Film making is undertaking a bit of a revolution at the moment, a bit of an underground secret revolution. Or not so secret, it’s kind of both depending on who you are. For many, many years the whole concept of film and tv production was owned by large companies. It wasn’t always the production company that was huge, but to get anything made and distributed you had to place your work in the hands of tv executives or one of the film giants.
There have always been independent film makers, of course. But outside of recognition in one of the bigger festivals it was rare to make money from them, unless you signed a deal with one of the giants. Indeed many of the independents used festivals as a way to catch the eye of the larger companies, their independent films were little more than a stepping stone to another world.
The rise of digital release hasn’t just tipped the scales, it’s pretty much destroyed them. Whilst most of the things you see at the cinema or on a terrestrial or cable network are going to be from a giant media corporation, a lot of people are making a lot of money from going it alone.
This has produced a strange world where making and releasing an independent project is no longer part of a chain, it can now be the final step. You can stick your work straight on YouTube and, if it’s successful enough, make enough money to at least finance the next project. Better than that the world of Netflix and Amazon Video are now within reach, where you can have your project on platforms that are largely being considered the direct replacement for the TV channels of old. The money isn’t bad either and it’s quite possible to make an exceptionally good living if you can produce content.
That’s the one caveat if you go the Netflix route, they aren’t a traditional channel and don’t have any production facilities. If you want to sell them something you have to deliver a ready to go package. Hard enough if it’s the epic independent film you’ve been dying to make, harder still if you’re trying to craft an episodic series. Making one as a pilot was always costly and difficult, but creating an entire series, ready to go, and meeting the production quality that will get you the recognition and allow you a real seat at the bargaining table is a tricky task.
I co-founded a little reviewing channel on YouTube called Film Flickers movie review show. It’s tiny, it doesn’t even appear on the YouTube radar really but the sheer thrill of seeing in the stats that people are watching what you’ve produced is amazing. At the point that i’m writing this over 2,000 people have looked at content i’ve made. That’s a tiny amount, even compared to the modest success stories that YouTube has produced, but it’s an incredible thing to behold when you just want to put content out there.
My next project is a sketch show called Dr Munkins Island of the Man Eating Cheese. It’s slightly off the wall comedy, moving to downright insane in some of the sketches. I’m putting a team together and i’ll be putting it on YouTube again. Am I expecting it to make me a millionaire? No, but I am expecting it to produce the currency that appears to make the larger percentage of YouTubers keep coming back with more content, views. Every time someone looks at your work, even if they’re a member of your family or a friend, it’s someone who took the time to sit there and watch a video you made. And it’s addictive, until I took a hold of myself I was looking at the stats everyday. Seeing the view numbers slowly creep up was an incredible thing. We released a review of the first series of Jessica Jones and it got over 200 views, again that’s chicken feed compared to a lot of YouTubers, but it was amazing for me.
And this is the point, despite YouTubes adverts which concentrate of the YouTubers that have made a career from this, they have millions of subscribers and make enough from advertising to actually make it their day job. The vast majority of YouTubers are just getting a few hundred views, but they still come back. And it’s because it’s worth it. If you can get through the first dislike and the first horrible comment then you can keep making content and people will keep coming back.
And this is the revolution, and it’s a subtle one. We now watch more YouTube videos that we watch Television. For a lot of people YouTube has become the first step when they want to be entertained. And there will always be new content, because YouTube has made it possible for everyone to be a production house. If you can afford some kind of camera you can make a video and upload it onto YouTube and someone WILL watch it.
YouTube have now started to roll out their Red service. This service allows users to subscribe for a small fee. Doing that will give them access to exclusive content and less adverts. This is a big step for YouTube on the road to becoming a viable replacement for the Television networks. The future of Film and Television production has never been so fluid, and the traditional players have no answer to the new sources of video yet.