Film Fund-amentals: The Audience Divide

First published in August 28, 2013.

Theater owners do not depend upon folks like me for their trade. After all, I prefer to watch movies in theaters that are largely empty. Quiet as the grave, and more deserted than a tomb. I love it this way. Too bad none of these places stay in business for long.

So the recent dust-up about rude audiences has sparked my interest. Especially since I have long felt that certain movies demand a loud and rude house in order to be properly appreciated. Heck, a misfire like Maximum Overdrive is only enjoyable with a rowdy audience.

Traditionally, the rude house debate has been mostly focused on the difference between a quiet, polite audience versus a boisterous band of total loudmouth jackasses who behave like a pack of Vikings on their way to England. The proper film audience stays reverentially silent while casting a studious glaze at the screen.After observing audiences for several decades, I can say without hesitation both sides of this debate are absolutely full of it. Both are invoking unconscious and half-bogus cultural and social myths and illusions. Which may help to explain why the digital tech blogger Anil Dash felt the need to address this issue twice. First in the pretty polite and straight-forward piece Respecting Cinema in the Digital Age, and again in the much more provocative Shushers: Wrong About Movies. Wrong About the World. Both are recommended reads. But before you read them, I would like to add some context to the material.

I have dealt with a wide range of audiences. Everything from the art house to general audience and special-focused groups. Like many others in this trade, I came to the deep realization that an audience – any audience – is basically a wild beast. You never know which way this critter will jump and no matter how well you think and plan, you will never succeed in second-guessing the crowd.

Fortunately, it is rare that the audience really turns hostile on you. But they can and, occasionally, they will. My own worse experience was with a mob of pissed off unemployed coal miners (I am not making this up) who grabbed my legs and tried to drag me out into the street (for what I am not sure). Fortunately, I had several assistants who held onto my belt and dragged me back in, bolting the doors as fast as possible.

Moreover, there are more ways to go wrong than there are to go right. I discovered this the first time I had to deal with a couple of guys getting into a loud and increasingly threatening fight during (believe it or not) a Truffaut movie. I asked them both to step out into the lobby with me. I had some stupid idea that we could achieve a happy and peaceful resolution. Once we were in the lobby, both idiots started tearing into me until I finally blew up and told them to shut their pie holes before I threw them both out. I should note that I had several assistants with me by that point. Having good assistants is very important in this business.

Also be aware that a lot of theater managers have problems knowing what kind of audience to expect for a movie. That was part of the problem with a recent incident that took place in Maryland during the opening of Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Most likely, the nitwits in charge had convinced themselves that the gangbangers were hot to see a movie starring Oprah Winfrey. Aside from the obvious latent racism (which is an issue I want to address in another piece), it is also a reminder as to how little (if anything) the average theater manager understands about their own audience.

Then you have to keep in mind that movie theaters are fighting for their very existence in the modern market. Based upon the most recent study by StudioDirect, the average theater is operating at 10 to 15 per cent capacity. The reasons for this are many (which again we will deal with in another piece). But it means there are a lot of empty seats out there.

So movie theaters are trying almost anything. Booze, food, and wall-to-wall dining experience (with wait staff). I half expect they will soon try disco night in the back rows. Oh sure, they always tell you in those cute ads before the feature to turn off your cell phone and hush up. But most theaters are not really that locked into this program. To be honest, the biggest concern the theater has about your cell phone involves its video capacity and piracy issues.

What theaters want is to increase their audience. Just as many TV programs now encourage active social media engagement with the shows, movie theaters may indeed seek a way of accommodating the digital crowd. Personally, I am not thrilled at this prospect. But I do understand the financial motivation. Besides, there have been an assortment of blockbuster movies so dull that the person texting next to me was more fun to watch.

Which gets to what I suspect is the real problem. Most major Hollywood movies are flat at a very fundamental level. Despite all of the elaborate CGI and big explosions, they lack virtually any level of emotional engagement. At best, the audience is only hanging in for the spectacle. All the in-between stuff is dull and predictable. Might as well check your emails until the next thing goes boom.

