The Only Solution Is A New Ecosystem

Time to move off the farm. The clock is ticking. Sound the alarm.

this is not the job you signed up for

It is ironic than Independent Cinema has never been what it calls itself: independent. We have always been dependent -- dependent on the mainstream cultural manufacturing, marketing, and distribution system. But that – the mainstream, the establishment, the corporate powers --  has fucked us, beat us, and robbed us. And now they are doubling down. The we that is the us are the ones who create the dreams and hopes and desires that fuel everything. They’ve stolen our children and shot us all in the foot.

It seems clear — now more than ever — we have no choice but to build our own house. We have to move off their land and construct something that really is… home — but this time one that is our own. Staying dependent is a trap, a prison. But it is one that vanishes, if we admit we are ready to now truly fly. The events this year make the reasons more clearer than we’ve seen before.

Their needs are not our desires. Their pursuit will lead to our demise. The signs are clear. What they call disruption is really just destruction. We cannot continue to risk that which we love, that is worthy of our love, and that will love us in return if we let it. We have already bet our livelihoods on a future that did not come to pass; we lost. Accept that loss and choose a new horse. We have to conceive, design and strategize a truly independent film ecosystem. It is not going to be easy but I think it is the only way.

Unfortunately, halfway measures are 100% illusions. It is impossible to separate the mainstream entertainment complex from the unrestrained capitalist system that drives it. The results of that system are undeniable. Unrestrained capitalism has destroyed the planet, perpetuated racism, sexism, and polarization. It is destroying democracy and has taken away our autonomy over our bodies and minds. Our current system does not work for the common good (or else everyone everywhere would have free healthcare, education, public transportation, and green energy – and that’s just to start!). We can institute restrictions and rules that can help the obtainability, sustainability, and preservation of that which we love, but in doing so we are still relying on governments for enforcement; those governments will always favor the corporate powers – as demonstrated by the inability to institute what is needed to have true democracy in America: real campaign finance reform.

We have seen the results of unrestrained capitalism on our film industry; the strikes, the layoffs, the mergers and thinning herd – and thus a reduction of competition. Has there ever been greater disparity between the incomes of CEOs and executives and the incomes of those that actual create cinema? When we have two unions striking for the first time in sixty years, it’s more than shit that has hit the fan. We have surrendered any control or freedom we once enjoyed. Never before have our wealthiest companies all been global tech companies with consumer-facing platforms – and that is whom everyone in the entertainment business now works for, whether literally or not: the biggest and most powerful forces on earth.

They are killing us: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses”. Yes, we can resist, but some of us can not even organize. There is no union of producers (at least not yet). The AMPTP are not producers. There is no documentary filmmaker union. Many of us love the idea of unions for all, but that is not likely to happen any time soon. We are on the deck of the Titanic. We are a frog in the pot and the water is getting warmer. If it looks, smells, and tastes like something you know, do you need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows? The game is broken, so why you still playing?

They had their chance, but they chose the wrong door. There was the opportunity to have all of entertainment get along and support one another. I bought in and got a spot on the team; for a while when I was at Amazon it felt we were going to be able to support all aspects, needs, desires and attributes of cinema. Any of the global tech companies who entered the space could have easily chosen to be the protector and promoter of cinema, but it wasn’t that they just dropped the ball…  they ran in the opposite direction. They went for the fastest, easiest way… the low hanging fruit… the thing that makes sense to the shareholders is to abandon art and groom the audience to like what they get and to them give everyone the same old same old dressed in new clothing but arriving on the dime when the clock chimes. IAMAHAIANGTTIAM, aren’t you?

We think we are locked in, but we really are free. Walk out the door.

It once seemed reasonable to believe that good stories told well with style and courage would not only succeed in the marketplace but quite possibly generate bucketloads of gold. And for a while it did. But that was a different time, even if it was just a year or two or so ago. It is not where we now live.

Now the system supports only the grand spectacle and that which is chock full of addictive attributes; neither have much in the way of nutritional elements. We can all love to gorge on them, sure, but we need the good alternative to be offered somewhere and somewhere accessible. We need an environment where it is allowed to thrive, where our community can come worship at the same alter. You feeling me here?

