Luci Temple - Latest Comments

Re: Why are Australian film distributors not using social media?

Luci Temple — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 01:55:07 -0000

Hey Suse, I agree completely :) Jon Reiss is one filmmaker futurist who has suggested we need to create a role to coordinate and take responsibility for these activities: a "Producer of Marketing & Distribution" (PMD). I'm sure we'll see more people taking on this role in future, and yes encouraging everyone from the lighting guy or gal ('gaffer') to the accountant to do their bit.

Re: Why are Australian film distributors not using social media?

suse cairns — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 20:31:13 -0000

So here's a little out of the box thinking for you... why not get everyone who works on a film involved in social media? Make it part of their contract to write a blog post, or provide a photograph, or Tweet from set. Get your lighting guy (clearly I am not a filmmaker, so I am going to make up the roles) to write a post about his job. Get your accountant(!) to talk about some of the surprising aspects of film budgets. Get your actors to Tweet each day about their work, or Tweet as the character. Hell - screen the auditions. In so doing, not only could you create a completely compelling digital experience, but you are also providing people with a way to invest emotionally in the story of the filming, and therefore in the film itself. Find one person early in the process to coordinate this effort, and get people to work in the way that they are most comfortable. Such an approach would be challenging, no doubt, and involve some level of risk. But it also gives the process an independent story, and its not simply a story that says "buy me".

Anyway, just a thought to play with. Make social media the responsibility of everyone who is part of/invested in the film. Have a central coordinator, sure. But don't leave it up to the distributors.

Re: Why are Australian film distributors not using social media?

Luci Temple — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 21:30:37 -0000

Hi Mac, I agree! It does get increasingly confusing and problematic when you consider that international efforts clash with what's going on locally. In a way that's a whole other argument - why things are released here months or years later (e.g. dvds & tv) which means the local market hear about it from international marketing & pr efforts but yet can't actually see the film... or at least not 'legally' - hence giving rise to pirate downloads as impatient customers take things into their own hands. Meanwhile local films have little to no activity around their films so they come and go without the target audience necessarily hearing about them at all.

From that perspective I think Jon Reiss's advice that filmmakers concurrently keep hold of certain rights - such as ability to self distribute online - means that a customer can always purchase the product direct from the filmmaker if a local distributor is slow to the game. And perhaps work into the contract a requirement for co-ordination between various distributors so that if someone is hit by for example the US marketing there is a button that will redirect them to the information that is relevant to their geolocation.

Re: Why are Australian film distributors not using social media?

Mac — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 03:48:50 -0000

I saw the Mumbrella piece too - but felt bad about contradicting the distributors there .. so I just shut up.

The distributors were basically saying "Yes - we do marketing. See - we have a Facebook page." But that's like saying "Yes - we do marketing. We have a corner store."

That isn't marketing. It is just having a location that you can use for marketing.

I was interested in how marketing works for a distributor when the distributor only has the rights to one territory. Who is responsible for producing all the assets that can be used for marketing ? Should every distributor have to re-invent the same assets?

I also often find that I'm getting marketed to very effectively by the US distributor... only to find that I can't actually purchase the product in Australia anyway! Look at the huge mismatch of timing with the release of 'Green Lantern' in Australia. There was a massive marketing push - I was hit with lots of online interviews, articles and content. And then a few months after the marketing push has died down the product is available for viewing here. What a waste of marketing.

I think this highlights that for large films it shouldn't be the Australian distributor's job to do online marketing - because it is all going to get done automatically by the major US distributor anyway. There's zero point in running a separate online marketing campaign - just time the damned release so the US online marketing campaign is getting me to watch the film.

Mac

Re: Iron Sky & Crowdsourcing

targ — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:14:31 -0000

Good idea, the film doesn't seem good though
http://www.reddit.com/r/FilmRe...

Re: Art versus Commerce in Filmmaking

Jonathan — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:13:20 -0000

Absolutely spot-on assessment.

The American system, with "dumbed down, commercialised products" is the only sustainable one. They have a strong primary focus on maintaining cashflow, and so the "arthouse" films can be funded without leaving everyone in the red.

