Online viewing behaviour in the UK

July 3, 2009 – 10:01 am

eMarketer’s Karin von Abrams recently published some stats on viewing behaviour in the UK. Inspired by what she learned at the DDB conference in London, which took a closer look at the relationship between TV and online viewing, she says that

Broadcasters also feared that people viewing online would spend less time watching television.

This turns out not to be true, as Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development at NBC Universal, confirms. Some of the conclusions drawn at NBC are quite interesting, such as the following:

Broadcast TV and the online channel can be best buddies. The Web does not replace traditional TV; it complements and extends it.

Not only does one medium never replace another (something us media theorists refer to as Riepl’s Law), additional broadcasting of TV content enables people around the world to watch their favourite channels and shows online as well as offline, when they want, and as often as they like.

It is definitely getting more and more important to think about what users want, because

Consumers expect multiplatform content—though most will not consume it on all devices.

What does this mean to filmmakers, producers and distributors in the UK? They have to read the signs and rethink their strategies as people move on to use a multitude of platforms and devices in the future. That’s also along the lines of NBC’s research:

Mobile TV viewing is coming to the mass market. But not yet.

However, there are already a lot of people using mobile devices in Great Britain, as Comscore quotes:

4.8 million U.K. mobile phone subscribers used their phone to watch any kind of TV or video.

Furthermore, 80,1% of the total U.K. Internet audience viewed online video in January 2009. It also turns out that media outlets such as TV websites and on-demand-services like the BBC iPlayer, which, according to KPMG, carried 44% of all video streams seen on UK PCs in 2008, might profit a lot from Twitter-generated traffic, because

During May 2009 Twitter was the 30th biggest source of traffic for other sites in the UK, accounting for 1 in every 350 visits to a typical website. Over half of this traffic (55.9%) is sent to other content-driven online media sites, such as social networks, blogs, and news and entertainment websites.

All these developments show one trend - audiences are increasingly turning towards online and mobile viewing, and therefore filmmakers have to adapt their concepts and strategies.

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The importance of having a website

June 24, 2009 – 4:19 pm

This week I had an interesting conversation with an ambitious young filmmaker, Karl-Martin Pold, who is working on a documentary about the life of the famous Italian actor Bud Spencer. The movie is in its early stages and has neither secured  financing nor  crew. However, Karl has got consent to do an interview with Bud Spencer, which is the most important ingredient for this project’s success.

Building a website
We talked about movie marketing in times of Social Media and the Internet, and Karl-Martin understands that the realisation of the project depends to a large extent on the community’s support. What he did right away was to set up a website (sorry folks, only in German), where he posted his idea on shooting a Bud Spencer documentary.

AND he installed a button on the website, that asks visitors for support and encouraging them to get involved with the project. And it turned out to be a smart move, because the website had more than 1,500 visits within two days, and many people (and also journalists) e-mailed Karl-Martin offering their help.

Upgrade your website
Once the scriptwriting is finished, Karl-Martin has lots of work to do, for example moving the website to a higher level in terms of topicality and professionalism, and spreading his message via social media channels like Twitter or Facebook. There are thousands of Spencer fans on Facebook and all over the Internet.

Therefore, having a website (or at least a blog) is one of the most important marketing tools for filmmakers, especially for emerging ones like Karl-Martin. Because everytime you post a comment on the web, tweet some news or simply send out e-mails, you can refer back to your website. It will keep your fans up-to-date and once your movie finds distribution you can inform them where to watch, rent or buy it.

Website content
Many moviemakers ask us, what they should post on their website. “Should i comment every single step i make?”
The answer is simple: YES, you should. Because people care, they feel involved, they get to know you and your project better. Tell them about your first casting experience, introduce your crew-members, ask them for help - like Karl-Martin did, recommend other webpages or tell them why you shoot on 35mm, DV, HD or any other format. And of course feed them: with images from the set, maybe show a screening map and most important video material: Karl-Martin posted the link to his YouTube channel, where you can watch the first trailer or some shooting pics. Both with over one thousand visits within a few weeks and many comments. Awesome!

So if you work on a project or have an idea for a movie, set up a website (e.g. by using free tools like wordpress or blogger) and start growing your own community!

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We just bought a credit - did you?

June 18, 2009 – 11:52 am

A few days ago we read the following tweet on @stephenfry’s Twitter:

Pay a £ and be a producer, what could be simpler? Good luck to these people - brilliant idea, charmingly implemented: http://buyacredit.com/

This tweet made us curious and we clicked the link. And what we found there is 100 % AWESOME:

BUYACREDIT.COM is a ground-breaking new project aiming to raise the sum of One Million Pounds in order to fund the upcoming feature film “Dardentor”.

