Every year I join the madding crowd and write up the 10 or so things which I think will be interesting to watch in the coming year. So, here’s what’s on my mind heading into 2012.
1. SOPA/PIPA: This might be the most serious thing for us to watch in 2012. I’ve written about it here, been interviewed about it here and think these few blogs are the ones to watch to learn more, but my hope is that more indie filmmakers start to think more seriously about the impact of these laws on our possible futures in 2012. I wished this in 2011, so I’m not holding my breath. My hope: Someone creates a Crowd-Controls mash-up to “Occupy the Cinemas.” What’s that? A major boycott of one or more Hollywood film’s opening weekend in early 2012 to protest the Studio’s support of the MPAA and their position on SOPA. They’re funding this. We need to show we can do something. In the perfect world, people would pledge to skip the opening weekend(s) of some Hollywood film(s) and you could track by Zip Code (and by congressional district?) the protest as it grows. Perhaps we could all pledge to attend an indie film instead, so that no one can claim we’re just hurting theaters, stuck in the middle. I’d love to see this happen, think it could be huge, but lack the time and programming talent to pull it off.
2. Sundance sales/launches: This is a perennial debate in the film world, but one again, I’m excited to find out how sales go at Sundance (and Slamdance). We’ve got some results on how last year’s big buys performed, and we’ve had an interesting year with new distributors, new distribution models and a lot of turmoil in the economic marketplace. How are this year’s film selections? How will they perform? What new companies will launch? What initiatives will Sundance announce? Or others? Always a good time to get a bead on what’s next in the American indie sector, and I’ll be in attendance and following the news closely.
3. Sundance Artist Services: Sundance makes it to my watch in 2012 list twice for one other reason: their ongoing Artist Services program. You can read about it here, but the quick summary is that Sundance is using their brand and connections to help their alumni to get their films to the public in a better way. They’ve negotiated great deals on behalf of their artists with companies like TopSpin and New Video to help artists take control of their films and get them to audiences (and make money). This, to my mind, is the smarter approach of those being launched by some other fests – we don’t need more distributors, but we do need smart ideas to help filmmakers and audiences connect, and Sundance is leading the way.
4. More branded content/advertising experiments: There’s been a lot of new experiments in branded content and brand partnerships in the indie sector in the past year – as I predicted last year. One of the more interesting developments I’ll be watching is the LaunchPad program launched at DocNYC this year. I reckon we’ll see many more over the course of 2012, but I also imagine we’ll see the beginnings of, if not the fulfillment of, many failures in this space. Why? I’m actually bullish on the idea overall, but I actually think that very few people in the indie film sector have any clue how advertisers think and work, and won’t structure projects that lead to any return on the advertiser’s investments. Second, they’ll fail because consumers aren’t watching. Yes, me, you and everyone we know loves indie films. But there’s not many of us, and we’re a lot less cutting edge and sexy than what’s going on in short form video online, gaming and so many other sectors. But hey, someone will figure this out and make it work, and I’m actually all for it.
5. Transmedia Backlash (but the practice continues on): You can’t look around too long in the film world without running into someone going on and on about the rise of transmedia. Heck, I talk about it a lot too. But there’s a couple things bothering me about this: 1) there actually aren’t a lot of people in the indie world doing this, and; 2) most of the experiments have sucked. Yes, more and more filmmakers are exploring it, but I follow this sector pretty closely, and trust me, it’s a small group. There’s been a much bigger interest in this from the advertising community. A lot of foundations are now funding this for documentaries, but mainly because they’re always chasing trendy things they don’t understand. I’m even seeing proposals from people saying they’re making transmedia when all they’re doing is making a website. The term is just being overused (along with still being a crap term). Second, I’ve yet to see more than a couple of good transmedia projects. I don’t want to single out the good or the bad, but it’s an open secret – whenever I attend events dedicated to transmedia, a few of us gather for beers afterwards and this truth always comes up in conversation. I’m sure this isn’t going to stop us from hearing more about it in 2012, and I hope we see a couple new peojects which prove my second point wrong, but I’m even more sure we’ll get lots of backlash – filmmakers and critics and industry calling more BS on the practice overall. I’ve started to see it on fest panels over the past year, but expect more in 2012.
