and/or digital technologies and whether encrypted or encoded) whereby the viewer is using information storage, retrieval and management techniques capable of accessing, selecting, downloading (whether temporarily or permanently) and viewing programming whether on a per program/movie basis or as a package of programs/movies) at a time selected by the viewer, in his/her discretion whether or not the transmission is scheduled by the operator(s)/provider(s), and whether or not a fee is paid by the viewer for such function/service to view on the screen of a television receiver, computer, handheld device or other receiving device (fixed or mobile) of any type whether now known or hereafter devised. Video-on-Demand includes without limitation Near VOD (“NVOD”,) Subscription Video-on-Demand (“SVOD”,) “Download to burn”, “Download to Own”, “Electronic Sell Through” and “Electronic Rental,” for example.  This example includes everything and your kitchen sink.

One has to ask if a definition of VOD or another type of digital right includes “SVOD” (Subscription Video on Demand) and includes subscription services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus. Why does this matter? Well if the fee to the distributor and/or to you is the same either way then it may not matter. If there’s a difference in fees depending on the nature of distribution, then it will.  Recently an issue in a deal came up with respect to distinguishing ad-supported specifically from general “free-streaming”.  Is ad-supported governed by a “free-streaming” rights reference?  Why wonder, Just spell it all out; better to be safe than _____.

Another example, if a contract notes a distributor has purchased “VOD Rights” but does not define them, or defines them broadly, then do they have mobile device distribution rights as well? The words “Video-on-Demand” sometimes are used only to refer to Cable Video on Demand and other times much more generally. In a “TV Everywhere” (and hence film everywhere) multi-platform all-device playable universe, the content creator needs to know.

The devil is in the definition that you must read carefully BEFORE you sign on the dotted line.  Know what you want for and can do for your film in terms of distribution and carve it up and spell it out.

9. PLAN FOR FUTURE: Digital distribution in Europe is not as mature as it is in the US but it’s growing.  The key platforms and categories of VOD now may not be key down the road.  Again, do deals wisely and plan for the future.  One way may be to set revenue thresholds for contract terms to continue.  Or allow for terms to be reviewable and adjustable into the Term.

10. IF YOU CANNOT MAKE PIRACY YOUR FRIEND by lets say monetizing it or using it to drive awareness… then think about shortening the time between your release windows and when you first start handing out DVDs and getting a lot of buzz for your film. Many folks would happily consume your film legitimately if given the opportunity in time.  Some piracy cannot be helped and can either be monetized or just enjoyed.  There are anti-piracy services one can employ as well.  In my experience, DVD is a bigger source of piracy than digital.

11. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS / OTHER WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF IN A DEAL: Before giving rights away for longer periods of time think about the future.  For example, the category of DTR (download-to-rent) is growing as is SVOD (Subscription VOD).  So you will want to make sure your splits are strong in your favor, especially for growing categories, and Cable VOD and transactional DTO (download-to-own) or EST (electronic sell through) are strong too and btw, some of these terms include each other.  Instead of merely focusing on rights classes even within the category of VOD one may also want to address gross revenues so that one can get an appropriate share of revenues at certain gross revenue thresholds.  You may want to have terms of a deal be reviewable for contracts with a longer Term.

Access to individual consultations for your film is available to members of The Film Collaborative starting at the Conspirator level. We also offer a menu of low cost festival and digital distribution services, marketing education and services, and graphic design for key art and websites. The Film Collaborative is dedicated to helping independent filmmakers receive the maximum benefit from their dedicated and creative work without the need to own rights. Send us a message to discuss your needs. 

 

 

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Excerpt from “Insiders Guide To Independent Film Distribution Second Edition” – May 1st, 2012

By Stacey Parks

This is an excerpt of the interview Stacey Parks did with our own Orly Ravid regarding digital distribution. Stacey’s book is now available in paperback and kindle versions at www.FilmSpecific.com/Book.

 

What To Expect From A Distribution Deal: Interview With Orly Ravid from The Film Collaborative 

 Q: What’s it like for filmmakers these days in terms of getting traditional theatrical, broadcast, and DVD distribution deals for their films?

A: I think that film like any business, is affected by market forces.  There’s more supply than there has ever been.  The means of production have become less expensive and more accessible and film has gotten even more and more popular as evidenced by the proliferation of film festivals and film schools and corporate brands who have initiatives relating to film (contests and such).  There are thousands of films for sale in markets such as Cannes & AFM each year and that’s not counting the projects in development, also for sale.

So the bottom line is that there’s simply an excess of supply over demand. And the other factor that has changed is the attrition, if not the collapse, of the middle B2B infrastructure that did emerge and sustain with VHS & DVD, but that does not maintain with digital distribution.  The reason being is that when there were many DVD stores (and VHS before that) the businesses were in competition and they all needed product and weren’t always sure of what would sell or rent well so they actually stocked up, which gave the distributors a huge upside and that potential upside lead to healthy competition, which lead to a healthier business. These days, many video stores are out of business and the ones that still exist (such as Walmart) buy cheap and then return what does not sell (not that that did not happen before, but to a lesser extent), and so the traditional distributors proceed with greater caution when it comes to acquiring new films for the pipeline.

Then there’s the other issue of piracy which leads to less consumption overall and now over 20,000,000 subscribers wait for a film to be available on Netflix which can be healthy business for smaller films that otherwise could not sell well, BUT it’s not great for films that could or would sell otherwise.

The theatrical business is also hurt by both over-supply and by the ‘Netflixing’ of the U.S market.  Digital distribution is there, but again the oversupply makes things competitive and the price points are different so volume is critical, hence the middle man aggregator can do well if it has a breadth of content, but individual producers need to have a film that competes very well in order to be made whole.

And then lastly there’s the Broadcast market. Well, as TV and the Internet become one, TV buying is less of a reliable source of revenue, prices have come down considerably and more rights / revenue streams are impacted when prices are higher such that the net is affected.  Of course, bigger films can be exceptions and studios have their deals. But for the independents and smaller films, Broadcast deals are harder to get and worth less when one gets them.  And nothing but a change in supply can change any of this because technology is certainly not going backwards.

Q: I know you’ve been a champion of ‘newer’ distribution platforms like Video On Demand (VOD), but what’s in it for the filmmakers?

A: I don’t champion them as much as I address that Cable VOD is responsible for 80% of the revenue in the digital space, which is not the same as all VOD. Films that do well in VOD can make 5 and 6 figures in revenue.  By contrast, films that don’t do well make much less and sometimes almost nothing. The truth is VOD is not some magic pill; it’s simply a new delivery mechanism, with some advantages over physical media in terms of accessibility and with some disadvantages in terms of even greater glut and not always great recommendation engines or as easy of time to market (images are smaller, you don’t have as much real estate to market the film).  The proliferation of the iPad is expected to increase the transactional rental business (ex: Netflix) and that interface is also seemingly more filmmaker / film consumption friendly.  In any case, no one in distribution thinks DVD and physical media is going up; it’s only going down so for home entertainment or entertainment on the go (e.g. mobile), digital is here, we have to make the most of it.

Q: In your opinion, do film festivals still play a key role in helping filmmakers find distribution for their films? Or have you seen cases where skipping the festival route and going straight to distribution is OK too? 

A: If your film is festival-worthy or festival-appropriate going that route can never hurt and in fact, often helps. The better the festivals are, the better the film can succeed in terms of sales and also often in terms of audience awareness and interest.  Skipping festivals makes sense for non-festival-type films.  For example, genre films normally don’t need festivals although sometimes they can be helped by a good festival strategy. I think now more than ever festivals play a key role in helping audiences find films and filmmakers find audiences. AND, since at least 5 years ago I have been championing festivals getting involved more in distribution.  I expressed that enthusiastically to the folks at Sundance starting in 2009 and also to other niche festivals too. I truly believe that a more distribution-centric strategy makes sense for both filmmakers and festivals, though only for festivals with a strong brand or niche appeal.

Q: What about foreign distribution? In your experience is this still a major revenue stream for the filmmakers you’re working with?

A: Only for some of our filmmakers – for example, genre filmmakers, niche filmmakers, and some of the more commercial documentaries. For the others, it’s not really a viable option. The money for foreign distribution deals is so small for most films so we end up licensing the films when possible for a good enough deal and otherwise invoke a direct digital distribution and DIY strategy.

Q: What are some things filmmakers need to look out for when making any distribution deal? In other words, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see filmmakers making in regards to negotiating distribution deals?

A: I covered this a bit in my recent blog post and I do encourage filmmakers to read the blog when the topic relates to them because it covers a lot.  Some of the key mistakes in short are:

1. Not getting references and checking on those in order to evaluate the verity of the distributor’s claims.

2. Not knowing enough and analyzing enough the degree of middlemen between the distributor and each key revenue stream.

3. Not having enough protection for material breach.

4. Not defining and also capping recoupable costs properly.

5. Giving up too many rights for too little reason.

6. Having blind faith and being too passive in one’s own responsibility to know the film’s audience and how to reach it.

7. Not having good photography or images to help market the film.

8. On the pro distributor side, sometimes filmmakers think they know better and can do a better trailer for example. They may be right but they can be wrong too and be too close to the film to know how to “sell it”.