In any case, its ironic how often you hear arthouse film makers complain about the unsophistication of audiences. If they really cared about raising the floor of public sophistication, they wouldn't be making films no-one wants to see. They'd be studying what Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson are doing. Avatar will do far more environmental conservation, cultural awareness and scepticism of militarism than any number of arthouse films we've seen these last few years on those same subjects.

Re: Crowdfunding Indie Film Case Study : My Million Dollar Movie

moviecrowd — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 13:40:30 -0000

I don't think it's illegal in Australia. Check out Pozible (used to be Fundbreak). You can't sell an investment, so you can't promise a part of a profit, but preselling DVDs etc. is legal. Great post by the way!

Re: Iron Sky & Crowdsourcing

moviecrowd — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 13:38:54 -0000

Thank you for sharing these tips! David

Re: The Tunnel Case Study – Part 2

moviecrowd — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 13:35:18 -0000

Hi Luci, really nice post about crowdfunding movie projects. Great inspiration!

Re: Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:28:31 -0000

Again, another great idea that if done here in Australia would be illegal. You would get a criminal record for attempting it. Australian Securities and Investment Scheme call this an Illegal Managed Investment Scheme. It becomes illegal once you have more that 20 investors.
The fact that you are selling frames doesn't change it. A company that was selling trees ($50 for a group of trees from a pine plantation) was caught out by this legislation.
To do it legally in Australia you have to have public company and have a financial services license. This requires that you already have millions of dollars being managed. The laws don't make it possible to realistically do this to be done here for the films that need it.
Ken D.

Re: Crowdfunding Indie Film Case Study : My Million Dollar Movie

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:17:57 -0000

This crowd funding sound great except for one item you don't seem to understand. That is that here in Australia it is illegal. You would get a criminal record for attempting it. Australian Securities and Investment Scheme call it an Illegal Managed Investment Scheme. It becomes illegal once you have more that 20 investors.
To do it legally you have to have public company and have a financial services license. This requires that you already have millions of dollars being managed. The laws don't make it possible to realistically do this for the films that need it.

Re: Waiting For “Superman” | Pledge Now

King Krak, I Play the Game — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 05:15:17 -0000

Unfortunately, this was the worst film I've seen in years. Just painful to watch. Everything the movie had to say could have been done in 15 minutes but it incessantly tried to manipulate your emotions where more facts and information would have been so much better. I will never watch another film by Davis Guggenheim.

It's such a shame too, as this is a topic I really care about.

(Sorry, it's been bugging me and I needed to get this off my chest somewhere.)

Re: Wellywood Woman

Anne Flournoy — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 15:08:40 -0000

Thank you for posting this. http://WellywoodWoman.blogspot... is one of those incredible finds-- a densely informative collection of all kinds of reliable information and resources for filmmakers. If only for the service she's providing for the rest of us with her tireless activity, people should be funding whatever Marian Evans wants funded. (And I've never met Marian...I live in New York.)

Re: Digital Distribution: Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Case Study

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:50:21 -0000

Hey Luci,

You should really check out The Guild created by Felicia Day, which also acts in Dr Horrible Sing Along Blog. It's a show about how a group of gamers interact online and offline. It has become a big hit, especially with World of Warcraft fan base.

The 1st season's budget consisted of fan donations via a paypal button on their website. Also they got many volunteers to help out in the production. Many also volunteered to play extras.

In the 2nd season they went hunting for a sponsor and was picked up by Microsoft, Xbox and 1 other (I forgot).

The show has went on to win a swag of awards in the new media area.

They are now in their 4th season and still going strong. I believe this is the very definition of new media. Please Write an article on The Guild.

Cheers,

Scrible

Re: Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

anna — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:38:27 -0000

Not long to get your finished film in Big Break contest from @IAMROGUE and AMC theaters... http://bit.ly/9msubK

Re: Waiting For “Superman” | Pledge Now

marcus — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 21:03:39 -0000

One month left to enter your film into the IMROGUE.com Bigbreak contest. Your indie film in 50 AMC theaters! http://bit.ly/9msubK

Re: The Tunnel Case Study – Part 2

Ben Phelps — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:13:46 -0000

I'm really enjoying your thorough commentary of crowd funded films, Luci. Keep it up. It's great to read Australian filmmakers taking an active interest in alternative film funding and distribution models. After all, it's our responsibility to our financiers and our audience.

