WHAT CAN THE WEB DO FOR YOU?

Ross whitaker on how to make the most from the web when it comes to funding your film.

The squeeze is on for the independent film industry and many are looking rewards the internet for salvation. But just what exactly can the web do for filmmakers?

Simply put, there are two phases in the life of a film where finance is hugely important. The first is when you're trying to make your masterpiece and the second is when you're trying to self it, and there are websites to help you with both.

Funding Your Film

While a musician can purchase a relatively small array of equipment and record an album in their bedroom, the same situation does not apply to most filmmakers. However, we can still learn a thing or two from what's going on in the world of music.

The fragmentation of the industry has caused less acts to be signed by major record labels and while it might mean a reduction in big money deals for emerging stars it has also led to an increased freedom amongst artists.

Musicians, if they're any good, can grow an audience through performances and selling, or giving away CDs or downloads. Many of rhem have started to engage their fanbase and involve them in the process to help them fund their albums at the recording stage. They use websites like pledgemusic.com where supporters pledge cash to help the artist to record their album with the fans' reward being a copy of the CD when it's finished.

This might not be good news for reclusive auteurs but it's all about developing a relationship with people who like your work. Loyal supporters are the life-blood of any artist's career and connecting with them through the internet might just be the way to fund your films.

One way of doing this is crowdfunding, which is essentially getting a wide variety of people to put money into your project in return for various benefits. For example, for a euro15 contribution you might offer a DVD of the film when it's finished; for euro30, you might offer a DVD and an invite to the premiere; for euro100, you might offer the above plus a back catalogue of your work and so on.

One of the trendsetters in crowdfunding has been Robert Greenwald, maker of award-winning documentaries like Outfoxed and Wal-Mart:The High Cost of Low Price. Having developed a fanbase over many years, Greenwald reached out to them when trying to raise funds for his 2006 film Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, setting up a facility on his production company's website where people could donate.

'We want to reach people,' says Greenwald at the Power to The Pixel conference (a cross-media forum dedicated to changing the way films are created, financed and reach audiences in a digital world). 'The website is a critical tool. We use our groups. We use the email lists that we've built up over the years. Email lists are a treasure because we've saved the email addresses of people who have bought our films on DVD and each time we do a new movie, we reach out, we tell them it's coming.'

Thousands of people bought into what Greenwald and his team were doing and they raised over S20ok in ten days to green-light the film. That's a lot of money and not typical of what a filmmaker might hope to raise on the web. The secrets of Greenwald's success are a large existing fanbase and films about political subjects that provoke people to get involved.

For filmmakers starting out it's a trickier proposition. Irish filmmaker Eoghan Kidney decided to experiment with crowdfunding to see if it could help fund development of his science fiction feature, Rogue Moon. He used the website www.kickstarter.com to host his page and deliberately aimed for a substantial amount of money.

'A lot of projects seem to ask for too little money, which in my mind betrays inexperience,' he says. 'There are a lot of people who are asking for euro�k to make a feature film... I had the idea to ask for an amount that would accurately reflect an entrylevel industry cost of doing what we wanted to do - euroi5k to continue development of a project, create more artwork, new drafts and so on.'

Kidney promoted the project through social media and film blogs, including Cinematical and limited the timeframe to 45 days. In the end, the experiment didn't work out, with Kidney failing to raise the amount.

'We didn't meet our target but I think it shows that this form of funding is far from a point where it can support that particular project. It seems that successful projects have many levels of perceived value - sociological, ecological or political. Maybe what we would consider today's popular or arthouse cinema wouldn't have a hope of being funded through Kickstarter, but who knows how it will work out - it's such a young thing.'

'I think it's a bit of a revolution.' says Charlie Philips of Sheffield Doc/Fest. Philips organised Seize The Future, a crowdfunding workshop and pitching session at the festival. Tm completely sold on it because we're seeing a massive decline in budgets for documentary from traditional funding sources like television. I think people are going to have to generate their own revenue. The other important thing is that it allows the filmmaker to maintain control over where their money is coming from and how they're going to distribute their project and create a community buzz around it.'

'I think it's particularly suited to documentary films as they tend to be about an issue or clear subject, which can work really well as a marketing device for a filmmaker and they also tend to be cheaper so you can genuinely prove it's going to make a difference to the completion of the film.'

A benefit of the crowdfunding experience is that it forces the producers of a film to start thinking about their audience from the very beginning. If there is a group of people out there who are interested enough in your film to help fund it at its outset then that will give you clues as to who your audience will be when the film is complete. From the very beginning of the project you are building a core group of people that might prove vital in promoting your film when you eventually come to distribute it.

Selling Your Film

If you're successful in funding your film then it can give you a great deal of independence... but that independence can be a double-edged sword. Il you don't want to spend many hours a day distributing your film for the next two years of your life after completion then independence might not be for you.

If you just want to flog it, then hunt down a sales agent who will try to help you get your film into a major festival and then sell it for an up-front fee when it's there. But it's not easy; more than half the films at even a major sales festival like Sundance often leave without a commercial distribution deal. And even if you do sell it, your film is going to have to do exceptionally well before you see any money because of cinema fees, the distributor's fee and the print and advertising costs of the film.

