And the other shoe drops...

It's official: movies are free.

Napster ruined the Big Corporate Music Model by setting the expectation among fans that music can and should be free to acquire. Many musicians disagreed, but many accepted the new order, and found other ways to make money in the music biz.

Bittorrent technology did for movie piracy what Napster did for music piracy, making it easier to download huge files over the Internet.

I have long contended that the same thing is happening with the movie industry, and eventually, even big filmmakers will give over to the "free" model, just the way big musicians like Trent Reznor, Radiohead, and others, have.

Now it has happened. Michael Moore will release his latest movie (I keep wanting to call them "films", kind of like I keep referring to "albums") for FREE. Like Radiohead, he is only releasing it for a limited time as a free download, and fans can buy the value-added DVD if they want.

This, combined with the legal Web distribution of movies, TV shows, and Web-based content, means that the film business is following exactly the same path, albeit slower, as the music business. What does this mean for actors?

It means that it will probably be harder to earn a living. Why? Because free or cheap Web-based distribution opens the floodgates to amateur filmmakers who compete with big studios, and because there are no existing mechanisms for making big money from Web video... yet. This means that studios will want to drive down their costs as much as possible, as they throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall, and see what sticks.

Now, I do not pretend to know this for sure; it's just my guess, based on experience in the music industry and as a small business owner. The analog to live music is live theater, not film. You can't pirate a live theater show experience. So, as musicians now give away music and sell concert tickets, so, too, must actors- particularly film and television actors- find other ways of capitalizing on the shows they create.

Shows which are now free.

Comcast-NBC deal on the brink

Cable provider Comcast is eyeing NBC-Universal for a price of about $30 billion, according to Bloomberg. In a previous post, I predicted this would happen, since it makes sense for cable companies to find ways to add value to customers, beyond just being a series of tubes.

What about you?

What does this mean for filmmakers, actors, writers, and directors? As with vertical integration in any industry, it should stabilize the demand for content, and those artists and skilled tradespeople who provide it... for a while. Let's face it: if you want to create art that takes $40 million of stars and special effects, you need a big studio behind you. Hollywood will continue to consolidate not only structurally, but in terms of content, too: big, comic-book, tent-pole movies will become Hollywood's main (perhaps ONLY) competitive advantage. There will be fewer shows made, probably, and they will likely continue to skew young. So if you're 18 and hungry, you should still plan on moving L.A. to jump start your movie-making career.

Regardless of NBC's short-term fate, the industry still faces larger issues, including a business model that doesn't depend on traditional commercial advertising and DVD sales. The music business highlights the importance of finding new ways to monetize digital content. NBC-Universal is a player; Universal Music Group, which bought BMG, is the largest of the "big 4" major labels.

So if you don't fit the major studio demo, or want to make movies outside that niche, try looking to the indie music industry, which is finding ways to redefine what business they are actually in.

Are big movies extinct?

Do movies matter? Perhaps not, in the long run.

In an earlier post, I summarized some of the difficulties faced by filmmakers in the Long Tail Era. Musicians, the first caste of artists to be blind-sided by the economics of free, actually have it better than actors and filmmakers, in this regard. I know, 'cause I are one. We musos can actually sell not just CDs from the stage and stores, but also live concert tickets, the bread-and-butter of most acts, and of course, the ubiquitous T-shirt. Much harder to do with films.

But what if Hollywood blockbusters and millionaire movie stars were to be replaced with, say, piano-playing cats or skateboarding dogs, filmed on low-res camera phones by high schoolers? What if the next great art form is YouTube?

Paul Oskar Kristeller published an article in the Journal of the History of Ideas in 1952, explaining that other forms of "high art" had come and gone: opera, canvas painting, bas relief, book illustration, instrumental music, epic and sonnet poetry, gardening, tapestry, pottery, sculpture, and many more artistic mediums once considered the epitome of sophistication, and whose masters were wealthy artisans in their day, have all but disappeared, relegated to a small subset of the arts, or even "hobbies". Are movies next?

The money-machines of Hollywood studios are keeping a death-grip on their old business model, built on artificial scarcity, but it's too late- the horse has bolted. Just like the music, movies will be free in the near future, like it or not. The question is not if, but when? After that, the question is, "What is the T-shirt equivalent that filmmakers will sell, when they are not selling plastic discs (DVDs)?"

Or perhaps, like opera and other dinosaur arts, the Hollywood blockbuster's time has come and gone. I wonder what the next visual "high art form" will look like?


Please add your thoughts and comments on this blog!

TFS Listener Q&A - 1

One of our Texas Film Scene podcast listeners wrote in some questions, so I thought I would post the answers here on the blog, in case the answers might help others.

Steve Powers writes:

When discussing sales on Amazon I heard you mention "onsies" and "twosies" (if that spelling is even remotely correct) What is that?

During my discussion with writer/actor/producer Ben Taylor in TFS episode 2, I referenced the success of Amazon's "long tail" sales model. The term long tail is a reference to Chris Anderson's book.

Amazon sells a lot of stuff, but not all of it is best-sellers. In fact, about 20% of Amazon's sales comes from selling very small quantities- one or two items. Retailers like Wal-mart or Target can't do this, because retail space is EXPENSIVE, and the shelf space an item takes up is part of that retail space. So Blockbuster, for example, has to make enough margin, and sell enough quantities of each item for it to pay for it's shelf space, and make a profit for the retailer. It cannot afford to sell one-sies and two-sies. It needs best-sellers.

