Last year it was “content marketing”, now the newest buzzword in online marketing seems to be “authenticity”. What does this mean for filmmakers? The good news is that no one is as in-tune with your audience as you are, so you should know best what kind of content your audience would like to see. The bad news is, professional marketers are all vying for your audience and trying to be as authentic as possible to steal their online attention away from your films and videos.
The annual Stream Market by Brunico leads straight into the wildness known as RealScreen/KidScreen and while small in comparison, really gives a chance to meet with some top minds in the online media space. The VidCon conference in Anaheim is a massive event focusing mainly on YouTube, but many of the creators extolled the importance of developing a robust “off-YouTube” strategy. This two-part article focusing on authentic online marketing for film will be drawing on personal experience as well as insight from some of the various experts I had a chance to interact with at these recent events.
[Bing Chen-Moderator, Youtubers - Meg DeAngelis, Tyler Ward, Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart]
Which are the best Social Networks to use? How do you choose which social networks to focus on, when there’s only so many hours in a day? The YouTube Creators Panel at Stream were nearly unanimous that Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook were their platforms of choice for building and communicating with their audience. Other possibilities include Google+, Vine, Snapchat, Flickr, Pinterest, and many, many more, but the aforementioned networks are a good place to start. It’s important to remember that YouTube is itself a social network and to utilize it effectively a creator should keep this in mind - it’s more than just a video hosting service, it’s a community.
I recommend focusing initially on just two of these networks and working hard to understand their particular idiosyncrasies by spending as much time using them as you can. Really focus on a goal for each and every post you make; whether it be to grow your “likes” and “fans” or drive existing fans to either another social network, or to a direct-to-consumer facing site. (These days my company focuses on Facebook (162,000+likes) and YouTube (70,000+ subscribers) as our two “main” social networks. We have begun working more with Twitter, but it’s not as robust for us yet as these two.)
Practical tip: It can’t be understated enough that each and every social post must have a goal; that specific “call-to-action” that literally tells your audience what you want them to do. “Visit xyz website to see exclusive content!” “Download the full movie today at yourwebsite.com!” “Please subscribe and leave a comment below!” are good examples of clear calls to action.
In his inspiring opening remarks for Stream, Jesse Cleverly of Wildseed Studios recommended “Speaking to [your audience] in their language”.
In regards to his approach to financing projects he says, “Wildseed are not interested in years of paper development. We do not bend people’s creative vision to fit the tastes of a commissioner somewhere else. We pilot ideas in conversation with their intended audience. You won’t get a script commission from us – you’ll get cash to go out and make something, and then you will enter into a dialogue with an audience about what worked and what did not.”
Cleverly extolls the importance of the dialogue between creator and audience and as filmmakers this should be second nature since we’re always making a film for a specific group of people. The importance of making indie films with a niche audience in mind applies to online marketing most of all. Doc makers can use interviews, outside press, and video evidence as engaging online bits to excite potential viewers and create an authentic ongoing dialogue.
“Story will save you.” Elan Lee, Chief Design Officer, Microsoft Studios.
The main gist of Elan Lee’s keynote, “The Next Era of Disruptive Technology…” could be boiled down to the wonderfully simple statement. Known for his creative use of the ‘Net in marketing campaigns, Lee notably made his name by spearheading the wonderful and intricate online universe surrounding the film A.I. Along with the original online marketing triumph of "Blair Witch Project" , this campaign was a watershed moment in film marketing. By way of example, Lee described how his team created an entire backstory around all the characters in A.I. and brought enthusiastic and curious fans into that world by creating websites and personal accounts for characters and places in the film. Even without creating such an immersive (and well-budgeted) online universe, filmmakers need to use their online presence to provide a community experience for their potential fans and followers.
Brands are always coming up against the problem that they need to show consumers that their product is worth something in their lives versus other competing products and as filmmakers we have an immediate advantage because our films are created to appeal to an audience on an emotional level as art and entertainment. We’re naturally authentic when we are engaging with our audience about our films. Holding contests and giveaways to encourage dissemination of content and creation of user-generated content (Ugc) are tried and true ways of getting your film’s message to a wider audience.
It’s relatively easy to get free product from companies for giveaways; just Google “brand-manager company xyz” and write the person a note on LinkedIn. (In addition to the social networks mentioned above, I’m a huge proponent of LinkedIn as an additional social network for business outreach and connections like this.) Explain in one or two sentences how your film or project aligns well with the brand’s demographic and it’s very likely some free product will flow your way.
During the shooting of our first film Choppertown: the Sinners I called up the brand manager for Dickies clothing and tried to get her to finance the film, she laughed and said no way, but sent me a huge box of clothes to pass around to the subjects and crewmembers. This “currency” went a long way in gaining us credibility. Four years later Dickies financed two films and a European theatrical tour for us which never would have happened without the first relationship we created early on.
In the “Jump Into Bed With An McN” panel, Chris Williams, Chief Development Officer, Maker Studios exhorted attendees to “expand the ecosystem” by embracing technology and the new media landscape in their outreach efforts.
[Chris Williams-Maker Studios, Sean Atkins-Discovery Digital Media, Dan Weinstein-The Collective, Larry Shapiro-Fullscreen Inc., Brett Boutier-Awesomeness TV, Drew Baldwin-Tubefilter]
If your film is the nucleus, what are the circulating “particles” of content that will draw passersby into your world? Is there an app or other emerging piece of technology that you can partner with the help get your message out? (During the shooting of our online live ghost hunting show for Yahoo! we partnered with Spudpickles Studios to align with their Ghost Radar app and cross-promoted each other leading into and during the show.)
Start early and confidently when reaching out to your audience. Don’t be afraid of the “homey” approach, speak openly and honestly about your film and why you hope they will enjoy it. Begin reaching out at the earliest stages of production and rally your audience around your concept. Use all the amazing tools that social media have to offer and aggregate your audience to as few platforms as possible. Speak to your audience authentically.
Even without a huge budget or staff commitment, indie filmmakers can delve deep into their own stories for wonderful content to engage their audiences. Remember, you are master storytellers. Let your stories save you.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. Zack is an award-winning film producer specializing inonline strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack onLinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
The annual Stream Market by Brunico leads straight into the wildness known as RealScreen/KidScreen and while small in comparison, really gives a chance to meet with some top minds in the online media space. The VidCon conference in Anaheim is a massive event focusing mainly on YouTube, but many of the creators extolled the importance of developing a robust “off-YouTube” strategy. This two-part article focusing on authentic online marketing for film will be drawing on personal experience as well as insight from some of the various experts I had a chance to interact with at these recent events.
[Bing Chen-Moderator, Youtubers - Meg DeAngelis, Tyler Ward, Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart]
Which are the best Social Networks to use? How do you choose which social networks to focus on, when there’s only so many hours in a day? The YouTube Creators Panel at Stream were nearly unanimous that Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook were their platforms of choice for building and communicating with their audience. Other possibilities include Google+, Vine, Snapchat, Flickr, Pinterest, and many, many more, but the aforementioned networks are a good place to start. It’s important to remember that YouTube is itself a social network and to utilize it effectively a creator should keep this in mind - it’s more than just a video hosting service, it’s a community.
I recommend focusing initially on just two of these networks and working hard to understand their particular idiosyncrasies by spending as much time using them as you can. Really focus on a goal for each and every post you make; whether it be to grow your “likes” and “fans” or drive existing fans to either another social network, or to a direct-to-consumer facing site. (These days my company focuses on Facebook (162,000+likes) and YouTube (70,000+ subscribers) as our two “main” social networks. We have begun working more with Twitter, but it’s not as robust for us yet as these two.)
Practical tip: It can’t be understated enough that each and every social post must have a goal; that specific “call-to-action” that literally tells your audience what you want them to do. “Visit xyz website to see exclusive content!” “Download the full movie today at yourwebsite.com!” “Please subscribe and leave a comment below!” are good examples of clear calls to action.
In his inspiring opening remarks for Stream, Jesse Cleverly of Wildseed Studios recommended “Speaking to [your audience] in their language”.
In regards to his approach to financing projects he says, “Wildseed are not interested in years of paper development. We do not bend people’s creative vision to fit the tastes of a commissioner somewhere else. We pilot ideas in conversation with their intended audience. You won’t get a script commission from us – you’ll get cash to go out and make something, and then you will enter into a dialogue with an audience about what worked and what did not.”
Cleverly extolls the importance of the dialogue between creator and audience and as filmmakers this should be second nature since we’re always making a film for a specific group of people. The importance of making indie films with a niche audience in mind applies to online marketing most of all. Doc makers can use interviews, outside press, and video evidence as engaging online bits to excite potential viewers and create an authentic ongoing dialogue.
“Story will save you.” Elan Lee, Chief Design Officer, Microsoft Studios.
The main gist of Elan Lee’s keynote, “The Next Era of Disruptive Technology…” could be boiled down to the wonderfully simple statement. Known for his creative use of the ‘Net in marketing campaigns, Lee notably made his name by spearheading the wonderful and intricate online universe surrounding the film A.I. Along with the original online marketing triumph of "Blair Witch Project" , this campaign was a watershed moment in film marketing. By way of example, Lee described how his team created an entire backstory around all the characters in A.I. and brought enthusiastic and curious fans into that world by creating websites and personal accounts for characters and places in the film. Even without creating such an immersive (and well-budgeted) online universe, filmmakers need to use their online presence to provide a community experience for their potential fans and followers.
Brands are always coming up against the problem that they need to show consumers that their product is worth something in their lives versus other competing products and as filmmakers we have an immediate advantage because our films are created to appeal to an audience on an emotional level as art and entertainment. We’re naturally authentic when we are engaging with our audience about our films. Holding contests and giveaways to encourage dissemination of content and creation of user-generated content (Ugc) are tried and true ways of getting your film’s message to a wider audience.
It’s relatively easy to get free product from companies for giveaways; just Google “brand-manager company xyz” and write the person a note on LinkedIn. (In addition to the social networks mentioned above, I’m a huge proponent of LinkedIn as an additional social network for business outreach and connections like this.) Explain in one or two sentences how your film or project aligns well with the brand’s demographic and it’s very likely some free product will flow your way.
During the shooting of our first film Choppertown: the Sinners I called up the brand manager for Dickies clothing and tried to get her to finance the film, she laughed and said no way, but sent me a huge box of clothes to pass around to the subjects and crewmembers. This “currency” went a long way in gaining us credibility. Four years later Dickies financed two films and a European theatrical tour for us which never would have happened without the first relationship we created early on.
In the “Jump Into Bed With An McN” panel, Chris Williams, Chief Development Officer, Maker Studios exhorted attendees to “expand the ecosystem” by embracing technology and the new media landscape in their outreach efforts.
[Chris Williams-Maker Studios, Sean Atkins-Discovery Digital Media, Dan Weinstein-The Collective, Larry Shapiro-Fullscreen Inc., Brett Boutier-Awesomeness TV, Drew Baldwin-Tubefilter]
If your film is the nucleus, what are the circulating “particles” of content that will draw passersby into your world? Is there an app or other emerging piece of technology that you can partner with the help get your message out? (During the shooting of our online live ghost hunting show for Yahoo! we partnered with Spudpickles Studios to align with their Ghost Radar app and cross-promoted each other leading into and during the show.)
Start early and confidently when reaching out to your audience. Don’t be afraid of the “homey” approach, speak openly and honestly about your film and why you hope they will enjoy it. Begin reaching out at the earliest stages of production and rally your audience around your concept. Use all the amazing tools that social media have to offer and aggregate your audience to as few platforms as possible. Speak to your audience authentically.
Even without a huge budget or staff commitment, indie filmmakers can delve deep into their own stories for wonderful content to engage their audiences. Remember, you are master storytellers. Let your stories save you.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. Zack is an award-winning film producer specializing inonline strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack onLinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
- 7/10/2014
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
Occurring twice a year in conjunction with the densely packed four-day Digital Hollywood, Variety's most recent one-day conference was an interesting amalgam of top entertainment marketing honchos, digital producers, and technology wizards. The studios and majors have really begun to get their heads around "digital" and are making big moves to maintain their place at the top of the entertainment food chain. In fact the big boys are taking a lot of notes from the indie players as they put together their digital strategies. What's exciting for indies is that the 'net is still largely democratic and savvy filmmakers and marketers can still work within their niches to create massive audiences on their own. Here's some takeaways and points for discussion:
Social remains a key (if not nebulous) indicator:
"Listen to your social audience." ~David Glasser, COO The Weinstein Company
In fact, Social has become such an important measure of success that Erik Flannigan, Evp Multi-Platform Strategy and Development, Viacom Entertainment Group pointed out that, "When re-ordering shows it's about the engagement levels, not purely the ratings numbers." This is a big deal because it means the networks are finally openly admitting that social networking is a valuable indicator when assessing properties.
Liz Jones, Evp Digital Marketing, Relativity commented that she does a ton of social listening of her own content as well as the competition. This is so important! Keeping track of other properties in your space has never been easier since you can follow all of them through social and set up alerts to email you whenever someone posts something about you or them online.
Pernille Bruun-Jensen, Chief Marketing Officer, Netbase made a compelling case for her enterprise social listening dashboard that proves social analytics services to studios/networks, as did Brian Dutt of conference sponsor FreeWheel. Interestingly enough I've still not heard anyone offer a mathematical case for proving that big social numbers directly influence the amount of viewers of a particular show or film. I'm sure we're getting closer to being able to quantify this, would love to hear from someone that has this data. Here's a blog post featuring some affordable social listening services.
Best PR spin of the day:
Amy Curtis-McIntyre, Chief Marketing Officer, AirBNB was adamant that customer service is key and her team constantly monitors social in an effort to address issues immediately. This actually turned a potential PR disaster into a major win when an AirBnB user was inadvertently locked inside a house in France. According to Curtis-McIntyre the renter posted her predicament on Reddit and the customer service team was able to help her get out!
Other observations:
Bob DeBitetto President of Brand Strategy, Business Development and A+E Studios, A&E Networks stated that they are "launching the Fyi Network based largely on Yt lifestyle fan bases". This is another page from the indie marketing handbook, stay within your niche and keep your content focused on your demographic.
"Radius will day and date release 12 films this year" ~David Glasser, COO The Weinstein Company. The previously rogue concept of releasing a film over the internet VOD, and in theaters continues to gain more and more traction. We have been releasing DVDs and downloads together on our direct-to-consumer site and it has actually increased DVD sales, new customer acquisitions, and overall revenue by 58% over last year.
In future installments I'd really like to see a few more scrappy indie innovators mixed in with each of the panels, but it's great to hear from the leaders in the industry and from a networking perspective the Variety conferences never disappoint on this level.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. Zack is an award-winning film producer specializing in online strategy and monetization , live streaming , and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn , Google+ , and [At]choppertown .
Social remains a key (if not nebulous) indicator:
"Listen to your social audience." ~David Glasser, COO The Weinstein Company
In fact, Social has become such an important measure of success that Erik Flannigan, Evp Multi-Platform Strategy and Development, Viacom Entertainment Group pointed out that, "When re-ordering shows it's about the engagement levels, not purely the ratings numbers." This is a big deal because it means the networks are finally openly admitting that social networking is a valuable indicator when assessing properties.
Liz Jones, Evp Digital Marketing, Relativity commented that she does a ton of social listening of her own content as well as the competition. This is so important! Keeping track of other properties in your space has never been easier since you can follow all of them through social and set up alerts to email you whenever someone posts something about you or them online.
Pernille Bruun-Jensen, Chief Marketing Officer, Netbase made a compelling case for her enterprise social listening dashboard that proves social analytics services to studios/networks, as did Brian Dutt of conference sponsor FreeWheel. Interestingly enough I've still not heard anyone offer a mathematical case for proving that big social numbers directly influence the amount of viewers of a particular show or film. I'm sure we're getting closer to being able to quantify this, would love to hear from someone that has this data. Here's a blog post featuring some affordable social listening services.
Best PR spin of the day:
Amy Curtis-McIntyre, Chief Marketing Officer, AirBNB was adamant that customer service is key and her team constantly monitors social in an effort to address issues immediately. This actually turned a potential PR disaster into a major win when an AirBnB user was inadvertently locked inside a house in France. According to Curtis-McIntyre the renter posted her predicament on Reddit and the customer service team was able to help her get out!
Other observations:
Bob DeBitetto President of Brand Strategy, Business Development and A+E Studios, A&E Networks stated that they are "launching the Fyi Network based largely on Yt lifestyle fan bases". This is another page from the indie marketing handbook, stay within your niche and keep your content focused on your demographic.
"Radius will day and date release 12 films this year" ~David Glasser, COO The Weinstein Company. The previously rogue concept of releasing a film over the internet VOD, and in theaters continues to gain more and more traction. We have been releasing DVDs and downloads together on our direct-to-consumer site and it has actually increased DVD sales, new customer acquisitions, and overall revenue by 58% over last year.
In future installments I'd really like to see a few more scrappy indie innovators mixed in with each of the panels, but it's great to hear from the leaders in the industry and from a networking perspective the Variety conferences never disappoint on this level.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. Zack is an award-winning film producer specializing in online strategy and monetization , live streaming , and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn , Google+ , and [At]choppertown .
- 5/24/2014
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
so·cial TV [ˈsō-shəl ˈtē-ˈvē] noun
:the use of technologies that allow a viewer to: discover, interact, socialize, search, share and purchase around content they are watching, synced in real time, on the Big Screen in the Living Room…..or online with a second screen, like a laptop, tablet, game console, smart phone or, on the primary viewing Connected TV screen
~as defined by Andy Batkin, CEO, Social Summits, LLC
When I think back to my first days in production and distribution (ca. '97) things seem so easy compared to the myriad of considerations facing the release of a successful film or TV property these days. The sheer number of Types of properties and associated content that a storyteller can create and share are wonderful and astounding. In an attempt to try to stay on top of all the possibilities (I love unreachable goals) last week I attended the intimate Social TV Summit at the Bel-Air Country Club. Sponsored by the Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Social TV bills itself as "Focusing on Producing Content With Social TV and Second Screen Executions in Mind."
They managed to pack a lot of speakers into one afternoon, but the best panel featured five "Senior Level Creative Executives Talk[ing] About The Importance of Planning for Social TV or Second Screen executions Before They Develop TV Shows or Online Video Content.
TV vet and CEO of production outfit Electus, Ben Silverman had a lot to say and was sharp as usual. He was exceptionally frank in describing most deals as basically handing off the online content to the final distributor or broadcaster and not being allowed in a major way to participate in developing and benefitting from the exciting potential revenue beyond some potentially small, predetermined percentage, "Depending on where we are in the food chain, we may not be involved with the incremental advertising revenue associated." He added, "However, the sponsors have been wonderful in protecting us [the content creators] and our position."
A huge question all execs are faced with these days, and I've yet to hear anyone claim to have the answer, is "Does Social impact ratings? " Most people agree that while a hot Twitter hashtag might be able to have some positive effect, Facebook has been really late to the game in its outreach to entertainment properties. Silverman pointed out that "trending" shows seem to get a bump in ratings, but is that because of the trending or because they are innately popular and/or getting a big ad spend/PR push? (Facebook seems to be getting the message; they sent Strategic Partner Manager, Nick Grudin, to La recently to listen and improve the conversation with content creators.)
Get*This CEO, Lisa Farris added some sharp and savvy commentary to the panel with her experience running online product integration and direct sales for shows such as Scandal and Two Broke Girls . She stressed that the "educational component" is so important when dealing with the integration of product placement and commerce. Actually most everyone on the panel seemed to agree that a stronger educational push is required on all digital fronts from project finance to online merchandising. Many of the top execs controlling the purse strings and broadcast strategy are still way behind in their thinking. Bemoaned Silverman, "The success of online engagement still doesn't figure into the decision-making process. It's still all about the ratings."