We have seen firsthand what happens when there are no restrictions and little in the way of rules. The law of this land is now predatory pricing and the war for market share. Use your stock price to drive expansion until you force out any alternatives. Viola! Soon everyone is doing business with you. It must be because they must really love you, right? In the beginning it feels like everyone wins, because everyone got paid like it was a hit – that is everyone but the hitmakers. And sooner or later that started to smart. Smell something burning now? It is all the legacy businesses, and they built an escape hatch to the bottom of the ocean.  Good look with that.

We didn’t really choose this system, but our willingness to stay with it and play with it has dug our hole deeper. With the ruthless pursuit of profit the requirement of all shareholders, the drive for quality and the exploration of film and film form will be sacrificed over and over until the ritual itself is not even allowed in the door. It’s different games and they have understood that to win theirs, they must not ever supply us with the tools we need.

They will never share the data our labor and execution generate. They don’t want us to know what works -- but how is an artist or craftsperson expected to grow if they do not know the results of their labor? How are we to learn from our experience when we are not just alienated from the results but shut out on the opposite side of the paywall.

Without data, we have no backend. Without backend, we have no freedom; we are never going to get lucky and be able to hop off the treadmill and try something new (like we once did). When we have no opportunity to profit from success, we can not offer that opportunity to others. When we can’t do that, we can’t raise financing for our work except through the corporate channels that deprive us of profit, backend, data, transparency and ownership. We are left with no choice but to start sleeping with the enemy. We have to resist.

If we can’t raise funds independently, we most likely can’t make the work we want. We won’t be free to choose. In a world without independent financiers, we have to work for the corporations who will fund us; that means they set the agendas for what stories get told and sold – not us. We begin to self-censor ourselves to satisfy our overloads, just so we can feel like we express ourselves (that and put food on the table).

Here in the US, we’ve already seen the painful truth as stories that speak truth to power, that might upset a significant share of the audience – particularly that which might upset a foreign government or authoritarian regime – that the corporation might want to do business with one day, have been blocked and cancelled. The entertainment business was once just the opposite: it was that wonderful realm of the mavericks willing to do anything if they could make a buck. Today if they risk not being able to suck a future buck out of a person, place, or horrible despot, then: no thank you ma’am, no thank you son, it just “does not fit our mandate at this time”. I hope you like making the soft sell kiss kiss profile of another celebrity hack or theoh so scary true crime “expose”. That will be the opportunity you are given; that one and that one alone.

The opportunity to build something better will always go unaddressed in this ruthless profit-driven enterprise. If it serves their needs, it is good enough. The opportunity cost of improving the product or the process are too great. There are faster ways to make money than fixing things – even when the needs of the many are begging for it. Why would they care if you have a sustainable career? Your need for a house or the chance to have a family are not their concern. They don’t need to have you or your collaborators to shine or reverberate; they don’t want you to ever have power.

If  you did shine or flex just a little,  it would cost them much much more; it would require them to listen to you about how your beautiful baby should be made or released. They don’t want that. Far better to sell a big concept or universe, not something about a story or author or distinct perspective. They don’t want your ideas; they want all the IP. It’s a land grab where they have the bulldozers and you are stuck with just own two hands.

They tune audience to want more of what they are serving. To click quick. They flood the zone with shit until what once was art and personal expression is all just content without context. We need to develop audiences with discerning taste and an adventuresome spirit but that is not where their dollars will ever go. They want that which is the most consistent and predictable – and thus they want the work to live in the system that does that best (you know? that thing? the internet!).  

We are two different animals, but we can no longer be the benevolent beast on their back picking off their little bugs and calling it sustenance. We need our own home, even if it is cave in which we dwell. We need worker owned platforms. We need artist-controlled institutions. We need the thing that is ours, not the one that is theirs. Let’s not work on Maggie’s farm no more.  

Can we build towards something better? What are the steps we need to take to do so? What processes will help us? Can we learn from our past, from our past mistakes? Can we build bridges to new allies and new islands? Are we on a journey together? Can we all ride the same bus?