In this episode of Hollywood Drive & Talk, Seth explores how to make a lasting impact with your life by being mindful of your “Spiritual Legacy.”

Hollywood Drive & Talk: “Bite-sized inspiration while driving the conversation in Hollywood.”

Subscribe to Content Engine TV’s YouTube channel here: http://ow.ly/et1Cc

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The recent acquisition of YouTube channel AwesomenessTV by Dreamworks and new paid YouTube channels by Sesame Workshop, UFC, and Magnolia Pictures prove the industry sees money on the digital front. The paid subscription model applied (so far) across 30 YouTube channels is just one way content providers can monetize content. SSN spoke with a group of online experts, comprised of filmmakers, producers and network execs, who’ve risen to the challenge of adapting content to the digital space and crafting profitable financial models.

(from left to right) Tarika Khan, Jeremy Azevdeo, Matthew Arnold, Freddie Wong, and Seth Jaret

At the recent “Monetizing Content for New Media Platforms” panel by USC Women of Cinematic Arts, Seth Jaret, CEO of creative media studio Content Engine, discussed the plethora of platforms: “The rise of all these platforms … makes it accessible to be a content creator and to engage an audience. So [while] the barriers to Hollywood have never been higher, communicating to an audience, having an audience… has never been more accessible. They are free, they are pervasive. It’s just the knowledge that’s missing.”

Learn as You Go and Take the Long View

With the advent of YouTube, content creators have a free and easy distribution platform. But YouTube can be overwhelming for filmmakers and TV producers looking to stand out from the pack. Mike Tringe, co-founder of the online web series school, CreatorUp, says those from traditional media must bear in mind: “It’s a long play, it’s a long game… I think the answer is… know who your audience is and target, create, test and experiment. I used to work with Kristen Jones in creative development at Vuguru. One favorite line she’d throw out there to writers and directors who were coming on to do projects was, ‘There’s no movie jail here.’ If you make a bad movie, you’re in movie jail for three to four years, and you never get another directing deal. But if you’re working online, you experiment, you test, you play, you mess up, you listen.”

Still, Seth Jaret, who also produces the web series, Hollywood Drive & Talk, says successfully distributing content online isn’t as easy as it looks. “Digital requires as much thought as attacking the craft of screenwriting,” he admits. “You can’t just be a director. You have to know how to edit, engage people that follow you on Twitter, upload a video to YouTube, how to add annotations, what that means, how to cross-promote with other YouTube videos and engage with your fans. There’s a medley of skill sets, [and] the only way to acquire them is in the doing. Practice is really the teacher.”

The Magic Word: Consistency

The good news is that, unlike the Hollywood model wherein studios reap the greatest profits from their copious revenue streams while talent and filmmakers find their options limited to contracts and brand deals, the future is wide-open online. As Tarika Khan, director of talent production at Maker Studios, which produces numerous YouTube channels, remarked during the USC panel: “The exciting thing … is that you can make money in all kinds of different ways from YouTube videos: the ads that run, pre-rolls, brand integration, getting paid to tweet, etc. I have some talent that, because their content is family-friendly … their brand deals are huge. But I have other guys that, because their stuff is more crass or X-Rated, they sell interesting merch [merchandise].”

In television, brands market their products in shows that share the same tone, and so, they can sell to a sizable target audience on a consistent basis. The same dynamic can be true in the digital arena too, so long as your content remains fresh and engaging. Jeremy Azevdeo, senior director of original programming at Machinima, which provides video entertainment for gamers, identifies what advertisers look for in prospective online brand integrations: “If you’re not uploading with regularity, people will forget you’re there. You have to constantly remind them that you’re making content … that’s at least in the same universe of style and tone. An advertiser … [is] looking for consistency because they’re basically placing a bet on you. So for advertising revenue, start building your audience with volume and consistency that’s targeted.”

