I'm just wondering where all of you stand on the whole piracy issue that's plaguing Hollywood these days. Here's a short piece that I read on Cynoposis Digital this morning that got me thinking...

In one of the biggest anti-piracy efforts yet leveled at individual users, the producers of Oscar winner "The Hurt Locker" are laying down a legal gauntlet for illegal file sharers, seeking damages against 5,000 people in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. Voltage Pictures feels as though the movie's popularity on P2P sharing sites - it was uploaded some 6 months before its official U.S. release - has severely hampered its sales at the Box Office. The movie has grossed less than $17 million despite winning 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for helmer Kathryn Bigelow. The lawsuit lists the defendants by their internet Protocol (IP) addresses, with lawyers planning to subpoena individual ISPs to identify the offenders. Individual users will be asked to pay $1,500 each to be released from their liability.

Now, I've never made/produced/created/shit-out a piece of content that's made any significant amount of money and, if I did, I may change my tune, but as of now, I'm of the "information wants to be free" train of thought. Growing up, I had a dark room in my basement, we had film editing equipment and later on we had one of the first VCR's and camcorders... and I don't want to know how many copyrights I've infringed on. And it never stopped. I use the torrent sites regularly, mostly in place of a DVR to find TV shows that I've missed or to get stuff that's not available to me here... and I don't lose sleep over it. In fact, I've preached that indie filmmakers should consider putting their films out there themselves. Why not? If it gets your film out there, finds an audience and gets you noticed, isn't that what you want? I can see why the studios hate it, but isn't this something that's existed since the dawn of time? Really, from sneaking into movie theaters to pirating workprints, it's all the same. Someone's trying to see something for free. It's part of the game. Could you imaging suing someone $1,500 for sneaking into a theater? No... but that's sort of what they're doing here.

The other problem I have is, no one has ever been able to link piracy to a lack of box office revenue. You can claim that it only grossed $17Million dollars despite winning all those awards, but... it's still a war movie and war movies have done terrible over the last few years. You can't just compare it to "Slumdog Millionaire" or "No Country for Old Men" because they're all best picture winners, you need to go apples to apples. How did Iraq war movies do? "Green Zone" had Matt Damon and did $35Million, "In the Valley of Elah" had Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, Charlize Theron and was very critically acclaimed, it grossed under $7Million. "The Messenger", with Woody Harrelson, nominated for best screenplay, grossed a meagre $1.1Million. So, look... maybe it's not the awards, maybe it's the sub-genre you're in. Seriously, you're just looking to lay blame. Let it go. I thought this was all settled after the "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" debacle. Remember, the studio was outraged... a work-print had been lifted and pirated, the film was on the torrent sites a month before it was supposed to come out. Everyone was screaming bloody murder, then... it had a domestic gross of $180Million and people shut up. My opinion is, the bulk of the people who pirate studio films wouldn't pay to see the film anyhow. So, no loss. The only loss comes if your film sucks and these guys talk shit about it. "The Hurt Locker" was an awesome film and I don't really see any way that piracy could've stripped them of any significant box office revenue, but that's just me.

So, what do you think? Where do you stand? I've met people who froth at the mouth when you talk about downloading pirated films and I've met people who will do anything they can to get around paying for content... Me? I'm somewhere in between.

I was thinking about all this, this morning and I was just wondering what you guys thought and wanted to know if there's any horror stories out there...

So, I've been reading "The Writer Got Screwed (but didn't have to)" by Brooke A. Wharton... I just started it, really. The first chapter is called "Why Do My Ideas Always End Up In Someone Elses Script?" - it's all about copyright and protecting yourself. After reading it, it's pretty amazing when you realize the myths that persist around copyright, such as registering your idea with the WGA is an effective copyright (it's not), mailing your script to yourself can prove ownership through the postage dates (it doesn't) or that you can sue someone if they steal your idea (you can't). Truth is, there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from stealing your idea. This is why you always see movies with similar premises, this is why The Asylum is allowed to make films like "Snakes on a Train", "Pirates of Treasure Island" and "AVH: Alien vs Hunter". You can copyright an original piece of work, but an idea? A premise? A thought? No. There are ways to protect yourself, but an idea is just an idea. Now, having said that...

I was listening to a podcast from The Advertising Show this morning, where they were interviewing a guy named Scott Belsky. He authored a book called "Making Ideas Happen" and founded a company called Behance, which develops products and services for the creative industries. He was talking about how a lot, if not most, of the creative ideas in the world either just die or fizzle out because they're never executed properly. The reason being is that most creative types don't thrive in corporate environments and they hate to actually share their ideas. He says that we need to share, we need to discuss and we need to write these things down and create action steps around them. We need to create an infrastructure that nurtures and develops creativity, not hinders it. So, talk about your ideas, put them out there and find people who want to discuss them. The more you do that, the better your ideas become and the better chance there is that they'll actually be executed.