 

Stacey Parks is a Producer and film distribution expert with over 15 years experience working with independent filmmakers. As a Foreign Sales Agent for several years, she secured distribution for hundreds of independent worldwide. Stacey currently specializes in coaching independent filmmakers on financing and distribution strategies for their projects, and works with them both one-on-one and through her online training site www.FilmSpecific.com The 2nd edition of her best selling film book “Insiders Guide To Independent Film Distribution” (Focal) is now available at www.FilmSpecific.com/Book.

 

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The Keys to the Social Network Marketing Kingdom – April 24th, 2012

By Sheri Candler

This post was originally published on the Sundance Artists Services blog on March 26, 2012

To start with, I’d like to say that filmmakers should focus on the word social and less on the word marketing. This type of promotion is about relationship building and it is really difficult to build a relationship that starts from the premise that you are only there to sell something. Also, I take the position that all artists should be connecting directly with an audience not on a project-by-project basis, but on a personal one. Instead of starting over again for each project that is incredibly wasteful of time and money, you strive to keep building up the audience base for all of your work, really for you as an artist with a unique vision and a unique voice. No one else can tell the story the way you can. Even behind the scenes crew have a unique vision and unique talents. They should be sharing those with the world.

We all sell every day, we sell a concept of ourselves in how we speak to people, how we present ourselves and I think we inherently understand this. But before I want to do business with someone, I want to know I can trust them, and that I am not being used. I think many corporations still don’t get that about this medium yet. People don’t join your Facebook page to be your word of mouth sales force. Building up trust with your audience is paramount and you do that by giving first. You have to give something, and often for a long time, before you can ask. In fact, if you do this right, you won’t have to ask, they will ask you, they will offer to help.

Don’t attempt this begrudgingly or because everyone says it is something you are supposed to be doing. Start from the place that you are trying to find the people who would love what you do and you want to interact with them. Unless you are anthropophobic, this should be human nature, to connect with kindreds. There are people in the world who are like you and now you have this amazing tool to find them wherever they live in the world. Leave behind the notion that this is about numbers, this is only about sales, this is about buzz and think of it as a way to meet those who will love what you love. All of that other stuff is a by product of this. It will come, but it won’t come immediately and you need plenty of time to build up to that and it will take consistent effort daily.

I realize this is not the stance that most businesses take or understand. They want numbers, they want quantifiables. Utilization of social is no longer something that needs to be justifiable for business goals. Along with advertising, it is a business tool, increasingly a major one. Internet users expect to find you on social platforms whether or not you feel like that benefits the bottom line yet. It is and it will continue to do so.

Also note that this will not be your only tool when you are ready to start selling. Publicity, advertising, and email communication still very much have a place in your overall marketing efforts, but if you build a following consistently, your reliance on those more expensive tools will be minimized.

The key platforms for social network marketing:

I believe pretty much any site on the web is a social networking site. Any place where people can post links, comment, upload information, follow others has a social aspect to it. So those could be blogs, forums, publication websites (New York Times, WSJ), photo sites like Flickr or Instagram, video sites like Youtube and Vimeo, podcast sites like BlogTalk Radio, streaming sites like Ustream. I think people hear social networking and mostly think Facebook and Twitter, but really to be effective in reaching an audience, you have to know where they particularly hang out and it may be on Facebook and Twitter, but it also may be a LinkedIn group, or on Amazon, Meetup or certain blogs.

Any priority ranking to them?

It is hard to argue not being on Facebook since they have over 800 million users worldwide and 435 million are using Facebook from a mobile device. While 155 million of those users are from the US, 43 million are from India and the same from Indonesia. Other top countries are UK, Mexico, Brazil and Turkey.

Based on Alexa rankings, the top social networking sites for the US market are:

  1. Facebook
  2. Twitter
  3. LinkedIn
  4. MySpace
  5. Google Plus

But there are surprising ones in the top 15 such as: Tagged, deviantArt, Orkut, Ning and CafeMom. Don’t underestimate the power of Pinterest too.

It really depends on who your audience is and what they respond to, where they spend their online social time. You will have a mixture of sites, not just one and you will need to test which ones are giving you the most interaction. Maybe your audience really loves watching videos or they really love deep discussions at the end of blog posts. You will need to test what posts are popular and elicit interaction, even from your own website, which I will say you also need. You should never be totally dependent on a third party site. Just ask those who had free Ning sites instead of websites. When the free option went away, they risked losing their communities and had to pay to upgrade or start from scratch again. The same with Facebook and their EdgeRank algorithm. If Facebook deems that one of your fans doesn’t interact with your page enough, they remove it from their newsfeed, often unbeknownst to that fan. Since you haven’t been able to message them directly, there really isn’t a way to bring them back into awareness of your page barring spending money to advertise.

A website you own is the only true online real estate you can control. It is the central hub of all of your activity, everything else is just a spoke on that central hub. Collecting email addresses is also extremely important, but that is for another post.

There is no magic formula for being successful at social, everything has to be tested and the results will vary with each project.

Does it depend on the nature of the film?

No. The decision to be social really isn’t up for debate anymore. Americans spend 22% of their online time each day visiting social networking sites, 65% of all adult internet users have a social network account of some sort. This is not a fad that is going away, the upcoming generation doesn’t even know a time that social networking didn’t exist. It will get bigger, not smaller. Deciding which sites to spend time on will be determined by the kind of audience with which you need to connect.

What are key tips for social network marketing?

  1. Get a personal account going on the sites where you think your audience hangs out and start using it. I am astounded at agencies that sell social networking solutions and don’t have much of a presence themselves on social sites. How can you advise how to use them when you don’t personally do it for your own business? How can you handle someone else’s account when you don’t have one of your own? Every filmmaker hoping to connect with an audience needs an account.
  2. Start by listening first. This is best accomplished when you don’t need to build an audience by tomorrow, you know what I’m saying? If you have this pressing need to start connecting, people can sense it right away and they won’t interact. It is like the insurance guy who walks around a networking event handing out cards in order to meet a sales quota, not actually speaking to anyone other than a sales pitch. No one likes it in real life and they don’t like it online either. This is not a one-way message medium like advertising. If you want to speak, but not interact, just buy an ad. Listen first, determine how best to interact and then dive in.
  3. You are now a publisher. No way around this, it is just the way it is now. A new term for this is social business. A business that can collaborate, share insights and knowledge, and provide value to their audience is going to be way more profitable and sustainable than those who remain closed off from them. This means publishing content of some sort, either generated from your production or generated by your fans, but probably a mixture of both. It needs to be entertaining, insightful, worthy of discussion and sharing, and pulls the audience back for more again and again. We just entered an era of waaaay more work than we used to do. Not one piece of creative advertising, but hundreds of pieces in different mediums and across multiple channels that are meant to lead to discussion with the brand (yes, you are a brand) and with others also connected to that brand.

What are some key mistakes? Some “Don’ts”:

Waiting too late to start and using social only to self promote. Remember, self-promotion is about helping OTHER people. It sounds counterintuitive, but when you help others, THEY promote you. If they don’t, then you weren’t really helping (the help originated through clearly selfish motives) or you just haven’t connected with the right people.

A couple of examples of filmmakers who really get it right:

I hate to give the same examples as everyone else, but the best I’ve seen as far as sustainable interaction (meaning they aren’t clearly doing it just to promote their latest project and then drop out of sight again) are Kevin Smith and Edward Burns. They are consistent, they interact, they use multiple mediums, they don’t use social as a one-way shill mechanism and I don’t think they have an outside agency cultivating their communities.

I also really admire Tiffany Shlain, she has a great grasp of the power of social networking even though she advocates unplugging (gasp!) for a day each week. Her film, Connected, is about the power (and the curse) of the Internet to connect people, but Tiffany was doing this long before she made the film.

I know there are now more and more filmmakers building up their own audiences, but they may have only started in the last few years and they didn’t come out of the old machine so their followings aren’t as large as those examples. People like Gregory Bayne (Driven), Zak Forsman (Heart of Now), Kirby Ferguson (Everything’s a Remix), Jennifer Fox (My Reincarnation), Ava DuVernay (Middle of Nowhere) are all building up their own followings, not just around their films, but around themselves as artists. Even people like Hal Hartley and Abel Ferrara are now starting to embrace social networking and crowdfunding. I really hope to be able to list tons more doing this every year.

It is completely perplexing to me that those who already do have a following from the traditional machine, do not reach out, really have no idea who watches their films and have no interest in knowing. This mentality is not going to serve them well with the consumers coming up in the world today who are used to interacting, who expect to have a dialog. The only thing I can think is, well, no one is popular forever, no one retains power forever. There will always be a new crop coming up behind and I think indie filmmakers who are embracing this concept now are well positioned to be the new crop.

