"In August 1975, Rhodes spotted nineteen-year-old Kings Road habitué John Lydon wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt with the words "I Hate" handwritten above the band's name and holes scratched through the eyes." - From the Sex Pistols Wikipedia entry
As a close follower of Ted Hope's Twitter feed, I find myself surfing to a variety of links discussing distribution of film in the age of the internet. Some of the luminaries of this field are the aforementioned Ted Hope, Scott Kirshner (not to be confused with the Boston Globe tech reporter) Peter Brodrick, and the authors of the books mentioned here.
Whew - forgive the link saturation.
I realized recently, while at a meeting of Connect the Docs, that I had a small bit of insight into these issues, insight gleaned well before netflix, youtube, "1000 fans" and well before movies on demand via download.
The case study I wish to offer is that of two documentaries - "Cover-up: Behind the Iran Contra Affair" and "The Panama Deception". How was it that these two documentaries managed to reach vast audiences without the help of a major distributor - the way Michael Moore did with his breakout hit, "Roger and Me"? How was it that they managed to win an Academy Award with a crudely shot, "unbalanced" diatribe against a man now regarded as one of America's greatest presidents?
The success of these films was due to the fact that they provided an antidote to the Kool-Aid that was being ladled out by the "mainstream media" (There actually was one back then - this was pre-internet, pre FOX news) that Reagan was a good man, a great president, and a legitimate leader. At the time, very little was offered up to contradict this viewpoint, despite the fact that a sizable portion of the population considered Reagan to be perhaps the worst thing to happen to America since Nixon - probably worse. Those people - and I was one of them - were being driven mad by the MSM's acquiescence to Reagan's carefully cultivated image, which masked his murderous foreign misadventures and domestic economic policies that America has yet to recover from.
Those passionate lefties, as well as the glum liberals, didn't quite know it, but they were desperate to see and hear their political views mirrored on movie screens. The Empowerment Project was able to seize the opportunity and provide a film that articulated a radical viewpoint -one that, I should say, has been pretty much been vindicated by recent history. Both films became the best distributed documentaries the years they came out - with no help from youtube, social networking sites, or Time Warner. And they were popular because they raised a stink.
There is something to be said for a distribution model that requires the content piss off the status quo. A model that eschews widespread popularity in favor of passionate devotees. Content that annoys and agitates.
I'm not sure that the left is the only one to figure this out. Rush Limbaugh was quoted as saying that the trick to success in broadcasting was to get 51% of the population to hate you. That is something for filmmakers to consider. It has been pointed out that the key to success in the atomized media environment is to have only 1000 true fans.
The problem is that most of us have mainstream sensibilities. We all like Beyonce, the Simpsons, and Star Wars. Documentary filmmakers, apart from Mark Burnett, might want to consider a goal of mainstream success as a trap. A goal of getting a low-budget documentary in a multi-plex is like spending your paycheck on lottery tickets. A much more reasonable ambition would be to seek out a niche market that might garner us a thousand or so true fans - a tipping point of a number that would provide a decent income, and maybe, just maybe, lead to bigger things. (I've got nothing against hope.)
So rather than look for ideas that have wide, mainstream appeal, how about sifting through your many ideas for those that are most distinct, idiosyncratic, annoying, and controversial? Which of your personal ideas and obsessions would Time Warner not touch with a ten foot pole? Goliath smote a million punks before David got lucky.
Embrace the idea of being an underdog. You're not a heavy weight - you're a bantam or fly-weight. You'll never fight Ali. You're running a counter-insurgency, and you're goal is to raise as big a stink as possible with limited means. When you think about your target audience, consider your target enemy. Think the Catholic Church will hate your movie? Send them a copy. They might help your publicity efforts. Your target audience will root for you more if they feel you need their help, that you are under siege, that you are standing up to power.
Choose your target enemy. Big Agriculture, Fast Food, General Motors.
And note that some of the most popular documentaries in recent years - King Corn, Food Inc, SuperSize Me, Roger and Me, define themselves by saying who they are standing up to, who they are not.
And remember, if you are successful, you'll be hated anyway. Elvis was hated. Dylan was hated. The Beatles were hated.
