Industry Insider is a new Transworld Business column featuring the views and opinions of, you guessed it, members of the action sports industry. If you’d like to share your thoughts, opinions, initiatives, or other industry related tidbits, drop us a line at business@transworld.net.

By: Brad Kremer
Film director/producer
Filming and producing some of the sport’s best movies since 1994, Brad has clocked up 5 ‘Movie of the Year’ titles. From Kingpin Productions to Mack Dawg Productions, Kremer has spent the last 15 years of his life traveling the world in pursuit of the perfect shots, and learned the video side of the industry inside and out.

There has been a lot of talk lately about illegal downloads of snowboard videos. Even though it has been happening for quite a while now, it recently seems to be the hot topic. Things are changing in the independent snowboard film industry. More and more snowboard companies making their own films, MDP not making the “standard” snowboard movie anymore; I think the current situation of the industry, and the economy, has really put a stress on the independent filmmaker, and of course when we get stressed about the decline in DVD sales where do we look first? Illegal downloads. I recently put a lot of thought and research into the topic and what I found out is that is extremely complicated.

There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding this issue. You may think that since I have made a living off of making snowboard videos that I would put all the blame on the people downloading the videos. But I say that we filmmakers are as much to blame as the kids doing the downloading. So let’s explore it from both sides.

First things first - The most common reasoning I hear from these kids downloading our films for free is that we make all our money off sponsors, and since they buy snowboards and support our sponsors they therefore are supporting us as well. This couldn’t be more wrong. What they need to realize is that the independent filmmaker is different from the snowboard company that makes a film. The independent film gets maybe a third of its budget from sponsors. The rest of the money comes from DVD sales. We are lucky if we sell just enough to stay in business. Now if a snowboard company makes a film and just barely breaks even it’s a really good thing for them, because for them it’s just one big marketing tool - not their bread and butter. If they have hundreds of thousands of YouTube views and thousands upon thousands of BitTorrent downloads it’s actually good for them because they are getting more people watching their marketing tool. So you can see how it’s a big difference. The next excuse I hear a lot is that they can’t get the movies until months after the release in their country, or that it costs too much money, or that they don’t want a hard copy any more. These are all valid points, but non of them makes it OK to steal these films. They are just excuses. They are still “stealing” the films.

But let’s have a look at these last few “excuses”. Although they do not make it right to steal the films, they do make me think about why they are doing it, and this is where I came to realize that we as filmmakers are just as guilty as the ones who are ripping off our films. Before I get to that, I will try to explain some of these points. So kids want the movie now, not next month - now! Well, can we blame them? We should feel honored that they can’t wait for our movies. It sucks that some countries have to wait so long for the film to arrive there. If the people are into the scene enough to know when the film is out then the filmmaker and distributor should do all that they can to get it to them on time. But what then if it costs too much? Here in North America the DVDs are decently priced. Not too high, but not cheap either. But in some countries, especially in Europe, the DVDs have been outrageously priced - sometimes costing as much as $60 US. 60 bucks?!!! That would have to be one hell of a movie for me to buy it too, I’ll tell you that. Whose fault is this? Well I can tell you that the company I worked for didn’t make anymore off those high priced DVDs then we did here in North America. The distributors in those countries thought it was a good idea for some reason. We fought them for years to lower the prices but they refused. I think they have finally come down some, but it might have been too little too late, and none of this matters if they don’t even want a hard copy anymore. What to do then? Well, the only option is for us to offer a digital download. There have been a couple problems surrounding this. First, it’s a huge risk for an independent film company to offer the movie for download with no copy protection. Who’s to say that we wouldn’t lose even more revenue because a few download the film and then share that copy with everyone for free. Maybe that wouldn’t happen, but it’s a scary thought for a company when they are barely making it in the first place. Second, the music is a huge issue for downloads. Most soundtracks these days are from bands on major labels. A lot of the bands you think are indie are actually on an “indie” label owned by a major label, and as such clearing for digital downloads gets complicated and expensive. So if you put your film on say iTunes, where it has protection, after paying the bands and iTunes and the agent that got you on iTunes, you end up making next to nothing. It’s all so complicated and hard to get a grasp of when you don’t have adequate resources.

After going through all of this, I again say that we as filmmakers are just as guilty as the downloaders. We have lost touch with what the consumer wants, or better yet, we have lost touch with how to deliver our product to them. We have spent so much time and energy trying to make our films the best that they can be that we forgot to watch as the industry was changing right before our eyes. I think this is a turning point for snowboard films. The producers who will survive this period will have to come up with new models of distribution. They will have to listen to their audience, and they will have to take risks. I just hope that those who are downloading these films can realize they are hurting the industry that they seem to love so much, and if they want it to grow, if they want better films, then they need to put in a helping hand as well. If they want movies to progress, if they want to actually be a part of the answer and not the problem then I suggest they write in to their favorite production company that they are downloading their movies for free and tell them why, tell them what compels them to do this, and tell them what it would take for them to support the cause.

It’s time to stop fighting about who is right and who is wrong. That will get us nowhere. Instead, lets discuss new options, new distribution models - let’s work together to bring this industry into the 21st century.

Tags: action sports videos, brad kremer, industry insider, MDP, snowboarding

This entry was posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under FEATURES. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.