How Little I Know

A big part of me writing this blog has been because I’m searching for answers. I thought if I examined enough indie filmmakers, transmedia storytellers, and content creators who are doing innovative things, it would soon become obvious what does and doesn’t work, and the path forward would become clear.

I have a young daughter who, when faced with a new situation - be it a party, a new game, or a group of kids she doesn’t know - won’t join in at first. It doesn’t matter how exciting it looks, how much fun everyone else is having - she stands on the side, reluctant to join, watching, waiting, trying to decipher how it works and the unspoken rules of the game or social situation.  She only steps in once she understands it fully, and sees an opening for herself. I know where she gets it from.

See, I’m not in any way shape or form an “early adopter.” Rather I stand a safe distance, observing as others dive in head first, dash their brains out, learn from their mistakes, and forge a path through the muck. That’s when I’m ready to join the journey – after the blood has cleared.

For the past two years I’ve been watching, learning, and thinking about innovation in storytelling and the business behind it. I’ve also been developing project ideas and underlying business plans, however, the “path forward” hasn’t necessarily become any clearer.

Some of the innovative people I’ve blogged about, who had good ideas, have ultimately failed to meet the goals initially laid down. For example:

Biracy: This was the “pilot project” on the SoKap platform, with the goal to create an indie feature film using a sustainable crowdsourcing platform to raise proper budgets ($1-20million) and reward the investor horde both financially as well as creatively, as they would be able to contribute to the filmmaking process in a number of ways.

Follow up: Biracy failed to engage or communicate properly with their members, they didn’t share creative choices but rather forged ahead with their own project, internal ideological differences saw the core team split, and they privately admitted defeat that they were not going to be moving forward with Biracy in January this year (yet the website itself says nothing of this). The underlying SoKap platform has morphed into just another IndieGoGo / Kickstarter / Pozible micro crowdfunding platform.

The Artifice: This was a mystery project that racked up millions of Facebook friends in a short period of time, all watching the count down to launch with great anticipation. Digging up the dirt, from what I could gather it would be a transmedia story that included a film, a game, and crowdfunding.

Follow up: The launch date came and went, many promises of it being imminent, but eventually was pushed back by 7 months. At this point a social media game was released on Facebook, within 12 minutes their servers collapsed under the load, and it took almost a month for them to get it back up. They’ve since released more content on their website, alluding to various things they’re working on all under the banner of “The Artifice” however their core concept is still unclear, there is a point when the audience becomes impatient, and content released thus far has been anticlimactic rather than living up to the promise inherent in the tease. The project is not over yet so it may prove me wrong again.

My Million Dollar Movie: The goal was to raise one million dollars in cash (by selling film frames) by December 2009 so that they could make a rom-com called ‘Free For All But You’. If they failed they would return money, less their expenses.

Follow Up: The deadline came and went, over a year later they have now raised enough money that they plan to shoot in June 2011 – however now it is a Zombie rom-com, ‘A Little Bit Zombie,’ that is being made. Along the way communication has been sketchy, and there are obviously huge ethical and legal issues involved with taking money from people under one set of conditions and then spending it as you please in contravention of those conditions.

I could go on with many more examples... but I am trying to get to a point.

These and many other projects have failed at what they initially set out to achieve. However, in that glass half empty/full manner, these projects have also had successes along the way, even if it hasn’t played out how they intended. They are the ones dashing their brains out, yet surviving the ordeal to rise in another incarnation.

I have huge amount of respect for these people in giving it a go – as mentioned, I’m not as game as they are. And, in my own quest to find ‘The Answer’ of a creative sustainable business model for indie filmmakers and storytellers to use, I have failed. The deeper I dig, the more questions I have.

And maybe I just have to get used to that.

Steve Peters @ Transmedia Victoria

View more presentations from Christy Dena

If you look at slide 23 & 24, Steve Peters points out that it took over twenty years from the moment the film camera was invented until people worked out how to make a feature film. And of course there’s also been a huge amount of evolution and sophistication to occur in the hundred years since. In the mix has been everything from amazing life changing films to completely unwatchable trash.

In the transmedia space, making use of internet, social media, games, mobile phones, locative devices, augmented reality, crowdsourcing, video sharing, and so on – we are still in infancy, sorting out what technologies we want to use to tell stories, and we simply haven’t had time to find a common form – much less the ‘right’ business model. With the fast pace of technology, perhaps from now on we’ll always be in this state of flux. Experimentation is the only way forward.

This of course scares me shitless. I like to have a solid plan in place, which will get modified along the way but at least presents the semblance of control. However in this area of practice I often feel like the more I learn, the less I know, and I am sick of innaction.

Perhaps the only way to move forward is to step onto the ever shifting plates fully expecting to land flat on your face – because we will have many more failures in front of us before we get a bitter grip on this form. And amongst the many failures, a few successes will emerge. We just don’t know which will be which, so we have to try everything.

On that note, I’ll end with this from Seth Godin.