The Idea...
I don't know what is happening to me lately. I start writing, and when I have already written a lenghty spiel, I just realize that I cannot find the main idea, what I really wanted to say.
I finally delete it all, like now, not knowing what to tell at all.
I'm going to try to extract a small paragraph from my last draft:
"Three years ago, we were three students with a script, some idea about how the industry worked and what was waiting for us in the future, and really excited about telling stories. About telling stories to someone, to an audience.
Nowadays, we know quite a lot more about how the industry works, and how it resists the idea of changes. We know is really difficult to getting the funding for our movie, as well as making the industry support us in this transition instead of watching us in distrust. However, we don't care about it because we have connected with our audience, people who share our ideas and who want us to carry them out, helping us to accomplish them every single day.We have reinvented all the rules and we have looked for a different option for a problem (actually, they were many) that affects our profession colleagues and ourselves. We don't want to be excessively optimist, but everything has almost gone to plan."
Today, something really beautiful happened: some of those profession colleagues invited us to chat about the situation and the current problems. They invited us, the industry "weirdos". They invited us to have a conversation, even though they didn't think our way, and the best of all, they have listened to what we had to say.Few more happened in this meeting. It is not a meeting that is going to change anything, neither regarding to the laws, nor regarding to the current situation. Besides, we are not important enough (I apologize for saying this) to influence goverments or institutions, not even users.
The only clear thing is that we were fourteen people with different opinions. Since we chatted and shared our opinions, we can call it a debate. And a debate is just what we need, a debate among the most of the interested parties in order to find solutions to a problem that, im my opinion, has an origin different than piracy, obsolescence of distribution models or the laws that can rule it. It has to do with losing our audience's confidence.
I would reflect about this picture:
They are Beatles' fans. They had probably travelled thousands of kilometres, and they had probably slept out in the open just to see their idols. Before that, they bought their vynils, and after the concert, they bought their t-shirts. They didn't think about how much they were paying, but about what they were receiving in exchange: an experience. A unique and unforgettable experience.Musicians know this pretty well. We, movie-makers, are dimmer. But there is something clear for me: when that complicit conexion between fan and idol exists, money is no longer important. It's not a matter of to pay or not to pay, but if we are able to get that back. I'm convinced that if we are able to be reconciled with our audience, to give them quality works, made with loving care, and to treat them like they are, the most important thing in our profession, they will pay the favour back to us, and it won't be a matter of money.
Nevertheless, we have to find the way to give them the unique and unforgettable experience with our works. And that depends on using technology to give them these works, whenever, however and wherever they decide to have them. So we can give them works with the best quality they can get. So we can give them everything they demand, however they demand it. So we can hope to offer them an extra value in order to make that viewing an unique and unforgettable experiencie, so it completes, complements, and enriches it, so they can feel the conection with the director, the producer, the actor or the distributor, in such a way that money is no longer a problem.
I know this speech is a bit out of the line we have had so far, that is based upon more technical matters, purely market on the what, how and when, added value and new distribution channels; nevertheless, the deeper I go into the movie, the more I enjoy the process we are sharing with our thousands of fans. When I read their answers and reactions before a new version of the script, a teaser, some of our parties or any other thing, I convince myself more and more that if we fix that, the rest will be fixed by itself in a natural way.
I have finally written too much again, and I guess the question in everyone's mind was "Has this meeting be any useful?". I would say it was. I think it was really useful, not only for the meeting itself, but for what was created around it. Because, as I said before, it is really nice to see that we have points in common, and we are willing to talk about it to fix it. Because it is really nice that an unknown director like me, without merits enough to be considered important at all, can share his thougts with the director of the Cinema Academy, with the director of the Producers Federation, but above all, with thousands of people who have followed us with an enormous interest. And at the same time I share these ideas, I can listen to ideas of all those thousands of people.
It's like when it's almost twelve and the audience shouts for Let it be once again after the last song, and the four from Liverpool listen, come out, and play Let it be, and they make the audience feel really special beacuse a dialogue has been created between them and the makers.
A dialogue... between them... and the makers. That is it. I found it. That is exactly what I wanted to say.
