The Interledger Community 🌱: The Faithful

The Faithful — Grant Report #2

Annie Berman — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 03:17:48 +0000

Project Update

Releasing a film in the time of Covid-19 was challenging, but we did it with the community’s help, introducing new audiences to Web Monetization on both our own site’s “virtual cinema” as well as the Cinnamon.video platform.

The premiere of our documentary, The Faithful, launched in a series of live events in March of 2021. Viewers had the option to watch free with a Coil subscription or purchase a single-visit ticket via a “traditional shopping cart” on the movie’s website.

The Web Monetization community was given a special sneak preview on March 19th that was promoted on Coil.com. Over the course of two weekends we hosted eight live showtimes, each followed by a question and answer session with the production team and cast members. The premiere was co-hosted by UnionDocs’ (a center for nonfiction in Brooklyn) founder and artistic director Christopher Allen.

In between the live screening events, the movie was available to stream for Web Monetization users on the Cinnamon.video platform.

Progress on objectives

While we’ve shown that it’s technically possible to use Web Monetization as a mechanism to enable access to movie content, we haven’t been able to have the scale of audience to prove that the revenue per stream is enough to compete against direct ticket sales. With profit of direct sold tickets above $7.50 and Web Monetization revenue below 50¢ / stream early indications point to needing more revenue per viewer in order to be able to support ventures with high production costs like documentary films. Compounding this is the fact that live events are logistically challenging which further underscores the need for a high revenue per viewer.

At the project’s start we believed that the trade-off between less revenue per stream and more users would make the competition between direct ticket sales and indirect access via a Coil subscription more even. However, with the size of the current Coil subscriber base this wasn’t realized. Despite a front-page marketing effort we found that the vast majority of our views happened on our own website (where we could control the marketing and conversion funnels) rather than via Cinnamon (where we didn’t have as much of an impact on marketing). We would expect that as the Coil subscriber base grows this becomes more even, however as it stands, it’s not currently a viable single-source of revenue.

In the production of The Faithful we’ve been able to talk with many other filmmakers who confirm that they’d like an open alternative to the distribution platforms that exist today. These conversations made it clear that there was no obvious “best practice” for distributing a film online. Filmmakers want to minimize “fuss” and maximize “revenue”, and as such we believe that if a system can be created that brings theatre-equivalent revenue per user, and is easy to operate in a live-event setting. There is demand for it.

While largely created for these one-off events, the source code is available with an open license on GitHub. As part of this project an npm library was created as well, licensed via the MIT license.

Communications and marketing

We were able to garner press both for both the “tech story” and for the film itself. “Ruminative, haunting, and strange,” raved Peter Keough in The Boston Globe in a Doc Talk review announcing The Faithful’s Premiere. And, Brian Newman ran this story “The Unbearable Slowness of Technology” in his Newsletter Sub-genre, a forward looking critique of the film and media industry where he introduces many of his readers to the concept of micro-payments and throws his support behind our efforts to help advance this “possible future.”

We participated in Coil’s Sundance webinar on web monetization with Stefan Thomas sharing The Faithful’s launch story.

We also began sharing the film and the story of its release with universities and art institutions including The University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts Program. 100 tuned in live, and the moderator and associate programmer declared the film “my favorite film I’ve screened in my past five years as associate programmer.”

Matt Mankins, Producer and architect of our virtual cinema wrote this Medium post about his vision and its implementation.

Additionally, we continued to grow our community by posting original daily behind-the-scenes photos on Instagram and Facebook.

Additional Press

Radio interview Poppy & Leigh for Breakfast - Triple M Riverina in Australia on 4/5
Isaac Hu’s Blog post “A Tale of Two Films: A New Dawn for Movie Streaming
Reddit AMA 3/17 with cast and crew
Neal Ungerleider’s Context Collapse Newsletter
The Center for Independent Documentary Newsletter
The Flaherty Newsletter
The Hunter Integrated Media Arts Listserve
Robert Steiner live tweeted the premiere’s Q&A
Review from curator Judith Tolnick Champa
Cinnamon.Video dedicated email blast and promoted exclusive banner

Additional Screenings
The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art Biennial - opening night screening 5/1
PAUS.tv presented a screening and Q&A 5/2
Providence Art Club public screening and Q&A 5/6 - their inaugural film screening
The Maysles Theater, NYC, booked for the week of August 13th, 2021
University Film & Video Association (UFVA) Conference Workshop, July 27, 2021

Talks
Sundance Collab Webinar The Basics of Web Monetization presented by Coil, The Faithful participated as a case study, June 10, 2021

University Film & Video Association (UFVA) Conference Workshop, New Distribution Strategies using Web Monetization, The Faithful case study, July 27, 2021

What’s next?

