Conference Report: “The Conversation: The Future of Cinema, Games and Online Video: New Tools, New Distribution, New Rules”

For two days in October, an impressive array of participants from the entertainment industry, independent film, and a variety of digital and mixed media venues came together to discuss strategies of change and survival in our ever shifting media landscape.

The conference, The Conversation: The Future of Cinema, Games and Online Video: New Tools, New Distribution, New Rules, held at the Pacific Film Archive, October 17-18, included such featured speakers as John Batter (co-president, DreamWorks Animation), Reed Hastings (CEO and founder, Netflix), Diana Barrett (founder, The Fledgling Fund), Ted Hope (producer; co-founder, This is That), Dean Valentine (CEO, Comedy.com), Peggy Weil (artist; game developer, Gone Gitmo), Peter Broderick (president, Paradigm Consulting), George Strompolos (content partnerships manager, YouTube), Gregg and Evan Spiridellis (JibJab Media), and Michealene Cristini Risley (independent filmmaker, Tapestries of Hope). As might be noted from the diversity represented in this partial list, this was a “conversation” meant to include a variety of creative and commercial voices.

The conference was structured to encourage dialogue with the audience. Presentations and panels were concise and crisp, with ample time for question-and-answer, as well as segments set aside for participants to network directly with the speakers. There was also a semi-structured (perhaps too strong a phrase) lunch on the first day that organized like-minded interests, as well as an evening reception that opened with a panel on funding strategies. The conference organizers, Ken Goldberg (director, Berkeley Center for New Media), Scott Kirsner (CinemaTech), Tiffany Shlain (independent filmmaker; founder The Webby Awards), and Lance Weiler (filmmaker, Head Trauma; publisher, The Workbook Project), are to be commended for programming speakers that cut across so many different areas of contemporary media (from 3D film to alternative reality games to activist-centered media-work), and for setting a tone of openness and collaborative engagement reflective of our era of “participatory media.”

Though one would be hard put to claim a conference consensus, or even a particularly dominant point of view, it did seem to me, speaking as a film historian (and seemingly one of the few academics in the audience), that after the two-day deluge of ideas on “film” creation, distribution, and funding, the very category of “cinema” itself was no longer useful or adequate to describe the profound reconfiguration of media in the digital era. Beginning at the level of form, cinema is changing from the very “high end,” with a transition to all-digital “cinemas”—and in the particular case of DreamWorks, a move to exclusively 3D productions (John Batter proclaimed 2D movies the equivalent of vinyl)—to “low end” DIY productions using open source tools and multimedia or transmedia platforms. The latter incorporate games, mobile media, and online sites into innovative narrative forms (Lance Weiler’s Head Trauma being exemplary of this “hybrid storytelling”).

The changes in tools and emergent formats are only one part of the story, and we would be remiss to envision the seismic shifts underway as dependent upon or exclusively framed by technology. A parallel cultural upheaval, the transformation of film and media audiences as interactive participants, or even as co-creators and “remix artists,” has occurred. Indeed, what becomes clear is that these are not parallel, but co-dependent and overlapping worlds of form and audience, with a linkage of such seamlessness and magnitude that all of our past models about how media is generated (or created) and translated (received/distributed/shared) must be completely reformulated.

It is no surprise then that if the what, where, and who of media production, reception, and distribution are so fundamentally altered, then the funding of work will likewise share in this disruption. The issue of financing became the question of the conference. How do I get funding? How do I get paid for my work? To put these questions into perspective, one must first grapple with the sheer volume of content now available due to the proliferation of digital tools, which make media cheap and easy to produce, and with the Internet, which puts so much material only one click away. George Strompolos from YouTube noted that a staggering thirteen hours of content are uploaded to their site every minute. If the flood of content to the site alone was not enough to give one pause, then equally disturbing, or at least disorienting, is the rate of change and exponential growth in online volume, as in the case of YouTube, which did not exist in 2004.

It is no wonder that funders, both commercial and philanthropic, are taking stock of what is a productive investment—economically or socially—in media. Diana Barrett of The Fledgling Fund, which financially supports creative projects and community groups that foster social change, took on the matter directly by asking, “Does social media have an impact?” Barrett urged socially engaged artists to put this question at the center of their work and to make real efforts to measure the results. She noted that a film or other created work is simply one piece on a continuum of action from surrounding materials (such as a website) to community partners with shared interests. Significantly, Barrett underlined the need for clear and substantial goals for a project, eloquently summarizing to filmmakers: “Sundance is not a goal, Sundance is a vehicle.”