Trust me. I have seen first hand the difference that emotional engagement can make. I still remember attending the opening night of Edward Scissorhands. It was a packed and extremely urban house. Since I tend to be very split about Tim Burton, I figured the audience comments might be a plus.
For the first half hour, the house delivered. Lots of comments. All pretty boisterous and rude. Then I realized it was getting really, really quiet. By the last half hour, thuggish looking men were secretly wiping away tears. I almost expected by the end to see members of the Bloods and the Crips giving each other reassuring hugs.

Emotional engagement: it’s how you develop the dramatic phenomenon called catharsis and win your audience.

Film Fund-amentals: Which Way to the Future?

First published in September 10, 2013.

First, there was Y2K. Then came 2012. Now, the film industry is bracing for 2015 (according to the article 4 Reasons 2015 Could Be the Movie Industry’s Worst Year Ever).

OK. Y2K kind of flopped. Likewise, 2012 was a farce produced by an odd collection of New Age gurus who didn’t know the difference between Maya and mayonnaise. But the 2015 theory has a point, even if the provided link is to an article at Cracked.com. Sure, it’s a humor site. But to be honest, their articles are better researched than most of the stuff at The Washington Post. They are, by the way, describing the exact process that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were warning about.

These days, everybody has something to say about the future of the film industry. There are many different pathways to all kinds of different futures. Some are good and some are…well, not so good.
Of course it could be argued that all of the worries prompting these discussions are simply needless. Heck, the commercial industry is having one of its best summers ever, right?  That’s what I’m reading in Variety.

But most of that claim is horse hockey. The box office figures used are Hollywood claims, always a tad suspect since the industry has a notoriously unique system of accounting. Likewise, they do not reflect the actual, increasingly wide range of ticket price differences and other significant economic inputs. In reality, ticket sales have gone up while actual attendance figures continue to drop.

Moreover, no comparison is made to the actual cost of production. In most businesses, if you spend a $1.00 and make back a $1.01 in sales, that isn’t considered profit. But Hollywood refuses to look at it that way. They take raw data, proclaim success, then move on before the accountants go to work.

So all the recent reports about the great summer Hollywood had is just a lot of nonsense and most studio executives know they are whistling their way past the graveyard. That is also why everybody is sneaking around the internet, reading virtually every article available on the changing conditions of the industry and the marketplace.

One of the more engaging reads is the recent nofilmschool.com interview with producer Lynda Obst. Obst has depth of experience that makes her opinions valuable. Her comments are extremely insightful to both the commercial and indie markets. She is knowledgeable. She is thorough. I can’t believe that she is still falling back on a pile of false hopes and misbegotten assumptions as she wistfully describes a future for the industry that came and went over twenty years ago.

For example, she believes that the tent pole movie does not need to result in the dumbing-down of the script. Sorry Lynda, but you are wrong. The financial structure of these movies demands the largest available international audience and to achieve that, the script has to be kept incredibly simplistic. Take the example you used, Titanic. The script to that film was so simple, a deaf mute in Outer Mongolia could follow it. The same can be said of Avatar. Heck, I would even argue that among the many problems with The Lone Ranger fiasco, a key problem was that its script was too complicated for this type of movie. The I.Q, level of the script is forced to  drop in a direct relationship to the size of the budget.

However, Obst is right that the international marketplace is not only dictating the format for American cinema but may ultimately derail it; and indie cinema has gotten screwed in the process. The foreign market use to provide some (if limited) support for independent American movies. But those days are over. Today, foreign audiences mostly want American movies that are in 3D with lots of things that go boom. Hollywood is controlling the international market through its ability to dominate the technology. But that can – and most likely will – change. I personally suspect that we will see this shift within the next few years.

All the more reason to think that the 2015 “worst-ever” theory is plausible. And from an indie perspective, this could be a good thing. After all, the modern mainstream film industry has basically sent the indie world off to Siberia. Even the change to digital distribution is being strangled by the commercial industry in an attempt to choke off financing for small distributors, making it impossible for them to successfully operate within a system that is technically ideal for them.

Likewise, Hollywood is locked into a bitter fight with Silicon Valley over digital access not because of piracy concerns (though that is the official reason), but because Hollywood wants to control it. That is also why various major media companies are now making heavy handed moves into the online market. They are not there to help the future. They are there to own it.