The prevalent sentiment from the panelists was how the internet is a wonderful laboratory and should be used as such by content creators. Producers looking to integrate online more into their traditional content might want to consider this as they push the boundaries of integration:
"Data is sexy. Feed the analytics about keywords and sentiment back to your writers and you can enhance your story arc in real time." Marc Scarpa, SimplyNew Producer/Director, X Factor Pepsi Digital Preshow and Xtra Factor App
"Integrate. Test. Experience." Mat Corey, Cmo, Mass Relevance
"On-demand. Not demanding. Enhance, don't distract. Give the user what they want. Help the user interact, find, share, or enjoy. In the online space focus on evolution, not revolution." Kyle Brink, Head of Product, Viggle
"If you don't engage them, someone else will." David Jones, Evp Marketing, Shazam
Several app makers and software companies made short presentations about how they help content creators "socialize" their content, but the presentation by David Jones, Evp of marketing at Shazam really knocked my socks off. Shazam is an app that resides on cell-phones and tablets and allows users to scan within 5-10 seconds any song they hear and then leads them to information about the song, including links to buy it on iTunes and other online retailers. What I never realized was that they are now working directly with films and TV shows to deliver trailers and second-screen content to users through the Shazam interface; not only providing huge engagement numbers, but leading to direct commerce as well.
I caught David afterwards and asked him a couple of questions:
Zack Coffman: What kinds of tools does Shazam offer a filmmaker? Any good ideas or strategies you can recommend?
David Jones: We work with the film maker or distributor to build custom second-screen experiences for 1 or several moments of a film, or even the entire film. For example, with TV programming (and just as easily with a film), we can synchronize a whole host of content and features that are available on the second screen, synchronized (or not) to precise moments in the movie. Our audio content recognition technology makes this possible, as we know exactly where the viewer is in the film (or any content for that matter). If the film maker has the additional bonus content or second-screen experience in mind, we can make it happen.
As far as ideas to recommend, the possibilities are endless. Bonus content of many kinds, but for example, additional camera angles, synched content (Cms or live-produced), Interactive content (polls, voting / what's hot, trending), non-synched complementary content (all kinds), additional story lines / video vignettes, behind the scenes / making of videos, sweepstakes / once-in-a-lifetime experiences, instigating more social media conversations from all of this great engagement – the list goes on.
Zc: What's a film oriented campaign that you're especially proud of?
DJ: Sony Pictures has worked with Shazam to promote the theatrical release of over a half-dozen films in the last year, including great movies like Men In Black 3 and Spiderman. We help turn interest into action, turning a 30-second spot into viewing the full trailer, accessing bonus content, and buying tickets through Fandango right there on your mobile phone. It's simple, but effective. The Glee Movie on DVD was Shazam-enabled where several different scenes in the movie could be Shazam'd to unlock bonus content. I could rattle off quite the list of theatrical and home entertainment releases, but suffice it to say, this is one of many natural fits for mobile activation of movie promos.
Zc: Is there any plan to develop a suite of tools or an initiative to work more with indies considering their particular needs and parameters? Any thoughts or advice to add?
DJ: As far as tools and support for indie filmmakers, while we are leaders in this space, it's also early days. While we've done scores of TV show and live event implementations and hundreds of TV ad campaigns, and produced live, custom second-screen experiences for the biggest live TV events in the Us like the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and some of the biggest shows in television like American Idol, a lot of what we've done to date is custom built for clients and partners. We'll make it easier to execute over time, but the most important thing to do is start dreaming now about how you can enhance and expand the storyline to the second screen — synchronously and/or asynchronously — and get started.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
:the use of technologies that allow a viewer to: discover, interact, socialize, search, share and purchase around content they are watching, synced in real time, on the Big Screen in the Living Room…..or online with a second screen, like a laptop, tablet, game console, smart phone or, on the primary viewing Connected TV screen
~as defined by Andy Batkin, CEO, Social Summits, LLC
When I think back to my first days in production and distribution (ca. '97) things seem so easy compared to the myriad of considerations facing the release of a successful film or TV property these days. The sheer number of Types of properties and associated content that a storyteller can create and share are wonderful and astounding. In an attempt to try to stay on top of all the possibilities (I love unreachable goals) last week I attended the intimate Social TV Summit at the Bel-Air Country Club. Sponsored by the Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Social TV bills itself as "Focusing on Producing Content With Social TV and Second Screen Executions in Mind."
They managed to pack a lot of speakers into one afternoon, but the best panel featured five "Senior Level Creative Executives Talk[ing] About The Importance of Planning for Social TV or Second Screen executions Before They Develop TV Shows or Online Video Content.
TV vet and CEO of production outfit Electus, Ben Silverman had a lot to say and was sharp as usual. He was exceptionally frank in describing most deals as basically handing off the online content to the final distributor or broadcaster and not being allowed in a major way to participate in developing and benefitting from the exciting potential revenue beyond some potentially small, predetermined percentage, "Depending on where we are in the food chain, we may not be involved with the incremental advertising revenue associated." He added, "However, the sponsors have been wonderful in protecting us [the content creators] and our position."
A huge question all execs are faced with these days, and I've yet to hear anyone claim to have the answer, is "Does Social impact ratings? " Most people agree that while a hot Twitter hashtag might be able to have some positive effect, Facebook has been really late to the game in its outreach to entertainment properties. Silverman pointed out that "trending" shows seem to get a bump in ratings, but is that because of the trending or because they are innately popular and/or getting a big ad spend/PR push? (Facebook seems to be getting the message; they sent Strategic Partner Manager, Nick Grudin, to La recently to listen and improve the conversation with content creators.)
Get*This CEO, Lisa Farris added some sharp and savvy commentary to the panel with her experience running online product integration and direct sales for shows such as Scandal and Two Broke Girls . She stressed that the "educational component" is so important when dealing with the integration of product placement and commerce. Actually most everyone on the panel seemed to agree that a stronger educational push is required on all digital fronts from project finance to online merchandising. Many of the top execs controlling the purse strings and broadcast strategy are still way behind in their thinking. Bemoaned Silverman, "The success of online engagement still doesn't figure into the decision-making process. It's still all about the ratings."
The prevalent sentiment from the panelists was how the internet is a wonderful laboratory and should be used as such by content creators. Producers looking to integrate online more into their traditional content might want to consider this as they push the boundaries of integration:
"Data is sexy. Feed the analytics about keywords and sentiment back to your writers and you can enhance your story arc in real time." Marc Scarpa, SimplyNew Producer/Director, X Factor Pepsi Digital Preshow and Xtra Factor App
"Integrate. Test. Experience." Mat Corey, Cmo, Mass Relevance
"On-demand. Not demanding. Enhance, don't distract. Give the user what they want. Help the user interact, find, share, or enjoy. In the online space focus on evolution, not revolution." Kyle Brink, Head of Product, Viggle
"If you don't engage them, someone else will." David Jones, Evp Marketing, Shazam
Several app makers and software companies made short presentations about how they help content creators "socialize" their content, but the presentation by David Jones, Evp of marketing at Shazam really knocked my socks off. Shazam is an app that resides on cell-phones and tablets and allows users to scan within 5-10 seconds any song they hear and then leads them to information about the song, including links to buy it on iTunes and other online retailers. What I never realized was that they are now working directly with films and TV shows to deliver trailers and second-screen content to users through the Shazam interface; not only providing huge engagement numbers, but leading to direct commerce as well.
I caught David afterwards and asked him a couple of questions:
Zack Coffman: What kinds of tools does Shazam offer a filmmaker? Any good ideas or strategies you can recommend?
David Jones: We work with the film maker or distributor to build custom second-screen experiences for 1 or several moments of a film, or even the entire film. For example, with TV programming (and just as easily with a film), we can synchronize a whole host of content and features that are available on the second screen, synchronized (or not) to precise moments in the movie. Our audio content recognition technology makes this possible, as we know exactly where the viewer is in the film (or any content for that matter). If the film maker has the additional bonus content or second-screen experience in mind, we can make it happen.
As far as ideas to recommend, the possibilities are endless. Bonus content of many kinds, but for example, additional camera angles, synched content (Cms or live-produced), Interactive content (polls, voting / what's hot, trending), non-synched complementary content (all kinds), additional story lines / video vignettes, behind the scenes / making of videos, sweepstakes / once-in-a-lifetime experiences, instigating more social media conversations from all of this great engagement – the list goes on.
Zc: What's a film oriented campaign that you're especially proud of?
DJ: Sony Pictures has worked with Shazam to promote the theatrical release of over a half-dozen films in the last year, including great movies like Men In Black 3 and Spiderman. We help turn interest into action, turning a 30-second spot into viewing the full trailer, accessing bonus content, and buying tickets through Fandango right there on your mobile phone. It's simple, but effective. The Glee Movie on DVD was Shazam-enabled where several different scenes in the movie could be Shazam'd to unlock bonus content. I could rattle off quite the list of theatrical and home entertainment releases, but suffice it to say, this is one of many natural fits for mobile activation of movie promos.
Zc: Is there any plan to develop a suite of tools or an initiative to work more with indies considering their particular needs and parameters? Any thoughts or advice to add?
DJ: As far as tools and support for indie filmmakers, while we are leaders in this space, it's also early days. While we've done scores of TV show and live event implementations and hundreds of TV ad campaigns, and produced live, custom second-screen experiences for the biggest live TV events in the Us like the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and some of the biggest shows in television like American Idol, a lot of what we've done to date is custom built for clients and partners. We'll make it easier to execute over time, but the most important thing to do is start dreaming now about how you can enhance and expand the storyline to the second screen — synchronously and/or asynchronously — and get started.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
- 7/26/2013
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
In an effort to understand the ever complex confluence of content and commerce that is the movie business I attended my second Massive Advertising Summit presented by Variety; always a good event featuring the captains of industry in media marketing. I'd heard that Google was releasing a white paper about the correlation between search traffic, trailers, and box office results so I wanted to get the information straight from the source. Jennifer Prince , Google's Head of Industry, Media & Entertainment was a headliner at the event and gave a nice presentation of her findings along with a Q&A led by Gordon Paddison of Stradella Road.
The entire whitepaper is available here, but I will summarize some of my favorite bits and hopefully it will underline the importance not only of savvy paid search leading up to a film's launch but also remind that Seo techniques (search engine optimization) are even more crucial than ever for the independent filmmaker/distributor. It's important to state that this paper, while using real research to explore its premise, wouldn't be much of a whitepaper if it wasn't also a great marketing tool for Google's search products.
Titled "Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search June 2013", the report was drafted primarily by Reggie Panaligan, Sr. Analytical Lead, Google, Media & Entertainment. Panaligan states, "In this paper, we will discuss how search query patterns and paid clicks can help us in the quest to quantify ‘movie magic,’ and ultimately predict box office performance." Here's some of the points I found most interesting, with my comments in italics:
· On average, moviegoers consult 13 sources before they make a decision about what movie to see.
For indies it's important to hit as many blogs and social networks as possible. You need to "touch" your potential viewer 13 times!
· Trailer-related search trends four weeks out from a movie release provide strong predictive power for opening weekend box office revenue.
· Trailers remain one of the most influential sources throughout the decision process to see a movie. In fact, we found that trailers are the most searched for category of information upon discovery of a new film.
· Trailer searches, whether on Google or YouTube, signify strong intent -- searchers are actively seeking a sample of the film. Thus, it’s no surprise that trailer-related search query volume holds strong predictive power. But when is this ‘power’ at its strongest? In a recent survey, we found that most moviegoers learn about a film four weeks in advance, often in conjunction with a major trailer drop or beginning of a major video ad campaign.
· So what does this mean for movie marketers? The availability of content, specifically trailers, is important for moviegoers at all stages of the decision process. Earlier searches four weeks from release week for a film have the strongest link to intent despite a lower overall search volume, presumably because the most ardent fans are among the first to search for specific film’s content.
I was happy to see this much attention being paid to trailers because it's one of the areas that indies can really make an impact with minimal dollars. A compelling trailer done with smart Seo can go right up against the big boys by getting found in all the right places as well as being picked up by more mainstream blogs and YouTube networks specializing in trailers. Make a strong trailer and "officially" release it one month out. An effective teaser trailer can start building early awareness for your film, but have something awesome and New to show one month before you release the film.
· Since 48% of moviegoers decide what film to watch the day they purchase their ticket, it’s important to have a continued search presence through opening weekend and beyond.
Save your pennies and nickels to ramp up long-tail search keyword advertising on weekends to snatch up anyone who might be considering a film rental or download.
· Additionally, during traditionally slow periods in the box office, generic non-title keywords over-index, signaling moviegoers’ (a) general curiosity and lesser awareness of films being released during this period, and (b) broadening of their consideration set to include multiple titles.
· For film marketers, understanding these patterns can present a substantial opportunity. By adjusting search marketing strategies to these trends, marketers can either capture the attention of the “curious” moviegoer.
This might be the most telling detail of all for indies. It's important to look at the studios' release patterns and launch your film during a quiet time in the schedule. Trying to go up against Game of Thrones on Sunday night isn't so easy (unless you counter-program), but when it's done for the summer you might be able to sneak in there.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
The entire whitepaper is available here, but I will summarize some of my favorite bits and hopefully it will underline the importance not only of savvy paid search leading up to a film's launch but also remind that Seo techniques (search engine optimization) are even more crucial than ever for the independent filmmaker/distributor. It's important to state that this paper, while using real research to explore its premise, wouldn't be much of a whitepaper if it wasn't also a great marketing tool for Google's search products.
Titled "Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search June 2013", the report was drafted primarily by Reggie Panaligan, Sr. Analytical Lead, Google, Media & Entertainment. Panaligan states, "In this paper, we will discuss how search query patterns and paid clicks can help us in the quest to quantify ‘movie magic,’ and ultimately predict box office performance." Here's some of the points I found most interesting, with my comments in italics:
· On average, moviegoers consult 13 sources before they make a decision about what movie to see.
For indies it's important to hit as many blogs and social networks as possible. You need to "touch" your potential viewer 13 times!
· Trailer-related search trends four weeks out from a movie release provide strong predictive power for opening weekend box office revenue.
· Trailers remain one of the most influential sources throughout the decision process to see a movie. In fact, we found that trailers are the most searched for category of information upon discovery of a new film.
· Trailer searches, whether on Google or YouTube, signify strong intent -- searchers are actively seeking a sample of the film. Thus, it’s no surprise that trailer-related search query volume holds strong predictive power. But when is this ‘power’ at its strongest? In a recent survey, we found that most moviegoers learn about a film four weeks in advance, often in conjunction with a major trailer drop or beginning of a major video ad campaign.
· So what does this mean for movie marketers? The availability of content, specifically trailers, is important for moviegoers at all stages of the decision process. Earlier searches four weeks from release week for a film have the strongest link to intent despite a lower overall search volume, presumably because the most ardent fans are among the first to search for specific film’s content.
I was happy to see this much attention being paid to trailers because it's one of the areas that indies can really make an impact with minimal dollars. A compelling trailer done with smart Seo can go right up against the big boys by getting found in all the right places as well as being picked up by more mainstream blogs and YouTube networks specializing in trailers. Make a strong trailer and "officially" release it one month out. An effective teaser trailer can start building early awareness for your film, but have something awesome and New to show one month before you release the film.
· Since 48% of moviegoers decide what film to watch the day they purchase their ticket, it’s important to have a continued search presence through opening weekend and beyond.
Save your pennies and nickels to ramp up long-tail search keyword advertising on weekends to snatch up anyone who might be considering a film rental or download.
· Additionally, during traditionally slow periods in the box office, generic non-title keywords over-index, signaling moviegoers’ (a) general curiosity and lesser awareness of films being released during this period, and (b) broadening of their consideration set to include multiple titles.
· For film marketers, understanding these patterns can present a substantial opportunity. By adjusting search marketing strategies to these trends, marketers can either capture the attention of the “curious” moviegoer.
This might be the most telling detail of all for indies. It's important to look at the studios' release patterns and launch your film during a quiet time in the schedule. Trying to go up against Game of Thrones on Sunday night isn't so easy (unless you counter-program), but when it's done for the summer you might be able to sneak in there.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
- 6/24/2013
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
"Manage change by provoking it." Alexander Manu , Keynote Speaker, Stream Conference 2013. If there were one line I could repeat about the mood at the inaugural Stream Conference from Brunico, this would be it. I have no illusions that the world of traditional "filmmaking" and the digital arena are converging so I try to attend as many new media and advertising conferences as I can. The panels are interesting, but I most enjoy mixing with the other attendees to get a boots on the ground perspective from the digital trenches.
Stream bills itself as the "world’s first marketplace and conference for Internet TV originals...bringing the independent production community together with the leading Internet TV development executives, media agencies and brands to network, do business and learn how to work together more effectively."
A very ambitious mission for a first-time event. I have to give them credit though, the Brunico team (responsible for the venerable RealScreen and KidScreen conferences) had quite a line up of speakers and execs for the panels and speed pitch sessions offered to attendees.
A few takeaways from Stream:
"You can distribute your content if you believe you can." Alexander Manu, Keynote speaker, Stream.
Billed as a "provocative author, speaker and leading practitioner in the field of strategic foresight," in all honesty Alexander Manu provided one of the best keynote presentations I've heard in years; on the level of Ted. More than a couple times I shared a Mind=Blown moment with fellow attendee Will Keenan from Maker Studios as Manu discussed his research on behavioral space and the changing context of content delivery and creation. Manu posits that "the transformation from linear to Internet TV is not a tactical challenge, but a strategic one." Hmm... See what I mean? The audio is available free here.
Most of the following panels were excellent and featured high-level execs from the likes of Yahoo! Inc., Paramount Insurge, Wme, Funny or Die, and others; with titles such as, "Agents and Managers for the Digital Age", "Meet the Newest Heavyweights to Enter Original Online Video", and "The Art of the Syndication Deal".
However as an active YouTube creator I was most interested in what the heavyweights from the McN (Multi-Channel Network) panel had to say.
Moderated by Drew Buckley (COO Electus), the panel featured Barry Blumberg (Evp Alloy Digital/President Smosh), Brett Bouttier (COO Awesomeness TV), Sarah Penna (Co-founder Big Frame), Aaron DeBevoise (Evp Machinima), George Strompolos (CEO Fullscreen), and Chris Williams (Cdo Maker Studios).
The debate rages over what these new entities "MCNs" really are and what they bring to the content table. Some are essentially aggregators of similar YouTube channels that make it easier for audiences and advertisers to find similar content to enjoy or a particular demographic to target, and others have morphed into neo-traditional entertainment content production studios. What I found most interesting about this panel was that while it was supposed to provide insight as to specifically how MCNs make money for their content partners, it morphed into a discussion of how these studios are working hard to actually move their content Off YouTube, or at least develop content that lives in more traditional spaces than YouTube exclusively. This was literally on the heels of a fascinating blog post by YouTube personality and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis decrying what he called the unfair business relationship between Google and it's content partners. Read his post here and feel free to give your two cents' worth below!
The MCNs understandably have to walk a fine line, but they all admitted to also be working on taking their content to other platforms and/or traditional TV, if not off YouTube altogether. Lucas Shaw has his own thoughtful take on the McN's discussion here.
I think a diversified strategy usually tends to be best anyhow, but in the end good content will always win. If one platform or distributor doesn't want it, keep shopping it until you find the right home for it. We use YouTube to study the market, create interest, and even make some money on the side. Our Ouija movie I Am ZoZo was essentially incubated on YouTube and we made changes to the film's script based on the demographic and viewer interaction we were seeing on our viral video.