With a donation of one pound (or two dollars) you can purchase a credit at the end of a movie and therefore act as a producer and help financing an independent movie. What a great idea!

Normally it takes it’s time to get a movie funded, even when you’re able to use a platform like this. But it doesn’t take that long when you get support from famous people like Stephen Fry.

Before he tweeted the website, he announced his plan to the webmasters:

I hope you’re ready for a flood: I’m tweeting your website.

And in fact, this single action helped creating a buzz, as Adrian Bliss posted on the Buy a credit Blog:

The result was thousands and thousands of people hitting the site at the same time, and the credits rolled in!
Stephen’s seal of approval has helped build our reputation and will certainly be an asset in the future.

Yes, it will!

Of course, we here at FilmTiki also support those guys by purchasing a credit and tweeting about them! We hope you’ll do the same!

By the way, also read some of the hilarious credit names people bought so far!

FilmTiki bought a credit
FilmTiki bought a credit
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Return of the Space Nazis

June 16, 2009 – 5:51 pm

Well done, Timo! We just read that Iron Sky (we wrote about this movie before, read our article here) received the remaining €800,000.00 to from the Finnish Film Foundation as a grant, completing the €4.2 Million budget.

This is a huge budget for a Finnish movie. They have successfully been leveraging their online audience to gain traction and a solid fanbase with their last movie, Star Wreck, who are definitely going to also support them now with this new project.

Watch the phenomenal (and pretty hilarious) teaser trailer for Iron Sky below.

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Keep the change! Let your audience distribute your film

June 12, 2009 – 3:20 pm

This is nothing new - letting audiences organise screenings. Four Eyed Monsters did it, anyone can organise a screening for Sita Sings the Blues, and it is something we recommend to every filmmaker. But now this is gaining so much traction that there is a whole new site devoted to this: UK-based IndieScreenings.

With IndieScreenings, audiences can buy a licence for a film and act as a distributor. People can organise screenings and charge whatever they see fit, and: they get to keep the change (or donate it to a cause). They simply pay for the licence, and off they go.

IndieScreenings is currently only operating in the UK; their prominent licence right now is for The Age of Stupid which has been in theatres in the UK for a few weeks now. They are working on expanding both the range of films available as well as territories you can organise screenings in. Of course you can organise your screenings through other platforms and channels, and your audience can screen your films for you organising themselves via for example facebook or Meetup, but this is another outlet that makes it relatively easy for all parties involved.

I might go to a screening of The Age of Stupid that was audience-organised via IndieScreenings in the next wee while. I’ll let you know what I think.

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What you are actually doing when you market (your film) online: building a tribe

June 3, 2009 – 1:21 pm

A couple of weeks ago our own Matthew Kerr sent me this video of Seth Godin talking about social media marketing, actually, but not really. Watch it! If you haven’t quite gotten your head around Social Media and why they exist, and what the whole point is, this will really clear some things up. And if you do know one thing or another about how and why people connect online, this will still be an enlightening and entertaining talk. Let me know what you think about it.

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Sharing and using Online Video

May 28, 2009 – 3:48 pm
We always knew it: online video distribution is the future! And once again this trend has been confirmed in the past few days:
According an article on eMarketer the latest numbers from Trendstream and Lightspeed Research say that

“72% of U.S. Internet users watched video clips monthly-making video bigger than blogging or social networking.”

Well, that’s not news to us, because researchers like Nielsen have already published similar studies. However, the exciting fact here is,

“that scale of usage would mean online video in the U.S. is now as big as network TV.”

Tom Smith of Trend Stream told eMarketer:

“This research shows that in just three years we’ve reached a watershed in the way that consumers expect to watch, contribute and share video content. Web users want to participate at every stage, including the creation and sharing of material.”

In terms of sharing online videos the distribution in social networks are the second most popular method with 23%, following video sharing via E-Mail with 50%.

Filmmakers out there: use the power of (social) web possibilities in order to get your movies noticed and seen. For example, every Facebook user shares his profile with an average 120 friends. So if you post your trailer or DVD release only once, imagine the impact that this one simple and free action can have! Isn’t it great? Start using it - right now!

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What I suspected: What does Palm d’Or means for the Austrian film industry? Pt. 2

May 25, 2009 – 3:50 pm

As reported about an hour ago, the Austrian radio station FM4 had a short feature on the effects that the Palm d’Or might have on the local film industry. Here are my summarising notes, and it was pretty much what I’d suspected:

This is the first Palm d’Or in Austrian film history to go to an Austrian director. The FM4 reporter thought it was the best Haneke film ever.

