Micromovies – Pocket Shorts Part 2

In May 2005, Europe’s leading trade fair for ”interactive content”, MILIA, launched an initiative highlighting the topic of mobile content. Conferences were held on the theme and, at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, representatives of the major mobile phone manufacturers and network operators showed micromovies for the first time at the fair. This is just one more demonstration that the industry is booming. Does this moment perhaps represent an historic opportunity for short film producers? Who will be the key players in the big business with short film?

 

 

To date there are but few middlemen mediating between short-film makers and potential buyers of micromovies in the telecommunications industry. It can be seen as a structural weakness of the short-film scene that there are hardly any sales channels established for its products, while the individual filmmaker is hardly in a position to carry out an effective marketing campaign on his own. The few existing short-film marketers have concentrated up until now primarily on cinema and television and – with a few exceptions – have little contact with the new markets.

 

 

Digital content pioneers in Germany: Bitfilm

 

Founded in 1999 in Hamburg, Bitfilm GmbH was the first in Germany to tap the new markets on the borderline between film and digital media. Since its founding, Bitfilm GmbH has been producing and marketing films for the Internet, television, DVD and mobile end devices.

At the same time, the company acts as event organizer, at first with the Bitfilm Festival under the auspices of the Short Film Festival Hamburg (2000 to 2002), and then as part of the Filmfest Hamburg. Alongside competitions for flash animation and other digital formats, Bitfilm also inaugurated a contest for Micromovies in 2003. The festival enables the company to maintain direct contacts with short-film makers and the young film scene.

 

The focus of Bitfilm’s work is licensing. Since 2001, Bitfilm has acted as content provider for several companies, including Deutsche Telekom, or T-Online. The short films shown on the new T-Vision entertainment portal are supplied by Bitfilm. Although the portal was first tested with short films, today these play at most the role of teasers on T-Vision, since video-on-demand technology via ADSL now allows for the distribution of feature-length films.

Bitfilm adapted to this drive toward digitally distributed feature-length films by long since adding suitable offerings to its portfolio – meaning it no longer relies solely on the short form. An external sign of this changeover is the 30,000-EUR ”Golden Shark” award conferred on a feature-length digital film at the last Bitfilm Festival.

 

The short film is once again playing a key role for Bitfilm, however, now that demand for ”short attention films” has segued almost seamlessly into a need for content to feed the new mobile distribution networks. Bitfilm was one of the earliest to jump on the bandwagon: what may have been the first German micromovie for mobile phones (”You’ve got V-Mail”) was produced by Bitfilm and even won an award at the first Nokia Micromovie Competition held in 2003 in Tampere.

Bitfilm benefited from its edge on the competition and was able to win network operator Vodafone as partner. Since early 2005, Bitfilm has been delivering content to Vodafone, which shows a different short film each day on ”Kurzfilm TV”, its mobile TV portal. And Bitfilm has taken on other partners as well – including the mobile communication branches of major media enterprises such as Burda Wireless and Arvato Mobile, a Bertelsmann subsidiary.

 

 

Britshorts Ltd. - Shorts International

 

In Great Britain, Britshorts Ltd. (London) has cornered the market by applying similar strategies. The licenser claims to have the world’s largest catalogue of short films (with over 2000 titles). Founded in 2000 by the ‘old economy’ producers Robert Fox (Ealing Studios) and Barnaby Thompson, the company is active on the cross-media scene in the fields of production, distribution and branded entertainment. Short-film licenses are sold to television broadcasters, Internet providers, airlines und mobile communications companies. Branding customers include businesses such as Tiscali, Nike, Diesel and Jameson.

 

Britshorts advertises its catalogue by highlighting the high proportion of films with famous stars and the large number of award-winners at international festivals. Only one short film festival, Clermont-Ferrand, is among the name festivals that are explicitly mentioned, such as Sundance, Cannes and Edinburgh. Shorts International also sells short films from some of the renowned film schools such as the dffb Berlin, London Film School and the animated film department of the Royal College of Art (London). Its main business, however, stems from its exclusive rights for Great Britain to the catalogue of the American short-film distributor Hypnotic Inc. (New York / Los Angeles). Hypnotic belongs to Vivendi Universal and is exclusive distribution partner for the short-film archive of the American Film Institute (AFI) and submissions to Australia’s Tropfest Short Film Festival, among others.

 

In the mobile communications sector, Britshorts Ltd. works with Orange UK (France Telecom group) and O2 plc. The mobile channel Shorts TV is operated in conjunction with Orange, and O2 is Britshorts’ content partner for a digital mobile TV pilot project (DVB-H) operated by Arquiva (formerly NTL Broadcast) and Nokia.

 

 

(Real) big players on the lookout for mobile content – a few examples

 

The digital mobile content market has taken on such huge dimensions that by now all of the major media enterprises have gotten into the act or have started corresponding initiatives. On the level of the global players, this is manifested not only by new business start-ups, but also by a flood of takeovers. Thus, targeted purchasing makes up for both a lack of content and a lack of knowledge of the market segment in question – for example short film.