So, it would seem that these two things are a bit contradictory, right? Well, yeah... one is the left brained, legal thing and the other is the right brained, creative thing. So, what to do? Here's the thing... I've talked with SO many people who won't disclose their ideas and they hold them tight. "This idea is so great, I just can't tell anyone about it". I can't think of the last time that any one of those people actually made anything... The truth is, most people won't steal your idea. The studios only steal successful ideas and if your idea is successful, you're already sipping mai-tai's on the beach, so don't worry about it. However, let's go worst case scenario, you're pitching an idea and you get turned down, only to see your idea on the screen a few years later and the guy you pitched to is involved. Well, there are ways to prevent that from happening (you'll have to read "The Writer Got Screwed"), but it does happen. But, is that a reason to continue to hold your ideas tight? I mean, if you just hold on to all your ideas, they may never get out. If you look at risk vs reward... Personally, I would risk having an idea stolen for the potential reward of furthering my career and having one of my concepts come to fruition. Maybe I haven't been screwed over enough, maybe I think that most people are honest and trustworthy, I don't know. At the end of the day, I'm going to keep throwing my ideas out there in the hopes that one of them catches. If it gets stolen in the meantime, at least I tried.

What do you think? Are there any horror stories out there? Just interested to hear what other think about this...

Is it a coincidence that in the same week that "a slew of Hollywood studios and cable companies are teaming up for a $30 million advertising campaign... to further promote awareness of movies available on cable VOD" (THR.com - "Studios, cable companies team for VOD"), we have "Blockbuster shares tumble after bankruptcy warning"? (Associated Press) Well, actually, it is a coincidence, I guess, but there is a very specific shift in the industry that's causing both events to happen...

Truth of the matter is, the DVD is dying. I don't think it'll ever fully go away, but it's definitely being devalued. According to Redbox, the subsidiary of Coinstar that specializes in the vending of rental DVD's via self-service/interactive kiosks, the rental of a DVD is worth a couple bucks, at best. Then, you have the Hulu's and Netflix's. Hulu is streaming content for free and Netflix is mailing DVD's out using a subscription model, which pushes the value of each DVD even lower. However, even Netflix sees the downside of DVD's and they're pushing heavily into VOD and streaming, by partnering with the likes of XBox, PS3 and even TiVo. Blockbuster tried to shift with the times, concentrating their outlets on being a retail experience and getting into mailing out DVD's and creating their own VOD experience, but, hey... it's a crowded marketplace.

Now, for fun, let's go back a few years. Back to the early 90's... the Worldwide web didn't exist, Mark Wahlberg was just a rapper, email was a few years away, we were anxiously waiting for "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday", after the disappointment that was "Jason Takes Manhatten", and computers were relegated to getting information from floppy discs. Your computer was used to play "Leisure Suit Larry" and write term papers, that was about it. However, there were a few visionaries out there that knew what was coming... This thing called the Internet was about to come along and with it would come massive changes in hardware, software and infrastructure. Fast forward to present day and we now have the ability to interact, download and stream the richest of content, instantly. We got here pretty fast, didn't we? Now, what does this all mean?

Well, really, it doesn't mean that much. Looking back, TV meant the demise of the movie theater. VHS meant the demise of TV. Cable meant the demise of the Networks. DVD meant the demise of VHS. Now, streaming and VOD mean the demise of DVD. Looking at it that way, VHS is the only thing that really got hooped... poor VHS. Well, that was bound to happen. Remember when you used to have your VHS tapes and you'd keep their boxes all clean and on display? Remember how proudly you displayed your DVD collection? I don't know about you, but I've lost most of my DVD boxes and I have scratched up, old DVD's everywhere. This is just a shift in the industry and shifts will keep happening. After streaming and VOD, my bet is that everything goes to a cloud system - pay once for the rights to view content, then you'll get it forever, on any device... but it'll only be streamed, you'll never actually hold the file itself. Imagine if there was only ONE file at the studio and everyone, from the theaters to Billy Joe Bob in Utah, all just streamed from that. That's next. Remember when you needed a hard drive? That's so early 2000's... Next up, fully ubiquitous devices that can handle all media formats, you watch.

For now, I think this shift is good for indie filmmakers, I've been saying that for a while... and I feel it's been a long time coming. We're inching forward and I like it. It lowers the barriers of entry for distribution and the barrier for content creation is already low. Now, there's no tapes, DVD's or film. No shipping, retail outlets or kiosks. You'll just have a file. Upload it to somewhere and people can get it. Now, we just have to sit back, watch this all unfold and hope that the infrastructure is put in place for us indie guys to use it and profit from it.

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

If you don't read it or check out their site every once in a while, I'm sure you're still aware of magazine called The Economist. I don't subscribe to it or anything, but I do peruse the site and download a podcast or two, every now and then. If you're interested in what The Economist is all about, it's a weekly news magazine that's done out of London. It's almost more like a newspaper, but it's got a glossy front, so I call that a magazine. They claim that it's "not a chronicle of economics". No, not even... The say they aim "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress". Well, I'm not sure what that all means or if it's actually a complete sentence, but it hasn't kept me away from the content they produce. Now, what I really like about them is that every once in a while, they come up with something that ties all my worlds together. This interview with Michael Lynton, the current Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment is one such thing. It's about 15 minutes long and I've embedded it below, it's a great interview. Grab a coffee, sit back, and give it a watch. I have some thoughts on what he says below...



