Proof YOU don't need the system to work for you (you can build a better one)

The People's Innovations To Film Distribution, part 3

ICYMI I am sharing with you over 125 different innovations across sixteen categories nestled into four groupings. I hope they will inspire you to build and try a few innovations of your own. There is so much that we can do and try. We’ve got this far on the shoulders of those who have come before us. And now we have better tools and greater understanding. What’s holding us back?

We are up to the third entry and the end of the first grouping “Filmmaker-Led Collectives and Community-Based Distribution”. Next time we will start the second grouping “Touring, Home Entertainment & Public Television”.

When we reach the end, I will share ALL in chronological order. I truly believe that if you look at how we’ve innovated in the past, you too will be better prepared to innovate in the future — and damn if we don’t need to do that now!

Cinema Distribution’s Innovation Categories

1. Artist-Led Cooperatives & Collectives

2. Community-Based & Faith-Based Distribution

3. Touring & Regional Circuits

4. DIY, Grassroots & Guerrilla Releasing

5. Public Television & Government-Funded Platforms

6. Home Video Format & Feature Innovations

7. Digital & Streaming Infrastructure

8. Microcinema & Underground Circuits

9. Restoration & Preservation Models

10. Immersive, Eventized & Site-Specific Exhibition

11. Crowdfunded & Community-Financed Cinema

12. Direct-to-Fan / Direct-to-Consumer Platforms

13. Innovations in Ticketing & Theatrical Access

14. Viral Circulation

15. Alternative Circulation Networks / Grey Market Distribution

16. Web3, Blockchain, and/or NFT Enabled Distribution

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I alos share the categories so if you have suggestions to add, you know where to wait to recommend them. Or you can use the Chat and comments to suggest them now if you can’t wait.

I have put together these lists to inspire you — I make no bones about it. Change has come before and change will come again. People solve problems. That is what we do. We know the mainstream cultural and entertainment ecosystems are broken. And we are starting to recognize what we need to do about.

We take this pause to study the past so that we may better map the future.

The Touring & Regional Circuit Distribution Innovation list is a robust one, coming in at 12 currently, but with FilmStack’s help, I hope we can take it well beyond that. Dive in!

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3

Touring and Regional Circuits

1. Itinerant Projectionist Movement – Late 1890s–1920s, Global.

   (Credit Brian Newman with telling me about his great grandfather for this one. )The IPM were independent traveling exhibitors who brought motion pictures to rural, remote, and underserved communities using mobile equipment, long before permanent cinemas or studio distribution networks were established. THE IPM began almost immediately after the public debut of cinema in 1895, with projectionists purchasing or building their own equipment and touring fairs, tents, churches, and vaudeville stages across the U.S., Europe, and beyond. “Traveling, itinerant projectionists remained a phenomenon in small towns in the US into the 1940s , and often showcased early Black cinema that could not be shown in segregated cities and towns.”

2. Cinema 16 (1947–1963, U.S.) – Amos Vogel
   A membership-based film society that screened avant-garde, documentary, and foreign films in NYC and across the U.S., often on tour. It introduced non-commercial cinema to thousands of American viewers before art houses were widely established.

3. Warren Miller Ski Films (1949) – Warren Miller established an annual touring event model for ski films, using branded live screenings, narration, and direct relationships with ski fans and towns.

   

   Check out more of Warren’s posters here.