Even while admitting that they are always trying to diversify, Barry Blumberg Evp of Alloy Digital and Smosh made a pretty simple argument in favor of staying with YouTube on some level, "Say what you want, but YouTube doesn't want to own your content like the TV networks do." A powerful distinction! With YouTube rolling out subscription channels and continuing to work on it's VOD service I wouldn't count them out as a viable long-form distribution platform. When you factor in the cost of hosting and streaming your own video content and creating a massive user-friendly social network, YouTube's terms hold their own against any broadcast deal (last time I checked NBC wasn't handing out advertising rev-shares to indie producers. or letting them own 100% of their content.)
Random quote for thought: "DVDs are still the biggest moneymaker," Brett Bouttier COO, AwesomenessTV on their DVD release of the "All Around the World" concert film about boy-band phenoms Mindless Behavior. It's true, DVDs are still hanging around so don't give up on them yet!
Interesting startup of the day:
There are a million new services popping up promising to help filmmakers get distribution or providing some automated service that is supposed to streamline the insanity of film production. As a habit I make it a point to try out most of them if for no other purpose than to see what these services think I need. As a "music licensing and technology company that provides creative music licensing solutions for all media" music licensing service Audiosocket seems to have great potential for indie filmmakers and established producers alike. I sat down with toppers Jenn Miller and Edward Averdiek and posed a couple of questions about their new service.
Zack Coffman: How can your services help producers and content creators deal with the conundrum of music licensing?
Jenn Miller: All music is pre-cleared for any media, so you can quickly and easily find and then license music to meet your needs at the click of a button using our technology.
Zc: What kind of music do you have available? There are stock libraries out there already. What makes Audiosocket different?
Jm: Our curation strategy is what differentiates us, we have a team that scouts emerging artists using blogs, venues and festivals to find great acts. As well, we just partnered up with Cue Songs, a company founded by Peter Gabriel and Ed Averdieck, to bring their well known artists to our roster of great indie artists! Their music will be available this fall.
Zc: Is it affordable?
Jm: Yes. We strive to get our artists paid fairly while using a fresh perspective on what licensing rates should be based on where their media is being used. No one will pay even $100 for a track being used for a personal video of their kids playing soccer to share with friends and family. But they're very happy to pay $2. Likewise, a wedding videographer will not pay $100 a track for a single use when they may make $500-$2000. We understand that and have priced these licenses accordingly.
Zc: What about syndication, copyright notification systems and Content ID?
Jm: Our licenses can cover all web media, just make sure you get the right license. We're also in early beta with a license identification technology which authenticates a license across the web. It will call back a license from anywhere on the web, validating its clearance rights so for those using the system, your work will not be claimed, taken down, contested, etc.
Zc: How did Audiosocket come into being?
Jm: While running an extreme sports organization, I was clearing music for these films by famous artists when I discovered a much easier approach. Instead of trying to track down and get return calls from dozens of rights holders in a timely manner within a fixed budget, I started working with my now business partner, licensing music from touring bands he'd booked for shows at one of his venues. My clients got affordable music from the freshest emerging artists and their movies helped propel these bands careers. And my job of clearing content was simplified. Win-win-win. So my business partner and I, on a whim one night over margaritas decided to start Audiosocket.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
Stream bills itself as the "world’s first marketplace and conference for Internet TV originals...bringing the independent production community together with the leading Internet TV development executives, media agencies and brands to network, do business and learn how to work together more effectively."
A very ambitious mission for a first-time event. I have to give them credit though, the Brunico team (responsible for the venerable RealScreen and KidScreen conferences) had quite a line up of speakers and execs for the panels and speed pitch sessions offered to attendees.
A few takeaways from Stream:
"You can distribute your content if you believe you can." Alexander Manu, Keynote speaker, Stream.
Billed as a "provocative author, speaker and leading practitioner in the field of strategic foresight," in all honesty Alexander Manu provided one of the best keynote presentations I've heard in years; on the level of Ted. More than a couple times I shared a Mind=Blown moment with fellow attendee Will Keenan from Maker Studios as Manu discussed his research on behavioral space and the changing context of content delivery and creation. Manu posits that "the transformation from linear to Internet TV is not a tactical challenge, but a strategic one." Hmm... See what I mean? The audio is available free here.
Most of the following panels were excellent and featured high-level execs from the likes of Yahoo! Inc., Paramount Insurge, Wme, Funny or Die, and others; with titles such as, "Agents and Managers for the Digital Age", "Meet the Newest Heavyweights to Enter Original Online Video", and "The Art of the Syndication Deal".
However as an active YouTube creator I was most interested in what the heavyweights from the McN (Multi-Channel Network) panel had to say.
Moderated by Drew Buckley (COO Electus), the panel featured Barry Blumberg (Evp Alloy Digital/President Smosh), Brett Bouttier (COO Awesomeness TV), Sarah Penna (Co-founder Big Frame), Aaron DeBevoise (Evp Machinima), George Strompolos (CEO Fullscreen), and Chris Williams (Cdo Maker Studios).
The debate rages over what these new entities "MCNs" really are and what they bring to the content table. Some are essentially aggregators of similar YouTube channels that make it easier for audiences and advertisers to find similar content to enjoy or a particular demographic to target, and others have morphed into neo-traditional entertainment content production studios. What I found most interesting about this panel was that while it was supposed to provide insight as to specifically how MCNs make money for their content partners, it morphed into a discussion of how these studios are working hard to actually move their content Off YouTube, or at least develop content that lives in more traditional spaces than YouTube exclusively. This was literally on the heels of a fascinating blog post by YouTube personality and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis decrying what he called the unfair business relationship between Google and it's content partners. Read his post here and feel free to give your two cents' worth below!
The MCNs understandably have to walk a fine line, but they all admitted to also be working on taking their content to other platforms and/or traditional TV, if not off YouTube altogether. Lucas Shaw has his own thoughtful take on the McN's discussion here.
I think a diversified strategy usually tends to be best anyhow, but in the end good content will always win. If one platform or distributor doesn't want it, keep shopping it until you find the right home for it. We use YouTube to study the market, create interest, and even make some money on the side. Our Ouija movie I Am ZoZo was essentially incubated on YouTube and we made changes to the film's script based on the demographic and viewer interaction we were seeing on our viral video.
Even while admitting that they are always trying to diversify, Barry Blumberg Evp of Alloy Digital and Smosh made a pretty simple argument in favor of staying with YouTube on some level, "Say what you want, but YouTube doesn't want to own your content like the TV networks do." A powerful distinction! With YouTube rolling out subscription channels and continuing to work on it's VOD service I wouldn't count them out as a viable long-form distribution platform. When you factor in the cost of hosting and streaming your own video content and creating a massive user-friendly social network, YouTube's terms hold their own against any broadcast deal (last time I checked NBC wasn't handing out advertising rev-shares to indie producers. or letting them own 100% of their content.)
Random quote for thought: "DVDs are still the biggest moneymaker," Brett Bouttier COO, AwesomenessTV on their DVD release of the "All Around the World" concert film about boy-band phenoms Mindless Behavior. It's true, DVDs are still hanging around so don't give up on them yet!
Interesting startup of the day:
There are a million new services popping up promising to help filmmakers get distribution or providing some automated service that is supposed to streamline the insanity of film production. As a habit I make it a point to try out most of them if for no other purpose than to see what these services think I need. As a "music licensing and technology company that provides creative music licensing solutions for all media" music licensing service Audiosocket seems to have great potential for indie filmmakers and established producers alike. I sat down with toppers Jenn Miller and Edward Averdiek and posed a couple of questions about their new service.
Zack Coffman: How can your services help producers and content creators deal with the conundrum of music licensing?
Jenn Miller: All music is pre-cleared for any media, so you can quickly and easily find and then license music to meet your needs at the click of a button using our technology.
Zc: What kind of music do you have available? There are stock libraries out there already. What makes Audiosocket different?
Jm: Our curation strategy is what differentiates us, we have a team that scouts emerging artists using blogs, venues and festivals to find great acts. As well, we just partnered up with Cue Songs, a company founded by Peter Gabriel and Ed Averdieck, to bring their well known artists to our roster of great indie artists! Their music will be available this fall.
Zc: Is it affordable?
Jm: Yes. We strive to get our artists paid fairly while using a fresh perspective on what licensing rates should be based on where their media is being used. No one will pay even $100 for a track being used for a personal video of their kids playing soccer to share with friends and family. But they're very happy to pay $2. Likewise, a wedding videographer will not pay $100 a track for a single use when they may make $500-$2000. We understand that and have priced these licenses accordingly.
Zc: What about syndication, copyright notification systems and Content ID?
Jm: Our licenses can cover all web media, just make sure you get the right license. We're also in early beta with a license identification technology which authenticates a license across the web. It will call back a license from anywhere on the web, validating its clearance rights so for those using the system, your work will not be claimed, taken down, contested, etc.
Zc: How did Audiosocket come into being?
Jm: While running an extreme sports organization, I was clearing music for these films by famous artists when I discovered a much easier approach. Instead of trying to track down and get return calls from dozens of rights holders in a timely manner within a fixed budget, I started working with my now business partner, licensing music from touring bands he'd booked for shows at one of his venues. My clients got affordable music from the freshest emerging artists and their movies helped propel these bands careers. And my job of clearing content was simplified. Win-win-win. So my business partner and I, on a whim one night over margaritas decided to start Audiosocket.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
- 6/20/2013
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
Image Entertainment, an Rlj Entertainment (Nasdaq: Rlje) brand, has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney. The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo … Continue reading →...
- 5/18/2013
- by HorrorNews.net
- Horror News
Image Entertainment has gotten the U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s I Am Zozo, a horror movie concerning a Ouija board. For more information, read the press release below.
Cannes, France, May 17, 2013 – Image Entertainment, an Rlj Entertainment (Nasdaq: Rlje) brand, has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney. The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment made today’s announcement.
“Di Lalla’s background as a documentary filmmaker...
Cannes, France, May 17, 2013 – Image Entertainment, an Rlj Entertainment (Nasdaq: Rlje) brand, has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney. The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment made today’s announcement.
“Di Lalla’s background as a documentary filmmaker...
- 5/17/2013
- by Andy Greene
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
The Ouija board-based spooker I Am ZoZo has had some luck at Cannes as the mighty oracle of demonic activity has spelled out Image Entertainment! Yep, the flick is officially being released here Stateside. Read on for details.
From the Press Release
Image Entertainment, an Rlj Entertainment brand, has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney. The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment ,made today’s announcement.
"Di Lalla's...
From the Press Release
Image Entertainment, an Rlj Entertainment brand, has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney. The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment ,made today’s announcement.
"Di Lalla's...
- 5/17/2013
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
Image Entertainment has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney.
The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment made today’s announcement.
Read more...
The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment made today’s announcement.
Read more...
- 5/17/2013
- shocktillyoudrop.com
We have more horror acquisition news from Cannes. Image Entertainment just announced that they acquired I Am ZoZo, a movie that involves five young friends who summon a demon when using a Ouija board:
“Cannes, France, May 17, 2013 – Image Entertainment, an Rlj Entertainment (Nasdaq: Rlje) brand, has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney. The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment made today’s announcement.
“Di Lalla’s background as...
“Cannes, France, May 17, 2013 – Image Entertainment, an Rlj Entertainment (Nasdaq: Rlje) brand, has acquired U.S. rights to Scott Di Lalla’s Ouija board thriller I Am ZoZo from Outsider Pictures and One World Studios Ltd. The film was written and directed by documentarian Scott Di Lalla (Choppertown: The Sinners) and stars Kelly McLaren, Courtney Foxworthy, Demetrius Sager, Caleb DeBattista, and Caleb Courtney. The film was produced by Zack Coffman and executive produced by Martin Perlberger. I Am ZoZo was filmed entirely on Super 8mm and recently received Best Feature and Audience Choice Awards at the 2012 Us Super 8 Film Festival. Bill Bromiley, Chief Acquisitions Officer for Image Entertainment made today’s announcement.
“Di Lalla’s background as...
- 5/17/2013
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
I've been attending a lot of conferences lately, in an effort to learn more about how the various cogs in the wheel are reacting to the disruptive technologies and content platforms causing so much animated discussion at the highest levels of media producers and distributors. I heard a lot of interesting comments at the Variety TV Summit a couple weeks ago, but two really stuck with me. Thought I'd put them out there for discussion today:
1. On the demise (or not?) of DVD sales...
In her keynote at the Summit, Cheryl Idell of Nielsen pointed out that DVD watching has essentially remained constant for the past several years. As a filmmaker I found this interesting because of the nose-dive taken by sell-through DVDs. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
Note - Following the summit my company (One World Studios Ltd.) sent out a poll to several thousand of our customers/fans and asked them straight up if they still wanted DVDs. We were shocked that 66% of them said yes. The large majority of the rest picked $9.99 download over $2.99 rental. I've suspected for a while that the many platforms offering this type of service to filmmakers were going to have trouble really monetizing it. Louis Ck, proved that downloads are the way to go (his are just $5), but a studio exec recently told me that a big challenge for them is not offering products (films) for download too cheaply, despite the apparent pressure to do so. Is the iTunes price just right? Has Louis undersold himself or hit the mark just right?
Question: Has anyone else out there had success or failure with this?
2. Even the big boys are using social and analytics to adjust their content...
"It takes longer for good series to find their audiences but catch-up and social drive complex dramatic series growth." Ed Carroll, COO, AMC Networks on the length of time that it takes for a series to really find its audience. He says his network doesn't follow the traditional model of instant ratings any more and places heavy bets on its tentpole series. Good news for writers/producers?
Marc Juris, COO, Tru TV followed later with this statement, "Season 1 is basically marketing for the show."
Coming from the indie feature world I never thought about this (Can a feature basically be marketing for a more successful sequel? Usually it's the other way around, no? A successful Part 1 leads to sequels.) How can this be applied to the online world of content and indie filmmaking? Seems like premiering a series online would be a great way to test it and gain analytics. If Part 1 can be made cheap enough, it could be used to build an audience for successive sequels.
Red Bull Media House topper Werner Brell said that they even go so far as to base the plot and content for subsequent shows on analytics insight gained in real time. I followed up with them and here's what they had to say about the viewer interaction component:
Zc: I was fascinated that you mentioned that you produce Red Bull series in "real time" based on analytics gleaned from previous shows. Do you have a specific example of something that was affected directly by the analytics?
Red Bull: The interactive web series Werner mentioned is called "Exit Vine."
Exit Vine" follows the journey of Natalie Lake, a singer/songwriter from the Midwest who moves to Los Angeles to start a band in pursuit of the "Hollywood Dream."
After each episode, the audience will help the band make a pivotal decision by casting a vote in the comment box. The next episode will be written based upon the most popular votes. Since the series debut, viewers have helped determine the name of the band -"Ambicide," the new bass player - "Sinon," and the music video that marks the beginning of a new chapter for the band.
A “bonus” video airs during the off weeks and features cast members performing tracks from the series and other behind the scenes moments. New episodes of “Exit Vine,” premiere every other Monday at 10am Pt on the Red Bull Music Channel.
So... Creating a good viral video could certainly be used to prove audience interest and gain demographical data about a subject before filming commences. Even using the data to fine-tune the story before filming.
Question: Is anyone else out there using their analytics to proactively fine-tune their content before or during delivery?
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. Zack is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
1. On the demise (or not?) of DVD sales...
In her keynote at the Summit, Cheryl Idell of Nielsen pointed out that DVD watching has essentially remained constant for the past several years. As a filmmaker I found this interesting because of the nose-dive taken by sell-through DVDs. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
Note - Following the summit my company (One World Studios Ltd.) sent out a poll to several thousand of our customers/fans and asked them straight up if they still wanted DVDs. We were shocked that 66% of them said yes. The large majority of the rest picked $9.99 download over $2.99 rental. I've suspected for a while that the many platforms offering this type of service to filmmakers were going to have trouble really monetizing it. Louis Ck, proved that downloads are the way to go (his are just $5), but a studio exec recently told me that a big challenge for them is not offering products (films) for download too cheaply, despite the apparent pressure to do so. Is the iTunes price just right? Has Louis undersold himself or hit the mark just right?
Question: Has anyone else out there had success or failure with this?
2. Even the big boys are using social and analytics to adjust their content...
"It takes longer for good series to find their audiences but catch-up and social drive complex dramatic series growth." Ed Carroll, COO, AMC Networks on the length of time that it takes for a series to really find its audience. He says his network doesn't follow the traditional model of instant ratings any more and places heavy bets on its tentpole series. Good news for writers/producers?
Marc Juris, COO, Tru TV followed later with this statement, "Season 1 is basically marketing for the show."
Coming from the indie feature world I never thought about this (Can a feature basically be marketing for a more successful sequel? Usually it's the other way around, no? A successful Part 1 leads to sequels.) How can this be applied to the online world of content and indie filmmaking? Seems like premiering a series online would be a great way to test it and gain analytics. If Part 1 can be made cheap enough, it could be used to build an audience for successive sequels.
Red Bull Media House topper Werner Brell said that they even go so far as to base the plot and content for subsequent shows on analytics insight gained in real time. I followed up with them and here's what they had to say about the viewer interaction component:
Zc: I was fascinated that you mentioned that you produce Red Bull series in "real time" based on analytics gleaned from previous shows. Do you have a specific example of something that was affected directly by the analytics?
Red Bull: The interactive web series Werner mentioned is called "Exit Vine."
Exit Vine" follows the journey of Natalie Lake, a singer/songwriter from the Midwest who moves to Los Angeles to start a band in pursuit of the "Hollywood Dream."
After each episode, the audience will help the band make a pivotal decision by casting a vote in the comment box. The next episode will be written based upon the most popular votes. Since the series debut, viewers have helped determine the name of the band -"Ambicide," the new bass player - "Sinon," and the music video that marks the beginning of a new chapter for the band.
A “bonus” video airs during the off weeks and features cast members performing tracks from the series and other behind the scenes moments. New episodes of “Exit Vine,” premiere every other Monday at 10am Pt on the Red Bull Music Channel.
So... Creating a good viral video could certainly be used to prove audience interest and gain demographical data about a subject before filming commences. Even using the data to fine-tune the story before filming.
Question: Is anyone else out there using their analytics to proactively fine-tune their content before or during delivery?
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. Zack is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
- 4/16/2013
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
Read Zack's second part of how films as content can get top space on the internet.
Zack's first part contained these useful tips:
• The Web is used predominantly as a learning tool, so in your content strategy it's imperative to build in an informative component - 46% of Web users want a question answered and 28% are looking for education on a topic.
• Use Yahoo! Ask and do research on what kinds of questions are being asked in your area (perfect for documentaries!) Build some of your blog posts around these questions and use your social media efforts to support this.
• Make an editorial calendar (download a free one here.) It's important to keep to a schedule so you can begin to create a lot of relative content on your site. Google loves this and it will increase your rankings along with getting you more followers/readers.
• Do comparisons and lists and find a way to make them relevant to your subject (yes, people still love top ten lists!) - Superman vs. Batman, Homeland vs. Zero Dark Thirty, you get the idea.
• "Interviews make you the expert." This is a great idea for content - find experts in your field and interview them. It's a win-win. This includes Video!
A couple weeks ago I did a post about Content Marketing for Filmmakers and after attending the intimate Digital Content Strategies Conference (Dcsc) last week, and realizing yet again - I Was The Only Filmmaker There - I thought I'd better keep banging the drum with a follow up. It's a new world out there and unless you have a ten picture deal at Warner Bros. it's important for everyone who creates filmed content to start learning how brands and marketers think.
Films are brands and unless you are making them for pure art's sake they have to be treated as commodities in a crowded marketplace. Getting to the top of YouTube is as much an exercise in brand awareness and Seo (Search Engine Optomization) as in creating great content. At the Variety TV Summit uberproducer Chuck Lorre was asked by an audience member whether he would consider opportunities in working directly with brands that want to finance content and series. He guffawed and said, "It sounds horrible!" ...Easy to say when you are at the top of the broadcast food chain.
