By Jeremy T. Hanke
At the beginning of the year, I was challenged by one of our readers to UPDATE
my commentary on the 2012 state of the industry in a new editorial that was fitting for 2014.
my commentary on the 2012 state of the industry in a new editorial that was fitting for 2014.
Although this should have been a pretty simple thing for someone like me to do, I found that I spent the first three months of this year trying to really wrap my head around everything that’s been going on that’s been intriguing me, confusing me, and leave me feeling strangely MOREexcited about the future than I have been in awhile.
excited about the future than I have been in awhile.
This is not to say that I’ve ever believed that the future was bleak for Indie content creators—quite the contrary, as many of you know, I’ve believed for quite some time that, on a long enough timeline, Indie is the only way in which creative content can develop to truly unprecedented heights. Additionally, I’ve felt like the modern 3D movement from Hollywood was a last gasping effort of life support for something that was in the last stages of a terminal illness.
For much of the latter part of the 20th century, Hollywood policies have been as antiquated as this camera yet new changes may be reinventing it.
However, in a bizarrely unprecedented move, one of the largest studios in Hollywood seems to have reached an amazing equilibrium between themselves and fans of the franchises they own—and this very fact has led to some of the most bizarrely brilliant choices in modern entertainment HISTORY.
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At the same time that Hollywood is going from being a complete Titanic disaster to something new and impressive, new paths have started to arise into the heart of the beast starting with interactive audience building through SOCIAL media, moving on to crowd funding and audience capitalization, and then transitioning into content distributors like Redbox, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. The clout of these now can help bring Indies into deals from a position of strength that they would have had no access to in the past. Our very own Mike Flanagan’s amazing filmmaking combined with his careful rise through these levels leads him to be releasing his Oculus feature to a national theatrical audience in just a few days, for example.
media, moving on to crowd funding and audience capitalization, and then transitioning into content distributors like Redbox, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. The clout of these now can help bring Indies into deals from a position of strength that they would have had no access to in the past. Our very own Mike Flanagan’s amazing filmmaking combined with his careful rise through these levels leads him to be releasing his Oculus feature to a national theatrical audience in just a few days, for example.
And without diminishing any of those achievements, the alternate forms of entertainment CONTINUE to grow in ways that would’ve been completely unimaginable when we founded the magazine.
to grow in ways that would’ve been completely unimaginable when we founded the magazine.
The notion of fully fledged Indie television networks with effects and production quality to rival ESPN and CNN via an internet medium would have been completely inconceivable in 2005, yet we’re now seeing exactly that happen with YouTube networks Geek & Sundry and the Nerdist—or indie-Hollywood hybrids like Machinima.
The growth of crowdfunding beyond “a gun with one bullet in it” (as Mike Flanagan legendarily referred to it after his own successful run for Absentia) into a repeatable and reliable way for content creators to allow fans to help CHOOSE new content to create and for fans to help bring their desires into reality has been absolutely unreal. In that process, it’s blown up so far beyond films and audio albums. Perhaps the biggest and most successful content creators are those who make games, from video games, to trading card games, to paper role playing games. (One company made 1000% of their goal on translating a popular Japanese paper RPG into English.) Interestingly, another large growth group is actually a group that are uniquely useful to us as filmmakers and content creators: engineers! Many small engineering firms that want to make camera stabilizers, lighting rigs, geo-spatial tablets, and inexpensive power banks have turned to the ultimate infomercial of Kickstarter and IndieGogo to make their designs a reality and filmmakers have been able to get access to revolutionary new gear for as much as 50% what it would sell for when everything was said and done.
new content to create and for fans to help bring their desires into reality has been absolutely unreal. In that process, it’s blown up so far beyond films and audio albums. Perhaps the biggest and most successful content creators are those who make games, from video games, to trading card games, to paper role playing games. (One company made 1000% of their goal on translating a popular Japanese paper RPG into English.) Interestingly, another large growth group is actually a group that are uniquely useful to us as filmmakers and content creators: engineers! Many small engineering firms that want to make camera stabilizers, lighting rigs, geo-spatial tablets, and inexpensive power banks have turned to the ultimate infomercial of Kickstarter and IndieGogo to make their designs a reality and filmmakers have been able to get access to revolutionary new gear for as much as 50% what it would sell for when everything was said and done.
With all of these things going on, you can understand why it’s taken so long to write this editorial. Further, because I really want to drill into some of the stranger elements that I’ve only scratched the surface of here, you can look forward to a few MORE in-depth editorials coming soon.
in-depth editorials coming soon.
For now I will tell you what I’ve told you before: now is a VERY exciting time to be making Indie content!
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