Fringe Theory: Why We Don't Need the Man (page 3 )
by Angela Robinson, September 18, 2006
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But let's take another look at the conventional wisdom.
1) “Movies cost a lot of money to make.” Not true. The tools of production are now inexpensive and easy to use. Everybody's got a DV camera lying around, get yourself Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools, and make a movie on your desktop.
2) “Movies are hard to distribute, and get into theaters and sell on TV.” Not necessarily. We have the technology to distribute movies and content over the internet and via the awesome international gay film festival network. Distributing content over the internet is in its infancy, but here's why I think it will be the future of niche programming (i.e., the gays):
 I made a lezzie movie a couple of years ago called D.E.B.S. — a project close to my heart. It was supposed to “cross over.” Teenage girls, short skirts, light-hearted comedy, what could go wrong? Except, as I've stated, a studio won't or can't invest that much money marketing a movie when they're not sure what the return on that spending will be. And these are not evil studio bean counters but good people who want the movie to succeed. But honestly, putting up a billboard on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles isn't going to find the D.E.B.S. audience.
So the movie tanks, and I'm depressed, and then a few months later, a friend of mine emails me and says, “Did you know there are D.E.B.S. sites popping up on the internet?” Well, no I didn't. I check around, and sure enough, an audience has found the movie. Slowly but surely, D.E.B.S. was accumulating a fan base. Small, yes, but specific and passionate.
So I log onto one of the sites, All Things DEBS (Wassup! A shout-out to the site which you can find here), because I want to see who the hell are these people who found my small, silly movie with basically no marketing and care enough to actually write about it? And I was shocked, because people were writing in from Kentucky and Kuala Lumpur, and the Philippines and Oregon, and Canada and Australia, and I was like, “Holy crap, this is the D.E.B.S. audience. Who knew?” They were small and smart and diverse and all ages and genders and from all over the planet, and they found the movie and each other on the internet.
So, I'm thinking: This is a beginning. Here they are, and there's probably more of them out there. I should build this audience. Why not make movies directly for that audience? For like-minded people. I'd hazard a guess that the people who liked D.E.B.S. would like Buffy, would like South of Nowhere (go to iTunes and buy it right now — I mean it, right now), would like Strangers in Paradise, etc. I'm thinking to myself: Why soft-pedal your message to reach the most amount of people? Why don't you say exactly what you want to the people who respond to your work? I don't watch Monday Night Football. It's not for me. D.E.B.S. is not for everybody. The trick is to find the people it is right for.
3) “Studios are the only institutions with enough money to finance movies, ergo we need to ask permission from studios to tell the stories we want to tell.” Again, not true. If you make a movie and distribute it over the internet, you can do whatever the hell you want. You don't need anybody's permission to do anything — it's a brave new world.
My panel epiphany is: We have the power now. We have the tools of creation and the means to distribute our work. We don't have to beg for scraps and try to cross over. We can make our own stuff and let them come over here if they want. In fact, let's break down this here and there crap and just make great, fun, moving, hilarious, intense, bold work. It'll work if we support each other and talk to each other, say on sites like this, right now. The gatekeepers are dying, slowly but surely, and now is the time for the artist to talk directly to the audience, without the middleman. And everybody can be an artist, not just the people on the panel, but each and every one of the people in the audience.
I would love to see Dykeback Mountain, if it happens. Hell, I would like to make it myself. But my hope (and prediction) is that it will be just one of many lezzie movies, TV shows, shorts, books, songs, blogs, whatever. It will happen if we make it, sell it, buy it or give it away. It's in our hands. Get to work.
Thanks for your time. See you next month.
Talk back to Angela at angela@pinkthunderonline.com
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