Seth covers his “origin story” and personal journey, starting with his initial successes with Rounders and 10 Things I Hate About You, culminating in the launch of Content Engine. He addresses the transformation of the film business, what it means to be a Content Creator, and how writers and directors need to eschew the culture of permission in favor of empowering themselves to establish their own IP.

He also describes how the industry is ever-changing and more competitive than ever, touches on current trends in the business and explains how ContentEngine.tv can help creators grow IP and Content Creator brands.

Content Engine

Simply and broadly defined, content is anything that appears on a screen that competes for our attention.

Content takes myriad forms, but what remains the same is that we spend our days sitting in front of screens, carrying screens with us, interacting with screens. What shows up on our screens is bargaining for our limited attention, so content can take the form of video, articles, stories, news, images, texts, Tweets, Facebook status updates, reviews, books, games, apps, and so on.

The nature of content itself has evolved wherein content is not only an expression of consciousness, content creates consciousness. I touch on the concept of each individual as a filter for information and therefore, content, in my Brand Strategy Presentation, here.

Broadly interpreted, the term Content Creator describes anyone who is creating and producing original content for an audience across any of the myriad platforms that now exist to distribute that content.

And Chris Goffard and I debate the term, Content Creator, in his upcoming interview. His assertion is that “no one grows up aspiring to be a Content Creator like Hemingway.” Well, in Hemingway’s time, there wasn’t the opportunity to be a Content Creator in our modern terms, nor were there the multitude of platforms available to distribute content. Later in our chat, I point out that Chris is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, an award-nominated author of works of fiction and narrative non-fiction, and he has the LA Times first-published ebook expanded from one of his articles. He’s the very definition of Content Creator!

So if “Content Creator” is a compliment, how can “Content” be derogatory?

It’s a term even Hemingway could be proud of. It would have made him a kingmaker.

Content Engine

Traditionally, artists could be silo’d entities who worked in their one specific are of expertise — journalism, screenwriting, books, television, comics — but the ever-evolving Mediaverse has rendered that kind of artist obsolete. Artists and creative talent now need to be present and actively publishing content across multiple media platforms, building audience, engaging with fans and reaching out to the splintered and variegated market segments to build their unique and individual brands.

In the past, Big Media was able to control the channels of distribution. There were enormous barriers to reaching audience through only a handful of gatekeepers that controlled all media distribution channels. We were both captive audiences and captive artists. But now there has been a democratization of media. The Mediaverse has been cracked wide open. There are no barriers to entry and due to our wired interconnectivity, popular content is accessible, immediate, pervasive, virtually free and omnipresent.

This new and ever-evolving Mediaverse creates a unique and golden opportunity for artists to evolve themselves into Content Creators: pro-active, entrepreneurial and engaging purveyors of original IP (Intellectual Property) across multiple media platforms. A writer becomes a Content Creator by writing across many channels — she may author a book, script a pilot and post daily updates to her blog. A director as Content Creator directs in a variety of forms — movies, television, short films, viral videos and theater. An illustrator might pencil a digital comic and then illustrate a children’s book.

Regardless of the form or the platform, a true Content Creator is actively generating new material (IP), publishing consistently, and constantly pushing content to an active, engaged and participatory audience.

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Content Engine

Intellectual Property is the unique expression of an idea or concept — in the case of literary work, characters, theme, story and their resultant execution — in a real, tangible form. That unique expression creates a bundle of exclusive rights around something that begins as an intangible, a mental asset, if you will.

Part of this has legal implications: copyright protects works of authorship that have been tangibly expressed — because it enables the ownership of a dream, an idea, an emotion that we can touch, see, hear, and feel. Part of this is qualitative: it’s not enough to have an idea and write it down on a piece of paper and put it in a drawer, it must be expressed in a form than establishes its worth. You have to put it out into the Mediaverse.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Great ideas are one in a million. Either way, it’s the expression of that idea that makes it special and imputes value. Content Creators need to be able to point to their unique IP as something that exists, has value and establishes their authorship.

A published book is IP. An app is IP. A short film is IP. A movie is IP. A comic book is IP. A video game is IP. A blog with a readership is IP. Even a Twitter account with a following that has been consistently maintained can be IP. (ContentEngine.tv is a platform to establish IP.)

When we refer to IP, or to “underlying IP,” as something that studios, networks and other content producers are seeking, what we mean is that there are underlying rights that have value due to their name recognition, brand identity, fan-base or all of the above.

The appeal of underlying IP is that studios won’t have to do all the work of introducing a new title to the marketplace, there is pre-established awareness. Twilight, Spiderman, Mission Impossible, Angry Birds, Mass Effect and any short story by Phlip K. Dick are all examples of underlying IP that have tremendous value to content producers. Each of those underlying properties command massive name and title recognition, an engaged fan-base, pervasive pre-awareness and built-in audience. That’s why underlying IP can be so valuable.

The imperative for Content Creators is to plant their IP flag, as it were, to secure their ideas as their own. IP is a unique and tangible expression of your idea. That’s what creates value and, from a legal perspective, forms the bundle of rights that you can protect, license and sell to content producers willing to pay you to exploit them.

“Real artists ship.” Real Content Creators publish.

So get on it. Express those original ideas. Make ‘em tangible. Establish your IP.

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Click here to submit your own question to be answered in a future Q&A.

Content Engine