Sherrod Sloan Filmmaker/LA Film School Student: My question was how do we approach transmedia
as an independent filmmaker?
A lot of us are working on tight budgets and low resources and are having a hard enough
time trying to create our one story.
How do we approach transmedia?
And should we be trying to execute all these projects are just develop them?
Houston Howard, Transmedia Author and Instructor: This is a question I get a lot.
How does this apply to the independent filmmaker.
How does this apply to someone who is not Marvel or STAR WARS or Harry Potter?
And I think that while I love STAR WARS and GAME OF THRONES and Marvel and all the big
stuff, I think this is more necessary for the independent filmmaker then even those
big brands.
Primarily because the independent filmmakers don’t have the P and A [prints and advertising]
budgets that large movies have and they don’t have the brand awareness that large brands
already have.
If you’re an independent filmmaker operating on a $100,000 feature, a $20,000 feature or
doing something even more shoestring (the $7,000 feature), you have to figure out every
single way possible to build audience.
You have to figure out every single way possible to compete in a marketplace with not just
Goliaths like STAR WARS and Marvel but everything competes with everything now.
And that’s where we are getting this with this entertainment landscape is it’s commoditized,
over-saturated and the competition is just competition for eyeballs.
And so what’s really interesting Netflix (the CEO at Netflix) says their biggest competition
isn’t Amazon or Hulu or HBO.
Their biggest competition is Fortnight and they are consistently losing to Fortnight
which is a video game.
And so why do they say that?
It’s because Fornite even though it’s in a different industry necessarily from video
games to film to television is just taking away eyeballs.
And so now filmmakers today (especially indie filmmakers) are competing not just against
the other films that are in the market or that are in the festival market or films that
are streaming, films that are in the theater.
They are competing against the films that are in the theater, the films that are streaming,
every film every made and anything that’s on TV and anything that’s on Apple Music
or Spotify, any podcast that’s on the podcast store, any video game on Steam or on Xbox,
Playstation on mobile.
You are competing against Youtube, Instagram, you are competing against everything because
everything is in competition with everyone’s eyeballs.
You are competing for the attention for the consumer or the audience.
Attention is the game.
That’s the thing that everyone is fighting for.
It’s like the Game of Thrones, everyone is fighting for the Iron Throne.
In entertainment everyone is fighting for the attention of the audience.
And there is so many things pulling attention now it’s a tougher fight.
This has never been like this ever.
But studios they release films around new video game releases.
When the new Halo video game is going to drop the studios avoid that weekend because they
know anyone 18 to 30 is going to be playing Halo all weekend.
They are not going to be going to the box office.
All that (to get back to saying) if you are the small independent producer that has a
low budget you have to figure out a way to compete, you have to figure out a way to survive,
to thrive, to exist in this market and it’s tough to out punch everybody.
You can’t overpower STAR WARS, you can’t overpower Fortnight.
Now you have to be craftier right?
You can’t just inundate the world with marketing, with posters, with trailers, and buy TV spots.
So what can you do?
If you have a good idea and you have a great story and you’re a great storyteller now
there all these really interesting tools that we can now use to send your story out and
capture the attention of the audience.
It’s not really about putting one fishing lore out there.
Now that we have so many tools we can have 10 or 12 simultaneously fishing in several
ponds all the time looking for audience.
What I get though is independent creators saying 1) I don’t know how to do it or if
they know how to do it they say “That seems like a lot of work.”
To me that is such the wrong mindset to have because we talked about this in the first
round of interviews we did is I always encourage independent filmmakers to be thinking as entrepreneurs
not just an artist because when you are creating IP [intellectual property], when you are launching
a film you are launching a small business.
You are setting up an LLC [Limited Liability Company], you are staffing it with crew and
you are creating something.
You have to think about it just like the guy who is opening up the coffee shop or the woman
who is opening up the pizza shop or the family who is opening up the candle store down the
street, you have to have that same mentality.
And so if you understand the amount of hours and hard work it is to launch your own business
then…independent filmmakers understand it in context of the film.
They are fine spending 18 hours a day on a film set for 12 straight days, that’s fine
because they think that’s within the context of what they do but now it’s broadened.
But now you have to learn how to broaden the scope of that to have more skill sets at your
disposal in order to compete in this crazy market.
