This is the first edition of a new Workbook series entitled Case Study that details a projects approach to development, production, post and/or distribution. Like everything else around the Workbook this is an experiment. So if you have suggestions on ways to make it better, know of projects that should be covered, or have questions just drop us an email work [@] workbookproject.com

Since I’m just wrapping up the cinema ARG screenings of HEAD TRAUMA, I thought it would make a good starting point. This case study centers on the cinematic gaming experiments that we conducted around the film over the last year.

GROUP DISCUSSION

One of the features that we hope to build into the Workbook in the coming months is more social discussion. Each Case Study will include a discussion area where the creators of the projects will provide additional insight into the process of making their work.

To join the discussion click here.

IS THEATRICAL DEAD?

I’ve heard a lot of people challenging the theatrical experience - box office numbers are down from previous years, and home theater systems are only getting better. Not to mention all the competition for viewers attention thanks to a 500+ channel universe, broadband and a shrinking amount of free time. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that people still want that communal experience that a theatrical film can provide. But I think that filmmakers need to make the theatrical experience their own and find interesting ways to engage their audiences.

After doing a 17 city, DIY theatrical release for HEAD TRAUMA, I think that traditional theatrical releases of “truly” independent films are a dangerous proposition. It’s next to impossible to pull people into a screening without P&A money. I harnessed the internet to help with grassroots promotion, my social networking friends helped to flyer and sticker for me, they also brought their friends. But a theatrical release is a humbling affair. On average we’d have nights with 25 to 30 people in a screening. On a rare night, we’d have over a 150 people in attendance but often we’d have only 10 or 12. In the end I made money but it was not because of the box office take alone. It was a combination of speaking engagements, poster sales and the fact that I didn’t spend anything on promotion or renting the theaters. I did 50/50 splits with all the theaters to help reduce my risk.

What I think is a more interesting theatrical model is an event driven one. For instance, I’ve been staging a number of one off live events. They are special theatrical events that use a mixture of multimedia, performance, and technology to remix the movie in a new way. Some people have called the events Cinema ARGs (alternate reality games) because of the way they engage the audience in the theater and after they leave.

The cinema ARG is broken into the following parts. This details version 1.0 of the cinema ARG.

THE MUSIC
The evening will consist of Bardo Pond, Espers, Fern Knight and a DJ providing a live score to the movie. I’ve separated the dialog and sound effects tracks, so we can do a total remix of the movie live.

The current remix shows came from a concept we had called CURSED. CURSED the HEAD TRAUMA movie project started as an alternate soundtrack experience for the movie. Similar to how Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon lines up with the WIZARD OF OZ, we created a soundtrack that could line up with HEAD TRAUMA. Turn down the volume on the TV and turn up the volume on the stereo. The following behind the scenes short describes the process.

THEATRICS
The night will include a number of theatrical elements. On stage, we’ve constructed a tent which is key to the story of the film and the hooded figure who is the protagonist’s nemesis will emerge at different times through out the night within the audience. There are fog machines, lighting effects and physical scares. The theatrical elements borrow from a cross between dinner theater on acid and the school of William Castle. William Castle was a famous showman who actually wired the audience’s seats to shock them during screenings of his classic THE TINGLER.

THE GAME
The last element of the evening is a high tech one which allows viewers to use their mobile phones to interact with certain characters from the film. Since I’m working with the IndEx media server to project the film, I’ve been able to easily add subtitles. On screen at key moments a phone number appears. When audience members call the number they’ll hear the hooded figure from the film. Depending on their answers they’ll receive a number of clues. At the conclusion of the movie we’ll ring all the phones in the theater at the same time. Then for the lucky few the film will follow them home as they receive additional calls and text messages that lead them to hidden elements online.This coming show is the first in a series of remix screenings. The release will target universities and museums. Since it is an event the ticket prices are more than double a traditional movie ticket. We’ll see how it goes, but I think it’s an interesting concept that points towards a new type of theatrical experience. I’ll let you know how it all works out.

When it came time to expand the cinema ARG we wanted to make it scalable. The live shows were amazing experiences but putting them on in more than one city was time consuming and costly. Our initial plan was to hold events in LA, London and San Francisco but that quickly changed as we encountered $20,000 fees for a single location.

A CHANGE IN PLANS
We went back to the drawing board. After some careful research and planning it was decided that we would take more of a guerilla approach. By design we wanted the game to still have an offline presence in addition to an expanded online experience.

A partnership was struck with mobmov.org an organization that has 165 chapters and over 4,000 members all over the world. Mobmov.org is a collection of mobile drive-in’s which are operated by hobbyists. They modify their cars with digital projectors and FM transmitters so that people can see and hear the movie from their parked cars.

Once the drive-in’s where in place (Milwaukee, San Francisco, San Rafael, and LA) we started to design the online portion of the ARG. My company Seize the Media does game and experiential design for a wide range of clients such as; movie studios, ad agencies, brands and gaming companies. The key is to focus on the story and characters while making the game engaging for players with varying skill levels. It is important to ensure that the game escalates and hits various story beats. We often find ourselves writing a game bible and then marring it to a hybrid script / visual deck.

MAKING IT ACCESSIBLE
For HOPE IS MISSING the goal was to create a social media driven ARG. We wanted the game to have various levels of interactivity. For instance, someone might just watch the web series and do nothing more - others might choose to dig deeper.

