Conversations Wrapup

I was unable to attend "The Conversation" conference at Columbia University, but followed the proceedings via twitter. The following is a summary of the conference as seen and generated from the #convonyc hash tag.

In the What I've Learned About Attracting an Audience through Social Media panel,
several attendees mentioned panelist Nina Paley (@ninapaley) and her film Sita Sings the Blues. As cited from Nina's website, "Sita Sings the Blues Sita is a musical, animated personal interpretation of the Indian epic the Ramayana. Nina gives her film away for free and generates her revenue from ancillary items (DVD & tshirts) and gift income. Filmmakers should consider that long term revenue streams will not even come from a film, but many other areas outside the film seemed to resonate. As downloading free content is the M.O. for young generations, it falls to content creators to monetize creatively. If you put films or parts thereof on the web for free, it might translate into downloads and DVDs.

Judging by the flow of tweets, the conversation shifted largely to distribution and marketing. Several online sites were cited, including vodo.net, goodscreenings.org, openindie.com, all trying to answer the question of how to monotize non-theatrical screenings. Flixster was mentioned as being not indie-friendly. Arin Crumley, co-founder of OpenIndie, a distribution company that aims to connect indie filmmakers directly with their audiences, offered the following observations. "Niche social networks are important for film, they allow a functionality that doesn't exist in Twitter or facebook."

Some panelists discussed the "check-in" feature (as developed by Foursquare and Gowalla) being used increasingly for promotion to drive people to physical locations. Filmmakers and mediamakers need to be thinking about Foursquare creatively about how it can drive audiences to locations for promotions.

Ultimately, it seems that filmmakers need to target a specific audience for their film and then use the appropriate network/technology to reach it, whether it be a website, a peer-to-peer network, gaming device, cell phone, etc. The best marketed films are those that bring audiences together around an issue, as it increases connectivity between audiences. Steve Savage of New Video, a multi-platform film distribution company, cited Xbox, Netflix, and Hulu as working well for indies in the current marketplace. Scilla Andreen, head of IndieFlix, reiterated this assessment. "Hulu is a wonderful revenue stream for filmmakers to drive DVD sales but we have to manage filmmaker expectations."

Steve Savage went on to say that the DVD is not dead yet as a revenue stream. For two to five years filmmakers can hang on to that cash machine. However, he warned that digital revenues will overtake DVDs, in 2013 The music business offered a cautionary tale. Digital revenues will overtake CDs this year. It WILL happen for film.

Richard Lorber, of the Kino-Lorber film distribution company, talked about VOD Distribution. "The cable VOD market is controlled by a few players. A recent cable VOD success was HARVARD BEATS YALE which generated $100K gross revenue." Ryan Werner, from IFC Films, observed that genre and controversial films work on VOD, but American indie dramas do not. A modest success is in the 25,000 views range for VOD. On Amazon, a high four figure download count is GREAT. It was also mentioned that within the VOD menus/systems, titles starting with letters appearing earlier in the alphabet are favored by viewers.

With all the discussion of VOD in mind, Hunter Weeks, director of the film Ride the Divide "a film about the world's toughest mountain bike race," warned that filmmakers "be careful of how much of your digital rights you give away." He also offered the advice, "Create stories around your story," which may in fact have been the most tweeted phrase of the conference.

In regards to online video, I found the Top 6 tips for video creators from Vicky Ayala
to be an interesting list: 1. Do it fast. 2. The story is bigger than the video. 3. Youtube is a search engine, use it that way. Be smart with your tags. 4. programming calendars matter. 5. subscribers: your first and most important viewers. 6. Go where the fans are.

Speaking of twitter, a significant amount of discussion centered around the effective use of the social media platform for promoting one's film. Your Twitter strategy should be linked to big picture long term marketing, staff resources & future projects. Your Twitter community can and will moderate itself. Aggregate passionate followers to balance potential haters. Joselin Mane, CEO, LITBeL shared the Top Four Twitter Best Practice Areas: think about your Voice, Audience, Content, and Frequency. Angel Aviles-Clinton, Co-Founder of BeScene Marketing, cited the film, At Home By Myself with You as an example of successfully raising $46K on Twitter with only 259 followers.

Presenters suggested other online tools. Angel Aviles-Clinton suggested that your film website should become the source of what you want to collect (eg stories). Sean Fitzroy stressed the importance of blogging. "Blog even if you don't think anyone is listening." Wordpress & Buddypress are great resources that enables you to create a community on your own site and they're free.

Personally, I found Lance Weiler's suggestion that it's an "exciting time to be a storyteller, despite it being a disruptive time. An creative class is going to emerge. We're all trying to figure out how to fund, create, distribute and exchange." to be a decent way to wrap up the day. For the last year I've maintained that the traditional systems have broken down and everyone is buzzing around like bees in a hive trying to figure out how to maximize their own personal opportunities. However, nobody really knows what the "best" approach is. That's why we have great conferences like this.