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A Rush To The Graveyard: VOD

2010 May 3
tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
by Mark Lipsky

As the Cannes Film Festival approaches once again, this Yahoo News story about the looming collapse of cable TV reminded me of a panel I was on last year at Cannes sponsored by the American Pavilion. I was representing Gigantic Releasing, a new distribution company I’d launched on behalf of my friends Brian and Brooke Devine. I’d just unveiled an innovative digital delivery platform called Gigantic Digital with “Must Read After My Death,” an amazing documentary from first time director Morgan Dews. I’d developed Gigantic Digital as a way to dramatically extend the release of Gigantic’s films in their first-run theatrical window. In fact, my goal was to try and redefine the first-run theatrical window by inserting a powerful streaming layer that would add value not only to traditional bricks-and-mortar theatrical, but to each subsequent layer of distribution from DVD to VOD to iTunes to Netflix to Amazon to cruise ships.

Part of my pitch then, as it still is today, was that the future is online and the future is now. Then as now, however, the industry cannot or will not see past the day after tomorrow. The Yahoo article is validation (I never felt I needed any in this case, but it’s always nice) of a point I made on the Cannes panel which almost resulted in John Sloss and I coming to blows. I’ve known John since before he graduated law school and I love and respect him – and I think he likes me – but when I made a pronouncement that VOD was the past and streaming was the future, he took offense. I’d said that every day, thousands of people – primarily from the demographic most cherished by the dependent and co-dependent world – were canceling their cable subscriptions in droves or not taking them in the first place while the internet was continuing to experience virtually unlimited growth. John was about to launch his company’s own VOD platform, FilmBuff, so he wasn’t in a mood to debate that platform’s decline and inevitable demise.

John is a brilliant businessman and salesman and I wasn’t saying that launching a VOD platform was a bad business decision – at least for the short term. My complaint was that it was being hailed as a savior for dependent/co-dependent film with absolutely no mention of the streaming elephant in the room. No one but Gigantic was attempting to move the streaming ball down the field even though it was only inches away from the goal line. (I know, I hate sports metaphors too but I can’t help it.) There was plenty of streaming going on, of course, but no one was thinking about it as a first-run proposition which, for me, was and remains the clearest path to huge growth and renewed popularity for all off-Hollywood content. Unfortunately, Gigantic didn’t have the resources in this economy to actively sustain the Gigantic Digital adventure. Perhaps they’ll come back to it and I hope they do. In the meantime, there are still a handful of films, including Must Read After My Death, available for viewing.

Here we are now, a full year later, and almost nothing has changed. As Yahoo has reported, cable subscriptions continue their rapid decline, the major theater circuits still have draconian policies in place that prevent their buyers from booking any film that has played online in any form, Mark Cuban continues to bully filmmakers by threatening that if they stream their films on Gigantic Digital, Landmark will not book them. (This  despite the fact that Gigantic Digital not only never competes with Landmark but would actually drive traffic to its cinemas.) And now Tribeca Enterprises, with every reason and resource to pick up where Gigantic Digital left off, instead launches its own VOD platform and barely gives streaming the time of day. WTF?

Obviously, somebody’s going to take up the streaming mantle and deliver on the promise. I’d still like that person to be me and I’m hoping to connect with Gigantic this week to see if we can’t shake things up with a revised strategy. Sooner or later, though, it’s going to happen and when it does, all else is going to pale in comparison and independent film will leap out of its crypt and take its rightful place once again on the global scene.

Let’s light that fire.

from → Independent Film

  • Jeremy Morris-Burke

    YouTube looks poised to enter this fray:

    http://mashable.com/2010/05/03/youtube-user-rentals/

    There’s not a lot of info yet on exactly how it will work, or whether anyone can upload their film and take part, but if that ends up being the case it could be very exciting news…

  • Jeremy Morris-Burke

    YouTube looks poised to enter this fray:

    http://mashable.com/2010/05/03/youtube-user-rentals/

    There’s not a lot of info yet on exactly how it will work, or whether anyone can upload their film and take part, but if that ends up being the case it could be very exciting news…

  • admin

    Hey Jeremy – Thanks for the link. Based on their beyond dismal Sundance experiment, I don’t think YouTube/Google is going to have much of a positive impact on the independent world. What’s needed is a fully dedicated (and curated) destination that not only offers a technical platform but actually knows how to intelligently speak to and communicate with the community and one that is equally adept and dedicated to marketing and promoting the work to both the media and world at large. Does that sound like YouTube? I’m afraid it’ll be just more of the same but I hope I’m wrong.

  • admin

    Hey Jeremy – Thanks for the link. Based on their beyond dismal Sundance experiment, I don’t think YouTube/Google is going to have much of a positive impact on the independent world. What’s needed is a fully dedicated (and curated) destination that not only offers a technical platform but actually knows how to intelligently speak to and communicate with the community and one that is equally adept and dedicated to marketing and promoting the work to both the media and world at large. Does that sound like YouTube? I’m afraid it’ll be just more of the same but I hope I’m wrong.