6. Impact of OWS on arts: This has already started in 2011, but expect to see a lot more hand-wringing amongst arts leaders about perceptions of elitism and class disparities in the arts. Expect to see many more protests at cultural events. As the OWS movement picks up steam again as the winter fades (and it will rise up again), we’ll see a lot more talk about how artists should respond, how arts organizations should (or shouldn’t) get involved and about deep structural issues of class and culture. This should be fun. Seriously, while a lot of the arguing will be old hat and boring, there’s a lot to talk about here, and my sincere hope is that some artists do something unexpected, cool and genuinely creative and inspiring around OWS issues in 2012.
7. Economic meltdown in latter half of 2012: I suspect those OWS inspired events will also increase due to something I keep yelling about, though no one wants to hear it – the increasing likelihood of another economic meltdown in late 2012. You can read what I think about it here. You can disagree with me too, but you have to admit that things remain tough out there and as the economy continues to sputter it will continue to impact budgets across the US, and this will mean cuts to the arts. It will likely mean more scrutiny of film incentives, and the likely loss of some of them (already occurring in some states). Now, some people call me a pessimist for talking all doom and gloom, but I’m not really. Remember, pessimists are always happy, because we expect nothing to work, and get surprised (and happy) when something does work, or when bad things don’t happen. I’m a big supporter of the idea that art gets more interesting in tough times. There’s a silver lining here, perhaps, but I really do think we’ll see some economic turmoil and it will have impact on film and the arts. We’ll see if I’m right.
8. The next phase of crowdfunding: And if everything does go to pot, we’ll definitely see more people turning to the crowd to raise their funds. We’ve seen some amazing things with Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowd-funding sites. I’m a fan of them, I’ve used them and I plan to use them again in the future. But I don’t think that crowd-funding will continue forward only under this current model. I’ve already seen presentations of other start-ups tweaking the model a bit, and some will launch in 2012 and I suspect many others will as well. More importantly, as the idea matures, we’ll likely see it taken to new levels and with new models, and perhaps these will even be done by the existing leaders in the space. Where’s it going? I’m not sure, but as the crowd gets more connected, there are better ways to leverage its support than through constant tweets about your campaign. A directed, aggregated crowd could have more impact than the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations combined (seriously). I like Ian David Moss’s proposal for this space, as just one example. I suspect we’ll see more in 2012.
9. Which celebrity will use Kickstarter to fund a major Hollywood film? Along the same lines: Okay, this sounds dumb, but seriously, the moment that someone like Ashton Kutcher uses Kickstarter to raise money for a major Hollywood (or Indiewood) film is surely upon us soon, and it will work. I’d hazard to guess that any major celebrity could raise $50M to fund a major production and invent an entirely new distribution-to-fans model at the same time. I hope we see it in 2012.
10. Collecting Data: Ok, this one is kind of boring, but I’m hoping that some bright person(s) or group(s) use 2012 to help collect some data for all of us to use. Geesh, you’d think that with multiple filmmaker-service orgs in the film space, most having been here for over 20 years, one of them would’ve done this already, but nope, they’re doing some other service, I guess. We need a lot of data. It would help all of us. Things like: how has the audience size (by attendance, sales, etc) for indie film changed over the years?; a historic comparison of sales and performance for different films by genre, perhaps based on the history of Sundance; how much economic impact does indie film generate?; a comparison of festival attendance in different cities, including demographics; what percentage of film school grads are working in film in 5, 10, 15 years?; which distribution release strategies work?. These are very basic questions, I can think of thousands of others. I get emails all the time from people asking for some similar data sets (just got one two days ago), but there’s precious little research and data about our sector. I’d hazard to guess it might be useful in all sorts of ways. Project for IFP, FIND, NAMAC, NEA, Sundance, Guilds, IndieWire, Variety, NYU Film? Come on folks, someone must want to do some research for us?!?!
11. Social, check in and content: I’ve predicted this for a few years now. I’ve got lots of ideas in this space, but I’m convinced that 2012 is when the ideas of social, check-in and sharing hit content in a big way. There’s some people doing it now, but no one is doing it well. I wish film fests would figure this out. Someone will.
12. Exhibition Changes: I think we’ll see a lot of disruption, good and bad, in this space. I’m very excited about rumors of expansion of Alamo Drafthouse. I love the new Nitehawk and Rerun Theaters in NYC. The Arthouse Convergence is helping arthouses to work together to keep themselves thriving, and hopefully do some new things. I also think we’ll see some shake-up among the larger theater chains. I love the MoviePass disruption being led by Stacey Spikes. I also suspect we’ll see a lot more micro-cinemas, alternative venues and hopefully, more tools for indie filmmakers to tap in to all of these resources. 2012 should be a year of great change in the exhibition space.
So, there’s my 12 things to watch in 2012, what are yours?