 

A case in point is the purchase of the Internet short-film provider iFilm by Viacom subsidiary MTV for 49 million $US in October 2005. IFilm is second only to AtomFilms in US short-film sales. Viacom probably needed to acquire the short-film catalogue of the provider (which formerly boasted its ‘independence’) in order to stand up to competition from Apple and Pixar and jockey itself into a better position on the mobile TV market.

 

German music television station VIVA, which like MTV meanwhile belongs to Viacom, entered into a partnership with the German mobile communications provider E-Plus (a subsidiary of KPN in the Netherlands) in order to offer a joint entertainment channel in which music video plays a major role.

 

 

Mobile and/or tele-visions

 

The entry of the big media concerns, which are also active in the television market, onto the mobile content scene may presage the future domination of television over film. There are also technical and strategic reasons for making this assumption. For example, it is not yet clear whether wireless technologies such as UMTS, G3 or i-mode will be able to prevail against digital television technology for handhelds – particularly as bandwidth bottlenecks are already feared. If this happens, the mobile network operators, who have been the subject of envy up until now because they profit doubly from the new developments – from Pay-per-View income and network usage fees – would be left out in the cold. The phone makers on the other hand can either adjust to the new situation by producing handhelds or simply drop the mobile phone sector entirely, as Siemens for example has done, with its communications department now focussing instead on IP telephony and wireless transmission channels, such as DVB-H.

 

Future developments will also depend on how flexibly the usually conservative television stations react to the new situation – especially since their energies are already tied up on another front by IPTV. In the meantime, some of the public broadcasters have already entered the fray, spearheaded by the venerable BBC, which not only offers a one-minute film site on the Internet, but has already set up its own ”mobile services” through which the shortest works are available from the repertoire of its online portal of short films for mobile phone (www.bbc.co.uk/mobile).

 

Now that large media concerns and private television stations are entering the market, they will doubtless exercise substantial influence on content, which could ultimately work to the detriment of quality. Examples like the BBC – which offer thematically and aesthetically more demanding short films – are and will probably remain the exception. In fact, the influence the television industry exerts on mobile content is already sobering. Existing material is either ‘reworked’ (so-called retransmissions) or recreated by television producers on the model of tried and true TV formats.

US television station ABC is, for example, preparing a special production of its mystery series ”Lost” for mobile phone. And network operator Verizon has commissioned a mobile phone adaptation of the television series ”24” from Fox Television, to be distributed in one-minute episodes known as ‘mobisodes’.

 

In Europe as well, the big television programming suppliers are already on the starting block. In first position is Endemol with its typical formats. Orange customers in Great Britain are being treated to Celebrity Big Brother, and live images of plastic surgery are now available for cell phone viewing. Mobi-Soaps like ”FanTessTic” and ”Totally Frank” are also part of the programmer’s repertoire. At the MIPCOM TV show, Endemol recently announced the launch of its own two mobile phone channels. Along with a comedy channel featuring »short, funny clips«, an Extreme Reality Channel is also in planning, described in a press release as »a non-stop parade of the bizarrest and weirdest video clips« (www.endemol.com).

These products are quite far removed from what people usually know and love as short film!

 

At the Cologne start-up plan_b media as well, a licensing company founded by former students in the Laboratory for Mixed Realities at the Academy of Media Arts, short films play a minor role compared with games, ringtones and iTV products. In the video business unit – which includes the segments cartoons, comedy, sports, movies and erotic highlights – short film is hardly to be found. Besides international cartoons, the videos consist primarily of more than 10,000 ”Funny Home Video Clips”! To date, however, plan_b media has celebrated its greatest (film) success with the feature-length film Star Wars Episode III. The company hopes to build on this positive development with further films such as ”A Nightmare on Elm Street”...

 

 

Ringtone video as sales model

 

In a similar market position, but offering only the shallowest brand of entertainment, is the marketing company Jamba! (in the USA: Jamster), part of the VeriSign group. Its main business is still ringtones, for which it is market leader, at least in Europe. At its Berlin headquarters alone, Jamba employs almost 500 staff members. Jamba also markets videos and cartoons for mobile phones, including licenses from plan_b media (Mordillo, Moorhuhn, etc.). These consist predominantly of ‘funny videos’ and erotic films. The company markets its mobile videos in the same aggressive way as its ringtones. By now, though, many viewers are turned off by the intrusive commercials on private television. Jamba! has also had an impact on the image of VIVA following its takeover by Viacom, which many of the former fans of the music television channel view as a distinct downgrade. A co-operative agreement between Jamba! and MTV Networks for the provision of joint mobile services announced in autumn 2005 will serve to foster the spread of this lifestyle entertainment mix of games, dating, cartoons and ringtones throughout the mobile phone sector.

