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Upstream: Building Community Around Online Identity

Published on July 17, 2007

Arts Engine Web Developer and Upstream column contributor, Jennifer Gallardo.

With the rise of digital filmmaking, more and more people are becoming filmmakers. Cheaper pro-sumer cameras, often bundled with complimentary basic editing software, have demystified and indeed democratized a process that has often been considered best left to those big studios in Hollywood. Couple this with the ease of sharing video through the web via YouTube and similar outlets and the result is film in an easily portable digital format.

In light of this, established independent filmmakers and amateurs alike are increasingly looking to digital distribution channels to market their films -- especially films for which the festival circuit has yielded little favorable returns. The well-documented success of a film like Four Eyed Monsters, which relied on a video podcast as part of its self-distribution campaign, has opened the eyes of many filmmakers to the possibilities that lie in self-distribution via the web. However, with terms like "MySpace," "vlog," and "podcast" being volleyed back and forth, it is very easy to get confused about what makes up a successful digital distribution campaign.

Rocketboom has focused on community-building to sustain viewership of their daily online video news show.

To clear up some of the ambiguities, I spoke with Telltale Games' Web Marketing Coordinator Emily Morganti and Kenyatta Cheese, Co-Producer of the popular video blog (or vlog) Rocketboom. While neither is explicitly a filmmaker, they both work with media online and are presented with similar, if not identical, challenges in how to distribute it. Telltale Games produces games serially and sells them via their website, in complete contrast to the norm in that industry of selling one long game on store shelves every few years (usually in time with the release of the latest and greatest video game system). Cheese, on the other hand, is one of the producers of Rocketboom, a daily online video news show; with the breadth of video available on the web these days, it truly is an amazing feat to sustain viewer-ship like Rocketboom has.

After speaking with Morganti and Cheese, it is clear now what digital distribution is not. Digital distribution is not posting your film and a press release on a MySpace page. MySpace is a tool, but in no way the end or the totality of a successful campaign. In other words, a successful distribution campaign connects with the audience on several different levels. While online efforts allow you to blindly reach mass amounts of people in the time it would take you to fill a small screening, it is about forging, as Cheese put it, a "long-term relationship with your community."

So how exactly do you create this discourse with your audience? Instead of having an online presence, successful campaigns have online identities. Viewers of Rocketboom, for example, return to the vlog everyday because they feel a strong connection to the identity of the show. While they have a consistent host for each video, Cheese insists that this isn't necessary as long as the identity, or voice, is a "persistent one." He continues that it is "human nature [to want] to connect to real people" and cites Walter Cronkite, anchor of the CBS Evening News for over two decades, as an example. Cronkite was deemed "the most trusted man in America" despite the fact that the actual news was really coming from a large media outlet.

Telltale Games creates an identity around the video game character Max from their popular serial game Sam and Max.

Alternatively, Telltale Games creates an identity around the video game character Max from their popular serial game Sam & Max. The character, originating in comic books created by Steve Purcell, is an amusingly sarcastic and opinionated rabbit. Telltale has created an entire website around this character called Max for President, which follows from the plot of the game as the character Max becomes president in the first season. Morganti made it very clear that to keep the character authentic, they worked very closely with Purcell to see to it that his vision for the character remained in tact. In fact, she says the content on the Max for President website is "a lot funnier and more genuine than it would have been if it were just written by the marketing team."

In terms of film, with the tremendous amount of news sources and increasingly media savvy audiences, the idea of an authentic identity is essential. As audiences have become more aware of the biases in mainstream media, they have also turned the critical eye on independent media. Documentary filmmakers in particular must establish themselves as trusted sources of the information they disseminate. But people not only want to get a sense of the voice of the filmmaker but in essence want to know them on a more personal level. This is perhaps what made Four Eyed Monsters so compelling. As Fast Company Magazine put it in reference to the film, "things that are authentic have great appeal."

The content on the Max for President website is "a lot funnier and more genuine than it would have been if it were just written by the marketing team."

A marketing or outreach team can help, but ultimately the authenticity of a film's voice comes from a connection to the community. As such, a genuine identity is also usually a transparent one. At a time when so much of one's personal information is online it is not a surprise that audiences expect a great deal of transparency. Wired Magazine's Clive Thompson contends in his article The See-Through CEO that "the path to business success is clear." Morganti of Telltale Games cites their staff blog, a community forum moderated by employees, and visits to gaming and comic-related expos as great opportunities for using this transparency to build an audience. She continues, "this gives the community a peek into what we do here and hopefully makes customers feel like they're part of the Telltale family." Morganti points out that this interactivity is beneficial to the company as they are better able to stay connected to their audience, often getting ideas for games from members of their community. Very few in their industry have as open a dialogue with their community. This direct dialogue is especially vital when much of the interaction is based online, often working as a tool for assessing the value of the online campaign.

Partnerships, both with the community and with relevant organizations, prove to be integral to successful distribution campaigns. Morganti describes Telltale Games' relationship with GameTap -- a subscription-based distribution service for games on demand owned by Turner Broadcasting -- as a key partnership. While Telltale self-distributes on their website, Morganti notes that having another method "gives customers flexibility in how they want to get the games," which is ultimately a good thing. GameTap, still under some development as it is a Beta release, is already a major network of gamers allowing Telltale to, as Morganti put it, "reach a broader audience than we would have been able to reach on our own."

Meanwhile, Cheese notes that Rocketboom very rarely ever paid for marketing or advertising. Instead, they relied on existing communities to garnish interest in their vlog by sending emails to public emails lists. They then follow this up by targeting audiences related to topics covered in an episode. "If we do a story on [a given topic]," said Cheese, "we'll tell our subjects to tell their friends." Cheese continued that it is "more than strategic partnerships" but making a product that is usable for a particular audience. Documentary filmmakers can stand to learn from this approach. Knowing the audience for your work in advance, and working with organizations that cater to this audience, can help ensure that the final product will have a greater impact in terms of social change.

Digital means have drastically changed the way we interact with the world. Telltale Games and Rocketboom have made it very clear that you can achieve great results by thinking differently and then being consistent with that strategy. Telltale Games, quite true to the name, tells stories via episodic games. Rocketboom, in contrast, tells the news in short comedic outbursts on their website. Both have made the traditional, and sometimes mundane, new again. The same is true of their distribution strategies. The goal -- to build an audience -- is the same but they have found innovative and interesting ways of reaching audiences. So, have a virtual screening, share your production stills, or blog about your film -- with so many free and low cost ways to begin your digital campaign (see the additional resources below) you can afford to give it a try.

Additional Resources:

• Post your production stills on Flickr, a photo sharing website; this service requires a free Yahoo account though more features are available if you pay a small fee.

• Have a virtual screening on Second Life, a 3-D online community of over 7 million people; it is free but may have a steep learning curve.

• Blog about your film on Blogger, a service that will host your blog so all you have to do is consistently add content to it; this service requires a free Google account.

• Create a podcast (your own audio broadcast) with Gcast; creating an account is free and gives you access to free podcast-safe music.

• Post your video to any or all video sharing sites; here is an article comparing ten of them so you can make an informed decision on where you want to put your media.

This article is available for noncommercial use under a Creative Commons license. It was originally published on MediaRights.org, a project of Arts Engine, Inc. This notice must accompany the article at all times.