BLACK GOLD: The Film And The Roller-Coaster Ride - Part 2

This is the second of four posts covering the film BLACK GOLD - a social-issue driven documentary co-produced/directed by brothers Marc and Nick Francis. The film joins the dots between coffee consumption in the west and coffee production in developing countries.

As I said last week, BLACK GOLD is remarkable because of the tangible social impact it has had on the issues it covers and because audiences rallied around the film and really took it as their own.

Last week, Marc spoke about the making of the film and how they engaged with NGO’s from very early pre-production to form relationships that helped them build their audience once the film was complete. We also heard how they levered their acceptance into Sundance 2006 to create waves around the issues the film covers.

In this next post - we chart how BLACK GOLD received more audience attention than Marc and Nick ever would have expected, how they managed this attention and levered it to it’s maximum potential - and how it was their very success that nearly took them under before they’d even had a chance to get going…

Marc Francis: AS FILMMAKERS, WE WANT OUR AUDIENCE TO BE EFFECTED IN SOME WAY WHEN THEY LEAVE THE CINEMA.

- We’re not interested in popcorn filmmaking which, for us, is you’re there for the thrill of the ride and by the time you’ve gotten out of the cinema you’ve forgotten about it. We want people to wake up the next day and be thinking about it. Effected by it. The experience lives on.

BUT WHAT WE DIDN’T REALISE WAS HOW BIG THE REACTION WAS GOING TO BE FROM OUR AUDIENCE.

We had no idea about it. And that was the reaction we got. On the one hand, we got people wanting to give us thousands of dollars to help us help Ethiopia and people were saying they wanna invest in ethical companies now they’d seen our film. On the other hand, we’ve got companies like Starbucks building an international PR campaign to discredit our film and tell the world to think good about Starbucks coffee. - And really, to be able to manage all of that attention and interests from all sides you need an organisation that can really try to match up to those standards.

On top of that, we’ve got emails flooding in from all over the world from people wanting to see the film, screen the film, show the film! Our inboxes started to quadruple

LS: You must’ve been really stressed!

MF: YEAH! YOU ALMOST GET TO THE POINT OF IMPLODING BECAUSE YOU CAN’T ACTUALLY COPE WITH THE DEMAND - YOU CAN’T MEET THE DEMAND. YOU COULD ALMOST IMPLODE BEFORE YOU’VE EVEN GOT OUT OF THE STARTING BLOCKS. AND THAT NEARLY HAPPENED TO THE TWO OF US.

AND WHAT DO YOU DO? WHEN PEOPLE SAY I WANNA SEE YOUR FILM OR SEND YOU MONEY OR… WHATEVER? WHAT DO YOU DO? JUST SAY, SORRY - FUCK OFF, I’M TOO TIRED?

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE ALL THIS DEMAND…? YOU RISE TO THE DEMAND AND GO ON A ROLLERCOASTER RIDE AND TAKE EVERYDAY LIKE IT’S YOUR LAST.

LS: How did you figure out how to do it?

MF: The key focus at that point was to build a Word-of-mouth campaign for the film. Within the film festival circuit and to work with our sales agent to see if they can do the best deals that they can. And then when those deals are being done in different territories, we can start working with our distributor bringing our outreach to delivering the best that we can in those territories.

So from Sundance onwards, we were using the audience feedback and the demand from the audience to inform how we should be strategizing and moving forwards.

So we immediately got the website up and running. Advanced it. We created a forum immediately - that was fantastic - the forum for us, it was brilliant. Still being used today. And we’ve had governments, corporations, even coffee producers debating on the forum of our website about anything related to the issue. So that was one major thing.

Second major thing, even making sure that email lists - straight away, anyone coming to our site we were having an opportunity to get peoples’ emails.

Third thing - trailer. As soon as we could we wanted the trailer up front, giving people an insight into the film. And giving people as much info about the film as we could give them.

But the website was in a constant state of evolution over the whole campaign - the campaign itself was two years solid - all of 2006 and 2007. Full time.

LS: How did you fund that?

MF: Our company subsidized us and we did other work as well on top and then we started to look for audience awareness-raising grants and development grants - that whole thing.

COZ WE REALIZED YOU CAN MAKE YOUR FILM BUT WHAT’S THE POINT IN THE FIRST PLACE IF NO-ONE SEES IT? AND I DON’T THINK THERE’S ENOUGH DISCUSSION/DEBATE EVEN WITHIN THE FUNDING CIRCLES ABOUT HOW WE CAN FINANCE THE ENERGY, RESOURCES AND TIME THAT GOES INTO GETTING INDEPENDENT FILMS OUT THERE AS WIDELY AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN DO.

So we applied to funding bodies and funding institutions - the Sundance Institute, the UK Film Council - who were the other types of people who came on board with funding for this film by the way - it wasn’t just NGO’s. It was Docfactory, Britdoc, trusts, foundations and NGO’s.

The other great thing about our website is that we had a brilliant contact page - it gave a number of different emails, depending on what your inquiry is: media got all the resources they needed (press pack to download, correct resolution images already copyrighted and ready to go to print) or sales agents or distributors from different territories would be directed to the right place.

