Your Choice: Forever Be Their Content Slave Or Build The Road To Our Utopian Culture
Pt 4: the necessary concepts & conditions for a non-dependent film ecosystem
I gave you another break, but now we have to sew this baby up. We were already cooking with gas, but I also suspected you might be a wee bit restless; we want the better thing to arrive instantaneously, and would prefer to just ahead to “go”. That’s not going to happen, is it?
Granted, we now know eighteen steps that will bring us closer to where we want to be in building our runway to the new non-dependent film ecosystem. Here are my last six — at least for the time being. I take it you’ve done your homework and studied parts one, two, and three. I mean, there is a test coming, so be prepared!
Like any good list, this one too shall evolve. It’s a map, but yeah: half the fun is getting lost — so don’t forget to wander off. But of course beware of the gingerbread houses; that’s where we all got eaten up the last time. Those back-end buyouts hid a bitter pill when compared to the success-bonuses one once might have received. The promise of immediate access to everything was just a mirage. We know the fairytale is now a nightmare.
I don’t know about you, but I like to know both what to avoid as well as where I am headed. I see clear roads ahead this time. Ha! Sure, some bumps too. Many. Maybe even a crash or seven, but we are going to get there and bring others to follow. We will build bridges and four leaf clovers. Eventually we will gain speed and this runway will take us right on to the launchpad, and I know everyone carries their own rocket fuel. Why don’t they teach this stuff at school? Why don’t our film schools try to create changemakers instead of rule followers?
As a refresher here’s the initial 18 steps we previously discussed:
18 of 24 necessary concepts & conditions for a non-dependent film ecosystem
End anti-competitive practices of GSPs (government regulation)
Sustainability is the primary goal;
Deepen appreciation & comfort in the feeling for and expression of “art”
Artists Bill of Rights
Avoid binary “either/or” thinking; it’s “both/and”.
Aim for both excellence and the spirit of the perpetually “amateur”;
Embrace aesthetic & narrative risk taking
Embrace innovation & encourage experimentation in adoption of new platforms;
Leaders lead and communities empower.
Execute the operational improvements that have been neglected.
Think beyond one film at a time.
Encourage all film investment to be 1/3 production, 1/3 marketing, 1/3 ecosystem operational improvement.
Think/work holistically
Shift to a single title revenue-driven model
Secure & share institutional knowledge (Best Practices)
Collective alliances
International alliances
Establish & Maintain First Principles & Tenets
And let’s look at the final six – at least until we add on some more onto the list, that is!
Final 6 of 24 necessary concepts & conditions for the new non-dependent film ecosystem (the list goes on!)
Establish codes of collaboration for individual enterprises:
Don’t you sometimes wonder if there are methods that would allow us to collaborate more effectively and quicker? Wouldn’t that be swell, right? Well, there are and they are pretty downright obvious, but yet they haven’t been adopted widely. It’s worth wondering why, and yeah, I have my theories; I suspect they too are sort of obvious. Like most things, we can make it better if we choose to be a little better prepared. There are questions we should answer before they are ever asked of us. We need to do our best to help our collaborators know us quickly and accurately (that is the primary reason I wrote my book and initially was so enthusiastic about social media when it first conquered us all). But again, we can do more. We can do better. Have you built your own Code Of Collaboration? You should. I will offer one eventually, but I suggest you get started on yours too, so we can all…. collaborate!
Generate utopian visions and maps:
America in particular is overrun by practical thinkers. They have taken over our educational system, our business enterprises, and our support organizations. We like to just say that is the way it is, and we best get used it. Or something like that – I don’t really know because I don’t subscribe to such beliefs. I think you can call that settling. Those folks forget that the essence of humanity is we create things, we build things, and we change things. I still suspect all that creativity is for the better. We can make things better and leave everything better than we found it. And that is the point of not just being practical but keeping the dream alive. We have to build our own Roadmap To Utopia. In order to keep lifting things up, we need to be able glimpse where we want to go. Don’t just live in this world; look where that has delivered us. Use your vision to see the world you’d like to help get us to. Start planning please.
Prioritize audience engagement (go to them vs bringing them to you):
The last 125 years of cinema has been very focused on the various financial transactions. It’s show business after all. But that view is also very short sighted. You’d think that the powers that be would not want to get fooled again. You know the best and the brightest consistently make dumbass decisions (aka DADTBABTMPAWDOARB) , and although that certainly give us plenty of opportunity to do things in a different way, you’d like to believe folks won’t make the same mistake twice. I get it. For the first 100 years, it was really difficult to have a direct relationship with the audience. Hollywood let the digital FAANG companies lap them. They snuck in with the new distribution and captured the relationship with the audience in the process. But filmmakers and the indies across the globe frankly haven’t done much better. You’d think after 20 years we’d have some artists we could hold up as being the beacons of prioritizing audience engagement. Unlike financial transactions, a direct relationship with the audience does not have to be built over and over again; it only needs to be maintained. Trust and confidence always need to be earned. And I get it further: the tech bros co’s have not made it easy on anyone. But seriously, how you doing with building that relationship with ten thousand fans (remember that?)? The mission of a direct relationship with an audience never jelled because it was filmmaker by filmmaker, artist by artist, film by film. Once again we were trying to bring audiences to us instead of going where they are. What is needed is the film industry to develop those that can be the liaison with audiences wherever they are already communities, and then work to bring a regular cadence of supply to them in an environment they trust and want to participate in (sound familiar?).
