A quote from WGA west president Patric Verrone ran in Friday's Wall Street Journal, saying that the current strike is creating new "entrepreneurial possibilities for the talent community to go directly into production and distribution.... The ability to explore this business without media conglomerates is becoming a real possibility.”
He was speaking specifically about internet TV, but his statement has broader reach than that. As any number of small, truly independent filmmakers have demonstrated in the last few years, it's entirely possible to get a film into theaters and then do a DVD release largely over the internet, without ever becoming beholden to a studio or a distributor. Marc Rosenbush and I have done exactly that with Zen Noir, and our success is by no means the most dramatic. Peter Broderick is probably the most recognized authority in town on these issues, and there is an excellent article on his website dealing with all of this.
More and more, I've come to be a believer in the whole Do It Yourself model, across the board. Incorporation for Artists is, I have no doubt, good enough to secure a modest deal at least with a niche publisher like Silman-James, which focuses on film-related books. But if I went that route, I would get a small advance, and then I would get small royalties spread out over a few years, and then at some point the book would be moved off the shelves for something newer and that would be the end of it. But I can sell it online, keep all the profits (after very modest expenses because there's so little overhead), and keep doing that year after year.
And the above-mentioned Marc Rosenbush recently launched an online course called Internet Marketing for Filmmakers, in which he teaches exactly how we put together the Zen Noir DVD launch. It is, so far, the farthest step we've taken in our growing conviction on the value of Doing It Yourself: a statement of what we believe, why we believe it, and how it might help others, as well.
Think of the possibilities: do a simple, small film (I just saw Miranda July's Me, You and Everyone We Know, which is a great movie and perfect example of a film that would fit this paradigm) (here's her blog); release it in theaters or don't, you'll probably make more money, actually, if you don't; then do your homework, identify your audience really well, put up a website and start selling. Thousands of people will see your work, they'll buy it for their friends, the story you want to tell will get told to a much wider audience than ever saw anything I did in the theatre, and all the profits belong to you and your partners. All of the profits.
The strike demonstrates the dangers of being owned by the media conglomerates. Because it's not just the writers risking their livelihoods: there are also uncounted thousands of jobs that are, simply, collateral damage. Some of the production company executives we pitched to just before the strike, for example, have already been fired. And if they're gone, so are their assistants. Hollywood's famous mailroom jobs have probably been whittled down, as well. A friend of mine who runs a temp agency tells me that even normal lawfirm staffing jobs have dried up, at Christmastime when people are going on vacation, almost certainly because everyone in town is simply buckling down and trying to get through this whole thing. There's pain out there, and it's spreading, and it has everything to do with a few big, big companies owning almost everything there is to own in this business.
Now imagine if enough frustrated indie film guys decided to start taking matters into their own hands. Internet TV, self-distributed DVDs, books online, all of it. Then it wouldn't matter what the Sumner Redstones or the Rupert Murdochs of the world, the media conglomerates who own almost all of everything, have to say about our work. Our work is ours, that's how it always should have been and now, just maybe, we can make this oughta-be into a really-truly-is.
There are dangers, to be sure, and some real challenges--not only do you have to be a good artist who makes good work, but you have to become a real businessman, and believe me, I know exactly how much that idea reduces most artists to a pile of jelly. But the alternative is becoming a slave to Rupert Murdoch, and come on, when you think about it for even a second, isn't it worth anything to avoid that particular trap?