If you've developed an audience of committed people who are excited about the launch of your finished film, then some kind of independent strategy harnessing the power of the web could be for you. There is a whole raft of potential options open to independent filmmakers when it comes to distributing their film. Theatrical is still where most filmmakers want their film to be seen but what's considered theatrical is perhaps changing.

Filmmakers, more so in the States, have been connecting with their audience to organise screenings in locations like community halls and private houses as well as cinemas. Usually this link is through the internet and goodscreenings.org is one example of a website that has grown around that idea. Spend just five minutes on their website and you can buy a licence to a film, screen it and keep the profit. But the filmmaker still gets a healthy chunk of the licence.

As time goes on, the options open to filmmakers get wider and wider. Some names you might or might not know: HuIu, Jaman, Joost, Mubi, Jalipo, Caachi. They're just some of the aboveboard places where you can distribute your film and maybe even make money. Some of them recreate the experience of television whereby ads pay for the content and others have a simple pay-to-watch system. Add to the landscape major commercial entities like iTunes, Amazon, Netfiix and, more recently, the YouTube Screening Room and the mind boggles at the options.

Video on Demand (VOD) is the great hope of a film industry that has seen a decline in DVD sales and rise in illegal movie downloads. It is conceivable that we will buy films through our television at the push of a remote-control button before long. We can already do that on our computers and it will soon become easier to find and legitimately buy independent films as the industry finally gets its head around how to do this best. The Independent Film Channel in the US has been experimenting very successfully with 'day-in-date' releases. The film is released in the cinema and online simultaneously with seemingly no negative effects.

Ireland's new entry to the world of VOD is Volta from Element Pictures Distribution. By the time you read this, it'll be up and running. Audrey Sheils of Element explains how it will fit in with their overall distribution strategy.

'The current model would be theatrical, DVD and then a minimum 30-day window until VOD but this would of course be reviewed on a title-by-title basis. People are changing how they consume film and we need to offer them the opportunity to view it in whatever format they want. Catfish [the recent documentary], coming out day-in-date across all platforms, is an interesting model and one that would currently only work on a film like that. So for each film we need to consider how we can maximize revenue from every viewing option. Sometimes that will he the traditional model and sometimes anywhere between that and the Catfish model. The playing field is changing month by month and everyone is learning.'

Another internet distribution option to consider is the Irish portal for online film run by Soilsi� Films, which allows you to upload your film and retrieve a 51% share of any sales. The slogan of OnlineFilm is 'films are made to be seen' but if you want that to happen, it's important to remember that you still have to promote your film. At rhe South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, Sara Pollack of YouTube made the point that the onus is on the filmmaker to promote their project.

'With the internet, promotion costs much, much less but most people aren't spending anything on promoting their work online. Sometimes, there's an unfair expectation people will just find out through word of mouth. It requires blood, sweat and tears in filmmaker DIY promotion not just to industry-centric events but to locally-centric and content-related communities, where you can start to meet the fans of your films that will be using social networks to spread the word for you.'

Get Connected

To learn more, I spoke to Nuno Bernardo of CR Entertainment, a leading expert in new media and cross-media entertainment, about the subject. Amongst other things, Bernardo is behind the internet series Sophia's Diary produced for Sony and Bebo that made broadcasting history when it became the first internet series in the UK to cross to television.

Audiences consume what their friends suggest. Recommendation and social media is the way to find what is hot, about new movies, about new trends, about new products. This is why brands and advertisers (and the big studios) are investing heavily in social media. This will be the way content will be distributed and promoted in the near future. Filmmakers need to embrace social media as a way to unite and communicate with their audiences, feeding audiences with new pieces of content, allowing audiences to participate in the making of an upcoming movie. Even 10 years after the Blair Witch phenomenon, after the success of Clovcrfield and more recently Paranormal Activity, with their clever internet and social media campaigns, you still see many of today's filmmakers ignoring the internet and social media as a way for them to reach and contact their audience.'

To foster theirTVand fil'm content CR Entertainment develop most of their projects on the internet first as a way of testing the water and ironing out any kinks in their story before it's too late.

'We want to have audiences involved in our content as early as possible. We want to create communities and pre-built audiences as soon as possible. We want audiences to feef that they are part of the film or TV series that they are participating in, making changes and suggestions that they later see in the final product. Involving audiences in the filmmaking process is key to cultivating a fan base. They will be ambassadors of your new film and TV Series. They will promote it to their friends. They will be your best marketing team.'

And when you are distributing your own film, you need the best marketing team you can get.

[Sidebar]

FILMMAKERS, MORE SO IN THE STATES, HAVE BEEN CONNECTING WITH THEIR AUDIENCE TO ORGANISE SCREENINGS IN LOCATIONS LIKE COMMUNITY HALLS

SPEND JUST FIVE MINUTES ON THEIR WEBSITE AND YOU CAN BUY A LICENCE TO A FILM, SCREEN ITAND KEEP THE PROFIT

[Sidebar]

INVOLVING AUDIENCES in THE FILMMAKING PROCESS IS KEY TO CULTIVATING A FAN BASE