radio appearances by the performers on The Mystery Cyber Theater Late Show with David Letterman, Good Morning America, and National Public Radio. The Still-Unsolved Riddles of Digital Distribution A few independent fi lmmakers are mak- by Scott Kirsner ing money online, usually with the assistance of sponsors or underwriters. But they work in a different format than the typical 90-minute narrative, spinning out skeins of short, min- utes-long “webisodes.” Nerve.com bankrolled a series called Digital distribution, circa 2007, resembles where; gone are fi lm print, DVD, and ship- Young American Bodies by director Joe Swan- a high-concept science fi ction script: con- ping expenses. One friend can email another berg last year, which features lots of funny ceptually intriguing, potentially feasible, but about the great documentary she watched last banter by 20-somethings and even more not quite part of the fabric of reality. night, and include a direct link to it. People nudity. (Viewers can rate each episode based on Many of the elements required for a direct can embed trailers and clips into their blogs or how sexy, funny, and smart they think it is.) A connection between fi lmmaker and audience websites, enticing viewers to watch the whole second “season” of the show began appearing are already in place. The average internet user movie. New services like Lycos Cinema even on the site earlier this year. While Swanberg in the United States now watches more than let users pick fi lms, create their own online likes having his production costs covered, he 100 minutes of video per month, typically “screening rooms,” and invite friends to watch says the series hasn’t produced a windfall. It over a high-speed connection. According to and chat as the content unspools. can, however, help promote his features, which Apple, iTunes customers have so far purchased But perhaps the most enticing possibility, include Hannah Takes the Stairs and LOL. more than 1.3 million movies and 50 million from a fi lmmaker’s perspective, is that of direct When documentary fi lmmakers Alfred television episodes. Several websites, including payment—a monthly deposit to your PayPal or Spellman and Billy Corben embarked on GreenCine, CustomFlix, and Dovetail, provide bank account based on how much business a project about the South Beach nightclub free hosting for full-length features, and cut you’ve done, not your ability to shake down industry in Miami, they didn’t know what form the creator in on the revenues each time a middlemen for what they owe you. the eventual product would take. “We thought movie is viewed. it might turn into a reality series for TV,” says A few fi lmmakers have experimented with Who’s cashing in now? Spellman, previously a producer of Sundance making their work available through these new Already, websites like Metacafe, Revver, and entry Raw Deal: A Question of Consent (2001). channels. Despite these forays, digital distribu- Blip.tv have direct payment systems in place. “We thought distributing it on the internet tion still hasn’t arrived as a viable, fi nancially Most of the content creators with nickels and would be tough, since we were thinking about sound option for independent fi lmmakers. dimes adding up in their accounts have made a nine-month-long project, and we weren’t This may be a transitional year, however, as short “viral videos;” Metacafe’s top earners sure how that could cover our costs.” But more consumers rent and purchase main- include magicians and martial arts performers Spellman found a vodka company willing to stream studio movies in digital form, and doing routines in front of low-end camcord- sponsor the Clubland project in exchange for install the technology necessary to view them ers. (Metacafe’s blockbuster hit, Joe Eigo’s some branding and subtle product placement on a TV screen. Wider consumption of digitally Matrix—For Real video,video, hhasas rrakedaked iinn mmoreore tthanhan in the series. “We’ve ended up with 50 fi ve- delivered indies may quickly follow. $25,000.) Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, two minute webisodes,” Spellman says. “And we stage performers who live in Buckfi eld, Maine, will also sell half-hour versions of the show The upside have earned about $35,000 from a video called to foreign TV.” The benefi ts of a boundless internet movie The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments. Still, Spellman isn’t sure the web is a ripe library are attractive. Any title, no matter how These videos produce revenue through medium for independent features. He and small a niche it appeals to, has the opportunity advertising—placed on the surrounding page, Corben are working on a sequel to a 2006 to fi nd its audience—author Chris Anderson’s or at the beginning or end of the clip—and documentary called Cocaine Cowboys, about “Long Tail” argument in action (for more info very few of them are more than fi ve minutes the drug trade in Florida, but they expect they’ll check out his book The Long Tail: Why the long. To earn thousands of dollars, they must earn the majority of their revenues from sales Future of Business is Selling Less of More). Theo- be viewed millions of times; the Diet Coke & of DVDs, rather than digital downloads or retically, movies can stay in circulation forever, Mentos video has been seen more than eight rentals. “I still think we’re a year or two away for the cost of storing them on a server some- million times, helped by fortuitous TV and from being able to monetize content in the