 

Sheri Candler, social network marketing strategist can be contacted at info@shericandler.com or sheri@thefilmcollaborative.org and found at SheriCandler.com

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SEO: Lifeblood of the Indie Filmmaker – April 17th, 2012

This post was written by Zack Coffman, Co-founder and President of independent film company One World Studios Ltd.; a feature film production and distribution corporation in Los Angeles. It was originally published by The Film Collaborative (TFC) on the Sundance Artist Services blog.

As indie filmmakers, we often don’t have millions of marketing dollars (or any at all) to spend on turning our films’ titles into household names.  Getting “organically” ranked highly by Google and other leading search engines is the single most cost-effective way to created a sustained marketing presence for your film.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is akin to a dark art that every savvy website owner undertakes in an effort to get their site(s) ranked highly by Google, and to a lesser extent Bing and Yahoo.  To be put in the top five most highly-ranked sites in a given category is the Holy Grail of SEO.  Appearing “above the fold” before a Google user needs to scroll down to see more results gives the website a nearly priceless stamp of approval by Google’s secret algorithms and is worth hundreds if not thousands of times more than any kind of paid internet marketing, hence the steady stream of spam emails we all receive from SEO “gurus” promising to get you more highly-ranked for a big time fee.  At the end of this article I’ll give you some great resources to get started on your own.  Note: While it’s not our full-time gig, my company would also consider choice projects for SEO analysis on a limited case-by-case basis.

Most of what we’ve learned here at our indie film production and distribution outfit has been through hours and hours of internet research as well as even more hours spent trying different strategies on our own bevy of sites across our One World Studios Ltd. brands.  That said, any SEO expert worth their salt will tell you that Google is constantly tweaking their ranking algorithms and introducing varied ways for sites to be tracked and ranked so what works one day may not work forever, thus making SEO truly a dark art!  The following basic tenets have worked for us however, so let’s begin.

To start with:

Your domain name is the number one thing Google looks at when it starts to judge your worthiness and appropriately index your site.  Many films use their title with “movie” or “-movie” after it so Google knows that it’s a film.  You can get more creative if you like however if you think that people may search for your film with different words than the film’s title or if you have some kind of catchy phrase associated with your film that is more memorable than the title by itself.  I’ll be using our sites as guinea pigs today so let’s start with our new Ouija movie, I Am ZoZo; a feature that we shot entirely on Super 8mm.  For this film we registered the domain www.iamzozomovie.com and for our previous motorcycle movies a couple of our highly-ranking sites are www.choppertown.net and www.choppertown.com.

Now that you have a site to work with it’s important to set up Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools so you can be indexed properly and you can see how your traffic is reaching you, etc. allowing you to make changes and tweaks over time.  Also, make sure you have an updated sitemap.xml file in your site’s root folder, this is very important to be indexed by Google.  A sitemap essentially gives Google’s “spiders” and “bots” an instant and cursory understanding of how all the various pages of your site are interlinked with one another so that it can place you in the proper category quickly and efficiently.  Use this site to generate a sitemap now.  Here’s ours for iamzozomovie.com.

Now that we’ve prepped our site, let’s get our hands dirty:

When building/rebuilding your site it’s important to take stock of what you have and what you want.  Take a step back and determine what your site is for; does it sell something like a DVD or book?  Does it provide information to other people?  Is it exclusively for promotion of your film?  Once you’ve determined that, sit down and start making a list of various search terms and keywords that you’d like to be found under in Google.  (Use the Google Analytics tab “Traffic Sources” to see how people are currently actually finding you.)

Remember, it’s relatively easy to get highly ranked for the title of your film or brand if it’s original or novel, but the real key for the indie filmmaker is to get ranked highly for words more general than your film’s title.

From Choppertown.com’s analytics showing how the site was most recently found:

Another example: I Am ZoZo is about a Ouija board possession and it was shot entirely on Super 8mm so we have several interesting “hooks” and terms that we feel we’d like to be found under.  By signing up for AdWords (optional) and using Google’s Keyword Tool, we can see how many times some of our various ideas for keywords are actually being searched and also what kind of competition exists for advertising under those keywords.

Hint: More general words may seem to be more desirable and they’re certainly more costly for advertising, but they aren’t always better for your site because the traffic you generate may not be “qualified traffic”.  Just getting tons of people to look at your site doesn’t mean as much as getting tons of people who really like your content to visit your site.*

So in this example I searched for the most general term I could think of “Ouija” and luckily, it’s not very competitive, but reasonably popular.  Now do this for each site you own andeach individual page of each site.  Write down all your favorite terms that apply to each page of content you have and get ready to apply them to your site.

If you get one useful tip from this article it’s this: Google likes it when each page of a site has proper indicators as to the specific nature of the page’s content and content that matches those indicators.

Now let’s see how it’s done:

We now have a list of various keywords for our main index (Home) page ranging from general to specific such as: Ouija, Ouija boards, the Ouija, and La Ouija (never would have guessed this one), Ouija game, and down the line.  Also since it’s a film, we want to add in words like: movie, movies, videos, media, caught on tape, real stories, etc.  That’s just the Home page, we now go through each page of our site and try to think of different, but still related, words that we want each page to highlight.

In the example of I Am ZoZo, we shot the entire film on Super 8mm, which is quite different (yes, some have even called it crazy.)  Google loves unique content because usually readers do too, so I’ve set up a page focusing on the production aspects of our film that don’t relate to the story of the film, but rather the fascinating experience of shooting on film in general and on Super 8mm in particular.  Our story is based on true Ouija tales we collected over the years so this becomes another unique page and so forth.  Remember, the idea is to show Google that your site has both interesting and unique content that really relates to what it claims to be about.

Note: Some SEO scam artists make fake pages on your site that are filled with just keywords and little or no original content.  Beware these scams because if the Google bots discover it they can ban your URL permanently!

Now that you have the basic layout of your site and what each main page is going to be about, get down to writing content that uses the keywords you chose to focus on.  Google loves text, so feel free to write lots of appropriate and useful information for your readers.  As always, “content is king”.  This is tricky because  A) writing isn’t easy…and B) just because Google loves tons of text, your site still needs to function well in regards to UI (User Interface).  In layman’s terms; your site needs to be good for the visitors, not just Google bots.  The combination of the technical and creative has always fascinated me, so I enjoy working this piece of the puzzle on my own sites.  It definitely takes practice, with constant updating and critiquing from friends and colleagues to find the effective mix that makes both your readers and Google happy.  Hint: Also give credence to paragraph headings and section headings within each page because Google looks at them to further index the context of the content on your site.

Examples of keyword usage above the fold on the I Am ZoZo website:

More technical details:

Anchored keywords (Anchor Links) and hot-linked words are also important ways to indicate to the “bots” that certain content on your site is more important and to be focused on for indexing.  (This is also an important part of your Social Marketing strategy which may be the topic of a future article since it needs its own focus and attention.)  The gist is this; if you have a page on your site, either a top-level page or deeper level pages, you can and should occasionally make a link in your text to those pages if they relate directly to the content.  For example, on the front page of our website relating to our first motorcycle movie ”Choppertown: the Sinners”, you can see lots of text and anchored links leading off to other sites we own as well as deeper into the Choppertown.net site itself.

*I know you’re saying, “Dude, that site looks so ten years ago!”  True, the format might be due for an update, but Google LOVES this site because the information is accurate and text-based so we use it to help pull up our other motorcycle movie-related websites and social network.  Note: Google loves older sites and this one has been around since 2004, so if you give the SEO treatment to an older site you can expect bigger gains.  Also note all the targeted keywords used on this page such as: Motorcycle Movies, documentary, custom bikes, motorcycle videos, etc.

Digging Deeper:

Now that we’ve tried to fill our site with compelling, well-written, smartly-keyworded information it’s time to go behind the scenes and make some more improvements that Google demands. You need to make sure each page’s “title” is descriptive and full of your most important keywords.  The title is what appears in your browser, way at the top above everything else in the grey area.  Google looks at this as much as anything else!  (Remember it then matches that info against what it perceives to be the actual content of the site, so again SEO spammers beware.)

The title for Choppertown.net reads: Choppertown: the Sinners – a custom motorcycle movie on DVD about biker culture featuring Kutty Noteboom, Jason Jessee, James Intveld, Rico Fodrey, and Cole Foster.

Notice it has our most important keywords first.  It’s a bit longer than Google normally likes (15-20 words) but close enough.  We wanted to put in the names of some of the more well-known personalities from our film so anyone Googling them will also find the film.

From IAmZoZomovie.com: I Am ZoZo is based on a real Ouija board experience gone wrong – ZoZo is a real Ouija spirit. He is pure EVIL. This Ouija movie was shot entirely on Super8 mm.

Remember, do this for EVERY page on your site.  Blogs and other template-based site programs have spots for you to enter this information, usually right at the top.  Hint: On blogs your post’s titles are already used for this, so plan your blog posting titles accordingly!

Note about menus headings: As with Anchor Links, the words you use for your Menu Headings are important as well because Google looks for certain “standard” words that it can index quickly.  For instance: Home, About, Contact, Store, and Blog are very common.  Both from a user perspective and Google perspective try not to monkey around with these too much.  However, where a lot of people fall short in terms of SEO is they leave the menu name as the title of the page.  This is the case if you look at the grey bar at the top and you just see “Contact”  or “About”.  This tells Google no specific information about the page and is a wasted opportunity for SEO.