HOPE IS MISSING consisted of four web films that were loaded with hidden clues. The videos were released on stage6, myspace and xbox. By design we wanted to make the ARG (alternate reality game) accessible. In order to do so, we created layers of interactivity that allowed viewers to go as deep into the experience as they wanted.

The Interactive Layers:
1. just watch the videos
2. read the forums
3. dig for clues
4. capture and share clues
5. create their own worlds – blogs, wikis, forums, and chat rooms

THE STORYLINE
Richard Chambers is searching for his fiancee named Hope who has been abducted. Hope returned home after receiving a series of strange late night phone calls from her mother. In the brief conversations her panicked mother is convinced that people are in the house and trying to kill her. After each call Hope phones the police but when they arrive they find nothing and Hope’s mother has no recognition of making any calls or the incident.

After Hope returns home she uncovers her mother’s strange nocturnal behaviors and realizes that her mother is not alone. Hope begins to dig deeper in an attempt to pull her mother out. But then Hope mysteriously disappears - abducted by a hooded figure - her last moments are captured by a surveillance camera.

As the date of Richard and Hope’s wedding approaches he becomes frustrated with the way the police are handling the case. He is determined to marry her on Oct. 20th. But as things are lucking grim Richard receives a strange package in the mail. Inside the package are a number of tapes that show Hope, a strange letter and a return address that only says Deep Throat. Richard reaches out the video sharing sites and social networks in an attempt to spread the word.

THE TAPES ARE RIDDLED WITH HIDDEN CLUES
We created four web episodes with the goal of releasing them leading up to the Warner Bros VOD release of HEAD TRAUMA. Each webisode was riddled with clues. There where audio clues that had backwards masking and subliminal frames that contained ciphers of varying degrees of difficulty. Once solved the clues lead to numerous hidden sites, blogs, social networking profiles and other media. They are what as know as rabbit holes in the ARG community which is a nod to Alice in Wonderland.



The HOPE IS MISSING ARG took a decentralized approach to releasing the game elements. ARGs typically will have many hidden sites and digital assets. For instance the 42 entertainment ARG for the THE DARK KNIGHT, the newest Batman film, has 10 different sites (as of 11.24.07). In order to increase our reach we gathered a number of partners and releasing outlets to help expand our reach.

Media Outlets:
http://myspace.com/hopeismissing
http://stage6.com/hope-is-missing
http://eyespot.com/promotion/headtrauma - the site will only be live through Nov.

Characters:
http://hopeismissing.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/jdoeadc
http://www.myspace.com/northdash
http://twitter.com/northdash

Hidden sites
http://htmob.com
http://denial.htmob.com
http://anger.htmob.com
http://bargining.htmob.com
http://acceptance.htmob.com
http://americandistro.com
http://alert.americandistro.com

SECRET SCREENINGS
As the game unfolded we leaked clues detailing a number of secret HEAD TRAUMA drive-in screenings. In order to find the the locations players remixed a collection of media through http://eyespot.com. As they remixed, certain combinations of footage unlocked hidden clues. These clues provided information about screening locations and point to additional hidden assets.

One of the subtle builds of the game was to blend the storyline of HOPE IS MISSING directly into the VOD promotion of HEAD TRAUMA. As a reward to players we offered a number of free screenings. The screenings were held in Milwaukee, San Francisco, San Raphael, and LA.

I was at the LA screening and over 70 people attended. The audience was a mix of people, some who were playing HOPE IS MISSING, others who discovered the location through friends that were playing, and some had simply stumbled upon the location and saw a movie playing.

The audience was a mixture people. There where those who were playing HOPE IS MISSING, others who discovered the location through friends that were playing, and finally some who had stumbled upon the location and saw a movie playing. During the screening audience members used their mobile phones to interact with the film’s characters. Then after the audience left, the movie followed them home. A couple days after the screening we called and texted everyone with a number of game related messages.

PLAYERS HELP TO SHAPE THE GAME
As players cracked the clues they were lead to hidden media, sites, blogs, and social networking pages. In some cases clues were multi-leveled and required keys in order to crack them. Often these harder clues would lead to a special call-in number that allowed the first 96 players into a special conference call. The calls included players and a number of moles from the game. During the calls players discussed clues and their theories around the game.

ARGs are driven through community interaction so it is common to have moles or people within the game who assist with story or in some cases game direction. Players often help to shape game-play and in the case of HOPE IS MISSING we experience an interesting range of interactions as players created their own blogs, wikis, and forums around the game.

THE STATS AROUND THE GAME

Some of the videos break into the top 10 most watched clips on the Web - Vidmeter 10.18.07

*Player interactions based on aggregation of forum posts and video comments across known outlets (myspace, stage 6, eyespot, etc.) - does not include player generated sites, blogs and forums.

For more info visit movingimage.us

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“Can things possibly get more intense from here? Of course. Horror 2.0 stalks the MoMI with indie auteur Lance Weiler’s multimedia expansion of his psycho-chiller Head Trauma: Audience members will receive menacing text messages and cell-phone calls, some even after the show. “I want to disturb people,” Weiler admits in what sounds like a motto for our times. Slashing at apathy, this is a genre whose dire warnings we ignore at our peril. One way or another, horror follows us home.”