Last year, when Stefan Ruzowitzky won the Oscar for The Counterfeiters, “We are Oscar” dominated the headlines. It also inspired various politicians to make big promised to push the Austrian film industry.
Again, with this award, politicians will probably promise a better situation for film makers, but these promises hardly ever get realised. Martin Schweighofer from the Austrian Film Commission said that he is an optimist when it comes to these promises, but as we have seen from last year’s euphoria not a lot got done, and he fears that this may repeat itself.

The Austrian film industry is furthermore about to face a new situation: a new legislation is about to be passed which proposes that part of the Austrian TV funding may disappear. Should this become reality, Austrian film makers may need to go to Germany or private funders for money. This may on the one hand make Austrian film makers more self-reliant, but on the other hand it may severely affect the artistic value – if funding is determined by private funders or TV stations. It would most probably mean a severe drop in new productions, at least in the short to medium term.

If you are in the Austrian film industry, tell us how you feel about the success in Cannes, and more importantly about the future of film in Austria.

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What does the Palm d’Or mean for the Austrian film industry?

May 25, 2009 – 2:12 pm

As you probably know, this year’s Palm d’Or went to Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke’s film The White Ribbon yesterday. How does this affect the Austrian film industry though? Will the euphoria result in a funding boost for the Austrian film industry? I am not sure… but if you speak German, you may wanna tune into FM4 this afternoon (right now actually). They have guest speakers discussing this. I will keep listening and post a little summary later on, in English naturally.

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Online TV on the rise

May 15, 2009 – 9:41 am

In recent days there has been quite a bit of movement in the online TV market:

Hulu, according to ComScore the third largest online video platform at the moment, extends its reach to countries outside the US. The main reason for this step is the growing demand for online video in countries like Great Britain, France, Germany and Japan.

Hulu’s growth illustrates the growing popularity of long-form videos over the Internet, which Nielsen said last week is the second-fastest-growing form of Web usage after social networking.

According to a survey by the IDC , “77.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video” already,  and “almost half of online video users watch television shows over the Web, while less than one in five watch movies, compared to about two-thirds who watch user-generated content.” Therefore, “streaming online video is about to enter the mainstream media” in the next three years.

Even YouTube has recognized that they can no longer compete with Hulu by just providing user-generated content. That’s why they are making huge efforts to implement premium content in the future. With MGM and Sony already signed, now YouTube is starting to screen feature films and television series as well.

All this is good news to audiences and the moving picture industries alike. The demand for quality content when and where people want is becoming easier to satisfy - for everyone involved.

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Online film marketing: there is no “too early”

May 12, 2009 – 2:07 pm

As you may have gathered from our blog and our Twittering, we had an interesting panel on online film marketing and distribution yesterday. Wolfgang is going to post a summary with some clips in the coming days, but I just wanted to share a statement that was repeated again and again yesterday towards the end of the discussion.

We heard from Katharina Schinkinger, Stefan Häckel and Ernst Lackner about how they went about the online marketing for the Austrian film Contact High. One of the main challenges they faced was that they started quite late in the piece with their marketing. Katharina said that ideally one would start with online marketing as soon as you have a concept for a film. Dr. Zawrel from the Film Fond Wien supported this argument by bringing a great example - the online marketing campaign for Echte Wiener, which started well before the project had funding secured!

Naturally, this is what we preach as well. We cannot stress often enough: it is paramount to start connecting with your peers early on in the piece! Great to see that we have industry support here on that note as well.

Keep your eyes peeled for the summary of yesterday’s event here on filmtiki.com. And thanks to you who came along, watched our stream and/or followed our live tweeting!

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Live-Tweeting

May 11, 2009 – 4:11 pm

If you are on Twitter you can follow our Twitter stream right now. Wolfgang is tweeting like a maniac from Museumsquartier from our event that we are doing in collaboration with the Film Fonds Wien.

I talked before, Cay Wesnigk is talking about online distribution right now, and the audience seems captivated! After a short break we’ll hear from the guys from the Contact High folks, who will talk about their online marketing.

You can also follow our live stream here (German only, folks. Sorry.). Enjoy!

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FilmTiki events in May 2009

May 10, 2009 – 11:55 am

As you know, FilmTiki is also doing offline lectures and workshos, mainly in Austria and the UK. The next couple of weeks will be pretty busy in Vienna.

