Brian is pretty damn articulate about the emerging new paradigm. We posted him before here and here.
Hat tip to Ray Pride at MovieCityNews/Indie
Tag: free
Speedcine beta launches.
Definitely a good idea.
Please don’t steal our creative work (or anyone’s work for that matter) unless we ask you to. Thanks.
I should have known Free would be the mantra of the weekend. We were going to take Hope The Younger to freeload at Vanessa’s Dad’s pad by the beach for the 4th, but before we left, we had the op to share a cab back from celebrating Strand’s 20th with Indiewire’s Eugene Hernadez; under his arm, still in it’s protective wrapper, was Chris Anderson’s “Free”. Eugene had shelled out the $27 bucks for the wisdom of the nothing economy. Meanwhile, I was still hoping that Anderson would still take me up on my offer to send copies to the 4 most influential people I know, and thus provide with a copy for the price of the title. I guess heads of Hollywood and Indiewood studios don’t rank in his book. Back from the sea, sand still between my toes, I still haven’t read the meme of the moment, and now must live vicariously.
I once had a friend who said he preferred reading criticism than seeing or reading the real deal. I just may have to settle for that experience myself on this one, but luckily we all have the pleasure of both Malcolm Gladwell and Janet Maslin chiming in on Anderson’s book so we can still participate in the daily chatter.
Just so it’s clear — if it isn’t already — Anderson’s “free” is not the same “FREE” of this blog’s inspiration (and title). Here on TFF, free is used in terms of thought, execution, and means of distribution. Here I mean FREE in terms of content, not economy. Granted there is a lot of overlap, but basically I am hoping that by changing our economic model to adapt to the reality of our times, what once was mistakingly called Indie Film can be a far more diverse and participatory culture. But more on that later. Back to that other Free…
Generally the question everyone seems to want to know is how do you make money, let alone recoup your time and money, when you are giving the product away for free?
“The way to compete with Free is to move past the abundance to find the adjacent scarcity,” states Chris Anderson in his book. What does that mean for you the filmmaker?
Scott Macauley on FilmmakerMagBlog tipped me to Brian Newman’s powerpoint on moving beyond Free, and actually how to make a living with Free. Brian answers that question quite clearly & concisely.
Brian, borrowing from Kevin Kelly’s “Better Than Free”, points out where the added value comes in:
- Immediacy: Give them something now
- Personalization: To their needs
- Interpretation: with study guide, or commentary
- Authenticity: From you directly, signed by you
- Embodiment: Speaking Fees
- Patronage: Support the artist; Radiohead model
- Accessibility: Make it easy to get
- Findability: Work with partners who make you findable
The powerpoint is without audio, but pretty easy to follow if you have been following this blog.
Filmmakers making a living with Free
View more documents from Brian Newman.
To further answer this Question-Of-The-Moment, Janet Maslin points out in her review:
Mr. Anderson sees that consumers think not only about money but also about intangibles like convenience, access, quality and time.
Maslin, in contrasting Anderson’s “Free” with Shell’s book “Cheap”, also hits upon one of the plagues that runs amok in Indie Filmland:
Ms. Shell’s intangibles are different; she argues that moral accountability and responsibility are often sacrificed for the sake of cheap pricing.
They didn’t write a book on that because it would require two words: Bad Behavior. I find that even the filmmakers who adopt the “film-is-war” approach to production (more Bad Behavior), still struggle over these principles. People don’t like to exploit others, although sometimes they allow themselves to get distracted to the point such exploitation becomes a tad too convenient. Those that do have started to lose some of those human qualities. Generally I find the creative brigade would love to find ways to get their work made and seen without having to ransom moral accountability and responsibility. People will adopt good behavior if they are reminded or given the opportunity or have a gun held to their head (daily).
I think the gun is there along with the opportunity and the daily reminders.
Yet, the fear of there be no real business model there too, leads a lot to indulge in a less rigid sense of effects. It’s funny how survival leads many to cannibalize themselves. And as clearly as Gladwell deconstructs Anderson’s model, he too finds it difficult to unearth the money-generating Free model:
There are four strands of argument here: a technological claim (digital infrastructure is effectively Free), a psychological claim (consumers love Free), a procedural claim (Free means never having to make a judgment), and a commercial claim (the market created by the technological Free and the psychological Free can make you a lot of money). The only problem is that in the middle of laying out what he sees as the new business model of the digital age Anderson is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, YouTube, “has so far failed to make any money for Google.”
