Fifteen years ago, I was campaigning to get us to THIS current moment, albeit a bit FASTER...

A speech and transcript that might be even more relevant today

Fifteen years ago in Copenhagen, I gave this talk for a think tank. I offer it to you again today — particularly because I now know who you REALLY are.

You are this think tank called FilmStack.

I am so glad you’ve come to our aid.

Change is slow — and we know why. But momentum is possible… and common. Maybe that’s what is happening now. And maybe I was just waiting for the right audience… the ones who have already rolled up their sleeves, staked their new place, and are doing the work. That’s YOU. Thank you very much.

I find it fascinating how clear it was then what we needed to do. What would our cultural life have been if we all took up the charge then? We could have rewritten the future. Would streaming have been different? It could have been different.

For me, that IS what happened. I had a dream of using global streaming for a different cultural future. Silly old me. I took some bold steps to try to engineer a better future for all us filmworkers. And I sort of got co-opted. But I then saw the writing on the wall. I rejoined the ranks. And turned on The Bat Signal. And now you’ve shown up.

It is not too late. We’ve walked through the door and are ready to work.

Let me know if you like this speech (hearts matter). I was surprised by how much I did. But I do prefer to read it. I’ve used a free transcription service to transcribe most of it for you below, but if you like you can give it a listen or watch on your walk today.

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You Now Have A Choice

I'm an American independent producer.

What that generally means is that I've had to make movies without any financial support from the government for the most dispersed, fragmented audiences in the world — the international audience — with only the benefit of a common language, English, and being raised in an American pop culture.

The reason I wanted to come out here today is I think we're in another situation like that where, again, the world has changed and everyone's a little slow on the uptake of what that is.

What I'd like to do is essentially put out what I see reality is for both the situation we're in —the people and participants of it — and this enterprise called the film business. And then (I’ll) talk a little bit about the choice that this puts us in. And once we make that choice, what I think the repercussions are.

Neat, simple and clear, right?

Well, the main thing is…when I look at it in terms of the situation that we're in… if we really want to embrace the reality we're living in today, is that acknowledgement that we've moved from a limited supply, control-based entertainment economy to one based on eternal surplus and open access.

We've yet to develop a business model to exploit this change.

Most business models that we're using right now — and finance models — are based on a pre-2008, pre-Lehman Brothers financial collapse. And the behavior of those times has little applicability to today, be it in terms of how people respond, the audiences, or money that's available.

The critical thing to recognize is that both media and content can be found on more devices and platforms today than ever before. Yet we're still treating all those platforms and devices as essentially equal, whereas they clearly are not. There's no justifiable ticket price anymore for theatrical cinema in relationship to other leisure time opportunities.

I don't think there's any argument that there's greater entertainment value to be found elsewhere than the theatrical experience for less money than the price of a ticket. So what are we going to do about it? That's essentially the situation.

But it doesn't end there in terms of what the world is. I think the people have changed, too. All of us are really overwhelmed by the surplus of film and leisure time activities that we have. Yet we still don't have trusted filters or curators to help us sift through all that.

(00:02:58.04) People shift their attention now out more rapidly than ever before.

We're a culture of distraction.

We have more screens and devices competing for our attention than ever before. Audiences, however, still make the decision on what they're going to see based on impulse, and they yet to have established behaviors that are based on choice. We have to develop those tools to really help facilitate choice over impulse. They're very different things.

Audiences, as much as they have traditionally liked to have been directed, also very much want to participate. But film right now remains very much a one-way conversation. Gaming —a participatory entertainment — is I think as everyone knows, far surpasses the film industry right now in terms of both money and participation.

We have a two-year window, essentially, of going from the moment that our films are financed and packaged to the moment that they come out. Yet we only market them, at least in the States, for that six-week window before the theatrical release.

We completely failed to use that two-year process when we have all those elements together to develop audience. With each new film that we make, we're asked again and again to reinvent the wheel, to find and create that audience, even when that audience from one film to the next might be the same.

(00:04:30.22)It comes down to me like the core principle is that we are still emphasizing a one-off product instead of a sustainable relationship with the audience. And that's the fundamental change. I think the reason everyone here, I hope, is because we recognize that we can determine the future, that it's within our power and our control.

First, we have to make that decision today, I think, for all of us, and (that is) which reality we want going forward.

In the States, we've had the longest running game show in the States “Let's Make a Deal”, where you basically get Door Number One or Door Number Two or Door number Three. I'm going to simplify it a little and give you a choice of Door Number One or Door Number Two. Door Number One is essentially the massively centralized, corporately controlled control of funding, production, promotion, distribution, presentation, and appreciation of culture. MONEY. \

And Door Number Two is one where creators and their collaborators are able to fully support themselves through their art and their work by aligning and collaborating with specifically defined and dedicated audiences.

So what's the choice? Door Number One or Door Number Two?

(00:06:01.05) If you want Door Number One, it's pretty good for you because you don't really have to do anything. The world we're living in is moving faster and faster towards that. All you have to do is try to find where you as an individual might fit in it. But recognize what it means. It's that all work and all allocation of resources is governed by anticipated profit, the mass marketplace and those that control it. In that world, the film business is either simply the capital-intensive blockbuster business or the state-controlled quota system. And there's no room for little guys or anyone else within that.

But if you want Door Number Two, recognize what that means. It means that we have a tremendous amount of work in front of us.

But it is the widest range of content and form that has ever been available to creators to explore. The widest amount of content that will be available for audiences to discover and consume, and that there are a lot of new found businesses that will develop and become sustainable within it.

So that's your choice. Which When do you want? It's the choice that global cinema culture now face.

(00:07:20.18) Again, it's the status quo — a culture industry that's based on limited supply of capital-intensive, test-marketed or committee-approved, to my opinion, to the point of blandness or increasingly derivative work that profits really only the aggregators and appeals only to the most mainstream, largest or controlled audiences. That's Door Number One.

Or… for the first time…

We have Door Number Two available to us:

the potential to establish a broad global middle class of creative individuals who can support themselves through their art, aligning and collaborating with specifically designated and defined audiences, and not having to conform to the limited dictates of the mass marketplace or its controllers. If you want Door Number Two, I'm going to try to go through now what we have to do to realize it.

And it's really pretty simple, I think. There's only nine things we have to recognize. I'm going to go through these nine things, then create a definition of each of them. We have to:

• recognize the world we're living in,

• completely reposition our mindset,

• redefine our content,

• reorder our priorities,

• rebalance the emphasis is there,

• Restructure our primary relationships,

• create new methods and processes,

• build new tools, — and essentially, as Henning said —

• work to make it better together.

(00:08:58.11) It's nine things. Really simple to do, right?

Number one was recognizing the time we are living in. I see it really simply defined as the age of surplus and access, not control and shortages. That's what it's been. And with that new world of surplus and access, essentially comes a series of — as I see it —three simple new rules and emphasis: