Movie Piracy Solutions In The Digital Network Age

Black American Independent Movies Can Recoup Losses Caused By Piracy Using European Cross Promotions

2009-01-13T01:43:00.000-08:00

Film piracy in the coming years is going to be dealt with by movie makers that can structure the cross subsidy deals that make films profitable using the internet as the means to make money through associated promotional activity. In the video report below, we see how the artist formally known as Prince was able to organise a cross subsidy/promotion deal for the release of an album in the UK. By breaking industry conventions Prince caused an uproar in the UK but the promotion wasn't covered in the American press. In the video report below, we see how Prince, using a newspaper as a cross promotions platform was able to get a message to a nation but the BBC report below that shows how, because of the internet the possibility for cross promotions online is an outgrowth of the types of cross promotion that have been with us through television for the last fifty years. Europe offers American independent film makers many opportunities like the Prince promotion, where the album licence netted him $500,000. If after viewing/listening to the reports below you need help to get openings for your films in the UK and Europe as a means of side stepping the impact of piracy or low sales, email Derek James derekworldwide@yahoo.com.

American box office and DVD sales accounts for 50% of the total returns on major studio releases. As seen in the Prince promotion, filmmakers can take advantage of the many movie promotions opportunities that exist in Europe if they know what is available. Unlike their major studio counterparts, Independent films do not have over £100 million to recoup. The type of payment received by Prince would go a long way to recouping an independent film's budget. The issue for independent filmmakers is knowing how to use the media opportunities that exist in Europe to recoup the money invested in their films. Piracy of DVD releases were once dealt with by trying to watermark or encrypt a disks. As heard in the BBC article below, it is now possible to organise cross promotions that offset the budgets invested in a project in a similar fashion to how television costs are offset by advertising. For details about the articles below and how your film company can enhance its promotional options in Europe email Derek James: derekworldwide@yahoo.com.

The Prince album cross promotion in the UK offset CD piracy, combated low retail sales, increased interest in Prince's CD catalog, promoted a series of concerts and netted him $500,000 in album licence revenues. The same can be done for films and other artists across Europe as new openings have presented themselves as a new part of the digital era of net based cross promotion initiatives

Free & Cross Promotion – BBC Report Part 1

Free & Cross Promotion – BBC Report Part 2

New International Revenue Streams For Black Cinema

2009-01-07T08:33:00.000-08:00

In this report we are going to focus on how new cross promotional models will enable Black cinema to bring in new revenue streams as seen in the cross promotion used by The Artist Formally Known as Prince in England and the implications for Black cinema that adopts similar strategies. We will hear an interview that was on the BBC about new forms of cross promotions that can channel large financial wind falls into the media companies that can structure new business options in today's digital world. If you are from America, the news report below is about the free music promotion that netted Prince $millions as a cross promotional strategy. This video illustrates the type of promotional opening that are available in Europe for filmmakers. Please read the entire article and view the additional video references.

When we talk about piracy we have to talk about the world being converted to new business models at the same time. Cinema has gone though many changes in the last100 years. For Black cinema we have seen segregated cinema in America, Race Movies, Josephine Baker moving to France because career openings in America were non existent, Dorothy Dandridge being hailed at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival but getting little else in the way of roles after international press interest and in recent years people like T.D. Jakes putting religion into Black movies. Over the last 100 years of Black cinema times have not changed to the point where Black filmmakers can truly say that they are in a level playing field when compared to their White counterparts. At this point we need to set some new ground rules for looking at the world.

There are many types of film in the independent world, French, German, English, Irish, Italian, Russian, African, Indian/Bollywood, Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and we can go on. All of these nation groups have something in common - America. You can find a cultural group that claims duel heritage in America with another nation also being seen as a mother country. America is the capital city of all global entertainment with Hollywood being the Mecca.

Lucy Liu, Penelope Cruz, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lopez, Selma Hayek, Russell Crowe, Sean Connery and many other factors in Hollywood have a home outside of America. When we look at African American culture as seen through music and film, we see a cultural export to the planet that could not have gone to the world without America being the launch pad. Motown is now fifty years old and has launched many globally known people through media. In the last fifty years of media we have seen a number of key shifts in the way the international culture works with Black people. Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor Oscar in 1964, Denzel Washington, and Halle Berry followed in 2002 with hopeful approval, Jamie Fox in 2004, followed by Forest Whitteker in 2007 saw more hope as the international community gazed on Hollywood's cosmopolitan dream. The Oscars are broadcast to the whole planet and the world watches in wonder but they know that they are seeing Blacks as minorities working in a system that is statistically against them.

In 1954, Dorothy Dandridge became the first African American to be nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for her role as Carmen Jones in the Otto Preminger production. At the Canne Film Festival in 1955, the world press could not get enough of Dorothy. What we see with the international press coverage that Dorothy had was that while international interest was there, Hollywood simply did not follow up on that interest.

In an interesting TV interview [below], Nia Long spoke about Color Coding and Bias in Hollywood, where she states that women of a darker hue will find it difficult to get ahead in the movie industry.

In the round table conversation below, Cicily Tyson and Ruby Dee, Charlie Rose talks to the veteran actresses about work in Hollywood and the changes that have and haven't taken place in Hollywood in the decades since the death of Dorothy Dandridge [fast forward to 32 minutes]. Inside this insightful conversation we see how hard it was for Dorothy Dandridge and why it may be seen to be difficult for women of color to create their own career success in Hollywood today. In order for us to make sense of where we are with technology and how, direct to the world communications can channel $millions of dollars into the Black film industry we need to look at the following videos which will lead us to ask ourselves a number of questions.

One of the questions we must ask ourselves after looking at the round table talk with Cicily Tyson and Ruby Dee is, do Black actors have to go through the same pains Dorothy Dandridge went through? [Fast Forward to 32 minutes].

In this BBC interview, Colin Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine talks about free media models in the digital age and financial compensation cross subsidies - part 1

In part 2 of the free media models broadcast we see why, in Europe, there are more options for free media than there are in America once we cross reference what we hear with the Prince free music give away.

What many of us fail to remember is that fifty years ago, the television show that introduced Dorothy Dandridge to the world was the Colgate Comedy Hour. The method of visibility in sponsorship may have changed but the end result is still the same, a third party pays for exposure to the planet.

Here is the Prince Free music promotion broadcast which makes what has been heard on the BBC of more relevance.

For the past 70 years, the image of these men in film has been brokered by a financial media industrial complex that Black men have not been a part of to the same extent as White, the same can be said for the women who are known internationally through film as well.

Navarrow Wright is the web master for Russell Simmond's Global Grind web site. As a media platform that focuses on Hip Hop culture, we see that like My Space, Facebook, You Tube or any social media site that exposure on any one or all of these platforms does not make hit records sales register on the Billboard chart or a blockbuster movie performance at the theatre or on DVD. Films are marketed in the same high profile way that the Oscars are and have become part of the mass media industrial complex. Our move into the digital era has not progressed to the point where television, DVDs or cinema is obsolete and so any activity that is promotionally based has to support existing sales models and new ones simultaneously.

Even though I sell manufacturing with encryption for DVDs, the solution to piracy is not really about encryption, especially as illegal downloading turns into online film viewing supported by advertising. As we heard in the BBC report, Chris Anderson has established that the free model is here to stay. Open source is one form of free, the Prince album give away is another form of free of which there are many variables in Europe.

As seen in the BBC report [below] about new forms of television, those in film, whether Black, Irish, German etc, have to ask themselves a key question when what is seen becomes a new from of broadcasting throughout Europe and America. Once, movie studios had to work out how to get all of the media personnel and journalists of the world to a press junket. Then online reviewers like Black Tree and Chuck The Movie Guy came along. When every city in the world has the new forms of television as seen below, no movie studio in the world will be able to gear up to handle this level of media management without adopting some form of digital cross promotion that gets a film's marketing message to the world, which, as a tool puts independent and major filmmakers in the same sand box.

Felicia Day is the creator of the internet series The Guild. Felicia has had a few minor roles in Buffy and House M.D and has a great working relationship with Joss Wheden, creator of Buffy, but The Guild is not a significant enough commodity to get the type of sponsorships that big companies want to support. Imagine millions of people like Harry Knowles or more correctly, like the ones seen in the report above. Imagine international communities with their own Harry Knowles figures with the type of TV access to their community seen in the report, what we are talking about is a media revolution that is not mediated by big media segregation that is governed by money. Big media works on the principle that a few people see and review a film and give a favourable review to millions. TV of the future is a dozens to dozen or communities to communities medium and because of that the mechanics of management of a message to the planet have to change. Dorothy was introduced to the world on the Colgate Comedy Hour but the options that are available today are truly international and have more in common with what we see with Prince.

If we are to take what Nia Long, Ruby Dee and Cicely Tyson said seriously and within the context of modern media options, we need to look at how hard it has been for White actresses like Felicia Day and Madonna who is at the other end of the celebrity spectrum. Madonna has had a very successful music career but as an actress she has not done well at all. Madonna's big role as Evita in 1996 has been her most successful but as a leading actress she has failed to become a modern day Marilyn Monroe or Jean Harlow. Back in the 1960s, Mamie Van Dorian, Jayne Mansfield and Diana Dorrs all tried to be blond sex bombs actresses like Marilyn Monroe and they all failed. In fact Jayne Mansfield did not believe she had to be a good actress to be successful in movies, she believed that T&A was it. Mamie, Jayne and Diana made films but they failed to be taken on board by the public or should I be more specific and say men, but everyone loved Marilyn Monroe.

Finding the great roles that Nia Long, Ruby Dee and Cicely Tyson talked about has a lot to do with two separate issues outside of what they spoke about. As martial artists, it is obvious that there are specific roles that will always be on offer to Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh and like Black Hollywood, Asian martial artists have a market that they can distinguish themselves in outside of mainstream Hollywood.

As a person of color, Bruce Lee, described as a martial arts version of James Dean found it hell to get his career established in the USA but he laid the foundation for those who are with us now. If Bruce Lee found it hard, anyone can. In the piece about Dorothy Dandridge we heard how the actress moved with power players to progress her career but the idea did not work. Dorothy's Faustian pact with Otto Preminger and other men seemed like good ideas at the time but she made some fatally erroneous decisions. In the round table talk we hear that Dorothy's refusal to be involved with Black men after Harold Nicolas came from the belief that Black men could not progress her career and that power existed in the hands of a dominant few. Dorothy's chances of success in the studio era would have been better because a machine was behind the studio's actors. In the newly emerging freelance era that Dorothy was part of, a different type of power was the order of the day. George Clooney said that getting good roles is hard but by looking at two books we can see that getting successful roles is a lot more complicated than we think.

In the book, George Gallup in Hollywood by Susan Ohmer we see how, from the 1930s, Hollywood has tried to create a statistics based crystal ball in order to determine what ideas to back. If, in the segregated era of Hollywood, Gallup used his techniques to poll people, then there could not have been a Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge or any of the Black successes that are here today. The charm offensives of Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge in the 1950s, Motown in the 1960s to Will Smith in the 1990 is something that statistics can't measure or predict the impact of. In fact, the story of Sidney Poitier is the career opposite of Dorothy Dandridge because Sidney had a committed team of social reformers around him who gave him the roles that re-engineered how the public perceived Black men on screen [Listen to the people he thanks in his 2002 Oscar speech].

In the book Starring Roles by Ron Base we see how many of Hollywood's male and female actors became stars through what amounts to being winners of the right time and place awards. Shirley Temple should have been Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Will Smith could have been Neo in the Matrix, not Keanu Reeves, Warren Beatty should have been the lead in West Side Story, Robert Redford could have been in The Graduate not Dustin Hoffman, Tom Selleck should have been Indian Jones, Cary Grant was supposed to be James Bond instead of Sean Connery. With a host of first hand interviews with writers, actors, directors and producers we see that even Julia Roberts was a right time and place winner of the movie star lottery system.

Fame translates into options, Michelle Pfeiffer turned down the agent role in Silence of the Lambs and the part went to Jodie Foster. Fame or the ability to have a high profile in the media gives you options for offers that could not come to you for consideration any other way. In order to always have a fresh stock of new faces an unknown Kevin Costner is offered the part of Eliot Ness when a better known Mel Gibson turns down the role. Madonna's fame in music gave her film options but if a film performance is bad or roles chosen are are not that flattering, damage beyond repair is done and better roles are not offered.

What the web and the free media options like the Prince's give away offers actors in America is the ability to become famous/manage mass communication in a media environment that does not cost money. The Prince TV campaign was paid for by a newspaper, the concerts were promoted by 02 Stadium and Prince was the beneficary. Setting up similar openings for movie makers is what anti piracy should be about as seen in the Prince case study because piracy demands the creation of new business strategies that pay.

To pull us out of the focus on Black and White we can look at a Jet Li and Jackie Chan press junket in Hong Kong for The Forbidden Kingdom and then a Jet Li vlog on You Tube.
Unless you speak Chinese, what we see Jet Li and Jackie Chan do to promote a film means nothing to us. The promotion of Black filmmakers is the same as that seen in Hong Kong because the promotions are aimed at “our own,” where the world outside Black America is not the target. The use of digital cross promotions that are free or cross subsidised is that your intention is to be involved in initiates that get you to the world.

Although Black people in America are a minority, White is the minority outside of the USA because 80% of the planet is made up of people of color. The free world of media outside of America has leverage that can't be attained in America. As seen in the Dorothy at Cannes video, or as echoed in Motown's history and as seen in Hip Hop's international success in the last twenty five years, getting press outside of America in the White and non white world is open to all. The new systems of mass media are not about being separate to Hollywood, they are about leveraging tools that are not about money in the same way that TV is about spending multiple millions to be in front of nations.

As heard in the BBC report, a world of cross promotional activities can be leveraged to take names in Black film to the world where more White people than those in America live and where 80% of the planet is made up of people of color. We have seen Quentin Tarrantino resurrect the careers of actors Hollywood thought were dead, John Travolta and Pam Grier, through Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. What both of these examples show us is that with new media options, the possibility of life time career management where an actor can keep in contact with their fan base is now possible.

As seen from the videos, radio reports and books in this page, a world of cross media openings exist for Black actors. With a higher profile across the globe, Black actors can leverage this exposure for better access to roles and higher interest in their independent movie activities.

For help with the following, email me at the address below:
1 - International P.R Initiatives
2 - Sponsorship Programs
3 - Anti Piracy Software
4 - International Cross Promotions

Derek James
derekworldwide@yahoo.com

The Film and Music Industry Is Becoming Part of A $1 Trillion A Year New Media Sales Landscape

2009-01-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

New forms of piracy have come to those in music and film and for some threatened to destroy the industry that they are part of by taking $billions a year in revenue from content makers. [Please note: there are many links on this page to verify the stats and statements made in this blog]

Like farmers that have to survive a locust attack, 21st century piracy has been hard to police because past piracy protection initiatives had more in common with trying to protect your crops against a locust swarm with a fly swat. The effort is admirable but the results still end up in disaster. As the world we live in becomes affected by the conversion of analogue to digital, we are seeing many aspects of film and music being forced to change. Once, movies had to be shot on film, now new, less expensive formats in digital are beginning to rival 35 mm film, the threat is that film will be obsolete.

Peter Jackson, Steven Soderbergh and others endorsement of the new format at the Directors Guild comes with the disapproval of those who have a vested interest in film stock for their livelihood, but some forms of progress can't be stopped, and so it is with the online revolution which has made piracy a side effect of its arrival. What we do know is that it is now possible for film to profit in the digital era. Because of the digital era, film and music is being drawing into a new media landscape that is worth over a trillion a year which will give billions in revenue to film-makers, thus giving those in movies the ability to offset the losses cause by piracy.

The American film industry is one of the country's biggest exports (fast forward to 3 min 15 sec ), which impacts its many industries including tourism.

Every state in America that has been in a film is used as a marketing tool for commercials seen around the world, sometimes with recognisable actors, (examples: Visit America-below, New York, California 1, California 2).

The importance of American movies to the economy of the country goes way beyond film because film is the poster card for America as a whole. With the ground set, we can look at how movies in the digital age will be worth more to those in film who make the transition to a digital era beyond piracy. The global advertising industry is a trillion a year business. In times past, the only way for advertisers to get to the populations of the planet was through television stations. Now, the global advertising industry is waiting for systems like Google to reference videos and film so that when the web is more like TV on demand, they will be able to spend billions with the content makers that have the biggest audiences (see first 60 seconds). The digital revolution is rewiring the media landscape where both the advertising and film industry are looking to harness the financial potential of an international audience. Most of the money spent on advertising is spent outside of America but the USA is the critical mass starting point for the export of global marketing initiatives that use film and television. With the cultural image of America being "rainbow" due to the win of Barack Obama, the next 4 years in American film holds great promise for all sectors of the movie business as the digital era moves forward.

To date, the only industry that is positioning itself to be part of the $trillions in trade that come from the digital revolution is the mobile phone business.

For the film industry in America to harness the potential of the digital era it needs to see that different aspects of the film business occupy unique vantage points. Independent film makers and the straight to DVD sector have a position in the future of digital that cannot be duplicated by their major industry counterparts.In this first blog entry we are going to look at piracy solutions in three parts; 1 - short term, 2 - medium term and 3 - long term. The short term solutions to piracy are primarily based in measures that those in independent film can adopt to bring cash reserves into their companies because a strong financial base will be necessary to make the transition to a future where new technologies innovated by groups like Google will allow filmmakers the ability to harness $billions in advertising revenue. The technologies that will end how piracy impacts film and music makers are here but are at different stages of development. There are technologies and openings that we can use now to help us reduce the losses caused by piracy. Many things in this blog are actionable now and if you need help, use the contact details at the end of the blog. If you look at the story of George Lucas and the evolution of Industrial Light & Magic, you will see that many things were possible at the dawn of digital film effects that came with Star Wars in 1977 but the technology had not evolved to make real what was on the horizon. Now, anything that is in the imagination can be put on screen, so it is with digital distribution. A lot is possible now, what is on the horizon will channel $billions into the hands of filmmakers from the advertising community that want to use digital distribution technology as a means of getting adverts to the 2.8 billion people that are online.

Back in 1937, MGM made more money than all Hollywood studios combined. Being the most profitable studio is one thing, making more money than all studios put together is a lead that seems almost impossible to imagine. However, Mafia extortion rackets, the end of the studio system and the dawn of television made it impossible for the once dominate MGM to be part of the new post TV world. MGM did not make the transition to the new world of cinema even though it looked like it had the best chance to do so.

There are now literally thousands of opportunities for independent American film-makers to earn money throughout European that will give them the cash reserves to make a healthy transition to the oncoming online distribution era that will be supported by advertising. Many of these options are similar in nature to the opportunity that the artist formally known as Prince took in 2007 in the UK. (see video below).

Prince was able to side step the impact of low, almost non existent CD sales and piracy in the UK by licensing his album to a UK newspaper for $500,000 and cross promoting the successful giveaway with live events at London's O2 stadium. Because Prince did not have UK contractual tie ins to his American label, the UK promotion was possible. This type of short term opening that can generate $millions in returns are available for many American Indie film makers and major label music makers in Europe. By looking at the Prince news story we see that sometimes, knowing how nations function outside of America can be the difference between making $millions and having nothing.

What Prince did was followed by Lenny Kravitz and Paul Mc Cartney among others but the issue goes way beyond cross promotional tie ins with newspapers.

Back in October 1999, New Line Cinema's Lord of The Rings started principle photography when the web was in its infancy but Sir Ian Mc Keller (Gandalf) was able to use the Internet to speak to millions of Lord of The Rings to fans using early blog systems while the film was in production, making the movie one of the first blockbuster blog successes on the planet.

We are now 10 years on from what Lord of The Rings did as a blog. With a book that had sold over 100 million copies, fans seeing footage and out takes online fuelled the appetite of those who wanted to see the book turn into a motion picture.

If we go back to 1980, Fame was an entertainment phenomenon that lasted for years. Debbie Allen and many others became globally recognisable stars.

We are now thirty years after Fame and the ecology of mass media has changed. Beyonce Knowles is one of the most famous singers on the planet with over 1 million friends on My Space and with videos on You Tube getting over 29 millions views. In the coming years media systems like My Space will have taken on Open Social applications which means that a individual will be able to manage an online database of billions of people. For those in the entertainment industry, the type of image control that will be possible with open social systems, augmented with some personal applications makes P.R Management a desktop concern.

Debbie Allen was once as famous as Beyonce outside of America when the FAME explosion went global. As you can see from the interview, the part in Fame evolved by chance. If the web was available thirty years ago Debbie Allen's Dance Academy could have been international but the technology to manage direct contact with millions of people around the globe did not exist in 1982. Back in the 1940s, like Debbie Allen, The Nicolas Brothers were famous and where admired in Russia, just like Paul Robeson in the 1940s and 1950s but the Russian public had no way of continuing an interest after seeing them in Stormy Weather. When Lord of The Rings started using the internet back in 1990, we see that anyone who has a platform of celebrity can use that status to propel a project further with direct contact to millions of people. Like Prince, many in music and film can use the web to talk to millions of fans if they have a viable starting point to leverage or cross promote with an existing profile. Technology now gives Blacks in America a way to manage the export of their image and persona globally but the initiatives that will underpin this export of image will look like the Fame or Prince success. With deals paid for by non America partners, the success of the 1940s and 1950s will be echoed in the 21st century because whether we look at Josephine Baker, The Nicolas Brothers, Paul Robeson or Quincy Jones, who found success in a segregated America impossible to attain, the acceptance of good Black art has always been bought outside of America if a method of access was possible. Once artists had to tour Europe to sell themselves, now the web and carefully structured initiatives can export Black art to the world without media in its present form being the restraining factor.

Film makers from the successful independent sector in America can now make money from a number of Prince style openings in Europe and cross promote these initiatives with a web data fan base game plan. As movie fans are contacted directly, movie makers, directors and actors, without the need for television stations as intermediary can contact people who will be long term fans of an artist. Will Smith is the only Black actor in recent history to have a blockbuster career that migrated from music to television to movies in a seamless transition. Very few people get that opportunity. Debbie Allen, a generation before the Fresh Prince had a similar platform with Fame but the vehicles after the TV show were not as high profile. New open social web systems are the next generation of the Internet and they can be enhanced in ways that were impossible to think about even 24 months ago.

We are now at a place in our war against movie piracy where the price of the most up to date online systems has dropped from $1M to $12,000, which is insane. (Fast forward to 55 minutes and listen for 2 minutes to Guy Kawasaki, former head of marketing at Apple Computers). Some technology services that once cost large amounts of money are now available free which puts those in film in a very interesting world.

Overcoming piracy is a multi faceted issue in the online age. If you spend $200 million on making your blockbuster movie before marketing it, and the reviews are bad, people either don't go to the theatre or wait till the film is on television forgetting the DVD. The major studios started to experience the online influence on their big box office releases in 1988 when Harry Knowles would release negative reviews through reports he got from a legion of spies that saw test screenings. The public simply saw the film marketing as propaganda. (Report 1/below, Report 2, Report 3).

Harry Knowles harnesses the insight of 1000s of people who are on the inside of the film making process around the world who give him feedback on test screening, send photos from closed sets and movie scripts. In contrast to Harry Knowles, new technology enables film makers to receive information on news stories that could become films. Will Smith's Pursuit of Happyness came as a result of him seeing a news story that touched a nation. Will was the first to present a film adaptation proposal to Chris Gardener. In the clip below we see how, over an eight year period (1997-2005), Will Smith has charmed his way to success through America TV, and in the clip below that we see his Indian charm offensive.

Very few Black or White people are in the position to socially engineer themselves into becoming a Will Smith or Oprah Winfrey through media. Without fame, being able to leverage the potential of the web has happened to avery few thus far. Without Hollywood, a documentary film maker was able to get the interest of 50 million people online while he was creating a documentary by showing the development of his documentary over a period of many months. At the end of the process, 1 million DVDs were sold. A UK based multi media project was able to contact one million people via the web and with insight, due to working with people online, create a set of educational resources that fed into how the UK government would shape teaching reforms. In China, an online management systems gave a small group of people the ability to manage the activity of 250 million games subscribers (fast forward video to 15:15 min - 18:15 min).