Proof is in the pudding: Just this week, a focused Content Marketing discussion came in handy and helped convince a distributor to raise his offer on our new film by 15% because he admitted that they are having a hard time cracking YouTube and social. I offered some advice and said my team would be more than happy to support his staff during the release; twenty-minutes later he sent an email with a higher offer. That said, here's some takeaways from Global Strategic Management Institute's Dcsc.
Two days of Content Marketing - Even though it was Gsmi's first outing for putting on a content strategy-focused event (they specialize mainly in Social Media Strategy events) everyone was impressed by the level of speakers and attendees that attended. Online marketing luminaries such as DeAnn Wright (Lead Content Strategist for eBay), Jonathan Perelman (Buzzfeed, formerly of Google), and Cheemin Bo-Linn (big-data guru at Peritus Partners) shared tips and strategies with high-level representatives from Hershey's, AutoTrader.com, A+E Networks, and others.
Lead Experience Architect Jonathon Colman of Rei was hilarious and his presentation offered a lot of candid insight into the way a global independent brand like Rei uses content to connect with its loyal consumers. He made a great point by saying, "Write from your audience's need out, not from the keywords in." He's referring to Google's keyword generator tool which all SEOs use to determine what words people are searching for on Google and how that affects whether a web-page is indexed highly or not. He added, "Search engines reward you for building brands, not using keywords." What he's talking about is what I like to call the "art of content marketing". As Google's algorithms get smarter and smarter, it's not as easy as it used to be to game the system to get a high ranking (thank God!) The techniques of basic Seo still apply, but engaging, relative Content is more and more important.
Brands are becoming media companies - Jeff Nowak of savvy new content agency Rocket Man Digital (previously of General Mills) gave an insightful look into how a massive brand is literally financing and distributing content. His presentation offered step-by-step examples of how the big boys at General Mills create media and content strategy. (I had no idea they owned shows like Bewitched and Third Rock From the Sun!)
Social Media and Content Integration - Pam Didner, Global Marketing Strategist for Intel offered her solutions for integrating compelling content into a social marketing strategy. The audience was impressed by her candidness when she openly admitted that while "Intel does a lot of things right, sometimes they really don't." Her presentation showed concrete examples of using raw footage (behind-the-scenes) as additional content around a campaign or center-piece production. All those DVD extras from five years ago? Upload them to your YouTube channel Now! Clips of your actors goofing off on set? Upload it now. Pam is also a proponent of "Think big. Distribute small." Once you have your high-concept content, whether it's a whole film or just a publicity stunt, it's important to reach out on the small social levels directly to your fans and supporters to prepare them for the actual release of the content. She describes how one piece of event content can have many different smaller and engaing pieces of social interaction pointing to it.
More insight into the big boys - DeAnn Wright, Lead Content Strategist at eBay gave a very forthright and step-by-step instructions on how eBay approaches its content strategy and site design. This presentation alone would have been worth the price of admission!
Veteran Content Strategist Ahava Leibtag's presentation really summed up Content Marketing by pointing out that it involves all types of content surrounding a topic - She reminds us to ask the following to create an effective content marketing strategy:
What does my audience need to know?
What are the best content types to get those messages across?
What technology platforms make the most sense? Which social media tools do we us?
How did we do? Can we do better?
How are we caring for our brand across the Web and within the ecosystem of content in our organizations?
Download her "Creating Valuable Content Checklist".
Super useful!
Ahava finished with a great quote from Charles Darwin that pretty much sums up how modern indie filmmakers need to think,
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change."
I'm going to keep banging this drum. Feel free to join me.
Please Comment with your own experiences and thoughts below.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
Zack's first part contained these useful tips:
• The Web is used predominantly as a learning tool, so in your content strategy it's imperative to build in an informative component - 46% of Web users want a question answered and 28% are looking for education on a topic.
• Use Yahoo! Ask and do research on what kinds of questions are being asked in your area (perfect for documentaries!) Build some of your blog posts around these questions and use your social media efforts to support this.
• Make an editorial calendar (download a free one here.) It's important to keep to a schedule so you can begin to create a lot of relative content on your site. Google loves this and it will increase your rankings along with getting you more followers/readers.
• Do comparisons and lists and find a way to make them relevant to your subject (yes, people still love top ten lists!) - Superman vs. Batman, Homeland vs. Zero Dark Thirty, you get the idea.
• "Interviews make you the expert." This is a great idea for content - find experts in your field and interview them. It's a win-win. This includes Video!
A couple weeks ago I did a post about Content Marketing for Filmmakers and after attending the intimate Digital Content Strategies Conference (Dcsc) last week, and realizing yet again - I Was The Only Filmmaker There - I thought I'd better keep banging the drum with a follow up. It's a new world out there and unless you have a ten picture deal at Warner Bros. it's important for everyone who creates filmed content to start learning how brands and marketers think.
Films are brands and unless you are making them for pure art's sake they have to be treated as commodities in a crowded marketplace. Getting to the top of YouTube is as much an exercise in brand awareness and Seo (Search Engine Optomization) as in creating great content. At the Variety TV Summit uberproducer Chuck Lorre was asked by an audience member whether he would consider opportunities in working directly with brands that want to finance content and series. He guffawed and said, "It sounds horrible!" ...Easy to say when you are at the top of the broadcast food chain.
Proof is in the pudding: Just this week, a focused Content Marketing discussion came in handy and helped convince a distributor to raise his offer on our new film by 15% because he admitted that they are having a hard time cracking YouTube and social. I offered some advice and said my team would be more than happy to support his staff during the release; twenty-minutes later he sent an email with a higher offer. That said, here's some takeaways from Global Strategic Management Institute's Dcsc.
Two days of Content Marketing - Even though it was Gsmi's first outing for putting on a content strategy-focused event (they specialize mainly in Social Media Strategy events) everyone was impressed by the level of speakers and attendees that attended. Online marketing luminaries such as DeAnn Wright (Lead Content Strategist for eBay), Jonathan Perelman (Buzzfeed, formerly of Google), and Cheemin Bo-Linn (big-data guru at Peritus Partners) shared tips and strategies with high-level representatives from Hershey's, AutoTrader.com, A+E Networks, and others.
Lead Experience Architect Jonathon Colman of Rei was hilarious and his presentation offered a lot of candid insight into the way a global independent brand like Rei uses content to connect with its loyal consumers. He made a great point by saying, "Write from your audience's need out, not from the keywords in." He's referring to Google's keyword generator tool which all SEOs use to determine what words people are searching for on Google and how that affects whether a web-page is indexed highly or not. He added, "Search engines reward you for building brands, not using keywords." What he's talking about is what I like to call the "art of content marketing". As Google's algorithms get smarter and smarter, it's not as easy as it used to be to game the system to get a high ranking (thank God!) The techniques of basic Seo still apply, but engaging, relative Content is more and more important.
Brands are becoming media companies - Jeff Nowak of savvy new content agency Rocket Man Digital (previously of General Mills) gave an insightful look into how a massive brand is literally financing and distributing content. His presentation offered step-by-step examples of how the big boys at General Mills create media and content strategy. (I had no idea they owned shows like Bewitched and Third Rock From the Sun!)
Social Media and Content Integration - Pam Didner, Global Marketing Strategist for Intel offered her solutions for integrating compelling content into a social marketing strategy. The audience was impressed by her candidness when she openly admitted that while "Intel does a lot of things right, sometimes they really don't." Her presentation showed concrete examples of using raw footage (behind-the-scenes) as additional content around a campaign or center-piece production. All those DVD extras from five years ago? Upload them to your YouTube channel Now! Clips of your actors goofing off on set? Upload it now. Pam is also a proponent of "Think big. Distribute small." Once you have your high-concept content, whether it's a whole film or just a publicity stunt, it's important to reach out on the small social levels directly to your fans and supporters to prepare them for the actual release of the content. She describes how one piece of event content can have many different smaller and engaing pieces of social interaction pointing to it.
More insight into the big boys - DeAnn Wright, Lead Content Strategist at eBay gave a very forthright and step-by-step instructions on how eBay approaches its content strategy and site design. This presentation alone would have been worth the price of admission!
Veteran Content Strategist Ahava Leibtag's presentation really summed up Content Marketing by pointing out that it involves all types of content surrounding a topic - She reminds us to ask the following to create an effective content marketing strategy:
What does my audience need to know?
What are the best content types to get those messages across?
What technology platforms make the most sense? Which social media tools do we us?
How did we do? Can we do better?
How are we caring for our brand across the Web and within the ecosystem of content in our organizations?
Download her "Creating Valuable Content Checklist".
Super useful!
Ahava finished with a great quote from Charles Darwin that pretty much sums up how modern indie filmmakers need to think,
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change."
I'm going to keep banging this drum. Feel free to join me.
Please Comment with your own experiences and thoughts below.
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content, Distribution, & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He is an award-winning producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown.
- 4/4/2013
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
We all know by now that we should have a blog about our film, social sites, and YouTube channels, but how should we use these to create compelling content that will actually drive views, likes, and sales of our films? I attended the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego to see what marketing professionals had to say about the industry's newest buzzword "content marketing". I was both excited and dismayed that I was literally the only film person at the event. The film community needs to start thinking like marketers if we want to stay relevant.
I believe strongly in Seo for video and film as a mandatory activity for filmmakers (big and small). If you can rank highly on Google for various keywords related to your film it's possible to develop a large audience and even revenue before spending any marketing money. To that end I attended Arnie Kuenn's session How to Win at Search, Social, and Content Marketing.
Arnie runs a company called Vertical Measures, specializing in Seo. He's a very good speaker and pointed out some interesting data about how people use the 'net and search. See his Powerpoint presentation below:
Some takeaways from Arnie's session:
The Web is used predominantly as a learning tool, so in your content strategy it's imperative to build in an informative component - 46% of Web users want a question answered and 28% are looking for education on a topic. Use Yahoo! Ask and do research on what kinds of questions are being asked in your area (perfect for documentaries!) Build some of your blog posts around these questions and use your social media efforts to support this. Make an editorial calendar (download a free one here.) It's important to keep to a schedule so you can begin to create a lot of relative content on your site. Google loves this and it will increase your rankings along with getting you more followers/readers. Do comparisons and lists and find a way to make them relevant to your subject (yes, people still love top ten lists!) - Superman vs. Batman, Homeland vs. Zero Dark Thirty, you get the idea. "Interviews make you the expert." This is a great idea for content - find experts in your field and interview them. It's a win-win. This includes Video!
Content is Gold! was an entertaining session hosted by FusionSpark Media topper Russell Sparkman. Sparkman evangelizes that marketers need to focus on creating compelling content because, "Whoever has the best content wins." As filmmakers, we already know that right? It's easy to forget that in the process of making a short, feature, pilot, or music video we have the potential for tons of repurposed content that can be used to drive traffic and create interest in our projects and in ourselves as creatives. Sparkman's six observations on content's worth:
Content is Valuable - All that effort and hard work can be used over and over! Content is Conductive - Good content leads viewers to other good content. Content is Currency - It can be sold, bought, and traded. Content is Malleable - Images, text, video, and audio can all be reshaped, stretched, and mashed into new content over and over again. (Take a lesson from the studios!) Content is Bling - Quality content draws attention. Content gives Status - The holders of the best and most content attain higher levels of influence. Content is the Mother Lode - It all starts with content, and we're the creators of content! Take heart and start repurposing your content now.
Daryl Colwell of MediaWhiz had this to say in his workshop "Content Marketing Like a Pro":
Establishes authority and provides useful information Should be useful even to someone not interested in buying your product or service Not disguised as independent editorial Does not have to run in an editorial environment, like a third-party magazine Provides value to the consumer. Is honest and without hyperbole
Colwell's strategy presentation viewable here:
Colwell closed his presentation with a great comment that we filmmaker/marketers need to always remember - "Make your buyer the hero." Our viewing supporters and fans are the heroes, always keep that in spirit in your outreach and customer development efforts.
Jon Wuebben from ContentLaunch had the unenviable task of finishing the conference as final presenter, but he did an admirable job and those who stuck it out were rewarded with some nice strategies for their Content Marketing.
Jon started by offering his answer to the question, "What is Content Marketing?"
"Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action."
Through content marketing, you convert prospects into customers and customers into loyal, lifelong, repeat buyers. Utilizing the power of opt-in permission to deliver content via e-mail, RSS feeds, social media channels, and other methods, your goal is to become a valued resource for hundreds and thousands of people who, in time, will want to buy what you sell. You don’t want to sell them once and never see them again. You want to make a friend—a friend who enjoys buying from you—for life.
Jon made a lot of great points in his presentation:
Here's his recommendations on creating a strong social content strategy:
Create sharable content Make sharing and tagging easy Add a blog and use the plug-in “Share This” to get others to distribute it for you Add your social media icons to the top of every content piece Use the Facebook “Like” button on your content Proactively share content Encourage the “mashup” Be a resource for others, whether or not you benefit directly Build relationships with those who help the most Participate and get involved—genuinely Create compelling content Develop an Smo strategy and make it an everyday activity
It was great seeing content from the pure marketers' eyes for a couple of days, I've been sifting through my old hard drives looking at old footage from my biker movies and I've definitely got some ideas to apply their content marketing principles.
What are some examples of what you're doing with your films/content? Post and comment below!
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content Distribution & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He specializes in online strategy and monetization, live streaming branded entertainment, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown on Twitter.
I believe strongly in Seo for video and film as a mandatory activity for filmmakers (big and small). If you can rank highly on Google for various keywords related to your film it's possible to develop a large audience and even revenue before spending any marketing money. To that end I attended Arnie Kuenn's session How to Win at Search, Social, and Content Marketing.
Arnie runs a company called Vertical Measures, specializing in Seo. He's a very good speaker and pointed out some interesting data about how people use the 'net and search. See his Powerpoint presentation below:
Some takeaways from Arnie's session:
The Web is used predominantly as a learning tool, so in your content strategy it's imperative to build in an informative component - 46% of Web users want a question answered and 28% are looking for education on a topic. Use Yahoo! Ask and do research on what kinds of questions are being asked in your area (perfect for documentaries!) Build some of your blog posts around these questions and use your social media efforts to support this. Make an editorial calendar (download a free one here.) It's important to keep to a schedule so you can begin to create a lot of relative content on your site. Google loves this and it will increase your rankings along with getting you more followers/readers. Do comparisons and lists and find a way to make them relevant to your subject (yes, people still love top ten lists!) - Superman vs. Batman, Homeland vs. Zero Dark Thirty, you get the idea. "Interviews make you the expert." This is a great idea for content - find experts in your field and interview them. It's a win-win. This includes Video!
Content is Gold! was an entertaining session hosted by FusionSpark Media topper Russell Sparkman. Sparkman evangelizes that marketers need to focus on creating compelling content because, "Whoever has the best content wins." As filmmakers, we already know that right? It's easy to forget that in the process of making a short, feature, pilot, or music video we have the potential for tons of repurposed content that can be used to drive traffic and create interest in our projects and in ourselves as creatives. Sparkman's six observations on content's worth:
Content is Valuable - All that effort and hard work can be used over and over! Content is Conductive - Good content leads viewers to other good content. Content is Currency - It can be sold, bought, and traded. Content is Malleable - Images, text, video, and audio can all be reshaped, stretched, and mashed into new content over and over again. (Take a lesson from the studios!) Content is Bling - Quality content draws attention. Content gives Status - The holders of the best and most content attain higher levels of influence. Content is the Mother Lode - It all starts with content, and we're the creators of content! Take heart and start repurposing your content now.
Daryl Colwell of MediaWhiz had this to say in his workshop "Content Marketing Like a Pro":
Establishes authority and provides useful information Should be useful even to someone not interested in buying your product or service Not disguised as independent editorial Does not have to run in an editorial environment, like a third-party magazine Provides value to the consumer. Is honest and without hyperbole
Colwell's strategy presentation viewable here:
Colwell closed his presentation with a great comment that we filmmaker/marketers need to always remember - "Make your buyer the hero." Our viewing supporters and fans are the heroes, always keep that in spirit in your outreach and customer development efforts.
Jon Wuebben from ContentLaunch had the unenviable task of finishing the conference as final presenter, but he did an admirable job and those who stuck it out were rewarded with some nice strategies for their Content Marketing.
Jon started by offering his answer to the question, "What is Content Marketing?"
"Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action."
Through content marketing, you convert prospects into customers and customers into loyal, lifelong, repeat buyers. Utilizing the power of opt-in permission to deliver content via e-mail, RSS feeds, social media channels, and other methods, your goal is to become a valued resource for hundreds and thousands of people who, in time, will want to buy what you sell. You don’t want to sell them once and never see them again. You want to make a friend—a friend who enjoys buying from you—for life.
Jon made a lot of great points in his presentation:
Here's his recommendations on creating a strong social content strategy:
Create sharable content Make sharing and tagging easy Add a blog and use the plug-in “Share This” to get others to distribute it for you Add your social media icons to the top of every content piece Use the Facebook “Like” button on your content Proactively share content Encourage the “mashup” Be a resource for others, whether or not you benefit directly Build relationships with those who help the most Participate and get involved—genuinely Create compelling content Develop an Smo strategy and make it an everyday activity
It was great seeing content from the pure marketers' eyes for a couple of days, I've been sifting through my old hard drives looking at old footage from my biker movies and I've definitely got some ideas to apply their content marketing principles.
What are some examples of what you're doing with your films/content? Post and comment below!
Written by Zack Coffman, Head of Content Distribution & Strategy at One World Studios Ltd. He specializes in online strategy and monetization, live streaming branded entertainment, and YouTube channel development. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn, Google+, and @choppertown on Twitter.
- 2/21/2013
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
Warning: There may be some contentious points on piracy and the future of online distribution in this article. Please feel free to comment and debate below!
I had a chance to attend the "Future of Film Summit" in Beverly Hills produced by Variety and DigitalMediaWire. The ambitious one-day event focused on "the current state of the industry, and how film and transmedia deals will be struck in the coming years." That's a pretty grand scale, but I'd have to say it delivered a good mix of traditional film perspective mixed with a suprisingly high-level group of online experts. The keynotes were given by Tom Bernard, Co-founder and Co-president, Sony Pictures Classics and by writer-director Kevin Smith (comments on the keynotes follow my conference takeaways below.)
A few takeaways from the conference:
Mike Vorhaus, President of Magid Advisors, a leading entertainment consulting firm, opened the conference with a fascinating collection of data about the general state of the film industry in terms of movie-going demographics. The most interesting part for me was that avid digital "streamers" spend the most money at traditional theaters, purchasing movies and TV shows online, and renting the same online. Hence, "Regular moviegoes not only are loyal to the cinema, they are also spending a lot of time with digital devices." (and spending money for content on these devices!)
Great news for indies, since the internet is still, for now, wide open for distribution to the savvy filmmaker. Other important points from the study:
Video is one of the top activites on smartphones (young people know this, but anyone over 30 producing content Needs to internalize this.) Full-length video watching on tablets outweighs smartphones, but the phones are growing - both in physical size and in full-length video watching habits. Tablet and iPhone users are the most likely to purchase TV and movie content on mobile.
Want to see all the exact figures and media demographics? Watch the entire 32-slide presentation and let me know your thoughts here.
If you can't beat 'em?
I was fascinated to see that the infamous BitTorrent was a headlining sponsor of the event. It definitely raised some hackles (see Tom Bernard's comments below.) Matt Mason, Executive Director of Marketing for BT, has the enviable/un-enviable job of both improving BitTorrent's image to the film industry and educating about potential areas for BT to actually become an asset to an indie film's marketing plan.
As a filmmaker/distributor I find my heart wrenched by the concept, but I'm fascinated at the possibility of torrents to empower filmmakers so I sat down with Matt and asked for some specifics. ~i.e. It's a new model...evolve or die?)
Zack Coffman: What did you think of the conference?