- THE VILLAGE VOICE

“Lance Weiler’s first film, The Last Broadcast — often called the original Blair Witch Project — was shot for less than $1,000. Yet it grossed $4.5 million and became the first film to be transmitted via satellite directly to theaters. His encore? A traveling live-music mashup involving cell phones, big screens, indie rockers and meandering actors… “This is one of the only films where you’ll be asked to keep your cell phone on during the screening,” says Weiler.”

- WIRED

“Director Lance Weiler has created a “remix” presentation of his cult indie horror flick Head Trauma, the result of which sounds like a good approximation of the future of film… As theatres increasingly compete with home entertainment, we believe live film presentations such as this could be a way to keep audiences going out to movies.”

- TREND CENTRAL

Press release - there are two releases one from MoMI and another from me. I worked closely with the museum PR person so that we could maximize our efforts.

CINEMATIC ARG CREATES NEW IMMERSIVE HORROR 2.0 EXPERIENCE - A COLLISION OF MOVIES, MUSIC, GAMING, THEATRICS AND TECHNOLOGY COMING TO THE MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE THIS SAT. JULY 14th @ 6:30pm FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY

This Sat. July 14th the HEAD TRAUMA cinematic ARG (alternate reality game) will unfold at the Museum of the Moving Image in NY. For more info visit http://movingimage.us/site/screenings/pages/2007/index_horror.html

URBAN GAME-PLAY
Even before the audience enters the theater, they will be invited to participate in the cinematic ARG. As audience members approach the screening venue, they will enter the game-play, as the film’s story and characters mix with the surrounding urban environment. There are hidden clues, ringing payphones, and characters from the film scattered throughout the area. Through text messaging, distribution of a cryptic comic book, and cell phone calls, the experience continues into the theater.

THEATRICAL MASHUP
At the center of the cinema ARG is a theatrical mashup of Head Trauma. In Head Trauma, a drifter who returns to his dead grandmother’s house is haunted by feelings of paranoia and troubling visions of a mysterious hooded figure. He comes to believe that someone or something is trying to kill him. For the screening the music track is removed and only the dialog and effects tracks remain. DJs and musicians perform a LIVE soundtrack as characters and props from film emerge from the audience. In addition viewers can use their mobile phones to interact with the movie as it plays.

THE MOVIE FOLLOWS YOU HOME
After the audience leaves the theater the movie will follow them home. Phone calls and text messages will lead audience members to a series of online hidden clues and sites that expand the story of the film. As the ARG unfolds online viewers can contribute and remix video, audio and stills thus becoming collaborators within the evolving story. One of the starting points for the online game is a Head Trauma www.eyespot.com page that allows players to upload, remix and share media that unlocks clues within the game.

“Cinema has classically been a passive experience. The HEAD TRAUMA cinematic ARG creates an immersive story that allows audience members to interact with horror in a new way. It is experiential, viral and can easily be passed from one person to another. The story of HEAD TRAUMA and its characters travel across mediums and devices, along the way creating a horror 2.0 experience that combines technology with scares. It’s about creating a world that the audience can move through, one where a scare can come from anywhere. I want to creep people out in new ways.” says Lance Weiler

WHO’S BEHIND THE EVENT
Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award-winning writer/director. His feature, The Last Broadcast, is currently distributed in over 20 countries. It has the honor of being the first all digital release of a motion picture and enjoyed runs on HBO and IFC. Weiler is recognized as a digital pioneer for the way he makes and distributes his work. He’s been featured in Time and Forbes and on television programs such as Entertainment Tonight and CNN. Wired Magazine called him “one of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.”

A reporter from the Knowledge@Wharton attended the NYC show. The following is an article that appeared in the August issue.

The Movies Meet Web 2.0: Lance Weiler on the New Economic Model for Independent Cinema

Published: August 08, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton

Producing a feature-length motion picture is a daunting task. All the more so if you do it without the support of a major studio using money you have raised yourself. But according to independent filmmaker Lance Weiler, “the real struggle” comes after the film is completed. Distributing a theatrical feature — and doing so profitably — poses an even greater challenge. As Weiler put it during a recent interview with Knowledge@Wharton, “making the film is easy in comparison.”

Weiler believes he has a solution. By expanding the movie into an interactive theatrical event that can leverage such “web 2.0″ concepts as user-generated content and viral marketing techniques, Weiler has carved out a niche that he believes provides an economically viable model for independent cinema.

Weiler knows a thing or two about movie production and distribution. Along with former partner Stefan Avalos, he wrote, produced and directed The Last Broadcast, generally recognized as the first “desktop” feature film. Shot on digital camcorders and edited on a personal computer — way back in 1996 when this wasn’t such an easy task — the cost of the entire production was less than $900. To keep expenses to a bare minimum, the two writer/directors also played lead roles along with friends and colleagues.

In the form of a pseudo-documentary, The Last Broadcast is the story of a group of young people who carry video cameras into the wilderness to uncover the truth behind a disturbing local folk legend and are then brutally murdered. Both the story and the style of the movie bear more than a passing resemblance to The Blair Witch Project, released the following year. Blair Witch went on to gross nearly $250 million worldwide while The Last Broadcast became a minor footnote in film history.

But the inevitable speculation about how The Blair Witch Project may have been influenced by The Last Broadcast has tended to obscure what may be Weiler and Avalos’ most significant contribution to cinema history — pioneering digital distribution. After finishing their low budget production, Weiler and Avalos balked at the prospect of spending thousands of dollars to transfer the movie to film for theatrical presentation. Instead, they partnered with Digital Projection, which had developed a digital cinema projector based on Texas Instruments’ DLP (digital light processing) technology. On March 9, 1998, The Last Broadcast debuted at the County Theater in Doylestown, Pa., using the new technology. With the national release of The Last Broadcast seven months later, the movie became the first feature film to be distributed digitally to multiple theaters, introducing a new era in movie distribution.

