RICHARD RUSHFIELD: "Creating Scarcity"

MARKET MONDAY #4

TRANSCRIPT:

TED: You know, like, if it wasn’t for the Ankler I wouldn’t have come to Substack. I wouldn’t have found Substack, Filmstack wouldn’t have started... the think tank in real time, that is. Filmstack couldn’t have morphed into something more to reach NonDē.

So the OG of what is happening here, Richard Rushfield ... you get to start it all off today. Okay?

RICHARD: Thank you. And let’s give a big hand to Ted Hope and Slamdance everyone. In my business I go to a lot of panel discussions and summits and sort of dread when I’m sentenced to sit in an audience for a summit for a day. But this, this has actually been fun and enlightening and uplifting.

So, big hand to Ted there. As of right – I’m going to say… yeah – I think I’m the only person presenting today – maybe the only person in the room – who has never actually worked on a film or had anything to do with [one]. I was an extra in a couple movies, but the directors did not give me a credit, so…

I speak to you just as a viewer or an audience member. And, my thoughts are going to be the least practical and most disorganized here. So, after I go, you can dismiss this and more practical ideas will follow. But – so my big thought was – a big thing I’ve been thinking about is that… how we distribute films and sort of the artistry too that has gone away. That the movie release – now the NonDē world kind of is living in the leftovers of Hollywood cinema… sort of taking whatever screens at a multiplex they can get and going down the track where they’re sort of forced into these big releases, like trying to be like a mini Avatar – just going on whatever screens they can with without any marketing to support that, and setting themselves up in a position where there’s no time for word of mouth to develop. And, if lightning doesn’t strike on Friday night, your whole journey is finished. It’s up in smoke, and the value of your film is erased.

And from the point of view of a viewer – what the current distribution model for NonDē film feels like – it feels like desperation. It feels like you’re just desperately begging for anybody to come see your movie. “Please. We’ll put it near you. You will get it everywhere you want. Just please come see it,” in desperation.

Whether it is in job seeking or dating or marketing, desperation is never an attractive place to come from. You’re in the worst of all worlds. And for NonDē films- non-dependent films, word of mouth is everything. It’s not a piece of the battle for Avatar. Word of mouth is maybe a little piece of the Avatar- for you… It’s 100% of the battle. If you can’t have people talking about it – and what people are not going to be excited to talk about is the movie that feels desperate and needy. And I really think the distribution model is the way we think about it. And to start thinking about creating scarcity with your films, that’s my theme today.

We’re artists. You’re not circus clowns. You have made something special. You have made the greatest film in the world. I’m looking through this catalog today. These are great. I would love to see all these movies. These are fantastic films. More excited about them, certainly, than whatever the studios are putting out. You don’t have to beg people.

You can come see them everywhere you go. This is already great, and you have to find the people who are worthy to see these movies, who deserve to see the movies. You’re going to understand these movies, and an artist doesn’t shove their work into whatever open auditorium at the local mall will let them in. They make the audience prove that they can handle these ideas, and find ways to show – to not make this about “we’re going to be there for you whenever you want it, whenever you can handle it”... on streaming, on at your local mall, whatever.

We have made something special for special people who are going to appreciate it. And if you can prove that you are one of those people, then maybe we’ll let you see this movie. Maybe.

Don’t show it everywhere. Have one screening and then have it disappear for six months. Let people let people try to find you, to find out where it’s going to be. Invite a bunch of Instagram influencers and then don’t let them in.

But believe me, as a reporter, if you turn a reporter away, they will be obsessed with you forever. Make people fill out an application if they want to see the movie. Let this be a hoop that people jump for through a hurdle. Like I remember the old days of – maybe they still do this – I forgot about it, but when you - if you want[ed] to go to some special, a special party, you would have to get a password. And then you would go to a place, where if you had the password they’d give you a map to it. And then you follow the map to a place where a van would pick you up.

Make it like that. Make people jump through hoops to see this movie, because it’s not for everybody. You’re not making the latest Jurassic Park. You’re making movies that are going to change the world. And there’s that, that are about important things.

And for people that can appreciate that – and make people show you that – they can do that. And in doing that by – You know, Avatar – the Monday after, [other] people also covered it. “Did you see Avatar?” I thought I was good. Whatever. Okay.

This will be an experience that people will tell everyone about, like, hey, I got to see this movie. I went to the map point and they had me fill out an application, and the five people in front of me were kicked out and they couldn’t go. But I was selected to see it. And I did. And it’s really – believe me, if you can get to see it, it’s really something special and you create a community out of that.

Now, the people wanting to see it, the experience of getting to see it and you create – you have a bond with your consumers then who are dying to tell people about it, and not just these sort of passive people who gave their email to Fandango, and that’s all the contact they have with you.

They are part of your cause then. Non-dependent cinema bows before nobody. You know, you’re not living in the Hollywood leftovers. You’re not the farm team. You’re the heart and the soul and the mind of the culture of the world in the greatest immersive art form humanity has ever known. We do not bow. We do not beg. So stand up and act like it.

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