Introduction

This chapter provides insight into how the Internet is hyper-enabling the funding, marketing, distribution, and consumption of media and entertainment. It presents what producers are doing and can do to reap and even accelerate the advantages available from these new technologies and facilities. This chapter also reviews self-distribution strategies and resources available for producers wanting to become their projects’ sole or additional marketer and distributor.

Digital Content

Content digitization provides audiences with instant availability to stream or download to any of their Internet connected devices. Streaming and downloading:

• (1) can remove some or all traditional distribution participants between content owners and audience
• (2) can radically reduce content delivery and marketing costs and
• (3) can increase producer profits.

This is exhilarating news for independent producers. For instance, uploading to YouTube removes everyone from distribution but the producer and the audience. Even more exciting, YouTube has over a billion users and 4 billion video views per day.

However, brand establishment is still the primary determiner between a project’s success or failure. Most of YouTube’s billions of daily viewers are watching the strongest productions that attained their position via some form of social media, email, or combination of conventional and unconventional marketing. Consider the more than 400 hours of new content uploaded to YouTube per minute.

Clearly, audiences and content creators are escalating their possible Internet connections with one another. Yet, it is not possible for audiences to scan the massive volume of new content. Most audiences decide what to watch, as they follow their often tightly targeted social recommendations. The issue for producers is not distribution. It is simple to upload to YouTube, as well as other sites. The challenge is marketing/branding their content—how to attract their target audiences to it, rise above the clutter, and become a viral-driven recommendation.

Motion picture marketing has always been an extreme-strategy exercise. Being your own marketer and distributor takes an immense amount of time and intelligent, dedicated effort. The most able producers have at least one additional full-time person on each film, a Chief Marketing Producer (CMP) or Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) to manage these efforts. Producers are faced with the same problem as the studios and other distributors: How do you establish each project’s brand and get its target audiences to buy or view it?

Social Media Marketing

Small indie production and niche distribution companies were first to embrace social media marketing strategies out of budget restriction necessity. Artisan’s release of The Blair Witch Project is a good early example. Every studio now has a keen-edged Internet social marketing campaign for every picture. Oh My Disney is Disney’s BuzzFeed imitator. It was set up in 2013 and publishes plenty of content about TV shows, movies, theme parks, and is designed for maximum sharing. This site regularly has examples of clever/sticky taglines, music cues, live and animated art that can lay the path to audience-deserving content. These and like sites are well used by producers to emulate devices to brand their content. Some of the most effective social network sites are those that specialize in unique communities. There are thousands of these. As of January 2017, the top 12 social network sites were:

Figure 4.1 Leading 12 Social Media Networks as of January 2017

Figure 4.2 Leading 12 Social Media Networks as of January 2017

The following are leading Internet communities that are especially adept in creating motion picture viral social networking. Finding recent, successful projects, similar in target audiences to your project—and then reverse-engineering how they used these and other sites to brand their project—can provide valuable strategies and campaigns. Contacting these very able social media entities will provide not only free branding planning, but also engage their services, all of which are amazingly cost efficient and can be powerfully effective. Wade in! Use these powerful resources.

Multiplatform Marketing

Conventional TV advertising is the most expensive per thousand viewers reached—and for all millennials (and most audiences in the other prime demos), the least effective advertising media. Audiences are screening content on their TVs by a variety of OTT (Over the Top) services, as well as phones, tablets, media/game consoles, and computers. Plus, the growing majority of audiences watch ad-sponsored content time-delayed for the primary reason of leaping over or at least fast forwarding by ad content.

For these and other provocative reasons, producers are executing marketing strategies that provide their target audiences with social media impressions on several fronts simultaneously, and relying less on cable/satellite delivered advertising. The objective is to reach each of the project’s target audiences multiple times during the campaign drive. For many media planners, this is reaching at least 60 percent of the target audience an average of over six times. The new media environment allows us to connect with our pictures’ core audiences on multiple platforms every day leading to and supporting the picture after its launch.