Photo essay: Lance Weiler’s Cinema ARG at the Museum of the Moving Image.

To support his next feature, the psychological horror film Head Trauma, Weiler is supplementing the film with live music, props and effects in the theater, actors interacting with the audience outside the theater, and audience participation through cell phones. Weiler believes that this combination of cinematic experience along with live, interactive elements — what he calls a “cinema ARG” or “alternate reality game” — provides an economic model for independent cinema that is more lucrative than standard theatrical distribution, and can help an independent movie cut through the clutter of big media marketing to reach a loyal and profitable niche audience. This participatory version of Head Trauma debuted at International House in Philadelphia on March 31 and played in an expanded version at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image on July 14. [See photo essay: Lance Weiler's Cinema ARG at the Museum of the Moving Image.]

Knowledge@Wharton recently sat down with the 37-year-old Weiler near his home in Bucks County, Pa., to discuss his ideas on independent movie distribution and how he hopes to find a sustainable economic model for independent filmmakers. An edited version of that conversation follows.

Knowledge@Wharton: How did you become a filmmaker?

Weiler: I started with still photography. My dad was an amateur photographer and I worked with him in his darkroom. He gave me a camera at an early age and, by the time I was in third grade, I had single-lens reflex cameras with interchangeable lenses. By junior high, I was selling my photographs.

Then, in high school, I fell in love with film because I realized it was 24 still frames per second, and I started making my first films.

I originally thought I was going to be a photojournalist. I was drawn to documentary films — like High School by Frederick Wiseman, which [was filmed] in Philadelphia.

What really moved me was the collision of photojournalism and documentary film. I think that is where The Last Broadcast came from later on.

Knowledge@Wharton: Were you then shooting on Super 8 or 16mm film?

Weiler: I bought a windup Bolex 16mm camera with money that I had saved. I would get in trouble for processing film in the bathtub — which isn’t too environmentally sound, but at the time I didn’t know any better.

And then I got interested in docs [documentary films] and experimental film. When you ask people what movie they have seen the most, some people will tell you something like Star Wars. The film that I have viewed the most is [the avant-garde abstract] film by Stan Brakhage called Dog Star Man.

Knowledge@Wharton: How did you get the idea that you could create a movie digitally using camcorders and a PC?

Weiler: It really came out of the frustration with the [filmmaking] process. [My partner] Stefan [Avalos] had gotten screwed over for the distribution [of his first] movie. I had been trying to raise money to shoot a science fiction film that I wanted to do on 16[mm film] and I could not raise enough money.

Stefan was always interested in computers. I became more interested as I was reading about advancements in technology. And — I’ll never forget — I was sitting in the train station after working a long day and I picked up a copy of Videography or some computer-related magazine. As I was flipping through [the pages] I read about this new [computer] board that would allow you to capture video.

That was a pivotal moment. My head started spinning about the concept that maybe I didn’t have to rely on the economics of film. And Stefan and I began building our own computers [with this] board and started struggling through a lot of very early desktop editing stuff. Then it became: “Well, we have these tools, why don’t we see if we can make a movie?”

The Last Broadcast really started as a lark. It was to say, “How little can we make a movie for?” When we totaled it up, it was something like $860, which we rounded up to $900.

Economics was at the base of it. We wanted to do something [to reduce] the cost of making the film. [Once] you’ve done the movie, all the festivals [would say], “If you want to show it, you have to take it to a print,” which was a $30,000 to $40,000 investment, something we didn’t want to do.

It’s funny when you look back at that little movie. Ironically, [later, people] would say that The Last Broadcast became “the first broadcast.” It was the start of the digital revolution in filmmaking. Basically we were saying: “This is stuff anybody can get — it’s all within reach and now you can make movies.” It was that simple.

Knowledge@Wharton: How long did it take to make The Last Broadcast?

Weiler: We started the film in the fall of 1996. The movie had its premiere to the public in the spring of 1998. The movie took a long time because we created our own [techniques to make the image] look different from the way video looked at the time.

We were working with 166 megahertz systems with 48 or 64 megs of RAM [system memory]. For us to render the “film look” that we came up with, took over 80 days.

We were done with a cut of [the movie] in 1997 but we were then trying to work out exactly how we would screen it.

Knowledge@Wharton: While you were working on the movie, were you thinking about how people were going to see it? Since you weren’t working on film and all the theaters had film projectors — how did you think your movie was going to get seen?

Weiler: We had started reading about new [DLP-based digital] projection technology. At that time the market was stagnant. Everybody was talking about digital cinema, but nobody wanted to take the first step. It was a chicken-and-the-egg thing.

So we thought, “Maybe there’s a fit here. Why don’t we try to demonstrate a business model for this?” Knowing that it was stalled on the studio side, [we realized] there might be a window of opportunity there.

But outside of that, we weren’t really sure. It was like, “Well, maybe we’ll end up showing it on bad projection or projecting it off of Beta SP.”

Knowledge@Wharton: You finally did a theatrical projection with DLP projectors?

