Thenewnewmedia

On Sunday morning, I attended a very interesting event hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The event was a Roundtable which featured seven film directors who are working in the industry but are all to my knowledge following a less conventional road in creating, developing and promoting their creative output. http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/program/hbofilmsroundtable.html Most of them started out by making short movies – 20 – 30 minutes in length – and some of them have gone on to be involved in directing or producing feature films. While I do not purport to be an expert on the film business, it was clear from listening to these seven people that they were facing many of the same challenges other creatives in the business were facing as they tried to figure out how to create important works on their own while staying economically solvent, get their work known in an industry still largely driven by the studio system, and use technology to create and promote their work.

Each of the panelists discussed how he or she had evolved as a film maker and what was different about making their first film as opposed to their second one. What I found exhilarating is that these people all were interested in being what I call ‘communities of one’ and charting their own paths to greatness even if it meant financial hardship and not necessarily getting the recognition they deserved. One after another, these film makers talked about doing everything themselves and not depending on others in the community for assistance, depending on grants and other means of financial support in order to create something outside of the system which would then hopefully gain recognition with a wider audience, and having a singular vision which enabled them to keep going in the face of such hardships. They talked about the creative process and how even though they had experience in creating a movie, the second time around it was ‘like starting from scratch’ in terms of developing the story and getting told artistically.

For these leading edge film makers, the digitalization of the film industry was a double edged sword. Yes, the technological advances enabled them to afford hand held cameras and other equipment they certainly would not have had access to before, but on the other hand, they all lamented the fact that the new digital medium was not nearly as good as shooting in film. Moreover, they all seemed to be struggling with how to take advantage of the new methods of distribution and access to an audience by using the technology that was widely available. One of the panelists suggested that in the final analysis, it was about getting your work known and that traditional advertising – print and otherwise – was still the way to go. They might have been aware of such successes as The Blair Witch Project which was advertised virally through the Net but for these film makers, it was about finally getting their work into the hands of people who could promote their films to a wide audience through festivals, and in newspaper and TV ads. Relationships with industry moguls still seemed to be one of the chief ways they felt they would get recognition. One panelist talked about the enormous boon a known Hollywood star would bring in terms of getting their oeuvre to see the light of day.

For all of our touting of the digital revolution, this group of panelists’ views on digitalization was very revealing. Perhaps we are at the beginning of things in the film business. It is true that directors like Steve Soderbergh are experimenting with direct downloads to the audience and releasing films to DVD on the same day as these films are released to theaters, so-called day and date. But these people seem few and far between if the panelists I heard are any indication of the state of things. One panelist mentioned how the music business has been transformed and that more revenues are now coming from concerts and the sale of T-shirts and other goods rather than the actual sale of musical works and seemed genuinely uncomfortable at the prospect of this happening in the film business. The moderator suggested that we still needed movie theaters like the one we were sitting in. Of all the industries in the media sector, it is the music industry which has undergone the most significant transformation due to digitalization. The movie business is changing but one wonders if the same models used in the music business – direct downloads of creative works and the slow demise of the sale of physical media (CDs) - will happen so easily in this business. And what will this all mean to these independent film makers? Will they survive and thrive in this new world?

Finally, this was a New York City event and I asked the panelists whether it was important to be in New York City to do their work. One panelist said that once you had established your relationships with others it was easy to then be somewhere else and create your work. But I wondered about the need to interact with other creatives, hobnobbing at events like this, at bars, and other venues in New York or for that matter in LA. Technology has enabled people to be anywhere anytime, but can you create a great movie in Iowa? Do you need to be ‘clustered’ to use Michael Porter’s terminology, to benefit from the mix of artists, writers, musicians and others who populate cities? Do you need to nurture these relationships continually through face to face interaction? Do cities like New York provide a certain level of energy and a community which is ready to respond to the avant garde? Could an event such as I attended this past Sunday have taken place somewhere else and been successful?