Digging even DEEPER:

Visit a website you like - or even your competitors’ sites - and then select “Get Info” from the menu bar (⌘-I on a Mac, Control-I on a PC.)  The little window that pops up has all sorts of useful information.

At the very top is the title as we discussed.  Below that is “description” and “keywords” or “tags”.  There are places to enter this info on each blog post or web page you make.  Again, they should be DIFFERENT for each page/post and APPLICABLE to their associated page.  Try to put in keywords for each page that you really want to stress to Google are important.  The description is also indexed and important for all the above reasons, but it serves a very important marketing purpose as well; it’s the sentence or two that you see when you do a search on Google!  So it’s important to make this BOTH Google friendly and reader friendly so that the reader will actually CLICK your site’s link after they find it.  (Yes, Google does consider POPULARITY in its ranking algorithms.)

Yes, it’s a Popularity Contest:

Google also adds into its algorithm the amount of traffic that goes to your site and where it’s coming from. HUGE WARNING: Those SEO spammers that have been emailing you often mention “link-building” and the like.  Stay away from them unless you have already vetted the company because many of them create link farms of random junk websites just to provide you with thousands of inbound links.  When Google’s bots realize this they PENALIZE YOUR SITE.  Getting quality inbound links takes time and effort and some companies are willing to help you for a fee, but honestly you are your own best judge from what other sites in your space you would like to get inbound links.  Any time the New York Times or IMDB or Hopeforfilm writes an article and links to your site (hopefully with Anchor Text) Google perks up its ears and moves you up its rankings because it already deems those sources as worthy.  Hint: A good technique is offering original articles to various blogs you like in exchange for cross-linking each other’s content.  If your site is still small and the other is huge it may be a bit of a Catch-22, but we all know the indie film business is about jumping hurdles as we come to them!  If your article is interesting, the bigger blog might just reprint it and link back to you.

More Technical Details – A great technique not for the faint of heart:

(Before trying this technique BACK UP YOUR SITE.  Really!)

Every page of every website in the world is actually a file document (similar to a Word or Excel document that ends in .doc or .xls, web documents often end with .html)  Instead of your written content only, each web page file also contains lines of code that tell a web browser how to present it to the end user on a computer screen, tablet, or cell phone, etc.  The actual File Name of the page file is a big determiner when Google scans your page.  For instance, you design an “about” page and fill it with all sorts of useful information about your film, then you go in and add all the other details we’ve discussed such as a descriptive title, keywords, etc.  Don’t just save it as “about ” even though your page’s menu has an “about” button leading to this page.  Instead call it for example, “best-your movie’s subject-movie” or the like.  As long as the file name is still somewhat related to your actual content, Google will love it.  On our film’s site the “about” section’s page is called best-motorcycle-movie.html.

A word on Page Speed:

Recently Google made it public that they also factor in your page’s loading speed when determining rank.  This is a new development and in response to both the increased use of cell phones and tablets for internet browsing as well as the ever shrinking bandwidth of the internet “pipes” as more and more sites and users get online.   There are a million ways to make your site load faster and many of them require some technical knowledge to fix, but a good place to start is by running your site through http://gtmetrix.com and researching the errors it comes up with.  After reading Google’s announcement about speed and rankings, we put all our sites through the test and found lots of little problems that needed fixing.  We went from a 69% “D” rating to an 86% “B” after addressing some of the simpler issues.  That’s the thing about SEO, it requires constant vigilance and tweaking!

A picture is worth a thousand…and a video is worth a million:

It’s important to address the images and videos that are a mandatory component of any filmmaker’s site.  Remember Google has separate search sections for both images and videos and you want to be found there as well!

First, it’s important to make sure that all images have been properly “optimized” for web use either through Photoshop or a cool WordPress plugin like “smush.it” so that they will be small in size and load very quickly.  Make sure each image’s file name is SEO friendly by naming it something descriptive like “I Am ZoZo-keyart”  or “Choppertown-motorcycle-DVD” and make sure you add all requested metadata when you upload it.  Usually your design program has places for you to input this data such as “description”, “caption”, and “tags”.  Fill out everything to give Google more to chew on!

The same goes for video.  I recommend uploading your clips and trailers to YouTube and then embedding that onto your site (I know Vimeo looks better) but let’s face it, you want YouTube is Big Daddy when it comes to sharing video and you want every click to count!  (Also Google owns YouTube so it tends to offer up those videos first in search for better or worse.)

SEO and getting clicks for your video is probably its own article too, but many of the same steps apply; how you name your video is key so call it something that has the keywords for how you want to be indexed.  Don’t just call it “I Am ZoZo Trailer”…call it “I Am ZoZo Trailer (the Ouija movie based on real experience gone wrong)”.  Fill out a good description for it (with a link back to your own site of course!) and put in lots of appropriate tags.

Last Step:

Every time you change anything on your site, make sure you update your sitemap.xml file and then resubmit it to Google!  This lets Google know that your site is active and attempting to provide current information to readers.

To Sum it All Up:

  1. Choose a useful domain name
  2. Register for Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
  3. Check that you have a sitemap.xml file and make one if you don’t already have it
  4. Make a list of keywords
  5. Write great content with Anchor Links
  6. Make sure all your site’s page titles are appropriate, short, and descriptive
  7. Add your metadata such as descriptions and tags
  8. Get inbound links from qualified sources
  9. Check your pages’ file names (optional)
  10. Optimize your pages for speed
  11. Do SEO on all your images and videos
  12. Update your sitemap

The Proof is in the Pudding:

So after all that work, here’s the results… Not one, but three of our sites are listed on the front page of Google under the coveted and targeted term “motorcycle movie”.

..And we’ve even made it to the front page for “Ouija movie” as well.  Note: We were ranked even higher until yesterday when Universal announced that it is going into production on a low-budget Ouija movie of its own.  Like I said, it’s a constant battle but honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thanks as always to our supporters who help us keep the dream alive.

 

Stay independent.

 

Resources:

Top-ten SEO Blogs as listed in the article “Top 25 SEO Blogs” by Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips.

  1. Search Engine Land
  2. SEOBook
  3. SEO Moz
  4. Matt Cutts
  5. Search Engine Watch
  6. Search Engine Roundtable
  7. Search Engine Journal
  8. Online Marketing Blog
  9. Pronet Advertising
  10. Marketing Pilgrim 

Special thanks to:

Allen Chou of indie distributor Passion River Films who first mentioned the word SEO to me back in 2006 and Eric Leuenberger of Zen Cart Optimization who gave me lots of great SEO advice around the same time.

…and of course Orly Ravid’s Film Collaborative, a fantastic indie film resource.

About One World Studios Ltd:

One World’s first feature documentary “Choppertown: the Sinners” focused on a renowned group of California bikers known as the Sinners.  Produced in 2004 with a stack of credit cards, this award-winning documentary heralded a return to the values of a simpler time and spawned a worldwide cult following culminating in a seventeen-country European theatrical tour sponsored by Dickies.  After selling 20,000 Choppertown DVDs out of an apartment in West LA, One World principals Zack Coffman and Scott Di Lalla were able to quit their part-time jobs, making and distributing films full time since 2005.  ”I Am ZoZo”, the award-winning Ouija movie shot entirely on Super 8mm, is their sixth feature and first narrative.

About Zack Coffman:

Hometown: Dundee, NY  Education: UCLA (World Arts & Cultures), Yonsei University Korean Language Institute.  Resided in Seoul, Korea from 1992-2000.  Professional highlights: Head of Acquisitions, HMJ Films (Korea.)  Asian correspondent, Variety.  Line-producer and location manager for several Korean films including Korean/Philippine co-production Weekend Warriors.  Translator, Korean International Trade Association.  Co-founder and President of independent film company One World Studios Ltd.; a feature film production and distribution corporation in Los Angeles.

Contact/Follow Zack Coffman: Facebook, Twitter, zack@choppertown.com

 

 

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What The Film Industry Needs: Transparency – April 13th, 2012

This post was originally published on the Future of Film Blog of Tribeca Film Festival on April 9, 2012

Recently I was helping a friend with a business plan related to publishing.  So naturally I needed to reference revenues in the publishing space.  There was plenty of revenue data available.  However, when one reads film business plans one knows that data is often unreliable, unverifiable, or misleading.  In my dealings with people from other professions and others in business, it always seemed to me that sharing real information was considered good business and led companies to learn from others.

I’m sure there are plenty of business that do not function transparently, but after 13 years in this one, I can say I know why people hide real information and why it’s bad for the film industry as a whole.

Box office grosses can be verified to a great extent but P&A expenses cannot and now with VOD revenues, it’s anybody’s guess what really happened except for those seeing the actual reporting (and even then…).  When DVD was a key revenue generator, one could at least get a lot of the main sales data via VideoScan.  It covered the retail brick & mortar sales numbers and Rentrak covered the rental business as well.