To makes matter worse, providing for Free, isn’t free to YouTube. As Gladwell points out “A recent report by Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube’s bandwidth costs in 2009 will be three hundred and sixty million dollars.” And then it gets even worse from there:
…in order to make money, YouTube has been obliged to pay for programs that aren’t crap. To recap: YouTube is a great example of Free, except that Free technology ends up not being Free because of the way consumers respond to Free, fatally compromising YouTube’s ability to make money around Free, and forcing it to retreat from the “abundance thinking” that lies at the heart of Free. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year.
So where does all this leave us? Indie films been losing approximately two billion a year (guesstimate: 4000 features @ $500K avg. budget; all not distributed or recouping).Gladwell’s summation essentially comes down to that there are no easy answers — but that easy answers do sell books (or at least get you a publishing deal, and the 4th of July meme of the moment).
But talented artists still want to make movies. And to make good movies, we all need to focus on the movies first and foremost. But good movies aren’t enough in this world to get seen.
- A good first step is to work harder to make your film better and more distinct.
- The second step is team up and start to truly collaborate.
- Try following Kevin Kelly’s 8 Generatives for step #3.
- I think the fourth step is follow those rules via some of the methods we’ve relayed here.
- Let’s call the fifth step sharing your knowledge with each other in hopes that we will find a way.
Step by step we will get there. Let’s make this map together.
As Joe Tripitican commented below, the musicians are dealing with this all straight on. There’s a lively debate he tipped us to over on Jonathan Taplin’s blog too. Check it out.
And Mark Cuban wants to encourage all business-minded to avoid the freemium model as he believes any successful free-ium play will grow until it becomes to large, expensive, and retro. There will always be a Facebook to replace MySpace, and a MySpace to replace Friendster, a Google to kick Yahoo’s ass. Personally speaking I think all companies should plan to make themselves obsolete within five years, or they are not doing the public good.
Categories
Zwaggle: Parent Exchange
Now that would be a good idea that I am sure a lot of children would like. In fact I think there already is a few reality shows mining that topic.
Zwaggle is another sort of parent exchange. I have been intrigued with the general Free movement — I mean why not just give it away? Imagine what it would be like if you had a close group in your area that freely exchanged hand-me-downs without any need to barter for what you get back in exchange. Just give in good faith. After awhile doesn’t everyone out-grow everything (other than their loved ones, family, and friends that is).
I posted today at InfoWantsToBeFree on what should be one of the top concerns of all Truly Free Filmmakers in this coming year.
Data Portability (and access) is something that should be built into contracts, particularly when the license fees are as low as they are these days. It’s the same question as owning what you generate. It’s a question of what is really free in a free market.
There’s a lot more to say on the subject and this will be a big topic for discussion here and elsewhere.
I hear a lot of anxiety from other newcomers to social networks. Most of the folks in the film biz I know seem to initially join a network like MyFace for the promotional possibilities and professional networking. Some get seduced by the actual social functions. The anxiety often comes from what will be seen and shared and by whom. Is it good or bad to friend all those who reach out to you even when you don’t know them? Will anyone tag you in photos from the past that you would prefer to remain forgotten? That sort of thing.
But there are things that we should be concerned about, things we should ask for, push for, fight for. Businesses talk about their investment in the technology, but little is said about the user/consumer’s investment. You create connections. You tag information. You provide data, but none of it is yours. Your life in MyFace is life in a prison cell. If you leave the network, you leave behind all of your work you created there. You think you have a 1000 friends but how do you take them to another planet with you when you want to travel.
If 2008 was many things (the year of change, the year of hope, the year unregulated capitalism and greed revealed its true demonic ways), 2009 may well be the year that freedom starts to go both ways, that people push for equal rights for what they create, that we move from impulse to choice. One can hope at least.
Bill Thompson has a good post on the BBC site “The net and the real cost of free” precisely about data portability. This issue is central to all media makers. We need to own and or at least have unlimited access to the data we generate: our friends, our tags, who watches, what they watch, when they watch, where they watch. Read Bill’s piece and started thinking about what really is yours.
Categories
Major Magazines For Free
As you know, “the future of everything is free”. Certainly in the digital world, if you want anyone to read anything, you have to give it away. It brightens my day to be able to get any major publication for nothing, even when they are magazines I wouldn’t normally read. Now if someone will only give me the time it takes it look at them.
Fortunately, the device I found allows me to look at magazines on my iPhone, so the next time I am stuck with nothing to do (when was the last time that happened?), I can browse NME, Technology Today, or even Playboy. Check out: . It’s very simple to set up when you do it directly from your iPhone.
Digital Inspiration also has a neat simple hack to be able to do it from your computer if you like a bigger screen.
