Sundance Special -- Internet Communities

Time to reflect on the two panels I've gone to about how filmmakers can use the internet to find audiences. One of the panels was moderated by Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, who is known for using the term long tail to describe the many smaller, niche markets on the web that together often do more business than the large markets. For example, a large proportion of amazon.com's business comes from selling relatively esoteric titles. So even the individual filmmaker, who may have one or two main niche audiences, can hope, with plenty of (web) networking, to reach a respectable audience.

I personally am not so interested in viewing clips online, except when I miss Jon Stewart of Stephen Colbert. And probably no one, especially me, is interested in viewing feature-length works online. But I can and should get some clips from my four-feature cycle Last Notes red green blue or black online beyond my site, beginning with youtube, myspace, and facebook.

But how do I get people to view my clips among the millions of other clips? I can first of all build and use my email list. I can also communicate with some of the most powerful (well-linked even if not the most popular) film blogs and see if they'll recommend my clips.

And what do I want people to do then? Come to my site? Regularly? Jeremy Lair of brightcove.com and Rick Wong of dave.tv help people put together their own online tv station with community profiles like myspace.

Do I try to really go for my "vote for which movie you want to come to your area" campaign? Do I go ahead and start selling the films? Sell DVDs? Sell downloads so people can make their own DVD? Rent the films online, such that the download expires in a couple weeks? Probably all of the above. But only 5% of online users buy. Give the rest something for free. For example, I can also have extended clips on my site.

In addition, people could be directed to Steve Starr's company revver.com, which shares revenue with filmmakers and even enable some to earn their living entirely online. Revver is the company that made lonelygirl popular (created by a fellow Occidental College alum). Revver also pays people who share my films. There may be other collections or collectives to be part of. What about a Chapman collective? A religious one? Catholic? Dominican?

I might even consider creating works just for the web, perhaps even a daily serial like lonelygirl. That would certainly allow me to practice the craft of filmmaking regularly. Not just practice, but share my work.

But I also want to use the net to invite people outside the net, to come to screenings. For example, I can work a deal with a theater in a particular city: if I can guarantee so many seats filled some morning or late night, then they give me the screens and sell their popcorn. Or I can have house screenings all over like documentary activist Robert Greenwald. I could tour with my films, which would be a great way to build an audience for future films. Jon Alpert, who has been taking social action films around New York City for thirty years, has a cool van with a large tv screen on the side.

Also on the panels were Ken Rokowski, who has a regular newsletter and podcast on the subject, Katy Chevigny of artsengine.net (watch A Girl Like Me, a 16-year-old girl's re-do of the old experiment showing black kids preferring white dolls), Michael Turpin, who does social media marketing, and Mark Jeffrey of popcurrent.com. I also met the self-described viral queen, Paula Silver of Beyond the Box. She was interested in my movie.