The foregoing is one vision of the immediate future. A different vision can be found in a recent speech given by Kevin Spacey at the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

The subject of Spacey’s address is the emerging combination of digital distribution and television production. A recent blog post by indie filmmaker Jay Webb also explores the interconnections between indie film production, digital distribution, and television. In their own ways, both Spacey and Webb are presenting a film/TV/digital synthesis as a direction for the future. I think they are heading in the right direction.

Film Fund-amentals: Is American Cinema Racially Biased?

First published October 3, 2013.

The question of racial bias in American movies is supposed to be over. You know, the product of some long-forgotten age. Way back in Antebellum time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and we had just discovered fire.

However, almost every major study on this issue completely and adamantly disagrees. Take for example Andrew J. Weaver’s report, The Role of Actor’s Race in White Audiences’ Selective Exposure to Movies, published in 2011 by the Journal of Communication. Weaver’s study found that white audiences were largely less responsive to the concept of an African-American leading man, especially in a romantic role.

Other studies have not only confirmed Weaver’s results but have gone even further. Racial bias also appears in mainstream movie reviews, as was demonstrated in the report Racial Bias in Expert Quality Assessment: A Study of Newspaper Movie Reviews by Lona Fowdur, Vrinda Kadiyali, and Jeffrey Prince in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. They found a systematic and measurable review bias against movies with a leading black actor (generally by 6 per cent) that was consistent enough to rule out other critical factors.

Numerous academic reports clearly outlines racial bias with the audience and the press. My own first-hand experience showed racial bias with the average exhibitor. Most theater managers are convinced that any movie with a large black cast will bring in a crowd of gangbangers, and they hit the panic button. Some theater managers actually resent it when a movie is successful with a predominately black audience.

Once, when I was working as the lead reviewer with a weekly newspaper, someone phoned in a “hot” tip. Supposedly, local businesses near a theater showing Menace II Society were complaining of “problems” with the audience to the movie. The caller was suggesting that I should do a story on this in the hopes it would force the theater to withdraw the film. The caller was the guy who owned the theater and thought I would do him a favor. Privately, I wrote him off as a nut.

So, basically, we have an abundance of empirical and anecdotal data that overwhelmingly support the claim of racial bias in American movies. What is not clear is how much this plays out within Hollywood’s creative and decision processes. Actually, it is sort of clear and unclear at the same time: Hollywood is singularly blessed with the unique ability to speak out of both sides of its collective mouth in different languages and still manage to say absolutely nothing.

A quick overview of the history of ethnic presentation in American movie history would suggest that Hollywood has been pretty democratic in insulting all non-white races. Let’s be honest, at times Hollywood was pretty backhanded to the Irish and the Italians as well. Part of this was evidenced in the approach used in casting found in old movies. If the character was suppose to be Chinese, they would cast a Swedish actor (Warner Oland or Nils Asther). If it was a Western with an Indian in a speaking part, it would be played by an Italian-American actor.

But African-Americans were a problem. Especially once show biz had to give up on the blackface bit. For the first forty-some years of American movies, blacks primarily functioned as servants and crude comedy relief. The Production Code of the Motion Picture Industry restricted images that ostensibly might incite racial unrest or present issues of racial inequality. Basically, it pretty much restricted any presentation of blacks, period. Making them go away was seen as an “equitable” solution.

Some changes did take place. In the 1941 production of High Sierra, Willie Best catered to stereotype humor as a lazy, slow witted black guy. When the film was remade in 1955 as I Died a Thousand Times, it was decided that they had to cut out the  racist stuff. So the character was turned into a Mexican and made even dumber and lazier.

In short, the history of Hollywood on this point is not very reassuring. Their only defense is, they give what the audience will accept. Of course they also condition, manipulate and reinforce the audience’s expectations on what they have conditioned the audience to expect, resulting in a great circle of something or other. It’s a complicated relationship. But Hollywood is far from being blameless in this process.

Not that things haven’t changed. They have, big time, though paradoxically the changes are most noticeable in television. Mainstream American movies are still mighty slow to move. As always, Hollywood is fast with the finger pointing. They blame their dependence on the foreign market. Foreign audiences don’t want to see African-Americans in lead roles nor do they want to see inter-racial romances etc. etc. Damn those foreign bastards for holding Hollywood back.

