For many weeks of interviews in the UK and the US about RAGE I took a line of ‘welcome the pirates’. It was a useful, energised and relaxing way of thinking compared to the defensive stance mostly current in the film industry, itself based on a growing fear of bankruptcy….the end of independent cinema in particular as we know it.
I changed my tune a bit in my recent blog. This was prompted by a discovery that the DVD had already been pirated and our own DVD sales – on which we had been relying to generate some income – were not doing as well as expected. However, I have discovered that joining the tidal wave of defensiveness about pirates in this way is not a comfortable or particularly useful place to be.
The reasons for relatively low DVD sales (thus far) is probably far more related to the ongoing free access to the film on mobile phones and on the internet. We have many lessons to learn from being first through the gate in the way we have chosen to release RAGE and it is still far too early to jump to conclusions. I intend to continue to be transparent about the financial realities of this way of making and showing films….and any financial challenges we are facing are not an isolated problem but part of a wider pattern of change in which it makes sense to help each other learn from our success and our mistakes.
A recent talk I went to by Thomas Mai (called ‘forget everything you know’) analysed the ‘old’ model of distribution and exhibition(where filmmakers are generally last in line to receive any returns from ticket sales – most often indeed receiving nothing at all once creative accounting has taken place at every stage along the chain.) He counter-posed the ‘new’ model (multi-platform release, use of social networking sites, self-distribution of DVDs and so on) as the way forward. It turned out that we have ticked virtually all the boxes in this new way (except crowd funding up front) but the figures do not seem to tally in the optimistic way Thomas Mai was putting forward.
A recent comment from someone about my ‘Very Bad Pirates’ blog suggested amongst other things that I made a lower budget film. That is exactly what I did in my first decade or so of filmmaking, where the films generally had no budget at all and everyone worked for love and therefore had to earn a living elsewhere. As I explained in my ‘Money’ blog (about how a ‘low-budget’ film can still cost nearly a million dollars) films made for nothing or next to nothing are an unsustainable model in the long-term. Not only will they generally produce films for a very small audience, but - perhaps even more importantly - ‘free’ films will gradually put all the ‘invisible’ workers in the film industry (camera technicians, electricians, wardrobe assistants, makeup artists, editors etc) out of work.
We have to find a way of making good films in a non-wasteful way, whilst paying people enough to survive and improve their skills. If we are honest, it would seem that none of us yet know how to do this as we move rapidly forward in the new era of digital everything, of piracy, free downloads and so on.
Even barefoot filmmakers need shoes, though arguably not as many as I have amassed over the years….particularly the vast quantity of not quite perfect shoes I have bought to go out dancing.
PS. I am writing this from Buenos Aires where I have come to tango once again.
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