Movie makers have a host of genres they want to cover; Biographies, Romantic Comedies, Drama, Historical Epics, Action Adventure, Sci Fi and we can go on. If the future of the online world brings in many creatives, then those with the biggest audiences are going to be the ones that make the most of the financial openings that come with advertising options. If online advertisers pay content makers in proportion to how many viewers they get, then audience ratings using the web, as a precise measure medium will only pay those who can bring in the numbers. Where as television pays based on the reach of a station, the web pays pro rata. As seen with You Tube, Beyonce has a regular 29 million viewers looking at her videos,which in the coming online era means a lot of money.

Spike Lee's Miracle of St Anne has an international audience but its initial target groups may be seen as African Americans, Italians, Italian Americans and Germans. The cross promotional potential of a Beyonce type figure with an online film release makes sense if key players in a movie already have mechanisms that show that they have high online ratings activities. Using the openings in Europe, movie makers can use a percentage of the revue generated from Prince style cross promotional activities to build international on and off line audiences. The Tom Cruise World War II story Valkyrie has international potential because of the box office status of Tom. Any A List Actor that gave away their movie online is bound to work because of who they already are, it is when outsiders to the mainstream start generating huge audiences globally that the potential of online distribution will be seen for what it is. As seen in the Harry Knowles reports above, the public want truthful information, not spin. Everyone knows what it is like going into a video store and reading the pitch on the DVD box that promises a great evening in only to find out that the film is the worst thing since a bad remake of a b-movie. We are moving towards an era where films can be successful in their own right as long as the films are good or in line with what an audience will take an interest in.

In the 4 minutes video below, screen writer Phil Robinson talks about how technology has always forced the film industry to change and how writers have had to fight for pay when technology changes film.

In the 2 minute video below, screen writer Marc Norman makes the distinction between film and television writers fighting for money.

With a look at both Marc Norman's and Phil Robinson's statements we need to put online developments into a financial context because the 2007 writers strike and the 22 week strike that took place in 1988 are completely different. As film and movie studios have to start accounting for more online reviews like Harry Knowles which give the audience a true assessment of a movie or television show, marketing in the way that we have known it (under the engineering consent model) becomes less effective. Advertising spin simply wont work.

In a spoof movie pitch (below), Vince Vaugh and Ben Stiller act as studio execs trying to convince Mr Lord of The Rings, Peter Jackson into making a number of stupid sequels to the trilogy.

The concept of executive control is based on the idea that corporate bureaucracy knows best, but as Harry Knowles showed us, it does not, however audience responses can also be inaccurate to mass market support. The TV show Jericho was cancelled because ratings were low. 800,000 fans started a huge SAVE JERICHO TV CAMPAIGN, that resulted in the the first TV station u-turn in 25 years. The cast of the show were appreciative but the show was still cancelled after a second series becasue there was not a big enough audience for a third. Jericho may have a DVD market or an online delivery window but there are not enough viewers to give the show TV time.

The web now has a number of pre-emptive approaches that can be used to facilitate finding an audience for an idea. Like the documentary maker that got 50 million people to follow him online with 1 million people buying a DVD, we see a clear model. The Oxford education system also gives us another template for smaller audience figures, the Chinese system for the management of 250 million people shows us what can happen and how technology can be used to manage a really popular idea.

The real advantage that independent film makers have in contrast to their major studio counterparts is leverage. My Big Fat Greek Wedding cost $5 million and went on to make $280 million and was one of the most profitable movies of all time. Transferring the idea to the small screen as a TV show did not work. The thing is, the movie made money on the $5 million which is the type of budget indie films have spent on them. Beyonce is able to make films for mainstream Hollywood releases and so her asking price as an actor is based on her box office potential. As seen in the two writers' videos above and the two videos below, where actors gave vocal support to the strike, the financial ramifications of profits from the web is what is being fought for. If writers fighting for money is an issue, then it makes sense that major movie studios will not support any technology or use of technology that makes a writer a key part of how the internet is used to develop an audience. Alfre Woodard said, “we are seeing an attempt aimed industry wide at all of our unions …......... you will never make the internet non union.” The only way that the use of the web will become common place as a promotional tool using all of the aspects of promotion that are available is when we see more Prince type campaigns that are individually instigated for specific films. With independent film initiatives leading the way, major studio initiatives will follow.