Personally, I find that something just doesn’t smell right about this argument. OK, some of these films would not fare well overseas because they involve uniquely American social or political issues. Others might not fare well because they are very African-American in their cultural viewpoint and gee, guess what, that makes them extremely American in their codes and references. You see, most African-Americans have cultural and personal roots that go much further back in American history than those of us whose great-grandparents arrived around 1900 (all on the same boat, I hear).

But most of all, Hollywood is busy peddling tent-pole productions overseas and most movies headlining an African-American cast are not tent-pole productions. Arguably, the comparison becomes a bad case of apples and oranges. I have no doubt that Lee Daniels’ The Butler is not going to play as well overseas as, say, any movie showing Bruce Willis blowing up half of a city. This is not necessarily anything to do with race. We are talking about radically different kinds of movies.

We are also talking about Hollywood’s longstanding ability to completely sidestep a major issue. And yes, the Hollywood cinema is racially biased. It always has been.

Film Fund-amentals: Social Media for the Anti-Social Type

First published October 23, 2013.

Where ever you go, the topic is social media. It is the quick fix for everything from fund raising to film promotion and distribution. It is all things to all people, which is why it is a good thing we have so many self-professed experts online to tell us how to use it. It plays a bit like that scene with Groucho and Chico in A Day at the Races.

So let’s begin by stating that I am not an expert on social media. Never have been, and never will be. To be honest, I have a strong anti-social streak which works against the whole concept. I am even thinking of developing my own social media site based on the principle that people ought to mind their own business. I thought I would call it MySpace/Not Yours.


But for the indie filmmaker, social media is a necessary evil. You have to do it, and do it a lot. You have to develop a social media strategy. You have to reach out and attract people and network and build a community. And you have to act as if you enjoy doing it. For me, that’s the hardest part of all.
Fortunately, there are many sites available regarding various aspects of using social media in indie cinema. There are such individuals as the indie movie marketing and publicity specialist Sheri Chandler, who blogs away on so many social media sites, I’ve lost count. There are various groups such as the Raindance Film Festival and The Film Collaborative, which has numerous articles on issues related to social media and indie cinema. Over at the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship there is an extremely useful piece called Social Media Resources and Inspiration for Independent Filmmakers. Check them all out.

You can easily spend several weeks on Google going through the listings on this subject. Or you can just spend a few hours banging your head with a two-by-four. Sometimes the effect will feel about the same.

Remember, I am really an intensely anti-social personality. I find social media to be a rude intrusion into my private space. Of course, I am also a shameless snoop and I truly enjoy looking at the social media sites of total strangers. I have a suspicion that this contradiction is not as unusual as it may sound. Ironically, the indie filmmaker’s use of social media has to attract weird people like me: total strangers snooping around the internet for movie projects that might sound fun.

As with everything else in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to use social media. I have done a pretty good job of following the wrong way. I have signed up on a wide variety of sites, most of which I have never gone back even to glance at. I have maintained a passing relationship with a few sites.  That means, once a week I pass through them. Most times, I haven’t a clue what is going on. When I look, I usually discover that the company has changed everything in the site’s design and I spend several weeks trying to figure out how to work it. This adds to my hostility to social media.

Obviously, what I am recounting is not the right way you do it. But, I feel that I have learned much from my negative experiences with social media. The same could be said about my experiences in travel and graduate school. I have much to offer in the world of backhanded and belated knowledge.

For example, I have become intensely aware that the first thing an indie filmmaker will want to do is to pick a few social media sites that are most relevant. After all, you have only so much time to devote to dealing with them. You really can only handle a basic range of about three to five sites. For better or for worse, Facebook and Twitter are pretty much obligatory. Some people have a high regard for Pinterest and Google+. I have accounts on both sites. I have never used them. Nothing personal, I just haven’t gotten around to it. And remember, you have to be working all of these sites virtually every day. No wonder I just give up.

You have to focus on your objective with these sites. Are you promoting yourself as a filmmaker and/or scriptwriter? Are you promoting a specific film? Do you want the site to be more personal or professional? You can’t really have it operating every which way. Too confusing. After all, potential investors do not need to know about your Aunt Milly’s meat loaf.

