I agree with your insights, Rupert. YouTube is great for marketing. Not for distribution. Blip.tv is great for distribution. There's a big difference between the two. Filmmakers (big and small) understand so much about how to distribute and market using the old tools. There's lots of pro and con to each of the zillion options. Yet so many film/tv pros think everything "internet" is all the same stuff.
Building a website that's a flat presentation of static content (with or without animation) is like sending out direct mail postcard. Building a website that fosters discussion and fan-based-promotion is like orchestrating a underground word-of-mouth marketing campaign. Doing an video interview with an internet-based show is like getting booked on a t.v. or radio show for an interview. Putting trailers up on YouTube is like buying t.v. ads for your trailer. Using blip.tv to distribute the film is like getting booked onto television timeslot. Using the Apple store to sell digital downloads is like making DVDs (or VHS tapes) and selling them in stores. Just because these are all examples of "stuff on websites" doesn't mean it's all the same. I wonder sometimes how long it will take for people to understand the reality of computers and the internet, instead of the distorted stereotypes. Maybe never. It's interesting that many *media* professionals are having the hardest time of all. Anyone who says "I don't know, I should ask my kid. They know" is not even trying. (Because 98% of kids don't know anything about what is happening either.) Those filmmakers / media pros are going to be left in the dust. Jen Jen Simmons http://jensimmons.com http://milkweedmediadesign.com On Sep 5, 2008, at 7:05 PM, Rupert wrote: > Good for Michael Moore. Yes, some of them are starting to get it. > But even the ones who are getting it are only partly getting it, and > - like your director, Jan - are bullied by producers and funders who > are still a long way from getting it. > > In May, I was at a talk about the future of documentaries given by > Deborah Scranton, who directed War Tapes. > > In the end, she advocated YouTube as the best way to get your films > seen by people. > > I asked her how she thought that kind of free distribution fitted > with getting the considerable funding needed to make big > documentaries like hers. > > She didn't have an answer. > > And then I asked her whether it was OK for The War Tapes to be > distributed on YouTube so that it got viewed by more people. > > She said "Oh, that's a question for the producer." > > I was really disappointed with her. One moment, she was saying "It's > great for you little people to get your films in front of an audience > on YouTube" - and the next, she wouldn't even give her personal view > about her own film being shown that way, to a room full of emerging > documentary filmmakers. > > These questions are no brainers to me, and yet she was supposed to be > giving an authoritative view about the future of documentaries. It's > all very easy for established filmmakers to say "Up and coming > filmmakers should use YouTube" - but if they say that, then they have > to be able to justify why THEY should use it, too - regardless of > what the studio's lawyers say in 2008. Otherwise it's just a > bullshit platitude to make them sound like they get it. And it > doesn't address the problem of how big documentaries will be funded > ten years from now. > > I'm always amazed at how long it takes TV and Film professionals to > understand and get excited about this stuff, instead of seeing it as > a financial threat. > > Rupert > http://twittervlog.tv [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