Alfre Woodard speaks in support of writers

Stars on picket line in support of writers

Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, who was at the helm of Wanted starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman shot the films Night Watch and Day Watch in his native country for a total of $6M. When overheads are low, fighting the impact of piracy becomes easier because with a number of Prince style game plans, making profits is based on the amount of platforms that can be used to generate money.

Five years ago my involvement in anti piracy was focused around the idea of encryption codes on CDs and DVDs. Encryption is great but that is not a wholistic approach. In 2001 ABC Nightline did a segment on piracy which shows us that almost a decade on, the methods used to combat piracy have not kept pace with a youth culture that wants movies for free. Encryption without a means of compensating for losses makes little sense. In the 1980s you had to be a hardend criminal to be a movie pirate,now anyone can be one. If we look at traditional distribution through theatres and DVDs we can see why download distribution offers such promise (fast forward 2:30-6:30).

Today we are on the cusp of a digital revoloution that puts movies on demand into a new landscape where the global advertising industry that represents $trillions in sales is looking for video on demand to become assisted by technology so that they can spend $billions in advertising (listen to first minute).

The studio era of Hollywood existed when 75% of the public would go to see a movie three times a week, Between 1924 and 1936 other studios saw what MGM was putting out but they could not match the calibre of film in a market that was dominated by word of mouth. We may not have a dominate player in film like an MGM but every film that is released, whether as a straight to DVD product or as a download supported by advertising will generate as much viewers as the film is good. Piracy won't be the issues in coming years, a films ability to generate an audience will be.

In the last five years, many UK based record labels and distribution companies went bankrupt because they were not big enough to finance the losses sustained by piracy. As a consequence of record labels going into liquidation, their CD/DVD manufactures also suffered loss. Back in 1997, the UK government put £100 million/$200 million into the development of UK film releases, the failure rate was high. Because the ideas were not created by talented people, the money was squandered seeing no return.

To offset piracy, many music acts are going live but every artist and band does not become a stadium filler, in fact that is a club of the few. The music industry over the last twenty years has built its industry on music that does not translate to live performance (samples) and is finding it hard to redefine itself. Artists like Aimee Mann, DMX and MC Lyte feel aggrieved by the way they have been treated by major record labels, whilst Jay Z, Madonna and U2 get multi million deals from non record based music entities that record labels can't afford to match. In tinsel town we see Tom Cruise getting dropped from his film deal with Paramount in 2006 and Dave Chappelle (below) talking about how Hollywood has had a negative affect on both Martin Lawrence and himself.

Problems with the entertainment industry have been here for generations. We can look at screen writers, actors, singers and rappers and hear the same story again and again. Technology has come to a place where creatives can develop systems to manage their own audience interaction and be in control of their creative output. Remembering that after the success of Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters (1977), Steven Spielberg's 1941 was a box office failure in 1979 because the audience refused to go and see the picture. After the failure of 1941, Steven kept to ideas he knew would work. What the internet won't become is a licence to sell anything but it will be a platform that can be used by those who know how to target audiences without the worries associated with lack of distribution.

Dan Glickman, head of the MPPA stated that piracy will never be beaten, but the job of those in the industry is to stay ahead of it (fast forward to 2 mins).

In this changing world of film and music, piracy will not be an issue as ways of monetizing online distribution become more efficient. The issue to focus on between now and then are listed below and this is how I can help, so contact me at derekworldwide@yahoo.com

With the information in this blog you will be able to see that there are options that will help those in film offset piracy as we move into anew world for film distribution

1 - Consulting for Europe's 400 million population, helping American film makers get third party funding from European investors,

2 - Anti piracy software on DVDs and CDs,

3 - Licensing DVDs/film titles to European print media titles (like Prince),

4 - Advice on creation of productions for European licensing,

5 - Updates on financial openings in Europe for American producers,

6 - Using web technologies to build audiences for film releases in,

7 - Developing partnerships with third party sponsors who can can promote films to a demographic,

8 - Partnerships options with third party affiliates who will sell your straight to DVD releases to groups that you could not find with existing press, web and radio advertising.

If you need any help with what you have read, contact me any time,

Derek James
Network 2.8 Media
derekworldwide@yahoo.com