34 ReleasePrint May/June 2007 digital world in the same way you can mon- an exclusive deal with AOL to release Anya movies from a computer to a TV set or portable etize it through physical means like a DVD,” Camilleri’s horror fl ick Incubus lastlast HHalloweenalloween media player. In the past, that sort of transfer says Spellman. as a digital rental or purchase. But the website has required special software, cables, and an Swanberg agrees. He mostly sees the never reported how many users ponied up advanced engineering degree. This year, how- internet as a promotional tool for live screen- during its month-long run of the $7 million ever, consumers will begin buying easy-to-use ings or DVD sales. “The web is no good for movie starring Tara Reid. devices like Apple TV, SlingMedia’s Sling- making money right now,” he says. ClickStar also declined to divulge any Catcher, and Netgear’s Digital Entertainer, data about Brad Silberling’s 10 Items or Less, a priced from $200 to $400. These technologies Early experiments with digital low-budget feature starring Morgan Freeman could encourage broader consumption of digi- Some fi lmmakers have learned that lesson and Paz Vega released online last December. tal movies from independent producers. through hard experience. Ben Rekhi, an Many theater chains refused to show the movie But much more experimentation will be independent fi lmmaker based in Los Ange- when they learned it would be available on the necessary to fi gure out whether digital distribu- les, gave a friend who worked for Google his internet just two weeks after the start of its the- tion can stand alone, or whether it is merely terrorism thriller Waterborne to show at the atrical run. Mark Cuban’s Landmark Theatres a new-fangled replacement for the traditional company’s monthly screening series. “After- chain was the notable exception. (Box Offi ce home video release. Can a fi lmmaker produce ward, a few people from the video depart- Mojo reports that the movie’s widest release a full-length feature on a low-enough budget ment approached me, and mentioned that was 15 theaters, and that its domestic gross that it will turn a profi t solely with an internet they might be interested in the fi lm for their didn’t quite reach $90,000.) release? Can a movie’s internet release viably run concurrent with a its theatrical debut, so that viewers who live far from an art-house It’s hard to find an independent filmmaker who believes that cinema can enjoy it immediately after read- digital distribution won’t develop into an important revenue ing rave reviews in the paper? Or will theater stream. The biggest question is simply, how soon? owners continue to squelch that possibility? It’ll likely be a few more years before those answers emerge. new video store,” Rekhi recalls. At the time, Roadblocks and challenges ahead The challenge that will follow fi lmmakers he also had in hand a $125,000 offer from a It’s hard to fi nd an independent fi lmmaker from the world of celluloid and DVDs into the distributor for the fi lm’s theatrical and DVD who believes that digital distribution won’t world of bits and bandwidth is marketing. In rights. “The distributor said, ‘If you release it develop into an important revenue stream. The an environment with almost infi nite choices, online, our offer is off the table,’” Rekhi says. biggest question is simply, how soon? “the biggest challenge is getting found,” says “We had a week to make up our minds—do No one has yet produced the fi rst digi- writer-director Lance Weiler. “Promotion, we go the safe route, or try something totally tal break-out hit—the online version of The marketing, and audience-building will become new, and risk it all?” Blair Witch Project or Napoleon Dynamite that the most important aspects for independent Rekhi chose to carve out a new course. everyone wants to see and tells their friends producers.” Weiler retained the internet rights Google Video posted his movie as a free video about, making obvious the power of digital of his most recent movie, Head Trauma, but stream for ten days, and then charged $3.99 distribution. One big barrier has been the hasn’t yet made it available online. But Weiler per download, giving Rekhi 70 percent of the iTunes Store, the leading seller of digital sees digital distribution as an increasingly revenues. But Rekhi says there were disadvan- music, TV shows, and movies. So far, Apple important way to respond to piracy, fl attening tages to being Google’s fi rst guinea pig, “You hasn’t been interested in putting independent DVD sales, and decreasing retail shelf space couldn’t download my movie to a Mac. You had fi lms on its virtual shelves, focusing instead for independent DVDs. (See page 38 for more to download a special player. And it didn’t work on studio deals with Disney and Paramount. on Lance Weiler and Head Trauma.) Digital with certain browsers.” Google also goofed on However, one scrap of independent content, distribution may address those problems, mak- reporting purchase numbers to Rekhi, initially a snowboarding documentary, showed up ing even the most obscure, low-budget movie telling him that 3,000 people had purchased on iTunes earlier this year, and some indie accessible to a would-be viewer in Bulgaria. Waterborne. “Making $12,000 seemed pretty fi lmmakers report that Apple has expressed But the riddle of how to be heard amidst the exciting,” Rekhi says. “Then, overnight, the interest in carrying their feature-length titles. rising noise will remain—though the most numbers on the reports dropped to 300 It’s also possible that organizations like the creative fi lmmakers, who have often doubled downloads. Google explained they’d made a Independent Online Distribution Alliance as promoters and entrepreneurs, will no doubt mistake.” (The ability to audit a distributor’s could begin acting as conduits to iTunes for puzzle out an answer. sales numbers will likely remain important indie fi lmmakers, as they have been for inde- in the digital era.) pendent musicians. Parts of this article are adapted from Scott Rekhi estimates he made $1,000 at most One service more welcoming of indie Kirsner’s book The Future of Web Video: New from the fi lm’s six months on Google Video, fi lmmakers is CustomFlix, which is owned Opportunities for Producers, Entrepreneurs, and says that the movie did better when it by Amazon. CustomFlix will make any movie Media Companies, and Advertisers, available was released on DVD: distributor MTI Video available through Amazon’s Unbox digital at lulu.com. See scottkirsner.com/webvid/get- shipped more than 20,000 units. download service, where it can be sent directly tingpaid.htm for a comparison of several digital Less information is available about other to a TiVo digital video recorder, for easy view- distribution options. experiments with digital distribution of full- ing on a TV set. length indie fi lms. Prior to the movie’s DVD This brings us to another digital distri- release, producer Adam Shapiro negotiated bution barrier—the diffi culty of transferring

36 ReleasePrint May/June 2007