You will need to enforce a strict separation between your personal life and the projects you are promoting. Even though, as I mentioned, you have to be working all of these sites virtually every day. I am afraid that I cannot overemphasize this point. You need to network with other sites that have a shared interest in the subject matter of your film. It is the first step in building a community. You need to engage with people at these sites and you need to do it in a positive manner. Insulting and embarrassing folks on social media  isn’t exactly the way you want to go (unless that is some how productive for your project – though if that’s the case you might want to rethink your project). Let a smile be your umbrella. You have to do it virtually every day.

Every piece of advice on using social media will tell you about the need of building a community. This involves understanding what your film project is about and finding people with shared interests and values who might want to know about your project. This means getting a strong handle on what it is that you are trying to do. Sounds easy, but it isn’t. You are promoting both yourself and your film. A lot of people are lousy at doing this type of self-promotion. To be honest, I stink at it. That’s why I am quite aware of how lousy other people are at it, too.

Which means the real secret to social media is the amount of time and effort you have to devote to the process. Hopefully, you can give up your personal life and get to work barnstorming the digital social scene.

Film Fund-amentals: The Generals of Genre

First published November 1, 2013.

The romantic comedy genre is dead. The horror genre has received numerous obituary notices over the past ten years. Film Noir is pretty much an historical concept used for stylistic flourish and the occasional directorial hommage.

Genre film-making – a major backbone to the low budget and indie cinema – is often treated as a dead commodity. Reports on the demise of various forms of genre appears almost as frequent as rumors of Bill Cosby’s death. They are also about as accurate.Arguably, genres don’t really die. They mutate. They evolve. They move and develop in a direct relationship to the shifts and variations in the audience’s tastes and sociological sensibilities. It is a process that is impossible to predict. Often, the changes to a genre are not even recognized until late in its development. Even then – despite the glorious clear vision of hindsight – the key reasons for the change are often murky.

Take for example the modern horror genre. Death notices for the horror film is practically a sub-genre of film reporting. However, most of the reports are largely on the general collapse of the 1980s style slasher flicks. The modern horror movie has developed into such forms as the lost-footage presentation (e.g. The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity) and  extremely revamped versions of the zombie narrative (such as 28 Days Later) as well as the rise of torture-porn (Hostel and Saw).

In reality, the horror genre is still rapidly changing and every example I have given is now passe. The future of this genre is still evolving and is, I suspect, about to enter another radically divergent phase. Add in the covert but extremely political nature of horror movies (and yes, they are often very political), and the range of possibilities before us is virtually endless.

The romantic comedy genre is also officially dead. Heck, I’ve been to its funeral twice already. However, the reports may be a tad exaggerated, a quick glance through the top ten titles on the BoxOfficeMojo list of  romantic comedies since 1978 reveals both strength and the emergence of new variables in the genre.

Not surprisingly, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is number one. This movie is about as old fashioned as you can get without attaching a social security check (and this is not meant as a negative thing; I liked the film). Number 5 on the list is There’s Something About Mary.  OK, any genre has room for a stretch.  In this case a long, long stretch. At 9 is Knocked Up. We may now be entering the post-romantic comedy genre where we cease to care about how the couple gets together. We now want to know how they keep from killing each other.

The many changes taking place within contemporary romantic comedy require extensive study. After all, issues about gender, gender roles, gender identities etc. etc. are undergoing massive change and revision. It would be very difficult to second-guess what the audience will find romantic (or even comedic) at this point. The genre isn’t really dead, but it is getting hard to recognize.

However, the list also suggests an interesting development that has been largely ignored.  If you look at the top 50 titles, there is a noticeable drop in movies made in the current decade.  Many major titles are from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.  A couple of recent titles that made it to the upper tiers are Hitch and Think Like a Man; likewise certain movies like Something New have produced mediocre box office results but surprisingly strong cable and DVD viewings.  The African-American romantic comedy is a distinct and developing form.

If any genre seems to be dead, it is the Western. The mythic cowboy saga suffered a lonely brutal death decades ago. I hear it was buried somewhere in the High Country of Nevada. The traditional Western with white hats and black hats is also dead, which was one of several problems with the recent Lone Ranger fiasco.

On the other hand, the Coen Brothers milked True Grit for $251 million at the global box office a few years ago.  Their version was an extremely gritty and realistic presentation, much like Clint Eastwood’s production of Unforgiven. So while old-school Western is dead, a modern form has emerged: raw, naturalistic, totally unflinching in its presentation of the harsh details.  Box office results can still be hit or miss, but the genre isn’t actually dead. The Western has completely mutated.

