Methodology, Skills and Professional Benefits Participants Participants' Comments MEDICI Head of Training «The 12 Labours of Hercules» Report of the Reports – Workshops 1 to 4

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Fourth Workshop Report — 16 – 18 September 2014 — Štiřín (Czech Republic)

Module 4 – Release Windows

Introduction

The question of release windows has become unavoidable. Access to content has changed radically since the appearance of VOD platforms and the decrease in box office revenues. Even if theatrical releases remain the best option for feature films, the pressure to change the rules for film releases must be considered.

Or, in other words:

• What kind of influence can a film fund have over its own release?
• How can other market responses (straight to DVD or TV and, soon, to VOD) be dealt with?
• What about the holdback periods?
• Has branding and storytelling around brand become part of cinema?
• Can a film fund influence the release of a film in the most strategic way?
• When funds receive an application from a producer, does it contain anything that concerns the release? Did the producers talk to the audience? Do they know where the audience is? Do they plan to spend money in order to reach that audience?

Five reasons why we need new release windows in Europe

Domenico La Porta, CEO Cineuropa (www.cineuropa.org)

Please also see:

• Domenico La Porta’s presentation (PDF)
• Case studies (PDF):
  • “The Tide Experiment” (ARP/France)
  • “A Field in England” by Ben Wheatley (UK)
  • “Welcome to New York” (Wild Bunch/France)

Reason 1: Even if they look like American films, European films still do not travel

If we look at the top 20 films by admissions in Europe in 2013:

• Mostly American films are listed.
• The first European movie, “Les Misérables,” is in 18th place. It is hardly a European film because it is a co-production between the UK and the US, with an American cast. It was sold as a US film, using the same marketing strategies as Hollywood blockbusters.

As for the top 20 European films by admissions:

• Most of them are known only in their country of origin, by cinephiles or film industry professionals.
• In second place is an Italian film that made 8 million admissions, but only in Italy. It was not sold abroad.
• In third place is a German comedy that was successful mostly in Germany and Austria.
• In fifth place, “Lo Impossible” —a film shot in English with an American cast but with Spanish financing and a Spanish director. Nonetheless, and despite the fact that it looked like an American film for large audiences, it obtained 100% of the admissions total in only three territories in Europe (90% of admissions in Spain).

Reason 2: The young audience is somewhere else

Numbers suggest that the situation is better now in 2014 than in 2005. Ten years ago, the figure was 901 million viewers; today, it is 908 million. Even if there are no drastic changes, the statistics of film institutes and the European Audiovisual Observatory show that:

• in some countries, the audience has dropped dramatically. Spain has lost almost 46% of its cinemagoers;
• during the last two decades, cinemagoers tend to be seniors and only rarely people between 11 and 24. The young audience will not come to the cinema unless promised a new movie experience.

Reason 3: The cinema experience is becoming less unique

• The Internet penetration rate is growing:
  • 14% percent of the EU population lives 30 minutes away from the closest cinema. In Romania, that goes up to 40%.
  • The Internet penetration rate in the EU is 76%, which is much higher than the world average of 39%.
  • In the top ten Internet countries:
    • Spain is in 5th place, which explains the drastic drop of moviegoers in the last decade.
    • Romania, although a small and poor country, is in 8th place because the Internet is the only way for most Romanians to watch films.
• The TV set market has doubled between 2005 and 2012:
  • The quality of the screens has improved, not only with the flat screens, plasma TV sets, 3D TVs, etc. but also because of their size. You can have an experience at home comparable to the cinema experience.
• Cinema is not a social experience anymore:
  • People do not talk to each other after the cinema screenings: everybody leaves the cinema right after the screening, so there is no longer any connective experience.

Reason 4: Fragmentation of digital users

Digital users can be divided into five profiles: these need to be better targeted:

• Digital haters do not like technology or the Internet, and do not watch movies on VOD. They have Internet at home, but they do not really use it. They use technology only when they find it practical and useful. Haters will keep associating film with the cinemas; and they are to be found mostly among the older generations.
• Digital immigrants started using technology for work, business, emails, etc. but then discovered other possibilities and started using them as well. They are starting to consume VOD packages on tablets.
• Digital explorers are immigrants who explore everything. Whenever there is something new (Spotify, Netflix, etc.) they go for it. Maybe they will not adopt it, but they will at least try it out. They will share a trailer on a FB page or say something about your film even before seeing it.
• Digital leaders utilize their consumption of digital to do something more with it. The "leaders" need at least sixty smartphone apps to handle their email properly, whereas the "immigrants" need only one. The same applies to their music consumption. Leaders create a network for sharing digital content. Each digital leader has a digital nemesis. As soon as they have new information, they want to communicate it, thus ensuring their growing prominence.
• Digital natives are people for whom the Internet is like electricity. They were born with it.
• Both natives and leaders fall into the age group that does not go to the cinemas; they absolutely need new release windows.