Amazon does not have to worry about shelf-space. It has invested in it's infrastructure, which is like a filmmaker buying his own camera: what your CPA calls a capital expenditure. Sure, it's expensive, but once purchased, you can spread that cost out (amortize) over several movie projects, for years to come. Amazon then uses that infrastructure to serve as a middleman between makers of stuff and buyers of stuff. They partner with FedEx, UPS, the US Postal Service, and manufacturers to take the order, deliver the order to the manufacturer, and let the manufacture ship direct to the consumer. How do I know this? Because I am an Amazon supplier, too! I have had my music CDs on Amazon (and CDBaby, and iTunes) for years.

What does that mean for you filmmakers, actors, and writers? Good question! Check these blog posts for further discussion.

Steve also writes:

Also I heard Ben mention you wrtiting "Chubic notes" (again, I hove no idea how to spell that) and I've never heard of that before either. Is it a study method or something like that?

Yes, it is a study method (sorta) originated by Ivanna Chubbock, by way of Roy London, by way of Uta Hagen, by way of Stanislavsky, with a detour through cognitive psychology. I studied it with Bentley Mitchum, one of Ivanna's prize pupils, who taught the class in L.A., before moving to Texas.

Students of these methods tend to do a lot script breakdown work in isolation, prior to a scene. The technique emphasizes individual motivations over a group choreography, which is the tradition of the stage, and of several film actors. In other words, actors using this technique don't much care what the other actor plans to do; they have their own motivation, and will adjust their behavior according to their scene partner(s) responses. It's a good technique for film, since the camera is usually trained on just one or two actors at a time, not a whole stage/set with an ensemble of actors.

I have not taken the class, but I understand that Austin actress Katherine Willis and actor Peter Blackwell teach a Roy London-style class here in Austin (Peter studied with Roy). Chubbock's book details her technique.

Steve, thanks very much for the questions, and I hope the answers helped. Please stop by iTunes and leave some feedback on the podcast, if you don't mind.

If anyone else has questions, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email, and I'll respond. Thanks for listening to the Texas Film Scene podcast! Let me know who you would like interviewed, and leave me feedback or constructive critiques at iTunes.

Make your own damn Webisode!

Years ago, my friend Trent Haaga wrote a book called Make Your Own Damn Movie. Well, Texas filmmaker Blake Calhoun and writer Mike Madden did just that. Sort of. They made a TV-like series for the Web ("webisodes") called Pink - The Series.

They posted the series on YouTube, and it took off: 4 million views in just a few months. Mike Madden, in a podcast interview with Pilar Alessandra, writer Madden explains that part of the success, he feels, is that the 3-minute shows are scripted with a 3-minute arc, not a 90-minute arc that's been chopped up into 3-minute intervals. The fact that it's action fare, with a woman in the lead role, no less, probably didn't hurt. Shows like La Femme Nikita and Domino did pretty well using the same basic formula.

Recently, Hollywood sat up and took notice. New Webisodes of PTS are being shot now, and their recent deal with Generate bodes well for the DFW team to be at the leading edge of Web-based filmmaking.

That's good for Texas producers, directors, writers, and actors, and most of all, good for consumers, who are looking for quality content "outside the box." It's the obvious conclusion of the major studios' crumbling business model, which they are fighting hard to hold onto, seemingly oblivious to the lessons of their music industry brethren.

It's motivational to me. I'm in the process of self-producing a few features and possibly even my TV series, which might be a nice end-run around Hollywood Development Hell.

Did I mention that I'm writing a book, too?

Show me the iMoney

The 2008 LATV Festival, presented by National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) wrapped up last week, and the news was (surprise!) good for Old Media companies.

The Big 4 television studios and Big 6 (5? 4?) movie studios are feeling the pinch from online "new" media, such as Webisodes, podcasts, and videocasts. However, the reports of Old Media's demise were greatly exaggerated, according to Howard Hononoff, who heads the media advisory board at PricewaterhouseCoopers, at a panel covered by TV Week.

Despite growing advertiser skepticism about television's actual reach and effectiveness, TV advertising will grow about 5% per year, to $90 billion by 2012, claims Homonoff. It is difficult to know how many advertising dollars Web content is generating, because there is not yet any organization that accurately collects those figures, partially because Web advertising varies so widely. There are banner ads, referrals, pay-per-click, flat-fee, and CPM (cost per thousand) advertising on many Web shows, but no one has a good handle on how much money actually changes hands.

More concretely, though, Mr. Homonoff noted that Disney made less on all of it's iTunes Music Store downloads in eighteen months ($48 million) than “Desperate Housewives” alone generated on-air in a single season. Well, yeah. When you can sell 30-second spots for about $400,000, it is hard to compete.

For actors, this is a big deal. Literally.

Yes, while we can make movies in our backyards with $50 cameras and free software, the question is, can we monetize them? For most, the answer is "no." At best, our DIY efforts will serve as calling cards.

But to make a living as an actor, you still have to be where the money is. And, like it or not, the money is (still) in unionized productions. The money is still with the Old Media model, particularly television.

And, sad as I will be to leave my beloved Austin, that is why I am moving to L.A.