The Faithful opens in theaters across the US on Friday, August 13th including The Maysles Cinema in NYC. Screenings (virtual and physical) will correspond with the death anniversaries of Elvis Presley and Princess Diana (August 16th and 31st, respectively). The film’s educational release begins this fall. In guest speaking engagements, the team will continue to speak about our non-traditional release and the potential we see in web monetization.

What community support would benefit your project?

Join the conversation on social media (links below).

Educators, recommend the film to your institution’s library, book a screening - I’m happy to come speak to students about the filmmaking process and how we utilized web monetization for our premiere. Request the film through Kanopy

Recommend the film to your local art house cinema.

THE FAITHFUL - Watch Live WORLD PREMIERE 3/18!

Annie Berman — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 04:35:28 +0000

We made a movie and it’s premiering exclusively for web monetization users first, available to the general public March 19th.

THE FAITHFUL: The King, The Pope, The Princess (2021)
90 mins. HD. Color. Stereo

A Pope John Paul II lollipop. An Elvis Presley shower curtain. A Princess Diana teacup. These are just some of the countless pieces of memorabilia that these pop culture icons’ most devoted fans collect and cherish – but why? In The Faithful, director Annie Berman explores the deep veneration and legacies of the Pope, the Princess, and the King. Over the course of 20 years, Berman profiles these figures’ biggest fans and makes numerous pilgrimages to Vatican City, Graceland, and Kensington Palace. As the years go by, the film itself becomes increasingly entwined with Berman’s daily life and identity, much like how these officially-licensed knick-knacks define the fans she filmed.

Project team

We are, filmmaker - Annie Berman, developer - Matt Mankins.

Instead of relying on conventional routes of the film industry, we built a small army to support our outreach efforts - a publicity strategist to help craft and disseminate our story (how the tech story interweaves with the creation of the film), a freelance journalist, a social media consultant in the film distribution space, and designers to craft ongoing social content for organic reach and amplification.

The Faithful is produced with the support of the New York State Council on the Arts, In partnership with Wave Farm: Media Arts Assistance Fund, and from The Puffin Foundation, Ltd. and The Somerville Arts Council. Additional support is from The Kopkind Colony; The Center for Independent Documentary, UnionDocs / Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Signal Culture, and the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective. Distributed with support from Grant for the Web

What we are doing

As the first feature film funded by Grant For The Web, our team is finding a new way to introduce films to global moviegoers during these challenging times. We've built an entitlement system using the web monetization api that grants these users access to the movie without needing to purchase a single-use ticket. As part of this system we've integrated Coil OAuth authentication and polyfill so that the movie experience is monetized regardless of whether a user has the Coil extension installed. We're planning on having two exclusive screenings for Web Monetization subscribers on the first day of launch, each with audience Q&A sessions with Berman. This first day will also see the movie released on the Cinnamon platform for web monetization members.

In preparation for the premiere, we have greatly focused on digitally emulating the in-person cinema experience. So far, we have “The marquee and ticket booth,” (the homepage), “The lobby” (A login and entitlement system is in place to enable users to see the film during the event), and finally “the movie” which will be uploaded to Cinnamon on the premiere date.

What community support would benefit your project?

Please spread the word to all current Coil members about our viewing events on the 18th (and beyond). Watch and share our film’s trailer and join us for our World Premiere where we’ll watch together and celebrate.

Link Round Up!

The Faithful
The Faithful - Tickets
The Faithful - Instagram
The Faithful - Facebook
The Faithful - Twitter
Grant Report #1

Highlight other projects

So much great work happening, where to begin?
New Media Rights offers legal assistance to web monetization innovators. So thankful for their time!

Free Music Archive offers a collection of CC-licensed music. I'd grown to depend on it, take it for granted - and then it was gone. Back and web-monetized!!

Skittish A virtual venue for playful events. Yes, I was dreaming of this, too. Would love to see film Q&A's and after parties in this space.

The Faithful — Grant Report #1

Matt Mankins — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 16:56:08 +0000

Project Update

Releasing a film in the time of Covid-19 continues to be extremely challenging.

The premiere of our documentary, The Faithful, is now less than a month away. We've been busy building our virtual cinema, setting up marketing channels, and creating a ticketing experience for both web monetization users and single-visit viewers. Current work focuses on ways to both promote the film as well as finish building the shared viewing experience which culminates in a Q&A session with the filmmaker.

