Validating the idea

In the startup world, validating a new business idea before investing significant capital or time in a new product is hugely important. Either validating by performing the actions an app would perform manually, without hiring engineers to build a working prototype. Or by testing the marketplace with Facebook ads.

I don't see why this isn't more prevalent in film. In film, many times you invest a huge amount of capital and time in a film, all based on a hunch that you think it's a good idea. It's inefficient with huge potential downside.

Comedians frequently talk about not knowing whether or not a joke is going to be funny until they tell it on stage, in front of an audience. And they can spend years honing the joke, all based on a combination of feedback from the audience and their artistry.

I know musicians have been caught off guard, thinking a song wasn't that great, but it ended up being the most popular song on the album.

But when you talk about filmmakers adjusting their film based on feedback from the audience, people get squirrely. It's as if people expect a 2 hour story to come straight out of the filmmakers mind, fully and perfectly formed. It's unrealistic.

Comedians = jokes, worked out on stage
Musicians = songs, worked out on stage
Filmmakers = shorts, worked out online 

The only problem with this formula, is with comedians and musicians you've got a paying audience. And the behavior of a paying customer is much different than the opinion of someone getting something for free. They go over this in Eric Ries's, The Lean Startup. Paying customers for a new product are early adopters. And watching the behavior of early adopters, who are interested enough in your idea to spend their hard earned money is much different than getting the opinion of someone who has enough time on their hands to be part of a focus group. It's an entirely different set of people, in addition to watching behavior versus getting someone's opinion.

Maybe I should charge for the shorts, as a way to gauge interest and make sure I only get paying, early adopter behavior.

But I'm hesitant to charge for shorts. I'll probably end up testing both ways.

Picasso and money

I was also thinking about revenue streams and Picasso. He got most of his money from selling paintings, I wonder if there's a market for that in the future. Selling private films. Commission work. As filmmaking gets cheaper, I wonder if there are different ways to make money, other than theatrical or digital distribution.

He didn't reinvent the wheel with how you make money from painting, but I wonder if there are lessons to take home from that. It's a proto-idea, in it's infancy, or rather not even born yet, but still I wonder....

Picasso

I watched a BBC documentary on Picasso on Friday night. It got me thinking again about whether or not film is due for a revolution in structure and form.

Picasso started off as a classical painter, academic realism they call it. Then his work added a symbolist influence. Blue period. Rose period. And finally modern art transformed... cubism, crystal period, neoclassical, surrealism, and beyond.

Painting and novels were the primary art forms of the day (my guess), and it's obvious painting went through a revolution in the early 1900's, and from what Chuck said in his article, fiction is going through a similar crisis. And they could be much further along than film.

I know it's a common chorus, people have been proclaiming the death of the 3-act structure hero story since Aristotle. But maybe we could use some exploration like Picasso did with the bull, seeing what elements of traditional film structure you can remove while still maintaining the essence.

The problem is, I get bored with so many movies I see. I wonder if it's because I'm older and have seen enough to get all the tricks, or if it's because audiences are more savvy now. I'd like to believe it's because audiences are more savvy now (which Chuck stated in his article), because I'd love to see more exciting, experimental movies.

Picasso BBC doc: click here
Chuck Palahniuk article: click here

Filmmaking by committee

I struggled today, trying to explain the basics of this process to a friend. The common criticism being, "That's simply filmmaking by committee." The difference is, filmmaking by committee would be giving each audience member a vote, and going with the option that gets the most votes. Instead, Lean Filmmaking would be using the audience as a barometer for what's working and what's not, and then using that information to make calculated changes that you feel that will better the final film.

Example being stand-up comedy. Comedians routinely talk about writing new material at home and not knowing how it's going to do, until they try out the material on stage. Over many months on the road, they hone the new material, trimming, rewording, rephrasing, moving elements around, or attacking the subject in an entirely different way to achieve the desired result of a happy audience. No one would say that the comedians material is written by committee. But it is honed and fine tuned by audience participation. That's the same process I'd like to co-opt for indie film.

When the audience doesn't respond to a scene or part of the film in the way you want, you don't automatically give each audience member a vote as to what would make the scene work better - because they have  no idea. And you don't automatically appeal to the lowest common denominator either. It simply means that you, as the filmmaker, haven't communicated effectively, and need to make an adjustment. You have found a problem, which you need to fix. This is extremely valuable information to have, especially pre-production. This can literally save millions, and make a break a film.

I know filmmakers that have spent $100,000 making their dream indie film, which was made in a bubble, without audience feedback - and at the end of the day, after submitting to film festivals and not getting picked up, they have a VERY expensive DVD sitting on their shelf. That's not a gamble I'm willing to make with my money, on my first movie, and I truly believe there's a better process for independent film. Get feedback early on, before production, and adjust the storytelling where necessary.

That's crux of this process is: gathering more information than traditionally, testing hypothesis about the material either via short films, webisodes, live theater, or other with yet to be determined means,  and find out if audiences respond to your material. If they don't respond, you've saved a hell of a lot of time and money. As opposed to "testing" your hypothesis with a fully produced final film, released into the general public, which generally costs tens of millions of dollars.

 

I Believe...

I believe there's a better way to make independent films, using theories from Growth Hacker Marketing (link) and The Lean Startup (link).

Growth Hacker Marketing and The Lean Startup both address problems faced by traditional business models:
- Market research
- Gut feelings
- Large launch

Now what other industry puts together products in that same way? Studio films and Indie films.

Solutions to their problems were in folding marketing in with product development and developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and then rapidly iterating and pivoting based on customer response. These are actual customers, not focus groups. Early adopters and customers that have PAID for the product.

Examples of this are: Instagram, Dropbox, Pinterest, Uber....

I believe indie film can apply these principles to produce a film that avoids the pitfalls many indie films fall into.

And the beauty of this particular method is, that once you achieve Product Market Fit (PMF), you can market and distribute the film online, yourself, without using the mass market $30M budget studio approach. A slow, organic growth, which builds over time into a sizable audience without the "fat" of the mass market approach.

What's needed is to develop a process and set of tools for evaluating early script and film content by early adopters and the film's audience.

(post in progress - posted as preview only)

Online Workspace

I'm hoping for this site to be an online workspace for me to work through and develop these ideas, using my first feature as an experiment, and see if I can use Lean Startup and Growth Hacker Marketing principles to make a better narrative feature length indie film.

And ideally by doing this publicly I'll be able to connect with like-minded filmmakers, who will eventually become collaborators.