We have passed the time when traditional TV advertising is the most predictable way to be certain a project’s target audiences actually watch the picture’s commercial. On-line pre-roll commercial viewing is now the most accurate, delivers a large enough audience, and is less expensive than any other advertising. We have cleared the tipping point.

DIY Distribution Models

The global cinema’s almost complete (94 percent) conversion to digital was an extraordinary phenom. The internet’s enabling by all commercial participants was also staggering, demanding trillions of dollars per year and extraordinary planning and build-out execution. The growth of consumer electronic purchases is no less impressive, with digital televisions, sound systems, and wireless digital in the home and high-speed internet connection that accommodates internet streaming is over 90 percent in most of the modern world.

And the future indicates expansion will exceed the initial buildouts. According to Cisco, broadband speeds will double by 2020. Technology’s growth will barely match consumer and business use, as by 2020, video content will cross the internet at one million minutes of video content per second! It would take more than 5 million years to watch the amount of video that will cross global IP networks each month in 2020.

What this especially offers smaller indie producers is a new world of do-it-yourself (DIY) distribution models:

• Ability to focus on niche and crossover global audiences
• Direct to consumer and retail sales
• Flexible release strategies
• Release alternatives to the expensive theatrical model
• Hybrid distribution by splitting rights, which is when producers enter distribution deals with multiple companies to uncross and maximize revenue.

DIY: Theatrical Distribution

Theatrical distribution is potentially the single most beneficial release window, as it can extend a picture’s brand to all other distribution windows. It is also by far the most time consuming, expensive, and risky of all the DIY windows for the indie producer to undertake. The following are the primary producer options:

• Four wall. In this model, the producer literally rents each screen from exhibitors for a flat fee, for one week, though for much less per day if on any of the Mondays through Thursdays, excluding holidays, with options for additional days/weeks depending on the picture’s success. In the United States, exhibitors require the producer to cover the “house nut” (the exhibitor’s overhead cost to run that screen for one week, of approximately $3,000 to $10,000 per screen for a seven-day run, but less for single week-days). The exhibitor’s prime incentive is concession earnings, so those booking the theaters must approach the circuit with a convincing marketing strategy likely to fill seats and sell concessions. If the producer pays the exhibitor a flat rate, the producer receives 100 percent of those screens’ ticket sales. If the film performs, the exhibitor will most likely agree to extend the run to successive weeks until ticket sales drop (and so the concession income) below alternative pictures.

• DIY or sub-distributor. In this model, the producer either

  • (1) hires a sub-distributor to book one or more markets
  • (2) does this work with his or her in-house team.

  This is sophisticated work. It requires:

  • (1) knowing each venue including its screens
  • (2) selling a theater circuit on the picture’s marketing campaign (designed, carried out, and financed by the producer), sufficient to convince the circuit of its likely box office profitability
  • (3) negotiating acceptable terms
  • (4) servicing the relationship through the playdates
  • (5) reaching a settlement with exhibitors after the playdates,
  • (6) collect.

  The producer or sub-distributor’s booker negotiates a percentage-of-box-office-receipts deal. In the United States, this might start out at sharing the box office gross 50/50, then steadily adjusting the percentage each week based on the picture’s box office performance, typically deescalating—that is, the second week run would see a split of 60/40 (exhibitor/producer), and the third week and thereafter would see a split of 65/35. These percentages are most often subject to offset, to meet each screen’s house nut.