Which is how genre film-making survives.  Sometimes, it even thrives.

Film Fund-amentals: VOD Revenue: TS/SCI or OII

First published November 21, 2013.

Should companies make public the revenue generated by films distributed via video on demand (VOD)?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, this question is a hot topic among indie filmmakers. I’m not so sure that’s true, but it ought to be.  Since VOD is the most probable distribution venue for many indie filmmakers, it would be really nice if they had some sense as to the financial possibilities of this approach. But most VOD distributors are not very forthcoming with the information.

In his report for IndieWire,  Anthony Kaufman outlined The Six Reasons Why You Don’t Know More About VOD Numbers. The core reason is that VOD distributors are, quite simply, unsure how to represent the numbers. VOD distribution is new and rapidly expanding. There is a market. It may be a boom market. Nobody actually has a clue where any of this will go and they are still trying to figure out how it compares to traditional forms of distribution.

Just look at some of the numbers that are available. About a year ago,  Gravitas Ventures  released figures for several films they had released VOD. One of the movies, AMERICAN: The Bill Hicks Story made $90,000 in its theatrical distribution. But during a three-year run on VOD, it took in $600,000. Obviously that is a pretty good increase.

But what does it mean? Inevitably we will try to compare and contrast the VOD release figures to the box office reports and there are really a lot of differences between the two. First-run theatrical is spread out over a time period of roughly 2 to 18 weeks. VOD may span years. Theatrical rolls out on a systematic release through theaters with a quick report on ticket sales. VOD goes through multiple channels, platforms and venues, which also means that the financial reports are often slow in coming and fragmented. Likewise, VOD is increasingly moving into an inter-connection with the TV market, and this linkage is radically shifting the distribution strategy.

With the little bit of information that is available, we can make some basic observations. The first is simply that VOD is commercially viable. Viable? Heck, it is inevitable. Though some indie filmmakers still question this notion, VOD will become the main means of distribution for low budget films.

The second is that comparisons between VOD and box office reports will require enormous adjustments and may really be pretty much meaningless. The business models are extremely different. It would be a bit like comparing the cost of a first-run movie ticket to the admission price to a major league baseball game. Of course, the MPAA  makes that comparison every year, but that is little more than a self-serving exercise in gibberish.

The big questions remain: What is the real break down between the cost of the various channels involved and the platforms required for large scale distribution on VOD, and what is the final split in return between distributor and producer. Ultimately, how many ways is the pie sliced. It is not impossible that a movie could make $500,000 in several years of VOD release and the filmmaker still ends up seeing only a $1.50 in return. These things happen. Almost every day.

So I do understand why many people in the VOD business would like to keep their figures TS/SCI (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information). But the successful development of VOD practically begs for OII (Open Information Interchange). That is why an increasing number of indie filmmakers are asking for greater transparency in the VOD business. The more VOD becomes the primary focus of indie distribution, the more the producers of indie movies need to know how to determine the film’s economic potential.

Now, transparency is a tricky thing in the movie industry. The mainstream commercial film industry often prides itself on being economically transparent. Of course, that is an Urban Legend.  In reality the entire Hollywood industry is built on figures so fudged, so finagled, and so largely mangled that nobody actually has a clue if they are making money or going broke (for more on this, I refer you to the book Sleepless in Hollywood by Lynda Obst – a must read).

But that’s OK. Hollywood has millions of dollars to blow out of their collective wazoo. Indie filmmakers are often forced to panhandle for lunch money. So they need really precise information in order to create a rational business model for their films. Many indie movies can easily forgo a business model regarding theatrical release because they are not going to get a first-run theatrical release. But they do need to know the figures regarding VOD.

The immediate future (which is happening right now) is one in which theatrical and VOD distribution will co-exist in parallel but separate business models. Theatrical is basically the domain of the mainstream media industry. VOD becomes the primary venue for low budget indie film-making. Separate and basically unequal. Or, at least unequal until the VOD approach surpasses theatrical, which will probably happen within the next few years.