In today’s digital distribution market, which ranges from VOD, to iTunes and other smaller online outlets, the numbers are hard to find or verify.

Most of us probably criticized the mysterious banking practices that led to the economic downturn within which we are still presently mired.  Yet the film industry perpetuates a system that hides information and makes the data mysterious when it should not be. This mystery and obfuscation leads to incomplete or inaccurate business plans, an uninformed investor pool and an excess of supply that creates a glut.  In the end, no one benefits.

What and why people hide:

  • Filmmakers will hide the fact that their distribution deal was a service deal because they want it to seem as if their film was “acquired”.   Why does that matter to them? Part of it is ego and part of it is the desire to attract future investment.  Even though a DIY model can actually generate more revenue, there is a stigma associated with it.  Filmmakers often hide their revenues overall for the same reasons.
  • Distributors try to hide or not make public their fees or the specific revenues from VOD.   Why do they do this? Simply, it’s harder to analyze and compare options. When one can do this properly, you quickly realize how excessive fees are for certain rights categories and that there are extra middlemen who often serve no benefit to the licensor.  Further you realize how little is done to justify the fees.  When I write “excessive” I mean that one can get the same job done for a lower fee or smaller overall cost.  I commend the distributors and the filmmakers who have been transparent, but these are few and far between.
  • Studios are less transparent and public about data because their dealings with Cable MSOs and key digital platforms are required to be secret (I am told this is a condition of the platforms and the MSOs).  So we understand that their splits / terms (with MSOs and some platforms) are better but we do not always get the exact data.
  • Platforms such as Netflix also do not like to publicize how they arrive at the fees they offer as their deals vary with various suppliers.

So where does this leave us? 

  • With a pool of often revolving investors who know little about distribution and rely on business plans that contain little statistical backup.  My sense has been that many investors do not get their money back and are therefore not repeat investors.
  • With filmmakers who struggle just to create and have a career.   They usually prefer not to focus on distribution and either take bad deals or have to spend money on consultants to help them have access and make decisions.  In short, filmmakers are losing money and often making poor decisions because of the lack of information.  Digital distribution does afford more access for filmmakers, but not as much as it could and one day may do.
  • With a glut of films, many made by wide-eyed newcomers who don’t know the realities of just how competitive it is and how tough their odds are.  This lack of transparency and real data perpetuates a mystique around the industry that increases the supply.  It also feeds an economy of middlemen and consultants and hell, even us.

The choice by filmmakers to hide their real experience in distribution is a disservice to future filmmakers and investors as well as in some cases to the filmmakers themselves.  It only encourages competition and thus increases the odds of future struggle and disillusionment.

The choice by distributors not to be transparent is obvious in its motivation.  Personally, I think this industry would be well served by a market correction and a drastic adjustment of industry standards in reporting and transparency.  Obviously with a book such as ours, and business practices such as ours, we hope to be a catalyst in that direction.

I have said from the day I founded our organization that I would be delighted if we facilitated our uselessness.  It would show that an industry change for the better had taken place.

What would be the benefit of greater transparency?

  1. We could all learn from others’ mistakes and successes a lot more easily and with greater certainty.
  2. Filmmakers and industry folk could spend less on business-to-business transactions and more on direct-to-audience marketing and community engagement.
  3. We might actually see greater quality and less quantity–which would also positively impact audiences and create a more sustainable career for those who are the more talented.
  4. We might see more innovative thinking around marketing for a change instead of having everyone rest on their laurels because no one can really evaluate what has or has not worked.

 

 

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Ai WeiWei The Buzz Maker: A Study in Viral Marketing – April 9th, 2012

This piece by Jeffrey Winter originally ran on the Sundance Artist Services blog on March 22, 2012

We all know that the vast majority of folks make their film-viewing choices based on what they are hearing about a film — be it from friends, traditional media, the blogosphere, or social media. They’re not likely to go out of their way to proactively research a film, and if they haven’t heard anything about a film, they aren’t likely to see it. Whatever you want to call that…be it “buzz,” “word-of-mouth,” “going viral,” etc…it is the name of the game in contemporary grassroots marketing.

But how much can a filmmaker actually control that? We all know the ways they can try – by playing film festivals, hiring publicists, engaging their community via social media, reaching out to organizations, etc. Of course it helps if a film is actually good…really good, in fact….as the last thing today’s marketplace needs is another mediocre film. And the values of passion and hard work can’t be overlooked here either, as creating buzz and engagement for a film is often arduous and time-consuming…and for many filmmakers nearly as daunting as making the movie itself.

Often it feels like independent films are at the whim of the zeitgeist, and the most important aspect is timing, and the receptivity of the marketplace to the ideas in the film. Consider the cycle of elections, and the way political/environmental/social issue docs can explode into national consciousness around certain hot issues. Given the time it takes to make a film, it’s hard to know whether anyone can actually craft a film to hit at just the right time to capture a “trending” topic.

In the case of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize winner AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY, all the factors mentioned above came together in the final months of post-production to land the film this January at Sundance as an unlikely “buzz” film of the Festival. On the surface, it’s a straightforward documentary by a first-time filmmaker about a Chinese artist/ political dissident completely unknown to the majority of U.S. filmgoers. Hardly a guaranteed formula for indie marketing success.

Sundance key art

But just below the obvious, the twitterverse was ablaze promoting the film; the Kickstarter campaign was raising funds and attracting attention; art magazines were giving the film covers; and filmmaker Alison Klayman had already done numerous appearances on CNN, MSNBC, and The Colbert Report as well as print features in the likes of the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and The Hollywood Reporter. A few weeks later (by mid February), the trade publications were filled with the announcement of its purchase by Sundance Selects, and the New York Times was running a feature article about the film’s upcoming Summer 2012 release.

How does something like that happen for a debut filmmaker with no special access to funding, shortly after finishing a film about a Chinese artist?

Well, of course this wasn’t just any artist — Ai Weiwei is an internationally renowned art star and political provocateur whose unyielding criticism of the Chinese government has earned him legions of friends, enemies, and fans alike.  And Weiwei isn’t just an average political dissent, he is a dissident for the digital age, who because of the rigors of Chinese censorship has taken his activism specifically to twitter through linked computers to the West, and therefore has mastered the art of social media all on his own.

This is the study of a modern documentary subject, who is just as likely to be able to spread his/her own message through the media on their own, through the accessibility of social media, even in free speech-challenged China. In this case, it becomes the story of the filmmaker that becomes the mouthpiece of the subject…which many might argue is the way that it should be.

Filmmaker Alison Klayman began her work with Weiwei in 2008, as a recent Brown University graduate living abroad in Bejing and working as a freelance journalist. Her housemate was curating a show of Weiwei’s photography, and Klayman was asked to make a video for the show. Klayman and Weiwei hit it off creatively, and Klayman began to follow Weiwei as his documentarian — capturing his daily life, his frequent battles with the Chinese authorities, and his travels abroad for major international art shows.

Weiwei’s daily use of blogs and videos to spread his artwork — especially his videos criticizing the government’s response to the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province – became a driving narrative in the film, as well as a grassroots vehicle for spreading Weiwei’s fame and fan base. When the Chinese government finally cut off his locally-sourced blog, Weiwei was able to migrate his work to an ungovernable network of twitter-linked computers, untraceable to China. As such, his network was able to dramatically expand globally, while remaining accessible to tens of thousands of Chinese willing to access these quasi-legal networks.

From 2008 thorugh 2010, Klayman’s documentary follows Weiwei through major international art shows, startlingly intimate private moments, and incredible courage in the face of political adversity. And whenever Weiwei had a run in with the Chinese authorities, the encounter went instantly viral, through a devoted staff who filmed his every move and posted it immediately to twitter.

In late 2010, Klayman returned to the States to begin editing, without the financial means to complete the project. As such, in addition to applying for grants, Sundance labs, and bringing well-connected executive producers onto the projects (largely through Weiwei’s connections in the art world), Klayman strategized and launched a Kickstarter campaign, scheduled to go live on March 29th, 2011.  And that’s when the film caught a kind of lighting in a bottle.

Only four days after the Kickstarter launched, Ai Weiwei suddenly disappeared on April 3rd…apparently arrested by the Chinese Government, but without any official announcement or confirmation of his whereabouts. A global outcry went up throughout his social networks, the art world, and then the international press caught on to the story as well.

As a journalist and Ai Weiwei’s documentarian of record, filmmaker Klayman quickly emerged as the “journalist of record” on the Weiwei story, and the international press began flocking in her direction. Suddenly, it was the twitter feeds that Weiwei’s staff and Klayman had been maintaining throughout the documentary filming periods that became the main source of worldwide news for Ai Weiwei updates. Klayman and her social media teams ramped up their efforts in the U.S. and China, and started working on a rotating schedule to provide 24 hour updates on the story for several months. For all of 81 days, as Weiwei’s secret detention continued without any official response from the Chinese government, the international press continued to feature Klayman’s twitter updates on the story, and interviewed her about the story for numerous high-profile news programs.