• Service deal. In this model, the producer hires a distribution team to book and administrate all the exhibitor negotiations and collections. This can also include the producer using the distribution team’s services for media planning and buying. In the United States, the service distribution company typically receives a flat fee retainer plus a percentage of collections from the exhibitors. The stronger the campaign and picture, the better the terms of these deals. Solid campaigns and pictures typically negotiate for close to the distributor’s costs plus 10 percent to 20 percent of film rental, and the producer retains 80 percent to 90 percent of film rental and has all creative and business control. The producer advances all the costs of advertising, as well as digital delivery. Some companies managing U.S. service deals are Freestyle Releasing and Truly Indie. Although a more up-front costly option among DIYs, this can be extremely beneficial if the distributor is experienced, sets smart release patterns, has seasoned relationships with the theater circuits and individual exhibitors, can negotiate optimal film rental terms, and is distributing other picture’s through these exhibitors, providing leverage for final settlement amounts and exhibitor collections.

In any of these models, even if a producer’s picture is performing well, a studio or other major distributor could push the producer’s picture to a lesser screen or out altogether to make room for their new incoming picture.

There are also several web-based portals that do service deals as well. TUGG is a theatrical event platform that lets you bring the movies you want to your local theater or community venue (such as schools, religious centers, libraries)! They set up one-time film screenings across the U.S. for films that may not have otherwise been able to make their way to the big screen! It’s very simple: You fill out the Event Request Form and pick the date, time, and place for your special screening. The theater approves the request, and you can begin selling tickets on your personalized Event Page. Sell enough tickets before the event deadline to confirm your screening. If you don’t meet this “Threshold,” no one will be charged and your event will be called off.

AREA23a focuses on event driven films, with a special emphasis on social issue and music performance films, providing theatrical exposure through openings in libraries, museums, community centers, nightclubs, casinos, and college campuses to independently-owned art house theaters, and major multiplexes.

DIY: Direct to Consumer Streaming and DVD Distribution

These DIY models have the potential to be the most financially rewarding of all the models. They are much less expensive and time consuming than the theatrical DIY models. However, producers should not undertake this distribution strategy until they have either completed their picture’s theatrical release or have an alternative plan to establish their pictures’ brand with its target audiences. It is highly unlikely that exhibitors would consider releasing a picture theatrically if it had already been released via streaming or some other less-exclusive media.

The significant hurdle beginning in this release window is establishing the picture’s brand. If this picture has one or more highly unique target audiences or affinity groups, say private pilots, scuba divers, quilters, or long distance runners, and the producer’s marketing plan has inspired these audiences to track the picture’s creation and they are awaiting its availability, then there is reason to believe that when the film is released into the market, it will get traction. If it is merely a great picture, but no marketing plan has been created or carried out, then creating DVDs, websites, or making it available on Amazon CreateSpace will likely receive little or no success unless there is something that will begin the brand traction. There must first BE a virus before it can spread. Until this happens, or predictably is about to happen, no one will stream it, because it is not searched. Retailers will not buy copies, because it will waste valuable shelf space. The challenging reality is that there is no escape from marketing. The fabulous news is that producers can accomplish sophisticated, high-impact marketing for very little cost. Still, there must be a plan and it must be carried out.

The producer has two primary distribution options in this market-streaming fulfillment and retail.

DIY: DVD

Case Study: War Room

War Room Performs Major Through Producer Planning and Preparation

As they had successfully done before, the writer/director/producer Kendrick brothers (Alex and Stephen) carefully planned and carried out the development, production and branding of their picture War Room, whose core target audiences were faith based.

They released in a notoriously light theatrical release time: the last weekend in August. Before their opening weekend, they smartly premiered in a special 7 PM Thursday screening on 1,017 screens, heavily promoted to their targets. This special premier earned their picture a $600,000 GBO prior to its opening weekend—and crucially provided them a powerful social media viral buzz before their picture opened.

This buzz resulted in stunning industry pundits, with their $3.5 million budget picture earning $11.4 million GBO its opening weekend, which was the weekend’s highest per-screen average earnings, second in box office performance among all pictures in release— and twice its projected GBO performance.

Their opening week’s social media wave held their picture in its second weekend GBO, slipping slightly to $9.5 million. This wave pushed their third weekend (Labor Day) to $13.4 million.