Reason 5: People have transmedia habits

• 90% of people in Europe say that TV is the best way to watch films, while 87% say they watch films both on computers and in cinemas. This shows that most people have transmedia habits. It also underscores the importance of:
  • Crossmedia marketing that is free. Everything becomes a social network today. People prefer comments on the social media to articles by professional journalists.
  • Word of mouth makes people become interested in a film, and then they choose the fastest way to consume it. If the film cannot be seen at that moment, they either turn to piracy or forget about it because word-of-mouth will come up with something new! Choosing proper release windows for the right films at the right moment can solve this problem.

Tips for choosing the right release window

• Context: It is crucial to release a film at the right moment, on the right and best platform suiting the film. The context implies compliance with competent legislation (France and Germany are among the most rigid countries in this regard), and business models to experiment with the release window.
• Choice of film (for distribution through new release windows): Film funds can play an important role in this respect, since the choice implies economic and political risk (exhibitors can boycott the film, distribution lobbies can fight it, etc.). All the films that enjoyed successful day-and-date releases did so because they were extremely well chosen.
• Experimenting: In the past decade, approximately 438 release experiments have been conducted—77% in the USA, 92 in EU (50% in the UK). The experiments have included:
  • Day-and-date (film release in cinemas, VOD and often on DVD on the very same day or within a short period of up to two weeks). The first successful day-and-date releases happened in the UK in 2005 with the film “EMR,” and in the US in 2006 with Steven Soderbergh’s “Bubble."
  • Ultra VOD or VOD preview: The VOD release comes first, followed by cinema and DVD releases. The first example was a documentary by Brian De Palma, “Redacted” in 2007: the results were good, due mainly to the director's fame and right timing (the VOD release coincided with the festival premiere).
  • Post VOD
  • TV Previews like “Woman with a Dragon Tattoo,” which was first released on TV and then in cinemas in many European countries.
  • Day-and-date with Festival and TV Cannes did so in collaboration with Canal+.
  • Festival and VOD: as with “Welcome to New York,” released at Cannes and on VOD (see Case Study 3 below).
  • Direct on VOD could be also very successful for films of good quality and obtaining great reviews.

Outcome of group discussions

Film funds can stimulate new release strategies through:

• Facilitating talks within the industry, initiating processes and inspiring people to think creatively.
• Stimulating producers to be less conservative. Distribution strategy should be made a mandatory part of the application form, bringing extra points.
• Launching innovation schemes that cannot be used for anything else but innovative distribution. If the funds put that into the official rules and regulations, distributors will follow the rules and be more proactive. Some film funds like the British Film Institute, Finnish Film Foundation and Wallimage already have such schemes
• Staying away from purely automatic support schemes and employing, instead, competent people who can apply and implement alternative releases
• Deciding which films are not for cinema release and offering them alternative release windows instead. In that way, they will get a wider audience while cinema owners and distributors will avoid financial losses.
• Helping festival hits get their instant post-festival VOD releases for international audiences.

Challenges

• Most European producers have been accustomed to a certain routine for years and do not want to change. It is usually only young producers who use the opportunity of alternative release windows.
• Sometimes there is no agreement between distributors and producers (and directors) as to transmedia strategy. Distributors simply disable it.
• Distributors accuse funds of using cultural products made with public money to gain some extra profit by pushing them out and involving other players, like TV, in day-and-date releases.
• Innovative distribution funds force directors and producers to talk with distributors first, and then team up with creative people from other fields to come up with out-of-the-box audience design strategies. However, players very often team up just to get another share of easy public money. At the same time, marketing agencies see producers as just another client, and not as a cultural worker.

• Changes of regulations in the funds take too much time or are made difficult because of the law regulating release windows.
• Funds have to find a way to convince the different players to work together. Movie theaters and TV are still reluctant as to new distribution schemes; and could issue an ultimatum to cancel a deal with TV or forget about the theatrical release.

Promotion, Distribution and Success Evaluation

• Module 1 – The Role of Public Funds in Promotion
• Module 2 – Distribution – Who and What to Support
• Module 3 – Vod Platforms as Potential Friends of the EU Cinema
• Module 4 – Release Windows
• Module 5 – Finding and Addressing Audiences
• Module 6 – How to Evaluate Success

• List of Participants (PDF)
• MEDICI Fourth Workshop Full Report (PDF)

Illustrations by Mišo Duha

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