Matt Mason: I saw a lot of great films and projects I didn't know about and as a result, we're now working with some of those producers to help them promote their projects through the BitTorrent ecosystem. It's great to see so much positive change happening in the business. There's a sense of optimism about all the opportunities ahead and I really felt that at this event.
Zc: You are fighting very hard to change BT's image to filmmakers as a piracy enabler. Thoughts on this observation?
Mm: We are and there has been good momentum. The BitTorrent protocol is designed to move large files across the Internet; it fixes a problem inherent with the way the Internet was designed. At that time no one imagined the need for moving data as big as files are today and BitTorrent is the very best way to move large files. Much of that is personal media, such as a 20Gb video from your smart phone. Many people aren't aware of how BitTorrent is used for legitimate purposes by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and Blizzard to push updates and move large amounts of data around their ecosystems.
We can't change human behavior, and piracy has been a fact of life throughout the history of media. What we can do is change the environment around piracy. We know that when Internet users are offered legitimate content from creators and publishers and the experience of getting that content is good, they will choose to interact with those content creators and reward them. We're working to create those experiences in BitTorrent, which at this point, is moving 30-40% of the world's Internet traffic everyday - more than http. We see a bright future. The music industry is coming back strong now that people are starting to really get a handle on digital - the same thing is starting to happening in film. We see only good things ahead and we're committed to being part of the solution.
Zc: Can you give filmmakers some real advice how to use BT to further their film marketing goals?
Mm: It really depends who your audience is, what you want them to do and what kind of marketing materials you're putting in front of that audience. We've had great success this year driving awareness and engagement for filmmakers. Giving someone a real, immersive glimpse into the story you are trying to tell and then giving the consumer a number of ways to interact with your story (email collection, social media, pushing them to your site) via BitTorrent has helped a number of filmmakers this year. Our key insight has been that there is no one solution, but as many solutions as there are pieces of content. Each piece of content can have a unique approach and our mission is to create a set of tools for content creators to access.
Zc: Examples?
Mm: Recently we worked with Stacy Peralta and the Bones Brigade team on their documentary that's playing now. Skateboarding’s 1990s youth revolution was a direct result of analog file sharing. Kids copying and swapping Powell-Peralta tapes made the Bones Brigade, the most famous - and the most successful - skate crew in history. Stacy Peralta’s acclaimed 2012 film, Bones Brigade: A Documentary, followed the handmade and hard-fought rise of this crew. But as a documentary about a niche sport, it faced barriers to attention and mainstream interest.
We wanted to create a 2.0 reinvention of the Diy distribution paradigm at the heart of the crew’s original success, and help generate reach and activation, beyond the Sundance and skate circuits. In partnership with Topspin Media and Stacy Peralta, we created a BitTorrent Bundle of media that gave BitTorrent users and Bones Brigade fans exclusive content from the film. The Bundle included the film’s HD trailer, graffiti stencils, artwork and music from Tommy Guerrero. Each Bundle was free for users to download. In order to unlock the content, users needed to provide an email address.
The Bones Brigade Bundle was offered to users at high-engagement touch points within the BitTorrent ecosystem: during software installation, as part of our Featured Artist program site and within the BitTorrent clients.
The result? Over one million views of the extended trailer on BitTorrent in a month (compared to 188,000 views on YouTube), over 81,000 new users driven to Bones Brigade social media properties and 185,000 fans driven to the movie's website. According to TopSpin, BitTorrent was the most potent form of marketing outside of the film's websites. They will be presenting a full breakdown of that campaign at Sundance in January.
Conference Tracks:
The conference offered two simultaneous "tracks" for the afternoon panels and while the studio production track seemed interesting and had some heavy hitters, I decided to stick with the Digital Future track.
Josh Dickey, film editor at Variety led a spirited panel entitled "Social Marketing Revolution", but he showed his digital chops by basically hijacking the gathered experts into a wider debate about various online marketing techniques. You'd expect Sony to be a leader in digital, but Elias Plishner, VP Worldwide Digital Media for Sony Pictures really had his act together and stood out by giving practical insight into how his department functions.
With a veritable army of digital team members in the back of the room, Plishner explained how every morning they create a "Digital Report Card" for every film currently in release. The report card includes the five top analytics for each marketing program: Site traffic, Buzz, Video Views, Social Activity (basically Facebook's TalkScore value), and organic search volume. All of these values are compared against a "genre norm" and followed by goals the team has set. With these numbers in hand, you could see it leading to a very efficient digital marketing effort. [Sony is really paying attention to the analytics and data that the net can provide. Every indie content creator needs to be doing this! - I'd like to see subscores of various social platforms since Fb isn't the only game in town any more.]
Discussion Point- What would be the impact of a property's score handicapped for: A) Pre-existing brand awareness B) Star power C) Marketing $ expenditure D) Film quality E) Seo F) PR intangibles. A handicap formula would be fascinating and I'd love to see its predictive value of a film's financial success vs. cost to produce/market. Thoughts?
The "Trendsetters of the New Platforms" panel featured several content producers discussing how they are using the new distribution model of the net. Afterwards, I caught up with Marc Lieberman, Head of Business Development for The Onion.
Zack Coffman: The Onion has been seeing amazing results from it's online programming. Can you please outline some of the areas you've been focusing on?
Marc Lieberman: Certainly. Recently, we've been expanding our online presence with the launch of our new daily show, 'ONNCast.' As we've done with our written content, we're taking a renewed focus on covering breaking news and timely news first and foremost.
Zc: Why do you think they've been successful?
Ml: As we saw with more timely written content, people want to watch and read our coverage of current events the very same day that these events are occurring. Even if you're a fan of some of our lesser-known competitors (The New York Times, The Huffington Post and CNN to name a few), you know that a visit to TheOnion.com will yield smarter, more in-depth reporting on the news of the day paired with our trademark attention-getting headlines. Sure, we no longer allow our writing staff time to sleep, but this is just one of the many sacrifices that true journalists must make. That, and attaining worthless college degree that renders them wholly unfit to work outside of a newsroom.
Zc: What's the overall goal for The Onion?
Ml: Since our first issue debuted 1783, the goal of The Onion has always been to shape and control the opinion of the American public. It has done so with nothing short of overwhelming success.
Though The Onion has been 'America's Finest News Source' since that time, the Internet has enabled us to also shape and control the opinion of those that live beyond our borders. Some, mistakenly, consider this part of our overall goal, but we assure you that it's merely a bi-product of our tremendous influence.
Zc: Do you actively employ Seo and Sem?
Ml: We do in terms of Seo. However, our large amount of web traffic no doubt gives us a quite an advantage over smaller sites. But, again, timely content will go a long way on search, as does our large story archive which proves the old adage, "news is cyclical."
Zc: The Kim Jong-un article was like a PR blitz for you, was it pure chance or are your writers that smart?
Ml: To be perfectly frank, we benefitted greatly from a lack of "sexy" news otherwise on the day that story broke. To clear up some confusion, our editor, Will Tracy, sent the following statement to the press:"For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc. Exemplary reportage, comrades."
Zc: How have you leveraged that explosion into your overall marketing efforts?
Ml: First, we actually added Will's statement to the article, and re-promoted the article through our social media channels and on our site. However, when something that does much the marketing work for you, the strategy that we employ is to not interfere with where it might go. That said, it afforded us many opportunities to be interviewed by a bevy of media sources, which is something we didn't shy away from.
Zc: The Onion has always been a beacon for independents, do you have any advice for indie film marketers out there?
Ml: Don't change your message, but be willing to change the way in which you deliver it. In this way, we were able to evolve from our print beginnings to an online presence that allows us to gain the readership of new people every day.
"The New Distribution Formula" panel dealt with changing release windows and new opportunities afforded by VOD. Tom Quinn and Jason Janego, co-presidents of Radius-twc joined Rob Sussman, Evp, Business Operations, Development, and Strategy, Epix, Jamie McCabe, Evp, worldwide PPV, VOD, Est, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Todd Green, General Manager, Tribeca Film, and Daniel Solnicki, Head of Worldwide Franchise Development, DreamWorks Animation in a discussion about new theatrical/VOD strategies; particularly focused on the day-and-date model and changing of traditional distribution windows. The discussion was frankly much too short, but it will be interesting to check in with Quinn and Janego about how Radius-twc achieved their cross-platform success with Bachelorette and watch very closely their upcoming release of Only God Forgives by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling.
The last panel of the day was ambitiously called "Monetizing Film and Video Content in a Digital Age". It featured some big names, but ended up being a bit of a PR piece for the panelists, as they didn't really offer any concrete ideas for the jam-packed room. However, Jordan Metzner of Xsolla did try his best to explain specifically what his company does for filmmakers. "Xsolla provides in-game payment services for some of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world and can help filmmakers with our film monetization arm, called Cinify. We help film makers get on major networks as well as monetize content on their on sites using Cdn's and Xsolla as a payment solutions."
Apparently Xsolla's platform allows the viewer to watch/play a few minutes of a film/game before being asked to pony up and pay for the content. In my opinion, this is way better for indies than the other current models that ask for payment based on viewing only a trailer. I'll be curious to have a follow-up with Jason and investigate it further.
Notes on Notes:
The day's two keynotes offered some insight into filmmaking from two different perspectives.
Tim Gray, the big Kahuna at Variety sat down with industry uber-vet Tom Bernard of Sony Classics for the morning keynote and Bernard was suprisingly frank in his outlook for the future. He mentioned that Spc's audience skews older and he was concerned about that demographic aging problem. I had a chance to chat with Tom further about this conundrum and he explained that Spc films were traditionally a print media audience, but the new college of film is the internet so Spc has been acquiring more films that fit a wider demographic such as Searching for Sugarman- that has a huge online audience and huge audience of baby boomers, and Rust and Bone- a modern film, and very different than traditional foreign films which is getting a wide demographic as well.
"People determine their own DNA online," he continued saying that Spc is excited about opportunites the 'net brings because they are saving so much money by scaling back on print and "narrowcasting" on the net, resulting in their highest profit margins ever. When I asked him about his thoughts on BitTorrent being a sponsor of the show he was unequivocable on his position, "I was shocked and appalled. They are pirates and have caused huge amounts of money to be lost on our pictures. Those guys should be in jail."
Kevin Smith gave an entertaining and inspiring keynote speech, fielding questions posed by his Hollywood Babble-On co-host, Ralph Garman of Kroq. He's definitively taken some licks over the years (some self-inflicted, some not) but survives with his "indie cred" intact. His best quote of the night was a real winner, ""It's not about kissin' up, it's about kissin' down."
Smith continued, "Spend every second with your fans, connect with your audience." A proponent of crowdfunding, he said he routinely supports interesting projects and even sent some money recently to a campaign for a guy that wanted to become a glass-blower. "I just wanted to see that guy fucking do it!" exclaimed Smith, "Remember, they [media gatekeepers] need you [content creators] more than you need them."
Indies in the new film economy should worry more about online culture-building and dealing directly with their audience and less about trying to impress the gatekeepers and distributors that hold sway over the theaters and traditional media outlets.
I look forward to everyone's thoughts and comments! Have a wonderful holiday.
Written by Zack Coffman, a producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and Seo for film. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn and follow his film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
I had a chance to attend the "Future of Film Summit" in Beverly Hills produced by Variety and DigitalMediaWire. The ambitious one-day event focused on "the current state of the industry, and how film and transmedia deals will be struck in the coming years." That's a pretty grand scale, but I'd have to say it delivered a good mix of traditional film perspective mixed with a suprisingly high-level group of online experts. The keynotes were given by Tom Bernard, Co-founder and Co-president, Sony Pictures Classics and by writer-director Kevin Smith (comments on the keynotes follow my conference takeaways below.)
A few takeaways from the conference:
Mike Vorhaus, President of Magid Advisors, a leading entertainment consulting firm, opened the conference with a fascinating collection of data about the general state of the film industry in terms of movie-going demographics. The most interesting part for me was that avid digital "streamers" spend the most money at traditional theaters, purchasing movies and TV shows online, and renting the same online. Hence, "Regular moviegoes not only are loyal to the cinema, they are also spending a lot of time with digital devices." (and spending money for content on these devices!)
Great news for indies, since the internet is still, for now, wide open for distribution to the savvy filmmaker. Other important points from the study:
Video is one of the top activites on smartphones (young people know this, but anyone over 30 producing content Needs to internalize this.) Full-length video watching on tablets outweighs smartphones, but the phones are growing - both in physical size and in full-length video watching habits. Tablet and iPhone users are the most likely to purchase TV and movie content on mobile.
Want to see all the exact figures and media demographics? Watch the entire 32-slide presentation and let me know your thoughts here.
If you can't beat 'em?
I was fascinated to see that the infamous BitTorrent was a headlining sponsor of the event. It definitely raised some hackles (see Tom Bernard's comments below.) Matt Mason, Executive Director of Marketing for BT, has the enviable/un-enviable job of both improving BitTorrent's image to the film industry and educating about potential areas for BT to actually become an asset to an indie film's marketing plan.
As a filmmaker/distributor I find my heart wrenched by the concept, but I'm fascinated at the possibility of torrents to empower filmmakers so I sat down with Matt and asked for some specifics. ~i.e. It's a new model...evolve or die?)
Zack Coffman: What did you think of the conference?
Matt Mason: I saw a lot of great films and projects I didn't know about and as a result, we're now working with some of those producers to help them promote their projects through the BitTorrent ecosystem. It's great to see so much positive change happening in the business. There's a sense of optimism about all the opportunities ahead and I really felt that at this event.
Zc: You are fighting very hard to change BT's image to filmmakers as a piracy enabler. Thoughts on this observation?
Mm: We are and there has been good momentum. The BitTorrent protocol is designed to move large files across the Internet; it fixes a problem inherent with the way the Internet was designed. At that time no one imagined the need for moving data as big as files are today and BitTorrent is the very best way to move large files. Much of that is personal media, such as a 20Gb video from your smart phone. Many people aren't aware of how BitTorrent is used for legitimate purposes by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and Blizzard to push updates and move large amounts of data around their ecosystems.
We can't change human behavior, and piracy has been a fact of life throughout the history of media. What we can do is change the environment around piracy. We know that when Internet users are offered legitimate content from creators and publishers and the experience of getting that content is good, they will choose to interact with those content creators and reward them. We're working to create those experiences in BitTorrent, which at this point, is moving 30-40% of the world's Internet traffic everyday - more than http. We see a bright future. The music industry is coming back strong now that people are starting to really get a handle on digital - the same thing is starting to happening in film. We see only good things ahead and we're committed to being part of the solution.
Zc: Can you give filmmakers some real advice how to use BT to further their film marketing goals?
Mm: It really depends who your audience is, what you want them to do and what kind of marketing materials you're putting in front of that audience. We've had great success this year driving awareness and engagement for filmmakers. Giving someone a real, immersive glimpse into the story you are trying to tell and then giving the consumer a number of ways to interact with your story (email collection, social media, pushing them to your site) via BitTorrent has helped a number of filmmakers this year. Our key insight has been that there is no one solution, but as many solutions as there are pieces of content. Each piece of content can have a unique approach and our mission is to create a set of tools for content creators to access.
Zc: Examples?
Mm: Recently we worked with Stacy Peralta and the Bones Brigade team on their documentary that's playing now. Skateboarding’s 1990s youth revolution was a direct result of analog file sharing. Kids copying and swapping Powell-Peralta tapes made the Bones Brigade, the most famous - and the most successful - skate crew in history. Stacy Peralta’s acclaimed 2012 film, Bones Brigade: A Documentary, followed the handmade and hard-fought rise of this crew. But as a documentary about a niche sport, it faced barriers to attention and mainstream interest.
We wanted to create a 2.0 reinvention of the Diy distribution paradigm at the heart of the crew’s original success, and help generate reach and activation, beyond the Sundance and skate circuits. In partnership with Topspin Media and Stacy Peralta, we created a BitTorrent Bundle of media that gave BitTorrent users and Bones Brigade fans exclusive content from the film. The Bundle included the film’s HD trailer, graffiti stencils, artwork and music from Tommy Guerrero. Each Bundle was free for users to download. In order to unlock the content, users needed to provide an email address.
The Bones Brigade Bundle was offered to users at high-engagement touch points within the BitTorrent ecosystem: during software installation, as part of our Featured Artist program site and within the BitTorrent clients.
The result? Over one million views of the extended trailer on BitTorrent in a month (compared to 188,000 views on YouTube), over 81,000 new users driven to Bones Brigade social media properties and 185,000 fans driven to the movie's website. According to TopSpin, BitTorrent was the most potent form of marketing outside of the film's websites. They will be presenting a full breakdown of that campaign at Sundance in January.
Conference Tracks:
The conference offered two simultaneous "tracks" for the afternoon panels and while the studio production track seemed interesting and had some heavy hitters, I decided to stick with the Digital Future track.
Josh Dickey, film editor at Variety led a spirited panel entitled "Social Marketing Revolution", but he showed his digital chops by basically hijacking the gathered experts into a wider debate about various online marketing techniques. You'd expect Sony to be a leader in digital, but Elias Plishner, VP Worldwide Digital Media for Sony Pictures really had his act together and stood out by giving practical insight into how his department functions.
With a veritable army of digital team members in the back of the room, Plishner explained how every morning they create a "Digital Report Card" for every film currently in release. The report card includes the five top analytics for each marketing program: Site traffic, Buzz, Video Views, Social Activity (basically Facebook's TalkScore value), and organic search volume. All of these values are compared against a "genre norm" and followed by goals the team has set. With these numbers in hand, you could see it leading to a very efficient digital marketing effort. [Sony is really paying attention to the analytics and data that the net can provide. Every indie content creator needs to be doing this! - I'd like to see subscores of various social platforms since Fb isn't the only game in town any more.]
Discussion Point- What would be the impact of a property's score handicapped for: A) Pre-existing brand awareness B) Star power C) Marketing $ expenditure D) Film quality E) Seo F) PR intangibles. A handicap formula would be fascinating and I'd love to see its predictive value of a film's financial success vs. cost to produce/market. Thoughts?
The "Trendsetters of the New Platforms" panel featured several content producers discussing how they are using the new distribution model of the net. Afterwards, I caught up with Marc Lieberman, Head of Business Development for The Onion.
Zack Coffman: The Onion has been seeing amazing results from it's online programming. Can you please outline some of the areas you've been focusing on?
Marc Lieberman: Certainly. Recently, we've been expanding our online presence with the launch of our new daily show, 'ONNCast.' As we've done with our written content, we're taking a renewed focus on covering breaking news and timely news first and foremost.
Zc: Why do you think they've been successful?
Ml: As we saw with more timely written content, people want to watch and read our coverage of current events the very same day that these events are occurring. Even if you're a fan of some of our lesser-known competitors (The New York Times, The Huffington Post and CNN to name a few), you know that a visit to TheOnion.com will yield smarter, more in-depth reporting on the news of the day paired with our trademark attention-getting headlines. Sure, we no longer allow our writing staff time to sleep, but this is just one of the many sacrifices that true journalists must make. That, and attaining worthless college degree that renders them wholly unfit to work outside of a newsroom.
Zc: What's the overall goal for The Onion?
Ml: Since our first issue debuted 1783, the goal of The Onion has always been to shape and control the opinion of the American public. It has done so with nothing short of overwhelming success.
Though The Onion has been 'America's Finest News Source' since that time, the Internet has enabled us to also shape and control the opinion of those that live beyond our borders. Some, mistakenly, consider this part of our overall goal, but we assure you that it's merely a bi-product of our tremendous influence.
Zc: Do you actively employ Seo and Sem?
Ml: We do in terms of Seo. However, our large amount of web traffic no doubt gives us a quite an advantage over smaller sites. But, again, timely content will go a long way on search, as does our large story archive which proves the old adage, "news is cyclical."
