Indie Film
Sites Come Crawling from the Hollywood-work
Will Traditional Tinseltown be soon to Follow?
9/8/99
By John Gaffney
Special Correspondent
Be sure to remember these names: On2Movies, Pseudo.com, DEN, Filmsonsale,
iz.com, and screeneye.com. They're the original lineup of renegades
in the film business revolution, a revolution that will rival music's move to
the Net in scope and consequence. And this revolution will be televised —
online, that is.
"Just as most anybody could get a garage band and make a recording for
an MP3 site, now anybody with a camera can make a movie and get global distribution,"
said Sightsound.com president Scott Sanders.
New sites are literally streaming out of the Hollywood Hills to take advantage
of the new ways in which Tinseltown will stake its claim on the Internet. A
recent issue of Daily Variety contained more than a dozen ads for new
websites soliciting product to show in its broadband movie sections. One of
those, on2Movies.com, comes from Duck Corp., the company that created and licensed
QuickTime. It will launch a site in November that will feature proprietary content
shown on a proprietary new technology.
That technology, according to executive producer Lane Fisher, is called TrueMotion.
It uses a special compression method to allow full-screen, full-motion video
that performs without a broadband connection. The TrueMotion technology allows
users to interact with content. For example, if you're watching a trailer for
Martin Lawrence's new film Blue Streak, you can click on Martin to open
a new window featuring his bio.
Short Subjects Feed Short Attention Spans
On2 has a license deal with Seattle-based Atom Films, a leader in independent
short subjects. It is indicative of an exploding market for producers and marketers
of independent content via the Internet. Fischer thinks that content works well
with the shorter attention span most users have while at their PCs.
"This market is exploding not only in terms of the economic model, but
also in terms of the type of film that can be made," said iFilm president
Luke McDonough.
McDonough and others are witnessing drastic changes in the way films are planned
and executed. Instead of banking on $50 million and up to gain a platform for
a limited release, those distribution costs can be sliced drastically though
Internet distribution. McDonough foresees more products that maintain quality
but appeal to niche audiences. This model is similar to the one that's been
developed for online music delivery.
Sponsorships: How Revolutionary!
The revolution here will be sponsored, though. McDonough's iFilm has already
signed Levi's to a major deal to sponsor a contest called Digital Catapult.
It highlights video artwork from young urban artists; this is an audience Levi's
has built its brand upon. McDonough expects to announce several more sponsorship
deals over the next two weeks that will not only drive revenue, but bring more
traffic to the iFilm site.
Not everyone is enamored of the advertising revenue model. "Sightsound
is trying to become the self-styled Blockbuster of the Internet," according
to Sanders. His business model is based on renting movies for download, not
advertising. Some of his content coups have already come with Pi, the
Artisan Entertainment-produced arthouse hit, as well as other independent entries.
His comment mentioned above about "every guy with a camera" getting
global distribution is made tongue-in-cheek. He knows the success of his business
model in which customers actually rent films for download eventually will depend
on securing rights to hit movies. He hasn't done that yet.
"The difference here between the video and music business models is that
the studios will release a major motion picture on the Internet as soon as they
solve their concerns about piracy," he said. "And the Sightsound business
model is the answer."
Put differently, Sander believes that by charging users a fee outright, the
threat to piracy will be diminished. He doesn't expect to convince any Hollywood
studio execs of that before the end of the year, but his goal of releasing a
major motion picture on the Internet will happen "sooner than you think,"
he said.
Originally posted at: http://www.turboads.com/broadband/99news/bn19990908.shtml