Final U.S. GBO was $67.8 million. Yet the production company’s earnings windfall came from SVOD and subscriber streaming. The income from DVD and Blu-ray alone was $39.1 million.

The consistent take-away from this, and the exceptional to poor performance of each project, is the crucial nature of having a powerhouse story, well produced, and the producers taking at least as much care in planning and oversight of the project’s branding and distribution.

Though they released their picture through Sony’s Affirm distribution unit, the picture itself and its branding strategy were derived from the Kendrick brothers’ focus from the beginning on planning and carrying out a strategy that would assure their picture was hotly branded, had a powerhouse opening weekend, significant overall GBO, all of which is enabling its continued optimized audience and earnings in all other ancillary segments.

DIY: VOD/VOD Aggregators

Video-on-demand (VOD) allows consumers to download your film to view for a limited amount of times or to own. Services in the United States like Apple’s iTunes, Amazon’s Video on Demand, CinemaNow, Hulu, and YouTube are just some of the players in this field. Not all services are available to indie producers, but there are enough to enable this DIY model.

These companies usually license your film on a nonexclusive basis, charge the consumer a per-download fee, and (in the United States) split the fee between 65 percent/35 percent to 40 percent/60 percent (distributor/producer). Higher producer participation comes with the producer’s ability to create brand presence/audience demand before the negotiation.

To get on the larger sales services, producers need to go through an aggregator company. An aggregator is a company that acts as a gatekeeper between a rights holder and a retail platform, such as iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, or Cable VOD operators like Comcast, Time Warner.

Some examples of aggregator companies are Gravitas Ventures and Cinetic FilmBuff. The aggregator acts as a middleman and has the time and human resources to deal with all the indie submissions and put together film packages that the company then takes to the larger platforms for distribution. Aggregators bridge the gap between cable, satellite, and Telco operators, and the content owners (usually the producer). They handle all logistics to acquire content rights, secure errors and omissions insurance, and supply marketing materials, screeners, and content masters. Most have direct deals with the major systems, such as (in the United States) Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, and AT&T.

Media Convergence

Considering how technologies have reshaped media since the late 1990s allows the producer to gauge what is coming. The new changes will include deep media convergence, which is assured by

• (1) the mass migration of viewers to Internet-connected devices
• (2) the Internet’s ability to keep ahead of viewer adoption and enable video’s heavy bandwidth transmission through the last mile, to the viewer’s phone/TV/computer)
• (3) the Internet’s wired and wireless connectivity to all screens
• (4) the digitization of all content, and
• (5) the consumption of all content on all devices.

These five items assure the inescapable staging for convergence: the ubiquity of all content historical and future motion pictures, television, radio, music, print, and user-generated content (UGC), to all devices, all the time.

This convergence will continue to reshape every culture that allows its populace open Internet access. It will deepen global person-to-person proximity and perspective and further merge global communication, art, information, music, politics, currency, and commerce. Import and export duties between countries will continue to be relaxed or deregulated. Global commerce stimulus legislation will advance. Global trading by most every legitimate means will be enabled. Consumers will continue to support open-source enterprises and initiatives. There will be a natural global redistribution of resources. Growth of the global middle class will continue to exponentially increase. Almost everyone’s voice will have connectivity and traction to the entire global voice. Language barriers will continue to drop, through automated text and voice interpreters.

This near-term transition will bring several important shifts and valuable new opportunities for producers. It will be easier and less expensive for producers to reach their audiences, as well as to present superior marketing and promotion. Distribution costs will be negligible for digital delivery. Much as cable and satellite systems enabled niche cable networks, enthusiasts from surfers to scrap-bookers will eagerly receive even finer audience-defined niche programming.

Digitized viewing will allow audiences the ability to watch movies, series, documentaries, and so on, much like they presently read novels. For example, a viewer can begin watching a program on a home television, then continue watching on a mobile device or computer while commuting to work, then he or she can finish watching on the mobile during lunch.