Of course, Klayman was careful not to try to turn the story into a shameless plug for her movie…after all, her friend and colleague was “disappeared” and detained, and concern for his well-being was the first priority. But inexorably, in today’s hyper-media culture, Klayman’s sudden thrust into the mainstream became completely entangled with the finishing of the film…and catapulted the project into a far larger spotlight.

The film’s Kickstarter soared above the original asking goal of $20,000 to a final tally of $52,175 from 793 backers…even though it was only originally expected to bring in money from friends and family. The film attracted additional producers and lab invitations that Klayman freely admits it probably wouldn’t have. All in all, the film became a “cause célèbre” for an issue in the news, a fact which filmmaker Klayman could hardly have counted on while making the film.

When Weiwei was finally released, with a dubious charge of more than 1 million dollars in tax evasion, support from the community-at-large continued to pour in, with donations to the cause far exceeding the amount of the government fine. And filmmaker Klayman was finally free to turn the enormous pouring of goodwill towards deliberate promotion of the film, helped in large part by the incredible networks built during the crisis on twitter, and to a lesser extent, on Kickstarter and Tumblr. It is also worth noting here: because the Kickstarter campaign included a number of incentives/prizes towards donation, the film now had a wonderful amount of merchandise it could also now leverage towards wider buzz about the film.

Given this backstory, we can demystify the process of how a small film sometimes gains “buzz” beyond expectations…as was clearly the case with AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY and its incredible fortune of timing combined with passion, hard work, technical savvy, and community networks. Sometimes a film that seems the most difficult to market actually has the most subtle niche communities that can be reached…whether they be political activists, art-world enthusiasts, devotees of Asian culture, social media junkies etc.

However, according to filmmaker Klayman, perhaps the greatest takeway is this…. in today’s hyperlinked/hashtagged environment, it is ciritical to remember that today’s documentary subjects no longer solely rely on their documentarian to spread their message, and social media makes potential distributors and activists of us all. Sometimes, today’s filmmakers just need to choose their subjects wisely, and hold on tight for the ride.

Here is Klayman’s interview for Sundance’s Meet the Filmmaker promo videos

 

 

 

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MAKING THE MOST OF YOU TUBE – A MARKETING PERSPECTIVE – March 21st, 2012

 Ryan Gielan of marketing service company, BELIEVE, helps explain how to best work the platform visited by 85% of Americans and hence enjoying an Alexa ranking of 3.

How is YOUTUBE (YT) best used for marketing indie films?

The best use of YouTube is for audience building before, during and after the filming process.

The perfect version of this would be a filmmaker who spends the year leading up to her shoot vlogging about the fundraising process, casting, producing, and any fears, hopes and challenges they’re facing.

These would be posted regularly, and interspersed with funny or interesting scripted content with a homemade feel, nothing too precious. These videos would establish her voice and build a small but loyal audience who happen to like that voice.

Then the filmmaker would upload a few homemade videos from set, showing off cast, crew and creatives and continuing the themes established in pre-production: it’s important to think of you audience as peers, they’re going to be cool with talking shop, so she would provide tips & tricks along with a personal look at the process.

In the 6-12 months following production, the filmmaker would continue to create and post videos on a set schedule, with material growing progressively more produced, while remaining entertaining. Again, interspersed with scripted, themed content. For instance, if the film is about a chef, the filmmaker would have a homemade, super-low-budget cooking show about how they get by on a freelancer or indie filmmaker living.

Every tenth video would be a clip from the film or a trailer or some piece of fun marketing material. Maybe three or four total in the 6-12 months of post-production. All the while, she would be interacting with fans, commenting on other filmmakers’ videos and channels, subscribing to channels and YT’ers with interests related to her film.

Assuming her film- like most of our films- does not get a huge distribution deal, and she partners with an aggregator to make the film available on Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and VOD, she would then post those links on her YouTube channel and script and upload a personal vlog about where people can find the film.

Finally, she would spend the next year creating and uploading funny or interesting videos along a regular schedule, interacting with fans and producers constantly, and would remind people once every three months that they can find her film on the relevant outlets.

This is how she could build and maintain an audience- if she’s going to be making films for a while, it’s a good investment of her time and energy. People will connect with her and her voice, and will look for ways to engage others on the filmmaker’s behalf. Kevin Smith and Miranda July are two great examples of filmmakers who have used a similar approach to attracting and growing an audience, albeit on different platforms.

(And Sundance alum Ari Gold is a great example of a robust YouTube user who also worked with Believe for the release of Adventures of Power.  More about this below.)

Key techniques and best practices for building one’s audience or community via YouTube.

YT is built on eliminating the distance between producer and user. This is the single most important thing to remember when trying to market on YouTube, and here’s why: along with the ability to create and upload self-produced content comes the desire to interact with other creators, peers. So, YT is built and populated by tens of millions of people who interact with content and producers horizontally, not people who want to passively accept content dropped vertically from studies above.

If you decide to step into their world, you have to understand and respect their mindset and tailor your marketing accordingly. In short, it shouldn’t feel like marketing. Producers who succeed on YouTube create videos that feel homemade, personally delivered by a real human being, not a big Hollywood team directly to the individual audience member. This is why producers who present themselves to the YT community do better than filmmakers who only present their film, or their trailer. YT is not a dumping ground for deleted scenes and outtakes, it’s a place people come to be entertained.

Finally, YT’ers do carry over some traits of traditional television audiences- they like content they can count on. Videos that feel like standalone material aren’t worth connecting with, because there’s no promise of future entertainment. You have a dramatically higher chance of getting subscribers- and having your videos shared- if you upload regularly, on a given day, at a given time, with fresh content.

So… the take homes are:

1. Interact with every audience member, from day one. They’re your peers as well as audience.

2. Don’t just market. Create content that seeks to entertain.

3. Post consistently, for a long time.

These three things turn a lot of filmmakers off, and I understand that. We want to make films, and leave the marketing to others. That mindset- while totally understandable- is why so many films are just sitting on shelves.  Marketing is a lot of work, but if you invest the time wisely and follow the three simple guidelines above, you can build an audience.

About tagging strategies and captioning on YouTube: because Google bots use those for search engine ranking both on YouTube itself and on regular search, what are key tagging and captioning techniques?

Tagging and captioning are generally self-explanatory, in other words: you want to add keywords or tags to every video, and you want them to reflect the most common search terms that would lead to your video. Don’t just throw in tags that are words found in your title- approach this from the point of view of someone who is looking for a similar video to yours, and ask “What keywords would they enter?”

For instance, you’ve decided to create and upload a weekly series of videos examining all the outlets indie filmmakers have for self-distributing their films, one outlet each week. This week you’re uploading a video about how to maximize the attention you can bring to Netflix. Your audience is indie filmmakers, producers and marketers. Some obvious tags: #indie #film #netflix #name of your film. These tags are going to position the video to appear in searches by indie filmmakers and people looking for ways to rent indie films on Netflix, both of which are your audience.

Next you want to hit  #how to #promotion #marketing #self-distribution #digital. These are going to pull in indie artists in other fields, who may want to apply your ideas to their products- a book or an album, for instance. These producers of indie art are also consumers of indie art, also your audience.

Finally, someone who is looking to drive eyeballs to their Netflix release(s) is probably going to be looking for ways to measure their results, or may already have them in place. Good keywords include: #analytics #understanding #clicks #views #CPC (cost per click) #CPM (cost per thousand), etc.

Three important caveats:

1. This is a generic example, clearly. The best way to decide on keywords is to do a couple searches, find related videos, and look at their keywords. If the video has a lot of views, or seems similar to yours, grab the relevant keywords. Doing a handful of test searches from your desired audience’s perspective is a great way to stumble upon keywords you would not have thought of.

2. Your video title and description are more important. They should be keyword rich. The title should be short and the description should be long (up to 5,000 words). Don’t name the video solely based on the content, also name it based on the relevant, meaty search keywords.

3. The single greatest factor in the success of any video is inbound links. Period. Tagging, title and descriptions are useful in the long run, they can’t be ignored, but Google’s recent algorithm change has solidified organic, quality inbound links as the single most important factor in the ranking of any website, product, video.

HOW do you generate the YouTube views?  It is not just by uploading tons of videos, right? Those views are generated by having videos posted on lots of other sites, yes? Do you have a network of blogs and websites that will post video viewers of trailers or short video content that helps those views get pumped up?

There are 48 hours of video is posted to YouTube A MINUTE!! No way your videos are just going to be found on your channel just like that, correct?

A lot of this is proprietary info for our company. However, you are TOTALLY correct- just being funny is not enough, and neither is uploading a ton of videos.

There are three basic ways to drive eyeballs to your videos.

1. Share them across social networks, and encourage others to do the same.

2. Get postings and links from websites with large audiences already.

3. Advertise your videos online and on mobile devices.

We (BELIEVE) do a proprietary combination of all three for clients large and small.

I know those three bullets are vague, but we are currently writing an eBook on the subject and we can’t give away everything. But that should tell you just how rich the subject is- there’s enough material on executing the above three steps to literally fill a book.