Re: The Tunnel Case Study – Part 2

Luci Temple — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:38:46 -0000

Hi Enzo, thank you for commenting here :)

I agree with you completely: working with minimal resources, you're doing a great job, and far more than most films do.

My aim isn't to pick your project apart but rather to look at the strategy from an 'ideal' perspective (something none of us can honestly live up to) in the hope to learn as much as we can.

Working low budget, it's easy for us to drop balls, so by looking at many projects and comparing what does and doesn't work, over time we might be able to pick patterns that identify which balls we can afford to drop versus which are essential even from an early stage even on a low budget.

It is difficult to know the answer until the film has been completed and released - however, if I only look at films in postmortem, we miss the evidence or 'trail' from the early days, which, honestly, for low budget filmmakers, is the bit we need to see.

For example, it is valuable for me to look at the Tunnel and go 'maybe they should do x & y' as a hypothesis, and then when the film is released without those elements and does just fine, we can learn that x & y are not so necessary after all!

But if I didn't think about it and write about it then there would have been no analysis and rather than us learning I was wrong there would be no lesson.

Thanks for the additional information, it's very much appreciated :)

All the best with The Tunnel. I look forward to being able to do a more conclusive overview after release - when we'll have a better idea of success.

btw, I do find it incredibly inspiring that you're jumping in and getting it made, breaking new ground here in Australia. Makes me feel a bit lousy for sitting on the sidelines trying to make up my mind about the 'best' way, but also I'm invigorated to start putting my learnings into action on set rather than just on pixels.

Many thanks, Luci

Re: Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

Luci Temple — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:12:00 -0000

Hey Mac, absolutely, I think they're both decent guys, and trying really hard to make a go of things. Fingers crossed it works :)

Re: Art versus Commerce in Filmmaking

The Kid In The Front Row — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:00:27 -0000

"What if the ‘masses’ aren’t having their voice heard?"

This is a really fascinating question-- and 'fascinating' would describe this whole post. You've got me thinking. Thank you!

Now-- was this blog post an arthouse article or a mainstream one? :)

Re: The Tunnel Case Study – Part 2

Enzo — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:33:16 -0000

Hi Luci,

Interesting analysis of the project on the whole. I usually don't make a habit of jumping onto blogs to comment when they are picking apart our project, as I feel it tends to come across unnecessarily defensive.

Having said that, there are a couple of things that I feel should be pointed out in clarification of some of the points you've made.

We have, for example, sourced extras for the film via social media - from our Facebook fans in fact.

We are, as you point out, a low-budget production. Unless we want people to work for free (and we don't), that pretty much means a small team, and that extends to the social media aspect of things. We do engage with our Twitter audience, for example, by talking about and retweeting crowdfunding related articles, analyses (like this one) etc. However, we still have a movie to make, and in the thick of production, something has to give - and in this case, we'd rather spend a little more time making sure we deliver a movie we can be proud of to our fans.

It's also worth pointing out that our campaign is a much longer lead than most movie projects, and so we need to pace ourselves. Nothing worse than giving everyone everything at once, then having radio silence for 6 months until release.

Many of the things you mention are most certainly part of our plan, but all take either time, or money, or both - neither of which we have much of now that we are in production.

I'll stop there, before we get into 'defensive' territory, but thanks for spending what has obviously been a lot of your time dissecting www.thetunnelmovie.net :)

I look forward to reading more of your thoughts and those of your other readers on the project.

Enzo.

Re: Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

Mac — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:23:00 -0000

"We can’t in good conscience ask for 100k from someone, telling them it’ll make a profit."

Enzo seems like a really decent guy.

Re: Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

Luci Temple — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:51:29 -0000

Martin, Marian and JL, thanks for the film references - I'll have to take a look :)

Re: Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

jl morris — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:00:40 -0000

I made a movie for around a $1000 we are raising money to pay the actors and cost to maintain our online movie theater . here is a link to the video .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re: Crowdfunding The Tunnel One Dollar at a Time

wellywoodwoman — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:57:57 -0000

Really pleased to read this, as we raise money for a "free" film, too & continually develop our strategies. Love how thorough your analysis is--

Have you seen Afia Nathaniel's beautiful frame-by-frame selling site for Neither the Veil Nor the Four Walls? I just fell in love with it when I saw it.