One of the most interesting things about this interview is how he looks at "Paranormal Activity" and low-budget films as 'phenomenon' and not a business model. I have to say, I both agree and disagree. Most certainly, "Paranormal Activity" was a phenomenon, and so was "Blair Witch", but there is a common thread between the two - they're low-budget horror. I guess studios can't see it, or maybe I'm just stupid, but I think horror lends itself so well to low-budget filmmaking, that an extremely well done low-budget horror film will always have the ability to break into the mainstream. Not only that, there's SO many low-budget horror films out there that are good, and COULD make a profit (but won't break through to the mainstream or move the needle for a company like Sony Pictures) that a small, niche company could consistently turn a profit by churning them out and then properly marketing and distributing them. That, my indie friends, IS a business model. It's just one that Sony wouldn't be interested in.

The other interesting point he makes is about piracy... There's obviously a dark side to piracy. More so, it's mostly a dark side, but there IS a good side that studios don't see. On one level, torrent sites are no different than a DVR. I download TV shows that I miss all the time. Hell, I'll download an entire season of something to get caught up. I don't see that as bad... why? Because people do that all the time, legally, with their DVR's and all I'm doing is getting caught up, so I can watch your programming at its regular time - and then you can show me your ads. It's called time-shifting and it's a problem that the networks and studios are going to have to deal with. I've also argued MANY times that the torrent sites and file sharing is GREAT for indie film. No one wants to distribute your film? Don't know how to get it out there and drum up interest? Well, put it out there for free. If it's good, people will spread the word, interest will build, then you'll be able to get screenings, distributors will come knocking and, all of a sudden, your film's a success. "Ink", which just came out, is a classic example of how that can work. Is it good for the studios? No, they have nothing to gain from it. Good for the indies? Absolutely...

Whatever side of the argument you're on, in the end, it's just always good to be up to date and understand how the studio system works. We all love our indie film and we're more than happy to toil away it, but... if the studio's came knocking, you know you'd answer the door. So, you better understand what makes them tick...

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

There's a long running argument in the entertainment world... content or distribution? Which is King? Personally, I've always thought that content is king, but that could just be the storyteller in me. Tell a good story, make it compelling, make it good and it'll find its way. Cream always rises to the top... or was it shit always rises to the top? In any case, there's a lot of people out there who disagree with that and think that distribution is King. Go ahead, make whatever you want, the people who distribute content will decide what's good and who watches. At the end of the day, you need to get past the gatekeeper. Really, if you think about it, this whole argument is basically the studios versus the indies, isn't it? The studios are the ones who have the agreements with the theater chains, they own the networks, they have the distribution. They can make shit movies and still make a buck. Indies, on the other hand, are all about content. They have to sell their films, they have to find an audience. If their content stinks, that's it, it stinks and hopefully their parents like it... because they probably funded it. Both sides have a point and it's not a new argument. So, what is it? Content or distribution?

Up until recently, the distribution side probably won out. Who's kidding who? If you didn't want to go through the networks, the studios or the theater chains, how were you going to get anyone to watch your content? What was the result of that system? Well, you had Tuesday nights where the best thing on TV was "Coach" and you got a lot of Dolph Lundgren movies... with all due respect to Dolph, I loved his movies. Today, the networks, studios and theater chains are actually starting to lose a bit of their power. Sure, you still have to go through a network, studio or cable provider, but there's 100's of channels that run lots of indie content, there's plenty of DVD distribution outlets that will stock your film and there's tons of film festivals that'll give you a theatrical screening... and that all goes without mentioning the one distribution outlet that's shaking the very foundation that the studios, networks and theater chains were built on - the internet. From downloading legal indie content to piracy to Hulu and Boxee, the power really is starting to shift from distribution to content. Now, tell a good story, make it compelling, make it intriguing and you can find an audience, one way or the other.

Now, I don't think that it means that it's going to be any easier to distribute your film... or, should I say, successfully distribute your film. I still think you're going to need help, which I think will see the rise of a new breed of agent or manager, one that helps you navigate this 'new world' of distribution and just takes a percentage of profits. This is an area that we at Dead Harvey are hoping to get into, to be honest. We know and study the landscape and see a world of opportunity for good films and good content that studios, networks and theater chains would generally ignore. As usual, if any of you would like help in this area or just want our opinions, we're more than happy to give it - like I said, we're still studying this landscape and would love to work with some 'test subjects', so to speak. However, if reaching out for help just isn't your thing and you'd rather just read something, here's links to two articles that I recently found, which gave me the idea for this post.

Screen: Indie Filmmakers Find Alternatives to the Multiplex - I actually read this offline in Wired magazine, one of the few magazine that I actually still purchase... and then found it online to share. A great one page article on how indie filmmakers are finding out new ways to make money.

Backyard Filmmakers Are Hollywood's Greatest Fear: Analysis - funny thing about this article is that it was written 5 years ago. It's a good read, but the sites he mentions and the technology he talks about are currently outdated. However, I think that makes the article all that much more valid.

Have a great weekend, see you next week!