Provide context (cinema is a dialogue):
This is a big part of what was lost in the pivot. Cinema is a dialogue. Between the filmmaker and the audience. With the other movies at the time it plays. With all the films that came before it and after it. With the world that it lives in and the world that gave it birth. Films don’t stand on their own. Everything is part of something and it only truly lives when we embrace that. When things all shifted to the world of the GlobalStreamingPlatforms and engagement was a click and before it was over, we were on to the next, what was loft. Context. That long running multidirectional conversation was what really made cinema sing. It was a call back. A never ending story or circle or maybe just a rhythm but it rocked, and we just let it vanish. If we want to think long term, if we want our work to have a shelflife we have to remember the context is more than an attribute. It is what keeps it all going. It is the fuel and the fire. It is why we all in this together.
Prioritize cinema exhibition:
Cinema is close to both a perfect product and a perfect experience. Sure, I get how irritating a stick floor or an annoying neighbor can be, but we have ways of dealing with such issues. They truly should not detract from our expectation of joy and transcendence that cinema brings. We seem to have forgotten cinema’s true attributes. We seem to have forgotten what a cinema palace or house of worship can be. We say stupid shit like “the audience has moved on”. Sure they did – just like they did from vinyl. When something is superior it sticks around. Cinema is not only not going anywhere, it is the best thing going. We need to build from exhibition outwards. Period. Anything else diminishes the attributes of both the art and the business. In a planning a new ecosystem, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Hold on to the good thing and grow from there. Prioritize Cinema exhibition.
Provide the services that are available now:
Did you know that on this newsletter platform I get pretty close to real time reporting? If money is coming in, I get it daily. I have data analytics that tell me who folks are, where they are from, and how they generally engage. Do any of your film distributors do that? They could – but for some reason we (and our representatives) aren’t demanding it. Are you willing to really wait twenty years for what is immediately available elsewhere? Why? In the new ecosystem, we need to start with what is already state of the art, and we need to work to keep up with the times.
So there are twenty-four initial and crucial steps for building a new ecosystem. I am sure I have left out many, but there is one critical aspect that makes the whole thing sing as a flywheel. We can make it ripple outwards, bringing the new in to fortify the present, replacing those that expired with new blood as every ecosystem should. It is the sort of thing that we’ve left to good fortune in the old model but in our new ecosystem has to be part of the process.
We need to celebrate, encourage and reward aesthetic & narrative risk taking. We can’t just let the market decide. We must remember what I think is rule #4 of FKA the film business: “art, artists, and audiences evolve faster than markets or business normally can provide”. Business will always drift into mediocrity, repeating past success until they kill the golden goose. When things are perceived as “good enough” we rely on the few geniuses out there as will independent or alternative channels (if they can survive) to provide the necessary cultural course correctors that keep us on track, but we have reached a hinge moment. It is time that we actually engineer such risk taking and vision. There are multiple methods but the shortest path is to encourage and reward. Can we? Shall we?
The flaw of this plan overall is that in the FKATheFilmBiz, we no longer have stewards or leaders. No one stands for anything anymore. It’s a pig pile for everyone desperate to get theirs before it is all gone. We need to change our collective mind. We need to rewire our thinking. Instead of being focused on single project financing, each and every effort needs to include the funding of marketing as well as an improvement to the ecosystem. The folks with the power need to recognize such thinking is a necessity and their responsibility. They need to see the big picture and think holistically. They need to say what they mean and mean what they say. They need to consistent innovation and risk taking. They need to lead. You need to lead. We need to lead. I am trying to show a possible path among many. Let’s go!
And for those of you who need the brief reminder of what was said (minus some substance), I have a list for that!
The Initial 24 Steps Recommended For A New Non-Dependent Film Ecosystem
End anti-competitive practices of GSPs (government regulation)
Sustainability is the primary goal;
Deepen appreciation & comfort in the feeling for and expression of “art”
Artists Bill of Rights
Avoid binary “either/or” thinking; it’s “both/and”.
Aim for both excellence and the spirit of the perpetually “amateur”;
Embrace aesthetic & narrative risk taking
Embrace innovation & encourage experimentation in adoption of new platforms;
Leaders lead and communities empower.
Execute the operational improvements that have been neglected.
Think beyond one film at a time.
Encourage all film investment to be 1/3 production, 1/3 marketing, 1/3 ecosystem operational improvement.
Encourage all film investment to be 1/3 production, 1/3 marketing, 1/3 ecosystem operational improvement.
Think/work holistically.
Shift to a single title revenue-driven model.
Secure & share institutional knowledge (Best Practices).
Collective alliances.
International alliances.
Establish & Maintain First Principles & Tenets.
Code of collaboration for individual enterprises.
Utopian vision & map.
Prioritize audience engagement (go them more than you try to bring them to you).
Prioritize Cinema exhibition.
Provide (at the very least) the benefits and opportunities that are currently available (like real time payments and reporting).
That’s all folks! Until the next time.
Special Bonus! INVISIBLE NATION Good News (Continued)
You may recall two posts back I promised some nice announcements on our film.
Well… You know get to check out the trailer — and please do, and go give it a thumbs up on YouTube too please.
And perhaps you also caught this announcement?
Or this one?
And more announcements coming. I hope to see you at our first LA Screening of INVISIBLE NATION on May 3. Order your tickets here.
💥❤️❤️❤️🎉
I wonder if what's streaking across the sky toward us is something beyond truth. In a post-truth A.I. world where art can be deployed and manufactured by virtually anybody to deceive, sell, contrive and co-opt any idea or aesthetic -- I wonder if what we so desire in our heart of hearts, is something truer than true -- realer than real. We want to KNOW that what we're seeing or hearing is 'The Real Thing.'
So if something like that is streaking toward us that is beyond truth and is unco-optable, unstealable, impossible to twist and deceive (which would definitely make us non-dependent and artist-first filmmakers) the question would be, 'How does an indie filmmaker get there?'