The Future Belongs to the Goat People
I was speaking at Screen’s Maximising Digital Rights Value conference about a month ago. Surrounded by layers of lawyers (including the lovely James Kay, slingshot’s very own shyster) as well as by Revolver’s Justin Maccacio, who feels like a bit a kindred spirit, I was asked what I thought was holding up the pace of innovation and digital revolution in the UK. My answer had surprising amounts to do with goats. Then a few weeks later, I was an after - actually during - dinner speaker at a Breakthrough Brits event, and was asked a similar question.
Between the two events, I had the chance to start to articulate a theory that’s been growing in me for a while about innovation in an established industry. Here, in 4 brief bullet points it is. I call it the Theory of the Goat People.
- Innovation in a hybrid world, part analogue, part digital is tough. Because as long as you are still dependent on the traditional, analogue gate-keepers to generate revenue for you; you have to play by their rules.
- One case in point: windows. If you are reliant on cinemas to show your film, you have to accept their exclusivity window. So any type of innovation - be it VOD previews; or premium VOD etc is severely constrained. So despite the widespread acceptance - and indeed evidence from the IFCs First Take experiment in the US - that this method of release does better for the films without hurting cinemas attendances. Whilst I’m using windows as the example,a nd its one of the biggest ones, the theory hold through across the whole spectrum of digital innovation: DRM, free to consumer content, re-faishoning,
- So most of the innovation happens by people who don’t care about pissing of traditional analogue gate-keepers. That means that they are people who are either so powerful that they can afford to piss of traditional gate keepers, i.e. the studios who can say, take my product whatever the terms OR they are people so far on the fringes that they don’t really need the traditional gate-keepers, because their product is made so cheaply, and appeals so directly to a niche audience that they can bypass the gate-keepers altogether. This latter category, I’ve christened ‘goat-people’ because one category of them are people making very special interest documentaries, like on goat-rearing, or Vespa Enthusiasts, or New Age Beliefs, or Sports Heroes, or Cult Artists etc - which can reach out to their audiences directly via the net and sell directly both physically or by downloads.
So innovation happens at the fringe and at the center. But not where the vast majority of the British Film industry lives - in the middle. This presents all sorts of problems - it means Slingshot and all our peers, who want to be innovating, are structurally inhibited from doing so because we ARE reliant on the status quo so can’t shake the boat.
That kind of sucks. We are looking at some ways to worry less about the boat and more about goats. We’ve just applied to take part in NESTA’s digital film innovation program, which on the face of it is a thoughtful way to instigate innovation in the middle. Watch this space to see how we do.
ps - Just in case you think I am kidding about the goat people, here are some examples: documentaries about Fainting Goats, Pygmy Goats, Socially Relevant Goats.
Goat Movie 1, Goat Movie 2, Goat Movie 3