Weiler: Yes. It didn’t come together until the very end. It was very dramatic: “We’re getting closer to the date, closer to the date.” And we didn’t have the money yet to do it.

We were talking to this satellite company and they started asking about who else we were talking to. [When] they started naming other satellite companies, I kept saying, “We can’t talk about that. We can’t talk about that.”

And [when] they [mentioned] their biggest competitor, I said, “We have to go now; we can’t talk anymore.” We got off the phone and my co-producer said, “What are you doing, are you crazy?”

And I said, “We should just wait. I think they’re going to come back.” And sure enough, they called back in like a half an hour and they doubled what they offered. We ended up working with them.

Knowledge@Wharton: How did the funding work for the digital projection?

Weiler: It was a sponsorship, basically. We reached out to a number of [companies] who were building a projector around the DLP chip. We [sent] them a form letter saying, “We have this movie, it’s like cinema from the past meets cinema from the future.” We thought it was a great concept. And it was just like crickets — nobody responded. We were like, “Wow, this is such an opportunity; why won’t they respond?”

It was getting close to the time when we needed the projection to show at the County Theater in Doylestown. I took the form letters I had written and I purposely mixed the address labels so [each] would go to one [company] but it would have their competitor’s [name] on it so they would know I was talking to other people.

Then they all called. We ended up with a free projector anywhere in the world for two years. And [based on] what we did together, Digital Projection took the projection into the Sundance Film Festival and did [work] with the Academy Awards and the Emmys.

Knowledge@Wharton: What’s the outlook now for getting an independent movie distributed?

Weiler: The problem is that what we helped usher in is now creating a bottleneck. So many people are making work and the production costs have been reduced so much, that the volume of work being made can’t fit the current release structure. It’s overburdening festivals, there’s not enough shelf space in retail or rental outlets, and the promise of digital distribution just isn’t quite there yet. You have a flood of work, but not enough outlets.

Knowledge@Wharton: But there are now a number of distribution options: the web, DVD, theatrical presentation. What are the pros and cons of each of these?

Weiler: Theatrical is very difficult unless you have P&A money — “printing and advertising money” — where the studios say, “We’ll put in $20 million or $30 million to promote this film through traditional outlets — ads in newspapers, radio, TV and some basic online component.”

For an independent filmmaker, theatrical is a difficult proposition because you are competing against [the major studios]. When you can get booked into a small art house cinema you are fighting against this huge promotion machine that’s basically “Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man 3.” And you have this little [movie] that you are trying to attract people to. So theatrical [distribution] is very difficult.

Knowledge@Wharton: Your interactive events based around Head Trauma are essentially theatrical presentations. How are they different from a standard theatrical release of a movie?

Weiler: Head Trauma and the cinema alternate reality game — the “cinema ARG” — invert the typical theatrical relationship. When I did the 17-city theatrical release for Head Trauma, it was a 50-50 split. I didn’t 4-wall any of the screens — 4-wall is when you rent the theater and get 100% of the box office. But you’ve laid out the cash, so it’s a dangerous proposition.

I came out ahead for the entire theatrical [run], but with this event-driven model I’ve inverted the relationship. Now they are [giving me] a minimum guarantee. So before I even step foot into the building, I’ve already done better than I was doing theatrically in a week-long run.

Events are interesting for independent films, because you have to try to do something different from what’s happening in the market.

Knowledge@Wharton: But in the case of the Head Trauma ARG, you have musical performers and a bigger ensemble involved in the presentation. Aren’t your overhead costs higher?

Weiler: It depends on how you structure it. If you find the right partners, you can get away from a lot of the really hard costs. We put on [the debut event in Philadelphia in March] for next to nothing. I came out ahead and everybody got paid. Outside of the band’s performance and what they had to pay, I maxed out on rental [costs] of like $150 for amps and that was it.

Everything else was stitched together from things that I could borrow or what-not. In New York [at the Museum of the Moving Image] it’s a little bit different. Now there is a larger guarantee that we walk in with. So now there’s more money to do things.

Knowledge@Wharton: How does the guarantee work?

Weiler: It is basically a minimum guaranteed [payment] — saying, “[We'll give you] $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 to do this event. Once we break even on what we’ve paid you, then we do a split with you.” So it’s a much better relationship, because you know that you’re making that money when you come in. It’s not as speculative as trying to get people into the theater.

Knowledge@Wharton: Looking at other distribution methods — what about releasing on DVD?

Weiler: With DVD and physical media, shelf space is the biggest issue. A lot of the retail outlets are feeling the pinch, because sales in general of DVDs have flattened, with the exception of TV on DVD.

And then you have a format struggle between Blu-Ray and HD DVD, the two high-definition formats. So what was limited shelf space to begin with is now [seeing] encroachment from those [media]. And if you’re not putting money towards marketing or promotion within the stores — like paying to have an end cap [display at the end of the aisle] — then you’re just taking up space. They can make more money off someone else.

Rental has gotten to a point where now [they are] trying to get you to “spindle” your product — which basically means that for the honor of throwing away the box, they are going to cut your price by 60% for you to give them just the disc and the artwork. And maybe if you have enough muscle, you might be able to “rev share” [revenue share] with them, but then you’ll have to deal with collecting those royalties later.

So at one point when we were doing The Last Broadcast, we had more than 100,000 units that we were moving into the marketplace in a short period of time. With Head Trauma, I’m somewhere around 25,000 units, which a couple of years ago would have been around 40,000 or 50,000 units. So there’s definitely been a consolidation within that industry.