Some examples of films BELIEVE has worked on that worked well via YouTube marketing

Some films we can’t discuss at the studio’s or filmmaker’s request, but here are two excellent examples of YT marketing that we have worked on:

Ari Gold, Adventures of Power

Ari and his team created an entire 70-video YouTube promotional campaign featuring original videos, deleted scenes, constant updates and interaction- all free to the end user. Their videos have received over 500K views, gained over 3,000 subscribers, and three of his videos even reached the front page of YouTube, officially going viral. The YouTube fan base has led to stronger DVD and digital sales.

My film, The Graduates

The Graduates was the #1 comedy on Hulu for months, and remains in the Top 10 all-time after two years. We’re competing with major studio films and stars and have held our ground for two full years. Though filmmakers remain skeptical about Hulu, we’ve had a wonderful, profitable experience there, and the hundreds of thousands of people who have seen our film have in many cases followed us across social media, bought the film or the soundtrack, and remained responsive to the projects we’ve released since meeting them. The majority of our viewers discover the film through a few consistently updated YouTube channels and webseries.

Two of the strongest performing videos are linked here. You’ll notice they appear to have nothing to do with the film or product they’re selling:

* Marketing Adventures of Power with a Halloween music video; 197,000+ views; Officially viral, making it to the Front Page of YouTube. http://goo.gl/G53Uv

* Marketing 1800Recycling with funny “Fail” videos; 3,000,000+ views; Three videos officialy viral, making it to the Front Page of YouTube. http://goo.gl/cnkk9

There are two of over 100 pieces of content we’ve taken viral for clients big and small. Couple this with a consistent output of content and some audience interaction, and you have an active and growing Subscriber base.

“Why does this matter, or how does this help?” are the questions we hear most often when explaining the value of a successful viral video or webseries to a potential client. Taking the examples above, there’s obvious value in getting hundreds of thousands of people to interact with your material. Couple that with a widely available film, and the viral video that had nothing to do with your movie just became a great ad for you and the film. People who are truly entertained by the viral video will visit your channel and poke around, and that’s when they’re most receptive to marketing materials like the trailer. You’ve won them over by not marketing at them, and now they will seek out your marketing.

As the price of digital goods rapidly drops toward zero, filmmakers who build an audience on YouTube will have a huge advantage when it comes time to ask people to pony up for a ticket, a download, a soundtrack or a t-shirt, because not only will they want to spend (to help you keep producing content) they’ll also share the videos, becoming advocates who advertise on your behalf.

What are some good benchmarks in terms of reasonable numbers to shoot for in terms of trailer view etc…?

This is a complicated question, because we can assist clients in getting any amount of views, so it completely depends on two things: your budget, and your audience. If you’ve spent time developing an audience, you have to spend a lot less to get and keep people interested, which is why we provide so much (and such specific) advice on audience development before, during and after filming. If you’ve done nothing to develop an audience, it’s going to cost money to get real eyeballs on your marketing material.

Simply uploading a trailer to YouTube is a good step- it’s about as basic and necessary as a website- but it doesn’t guarantee a single view. I would focus the benchmarks on content creation and interaction with fans- try to create and upload one new piece each week for a year. If you have a good concept and you interact with fans, your material will stand out, because you’re a filmmaker, after all- making interesting content is your life.

Any other good marketing platforms you work with to market films?

We use Twitter and Facebook, of course, but there is no silver bullet. You must create content and interact with fans.

The digital revolution continues to bring prices down, but the upside is that the same outlets that bring prices down also corral audiences into niches. 85% of the country visits YouTube, every conceivable niche is represented there, and they’re all looking for entertaining content. It can be a massive platform for any filmmaker.

Another upside of the digital and social media revolution is that with so many on-demand options, audiences are seeking and finding more and more independent films, months and years after their release and sharing their discoveries with friends. The need for an “opening weekend” is moot. Don’t get me wrong, if you can have a big opening weekend anywhere, take it. But if not, your movie on Netflix or Hulu will look just as fresh in a year as it does today. We advise clients to keep their YouTube and social media presence just as vibrant and fresh two years after their release as on Day 1. Releasing an indie film today is much closer to opening a small web-based business than it is to releasing a studio film.

Distinguishing marketing on YouTube via distributing on YouTube: how it works, what is viable, and what are reasonable goals to shoot for:

I wish we could speak intelligently about the YouTube screening room, but it’s so new that we don’t have a lot of work to point to. It appears studio films are gaining some traction there, but it’s too new to have numbers and benchmarks.

One important note that may work with earlier comments: As the YouTube Screening Room grows and people become more accustomed to buying professionally produced content while visiting YouTube, it will be hugely advantageous to have a large audience within the YT ecosystem already. The ability to direct your Subscribers to your film without having to leave their chosen social media is incredibly valuable. But, again, its value is proportional to the size of the audience you’ve developed.

More about BELIEVE:

Believe handles YouTube, Facebook and Twitter campaigns for clients in the entertainment industry. We scale campaigns to project budgets, provide rich targeting across all social media, and deliver an audience to your film. We’re filmmakers so we understand the challenges that artists face when it becomes necessary to take marketing into your own hands.

For more information about BELIEVE and their fees etc contact:

BELIEVE

www.BelieveLimited.com

ryan@believelimited.com

 

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SUNDANCE 2012 DISTRIBUTION DEAL BREAKDOWN BY SECTION – March 2nd, 2012

Note from Orly: This blog post was researched and written by Bryan Glick, a new addition to the TFC family.  Forthcoming will be an analysis of the actual releases out of the festival from past fests and this year’s.  This will be a group effort on the part of all of us and we welcome any and all info.  And now let us begin…

With SXSW just around the corner, now is the perfect time to look at the world of deal making at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Over 100 films had their world premiere at the festival. Almost half of them now have some form of distribution in place but the numbers vary greatly based on what section the film screened in. On the high end is the Premiere section. With over 80% of the films getting acquired. Unfortunately things aren’t as rosy for films that were part of the World Dramatic section. Only one film has been bought thus far. The (#/#) below indicates how many films per section were “bought”.

WORLD DRAMATIC- (1/14) Only the film “Wish You Were Here” was bought by a North American distributor (Entertainment One). It also is in English with a somewhat-name cast.

WORLD DOCUMENTARY- (6/12) “Payback” (Zeitgeist) and “Putin’s Kiss” (Kino Lorber) were both bought before the festival. The latter, after playing IDFA.  “5 Broken Cameras” was also bought Kino Lorber. Indomina couldn’t resist “The Imposter” and SPC got “Searching for Sugar Man”.  “Indie Game: The Movie” was bought by HBO to be remade as a television series. They opted to reject other offers that would have included a theatrical run but they are doing their own DIY theatrical.

US DOCUMENTARY- (7/16) “Marina Abromovic: The Artist is Present” was an HBO DOC coming in and HBO also bought “Me @ The Zoo” prior to Sundance starting.  Sundance Selects snagged both “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” and “How to Survive a Plague”, Magnolia opened the gates to “The Queen of Versailles” and unsurprisingly National Geographic went for “Chasing Ice”.  Most recently, The Film Collaborative sold this year’s audience award winner, “The Invisible War” (the deal is being announced in a couple of days).

US DRAMATIC- (7/16) “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “The Surrogate” were both bought by Fox Searchlight. “Safety Not Guaranteed” is the first Sundance film to be acquired by Film District. AFFRM, run by Ava Duverney the director of “Middle of Nowhere” will be releasing the film in partnership with Participant.  “Nobody Walk” was one of the many Magnolia acquisitions at the fest, and not to be outdone IFC took “Simon Killer”. “LUV” was the only film from the section to score a television deal, which it was able to do as part of its theatrical deal with Indomina. It will premiere on BET. It is worth noting that 5 of the 7 films that have sold were award winners. The only award winning film from this section not to sell yet is “Smashed”.

NEXT- (3/9) These films are all relatively low budget and tend to fly more under the radar than the US Dramatic films. Since they were cheaper to make they are also far more likely to get their investment back. “28 Hotel Rooms” wooed over Oscilloscope, while Magnolia added “Compliance” to their buying spree. The Film “Mosquita Y Mari” was acquired by Wolfe Releasing. The Film Collaborative negotiated the low 6-figure deal and will do the theatrical release.

MIDNIGHT- (5/8) Magnet already had “Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie” going into the festival. “V/H/S” was also bought Magnet, which is the genre arm of Magnolia. LD Entertainment won the bidding war for “Black Rock”, “The Pact” will be released by IFC Midnight, and “Excision” made the cut for Anchor Bay.

PREMIERE- (13/16) Not surprisingly, this is the section that produced the most deals and also some of the largest deals of the festival. The Weinstein Company’s new Radius VOD Label acquired “Lay The Favorite” And “Bachelorette”.  Samuel Goldwyn and Sony partnered to get “Robot and Frank”. “Arbitrage” was acquired by Roadside Attractions and will utilize the same day and date VOD approach that was done with “Margin Call”. IFC added “Predisposed” and Liberal Arts” to their packed slate. Meanwhile Imagine took “GOATS”, Focus nabbed “For a Good Time Call”, SPC took “Celeste and Jesse Forever”, CBS Films opted for “The Words, Millenium went with “Red Lights”, Magnolia snatched up “2 Days in New York” and ATO got in the game with “Shadow Dancer”

Notably absent from this list and still seeking distribution is “Red Hook Summer” which is the latest film from Spike Lee. The other two films (“Price Check” and “California Solo”) from the section yet to sell both did not premiere until the second half of the festival.

