Subcinema MAPPING INFORMAL FILM DISTRIBUTION Ramon Lobato Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2009 School of Culture and Communication The University of Melbourne Abstract This thesis investigates the politics of film distribution from a transnational perspective. Distribution, the most profitable sector of the film industry, is a rich site for cultural analysis. Distribution networks do more than deliver content to audiences; they shape film culture in their own image by regulating our access to cinema, creating demand for future production, and structuring our habits and tastes. The existing literature on film distribution focuses almost exclusively on multiplex, arthouse, and home video circuits. This thesis aims to broaden the scope of distribution research by taking into account informal, nontheatrical networks in grey and black economies. Providing evidence of the empirical significance of these “invisible” global markets, I offer a new model of media circulation (subcinema) which I develop through three case studies of film industries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. The broad argument is that analysing film from the vantage point of distribution can open up a space for a different kind of transnational film studies, one founded on a materialist model of how audiences access cinema. The first chapter of the thesis critically reviews existing scholarship on film distribution and draws on political economy, anthropology, film history, and media economics to develop a theory of distribution as a cultural technology. The second chapter examines the evolution of the Hollywood distribution model and the strategies used by the major studios to sell their product to domestic and international audiences, highlighting the bottlenecks that are characteristic of the conventional “windowing” system. In chapter three, I set out a broad theoretical framework for the study of informal film distribution, developed in dialogue with the social science literature on informal economies, and I identify the six key characteristics of subcinematic networks— instantaneity, deterritoriality, invisibility, textual instability, distraction, and “cockroach-capitalist” structure. The remaining chapters analyse three informal/semi-formal distribution systems from a comparative perspective. In chapter four, a case study of the straight-to-video release model used for low-budget American and Australian genre films explores the complex transnational economy in which these films are financed and circulated, and the challenge this fast-and-cheap film culture poses to theories of cultural value. In chapter five, the unique system of Nigerian video film distribution is analysed in terms of its efficiency as a circulatory network and as a driver of social and economic change. In chapter six, competing discourses around media piracy are interrogated through an analysis of black-market DVD trade at Tepito market in Mexico City, a case study which foregrounds the importance of pirate literacies. Combining industrial analysis, cultural theory, and interviews with distributors, these case studies critically theorise subcinematic networks in terms of their social and political impact, the challenges they pose to existing theories of reception and spectatorship, and their feasibility as alternative industrial templates for future film industries. Declaration This is to certify that the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD, due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, the thesis is less than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Ramon Lobato Acknowledgements I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my supervisors, Dr Audrey Yue and Prof Sean Cubitt, for their expert guidance, generosity, and enthusiasm. Leah Tang, Kyle Weise, Peter Chambers, Meg Mundell, Polona Petek, Fran Martin, Sun Jung, Scott Brook, Annamma Varghese, Radha O’Meara, and Michelle Cho have also helped me greatly by offering thoughts, criticism, and support. Some of the ideas contained within this thesis benefited from feedback from participants at the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University and the Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory at UC Irvine, and at conferences at the University of South Australia, Yonsei University, Sendai Mediatheque, University of Western Sydney, and the Universidad Iberoamericana. I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Cultural Research Network, the MacGeorge Bequest, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, and the University of Melbourne’s Arts Faculty and School of Culture and Communication, which allowed me to attend these events. The case study of Tepito market would not have been possible without the help of Alfonso Hernández of the Centro de Estudios Tepiteños and Tobias Ostrander of the Museo Rufino Tamayo. Joy Sandra Lee and Jonathon Auxier of the Warner Bros Archive at University of Southern California also provided valuable assistance during my visits in August 2008. Finally, I would like to thank the interviewees who made time to speak to me and whose thoughts have greatly enriched this thesis. Material from this thesis has appeared, in modified form, in other scholarly publications. An early version of chapter one was published as “Subcinema: Theorizing Marginal Film Distribution”, Limina: Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies 13 (2007): 113-20. Material from the case study in chapter four was reproduced in “Secret Lives of Asian Australian cinema: Offshore Labour in Transnational Film Industries”, Studies in Australasian Cinema 2, no. 3 (2008): 213-27. A shorter version of chapter five appeared as “The Six Faces of Media Piracy: Global Film Distribution from Below”, in The Business of Entertainment, Volume 1: The Movies, edited by R. Sickels (Westport: Praeger, 15-36), and some conceptual material from the thesis has been developed further in “Invisible Audiences for Australian Films? Cinema and its Many Publics”, Metro 160 (2009): 162-65. Table of contents Introduction 1 Part A: Cinema / subcinema 1. DISTRIBUTION IN THEORY: 15 MEDIA, MOBILITY, MATERIALITY Film studies / film history / cultural studies 16 Distribution across the disciplines 25 Theorising distribution 36 2. DISTRIBUTION IN PRACTICE: THE HOLLYWOOD MODEL 47 Early cinema 51 The studio era 54 The post-studio era 60 The ancillary age 65 Digital distribution 72 The mechanics of distribution 76 International expansion and resistance 84 Profile: Two Australian film distributors 92 Distribution and cultural power 101 3. SUBCINEMA: INFORMAL ECONOMIES IN TRANSNATIONAL SPACE 105 Formal and informal economies 106 Informality in the mediascape 114 Profile: Left Behind 127 Part B: Subcinema case studies 4. SUBCINEMA AND CULTURAL VALUE: STRAIGHT-TO-VIDEO DISTRIBUTION 131 The birth of the video economy 134 The straight-to-video transnational 143 Profile: IFM World Releasing 151 The slaughterhouse of cinema 157 5. SUBCINEMA AND SOCIAL CHANGE: NIGERIAN VIDEO FILM DISTRIBUTION 167 Distribution and dependency in Africa 170 The video film boom 176 Profile: Nigerian video in Australia 185 The lessons of Nollywood 190 6. SUBCINEMA AND THE LAW: PIRATE DISTRIBUTION 197 Defining piracy 198 Contextualising copyright 201 Piracy as theft 205 Piracy as free enterprise 208 Piracy as free speech 213 Piracy as authorship 216 Piracy as resistance 222 Piracy as access 226 Profile: The Mexico City black market 233 Pirate literacies, hybrid economies 242 Conclusion 247 Reference list 255 Filmography 293 Introduction • 1 Introduction Since the birth of film studies, a belief in the inherent power of cinematic representation has shaped the discipline and the kinds of research carried out under its auspices. From the perspective of a film scholar, a movie is more than a reel of celluloid or a disc encoded with data; it is a cultural object endowed with potential. Successive generations of theorists have demonstrated the power that film wields over popular imaginaries and its ability to catalyse ethical awakening, present new ways of thinking, feeling and acting, and change in small but significant ways our understanding of the world around us. Film theory in particular has generated numerous models which have attempted to explain how representation interfaces with identity and ideology. Underlying all this is the unshakable conviction that cinematic representation matters because it has social consequences. However, to be of social consequence, a film must first reach an audience. In other words, it must be distributed. Distribution, the mediating process between production and reception, is the missing link in film studies. It is the least studied sector of the film industry, and analysis of distributive issues is left largely to the trade press. This is unfortunate, because distribution plays a key role in film culture—it determines what films we see, and when and how we see them. Crucially, it also determines what we do not see. Distribution, then, is about cultural power, about the regulation, provision, and denial of audiovisual content. Further to this, I argue that distribution is also a space of textual change. It is tempting to dismiss distribution as a neutral process in which media content is simply delivered to the audiences which seek it, but this is rarely, if ever, the Introduction • 2 case. Those films fortunate enough to be distributed change as they move through time and space;