This will naturally bring the deregulation of program length. Theatrically released pictures needed to be no longer than audiences were willing to sit in a theater—typically, three hours max. Television programs were mostly 30 to 60 minutes, with features filling two hours. Content now will be as long as it needs to be to continue to entertain its target audiences.

There will be a massive new production surge of interactive content for all media. Television’s almost exclusive delivery, in history-making mass conversion, will be via the Internet. Audiences will be able to pause, rewind, and fast-forward their programs at will, much like they do now with current DVR remotes.

A new feature will provide viewers the ability to use a remote control to move a cursor over paused content and look for highlights that will give them information about actors, music, cars, and the like, as well as provide hyperlinks to sites and return them to the program, all with the ease of a click.

This interactive production discipline will build audience commitment to programming, as well as provide a new commerce spectrum.

Open Source Media Culture

The Internet is spreading a user-centric sensibility to almost everything. This has increased the common person’s desire to have access to all information. Transparency is expected from companies, institutions, governments, and their directors and politicians. There is a new expectation for user understanding, provision, and protection, as well as a desire to make products and goods—especially digitized ones—available to everyone at mass-consumer cost. This culture has taken on the name open source, which was provided by early cooperative Internet software developers.

Craigslist, Firefox, and Wikipedia are excellent examples of open source culture entities. However, so are Google, Amazon, and Apple. The more open the source, the greater the consumer loyalty and support. When these users are abused, their virally expressed disfavor can be lethal. There are many examples of entities that refused the open source culture and later either demised or became severely crippled. The music industry still wavers to find its way, users preferring to support its conversion but abiding the current dysfunctional relationship until the music industry revises it. Almost everything transacted over the Internet that not only succeeds, but thrives, will be open source culture.

Producers are sampling with open source distribution. In early 2010, a UK producer launched her direct-to-DVD site, posted the download price of her picture, and provided two alternate purchase points: one for those who could not afford the retail price (who could pay whatever they could afford, including nothing) and another for those desiring to pay more, simply to express their satisfaction for the production. Fewer than half paid the retail price, but even fewer elected to pay nothing, and, to the producer’s delight, some paid extra. She posted her production cost and regularly showed her income and the balance needed to break even. In less than a month, this producer recovered all her costs and was turning a profit. This is not the suggested model, but it demonstrates an open source approach to monetization.

The open source culture advances each audience member’s freedom, combined with power of the multitude to act. Given this culture, what can producers, distributors, and global audiences accomplish that they have never done before? With Wikipedia, Firefox, and Craigslist as examples, the answer is “almost anything.”

Chapter Postscript

Technologies are providing producers with new marketing and distribution flexibilities and economies never before available. Further, both media convergence and open source operating and monetization structures will continue to open new audience demand for content, delivered in more diverse and satisfying methods. Understanding, anticipating, and acting on these opportunities will give some daring producers advantages far beyond their expectations.

The consortium of the studios and the major international distributors that largely controls motion picture marketing and distribution is quickly adopting and consequently enabling new social-networking marketing methods, utilizing if not primarily driving the establishment of each motion picture’s brand. The Internet and the audiences screening devices are rapidly dissolving current space, time, culture, currency, and language borders. Motion pictures will continue to be seen by more people, worldwide, with formidable use and economic advantages to producers, distributors, and audiences.

We have entered a new era in which we can watch anything, anywhere, at any time, on any device, and the audience has developed a sense of entitlement to those freedoms. To succeed, producers must embrace and use the enabling tools that these new technologies provide. Traditional storytelling (i.e., scripts) will continue to be the cornerstone content genesis, but will be pushed far beyond present boundaries if producers are to keep pace with new levels of interactivity, multi-platform marketing, decentralization of creation and distribution, and with VR’s (virtual reality’s) continued growth of 12 times per year through 2020. These demand producers to be real futurists, just to keep up with audience expectations.