Knowledge@Wharton: Don’t online sales of DVDs help to resolve the shelf space problem? Aren’t Amazon.com and “long tail” retailers creating a new distribution channel for physical media?

Weiler: Yes, you have interesting new models and, for Head Trauma, the larger amount of sales for the physical media came from online.

Knowledge@Wharton: Within DVD distribution there is a range of options. [Your former partner] Stefan Avalos’ most recent film, The Ghosts of Edendale, was distributed through Warner Home Video while Head Trauma and the re-issue of The Last Broadcast are both from Heretic Films, a much smaller niche-genre distribution house. Isn’t it better to have a deal with Warner Brothers?

Weiler: Because so many things are changing, having a fluidness over the ownership of the rights and being able to anticipate where the market is moving were more interesting to me than me giving away all rights to the film for 15 or 17 years for a hundred-and-some-thousand-dollar advance.

Knowledge@Wharton: That’s a typical deal for a big label distributor?

Weiler: For an independent film, yes, unless you have some incredible amount of heat coming off it.

A lot of times what happens is you need to deliver the film with the advance that you’re given. If you need to clear music, do sound transfers, do film transfers, whatever, you’re basically paying out of your advance to do that. So if you look at a $100,000 advance, it takes you about $30,000 to $60,000 to deliver the film and you’re looking at $40,000 on the other side. What’s the benefit to having a large studio’s logo in front of your film?

The economics just don’t make sense — or they didn’t make sense to me. I knew that I could do a lot with the movie that other people wouldn’t let me do, like the cinema alternate reality game that I couldn’t have done if I had given [the rights] to some of the people who wanted the film.

So from my perspective, I said, “I want to carve up these rights,” because then I have a better shot at increasing the profit; I have a better shot at being able to try interesting new things. To me, that was more valuable.

Knowledge@Wharton: So the distributor has the rights to distribute the DVD, but you retain rights for other uses?

Weiler: Yes, exactly.

Knowledge@Wharton: And a deal like that would be hard to strike with a big studio label?

Definitely. They want the world — as they say, “the universe.” So if we colonize the moon, when people are waiting at the moon station and they want to watch something — they want those rights. They want to own it.

Knowledge@Wharton: What’s the outlook for digital downloads?

Weiler: The prospect of digital downloads — whether it’s Amazon’s UnBox or MovieLink or iTunes — increases your profit margin by [eliminating] the physical media.

But I think we are in this awkward period where until that final leg of the living room is worked out, and it’s easy — I mean like really simple and idiot-proof — then you’re not going to see much [other than] early adopters purchasing online. It’s a lot different than music.

But when you look at web 2.0 and social networks, it’s like this playground of things that you can use to build your audience and promote your work. And it’s free for the picking. It’s stuff that you can use. The cost is relatively inexpensive.

I think the future is the direct-to-your-audience [model]. As the filmmakers start to build audiences, if they can figure out ways to cross-pollinate those audiences, then they start to build volume. At that point, they don’t need as many of the middlemen that have typically been in line to take the money before they see any return, if ever.

Knowledge@Wharton: So, at least right now, the web is more helpful in marketing a film that may be distributed through other venues than it is for distributing film itself?

Weiler: Yes. At this point in time, that’s correct. The architecture isn’t fully there yet. The deal terms haven’t been fully fleshed out — which is encouraging. Because there are times when a window opens up, and if you’re smart about how you leverage it, there are tremendous opportunities.

There are opportunities for revenue that fall between the traditional cracks — places that you didn’t even think you would find revenue. I think that’s what’s exciting.

Knowledge@Wharton: So, producing a movie has become much easier — the equipment is cheaper and the PC tools are much better. But on the distribution side there are all these constraints. The web isn’t there yet because it isn’t linked to your large-screen TV. You have the shelf space problem with DVDs. You have the difficulty of competing with the big studios’ distribution houses for a theatrical run. What’s an independent filmmaker to do?

Weiler: [It's about] the one-to-one relationship with the audience I was discussing. When I did the theatrical release across the country, I didn’t spend any money on P&A. I used social networking. I used an “embed and spread” campaign, where I took assets of the movie — digital swag — and gave that to people to put on their [web] pages, and they amplified my message. So then more people were coming back to the movie.

To me the future of it — or at least one component for independent film — is the ability to harness that audience and build it over time.

It’s not that dissimilar to what musicians have been doing by going out on the road to support their work.

Television is difficult to get into, and it’s next to impossible for independent film. And even if you get a deal, [the revenue] will be so low that by the time you get E&O — which is errors and omissions insurance — that’s going to eat up the majority of what you’re going to make.

For independent film, a way to circumvent that is to just go directly to the people. It’s the power of the niche. That is where I think independent film is headed. Publishing is headed there. Music is there. Film has started to get sub-genres, and you see how those sub-genres have risen up — whether it’s African-American cinema, Latino cinema or gay and lesbian cinema. You’ve seen them start to fill a market that wasn’t being served.

Knowledge@Wharton: What you are doing with the Head Trauma ARG might be called “participatory cinema,” but it’s not entirely “immersive cinema.” When a phone number flashes on screen and audience members call it on their cell phones [as at the Philadelphia event], they step outside the film.

Weiler: [The debut of the Head Trauma ARG in Philadelphia] was very much like a beta test. In the future versions of it — like at the Museum of the Moving Image in July — we will start to integrate more.