Zc: The Kim Jong-un article was like a PR blitz for you, was it pure chance or are your writers that smart?
Ml: To be perfectly frank, we benefitted greatly from a lack of "sexy" news otherwise on the day that story broke. To clear up some confusion, our editor, Will Tracy, sent the following statement to the press:"For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc. Exemplary reportage, comrades."
Zc: How have you leveraged that explosion into your overall marketing efforts?
Ml: First, we actually added Will's statement to the article, and re-promoted the article through our social media channels and on our site. However, when something that does much the marketing work for you, the strategy that we employ is to not interfere with where it might go. That said, it afforded us many opportunities to be interviewed by a bevy of media sources, which is something we didn't shy away from.
Zc: The Onion has always been a beacon for independents, do you have any advice for indie film marketers out there?
Ml: Don't change your message, but be willing to change the way in which you deliver it. In this way, we were able to evolve from our print beginnings to an online presence that allows us to gain the readership of new people every day.
"The New Distribution Formula" panel dealt with changing release windows and new opportunities afforded by VOD. Tom Quinn and Jason Janego, co-presidents of Radius-twc joined Rob Sussman, Evp, Business Operations, Development, and Strategy, Epix, Jamie McCabe, Evp, worldwide PPV, VOD, Est, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Todd Green, General Manager, Tribeca Film, and Daniel Solnicki, Head of Worldwide Franchise Development, DreamWorks Animation in a discussion about new theatrical/VOD strategies; particularly focused on the day-and-date model and changing of traditional distribution windows. The discussion was frankly much too short, but it will be interesting to check in with Quinn and Janego about how Radius-twc achieved their cross-platform success with Bachelorette and watch very closely their upcoming release of Only God Forgives by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling.
The last panel of the day was ambitiously called "Monetizing Film and Video Content in a Digital Age". It featured some big names, but ended up being a bit of a PR piece for the panelists, as they didn't really offer any concrete ideas for the jam-packed room. However, Jordan Metzner of Xsolla did try his best to explain specifically what his company does for filmmakers. "Xsolla provides in-game payment services for some of the largest video game developers and publishers in the world and can help filmmakers with our film monetization arm, called Cinify. We help film makers get on major networks as well as monetize content on their on sites using Cdn's and Xsolla as a payment solutions."
Apparently Xsolla's platform allows the viewer to watch/play a few minutes of a film/game before being asked to pony up and pay for the content. In my opinion, this is way better for indies than the other current models that ask for payment based on viewing only a trailer. I'll be curious to have a follow-up with Jason and investigate it further.
Notes on Notes:
The day's two keynotes offered some insight into filmmaking from two different perspectives.
Tim Gray, the big Kahuna at Variety sat down with industry uber-vet Tom Bernard of Sony Classics for the morning keynote and Bernard was suprisingly frank in his outlook for the future. He mentioned that Spc's audience skews older and he was concerned about that demographic aging problem. I had a chance to chat with Tom further about this conundrum and he explained that Spc films were traditionally a print media audience, but the new college of film is the internet so Spc has been acquiring more films that fit a wider demographic such as Searching for Sugarman- that has a huge online audience and huge audience of baby boomers, and Rust and Bone- a modern film, and very different than traditional foreign films which is getting a wide demographic as well.
"People determine their own DNA online," he continued saying that Spc is excited about opportunites the 'net brings because they are saving so much money by scaling back on print and "narrowcasting" on the net, resulting in their highest profit margins ever. When I asked him about his thoughts on BitTorrent being a sponsor of the show he was unequivocable on his position, "I was shocked and appalled. They are pirates and have caused huge amounts of money to be lost on our pictures. Those guys should be in jail."
Kevin Smith gave an entertaining and inspiring keynote speech, fielding questions posed by his Hollywood Babble-On co-host, Ralph Garman of Kroq. He's definitively taken some licks over the years (some self-inflicted, some not) but survives with his "indie cred" intact. His best quote of the night was a real winner, ""It's not about kissin' up, it's about kissin' down."
Smith continued, "Spend every second with your fans, connect with your audience." A proponent of crowdfunding, he said he routinely supports interesting projects and even sent some money recently to a campaign for a guy that wanted to become a glass-blower. "I just wanted to see that guy fucking do it!" exclaimed Smith, "Remember, they [media gatekeepers] need you [content creators] more than you need them."
Indies in the new film economy should worry more about online culture-building and dealing directly with their audience and less about trying to impress the gatekeepers and distributors that hold sway over the theaters and traditional media outlets.
I look forward to everyone's thoughts and comments! Have a wonderful holiday.
Written by Zack Coffman, a producer specializing in online strategy and monetization, live streaming, and Seo for film. Connect with Zack on LinkedIn and follow his film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 12/17/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
They say Cannes "stays in your blood" and it's true! Three weeks later, here's the final interview from my trip. I wanted to finish my interview tour of the movie business with a real blue collar film festival so I sat down for a drink with Rachel Richardson-Jones, aka "Lady Grimm"; a film producer and director of the Grimm Up North International Film Festival of Horror and Cult Films.
How long has your festival been running and how did it get started?
Grimm is now in its fourth year and was born out of shameless self promotion for our first feature "Splintered". Sadly our executive producer Clive Parsons, a veteran British film producer who made such classics as Scum and Gregory's Girl and I might add was a true gentleman, passed away shortly after completion, leaving us without a clue of how to get distribution in our own territory. So we decided to put on a little showcase of three movies over one day in our home town of Manchester and call it Grimm up North. After a successful week in London I managed to not only acquire distribution for Splintered, but also a number of movies to screen from various distributors and Grimm Up North turned out to be three crazy days of 28 movies, twelve of which were premiers, not to mention a plague of Cenobites. Although we vowed "never again" the day after the festival, there did seem to be a lot of love for it and we've been growing steadily each year.
What brings you to Cannes?
This was an extremely exciting year for us, as it was Grimm Up North's first year as a buyer at Cannes, we were looking for films to screen at the festival in October. In addition to this we have also raised the bar with our brand new distribution label Grimm Entertainment. We have partnered with Koch media in the UK and have already acquired rights to several films which we are releasing in Early October 2012. We are to release a minimum of eight movies in our first year so we were looking for movies that would play well at the festival and also have UK rights available for distribution.
So what's the ultimate goal with the festival? Do you plan on growing into a market or another Sundance?
It would be an interesting idea to grow Grimm to the stage whereby, if you produce, write, sell, buy, promote or just love to watch genre material, people can come to Manchester to do just that and get to cuddle lots of lovely northern folk, as we are very friendly in the North.
What kind of films do you like personally?
Wow my taste is so diverse, I do have a penchant for Sci-Fi, but also love to watch films from all over the world, I love films with a great story, so for me it can be any genre from ‘The Lives of Others’ to ‘Martyrs’ to ‘How to Train Your Dragon’.
How many submissions do you normally get and how do you go through them all?
This year we had over 100 submissions. We have a dedicated team of volunteers who help us view material. But essentially it comes down to Myself, Simeon Halligan who is co-director of the festival and Steve Balshaw our film programmer and founding member of Grimm who make the decisions, and if we can't all agree on a film it doesn't go in the festival.
A lot of people say the festival process is inherently political, what are your thoughts on that and do you have advice for filmmakers?
This is a very good point, running our own festival has really given us a great insight as filmmakers of how important it is to make sure either the producer or sales agent make a big noise about a film. It is essential to get it into the press and give your movie as much profile as possible. There are so many films to watch you end up being drawn to the ones listed in the trades and there starts the merry go round, with all the usual suspects being shown in all the various festivals. Whilst we at Grimm do like to have a number of festival circuit films we have seen at the markets, we do get quite excited by the submissions we get to the festival. Steve Balshaw was a big advocate of the Soska sisters' submission ‘Dead Hooker in a Trunk’ it got great coverage at Grimm and really helped to build a following for them in the UK. Similarly we hope to do the same with Ryan Levin’s 'Some Guy Who Kills People' which screened really well at last year's festival and that we will be releasing later on in the year under the Grimm label.
Did you have a "Cannes moment"?
Meeting Zack Coffman at the Estonian Drinks Party and scoffing all their chocolate which we just couldn't get enough of!
Well, there you have it. I've finally worked Cannes out of my system.
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
How long has your festival been running and how did it get started?
Grimm is now in its fourth year and was born out of shameless self promotion for our first feature "Splintered". Sadly our executive producer Clive Parsons, a veteran British film producer who made such classics as Scum and Gregory's Girl and I might add was a true gentleman, passed away shortly after completion, leaving us without a clue of how to get distribution in our own territory. So we decided to put on a little showcase of three movies over one day in our home town of Manchester and call it Grimm up North. After a successful week in London I managed to not only acquire distribution for Splintered, but also a number of movies to screen from various distributors and Grimm Up North turned out to be three crazy days of 28 movies, twelve of which were premiers, not to mention a plague of Cenobites. Although we vowed "never again" the day after the festival, there did seem to be a lot of love for it and we've been growing steadily each year.
What brings you to Cannes?
This was an extremely exciting year for us, as it was Grimm Up North's first year as a buyer at Cannes, we were looking for films to screen at the festival in October. In addition to this we have also raised the bar with our brand new distribution label Grimm Entertainment. We have partnered with Koch media in the UK and have already acquired rights to several films which we are releasing in Early October 2012. We are to release a minimum of eight movies in our first year so we were looking for movies that would play well at the festival and also have UK rights available for distribution.
So what's the ultimate goal with the festival? Do you plan on growing into a market or another Sundance?
It would be an interesting idea to grow Grimm to the stage whereby, if you produce, write, sell, buy, promote or just love to watch genre material, people can come to Manchester to do just that and get to cuddle lots of lovely northern folk, as we are very friendly in the North.
What kind of films do you like personally?
Wow my taste is so diverse, I do have a penchant for Sci-Fi, but also love to watch films from all over the world, I love films with a great story, so for me it can be any genre from ‘The Lives of Others’ to ‘Martyrs’ to ‘How to Train Your Dragon’.
How many submissions do you normally get and how do you go through them all?
This year we had over 100 submissions. We have a dedicated team of volunteers who help us view material. But essentially it comes down to Myself, Simeon Halligan who is co-director of the festival and Steve Balshaw our film programmer and founding member of Grimm who make the decisions, and if we can't all agree on a film it doesn't go in the festival.
A lot of people say the festival process is inherently political, what are your thoughts on that and do you have advice for filmmakers?
This is a very good point, running our own festival has really given us a great insight as filmmakers of how important it is to make sure either the producer or sales agent make a big noise about a film. It is essential to get it into the press and give your movie as much profile as possible. There are so many films to watch you end up being drawn to the ones listed in the trades and there starts the merry go round, with all the usual suspects being shown in all the various festivals. Whilst we at Grimm do like to have a number of festival circuit films we have seen at the markets, we do get quite excited by the submissions we get to the festival. Steve Balshaw was a big advocate of the Soska sisters' submission ‘Dead Hooker in a Trunk’ it got great coverage at Grimm and really helped to build a following for them in the UK. Similarly we hope to do the same with Ryan Levin’s 'Some Guy Who Kills People' which screened really well at last year's festival and that we will be releasing later on in the year under the Grimm label.
Did you have a "Cannes moment"?
Meeting Zack Coffman at the Estonian Drinks Party and scoffing all their chocolate which we just couldn't get enough of!
Well, there you have it. I've finally worked Cannes out of my system.
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/22/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
No discussion of the film industry is complete without talking to an exhibitor. As a filmmaker, it's imperative to get a viewpoint from the first place that a customer might be putting forth hard cash to see your film! Peggy Johnson, Executive Director of the nonprofit Loft Cinema, a mission-driven, independent art house in Tucson, Az offered me some thoughts on exhibition.
What brought you to Cannes?
We started going to Cannes in 2008, adding it to the three or four other festivals we attend annually. We go to Cannes to look for new films, to see what the new trends are, to check out what is going on in other countries, and to generally revel in the incredible diversity and quality of films in competition and in all the other concurrent competitions and the parallel programs.
How did you get started with the theater? What inspired you to get into exhibition?
My incentive to get into exhibition was the fact that the beloved art house in Tucson, The Loft Cinema, was put on the market and was facing demolition. A small group of us formed a nonprofit and managed to purchase the theatre on its 30th anniversary, and now we are about to celebrate 40 years. There were two major incentives: one, of course was the films, and the other was the fact that, without The Loft, we felt that Tucson would not be the same city we had chosen to live in back in 1975. We couldn’t imagine living in a city with only corporate chains offering standard Hollywood movies. We had grown to rely on The Loft and its wonderful, alternative films.
How's it going? What are you working on now?
It’s going great. We will celebrate The Loft’s 40th anniversary in November, which will also be the 10th anniversary of our purchase of the theatre. The community has embraced The Loft and the diverse and inclusive programming we offer - from foreign and Us independent feature films and documentaries and classics, to filmmaker guests, special events and community collaborations.
We are in a capital campaign at the moment, raising funds to add a third screen, renovate and update the existing facility, and add a larger lobby and more parking. The Loft will be green, a model of accessibility with state of the art digital projection and sound (we will continue our commitment to 35mm).
How have you managed to succeed in this tough sector?
I believe The Loft’s success is due to three major factors:
First, the creative staff at The Loft, our “brain trust”, comes up with an amazing, eclectic blend of programming every single week. Second, I believe the quality of specialty films is better than ever, with new exciting talent emerging every year. And third, the Tucson community loves our programming, including everyone from students, the 25-45 demographic, to children and senior citizens. We are constantly reaching new audiences, expanding our reach with new and innovative programming.
Do you feel as if there's a change in public opinion starting to drive people back to local independent theaters, similar to the "buy local" concept?
Yes, definitely. I think people are increasingly aware of the importance of buying local, and everyone recognizes The Loft as a grass-roots, locally-owned independent cinema. When you’re in The Loft, you know you’re in Tucson because it reflects the personality of the community. When you’re in the multiplex you could be anywhere as they all look exactly alike.
But even more important than the fact that we’re local is the quality of the programming, which is a refreshing alternative to the Hollywood product showing at the multi-plexes.
Any advice or anecdotes for filmmakers?
Keep taking chances, keep making bold choices and cinemas like The Loft will work hard to build an audience for your films. We honor the work of filmmakers who are not focus-grouping the edges off their films, and our patrons appreciate the opportunity to experience films that are not afraid to make them think.
Next up . . .The Festival
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
What brought you to Cannes?
We started going to Cannes in 2008, adding it to the three or four other festivals we attend annually. We go to Cannes to look for new films, to see what the new trends are, to check out what is going on in other countries, and to generally revel in the incredible diversity and quality of films in competition and in all the other concurrent competitions and the parallel programs.
How did you get started with the theater? What inspired you to get into exhibition?
My incentive to get into exhibition was the fact that the beloved art house in Tucson, The Loft Cinema, was put on the market and was facing demolition. A small group of us formed a nonprofit and managed to purchase the theatre on its 30th anniversary, and now we are about to celebrate 40 years. There were two major incentives: one, of course was the films, and the other was the fact that, without The Loft, we felt that Tucson would not be the same city we had chosen to live in back in 1975. We couldn’t imagine living in a city with only corporate chains offering standard Hollywood movies. We had grown to rely on The Loft and its wonderful, alternative films.
How's it going? What are you working on now?
It’s going great. We will celebrate The Loft’s 40th anniversary in November, which will also be the 10th anniversary of our purchase of the theatre. The community has embraced The Loft and the diverse and inclusive programming we offer - from foreign and Us independent feature films and documentaries and classics, to filmmaker guests, special events and community collaborations.
We are in a capital campaign at the moment, raising funds to add a third screen, renovate and update the existing facility, and add a larger lobby and more parking. The Loft will be green, a model of accessibility with state of the art digital projection and sound (we will continue our commitment to 35mm).
How have you managed to succeed in this tough sector?
I believe The Loft’s success is due to three major factors:
First, the creative staff at The Loft, our “brain trust”, comes up with an amazing, eclectic blend of programming every single week. Second, I believe the quality of specialty films is better than ever, with new exciting talent emerging every year. And third, the Tucson community loves our programming, including everyone from students, the 25-45 demographic, to children and senior citizens. We are constantly reaching new audiences, expanding our reach with new and innovative programming.
Do you feel as if there's a change in public opinion starting to drive people back to local independent theaters, similar to the "buy local" concept?
Yes, definitely. I think people are increasingly aware of the importance of buying local, and everyone recognizes The Loft as a grass-roots, locally-owned independent cinema. When you’re in The Loft, you know you’re in Tucson because it reflects the personality of the community. When you’re in the multiplex you could be anywhere as they all look exactly alike.
But even more important than the fact that we’re local is the quality of the programming, which is a refreshing alternative to the Hollywood product showing at the multi-plexes.
Any advice or anecdotes for filmmakers?
Keep taking chances, keep making bold choices and cinemas like The Loft will work hard to build an audience for your films. We honor the work of filmmakers who are not focus-grouping the edges off their films, and our patrons appreciate the opportunity to experience films that are not afraid to make them think.
Next up . . .The Festival
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/20/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
A lot of companies in Cannes are not directly responsible for the buying and selling of films, but rather operate in an important support capacity. The various film commissions that set up shop along the Croisette are good examples. I took the opportunity to speak with industy veteran John Kochman who represents the French film industry in the States via an organization called Unifrance.
So tell me a bit about Unifrance; what is it and how long has it been
Around?
Unifrance was started in 1949 and is the official French film industry agency for the promotion of French cinema around the world. Its 800 members are producers, sales agents, talent agents, actors and filmmakers of features and short films.
What is your position and what does that entail specifically?
I represent Unifrance in the Us, meaning my job is to offer financial and logistical support to American distributors, festivals and film societies who promote French films, whether it's a theatrical release, festival showcase, or an event that we are partners in organizing, such as the Rendezvous with French Cinema in New York.
How did you get into this line of work?
I started out representing a UK film lab (Kay Labs) in Paris in the late '70s. The idea was to get distributors to send their dubbed soundtracks to London for film processing. It was a great education in the French film business! From there I gravitated to foreign sales (Samuel Goldwyn, MK2, StudioCanal), and to Unifrance in 2006.
What's your take on the current climate for French films abroad?
Very friendly for many types of film these days. France enjoys an edge in that it possesses a highly talented film industry producing some of the world's most interesting and diverse cinema. Many mainstream movies intended for domestic audiences are also doing well abroad; an encouraging development.
Have things improved lately or do you feel the market tightening?
It's always tough, but of course it's been a terrific year for French films. The trick is riding the wave of opportunity in this very rapidly changing marketplace.
Next up...The Exhibitor
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
So tell me a bit about Unifrance; what is it and how long has it been
Around?
Unifrance was started in 1949 and is the official French film industry agency for the promotion of French cinema around the world. Its 800 members are producers, sales agents, talent agents, actors and filmmakers of features and short films.
What is your position and what does that entail specifically?
I represent Unifrance in the Us, meaning my job is to offer financial and logistical support to American distributors, festivals and film societies who promote French films, whether it's a theatrical release, festival showcase, or an event that we are partners in organizing, such as the Rendezvous with French Cinema in New York.
How did you get into this line of work?
I started out representing a UK film lab (Kay Labs) in Paris in the late '70s. The idea was to get distributors to send their dubbed soundtracks to London for film processing. It was a great education in the French film business! From there I gravitated to foreign sales (Samuel Goldwyn, MK2, StudioCanal), and to Unifrance in 2006.
What's your take on the current climate for French films abroad?
Very friendly for many types of film these days. France enjoys an edge in that it possesses a highly talented film industry producing some of the world's most interesting and diverse cinema. Many mainstream movies intended for domestic audiences are also doing well abroad; an encouraging development.
Have things improved lately or do you feel the market tightening?
It's always tough, but of course it's been a terrific year for French films. The trick is riding the wave of opportunity in this very rapidly changing marketplace.