Regardless if your creative work is industry or indie, personally or politically driven, the overwhelming message from all those connected to funding is to engage your audience from your earliest stages of production through as many layers of interaction and in turn distribution as possible. Social networking (from Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to games and beyond) should not be seen solely as a marketing tool for a creative project, as is typically the case, but as an integral part of the structure. Social networking is a means by which one creates a generative and continuing dialogue with an audience, a dialogue that ideally can extend to the next project. As Ted Hope pointed out—in a “fireside chat” with Dean Valentine entitled, “Where Are Indie Film, TV, and Online Video Heading?”—the audience-first approach inverts the entire process of the creative work, from a kind of lecture delivered to passive receptors to an active conversation among all participants, from a “top down” to a more “grassroots” form of organization. Both Hope and Valentine saw this inversion as liberating for all; Valentine in particular saw “the large media companies doomed as an economic and social model.” Time and again throughout the two-day conference, presenters acknowledged that social media was extremely labor intensive for the artist, but that the rewards, both financially and with respect to audience interest, warranted the investment.

Given the focus on the more interactive components in contemporary media, it is no surprise that several strategies offered for successful media work included, or were organized around, games. Gaming may be a hard sell to “old school” indie filmmakers, but games are where our next generation, as well of much of our current audience, resides. Moreover, the designation “game” actually covers a much broader area than the first-person console games (e.g., Grand Theft Auto) that skeptics envision when the topic is broached. Games are neither endemically violent nor evil, and can be quite thoughtful, politically aware, and efficacious. Ken Eklund, writer and creative director of World Without Oil, in the panel, “Games and Cinema Collide: New Experiences, New Opportunities,” challenged the audience to think of games in a much larger context. He emphasized ARGs (alternative reality games), which are in effect creating parallel worlds and personas, and which in turn help us imagine the new. Eklund proposed that even social networking tools like Facebook should be thought of as games, where the user works to create and shape an identity. Lance Weiler pointed to the high level of audience engagement in ARGs, which uniquely allow a place for audience creativity and voice. For artist and game developer Peggy Weil, games propose new and more open forms of storytelling, where streams of stories converge and digress. This openness facilitates the migration of narratives across platforms. When we factor in the ease with which we can remix and personalize these “transmedia” events, we can begin to see the potential for a powerful and ubiquitous storytelling form.

Games and social media increase the likelihood that distribution becomes viral, which, given the volume of content noted above, is almost essential. The key, of course, is an effective use of social media; again, these cannot be merely supplementary or add-on items, but must be built into a project from the ground up. Lance Weiler suggested that filmmakers try to be as “granular” as possible with respect to audience; that is to say, clearly identifying the community or communities that would connect with a work.

Community-driven work was the consistent element behind the success stories Peter Broderick discussed in his highly informative presentation, “The Old World vs. The New World of Distribution.” A packed room heard Broderick, president of Paradigm Consulting, deliver the message that new and disruptive technologies are not just changing the future but are already the present state of media distribution. Working through a diverse group of projects—including Made in L.A., a documentary on immigrant activists in the garment industry funded by small donors (of $5 to $10 originally) that became a PBS POV screening (Robert Bahar, producer; Almudena Carracedo, director) and Four Eyed Monsters (Arin Crumley and Susan Buice, directors) a “true story” romance/documentary that began as a feature film on the festival circuit but morphed into “transmedia” explorations (website, podcasts, blogs)—Broderick was inspiring but also realistic. A new world of distribution has opened for artists, giving them much more freedom and opportunity than the old one; the challenge is putting in place a strategy and a team to work in this new environment. Content is key, but it must be dynamic; it should grow and change over time, as should the tools that work in concert with the material. Like Weiler earlier in the day, Broderick emphasized the need to identify the audience carefully so that “customized” strategies could be developed (in concert with the particular religious organizations, political groups, fan bases, etc., in question). Defining the core audience is crucial to success, no matter what the point of view, genre, formats, or community involved, but an ongoing flexibility and fluidity with regard to the kinds of engagement offered is also vitally important.

As I left the Broderick presentation at the end of the second day, it was clear to me that the future of cinema is ours to make, but this future can only be “co-authored” in collaboration, or rather, in conversation with our audiences. Cinema’s original impetus to speak across the arts to all the people, a truly democratic and unique initiative, is thus remixed and reborn for the twenty-first century.

VICKI CALLAHAN is associate professor in the Film Department/Conceptual Studies program, Peck School of the Arts at UW–Milwaukee. Her book, Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History, is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press.

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