Matt Hoos: Films live or die by what is on the screen, and to make a work that's not as close to what you want as it could be has such a potential to bite you in the ass.
Gabriel Ricard: Yeah. But sometimes... you can be so in the thick of your idea that your perception of what can work and what won't can get a little screwed up. It's very easy to get petty.
Mark Lewis: If you have a smart director who facilitated your vision... making it better... in a perfect world.
MH: It's such a tough balance between a director being able to put his vision on a film, while respecting the writer's original intent.
ML: Sometimes a writer and director need a third party to negotiate differences. A good producer is key.
Jonathan Penton: What, all, exactly, does a producer do in low-budget film?
GR: As far as I can tell, the producer handles everything the director doesn't want to deal with.
MH: I work in Toronto as a director and actor for Rocket Ace Moving Pictures, and we do a mix of feature film development and new media stuff. We did a four-hour zombie comedy serial called Dead End Days, and have a popular Canadian podcast Cerealized.
GR: New media?
MH: New Media - Internet / Cell Phone / Non-Traditional Media / Video Podcasts... uh.... direct to DVD, lots of serialized short-form entertainment. It's very cool.
GR: I did a podcast a couple months back when I was working security at a video game convention, for VirtualFools.com. I'd like to learn more about it.
MH: I just went to a Toronto-area conference on podcasting and video posting that was quite interesting. It's been weird for us, as we were doing serialized internet works in 2003, and the concept of a "podcast" has sort of grown up around us doing our thing - so that's been fun.
JP: what audience are we looking at/for with podcasting, I ask all?
MH: Well the "big" series such as TikiBarTV draw 625,000 audience a month and pull in $30K/month through ad and merchandising revenue... but we're seeing it get increasingly fragmented.
GR: Podcast offers a lot of potential and freedom in what you want to do....
MH: The "mega success" shows like RocketBoom are probably over, the goal is going to be to speak to a very select dedicated audience that traditional media can't afford to reach. At the conference in Toronto we talked to a lot of people with only 10-100 audience members who were getting a lot of creative satisfaction through just saying what they wanted to say, with no commercial asperations.
JP: I mean, here on the Paseo del Norte, if I go to the 10 houses closes to me, I might find one child who knows what podcasting is.
GR: Well, I go to a ton of anime conventions, and it's a generally well known concept in that circle.
ML: It's apparently huge business in Asia - Japan in particular - could it become so here?
MH: Yeah, but you're automatically dealing with the subset of Internet-connected tech-savvy folk. Which is still bigger than the cinephile audience indies play to.
JP: Good point. It's almost like we're seeing a shift in class... the ability to be a cinephile has shifted away from the metropolises and towards the DSL market.
MH: The big-money podcasts have really catered to the geek audience (tech shows, game shows, anime shows) - As media interconnects more there will be more crossover.
ML: Still, films have potential to find art houses around the world - could your serials find similar distribution?
MH: I know US on-demand networks have started to buy Internet content (like Homestarrunner cartoons). We've sold Dead End Days DVDs to over 30 countries. Cerealized has been watched by something like 1% of all citizens of Tuvalu. There are no theatres in Tuvalu.
GR: Yeah, we're really starting to hit the golden age of major companies sodomizing the Internet for material. I mean, it's been going on for awhile, but it's really starting to become obvious these days. It won't be long, in my mind, before you see webcomics showing up in newspapers, if that hasn't happened already.
MH: True. However digital media allows content producer to (increasingly) bypass the big mega-corps to get their product out there.
MH: Gabriel, Brad informs me that Boondocks and Helen, Queen of the Internet started as webcomics.
GR: Yeah, and Megatokyo got a book deal. And sorry if this is going off-topic too much.
MH: It's interesting though, we've always wondered if webcomics sort of herald the direction other media (like film and TV) are going.
GR: Well, I think so.
JP: We've veered into a good zone... lots of webcomic artists self-publish, several claim that is their only source of income... What does "book deal" even mean these days? Aren't you all analogous to self-publishers?
MH: In our case directly. We published Days as a 350-page script book through Lulu (same as many print-medium webcomics) which we sold to libraries and schools around North America.
GR: The point is, webcomics took off when they started doing everything conventional comics couldn't...and I think we'll see that apply to film, too.
MH: We've spent some time this year designing a new internet series from the concept 'What could change podcasting, the way 24 or The Sopranos changed television?
ML: Do tell, Matt.
GR: This is going to sound really specific, but i think that'll have to involve comedy.
MH: Most of the existing pod-content has been diary / news / or tech based content... all our previous content is comedy. So is there a big exciting narrative that can be a little more personal, but pack the excitement of a high-octane television series. We're looking at adapting a bit of a techno/thriller play one of our writers wrote years ago.
JP: Gabriel, why comedy?
GR: Because comedy seems to be a really effective genre for establishing a new form of media, or a new line of thinking.
ML: But would you limit yourself to the small screen?
MH: Comedy is not only easier to connect with initially, but it also lends itself to you forwarding to friends. A key-component of building on-line audiences.
GR: i mean, look at the indie film boom that went on in the early 90s, a good portion of those films were comedy. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
MH: Also the non-comedy films were genre films. The dawn of radio - comedy shows. Television - comedy shows. Theatre - vaudeville (in North America anyway)... it's absolutely a trend.
ML: How is your DVD distribution going with Days?
MH: We make some money. If we sell 3 DVDs a week, we'll have paid off the series in 9 years.
ML: [laughs]
GR: Awesome.
MH: Seriously, it lets us recoup a couple of grand, and when sales drop off we have the option of selling it to a wholesaler to sell to video stores, etc. We saw no reason to give a percentage on sales to our core audience. If you want to hustle to sell to new markets, then we're willing to share.
