Saturday, November 28, 2009
Well what do you know...
Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on how Nina Paley has managed to make $55,000 so far since releasing her film Sita Sings the Blues for free. Her revenue stream is quite varied, itself evidence of a fair amount of work on her part to monetize the film. So no, it's not the artists (unrealistic) dream of simply making a film and waiting for the checks to come in the mail. One of the first rules of being an independent filmmaker is that you must work as a business-person. Not as dreamy or glamorous as the artist dream, but it is do-able. Is $55k enough to make a living from just making films? Depends where you live and how often you make new ones. At the very least it makes the effort somewhat financially viable on its own merits.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
I really want the artist-driven independent model to become more financially viable, but I hate that people hold Sita up as "the way" to make that happen. The $55,000 profit doesn't even cover production costs, let alone the dozens of people who worked on it besides Nina. (Although I realize she did most of it herself.)
Plus, most of the attention she's gotten for the film has been because of the unorthodox cc distribution. If it hadn't been one of the first films released like that, I don't think it would have gotten so much attention.
Oops, right after I posted that I realized how bad it sounded and couldn't edit or delete it. I enjoyed the film and wish Nina the best, I just don't think its a sustainable or repeatable business model.
I think Lucas meant $55K revenue rather than profit, since profit equals revenue minus expenses.
Anyways, this proves that some revenue can be brought in this way. Not very much on this project, but look at it this way: would she had made any revenue at all creating her film on spec and then trying to sell it through old-media channels, i.e., find a distributor?
In my (admittedly, limited) experience, I would have to say, "not very likely". Even if she found one, the distributor generally keeps all the revenue up to a level it more or less dictates. Beyond that, the creator gets a small percentage. The creator also signs over all rights to the film for the length of the contract, which can be surprisingly long.
Maybe the old model would have worked in her case, but there's no way to know anyways. There's way too many variables. What we do know is that the creator in this case has complete control over her creation and has brought in a trickle of revenue. Probably not enough to cover expenses, but we don't know that either.
Maybe her next one will be a big success and we'll look back at Sita as the breaking point of the Creative Commons business model (for lack of a better term). Or maybe not. I really don't know. It's interesting to watch though.
Nina herself discussed all the financial side a few days ago over on cartoon brew:
"The $55,000 is my personal film-related income so far. It’s not the film’s gross, which is higher; distributors, cinemas, etc. all took their (much deserved) portions, and there are expenses associated with the e-store, like the cost of manufacturing DVDs and pins and t-shirts, as well as the order fulfillment service’s valuable work. And the $55,000 certainly not “profit.” As many here noted, the film cost significantly more than that to make. $80,000 production + $50,000 license fees + $20,000 legal fees + $120,000 food/rent/living/me-related expenses for the 3+ years I worked on it, which totals $270,000. Sometimes I reckon the film’s budget as $8,000,000: $270,000 expenses plus a $7,730,000 director’s fee, payable on the “back end.” Like most “back end” deals I’ll probably never see it, but it’s nice to know if the film ever does net $8million, I’ll be getting it. ($8million is what I decided I would sell all rights to the film for, back when I still thought that way.) The importance of the $55,000 number is it exceeds what any distributor told me I could ever expect to get from the film. Films can gross over a $million but none of that ever reaches the director or producer. Most independent films do far worse for their directors, even “successful” ones. But most directors don’t talk about that publicly, because they fear it’s bad press. Most indie films are also financed by investors, who when they lose money on films keep it quiet. Most films lose money. Because “Sita” didn’t have traditional investors, I could afford both to free it and be very transparent about the financial aspects, which I hope is useful to others."
There are a few other useful comments, too:
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/how-to-make-55000-by-giving-away-a-film.html#comments
Thanks Tim. I guess one could say that, so far, Sita is less unprofitable for its creator than it would have been using the conventional distribution method. That's a step in the right direction, I suppose?
The way I see it: Personal films, whether feature length or short, are more about getting something out of you than getting something into your bank account. Now if in the process of getting something out of your soul you end up with some money coming back in, then that's a bonus. If you want to make a lot of money, then make a commercial film. Commercial films are a particular style/type of film. They are products more than they are creations. But the rub is- it has to be good, that or you need to get lucky and tap into some cultural vein that makes it popular. Trying to predict what that is from week to week is like predicting weather on the planet Venus. For January. Of 2015. Nina's film was therapy. It was how she coped with loss and pain in her life. She was going to make that film simply because she had to. That it's recouping any of its cost at all is gravy. There are very, very few independents who make a living solely from their independent films. Even Plympton does commercials to pay for his films. For the indy filmmaker the path is not linear, simple or easy. Nor is it very likely to be at all lucrative. Why we do it beyond anybody's guess.
Keith, the combination of your post and comment perfectly nailed something I've been trying to pinpoint for years. Its the ultimate paradox that faces almost every independent filmmaker, artist, musician, etc.: You have to work as a business person, yet you're doing something that's extremely personal and not designed to make money.
The thing I dont like is that Nina openly supports the illegal download of big budget movies as part of the "open community."
If you want to make your own film and make an individual living from it, more power to you. But thats not the only business model, and saying all movies should be freely downloaded is narrow-minded, selfish, and destructive...not to mention illegal.
Post a Comment