Subscription Vs. Kickstarter

Sizing up digital content’s ever-evolving revenue possibilities, Freddie Wong, co-creator of the FreddieW YouTube Channel and Video Game High School in which a single episode garnered more than 10 million views, sees potential in two very different models. “I think the subscription model is a weird thing. On one hand, you hear sometimes, ‘If only everyone who downloaded Wolverine paid one dollar for this!’ That’s just not how it works, people don’t think this way. But people subscribe to stuff all the time. I’m on Spotify, Netflix, I’m on Hulu Plus. I think there’s a weird mix right now of what Kickstarter represents, which is a one-time per project funding, and a sustained, over-time subscription type of model.”

Wong eyes opportunity in the near future for channels with a small, yet highly targeted audience, “[If] We only have 10,000 users, or a very small number of users, but because they’re paying, we’re doing better than some company with a million users. For us, instead of concentrating on this view battle … we want to capture the audience … in a way that’s meaningful … that can sustain and support what we do as filmmakers. That’s the direction that we’re going.”

Content creators can produce cheap, branded commercial videos online, but for people who want to release episodes or films, the digital space presents funding challenges to narrative content. At the USC event, Matthew Arnold, founder of the new media network RocketJump and co-creator of Video Game High School, doesn’t mince words: “Content is king. There’s a lot of good content online, but very few of it is great because it’s very tough to make great content right now. It’s very expensive to make content in a way filmmakers want to make content. But people want to support, and that’s what Kickstarter has shown.”

As one of RocketJump’s principles is to be transparent, Arnold outlines Video Game High School’s funding of season two. “We made about $808,000 on Kickstarter,” he says. “About 10% will go to giving gifts back, and we got about $750,000 on our deal from Dodge. That’s our entire budget for VGHS, season two. Because we’re transparent on our affiliate page and say, ‘Hey, you guys need to fund us by buying stuff on Amazon through our site,’ people want to support you. You have to find ways for them to be supportive.”

Whether you work in film, television or online, there remains one constant: Consistently great content is the key to consistently great revenue. Taking that content and marketing it to a targeted audience over time will open revenue opportunities in film, television and beyond. YouTube is just one of the many digital distribution avenues that exist for filmmakers eager for new ways to reach audiences. Cheap equipment, free distribution and funding options have opened the gates for filmmakers into the digital arena. Digital is growing, and its future is ripe for imaginative new models to win over audiences, advertisers and revenues.

* This article was originally published in Studio System News and can be found here.

Content Engine

There was recent article in The New York Times about using data “to solve the equation of the hit film script.” While I’m in favor of any great idea that might improve the quality of a screenplay – or movies as a whole – I am conflicted about what this means for the future of Hollywood… and humankind.

Stats might reflect what formulas will work, but they have NOTHING to do with creativity, imagination, gut-instinct or love of film, which is the primary reason most of us were drawn to Hollywood in the first place.

We’re entering an era of data mining, algorithms, digital genomics. Computers are pre-selecting everything for us. Susan Blackmore, a memologist and scholar, has said that the pithy notions and bite-sized content we so eagerly share with each other on Facebook and Twitter are a form of computers using human beings as instruments for those ideas’ propagation. We have, in essence, become the devices by which memes pre-selected and influenced by machines are spread.

A popular meme

In similar fashion, the data-crunching, computer-optimized statistical system of script analysis outlined in the article is yet another blow to the “creative community” that was Hollywood. It demonstrates an effort to remove creativity—humanity!–from the equation. And it begs the question: What’s the point of fostering “ideas” at all when you can have a statistician tell you what formulas will work?

A formula is an equation that produces an expected result. 1 + 1 = 2. It guarantees combining specific quantities will yield a certain outcome. But isn’t Hollywood where “creative” accounting originated? Wasn’t this the land of 1 + 1 = 3? For anyone involved in the creative process of making movies, our collective aspiration is that the outcome is greater than the sum of the parts. The sky is the limit on any given project. That’s how the magic happens. That’s the alchemy.

Hollywood "Creative Accounting" exemplified

But all of that has been subjugated to one mighty aim: making money. Just like Wall Street. So that means removing the human element, instituting a system of statistical script analysis that’s the Hollywood equivalent of electronic trading.