What that did was - we were getting a lot of sales inquiries which we forwarded to our sales agent. Filmmakers that get sales agents - doesn’t mean they’re gonna be working for you 24/7.  They’re working on your project for a small amount of time (as with all their other projects) and if it’s not a film with very amazing characters in, then these films are very hard to sell. Especially docs. So we were doubling up the work for our sales agent - which is great.

We’d get an inquiry and we’d say , here we go, check it out. and they’d close the deal  - as well as generating their own deals - but we helped contribute to the amount of deals being done because we were attracting so much attention to our website. Soon after Sundance, we had about 100,000 unique visitors per month.

And till BLACK GOLD, “Black Gold” meant oil - now it means coffee! We redefined a term! So now when you type in Black Gold, you’re learning about coffee, not oil. I mean, there’s massive oil conglomerate organisations that are way down on the list!

LS: It’s not just that it was a quality film - it was a surprise even to you what came of it.

MF: Yes, correct.

So one of the things BG contributed to was actually raising the price of Ethiopian coffee on the international marketplace - which is huge. The main character in our film was suddenly being invited to talk around the world. He was traveling with the film around the world parallel to me and Nick traveling round the world. Sometimes we’d have the film shown in 5 or 6 different countries in the same week - and we’d all be in different countries at the same time. And he was there, as his own thing, and he couldn’t believe it!

He’s only been used to news crews so he didn’t understand why we kept coming back and why it would take longer than 5 minutes whenever we shot. There was this constant conflict - coz he didn’t really understand what a documentary was or what a film is and what you have to do as a documentary filmmaker to work with your subjects.

And when we had our Seattle premiere, we had about 500 or 600 people in the auditorium and when Tadesse came up on stage he got a standing ovation.

THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME HE’D SEEN HIMSELF ON A 60FT SCREEN AND HAD THAT KIND OF REACTION AND THE PENNY DROPPED ABOUT THE POWER OF FILM AND AUDIENCE REACTION.

In every city we went to, we tried to hook-up with local coffee companies to give out coffee and support us.

And Tadesse’s there, doing press. And things are starting to happen on a government level. - We had a screening at the House of Commons and Tadesse ended up going to meet Tony Blair. We had the film showing at the World Bank, at the EU for a trade conference. We’ve had multinational companies use the film and start to take things seriously. Then we had a global media campaign. We ended up talking with the head of corporate affairs for Kraft Europe - we were on BBC world news  debating with them about what they should or shouldn’t be doing. We were on CNN, Al Jazeera - everywhere! So there was all of that going on continuously.

AND EVEN NOW WHEN I RECOUNT TO YOU WHAT WAS GOING ON I START TO GET TIRED. FROM ACTUALLY JUST THINKING ABOUT IT. BUT WE WERE SO JUST GOING ON THE DAY AND GOING ON THE MOMENT AND JUST NOT GIVING UP - THAT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO REALLY DO IT.

LS: When does BG end? Does the relationship get to end?

MF: We asked ourselves that the other day and at the moment it’s not ending. Half-way through we wanted it to end. Then we got over it and just carried on. And now, we’re thinking ‘oh, it’s brilliant - it’s quietened down’ and the fact is that it’s quietened down but it’s NOT ending.

- I mean, it was released in cinemeas in Japan about two months ago, in cinemas in Spain three months ago. It’s broadcast on Greek TV next week, it comes out officially on DVD in Australia and New Zealand next month. The BFI Screen Education are gonna do a whole online interactive education site for BG to disseminate to schools around the UK and we’re just in discussions about redesigning the BG website and taking it to the next phase.

- SO IT’S QUIETENED DOWN BECAUSE WE’VE TRIED TO QUIETEN IT DOWN, BUT IT’S NOT GONNA STOP AND IT SHOULDN’T STOP AND IT SHOULD CARRY ON - DEFINITELY.

LS: It’s like a business - it’s scaling.

MF: Absolutely. And coz it comes down to the obligation of the filmmaker to keep it going, that’s why it becomes really hard.

- BUT THIS MIGHT NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. I MEAN, HOPEFULLY IT DOES BUT THE FACT IS THAT ONE SHOULD ALWAYS EMBRACE DEMAND - I BELIEVE - IF YOU HAVE A FILM THAT’S GENERATING THAT BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW IF IT’S GONNA HAPPEN AGAIN.

We might look back and go - ‘Oh my god - we had no idea how incredible that time was! And it’s never happened again for the rest of our lives.’

SO WE SAID - LET’S EMBRACE THE EXPERIENCE, LET’S GO ON THE RIDE, AND LET’S REALLY GIVE IT EVERYTHING WE’VE GOT TO MAXIMIZE IT’S GLOBAL RELEASE AND IT’S GLOBAL ATTENTION.

And it’s just been released online in the States now and there’s gonna be a whole online thing very soon with it in the UK. (TBC…)

….Next time, in part 3, Marc questions to what extent filmmakers are becoming distributors and talks about the fine line where being your own distributor helps rather than hinders being a filmmaker. He also talks about the benefits of straddling both mainstream and alternative production/distribution models and speculates on what it takes to get a film noticed in the marketplace.