We've built an entitlement system using the web monetization api that grants these users access to the movie without needing to purchase a single-use ticket. As part of this system we've integrated Coil OAuth authentication and polyfill so that the movie experience is monetized regardless of whether a user has the Coil extension installed.

We're planning on having two exclusive screenings for Web Monetization subscribers on the first day of launch, each with the filmmaker present and the ability for the audience to chat with each other in a virtual "lobby". This first day will also see the movie released on the Cinnamon platform for web monetization members. (Subsequent screenings are also viewable by web monetization members, but just won't be exclusive.)

Progress on objectives

The crux of our application and proposal remains: we're showing our film online in our own virtual cinema. Moviegoers get to watch the movie, then participate in a Q&A with the filmmakers.

We have deviated slightly in a few areas. For example, our grant application proposed releasing the film on Cinnamon.video where users would "pay" via web monetization. We still intend to do this, however after speaking with end users and reviewing the user experience patterns available we made the decision to also sell "traditional" tickets alongside Coil.

We realized we had two challenges: 1) explaining what our film was, and 2) explaining what Coil was...all while on a third party platform. "Watch The Faithful on Cinnamon by paying through Coil" was just too confusing of an elevator pitch. We're still hoping to streamline the process of signing up for a Coil subscription from users who click on our "watch" button–we've just de-risked this by providing a secondary option for users. (We'll be gathering data on user patterns for these two options and intend to report back with recommendations.)

At present we're busy at work attempting to tell this story to the media and to find interested parties to join our movie watch parties. Somewhat surprisingly our DIY approach made getting press coverage a little harder rather than easier as we had surmised. The reason for this is that the traditional film press has a series of gatekeepers that expect a film to be validated by going to certain festivals, or getting picked up by a particular kind of distributor or streaming platform. Because we've largely sidestepped this process many of the pr firms we spoke to didn't know if they could help us make an impact.

Key activities

“The marquee and ticket booth” - Currently live.

“The lobby” - A login and entitlement system is in place to enable users to see the film during the event.

“The movie” - We're streaming this from our own platform as well as plan to upload to Cinnamon.video. Cinnamon doesn't have an ability to make videos "unpublished" so as soon as we upload the video to the site it will be live. ... consequently we haven't done this yet.

Communications and marketing

In the film world, there is an order to one’s release - festivals, theaters, educational, then streaming. In this COVID era with festivals and theaters worldwide going virtual and filmmakers lamenting the realities of these experiences, we naively assumed film publicists would understand what we were doing and help us craft this story.

Needless to say, publicists described a traditional press that would only cover certain kinds of releases - top tiered festivals or cinema releases. Without either of those, our best bet was to sign with a known distributor. Yet, we’d heard what some of those much sought after deals looked like from our colleagues and couldn’t quite understand why filmmakers would so willingly sign away the rights of their films for so little. Perhaps now, if anything, we have a greater understanding and appreciation for what a good distributor does bring to the table.

This meant that instead of relying on the world of a reputable publicist and big advertising spend, we built a small army to support our outreach efforts - a publicity strategist to help craft and disseminate our story (how the tech story interweaves with the creation of the film), a freelance journalist, a social media consultant in the film distribution space, and designers to craft ongoing social content for organic reach and amplification.

Simultaneously, we’ve been working on building partners and sponsors to co-present certain screenings and introduce their audiences to the film. One thing we’ve learned is how long these relationships take to develop, including that with the press.

Another hurdle was not being able to release our film’s marketing materials until we obtained Errors and Omissions insurance, which took much longer than we ever anticipated. New Media Rights (another GFTW recipient) took us in and offered valuable advice at a time we needed it most.

What’s next?

Publicizing, publicizing, publicizing! We are continuing to build out the viewing platform and live capabilities (chat, Q&A), and testing all of that. This week we will officially release our trailer and spread the news to our mailing lists, social accounts, and press. Meanwhile, we will write and create our own content, seek more partnerships and alliances, and get the word out every way we can. We will begin a paid social advertising campaign, in house utilizing our advisors and tracking, for the biggest possible spend.

We'll then wrap up with some analysis of the data we collected during the events and generate a GitHub repo with our findings and code.

What community support would benefit your project?

Please spread the word to all current Coil members about our viewing events on the 18th (and beyond).

Additionally we need help from everyone willing to spread the word about our event.

Relevant links/resources

The Faithful
The Faithful - Tickets
The Faithful - Instagram
The Faithful - Facebook
The Faithful - Twitter