In co-operation with The Vienna Film Fund, FilmTiki invites you to a panel discussion on Online Film Marketing and Distribution - How to reach, involve and mobilise your audience using new media. The event will take place in Vienna on Monday, 11 May 2009 and features the following speakers:

At the moment more than 75 registered guests will attend the lecture. If you can’t be there, yoiu can also catch the event via live-stream (in German) from 16:00 CEST at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/filmtiki-live-stream.

Ethnocineca 2009On Wednesday, 13 May, Iris Lamprecht will hold a guest lecture at the Universitätslehrgang TV & Film - Produktion at the Danube University in Krems. She will talk about paradigm changes in the film industry and how Social Media can help filmmakers in distibute their movies!

And finally, on Tuesday, 19 May, Wolfgang Gumpelmaier will hold a workshop at this year’s ETHNOCINECA 2009 - the Ethnographic Film and Dokumentary Festival in Vienna. In co-operation with SOHO in OTTAKRING the participants will have one week time to produce a ethnographic documentary, referring to this year’s topic ‘work or don’t work’. In the workshop they will learn about trends in promoting, marketing and distributing a movie online, the use of Web 2.0 for film makers and they will hear about some Austrian and international Video on Demand platforms.

Hope to see you there! And if you can’t make it (or don’t speak German), we will post a summary of tomorrow’s panel including subtitled video footage as well.

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‘Home’ - online release for a good cause

April 30, 2009 – 9:48 am

On 27th April 2009 YouTube announced in it’s blog that:

‚Luc Besson’s and Yann-Arthus Bertrand’s 90 minute full-length film, “Home,” will exclusively be available online on YouTube for English, French, Spanish and German–speaking countries beginning June 5 — just in time for the 37th World Environment Day.’

With their documentary, aerial photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand and french director Luc Besson aim to reach as many people as possible to draw attention to the current state of our planet. For this cause they chose to distribute the movie simultaneously across all channels:

‘Home” will also be shown in movie theaters, outdoors on the big screens at key locations around the globe, and it will air on TV stations around the world. Using this unique distribution model, one with a massive online and offline effort, the film creators are able to reach the widest audience possible.’

What’s special about this? Home will be the first movie ever that has it’s release in different channels, in different countries at the same time - for free! Additionally you get a behind-the-scenes looks from the making of the film on Home’s YouTube channel and all locations filmed in the movie can also be viewed on Google Maps.

Home is a perfect example of combining online and offline channels for promoting and distributing a movie and raise awareness for a certain topic. Filmmakers around the world should watch and learn!

Here’s a preview of Home:

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TriBeCa shorts on YouTube

April 27, 2009 – 10:23 pm

If you cannot be in New York for the TriBeCa Film Festival (like me this year; unfortunately I have not mastered the art of being in various places simultaneously just yet), you can catch some of the shorts in the YouTube Screening Room. I quite enjoyed The Confession: it’s like a joke you’d tell your mates over a beer or two, but as a movie. So, if you want to see some of the shorts that made it into the Official Selection, head over to the Screening Room and watch them now!

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Baby Mama

April 27, 2009 – 7:14 am

Remember that movie last year? It was the opening film at  TriBeCa (where FilmTiki’s Matthew Kerr is at the moment - tweet him @matthewkerr if you want to get hold of him). It was a mainstream comedy, with the wonderfully hilarious Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. It was reasonably successful. I want to find out what they did in terms of their online marketing, though, and if they took Social Media use habits of new mums (who were one of their target audiences, for sure) into account:

According to an new report from Nielsen, new mothers just love Social Media. They turn to the web to connect with others, are more likely to participate (on Social Networking sites like i.e. Facebook, whose “population” consists of more women than men in general) and also publish content, like blog.

Social Media use and new mothers

The high online engagement of new mothers is not just a 2009 phenomenon. This is something I have been seeing in online demographic and usage reports since 2006.

In fact there are a lot of parenting, mum and baby-themed blogs out there, that are highly successful, something we also discovered quite early during our research for our database. So if you want to engage and audience of new mums, go online. You are definitely going to find them there!

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Social Media use amongst Baby Boomers is rising

April 20, 2009 – 12:56 pm

Something I get a lot when consulting or holding workshops are raised eyebrows as to the target audience for Social Media. Lots of people think that either only Teens or Twens or geeks with heaps of time to waste are using Facebook et. al. Well, that’s simply not true - something I try to show with numbers and reports, like this latest one by Forrester. From their blog:

We all know that young consumers, both in Europe and the US, have adopted social media avidly. But what about their parents’ generation – the Baby Boomers (those aged 43 to 63)? How are they using social media? Well, I’ve just finished a piece that looks at the Baby Boomer generation in Europe and their social media activity, and found that this audience are also starting to integrate social media into their daily lives.