 

 

At the bottom end of the value chain

 

With all of these imposing value chains, what is the position of the filmmaker or producer? To date, marketers, licensers and producers have failed to come up with a coherent concept for the acquisition of Micromovies. The necessary structures are lacking, particularly in the short-film sector. Most short-film makers are at once author, director and producer. As author/producer, they are on their own when it comes to marketing their work. There is not even a producers’ association to represent their interests or to advise them, for example on legal issues.

 

Licensers and marketers are facing the same problem from the other side of the market. Large companies are neither able nor willing to contact individual authors and take up business relations with them. Furthermore, they are not in the market for a single short film or clip, but need to find sources to supply them steadily and reliably with large quantities of material. Micromovies are a mass commodity and not individual products. What is called for here are middlemen who know their way around the short-film scene. But these are rare and only a few have been able to gain filmmakers’ trust. The dearth of products on the Micromovie market is thus not so much the consequence of an imbalance between supply and demand, but instead a distribution problem.

 

As described in the first part of this article (more Info...), this is the reason why network operators and mobile phone makers have chosen the competition and festival co-operation route as a way to access content directly. Independent competitions or festivals for Micromovies have even been inaugurated, for many of which the aims or interests they are pursuing are still unclear. Often, it is not even possible to determine whether such undertakings represent a cultural project, a commercial business or even a bogus ploy to acquire licenses. Filmmakers and producers would be well advised to do their homework before submitting their works and above all to read the fine print in the festival or competition regulations carefully. The fact is that – whether out of disdain, naiveté or unscrupulous business aims – filmmakers are often enough being taken to the cleaners ...

 

 

Bait and switch tactics and the fine print in competition regulations

 

Many competition organizers, as well as agencies and distributors, tempt filmmakers by offering the ‘free’ distribution of their works – an offer they should presumably be happy to take up. Others lure artists with prize money as an incentive and for promotional purposes. But whenever entry conditions are devised to give only one or two submissions the chance of winning an award or honour, while all participants are forced to give up the rights to their works, then the event is more like a lottery for the filmmakers. And this comes at a high price, because if they transfer the exclusive rights to their works, any further marketing efforts are prohibited.

 

For the Mobile Movie Award hosted by O2 (Berlin 2004/2005), for example, participants had to sign a contract granting exclusive usage rights »including all conceivable rights to ideas, drafts and designs« as well as »transferring ownership of the submitted data media« to O2. This transfer of rights even included »the right to modify, edit and rework, to reproduce, distribute, broadcast, exhibit and screen and the right to transfer to third parties«. Finally, 02 also granted itself the right to enter a sample or model of the submitted works under its own name in the Design Registry (in order to produce any sequels or series under its own name without having to ask permission or pay the original filmmaker?).

 

Not quite as flagrant were the conditions for entering the Orange Short Film Contest 2005, which was put on for Orange France by Wonderphone and Premium Films (Paris). In this case, the exclusive rights were limited to prize-winners and usage in the Orange Mobile Phone Network. And in the call for submissions for 2006, the organizers offer participants the option of declining supplementary participation in an online competition for an audience award that involves release on the Internet. (http://orangefilmcourt.orange.fr)

 

 

Stimulating micromovie production through targeted funding

 

Targeted funding for Micromovie film projects is still the exception to the rule. Only in Great Britain does such an initiative exist – Pocket Shorts, founded in 2004. Pocket Shorts was conceived by the Blink agency (www.blinkmedia.org) for film students in northern England and is financed by public lotto funds. Scotland has now joined in with its own regional contest. In Scotland, 8 projects will be supported with the help of Scottish Screen for a maximum of ?3000 each.

Common to both contests is that they function as production promotion, i.e. submissions consist of a project description and cost estimate. In addition, workshops are offered on the specific requirements films must fulfil for screening on mobile phones. The first results were shown this year at the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Brief Encounters short film festival in Bristol. In both cases, the Pocket Shorts were not distributed via the mobile phone network, but rather – as was also the case this year with the Micromovies at Interfilm Berlin – via Bluetooth stations.

 

Whether public funding is the only way to ultimately help this booming industry onto its feet can surely be viewed sceptically. More appropriate would be if the mobile entertainment industry – instead of holding competitions, for example – would itself sponsor up-and-coming talents with production funding.

 

 

What’s the bottom line?

 

In the announcement of the MILIA 2005 trade fair mentioned at the beginning, the prognosis was that: »according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, the mobile content market will reach $70 billion in 2008 of which mobile video content will represent $5.7 billion«. The question of what piece of the pie short-film makers will get is still open. The few figures on film purchases that are known are, if anything, disillusioning. For example, filmecho/filmwoche announced that Orange France was prepared to pay producers only 50 to 60 EUR per minute. In view of the market dynamics and the huge demand, prices as low as these present a paradox. Nevertheless, the formation of value chains in this segment is still in its infancy, and, as soon as short-film producers are able to better represent their own interests, they will hopefully be able to conclude more lucrative deals in future. Because, after all, who knows how to produce short stories better than short-film makers?