DOC PREMIERE- (5/8) “Ethel”, “The D Word”, and “About Face” all had HBO DOC deals going into the festival. “Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap” Was acquired by Indomina and “West of Memphis” wound up in the hands of SPC.  ”Room 237″ was also bought out of the New Frontier section which is known for more experimental film-making IFC will release it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

THE BIG PLAYERS this year were smaller and mid-level distributors. HBO Docs had the most films in the festival going in but IFC and Magnolia left with acquisitions from multiple programming sections and each got some of the most sought after films. Indomina acquired three films, all of which were in competition. Fox Searchlight also went big by acquiring two of the biggest films in competition. Compared to last year though, they were relatively tame. With the recent acquisition of “West of Memphis” SPC has rights to three films from the festival. Leaving empty handed were The Weinstein Company’s main label, Open Road Films, and Relativity. All of these companies went looking for films that they could take wide; given their absence it would seem unlikely that there are many “Little Miss Sunshine”s from Sundance 2012. Which might explain why

VOD is IN. Many of the deals include VOD as a central component. Whether or not any can duplicate the success of “Margin Call” remains to be seen. That said filmmakers and distributors alike were far more willing to embrace the opportunities that VOD enables. Rare exceptions were films such as “Black Rock” which opted to reject a number of VOD centered offers. They will instead have a traditional theatrical run.

BIGGER ISN’T NECESSARILY BETTER when it comes to making your money back. While several films in the premiere section were able to get seven figure deals, it was far from enough to cover their budgets. Meanwhile smaller films like “The Pact” and “Mosquita Y Mari” were able to recoup and then some.

FINALLY, If your favorite film hasn’t been bought yet, that doesn’t mean it won’t get bought in the future or follow a solid DIY approach. “Being Elmo” was not bought until several months after Sundance last year but has gone on to gross over $250,000 theatrically. And films are still getting bought from the 2011 festival. “Restless City” was just acquired by AFFRM.

South By Southwest, here we come!

More Sundance deal analysis to come too…

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Using Pinterest for your film – March 2nd, 2012

Written by Sheri Candler, co author of Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul

This post was originally published on February 21 on Sheri Candler Marketing and Publicity’s blog and republished with additions on the Tribeca Future of Film blog February 27. There is one new addition at the end of this post.

I know, collective groan “yet another social network to keep up with?” Seems like there is a new one born every minute and many of them fail to get off the ground. But here is why Pinterest might be a site you should consider using for your production.

-In just one month (December 2011-January 2012), Pinterest saw traffic increase over 155% and over the last 6 months, traffic increased by 4000%. As of this month, they had over 11 million unique visitors to the site and over 10 million registered users from all over the world.

-Statistics show Pinterest drives more referral traffic on the Web than Google+, YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn combined. The beauty of pinning photos/videos is they link back to websites, thus driving traffic. They are nofollow links, so it doesn’t help with SEO, but any link that drives traffic to a site is good for awareness and conversion.

-Mainly, the site now attracts women in the age range 25-44 who love fashion, home decorating and family related products. As it gains more of a following, this is bound to change. Still, if that is a target demographic for your film…

-Activities are based on images so rather than having to write a lot, you can simply post photo collections and they don’t even have to be your own photos! I think this is the highly attractive thing about Pinterest, in fact I am hearing about Pinterest addiction. Users typically spend 11 minutes on the site each visit. User scanning pictures is a lot more enjoyable than scanning status updates on Facebook clearly. Plus there is no EdgeRank to deal with. Once someone decides to follow your boards, they continually see new additions you make in their stream whenever they log in.

-The key for users doesn’t seem to be gaining followers, but gaining repins meaning they want to have people think what they pin is cool (or hot, or whatever). They strive to be INFLUENCERS and that is exactly the people you want to find and connect with. Because people can follow boards they find interesting, it is possible to have many more followers on your boards than you do on your account profile.

-It integrates with your other social accounts like Facebook and Twitter and hopefully Google Plus is coming. There are embed badge widgets you can install on your website to integrate all of your social channels. Word of caution, at the moment the site only connects to Facebook PROFILES not business or professional pages, so you probably shouldn’t opt to sign in with Facebook if you are using this for your film, just sign in with your email and don’t connect to Facebook. If you want to tie Pinterest to your Twitter account, make sure it is the one you use for your film and when G+ comes online, make sure you have signed up using a gmail account for the production, not for your personal gmail account. However, other users can sign in with their social accounts and things they pin show up in their Facebook or Twitter stream, very handy for word of mouth spread about you and your film.

There is a “scoreboard” of sorts showing how many boards and followers you have over all, as well as followers of only certain boards and repins of your pins. The site also allows you to glean from others what they are interested in. You can start to “listen” to what your potential audience thinks is interesting by viewing what they select to pin. You don’t follow people as much as you follow things, ideas, topics on Pinterest. You can repin something someone else has posted and this can open the door to a conversation. They can do the same with your pins and you are alerted via email when someone does this and it shows under that image on your board. This is an enormous help when you are trying to figure out what to post, what boards to create, what resonates most?  While Facebook is about people and brands, Pinterest is about things and interests. You can only post images or video and some comments and tags in text on your boards.

I only recently started using it for the Joffrey project I am working on which is why all of my boards are devoted to that. Looking at them gives a good idea on the kind of thing you could use it for on your production. In my workshop presentations, I talk about posting regularly on your social channels and not just information directly about your film, but also about the interests of your audience; those who would be a fan of your film and of yourself as an artist. I am using the boards to show Joffrey history through pictures and videos; the ballets they created, the ballets they revived, their alumni dancers, Robert Joffrey through the years as well as photos of the merchandise available to buy through our site. It’s a balance of audience interest and promotion for the film.

I noticed Ted Hope is using his boards to express his personal interests , things and people he admires and wants to draw more attention to, his artistic accomplishments and resources he uses that he thinks would be helpful to his connections. All of these things help in attracting an audience both to his films, but also to his professional life as a producer. His personal tastes are reflected in all of his boards and none are devoted to posting family vacations! The point being, we can get to know Ted as a professional person without his having to reveal too much private information.

Other artists in the indie film space currently starting to use Pinterest are writer/director James Gunn; transmedia educator/artist Christy Dena who uses her boards to showcase ideas about narrative, interactive and game design ideas she has discovered;  filmmaker Erik Proulx has created boards that show his advertising and design background and what he finds inspirational for this. You may remember his short film Lemonade about those who were laid off, particularly in the advertising industry, and found inspiration to reinvent their lives completely. I think Erik is kind of into these inspirational, motivational, life changing stories which is why he is making another film called Lemonade Detroit about a city that is reinventing itself. Filmmaker Gary King uses his boards to show his inspirations, showcase actors and actresses he loves and his career accomplishments. Film blog Film School Rejects uses their boards to keep readers updated on this year’s Oscar contenders, interesting movie posters their readers might like and films they are watching.

Pinterest is just getting started so don’t be alarmed that you have missed the boat. You still have first mover advantage here. You must join by invitation only, but those invitations aren’t difficult to obtain. You can request one on their site.

A word about self promotion

As with any social network, you should be using Pinterest to directly connect with audience on a personal level, not as a one way promotional channel. Use creative ways to showcase your personal identity and vision and use it as a magnet to attract those most interested in what you, as an artist, have to say. You will find your audience is much more willing to stay with you across projects when you are mindful of their interests.Sho us your style, the way you see the world, the way you tell a story, not just “buy my DVD.” Contribute something of value to the community, and they will keep coming back.

Populate your boards before you start trying to add followers. As with any new endeavor online, you need some interesting content first. You wouldn’t promote a website that only has a landing page that says coming soon, so start by thinking through what you want to say about yourself and your work, who are you trying to attract (this could be different types of audiences, which is fine), and analyzing visuals you can use from your own assets. Also, the account can have more than one contributor which is good for sharing the responsibility of board maintenance with your marketing team.

As with anything you do online, track referral traffic coming to your site via Pinterest. If you use Google Analytics, you can find out how to do this here

Pinterest is dead easy to get started on, but if you like tutorials, watch this video.

Pinterest jargon

A Pin-an image added to Pinterest by a registered user

A Pinner-someone who is a registered user of Pinterest

Pinning-the act of sharing an image on Pinterest

A Pinboard-a collection of pins usually categorized around a topic, interest or theme

Repin-sharing some else’s pin on one of your own boards

Pin It Button-a widget badge one can embed on their website to let others know about a Pinterest account. Also a bookmark shortcut one can add to a toolbar to easily pin something  seen online to one a board.

ADDED: see this infographic

A Marketer’s Guide To Pinterest: Pin It To Win It [Infographic]

 

 

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