It was an old Broadway joke that he trick to having a successful show in Manhattan was to preview in Boston and get banned by the Catholic Church. The key to inspiring true devotion, paradoxically, is by inspiring a certain, useful level of hatred.
As a close follower of Ted Hope's Twitter feed, I find myself surfing to a variety of links discussing distribution of film in the age of the internet. Some of the luminaries of this field are the aforementioned Ted Hope, Scott Kirshner (not to be confused with the Boston Globe tech reporter) Peter Brodrick, and the authors of the books mentioned here.
Whew - forgive the link saturation.
I realized recently, while at a meeting of Connect the Docs, that I had a small bit of insight into these issues, insight gleaned well before netflix, youtube, "1000 fans" and well before movies on demand via download.
The case study I wish to offer is that of two documentaries - "Cover-up: Behind the Iran Contra Affair" and "The Panama Deception". How was it that these two documentaries managed to reach vast audiences without the help of a major distributor - the way Michael Moore did with his breakout hit, "Roger and Me"? How was it that they managed to win an Academy Award with a crudely shot, "unbalanced" diatribe against a man now regarded as one of America's greatest presidents?
The success of these films was due to the fact that they provided an antidote to the Kool-Aid that was being ladled out by the "mainstream media" (There actually was one back then - this was pre-internet, pre FOX news) that Reagan was a good man, a great president, and a legitimate leader. At the time, very little was offered up to contradict this viewpoint, despite the fact that a sizable portion of the population considered Reagan to be perhaps the worst thing to happen to America since Nixon - probably worse. Those people - and I was one of them - were being driven mad by the MSM's acquiescence to Reagan's carefully cultivated image, which masked his murderous foreign misadventures and domestic economic policies that America has yet to recover from.
Those passionate lefties, as well as the glum liberals, didn't quite know it, but they were desperate to see and hear their political views mirrored on movie screens. The Empowerment Project was able to seize the opportunity and provide a film that articulated a radical viewpoint -one that, I should say, has been pretty much been vindicated by recent history. Both films became the best distributed documentaries the years they came out - with no help from youtube, social networking sites, or Time Warner. And they were popular because they raised a stink.
There is something to be said for a distribution model that requires the content piss off the status quo. A model that eschews widespread popularity in favor of passionate devotees. Content that annoys and agitates.
I'm not sure that the left is the only one to figure this out. Rush Limbaugh was quoted as saying that the trick to success in broadcasting was to get 51% of the population to hate you. That is something for filmmakers to consider. It has been pointed out that the key to success in the atomized media environment is to have only 1000 true fans.
The problem is that most of us have mainstream sensibilities. We all like Beyonce, the Simpsons, and Star Wars. Documentary filmmakers, apart from Mark Burnett, might want to consider a goal of mainstream success as a trap. A goal of getting a low-budget documentary in a multi-plex is like spending your paycheck on lottery tickets. A much more reasonable ambition would be to seek out a niche market that might garner us a thousand or so true fans - a tipping point of a number that would provide a decent income, and maybe, just maybe, lead to bigger things. (I've got nothing against hope.)
So rather than look for ideas that have wide, mainstream appeal, how about sifting through your many ideas for those that are most distinct, idiosyncratic, annoying, and controversial? Which of your personal ideas and obsessions would Time Warner not touch with a ten foot pole? Goliath smote a million punks before David got lucky.
Embrace the idea of being an underdog. You're not a heavy weight - you're a bantam or fly-weight. You'll never fight Ali. You're running a counter-insurgency, and you're goal is to raise as big a stink as possible with limited means. When you think about your target audience, consider your target enemy. Think the Catholic Church will hate your movie? Send them a copy. They might help your publicity efforts. Your target audience will root for you more if they feel you need their help, that you are under siege, that you are standing up to power.
Choose your target enemy. Big Agriculture, Fast Food, General Motors.
And note that some of the most popular documentaries in recent years - King Corn, Food Inc, SuperSize Me, Roger and Me, define themselves by saying who they are standing up to, who they are not.
And remember, if you are successful, you'll be hated anyway. Elvis was hated. Dylan was hated. The Beatles were hated.
It was an old Broadway joke that he trick to having a successful show in Manhattan was to preview in Boston and get banned by the Catholic Church. The key to inspiring true devotion, paradoxically, is by inspiring a certain, useful level of hatred.
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