COURTNEY ROMANO: “The Radical Political Campaign of the NonDē Filmmaker”

MARKET MONDAY #2

Transcript:

“We cannot solve our problems at the same level of thinking that created them.”

I did not say that, but Albert Einstein did. And, another way to say that is, “just to solve the problem, you can’t think at the level of the problem—you have to rise to the level of the solution.”

My name is Courtney Romano and I’m a writer/director, and like most of you, I have watched Hollywood confront the problem of getting audiences to our films and making money doing it by staying at the level of the problem. It’s a business problem, and so you’re thinking like a business. They think with big budgets and saturation marketing and sequels and sometimes tax write-offs.

Now let’s talk about non-dependent filmmaking. Non-dependent filmmaking wants to solve that same problem – get audiences to our films and make money to have a livable career by doing those films – but we do not want to stay at the level of the problem. We want to rise to the level of the solution, where Hollywood only tries to solve at a business level. My dangerous and fun idea is that I believe NonDē film should rise to the level of the solution and solve it at a political level.

Before anyone gets nervous that I am going to get into the weeds of American politics – even though I really would like to, and it would be dangerous and fun – I’m not talking about American politics. I’m talking about politics as a high-level concept. Thinking politically means coalition building around a shared vision. I believe that when we think politically, when we are building a coalition of filmmakers around a shared vision: that we will make films we want to make, we will get audiences to see them, and we will have materially, economically sustainable, livable careers because of that. Where studios may use box office stats and saturation marketing and sequels and tax write-offs, we know that as non-dependent filmmakers we cannot compete with that kind of scale – we just can’t. Plus, it’s a race to the bottom, in my opinion.

The studios will make more money, but the workers, the film workers, in the meantime, will get less jobs, opportunities, and protections. Where streamers may want to acquire eyeballs and subscriptions to their apps, non-dependent filmmakers want to develop reciprocal relationships with our audiences. And, where traditionally independent film may seem like a really great alternative to what the studios and streamers are doing, if you’re lucky enough to get a distribution deal, once you sell your rights and you exit your film, you’ve lost access to your audience and data – the two most pivotal parts of having a sustainable career.

The NonDē filmmaker isn’t just solving for the short game of getting people to come to our one movie – we’re solving for the long game by holding onto our rights, profits, and data, and investing in the relationship with our audiences. I believe we have a real shot at a sustainable career that never has to depend on a lucky break, and we do that by making paradoxical moves. We do unscalable things. I think what we should do is start running a strategic field game.

There are nine components from politics that we can actually apply to non-dependent filmmaking. One: language. We use the term non-dependent, we position our projects as part of a movement, we add this word to our press releases, our pitch decks, and our bios, and we say it with our full chest.

Two: alliances. We create a bloc of filmmaking alliances, we forge partnerships with other filmmakers who believe in the same NonDē values as us, and we go out of our way to hire and partner with companies in this industry who are helping to disrupt distribution and marketing and audience building.

Three: messaging. We deploy content marketing for the movement itself, which means we write and film and articulate the values of non-dependence on socials, in our newsletters, and as ancillary content for our individual films.

Four: communities. We join forces in places like Film Stack or in coalitions like the one I’ve organized called the NonDē: 50 Films Project, because these communities are where filmmakers work side by side to share institutional knowledge, resources, and data with each other while running coordinated experiments and labs to prove that this model can work.

Five: constituent research. We enroll our audiences in what we’re doing from the beginning, we figure out who our audiences are as early as development, and then we interview those audiences. We go out and ask them: how do you watch movies, where do you watch movies, and what makes you click play?

Six: data collection. We collect our own data and use that data to stay flexible. We run marketing, partnership, and revenue experiments, we make multiple and diversified efforts to get the word out about our films, and we use that data to pivot when we need to—we double down on what works and we drop what doesn’t.

Seven: canvassing. We go proverbially door to door, we sync up with our local movie clubs and institutions and niche communities in our neighborhoods, and we talk about NonDē early and often in real life.

Eight: endorsements. We build context, we position our work with other filmmakers’ work, we create micro-labels and multi-production company slates and roll out marketing campaigns of our films together in a coordinated effort.

And number nine: stump speeches. We repeat ourselves, we repeat ourselves, we stand like any other politician and repeat the message and stay on message. We believe in ambitiously authored cinema, creative risk-taking, economic stability, collaboration over competition, and a better cinema ecosystem centered on the artists, the art, and the audiences.

These are unscalable things. Let’s be honest—these are unscalable things for one filmmaker to do all alone, as they’re also in production for their other unscalable thing: making a film. But when we do this together, this is when we start to reach a critical mass. Politics is about forming alliances. Right now, right here, we are in a coalition. We are in a room full of alliances just waiting to happen, people who can help you and people you can help. We can look at each other in this room as the beginning of a wave. We don’t need to compete with each other – I believe we should collaborate, and here’s why.

Let’s look at politics again: there are different districts, different states, different races, but there are coalitions of candidates across the country who share the same vision. They run their own race, but support and endorse their political friends. We each have our own films, we have our own races, but when we work as a political movement – people who believe in the same possible non-dependent future – when we endorse each other’s movies, collaborate and share and borrow each other’s audiences, we lighten the individual burden and transform it into a collective mission. That is how we scale unscalable things. That is where our power lies: in a people-powered movement. And I think the people who decided to show up today are the leaders of that movement.

So today, you’re going to hear a lot of things. You’re going to hear a lot of people talk about a lot of different ideas. It’s going to get you really excited. You’re going to feel like you’re building momentum, you’re going to leave here with lots of things to try. And when you leave this room, a fired-up, engaged, passionate group of like-minded people, you may run into some other people outside of these walls. They might be cynical, they might be well-meaning but cynical, and they might say something like, “Oh, well, that’s a pipe dream, and that’s not how it works.” And whether you say this out loud or just in your own head, your response is going to be: of course that’s not how this works, that’s the whole point. We cannot get to a better place by working at the level of the problem; we have to rise to the level of the solution. That is how change happens. So ask yourself: what is your vision? What do you want? What is possible when you keep a little bit of hope alive? There’s no reason we can’t have it, so it’s time we go build it together. Thank you.

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