The pizza shop owner can’t say “Well I love to make pizza.
That’s my thing.
I’m not going to worry about the bookkeeping because who cares about that.
I’m not going to worry about the front of the house or all of that.
All I’m going to do is make my pizza.”
The business owner (the chef may) but the business owner has to concern themselves with
everything, they have to know the full scope of everything.
They have to be able to put in the hours and the work to be able to figure that stuff out
if they want a successful business.
And even when they do that, most small businesses fail and they fail primarily because of lack
of quality or they don’t figure those other things out, they can’t figure out a way
to compete.
It’s such an audacious thing to say you want to be a filmmaker for the rest of of
your life.
This is your dream and what you want to do is you want to live your life professionally
making movies for the rest of your life.
That is such a first world, crazy dream to have.
Which is an awesome dream.
And if it’s in your heart, 100% go for it.
But you have to understand how rare that is and how audacious that is and the big disconnect
(especially with independent filmmakers) is they have this big audacious dream where they
just want to make their own movies and that’s their job forever.
They have this audacious dream but at the same time don’t want to go this audacious
route to be able to put in the work to be able to learn all about all the stuff to compete
and make that happen, right?
And what they say to me is “Well, Tarantino didn’t do that.
Tarantino broke in.
Beyonce doesn’t do this.”
They point to these different people who 1) broke in in a different era first of all.
Like we talked about how fast things change now.
Like things have changed from 2019, 2019 to 2015 - completely different.
Let alone when Tarantino broke in in the mid-nineties, right?
It’s not the same world, it’s not the same thing.
And the problem I think people have is they look at Tarantino or they look at Scorsese,
they look at these people “Scorsese doesn’t do transmedia.
I don’t want to do transmedia.”
The problem with that is you’re not Scorsese and it’s kind of a tough yet.
“You’re not Scorsese…yet.
You’re not Tarantino…yet.”
Like when I was a kid playing baseball my dad was my baseball coach and when you teach
kids to play baseball, you teach them to catch a ball with two hands.
You teach them to catch with two hands so the ball won’t pop out of the glove, right?
Real simple thing.
My dad takes me to a professional baseball game and I’m watching Ken Griffey, Jr. in
the outfield catching flyballs.
He’s catching it with one hand.
He’s catching it behind his back.
He’s catching it sort of down by the ground.
And I say “Dad, you’re telling me I have to catch with two hands but Ken Griffey, Jr.
is not catching with two hands?
Why can’t I just catch with one hand like him?”
And he looked at me and said “Son, if once you get to be as good as Ken Griffey, Jr.
And once you make the major leagues, you can do anything you want.
But until then, you catch it with two hands.”
Right now I think for independent filmmakers should not map their actions based on the
super successful cream of the crop directors and producers and writers.
I think that’s a mistake.
As far as craft goes, 100% map your actions after those people.
You can learn so much about the craft of filmmaking from Tarantino obviously.
But I’m not talking about that.
Become the creation of the product is just one component of what it takes to be successful
in the industry.
So you have to have sort of a collection of things align and put together to be able to
have a successful IP [intellectual property], to be able to have a successful business.
Filmmakers know this, you can make the greatest movie in the world, if you don’t know how
to distribute it well, no one will see it.
You can be the greatest writer in the world and write the greatest script but if your
DP doesn’t know what he’s doing or she’s doing then the film comes out poorly.
It takes more than just your individual talent to be able to pull this thing off.
When it comes to craft, map your actions with the big folks.
But at the same time understand and be self-aware of where you are in your career and you need
to say and you can say “You know what?
One day I can be Tarantino, one day I can be Scorsese, but I’m not now.”
What do I use?
What can I use?
How do I use everything possible in order to position myself in a way that I can get
there.
The path is there but the world is different than when Steven Spielberg starting shooting
movies, it’s just a different world.
And it’s good to read about Steven Spielberg and the whole thing but you can’t say “Well
Steven Spielberg didn’t do this, so I don’t have to do it.”
Or “I can do it because he did it.”
It’s just a whole different thing.
I’m very bullish that independent creators need a multi-platform transmedia super story
more than anybody in order to compete and in order to make a splash in this oversaturated
world.
I don’t think it’s just for the big guys.