Next up...The Exhibitor
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/18/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
All the glitzy photos of Brad and Angelina often make us forget that there are other hard-working actors attending Cannes. I had a chance to discuss the actor's perspective on the business of Cannes with Canadian actress Emily Hampshire - best known for her roles in Snow Cake and the upcoming Cosmpolis.
What brings you to Cannes, have you been here before?
I've never been to Cannes before. I am here as part of the cast of David Cronenberg's film Cosmopolis which is in competition this year...and Then I found out that I will also be receiving the inaugural Birks Canadian Diamond award while I'm 'in town' so... I'm thinking my First Time at Cannes is going to be a hard one to beat.
Seems very exciting, but hectic. Is it tough to arrive and go straight to a press conference?
I can't really say it's "tough" to arrive on the Riviera, slip into a Stella MacCartney gown and go straight to a press conference in order to receive an award from my home country with the word "Diamond" in it. Surreal, Yes. Tough...not so much.
How did you get started in acting? What do you like about it?
I joined the after-school drama club in high school --because we had to join something and drama seemed like the path of least resistance. Anyway, I got this teeny tiny part in the school play and our vice principal came up to me after the show and seemed to go out of her way to tell me how good and funny I was in it and...well, that's all it took! From then on I pretty much made acting my life and then began acting professionally when a casting director saw me in a play and called me in for an audition for which I ended up getting the part...which in turn got me an agent.
I feel like acting provides me with this quazi loophole in the universe where I get to live multiple lives. I'm somewhat of a recluse in my own life but at the same time I feel this insatiable desire to "know what it's like" -like, when I hear a story or read an article about someone's extraordinary life...I desperately want to know what it's like to be in their shoes so... I think what I like most about acting is that it allows me to have my cake and eat it too; experience what it's like without any of the consequences.
Where can we see you? What's next on your plate?
You can see me in the limo with Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis out in theaters now. And next on my plate is a movie called 'All The Wrong Reasons' that I'll begin shooting in Canada this July.
Any advice for actors looking to catch that first break?
Don't waste your time trying to 'catch' a break: Create it. I think my friend Xavier Dolan is a shining example of that: He wanted to act and no one was giving him a break, so at 18 years old he wrote, directed and starred in his own movie which ended taking him to Cannes.
Technology has made it so much easier for actors -all performers, today. With iMovie and a world stage on YouTube I don't know why anyone would wait for someone to give them anything.
Any "Crazy Cannes" stories come to mind?
Did I mention that I came to Cannes for the First Time and within 2 hours of landing I was given a Diamond!!?? I mean, the only thing crazier than that is the fact that it came with a Gorgeous 20-something French Bodyguard to accompany me to every event while I'm here. baaaahahahah!
Next up...The Film Commission
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
...
What brings you to Cannes, have you been here before?
I've never been to Cannes before. I am here as part of the cast of David Cronenberg's film Cosmopolis which is in competition this year...and Then I found out that I will also be receiving the inaugural Birks Canadian Diamond award while I'm 'in town' so... I'm thinking my First Time at Cannes is going to be a hard one to beat.
Seems very exciting, but hectic. Is it tough to arrive and go straight to a press conference?
I can't really say it's "tough" to arrive on the Riviera, slip into a Stella MacCartney gown and go straight to a press conference in order to receive an award from my home country with the word "Diamond" in it. Surreal, Yes. Tough...not so much.
How did you get started in acting? What do you like about it?
I joined the after-school drama club in high school --because we had to join something and drama seemed like the path of least resistance. Anyway, I got this teeny tiny part in the school play and our vice principal came up to me after the show and seemed to go out of her way to tell me how good and funny I was in it and...well, that's all it took! From then on I pretty much made acting my life and then began acting professionally when a casting director saw me in a play and called me in for an audition for which I ended up getting the part...which in turn got me an agent.
I feel like acting provides me with this quazi loophole in the universe where I get to live multiple lives. I'm somewhat of a recluse in my own life but at the same time I feel this insatiable desire to "know what it's like" -like, when I hear a story or read an article about someone's extraordinary life...I desperately want to know what it's like to be in their shoes so... I think what I like most about acting is that it allows me to have my cake and eat it too; experience what it's like without any of the consequences.
Where can we see you? What's next on your plate?
You can see me in the limo with Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis out in theaters now. And next on my plate is a movie called 'All The Wrong Reasons' that I'll begin shooting in Canada this July.
Any advice for actors looking to catch that first break?
Don't waste your time trying to 'catch' a break: Create it. I think my friend Xavier Dolan is a shining example of that: He wanted to act and no one was giving him a break, so at 18 years old he wrote, directed and starred in his own movie which ended taking him to Cannes.
Technology has made it so much easier for actors -all performers, today. With iMovie and a world stage on YouTube I don't know why anyone would wait for someone to give them anything.
Any "Crazy Cannes" stories come to mind?
Did I mention that I came to Cannes for the First Time and within 2 hours of landing I was given a Diamond!!?? I mean, the only thing crazier than that is the fact that it came with a Gorgeous 20-something French Bodyguard to accompany me to every event while I'm here. baaaahahahah!
Next up...The Film Commission
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
...
- 6/17/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
The PR reps at Cannes are the ghosts behind the scenes. Always near at hand and almost never seen for more than a fleeting moment, they seem to be doing something, but what is it? I caught up to festival veteran Laurent Boye and asked him.
Who are you and what do you do?
I founded Jazo PR, a company that does corporate and movie public relations, event and cross promotion, as well as social media campaigns and soon product placement.
What is Public Relations? Why do you think it's important?
Public Relations is bringing awareness of the people/product/movie to other businesses or people. PR helps business growth, it should be part of every business plan.
Did you have specific goals in mind for Cannes? Did you achieve those goals?
I had a major goal in Cannes: making my clients happy, giving them my best. From putting together industry and press events, setting up a photo-op for a major celebrity announcing a new movie at the last minute, promoting short movies, creating an award: the Birks Canadian Diamond as well as promoting Canadian diamonds to create jobs and revenue for Canada via red carpet opportunities to talking to the press and negotiating with them for media opportunities for my clients. It was a very successful Cannes!
What would you say to an independent filmmaker about PR? Is it really needed? At what stage?
If you want the world to know how great you are, and get more opportunities, you need a publicist. Publicity is needed, there are way too many stimuli in this world for people to not notice you and your project(s), a publicist will bring the awareness which will bring interest in you and in what you do. I would say talk to a publicist at any stage of your career, if we can do work for you we will tell you.
Do you have any advice for filmmakers, actors, and other professionals who can't quite afford a PR representative yet?
You are investing in your career, so hiring a publicist, and it is quite an expense, is an expense which will generate awareness therefore opportunities. You are spending to earn more.
Anecdote or a "Cannes moment"?
Having an actress telling the ambassador of her country in front of other officials, that I was doing an excellent job, well beyond my contract, having manually adjusted her boobs in her dress for them to look perfect in the outfit for her big red carpet moment... Luckily I am known to go beyond my job requirements to get the job done...
Next up...The Actor
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
Who are you and what do you do?
I founded Jazo PR, a company that does corporate and movie public relations, event and cross promotion, as well as social media campaigns and soon product placement.
What is Public Relations? Why do you think it's important?
Public Relations is bringing awareness of the people/product/movie to other businesses or people. PR helps business growth, it should be part of every business plan.
Did you have specific goals in mind for Cannes? Did you achieve those goals?
I had a major goal in Cannes: making my clients happy, giving them my best. From putting together industry and press events, setting up a photo-op for a major celebrity announcing a new movie at the last minute, promoting short movies, creating an award: the Birks Canadian Diamond as well as promoting Canadian diamonds to create jobs and revenue for Canada via red carpet opportunities to talking to the press and negotiating with them for media opportunities for my clients. It was a very successful Cannes!
What would you say to an independent filmmaker about PR? Is it really needed? At what stage?
If you want the world to know how great you are, and get more opportunities, you need a publicist. Publicity is needed, there are way too many stimuli in this world for people to not notice you and your project(s), a publicist will bring the awareness which will bring interest in you and in what you do. I would say talk to a publicist at any stage of your career, if we can do work for you we will tell you.
Do you have any advice for filmmakers, actors, and other professionals who can't quite afford a PR representative yet?
You are investing in your career, so hiring a publicist, and it is quite an expense, is an expense which will generate awareness therefore opportunities. You are spending to earn more.
Anecdote or a "Cannes moment"?
Having an actress telling the ambassador of her country in front of other officials, that I was doing an excellent job, well beyond my contract, having manually adjusted her boobs in her dress for them to look perfect in the outfit for her big red carpet moment... Luckily I am known to go beyond my job requirements to get the job done...
Next up...The Actor
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/16/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
For years I've been hearing and reading about a film guy in New York causing trouble and raising a ruckus in the indie scene. I finally had a chance to meet Ira Deutchman at Cannes and ask him about his newest endeavor; a fascinating digital distribution model.
You're known for wearing a lot of hats, what's your focus these days? what brought you to Cannes?
My focus is split between Emerging Pictures, and my academic career at Columbia. They are related in the sense that I’ve always been both a student and teacher, with a primary field of study that includes the use of new technologies for distribution and marketing of independent films.
Would call your company a distributor?
Yes, but not a traditional one. We distribute only alternative product, which includes strands of indie and international films, like series and mini-festivals.
How did you get that started? Where did the idea come from?
In terms of Emerging, for me it began in my post-Fine Line days when I found myself disillusioned by the distribution environments I was seeing. It didn’t seem like anyone had any imagination. I met up with Barry Rebo, who I had known for many years as a pioneer in HD technologies. He introduced me to high quality digital projection, and it got me fired up about the possibilities this technology created.
What's the response been so far?
It was very slow going in the early years…lots of resistance to change by both distributors and exhibitors. Now there is no more resistance. The chance to digital is seen as a fait accompli, so suddenly we are visionaries for having gotten there first.
So what's the ultimate goal with the network?
To create a cost-effective was of getting non-mainstream product into a theatrical environment.
Has there been any studio backlash? The digital print fee guys must be furious.
Nah…we’re small potatoes. A slightly festering pimple on their asses.
What was your biggest success so far?
The operas and ballets have been enormously successful. I’m also very proud of the work we did on the premiere of the Joffrey Ballet documentary, which we did with the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Have have you learned from some of the more difficult releases that is making your network better?
Not to play Iraq war documentaries or Mumblecore movie.
Any advice or anecdotes for filmmakers?
Adjust your expectations and reduce your budgets.
See a previous article on Ira Deutchman at Sydney's Buzz.
Next up...Public Relations
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
You're known for wearing a lot of hats, what's your focus these days? what brought you to Cannes?
My focus is split between Emerging Pictures, and my academic career at Columbia. They are related in the sense that I’ve always been both a student and teacher, with a primary field of study that includes the use of new technologies for distribution and marketing of independent films.
Would call your company a distributor?
Yes, but not a traditional one. We distribute only alternative product, which includes strands of indie and international films, like series and mini-festivals.
How did you get that started? Where did the idea come from?
In terms of Emerging, for me it began in my post-Fine Line days when I found myself disillusioned by the distribution environments I was seeing. It didn’t seem like anyone had any imagination. I met up with Barry Rebo, who I had known for many years as a pioneer in HD technologies. He introduced me to high quality digital projection, and it got me fired up about the possibilities this technology created.
What's the response been so far?
It was very slow going in the early years…lots of resistance to change by both distributors and exhibitors. Now there is no more resistance. The chance to digital is seen as a fait accompli, so suddenly we are visionaries for having gotten there first.
So what's the ultimate goal with the network?
To create a cost-effective was of getting non-mainstream product into a theatrical environment.
Has there been any studio backlash? The digital print fee guys must be furious.
Nah…we’re small potatoes. A slightly festering pimple on their asses.
What was your biggest success so far?
The operas and ballets have been enormously successful. I’m also very proud of the work we did on the premiere of the Joffrey Ballet documentary, which we did with the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Have have you learned from some of the more difficult releases that is making your network better?
Not to play Iraq war documentaries or Mumblecore movie.
Any advice or anecdotes for filmmakers?
Adjust your expectations and reduce your budgets.
See a previous article on Ira Deutchman at Sydney's Buzz.
Next up...Public Relations
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/14/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
For new filmmakers and veterans alike, navigating the waters of the international film sales scene can be a daunting task. Halfway through the hectic Cannes Film Market I had a chance to sit down with Scott Bedno of hard-working indie sales outfit Spotlight Pictures. He took a few minutes to help shine a spotlight on the film industry from the international sales agent's perspective.
So tell me a bit about Spotlight; who are you and how long have you been in business?
Spotlight Pictures is a full-service film sales company licensing all media rights of feature films worldwide. Spotlight started in 2005, but the core members of the Spotlight team have decades of experience in the international arena.
What is your position in the company and what is your background?
I am the President of International at Spotlight Pictures. I started at Spotlight in September 2011, but I have known the company CEO, Matthew McCombs, since I first started in the business, as an assistant to legendary buyer’s rep, Gordon Steel. I don’t want to mention how long ago that was! After working with Gordon, I then worked as an acquisitions executive for the Australian distributor, Becker Entertainment, working under Mark Gooder, where we acquired titles such as “The Blair Witch Project” and “Buena Vista Social Club.” I dabbled in the “new media” space for a while, then settled into sales about a decade ago.
You seem to be doing better than just surviving, but actually growing in the past couple markets, what's your secret?
We find that as we’ve grown as a company, producers have gravitated towards us. They appreciate our straight-talk; some sales companies are prone to give out overblown sales estimates just to secure a film, we analyze the market for them realistically. We also try and lay out a road map of the sales strategy and discuss marketing ideas with our producers, as it truly is a partnership. We know how much time and energy our producers put into making the film, so we want to match that time and energy in selling the film. We don’t represent a large number of titles so we can devote enough time and resources to the films we do represent.
Lionsgate acquires Summit, eOne gobbling Alliance, seems like the pond is shrinking; as an "indies' indie" what's your take on the current climate for independent financing and distribution?
Certainly independent financing has taken a hit since the banking crisis. However, there always seems to be a steady stream of investors who want to be involved in the film business, so I feel the death of independent cinema is exaggerated to some degree. Mergers and acquisitions seem to be cyclical as well. At one point, there were no mini-major studios or studio/indie hybrids, then there were a bunch of them, now there aren’t as many. Two years from now, who knows? All I know is, quality product will find a market.
What are some of the titles you currently have, and how was Cannes for you?
We had a great Cannes, I’m pleased to report. We closed deals in Germany, Japan, Latin America, Turkey, Middle East, UK, just to name a few. I will also be closing deals after the market. Our recent titles include “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” which had a theatrical release in the States on over 450 prints, “Millennium Bug,” a creature feature using only practical effects (no CGI!) which buyers loved, the family/dog, “I Heart Shakey 3D,” and the zombie comedy, “Detention of the Dead.” As you can see, it’s a diverse slate, but we know different buyers are looking for different types of product, so we want to make sure we have something for everyone. What they have in common is the passion of the filmmakers behind them.
What's your advice to indie producers?
My advice to producers is to make the film you want to make, but it couldn’t hurt to talk to a sales agent before you start down the path. Our current producers bounce ideas off us for their next projects all the time, and we’ll give them our advice from what our buyers are saying to us. We have no ego, so you can say, “I’m making this movie about a dandelion growing in the desert, as it’s a symbol of a young woman’s coming-of-age in post-World War II Mongolia, and you can’t talk me out of it!” And we’ll say, “If that’s your passion, and you have to make the film, then go for it…but can you at least have some name cast?”
What one piece of information would producers be surprised to know?
All producers are concerned about piracy, as are we. However, most producers have been given the advice that you don’t want to have your film released in foreign territories ahead of the Us release, due to piracy. In fact, the opposite is true. There is more piracy flowing out from the States than flowing into the States. Which makes sense, as pirates take advantage of the promotion and awareness from the Us release. You’ve seen the studios catching on to this, as “Battleship” was released very successfully in foreign territories well in advance of the Us release.
Are you open to being contacted even if a film hasn't won a prize at Sundance?
Certainly! We’re always looking for quality product, and that doesn’t mean you need festival accolades to be considered. Producers please check out our website, www.spotlight-pictures.com, and contact us directly regarding your project.
Next up...The Distributor
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
So tell me a bit about Spotlight; who are you and how long have you been in business?
Spotlight Pictures is a full-service film sales company licensing all media rights of feature films worldwide. Spotlight started in 2005, but the core members of the Spotlight team have decades of experience in the international arena.
What is your position in the company and what is your background?
I am the President of International at Spotlight Pictures. I started at Spotlight in September 2011, but I have known the company CEO, Matthew McCombs, since I first started in the business, as an assistant to legendary buyer’s rep, Gordon Steel. I don’t want to mention how long ago that was! After working with Gordon, I then worked as an acquisitions executive for the Australian distributor, Becker Entertainment, working under Mark Gooder, where we acquired titles such as “The Blair Witch Project” and “Buena Vista Social Club.” I dabbled in the “new media” space for a while, then settled into sales about a decade ago.
You seem to be doing better than just surviving, but actually growing in the past couple markets, what's your secret?
We find that as we’ve grown as a company, producers have gravitated towards us. They appreciate our straight-talk; some sales companies are prone to give out overblown sales estimates just to secure a film, we analyze the market for them realistically. We also try and lay out a road map of the sales strategy and discuss marketing ideas with our producers, as it truly is a partnership. We know how much time and energy our producers put into making the film, so we want to match that time and energy in selling the film. We don’t represent a large number of titles so we can devote enough time and resources to the films we do represent.
Lionsgate acquires Summit, eOne gobbling Alliance, seems like the pond is shrinking; as an "indies' indie" what's your take on the current climate for independent financing and distribution?
Certainly independent financing has taken a hit since the banking crisis. However, there always seems to be a steady stream of investors who want to be involved in the film business, so I feel the death of independent cinema is exaggerated to some degree. Mergers and acquisitions seem to be cyclical as well. At one point, there were no mini-major studios or studio/indie hybrids, then there were a bunch of them, now there aren’t as many. Two years from now, who knows? All I know is, quality product will find a market.
What are some of the titles you currently have, and how was Cannes for you?
We had a great Cannes, I’m pleased to report. We closed deals in Germany, Japan, Latin America, Turkey, Middle East, UK, just to name a few. I will also be closing deals after the market. Our recent titles include “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” which had a theatrical release in the States on over 450 prints, “Millennium Bug,” a creature feature using only practical effects (no CGI!) which buyers loved, the family/dog, “I Heart Shakey 3D,” and the zombie comedy, “Detention of the Dead.” As you can see, it’s a diverse slate, but we know different buyers are looking for different types of product, so we want to make sure we have something for everyone. What they have in common is the passion of the filmmakers behind them.
What's your advice to indie producers?
My advice to producers is to make the film you want to make, but it couldn’t hurt to talk to a sales agent before you start down the path. Our current producers bounce ideas off us for their next projects all the time, and we’ll give them our advice from what our buyers are saying to us. We have no ego, so you can say, “I’m making this movie about a dandelion growing in the desert, as it’s a symbol of a young woman’s coming-of-age in post-World War II Mongolia, and you can’t talk me out of it!” And we’ll say, “If that’s your passion, and you have to make the film, then go for it…but can you at least have some name cast?”
What one piece of information would producers be surprised to know?
All producers are concerned about piracy, as are we. However, most producers have been given the advice that you don’t want to have your film released in foreign territories ahead of the Us release, due to piracy. In fact, the opposite is true. There is more piracy flowing out from the States than flowing into the States. Which makes sense, as pirates take advantage of the promotion and awareness from the Us release. You’ve seen the studios catching on to this, as “Battleship” was released very successfully in foreign territories well in advance of the Us release.
Are you open to being contacted even if a film hasn't won a prize at Sundance?