I want to string a narrative across multiple outlets — have these touch points and create a sensation where you feel tension or surprise. And you want to share that with someone else so you introduce them to it. So it has that viral aspect to it.

In the future, it becomes more of a participation from the audience members but in different ways, not necessarily when they are watching it, but after they leave. It could be phone calls, text messages or things that lead them online and then allow them to remix some of the elements. [They] start to contribute to the storyline and then it grows.

When we take it to other places — Europe and possibly South America — the town where we are screening will become a game and people will be hunting down characters from the movie. There will be clues throughout the town that eventually funnel you into where the event is.

I’m interested in that idea of expanding the narrative experience. I love the passive [viewing] experience of cinema. I think it’s amazing. I’m just trying to find interesting ways to interact with the audience so they are more likely to engage in the story and maybe tell somebody else about it.

Knowledge@Wharton: Is this “cinema ARG” approach interesting simply because it is different, or is it a trend that will continue to expand? In the future will the movie be just a slice of a much larger experience?

Weiler: From a business perspective, I think it definitely will be.

If you look at what [traditional film distributors] do currently and the amount of money that they throw against P&A, for example — What if they took that money and they actually built all these other properties? You [can] operationalize this and actually use it as a more effective way to promote work.

That could be for TV shows like “Heroes” or “Lost” or it could be for music or for large films like Spider-Man or independent films. When you get to the end of a film like, let’s say, Spider-Man 3, you know Spider-Man 4 is coming, right? You know there is going to be Spider-Man 5, 6, 7, whatever.

What if the experience away from Spider-Man is only building more interest and [adds] more value to the property because it engages people for [additional] elements of the story? It is hinting at future versions of the story or giving them back-story that they have never seen before. It can enrich the theatrical experience.

Film can benefit from a story perspective but also from a business perspective. If you’re creating a massive multiplayer game online or an ARG or other things, they are effectively properties. You could then take characters and bring them into something like an Xbox environment. So now that character could be within a game.

There is a lot of potential. What I’m getting at is that promotion and marketing by just throwing stuff at people is only going to go so far and will require more and more money. If you can find a way to “crowd source” what you’re doing, you are effectively creating a model that can build story and build additional promotional value to you.

Knowledge@Wharton: Where do you see activities like the cinema ARG going in the future?

Weiler: The cinema ARG is a step towards an integrated media strategy.

You have NBC Universal bringing in someone like Beth Comstock from a different part of GE as president of integrated media. You’re starting to see traditional media noticing [this trend] and realizing that there is value in these [new] devices and [new] ways to interact with the consumer, but not being really clear on how to get there.

The cinema ARG is a step where we are prototyping something, saying, “Here’s another window of opportunity. And there is a solid business side to it.”

Knowledge@Wharton: Even network television has started to expand the story outside the standard narrative format. For example, “Lost” set up fake web sites based on a fictional company in the storyline. When people go online searching for details of the plot, they find this fictional web site that fits into the narrative.

Weiler: In some cases, this is even being done by fans [of the series]. With the rise of user-generated content you have people who are going to naturally start to build their own stories around what you are doing.

People are not fully getting what they want [from the original content]. They want social interaction. They want to be able to contribute to the story.

Knowledge@Wharton: These techniques naturally fit certain kinds of narrative, such as [the television shows] “Lost” or “Twin Peaks,” where the open-ended mystery lends itself to this type of exploration in other media. But is there a down side to this approach? Part of what makes a great film is a tight narrative structure built on a story arc.

Weiler: What’s not to say that stories break off from that narrative? Now you can have a character who might not have been a main focus of [the movie] — and you’re getting a different story. Maybe you want more from that experience. I don’t think it has to be and/or.

If you look at the Internet and what the interaction patterns are, what people do online, you can see that there are these natural extensions that can work for all different types of films or stories.

It could work for “CSI.” It could work for “Grey’s Anatomy.” It could even work for game shows or reality programming.

Knowledge@Wharton: Much of what you did grew out of necessity — because you didn’t have a big budget or access to studio distribution. But now you have well-known filmmakers, like David Lynch, who are shooting on digital camcorders and self-distributing. Why would someone who has access to all of the resources of Hollywood go with the DIY [do it yourself] route?

Weiler: I think it’s ownership of the work. It’s [control over the] final cut. They own the negative.

In the case of David Lynch, here is somebody who has been in the system for 20-some-odd years, has had success, is a household name but now he is realizing, “Wait, I am a brand. I have my own name recognition. If I am smart about what I do with that, I can live comfortably, do what I want to do and make the movies I want to make.”

Look at the history of it. In the 1970s, or the late 1960s, with [the success of] Easy Rider and [the rise of the] youth culture, all of a sudden the studio realizes, “Oh my god, there is this whole niche audience.” All of a sudden they wake up and realize, “There is a market opportunity we haven’t been exploiting.” And then you have this new wave of all these new directors who come in and they start making arguably some of the most interesting and challenging work of the history of cinema in a few instances.

Now we are at another point where that same type of artistic renaissance can happen again when somebody like David Lynch — or even somebody you don’t know — has the tools and the ability to do it [in a way that] is not done by committee. What does that mean? You can have these amazing works.