For example, more than one-third of European online consumers ages 43 to 63 already read social media such as blogs and forums on a regular basis, and around one-tenth are already uploading their own content — such as videos and music — onto the Web. Overall, 47% of Younger Boomers (online adults ages 43 to 52) now engage with social media on a regular basis, and 41% of Older Boomers (those ages 53 to 63) do. Boomers in the different European countries exhibit different behaviors, just as their younger compatriots do – for example, 69% of Dutch 43- to 52-year-olds (and 60% of 53- 63-year-olds) use social media on a regular basis, whilst only around a third of German Boomers do.

What this means for filmmakers is that contrary to popular opinion, utilizing Social Media to engage your audience is not just something that works for animated and geek movies that are overwhelmingly watched by a younger audience. You can also reach Baby Boomers with a variety of interests via Social Media. Give it a shot!

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Internet bigger than TV

April 10, 2009 – 7:55 am

Soon… in Europe at least.

Just before Easter I thought I’d share with you this little report from Microsoft, that states that the Internet will overtake TV as the most consumed media by mid-2010. That’s pretty soon. ReadWriteWeb has a nice little rundown of the main facts here.

Interestingly enough, they don’t think that online video will replace TV altogether. Well, neither do I, but I seriously think that the number of people watching TV shows or other video content via their PCs or DVRs that are hooked onto the web will increase rapidly, especially as broadband takes over Southern Europe.

Read the report here. And if you are celebrating Easter or having the weekend off - have fun!

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Panel picks from this year’s SXSW

April 1, 2009 – 9:12 am

Like Scott Kirsner posted in the Cinematech Blog this year’s SXSW came up with some interesting panels for the indie filmmaker. Unfortunately FilmTiki couldn’t be there, but luckily there are some excellent blog reports and videos we’ve found that come directly from the source.

You’ll find a great summary on Self Distribution Not All by Yourself at the Film Panel Notetaker Blog , including the Q+A with panelists Scott Macaulay, Richard Abramowitz, Caitlin Boyle, Chris Hyams and Jon Reiss.

Scott Kirsner was one of the panelists on Marketing Meets New Media: Building Your Audience Online and posted an hour-long audio file. Thank you, very obliging!

Here’s a compilation of tweets provided by Roger Erik Tinch which he posted on Cinevegas’ Twitter during The Future of the DVD and Digital Distribution discussion.

Here are some thoughts from the other side on Building Your Brand with Web 2.0 Tools and the online presentation of The Future Of Social Networks via Slideshare.

Within the Festival, Scott Kirsner interviewed some industry experts on topics like film financing, creative commons licensing, new business models and You Tube. Read his blog post on Cinematech and download the conversation on mp3.

And last but not least, watch some video of the panels on FilmTiki’s YouTube Channel.

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Some interesting movie competitons

March 31, 2009 – 8:42 am

In the last few weeks I have come across some rather interesting film competitions which I don’t want to keep secret!

‘Rewarding creativity’ is the slogan of the online global network www.filmaka.com. They provide monthly competitions where you can win prizes and find an audience for your movie. This month the topic is ‘hard times’, and they are looking for films up to 3 minutes long. Films submitted should have the potential to be developed further into a long-running TV series or movie, or an ongoing internet series. The competition closes at 24:00 on Sunday, April 19th.

My second tip is for children’s film makers. This year’s Cinekid - Film, Television and New Media Festival for Children is being held in Amsterdam from 18-25 October 2009, and they’re running a nice competition with a cash prize of €15.000. There is no entry fee, but you have to submit two copies of your film with English subtitles before July 1 2009.

I have also found a festival which aims to reach all producers of mobile video content - The Portable Film Festival. Now in its third year, it’s an international festival of film and user-created content. The festival works just like traditional festivals, but the films are only screened via portable video devices. The submission is free and opened March 1 2009. The winners are chosen by votes submitted by the user community from August 1 to midnight, August 31st.

And finally, a few days ago the FEST International Film Festival Portugal approached us and asked us to spread the word. So here it is: FEST will take place between June 21-28 and aims to create an opportunity for new directors up to 30 years old to show their work. Films submitted can be entered in the following categories: Fiction, Documentary, Experimental, Animation and Music Video clip. There’s also the Silver Castle competition for debut feature film. The submission deadline is April 20 2009

I hope there’s something here for you - if not, don’t miss our future posts because I’m sure we’ll come up with a competition for you soon.

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