Intro
Your film needs to exist not only as a film, but as an experience.
There are some general ideas about the web that as a filmmaker trying to build audience, you need to understand. In this section I outline the key areas of non-traditional thinking that you should get to grips with. A lot of these ideas may be new to you. At the end, I explain how they all fit together in terms of approaching building an audience.
The Long Tail
The first is the notion of the Long Tail. Coined as a concept in 2004 by Chris Anderson of Wired magazine (most likely), the idea is that “products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough.” For a filmmaker, this means that when the web is at your disposal you have the ability to connect with every member of your niche audience who is also connected via the web – however weird or unusual your niche may be. You might be dealing with a highly specialist, obscure theme (or a small film that has no mainstream appeal) but through the web, in theory, you can aggregate every member of your minority group and create a vibrant enough community to keep that particular niche alive and sustainable.
It’s the reason that Yahoo Groups and the like are so popular – and social networking in general. When there are no barriers to the distribution of information, that information has the potential to reach anyone who wants to access it, resources can be created for people to gather around that information (or interest) and it can be built upon. An out of print book from 1923 can justify a re-printing – and probably have a fairly realistic idea of how many people will want to buy it. Better still (and this is not necessarily the Long Tail idea but is integral to audience-building), new audiences for that book can be reached through places that people of similar interests or values gather, be introduced to the book by people they’ve already grown to trust and suddenly, something that seemed dead is alive again.
The theory is called the Long Tail, to continue with the book example, because it’s the life of the distribution of that book after its first flurry of life when it was released in 1923. Post its release date, the interest in that book might be duller, might be slower, but it is long and, through the web, might never die out. Similarly, if someone in a small Ukrainian town were to make a film about the particular type of turnips that they grow (okay – that was the first idea that came to my head), and if the filmmaker knew the right path to take, they could locate everyone on the web who might have an interest in the subject of their film, build a community around it and have as much of a success in terms of audience as another that won Sundance that year or the last documentary you saw on the Living channel (possibly even more).
1000 True Fans
Next is the idea of 1000 True Fans. How specifically true this theory is is not important. Nor, right now, is the practicality of it. The core concept is that any musician (or author, or filmmaker) only needs 1000 super-dedicated fans – “someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version.” - in order to survive and make a decent, middle-class living. Okay, so we’re not discussing money in this how-to, but the idea correlates in terms of how much audience your film needs in order to be alive and self-sustaining. The exact number is less important than the concept that there is a sweet-spot that can be reached in the number of fans you have that are deeply dedicated to your work. That number is likely not as high as you think and it is attainable. If you work to reach that sweet-spot number of people in that sweet-spot way, you will have built a momentum that is self-generating. You will be having a larger conversation. You’ll be touching the right people and your work will have a home.
“Pleasing a True Fan is pleasurable, and invigorating. It rewards the artist to remain true, to focus on the unique aspects of their work, the qualities that True Fans appreciate.” - A boon and not always the case in traditional distribution systems. Another knock-on effect of this idea is that to get to 1000 True Fans, you need a good deal of fans that might not be True Fans but that are fans none the less. Fans might start out at one place on the spectrum and end up some place else. So you need a vibrant enough community to sustain your sweet-spot True Fan number. To have ‘1000 True Fans’, you need to be reaching people.
Direct Communication, On-Demand Culture, Interactivity
The more the world is becoming mechanized, the more people want the personal, human touch wherever they can find it. Whereas in the outside world the individual can often experience powerlessness and isolation, the web is an interactive, on-demand, direct-communication medium. On the web, people want to choose their media and how they interact with it, they want as few obstacles as possible to get to it, and when they find it, they want to have a voice, to be a part of the picture, and they want to know who is talking to them. As a filmmaker, and even better, as an independent filmmaker, all of this works in your favour when it comes to building an audience and getting your film seen.
Permission Marketing
Similarly, marketing that works on the web is Permission Marketing. Marketing that you opt-in to, sign-up for, request. It’s a form of marketing that promises an inherent form of value catered to your specific needs and interests. It promises to respect your time and attention. It wants you to complain when you haven’t heard from the marketer for a while. On TV you have no control over what ads are shown, when they’re shown, or how long they last. It’s push marketing and it works on the statistics of how many of their target audience they’re likely to reach by placing the ad at that given moment between those particular shows. TV is also a sit back medium. The program comes on, you sit back and watch it. The web is a sit forward medium. A pull system. As a marketer, you have to know how to let people find you. And when they do, you have to offer them the kind of value they’ll miss if they haven’t heard from you for a while. Through newsfeeds, search-engine keyword searches, Twitter, email, social networks etc… the user creates the filters they receive their information through. “If the news is important it will find me” is a concept to keep close to your heart. As a filmmaker building audience, you need to understand deeply how this system works, and then lever it to your advantage.
Copyright and Viral Safety
“If the news is important it will find me” also goes a long way to explaining the viral nature of the web. You want the right people to find your material. You want the dissemination of your material by others. We’ll go into this in a lot more detail later on but aside from encouraging the viral distribution of your material you also need the right viral protection. Although you want others to spread your information, you want that to be part of the process of promoting your work. So, whether that’s your trailer, a production photograph or perhaps even your whole film, you want to make sure your work is attributed to you correctly and you might not want others to make financial gain from your material without getting your permission first. The way to manage this is through ‘creative copyright’. With a Creative Commons license you can build a custom license with as many or as few restrictions as you want. I strongly advise that you watch the short animations on this page to see how creative copyright works. For the sake of space, I won’t be going into more detail here, but if you’re not responsible for the appropriate licensing of your work, a happy jaunt into the webosphere can quickly turn into a miserable one.
Leadership and Filmmaker-Fan Relationship
In traditional media, the relationship between artist and audience is one of distance and veneration. Traditional media thrives on the mystique of the creator ( – and then on trying to shatter it.) In terms of leadership, old models have often been based on ego and individual will and the crowd is expected to follow along. With the web, all this changes, leadership takes on a different personality. On the web, the audience wants to get up close. At its best, the web prospers on the intelligence of the crowd.
A good leader on the web is a servant – but not a slave – to his or her community. The leader of a community knows how to attend to the needs and desires of their members and understands the group enough to create the most value and the best relationship. In this way, filmmaker and audience become interdependent. Because the web allows you to find and nurture the audience most appropriate to you and your work, this interdependence is not a compromise but an expansion. It creates a fertile ground for creativity and discovery – a place where “as artists and entrepreneurs, we must leverage power we may not even know we have. The power to foster engagement, not just entertainment.” (Sandi Dubowski – d-Word forum on self-distribution, 2002)
It’s A Film AND An Experience
So what does this all come down to? - The quote at the top of this page. Today’s filmmaker needs to create a film AND an experience. In the world of the Long Tail, you need ‘1000 True Fans’ that you communicate with directly, where they can get what they came for as easily as possible and spread the word of your product – your film – for you. But within this model you need to ensure that it’s happening in such a way that you are happy with, that the dissemination of your material is working in your favour and that the aliveness of your community is a source of energy, rather than a drag. In plain English, people will gather around your film for many reasons, the most pertinent of those reasons will often be to find community, connection and to remain active and alive within their interests. They want the personal touch – both in how they are able to communicate with you and how you communicate with them, and, to varying degrees, they want to be a part of what’s going on. They will be giving you their time and attention so as to receive this kind of value. And through the value they receive, they will be the platform that awareness of your film is built upon. But for the system to work, they need to keep coming back, and you need to give them something to keep coming back for.
So you need to create a film AND an experience.
>> Go to next page to see ”Audience’ Section Introduction’ >>>