Makes sense. If a computer can make the most informed choice, the most efficient bet, then why have a human element at all? Computers can pick the movies, fashion the scripts, control the production pipeline––everything is digital from beginning to end in terms of shooting, editing, visual effects, finishing and post now anyway. Then computers can distribute the movies to us, measure our viewership and report back to other computers the algorithms of our consumption. Ergo, humanity is out of the equation entirely. Success!

This posits a future in which machines will be occupied with computing each other while what’s left of humanity will go back to the campfire to tell each other cautionary tales about it.

Moviegoing in the good 'ole days

Presaging Hollywood’s trajectory, Griffin Mill muses aloud in The Player during a big wheel meeting where studio execs dispense with writers in favor of movies constructed from newspaper headlines: “I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we’ve got something here.”

Griffin Mill: smooth, smug & well-tailored

Then again, The Player wouldn’t have passed muster in the algorithmic green-lighting process. It wouldn’t have been made. In the e-trading, optimized and formulaic future of Hollywood, the town won’t have any more Griffin Mills. It won’t have any more “Players.” The statisticians will have eliminated their necessity. And the “Players” will have been the instruments of their own extinction.

Wait --the algorithm said what?!

*This article was first published in The Hollywood Journal and in The Huffington Post.

Content Engine

Here’s the trailer for Crazy Kind of Love (retitled from Long Time Gone), which Seth Jaret executive produced.

Now available to stream on Netflix and other services. Adapted by Karen McCullah (Legally Blonde; The House Bunny). It’s a family dramedy featuring some fine acting talent: Graham Rogers (Revolution), Amanda Crew, Eva Longoria, Sam Trammel (True Blood), Anthony LaPaglia, Ali Milchalka, Virginia Madsen and more.

Here is the film’s description:

Depressed after getting dumped by her husband, a mother re-evaluates her life by way of observing her two sons as they come of age. When romance blossoms between one of her sons and the girl next door, she realizes the key to her happiness.

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Content Engine

We’re in the “age of the entrepreneur.” As Content Creators, we all must be entrepreneurial as we endeavor to create content, engage audiences with our ideas and figure out ways to monetize our efforts. We all need inspiration to fire our engines and Content Engine is working to do its part.

To that end, Content Engine CEO, Seth Jaret, was interviewed for “Inspiration Inc.” on TV4Startups, a new channel for entrepreneurs to get inspired, something which Content Engine knows something about. After all, our motto is…

Get Inspired. Be the Change. ContentEngine.tv

Content Engine

In this episode of Hollywood Drive & Talk, Seth is on his way to USC Cinema School to teach a class on the New Hollywood™ that will apply all the Content Engine principles in one course that you’re invited to attend this summer at UCLA Extension.

Seth’s UCLA Extension Class starts July 9, 2013: “The New Hollywood for Screenwriters.” Class description and sign up here: http://ow.ly/kCpb5

Hollywood Drive & Talk: “Bite-sized inspiration while driving the conversation in Hollywood.”

Subscribe to Content Engine TV’s YouTube channel here: http://ow.ly/et1Cc

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Get inspired. Be the change. ContentEngine.tv

Content Engine

In this episode of Hollywood Drive & Talk, Seth expresses why there’s a reason to be hopeful in Hollywood: because “All It Takes Is One!”

Hollywood Drive & Talk: “Bite-sized inspiration while driving the conversation in Hollywood.”

Subscribe to Content Engine TV’s YouTube channel here: http://ow.ly/et1Cc

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Get inspired. Be the change. ContentEngine.tv

Content Engine

In this episode of Hollywood Drive & Talk, Seth explains why “Dunbar’s Number” is so important to Facebook and how it applies to the relationships in your life.

Content Engine

In this episode of Hollywood Drive & Talk, Seth combines the wisdom of Steve Jobs, Mark Cuban & Gandhi to show you how to predict the future.

Hollywood Drive & Talk: Bite-sized inspiration while driving the conversation in Hollywood.

Subscribe to Content Engine TV’s YouTube channel here.

Get inspired. Be the change. ContentEngine.tv

Content Engine

Check out more CreatorUp Labs here.

Get Inspired. Be the Change. ContentEngine.tv

Content Engine