INTERVIEW WITH SCOTT KIRSNER ON “FANS, FRIENDS & FOLLOWERS”
Mar 31 | Author: Roger Erik Tinch
If there’s one person knowledgeable enough to write a book on harnessing the power of new media in the entertainment industry it’s Scott Kirsner. Between putting on some amazing conferences like The Conversation and Future Forward; moderating panels at SXSW and Sundance; and writing a weekly tech column for the Boston Globe; Scott has been conducting dozens of interviews with artists and creators for his newest book Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age. He was kind enough to take part in an e-mail interview with the CineVegas Blog where he discusses some of the insight he gained while writing the book.
What are some basic things every filmmaker should do in beginning to cultivate an audience online?
There are lots of strategies that are important, but here are two I’d put at the top. First, think about what you can share with your audience while you are working on the film, and ways you can get them involved. Can you post snippets of interviews for your doc on YouTube? Can you get people to help you find inexpensive locations to shoot your romantic comedy? Can you cast extras online? Second, find Web sites that are willing to work with you to start reaching your audience – ideally, sites that already connect with your prospective audience already. If you’re making a doc, there may be sites about the issue you’re dealing with (unjust incarceration, for instance), or there may be genre-oriented sites if you are making a narrative feature. It’s incredibly tough to aggregate a big audience from scratch – much easier to partner with sites that have been around for a while and rely on them as channels to reach people. But you can’t just ask them to promote you without delivering any benefit to them. You have to contribute in some way to what they’re doing, sometimes with exclusive content or “sneak peeks” or neat opportunities for their readership.
New media is a constantly evolving landscape from trends to platforms, do you expect a few standards to come out of this or are artists forced to constantly change their game plan? And is it important for them to?
I think there are some things that are constants, like making people feel like they’re part of your process, involved, and are in some way supporting what you’re doing. But I do agree that there’s a constantly-evolving landscape out there. MySpace was once much more powerful than it is today. E-mail newsletters were once more effective than they are today. And you always have new things, whether it’s Twitter or live video Webcasting from mobile phones with services like Qik, that can be effective ways of communicating with your fan base.
Established artists like Joss Whedon and Radiohead have been able to capitalize successfully on these new ways of distribution, but what chance do unknowns have in this landscape and what can they do to overcome this disadvantage?
Look, I do think that if you can do what Joss and Radiohead do, which is leverage the power of established media companies and their distribution channels while also doing some DIY experimentation, that’s not a bad thing. But I also believe there is incredible opportunity for total unknowns right now. You have access to the tools to make what you want, inexpensively. And you have access to all these distribution channels – DVD production, CD production, book production, digital downloads – that were really locked up just five or ten years ago. What can you do to overcome the power imbalance? You start by making really remarkable stuff that no one else is making, focus on a niche audience, and then experiment with different ways to grow that small initial audience. The main advantage that unknown artists have is that they can be flexible. They can try new approaches to making a movie, new ways of getting people involved, new forms and formats and genres. I think established artists, especially those that work with a big media company, feel pulled to always go down the same well-worn paths.
After interviewing so many different artists and creators for the book did you discover any overall theme for success in this digital age?
There are about 20 different themes that I touch on in the opening section of the book. But one overarching theme is that thinking like a marketer and an entrepreneur takes a lot of time and energy. You need to carve out time to develop new ways of connecting with your audience and exposing them to your work. Some people will inevitably feel like that time is stolen from doing the creative work they want to do. But I think the unfortunate reality is that hoping for success the old way – having some studio or record label or publisher discover you and make you a star – is not a great strategy anymore for the vast majority of people.
Are you planning to do any interesting things in distributing this book or cultivating the audience for it that play upon some of the successful strategies that your interviewees speak about?
I’m trying to adopt as many of their great ideas as possible. One is thinking about the mix of what to give away for free, versus what to charge for. I have a pretty long sample from the book on my Web site (www.scottkirsner.com/fff), which includes a few of the artists interviews in their complete form. I have a bunch of “bonus material” on the Web site. But I am charging for the paperback, and for the complete version of the e-book. (I’m using a digital distribution service, E-Junkie, that the filmmaker Hunter Weeks turned me on to.) Another strategy is that I’m focusing much more on connecting with blogs (like yours) than traditional media. I did a lot of traditional media outreach for my last book, Inventing the Movies, and often found that online outlets actually drove more sales. Most of the artists I interviewed for Fans, Friends & Followers underscored that dynamic. When you get coverage online, the reader is just one click away from making that purchase.
We’ve got three copies of Fans, Friends & Followers to give away to anyone who comments below with their thoughts on “what’s the best online promotion or community-building you’ve seen a filmmaker do?” Or, “who are the filmmakers who’ve done the best at communicating with their audience on the Web?” We’ll pick at random on Friday so please participate by then. Thanks!
See also:
Mar 31 at 09:22
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the huge amount of ground swell support Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has received for embracing alternative distribution models. I view his foray into the new school of digital distribution as more genuine than say Radiohead’s.
With things like alternate reality games (ARG’s) and stand alone video vignettes, I see new and interesting way of captivating audiences and driving interest to the finished creation.
People like Joss Whedon and Trent Reznor can leverage their pre-existing bankable fan-base, are far more difficult to do that as a “nobody.”
I feel that there is still an essential real-world networking component, that requires an “in-your-face” approach that can complement your online-presence.
Apr 01 at 10:50
I agree with what Merrel Davis said. Trent Reznor’s take on using new medias to promote his projects has been phenomenal. While newer and unknown artists and projects might not get the huge numbers that he or Radiohead or other such projects did, it’s an idea to show people ways to play with the differing landscapes of promotion that exist today.
Great interview!
Apr 02 at 06:58
The swell of independents doing new and always different stuff online is incredible.
From Susan and Arin with Four Eyed Monsters where they had incredible online support through their virals and steadily built an audience into a national expressway for showing the feature film to Lance Weiler with Head Trauma who was super experimental not only regarding distribution but also in the actual film making presentation.
For me these two examples of film makers using the our new tool to make their films is inspirational.
My personal favorite must be the Rip: remix manifesto Documentary by Brett Gaylor. The topic, web presence and method of aggregation are succinct and streamline. So good!