Certainly! We’re always looking for quality product, and that doesn’t mean you need festival accolades to be considered. Producers please check out our website, www.spotlight-pictures.com, and contact us directly regarding your project.
Next up...The Distributor
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/14/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
I had the occasion to have lunch with film industry veteran Jonathan Dana at Cannes and he shared some war stories of what it means to be a "producer" in this day and age.
Zc: So Jonathan, what is it that you do?
Jd: Over my 41 years in the business I have done just about everything except own a theater, including being a partner in two of the prominent indie companies of the 80's and 90's (Atlantic Releasing and Triton Pictures), before going back on my own in 1995 as a producer and producer's rep. I was also an initial investor in and, with the founders, supervised the launch of indie film community Withoutabox.com, now an operating division of IMDb.
I do both docs and fiction films and enjoy each. Two of my recent docs as a rep have been 2012 Spirit Award nominee "We Were Here" which has its televison premiere on Independent Lens this week, and "The Invisible War" which won the American Doc Audience Award at this year's Sundance and opens theatrically imminently.
As a producer does that mean you came to Cannes to sell something?
We're always selling something, no?
Did you have specific goals in mind for Cannes? Did you achieve those goals?
Yes, I always have a specific mission in Cannes, whatever it might be in any particular year. One of the art forms, and survival skills, is being able to define your goals in your own mind ahead of time so you can constantly keep steering back to the mission amidst the apparent chaos of the fest and market. And yes, the fest was a success for me, despite its rather unusual wet weather.
This year my mission was to move forward a slate of films I am executive producing with Code Entertainment, the excellent production/finance company run by Al Corley and Bart Rosenblatt with whom I have worked for many years ("You Kill Me", "Kill the Irishman", "Drowning Mona", "Sad Jack", upcoming.)
I also had the pleasure of representing the interests of screenwriter Jose Rivera, Rick Berg's client at Code's management division, who was unable to attend the premiere of his "On the Road". I loved the film, and it was a great 'red carpet' evening, with fine weather to boot!
How important is networking to what a producer does?
It's obviously a big part of the job, especially at a Cannes like this one where so many new sales and financing companies were announced. It is important to stay current, even though it often makes your head hurt. I was proud of myself this year, going totally electronic with my iPhone, both for scheduling and for keeping meeting notes, making the usually horrific task of post-Cannes debriefing entirely tolerable.
Do you have any advice for producers and filmmakers who feel that it's just too expensive to justify the cost of going to Cannes or another major festival?
There are many ways to skin a cat. No one event is irreplaceable. Just keep moving forward with the resources at hand. No one ever failed at the movie business just because they did not go to any particular festival.
Do you have any anecdotes or a particular "Cannes moment" of note?
Having been to Cannes 30 times, I am fortunate to have had numerous Cannes moments, including huge triumphs and failures, as well as the tiny moments that are at least equally memorable, so it is hard to pick one. I do remember standing at the top of the red carpet with Patty Hearst, a lovely woman, after the premiere of her biopic that we made with Paul Schrader, staring out at the crowd, thinking "Wow, there's all kinda ways to get to the top of these stairs."
Previous article on Sydney's Buzz about Jonathan Dana.
Next up. . .The International Sales Agent
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
Zc: So Jonathan, what is it that you do?
Jd: Over my 41 years in the business I have done just about everything except own a theater, including being a partner in two of the prominent indie companies of the 80's and 90's (Atlantic Releasing and Triton Pictures), before going back on my own in 1995 as a producer and producer's rep. I was also an initial investor in and, with the founders, supervised the launch of indie film community Withoutabox.com, now an operating division of IMDb.
I do both docs and fiction films and enjoy each. Two of my recent docs as a rep have been 2012 Spirit Award nominee "We Were Here" which has its televison premiere on Independent Lens this week, and "The Invisible War" which won the American Doc Audience Award at this year's Sundance and opens theatrically imminently.
As a producer does that mean you came to Cannes to sell something?
We're always selling something, no?
Did you have specific goals in mind for Cannes? Did you achieve those goals?
Yes, I always have a specific mission in Cannes, whatever it might be in any particular year. One of the art forms, and survival skills, is being able to define your goals in your own mind ahead of time so you can constantly keep steering back to the mission amidst the apparent chaos of the fest and market. And yes, the fest was a success for me, despite its rather unusual wet weather.
This year my mission was to move forward a slate of films I am executive producing with Code Entertainment, the excellent production/finance company run by Al Corley and Bart Rosenblatt with whom I have worked for many years ("You Kill Me", "Kill the Irishman", "Drowning Mona", "Sad Jack", upcoming.)
I also had the pleasure of representing the interests of screenwriter Jose Rivera, Rick Berg's client at Code's management division, who was unable to attend the premiere of his "On the Road". I loved the film, and it was a great 'red carpet' evening, with fine weather to boot!
How important is networking to what a producer does?
It's obviously a big part of the job, especially at a Cannes like this one where so many new sales and financing companies were announced. It is important to stay current, even though it often makes your head hurt. I was proud of myself this year, going totally electronic with my iPhone, both for scheduling and for keeping meeting notes, making the usually horrific task of post-Cannes debriefing entirely tolerable.
Do you have any advice for producers and filmmakers who feel that it's just too expensive to justify the cost of going to Cannes or another major festival?
There are many ways to skin a cat. No one event is irreplaceable. Just keep moving forward with the resources at hand. No one ever failed at the movie business just because they did not go to any particular festival.
Do you have any anecdotes or a particular "Cannes moment" of note?
Having been to Cannes 30 times, I am fortunate to have had numerous Cannes moments, including huge triumphs and failures, as well as the tiny moments that are at least equally memorable, so it is hard to pick one. I do remember standing at the top of the red carpet with Patty Hearst, a lovely woman, after the premiere of her biopic that we made with Paul Schrader, staring out at the crowd, thinking "Wow, there's all kinda ways to get to the top of these stairs."
Previous article on Sydney's Buzz about Jonathan Dana.
Next up. . .The International Sales Agent
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/13/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
After an absence of twelve years, producer and movie marketing specialist Zack Coffman returned to Cannes this year with his company One World Studios Ltd. In between a busy schedule of meetings regarding his just completed Ouija movie "I Am ZoZo" and viral transmedia hit "LiveSciFi.tv" Zack had a chance to sit down with various film professionals and ask their unique perspectives on Cannes and the film industry.
Zack: First big thanks to Sydney Levine and her partner Peter Belsito, who basically chided me into coming to Cannes this year. I was a bit trepidatious having been out of the international scene for a bit while running my production/distribution company in La. It was more than worth it and I can't recommend it enough to anyone engaging in any aspect of international film business or media.
A couple of days into the festival it occurred to me that we had such an amazing mix of film industry leaders and innovators all in one place it might be interesting both for newer filmmakers and veterans alike to hear some thoughts from the people who really make the modern film business function. This is the list I came up with, not meant to be exhaustive but seemed like many of the major cogs in the wheel are represented:
The Producer
The International Sales Agent
The Distributor
Public Relations
The Actor
The Film Commission
The Exhibitor
The Festival
The Brand - Tbd - (I've decided to devote a future article to this because as an independent I believe it's imperative to understand brand perspective when creating a film marketing strategy)
Some of the people I spoke with you may have heard of and some not, but they have all done their time in the trenches and I hope their thoughts and opinions might help to open up more dialogue and debate on how to operate in the independent film industry.
Next up. . .The Producer
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
Zack: First big thanks to Sydney Levine and her partner Peter Belsito, who basically chided me into coming to Cannes this year. I was a bit trepidatious having been out of the international scene for a bit while running my production/distribution company in La. It was more than worth it and I can't recommend it enough to anyone engaging in any aspect of international film business or media.
A couple of days into the festival it occurred to me that we had such an amazing mix of film industry leaders and innovators all in one place it might be interesting both for newer filmmakers and veterans alike to hear some thoughts from the people who really make the modern film business function. This is the list I came up with, not meant to be exhaustive but seemed like many of the major cogs in the wheel are represented:
The Producer
The International Sales Agent
The Distributor
Public Relations
The Actor
The Film Commission
The Exhibitor
The Festival
The Brand - Tbd - (I've decided to devote a future article to this because as an independent I believe it's imperative to understand brand perspective when creating a film marketing strategy)
Some of the people I spoke with you may have heard of and some not, but they have all done their time in the trenches and I hope their thoughts and opinions might help to open up more dialogue and debate on how to operate in the independent film industry.
Next up. . .The Producer
Written by Zack Coffman. Follow Zack's film marketing tips and adventures @choppertown on Twitter.
- 6/11/2012
- by Zack Coffman
- Sydney's Buzz
This is a very compelling case study on using current (and free!) internet tools readily available for audience building, demographic collection, contacting the people who may be your 'base group' and who may eventually (or now?) compensate you for your content. I think that connecting with your intended (and / or desirable) audience is almost Job Number One to any of us who create (film, art or here as an internet and or TV show) and who instinctively 'know' who we are speaking to. This compelling piece by our friend Zack Coffman really has some very interesting ideas which we should all absorb (and ??? follow?...)
Billed as "Big Brother meets Ghostbusters" online reality show LiveSciFi scored a hit this weekend as the relaunch of their cult streaming ghost hunting show got over 5 million views, going into their final nights on location at the haunted "Sallie House" of Atchison, Ks. Originally to last 72 hours, the response to the show has been so great the team decided to extend it to 96 hours to give the viewers just a bit more paranormal investigation to ponder until the next live show scheduled for late May. Evidenciary clips will be posted over the next few days to the LiveSciFi.tv paranormal blog.
Known for taking tamer cable TV ghost hunting fare to the extreme, the LiveSciFi team (Tim Wood, Scott Di Lalla, and Patrick Langdon) take turns doing various experiments in the most haunted locations such as Ouija board, Ganzfeld sensory deprivation, BeezleBox(tm) and Ghost Radar®. Calling itself "As real as it gets," the show allows viewers to watch unedited continuous feeds from various rooms in the house while the ghost hunters deal with whatever supernatural energies may exist in the house and attempt to bring them to the visual and aural realm for all to see.
Created by Wood in late 2007, LiveSciFi was the first live streaming paranormal show ever attempted on the internet and it achieved a cultlike status among loyal followers even though the technology wasn't up to today's standards. "I just got sick of various fake paranormal shows that were edited down without showing the audience what was really happening and letting them decide for themselves," says Wood, "I never imagined it would go this crazy." The show came to the attention of award-winning One World Studios Ltd. toppers Scott Di Lalla and Zack Coffman who acquired it just three weeks prior to this weekend's streaming, keeping Wood on as host and creative director. The One World duo had just finished up their own paranormal Ouija movie, a feature film called I Am ZoZo shot entirely on Super 8mm and based on true accounts of the demon ZoZo attacking people through Ouija boards, when Di Lalla's friend and fellow paranormal hobbyist Langdon mentioned that the intense online reality show he had appeared on needed another camera operator. Di Lalla accompanied LiveSciFi for a weekend and when he returned he told Coffman, "We gotta get in on this." Two weeks later One World had acquired the show and began seeking sponsors and a platform to stream it to the widest possible audience. "We approached all the usual suspects, but honestly, this is sort of unexplored territory so it wasn't easy with such a short window before the next show. Justin.tv told us that they could offer a front page placement and we had the deal done in a matter of hours. Muses Coffman, "The guys at Justin told us to expect 750k to 1 million viewers over the weekend and those were amazing numbers to us. We never expected the response to be five times that!
Last Second Scrambling -- With the show scheduled to go live two days hence, on Friday the 13th, Coffman took the viewer estimates and tried to arrange some sponsorships. He contacted Dickies with whom One World had a long-standing relationship through One World's series of cult motorcycle movies (Choppertown). Recounts Coffman, "I wasn't sure what they'd say about an edgy ghost hunting show, but I think there was a level of trust we had built up over our previous projects and I basically just promised them it would be worth their while." Dickies PR Director Misty Otto made the call while on a business flight en route to Chicago, "Zack (Coffman) said he had an amazing last second opportunity and sent me a quick synopsis that we found compelling and fresh. That and our previous good experiences with One World made it easy to jump on board even on short notice. We always enjoy working with Scotty, Zack and the One World crew because they bring a very real, raw and interesting perspective to the projects they tackle." With a main sponsor on board and only hours before the show was scheduled to go live, Coffman approached one more sponsor, Spud Pickles, makers of the #1 ghost hunting app Ghost Radar®. "We love the app and it's far and away the most popular of all the ghost hunting apps out there with several million downloads so they (Spud Pickles) were definitely my first choice," says Coffman. Like Dickies, Spud Pickles topper, Jack Jones saw the opportunity immediately and bought a sponsorship right there on the phone. Then in a sign of good things to come, Spud Pickles released a global update to all their users featuring a graphical splash page and a link to LiveSciFi's homepage. Said Coffman, "We were so happy that Spud Pickles got on board, but they went far and above the sponsor relationship by helping to promote the show the way they did. We got thousands of hits that first day from the Ghost Radar® update alone."
As the team were setting up in Atchison, One World continued the last-second PR blitz. "We started calling all the local TV stations in Kansas City, telling them about the Friday the 13th ghost hunt. None of them showed up, but local ABC affiliate Kmbc published our release on their blog and it just took off. That posting caused several thousand hits, and then MSNBC.com reposted it just as the show was going live on Friday evening followed by About.com. "We must have gotten a good 10,000 hits from those posts alone." says Coffman.
With the show going live and the last touches and updates going on the site, the team focused on creating the best interactive viewer experience possible. Wood, Di Lalla and Langdon began investigating various parts of the house while receiving tweets from viewers that had already been watching the quad-cam splitscreen for hours. Wood and the team then tried to base their focus on the information coming in from the viewers live chats and tweets, continuing until 4am when the team set up their sleeping bags right in the center of the living room floor; the cams running on them as they slumbered fitfully with their viewers watching over them.
About One World Studios Ltd.:
One World’s first feature documentary Choppertown: the Sinners focused on a renowned group of California bikers known as the Sinners. Produced in 2004 with a stack of credit cards, this award-winning documentary heralded a return to the values of a simpler time and spawned a worldwide cult following culminating in a seventeen-country European theatrical tour sponsored by Dickies. After selling 20,000 Choppertown DVDs out of an apartment in West La, Coffman and Dilalla were able to quit their part-time jobs and make films full time since 2005. I Am ZoZo is their sixth feature and first narrative. LiveSciFi is their first Live reality show.
Billed as "Big Brother meets Ghostbusters" online reality show LiveSciFi scored a hit this weekend as the relaunch of their cult streaming ghost hunting show got over 5 million views, going into their final nights on location at the haunted "Sallie House" of Atchison, Ks. Originally to last 72 hours, the response to the show has been so great the team decided to extend it to 96 hours to give the viewers just a bit more paranormal investigation to ponder until the next live show scheduled for late May. Evidenciary clips will be posted over the next few days to the LiveSciFi.tv paranormal blog.
Known for taking tamer cable TV ghost hunting fare to the extreme, the LiveSciFi team (Tim Wood, Scott Di Lalla, and Patrick Langdon) take turns doing various experiments in the most haunted locations such as Ouija board, Ganzfeld sensory deprivation, BeezleBox(tm) and Ghost Radar®. Calling itself "As real as it gets," the show allows viewers to watch unedited continuous feeds from various rooms in the house while the ghost hunters deal with whatever supernatural energies may exist in the house and attempt to bring them to the visual and aural realm for all to see.
Created by Wood in late 2007, LiveSciFi was the first live streaming paranormal show ever attempted on the internet and it achieved a cultlike status among loyal followers even though the technology wasn't up to today's standards. "I just got sick of various fake paranormal shows that were edited down without showing the audience what was really happening and letting them decide for themselves," says Wood, "I never imagined it would go this crazy." The show came to the attention of award-winning One World Studios Ltd. toppers Scott Di Lalla and Zack Coffman who acquired it just three weeks prior to this weekend's streaming, keeping Wood on as host and creative director. The One World duo had just finished up their own paranormal Ouija movie, a feature film called I Am ZoZo shot entirely on Super 8mm and based on true accounts of the demon ZoZo attacking people through Ouija boards, when Di Lalla's friend and fellow paranormal hobbyist Langdon mentioned that the intense online reality show he had appeared on needed another camera operator. Di Lalla accompanied LiveSciFi for a weekend and when he returned he told Coffman, "We gotta get in on this." Two weeks later One World had acquired the show and began seeking sponsors and a platform to stream it to the widest possible audience. "We approached all the usual suspects, but honestly, this is sort of unexplored territory so it wasn't easy with such a short window before the next show. Justin.tv told us that they could offer a front page placement and we had the deal done in a matter of hours. Muses Coffman, "The guys at Justin told us to expect 750k to 1 million viewers over the weekend and those were amazing numbers to us. We never expected the response to be five times that!
Last Second Scrambling -- With the show scheduled to go live two days hence, on Friday the 13th, Coffman took the viewer estimates and tried to arrange some sponsorships. He contacted Dickies with whom One World had a long-standing relationship through One World's series of cult motorcycle movies (Choppertown). Recounts Coffman, "I wasn't sure what they'd say about an edgy ghost hunting show, but I think there was a level of trust we had built up over our previous projects and I basically just promised them it would be worth their while." Dickies PR Director Misty Otto made the call while on a business flight en route to Chicago, "Zack (Coffman) said he had an amazing last second opportunity and sent me a quick synopsis that we found compelling and fresh. That and our previous good experiences with One World made it easy to jump on board even on short notice. We always enjoy working with Scotty, Zack and the One World crew because they bring a very real, raw and interesting perspective to the projects they tackle." With a main sponsor on board and only hours before the show was scheduled to go live, Coffman approached one more sponsor, Spud Pickles, makers of the #1 ghost hunting app Ghost Radar®. "We love the app and it's far and away the most popular of all the ghost hunting apps out there with several million downloads so they (Spud Pickles) were definitely my first choice," says Coffman. Like Dickies, Spud Pickles topper, Jack Jones saw the opportunity immediately and bought a sponsorship right there on the phone. Then in a sign of good things to come, Spud Pickles released a global update to all their users featuring a graphical splash page and a link to LiveSciFi's homepage. Said Coffman, "We were so happy that Spud Pickles got on board, but they went far and above the sponsor relationship by helping to promote the show the way they did. We got thousands of hits that first day from the Ghost Radar® update alone."
As the team were setting up in Atchison, One World continued the last-second PR blitz. "We started calling all the local TV stations in Kansas City, telling them about the Friday the 13th ghost hunt. None of them showed up, but local ABC affiliate Kmbc published our release on their blog and it just took off. That posting caused several thousand hits, and then MSNBC.com reposted it just as the show was going live on Friday evening followed by About.com. "We must have gotten a good 10,000 hits from those posts alone." says Coffman.
With the show going live and the last touches and updates going on the site, the team focused on creating the best interactive viewer experience possible. Wood, Di Lalla and Langdon began investigating various parts of the house while receiving tweets from viewers that had already been watching the quad-cam splitscreen for hours. Wood and the team then tried to base their focus on the information coming in from the viewers live chats and tweets, continuing until 4am when the team set up their sleeping bags right in the center of the living room floor; the cams running on them as they slumbered fitfully with their viewers watching over them.
About One World Studios Ltd.:
One World’s first feature documentary Choppertown: the Sinners focused on a renowned group of California bikers known as the Sinners. Produced in 2004 with a stack of credit cards, this award-winning documentary heralded a return to the values of a simpler time and spawned a worldwide cult following culminating in a seventeen-country European theatrical tour sponsored by Dickies. After selling 20,000 Choppertown DVDs out of an apartment in West La, Coffman and Dilalla were able to quit their part-time jobs and make films full time since 2005. I Am ZoZo is their sixth feature and first narrative. LiveSciFi is their first Live reality show.
- 4/19/2012
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
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