FILMMAKER BLOG  Monday, February 09, 2009
IS PIRACY THE NEW FIRST WEEKEND?
In a post a couple of weeks ago entitled " Taken and the Piracy Effect," I wrote about the surprise theatrical success of the French action film Taken, which topped distributor forecasts despite the fact that it has been easily available on the filesharing sites for almost a year. Of course, the film's killer trailer and TV campaign had something to do with it as well, but the fact that the early word from the downloaders was overwhelmingly positive (see the quotes from the various bulletin boards in my original post) I'm sure had something to do with convincing fanboys that this was not just a generic studio programmer (okay, maybe it convinced them that it was a kick-ass generic studio programmer). This weekend the film's box-office run continued; it dropped a very modest 17%. It's clear that a leak of a bad studio film can cripple a film's box-office take, but what if the film delivers? Then, the word-of-mouth may do what a solid first weekend used to do before the days of saturation releasing -- stoke the buzz needed to ensure future returns. My post prompted a reader named Jonathan in South Carolina to write the below letter, reprinted with permission. One of art film's biggest hurdles, we often think, is its graying audience. But what if there is a new, younger audience that is simply unresponsive to the traditional releasing patterns specialty distributors are locked in to? For this reader, platform releasing and the failure of titles to play the regional market present an ethical dilemma. Read: First off, I want to say I love Filmmaker Magazine. I read your blog post titled "Taken and the Piracy Effect." I want to know what effect you think this has on smaller indie films, if you haven't already talked about the subject before? In the last year I have seen more films on the internet than in theaters (more or less on Netflix too). Just a couple of weeks ago, I viewed the outstanding Wendy and Lucy, Slumdog Millionaire, and Frozen River online and I watched Happy-Go-Lucky a few months before it was released in the US (great film also). Don't get me wrong, if those films were playing at my local theatre, I will see them posthaste, but there are but a few art houses in South Carolina. The Nickelodeon Theatre is probably the only one. Now, you must be thinking I not your average moviegoer. I do read the online reviews, interviews, and festival coverage (SXSW, Fantastic Fest, Sundance) before I put down my $6.50 adult ticket (if those films hopefully get a distributor). I feel like I'm stealing from the writer's/director's artistic copyright, but I'm not the one uploading screener DVD's on the web. I just like to watch Hannah Takes the Stairs and The Puffy Chair for free (or to purchase them) because of the positive reviews of Indiewire. Am I just as bad as the film pirates? I hope not. I'm absolutely not.
Comments (4)
I hate to say it, but yes, you are part of the problem. I had a conversation with someone very much like you recently. He is a nice guy, interested in cinema, but couldn't be bothered to wait or track down legal copies of movies so he would just go to bit torrent and watch everything. He felt that the industry made so much money off everyone else that it wasn't a problem. He's wrong, and so are you.
If an artist chooses to release their material for free then go for it. I just watched a wonderful vblog from the musician Imogen Heap where she is offering a vocal track for free and asking people to remix it and share it. (see it here) That's great. But she's doing that in the hope that she will build an audience who will ultimately buy her albums and pay for tickets to her concert. Otherwise she ceases to exist.
I believe in new models, I believe in Creative Commons, I believe in crowd sourcing. But we live in a world where rents need to get paid and when you download WENDY & LUCY for free you make it harder for Kelly and Anish and Neil and Michelle to make their next film. Ask them: when they go to talk to investors to support their art the investors will tell them they are hesitant because they can't make their money back.
I don't believe you that you would be happy to pay for these films. You would be happy to sometimes pay for them but when push comes to shove, if you want it now you'll take it. It's a generation that believes that free is their right and it's going to hurt when you put your material into the world and find out that noone wants to pay for it.
So, yes, you're part of the problem because you view being lazy as an excuse for theft. Want to know why? I just went to the Nickelodeon website and they are going to be playing Wendy & Lucy:
APRIL 1-7, Wednesday-Thursday
Wednesday, April 1 - 3:00, 6:00 and 8:00 *Premiere Night*
Thursday, April 2 - 6:00 and 8:00
Friday, April 3 - 3:00, 6:00 and 8:00
Saturday, April 4 - 3:00, 6:00 and 8:00
Sunday, April 5 - 3:00, 6:00 and 8:00
Monday, April 6 - 6:00 and 8:00
Tuesday, April 7 - 6:00 and 8:00
I hope you'll go buy a ticket.
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posted by Noah Harlan @ 2/09/2009 10:38 PM
Hey Noah,
I'm sort of playing here both sides of the argument, and in printing the letter I'm giving the poster the benefit of the doubt by taking him at face value, i.e., that he would legally pay for the film if he had a way to do it. Also, I have always rejected the zero-sum approach to evaluating piracy. In other words, I don't believe that every download is automatically a lost ticket sale. The question for me in this specific and somewhat academic look at the situation is whether a downloader like Jonathan creates word-of-mouth that offsets the negative effect of the piracy.
As a producer, though... I empathize with your response. I produced a film a few years ago that got great reviews (86% on Rotten Tomatoes) but barely crept over $1 million in box office. In the old days, we used to think that a $2 million box-office gross was a sign of some kind of success (now, none of the mini-majors would be happy with that number). I happened to be out with a family member and his fiance, who was not in the film business. I mentioned the film Robin and I had in the theaters and the woman said, "Oh, I hear it's really good -- all my friends have seen it." "At the Angelika?" I asked. "No, they all downloaded it," she said. I was bummed for us and for the filmmaker as all of us would have had our careers boosted by a bigger b.o. number.
On the other hand, once while attending the Sarajevo Film Festival a kid came up to me and asked if I produced "Gummo" and said that it was one of his favorite films. When I said I didn't know the film got a release in Bosnia, he said he bought it bootleg (the old, non-downloadable kind). In this case I was really happy that a film that had few foreign sales was still getting out there.
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posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/09/2009 11:32 PM
Scott,
we've had considerable experience with bootlegging/piracy and, in sum, think we've benefited tremendously from it.
BusinessWeek wrote about the piracy issues we faced with our documentary Cocaine Cowboys last July:
http://tinyurl.com/5m86s9
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posted by Alfred Spellman @ 2/10/2009 5:04 PM
I have to more or less agree with Noah. It just seems so unlikely that a guy who's seeing HAPPY-GO-LUCKY months in advance of its US release is really going to check it out in theaters when it makes it to him. Maybe Jonathan will, but 9 viewers out of 10 won't.
Notice that he saw SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE online, as well--a film that is almost certainly playing near him. Did he catch up with it in a theater?
(And if he REALLY wants my sympathy, he shouldn't mention that an adult ticket in his town is $6.50...a price point I haven't seen in well over a decade. For crying out loud, that's a value meal at McDonald's!)
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posted by @ 2/11/2009 4:44 AM
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