  • Jeremy Morris-Burke

    Yeah I agree in the sense that it won’t help a lick in terms of creating awareness of particular films, but what it could potentially offer (if it is open to everyone- a big IF) is another useful bit of infrastructure which negates dealing with middle-man aggregators to get our films onto a steraming platform which could potentially offer individual filmmakers some revenue. Of course, the usual Catch-22 of anonymity still applies, wherein you need to spend money on promoting your films in order to get people to even know they are available for purchase. However, as people discover new ways of building an audience it would be great to know that there is a place for people to potentially rent our films which doesn’t rely on gatekeepers allowing us to participate! And as for curation, it could mean that anyone hoping to set up a service like the one you outline in your above comment might be able to avoid the very high technical and financial hurdles of setting up the actual back-end needed for streaming. In other words, one could feasibly offer curated film listings and promotional services for much less money, as the expense of developing a streaming system would be laid at the feet of Google!

  • Jeremy Morris-Burke

    Yeah I agree in the sense that it won’t help a lick in terms of creating awareness of particular films, but what it could potentially offer (if it is open to everyone- a big IF) is another useful bit of infrastructure which negates dealing with middle-man aggregators to get our films onto a steraming platform which could potentially offer individual filmmakers some revenue. Of course, the usual Catch-22 of anonymity still applies, wherein you need to spend money on promoting your films in order to get people to even know they are available for purchase. However, as people discover new ways of building an audience it would be great to know that there is a place for people to potentially rent our films which doesn’t rely on gatekeepers allowing us to participate! And as for curation, it could mean that anyone hoping to set up a service like the one you outline in your above comment might be able to avoid the very high technical and financial hurdles of setting up the actual back-end needed for streaming. In other words, one could feasibly offer curated film listings and promotional services for much less money, as the expense of developing a streaming system would be laid at the feet of Google!

  • admin

    For sure it’s better to have options than not ;)

  • admin

    For sure it’s better to have options than not ;)

  • http://krizbell.com kriz bell

    damn I love these discussions. LIGHT A FIRE is keeping me up past my bed time b/c i want to respond to EVERYTHING.

    As an underemployed marketing/ strategist / filmmaker / writer I am starving while i recalibrate my core competencies to meet the needs of my passion and my pocketbook- all that to say one of my clients (we are waiting to hear if our ‘lead’ subject endorses the end product) is a film that will be distributed in such a way to avoid the brick and tent-pole premiere while rallying the audiences and the revenue- it’s all about making your own rules b/c none of the other plans seem to include much beyond getting money spent to their benefit.

    makes me wonder why this seems to be rocket science? probably not much more than a matter of time as the filmmakers and the underemployed engineers start talking to each other..the major difference is that the executives don’t seem to be online watching as much as everybody else, why not? they still have jobs.

  • http://krizbell.com kriz bell

    damn I love these discussions. LIGHT A FIRE is keeping me up past my bed time b/c i want to respond to EVERYTHING.

    As an underemployed marketing/ strategist / filmmaker / writer I am starving while i recalibrate my core competencies to meet the needs of my passion and my pocketbook- all that to say one of my clients (we are waiting to hear if our ‘lead’ subject endorses the end product) is a film that will be distributed in such a way to avoid the brick and tent-pole premiere while rallying the audiences and the revenue- it’s all about making your own rules b/c none of the other plans seem to include much beyond getting money spent to their benefit.

    makes me wonder why this seems to be rocket science? probably not much more than a matter of time as the filmmakers and the underemployed engineers start talking to each other..the major difference is that the executives don’t seem to be online watching as much as everybody else, why not? they still have jobs.

  • http://gothealthcaremovie.com Jon Raymond

    Interesting you say Gigantic would drive business to theaters. This is along the lines of what I’ve heard numerous filmmakers like Nina Paley discuss at the DIY Days (i.e. put out your film online for free and share it via Creative Commons and DVD sales go up).

    I feel there is a very strong need among indie filmmakers to see their films get theatrical distribution. OpenIndie was built by Arin Crumley to perhaps address this issue as he did for his film Four Eyed Monsters. But it is just in it incubation stages and has yet to fully mature as Arin would like.

    I wonder if the Gigantic model might work with something like OpenIndie. Stream the content on Gigantic and then ask viewers sign up for a theatrical release in their zipcodes on OpenIndie. I know there are lots of indie films I’d love to see in a theater.

    Arin made this work by cold calling theaters and telling them he had a certain number of people signed up to see his film in their area. A very few went along with him to book his film based on that for a very limited Thursdays in September release.

    As to curating, OpenIndie does that by gathering requests. If enough people request a film, it gets screened. But what I see missing from OpenIndie is a way to see what you’re signing up for, beyond just the trailers.

  • http://gothealthcaremovie.com Jon Raymond

    Interesting you say Gigantic would drive business to theaters. This is along the lines of what I’ve heard numerous filmmakers like Nina Paley discuss at the DIY Days (i.e. put out your film online for free and share it via Creative Commons and DVD sales go up).

    I feel there is a very strong need among indie filmmakers to see their films get theatrical distribution. OpenIndie was built by Arin Crumley to perhaps address this issue as he did for his film Four Eyed Monsters. But it is just in it incubation stages and has yet to fully mature as Arin would like.

    I wonder if the Gigantic model might work with something like OpenIndie. Stream the content on Gigantic and then ask viewers sign up for a theatrical release in their zipcodes on OpenIndie. I know there are lots of indie films I’d love to see in a theater.

    Arin made this work by cold calling theaters and telling them he had a certain number of people signed up to see his film in their area. A very few went along with him to book his film based on that for a very limited Thursdays in September release.

    As to curating, OpenIndie does that by gathering requests. If enough people request a film, it gets screened. But what I see missing from OpenIndie is a way to see what you’re signing up for, beyond just the trailers.