So yes, indie films need open information on VOD distribution.  Of course they will also need some guidelines as to interpreting these figures.  I have no doubt that someone is already working on a book called VOD Distribution for Dummies.

It’s bound to be a bestseller.

Film Fund-amentals: The Bible of Filmmaking

First published on May 13, 2014.

And on the seventh day, God rested. He kicked back and relaxed. Maybe went to a movie.

At least that is the hope of an increasing number of people in the film industry. The religious movie is back. Sort of. The issue is extremely split and no one really knows what any of it means. Heck, religious views are contentious enough that if you give me a random selection of true believers, I can give you a full-blown riot within ten minutes. As a child, I went with my family to an extremely conservative Lutheran church and we spent lots of time in Catechism class learning why all other Christian denominations were a pack of heretics (it was a Lutheran church with a strong Calvinist streak; the elect were chosen by God before the world was created and those not chosen were essentially helpless to do anything about it). So I learned a lot of useful pointers for dealing with aggravation.

But it doesn’t matter at the mainstream level. The current Hollywood interest is doomed to failure. The reasons are pretty simple. They are mostly hoping to attract an audience that hates their guts, doesn’t trust them, and believes that Mel Gibson is the victim of a Satanic Hollywood conspiracy.

OK, I admit that I have been trolling through the internet’s back alleys. Many self-professed Christian film goers are not brain-dead zealots. But as Paramount recently discovered with the release of Noah, the religious audience is not something that Hollywood is accustomed to handling. Heck, they even had problems with the Pope and normally the Vatican has been more flexible.

However, the greatest influence of the new religious movement is taking place within the indie trade. The “faith-based” spiritual movie is booming. Whether it be a full-blown biblical production such as Son of God or a slip-it-through-the-backdoor presentation like Heaven Is For Real, the Christian cinema is carving an unusual niche for itself in the indie market.

The niche largely ignores the traditional indie audience. The basic demographic portrait of an indie film viewer tends to be young, college-educated (or at least some college), with a more than occasional film-going habit (at least once every couple of months). The audience who would identify themselves as Christian film viewers tend to be older, slightly less college educated (though not by that much), and less prone toward going to theaters (once or twice a year). They are more likely to order a cola than a caffè latte and are likely to mistake the title The Brown Bunny for a nature film. If indie is the alternative to mainstream, then the faith-based spiritual movie is the alternative to the alternative. In some ways, these movies exist in their own parallel universe.

So these movies are actually going completely around the traditional indie market. However, there is a lot of open room in that “around” space. There is very little market comparison that can be made between a movie like God’s Not Dead and something like Nymphomaniac, Vol. One, and it’s not just about the sex. It’s more like the difference between pad see ew in New York and meatloaf in Iowa. It’s not really a question of which is better. They are just totally different.

However, there are some things that indie filmmakers can learn from the faith-based crowd. For example, branding. This is a tough one since the faith-based folks are tapping into a brand that has been on the market for over 2,000 years, aided by the legacy of St. Paul (one of the most underestimated publicists in history). Many indie filmmakers have problems figuring out a brand, period. The first step in creating a brand is knowing your audience and many indie filmmakers have a problem with that first important step. It’s as if they think the audience will just magically appear.

Doesn’t work that way. Something about a tree falling in the forest and nobody is around to hear.
Once they figure out the audience, they can also start the process of community building. Many of the people working on faith-based productions are already part of a large system of evangelical and religious social networks. Part of Mel Gibson’s success with The Passion of the Christ was his own ability to link into these networks and be accepted as one of them (since this was at that magic moment when he was sounding just crazy enough to be taken seriously as non-Hollywood but not so crazy as to be considered deranged). Part of Paramount’s failure with Noah was their inability to connect with these networks. Sure, they tried. They tried really hard. But they were always viewed as dubious outsiders attempting to fleece the flock.

Then they made the second mistake by trying to coddle them. The obvious insincerity of the process simply confirmed the worse fears of the faithful.

This process of community building has become absolutely essential for the success of indie filmmaking. Part of the success of the faith-based crowd is that they have a brand and they know how to network with their audience and the rest of us need to take some lessons. I am not advocating that indie filmmakers should turn to faith-based productions. Heck, I don’t even go to these movies.

But sometimes you have to give the devil his dues. So pay attention. There is a method to this system.