And the sad part of that is the old adage that “the best bubbles to the top” is not relevant anymore with thousands of films being made and all the media that is saturating people. That’s where that promotion and the marketing and being innovative and engaging the audience is so important. Now, when you finish the film, you have two thirds more to do.

Knowledge@Wharton: What do you like doing most — writing, directing or staging these theatrical events?

Weiler: I like all of it. I love making films. I love being in a collaborative environment.

I really have a love of story, technology and also business. It is interesting to look at things in those three ways because I think if you can take a creative approach to how you use the technology, how you tell the stories, then you can be grounded in an idea of how you might be able to create revenue around it. You are looking at sustainability and if you have that, then you can make any work you want.

Knowledge@Wharton: What are you working on now?

Weiler: I have a couple of scripts. A lot of the times I try to find something autobiographical in the work that I do. Head Trauma was based on the accident that I was in.

The new script is called Black Hail. It’s a psychological horror film about the Appalachian Trail. I’ve hiked a good part of the Appalachian Trail. [The movie] deals with some of the stuff that I went through; it’s kind of man against nature. And I have a couple of television show premises that I am working on and some more game-related stuff.

I think about all of it when I am starting now; I think about all the jumping off points. I am crafting stories in a totally different way.

Knowledge@Wharton: In The Last Broadcast, the character you play stages a live interactive media event that combines television, webcasting and Internet chat which has echoes of what you are now doing with the cinema ARG. Is this a case of life imitating art?

Weiler: Yeah, we were putting that stuff into the movie back in 1996. Now IRC [Internet Relay Chat] becomes IM [Instant Messaging]. Webcasting becomes YouTube. All that stuff meshes. It’s like what I said earlier about Frederick Wiseman and my interest in photojournalism and my love for psychological thrillers all melding together.

We live in an immersive culture. You have to adapt to find interesting ways to tell stories. It’s more work, but in the end it’s more interesting.

The soundtrack was released by Park the Van records two weeks after the DVD release of HEAD TRAUMA. The project helped to create press and awareness for the film with music fans.After a 17 theatrical release and a national DVD release, I thought that taking the alternate soundtrack on the road and combining it with theatrics, gaming and tech would be an interesting experiment. The first version of the cinema ARG (alternate reality game) took place in Philadelphia. The event was a collision of movies, music, gaming and theatrics.

In a previous post I questioned the viability of traditional theatrical releases for “truly” independent films. The cinema ARG has promise and event driven theatrical experiences could in fact become an interesting model for independent distro.- The event attracted regional and national press. Not only reviews but a collection of articles that explained the event. Even though I received press during HT’s theatrical release in Sept. 06 the mashup resulted in even more press.

- The ticket price was $14 dollars and over 150 people attended the event

- one night was better than the average gross of each of HT’s traditional theatrical week long runs. The event also allowed me to sell DVDs, Posters, and copies of the HT soundtrack.

- The HT mailing list grows as audience members sign up to receive updates about the film

- The evening was recorded and now there are more promotional materials for the film

- a behind the scenes doc, a new alternate soundtrack that syncs with the movie and a couple hundred photographs

- National press leads to a number of amazing opportunities. I’ve been contacted by managers, agents, advertising agencies, additional venues and sponsors that are interested in taking the cinema ARG on the road.

- The success of the first Cinema ARG leads to bookings in NYC, London, and San Francisco

- The Cinema ARG is picked up by a number of trend tracking firms who have the following to say:
“Director Lance Weiler has created a remix presentation of his cult indie horror flick Head Trauma, the result of which sounds like a good approximation of the future of film. …As theatres increasingly compete with home entertainment, we believe live film presentations such as this could be a way to keep audiences going out to movies.”

- Wired sends a reporter to the event.

Filmmaker Mashes Horror Flick With Live Music

Todd Jatras

Lance Weiler’s first film, The Last Broadcast — often called the original Blair Witch Project — was shot for less than $1,000. Yet it grossed $4.5 million and became the first film to be transmitted via satellite directly to theaters.

His encore? A traveling live-music mashup involving cell phones, big screens, indie rockers and meandering actors. The project showcases his latest film, Head Trauma, a tale of psychological horror involving protagonist George Walker (shown), a drifter who has inherited a condemned house. “This is one of the only films where you’ll be asked to keep your cell phone on during the screening,” says Weiler.

Director Tommy Pallotta, who produced A Scanner Darkly, likens Weiler’s work to early Roman Polanski, “the Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby era, very unlike movies like 300, which is a perfect example of how attention is focused on the technology that shows up on screen.” Weiler’s work is in-your-face horror created with guerrilla tech techniques like off-the-shelf cameras hacked for particular shots.

Starting this summer, Weiler plans to take his live mashup — dubbed Version 1.0, or Beta — on the road with a multi-city tour and a revolving cast of musicians and actors. Version 2.0 will likely roll out in New York and London before moving on to Los Angeles and Ohio later this year. He’s currently in negotiations with New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the Moving Image about performing the show for their crowds.

Read More and See Photos at Wired.

OVERALL: Even though it was a lot of work, I think an event based theatrical model can be the right answer for films looking to stand out in a crowded market. The important element is finding the right event to center around your work. A good starting point is to identify your film’s hooks. What is it about your film that people will find interesting? Once you figure out the hooks then you can start to build an event. If you do move forward with an event based screening we’d love to hear about it. Send your emails to work [@] workbookproject.com

headtraumamovie.com
lanceweiler.com
thelastbroadcastmovie.com

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