The Way We Watch Now: Case Studies

Theatrical-on-demand isn't about creating a completely new business model. It still depends on distributors and theatres and audiences. But it crucially shifts the dynamic, putting film fans at the heart of the deal – as curators, promoters, and patrons. We explore five case studies in the TOD movement.

Case Study #1: The One-Off Promoter

Brian Kelley was frustrated. As a featured writer on the film blog GordonandtheWhale.com, he says, "It's tough for me to go to film festivals and then tell people about all these movies that they weren't going to be able to see."

Kelley initially heard about Tugg through a press release. Or, more accurately, he'd received a press release about Tugg, ignored it, and then noticed that "somebody had posted something about it on Twitter." He went back to his email. "I read it, and was immediately skeptical," he says. "There's a lot of pushes for new and nontraditional distribution models, and I've seen a lot that I don't think are sustainable for the future."

The pieces didn't fall into place until he saw one film in their catalog: Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters. "That's the moment when Tugg clicked for me," Kelley notes. He'd caught the video gaming documentary at the 2011 Austin Film Festival, and while he knew it would have a wide audience, it was still niche enough that it would be a tough sell. However, Kelley thought he would risk organizing his own screening. "My first inclination was to sign up for this thing that I didn't think wasn't going to do much," he says.

Initially, he used social media to promote it as a documentary screening at the Alamo Drafthouse, but that wasn't going so well. So he switched tacks. Instead of a regular screening, he hyped it as a Tetris event, with a block-rocking tournament before the screening. "That got me quite a few tickets sold," Kelley says. Next, he switched publicity tools, replacing tweets with personal contact. He would talk to people at work and in coffee shops, "approaching it as an event, and not just saying 'hey, come to my movie.'"

The biggest challenge was price point, and how that would affect the tipping point to confirm the screening. He had to factor in the costs of the Tetris tournament, so he was faced with two options: Either sell 60 tickets at $12 each, or 75 at $9. Ultimately he went with the lower-priced tickets, and filled 118 seats. Even a major rainstorm on the night didn't diminish attendance – and that points to the key to a successful theatrical-on-demand event: a committed crowd. Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League noted that Kelley's success came down to knowing a niche audience that was off the Drafthouse's radar.

For Kelley, the experience was pretty positive. He was shielded from any financial risk but, he notes, "The burden is completely on the promoter." However, his big conclusion is that it worked. "Friends of mine in New York who see I had a screening, I can say, 'Hey, you can have a screening of your own.'"

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Case Study #2: The Film Club

Austin-based multimedia showcase The Show! would exist without theatrical-on-demand, but Executive Director Ben Snyder argues that it adds extra tools to his arsenal. "Our mission is to be able to get as many screenings ... in Austin for Austin filmmakers as we can, and Tugg is a great tool to do that," he says,

Tugg reached out to Snyder last fall. "I wasn't sure that it was going to be the right fit, but I'd always wanted to do features," notes Snyder. So far, he has used Tugg to successfully book four screenings. "Our events on Tugg do better than our regular events. I wish we could do everything through Tugg, which we've actually considered."

The TOD model creates new low-effort programming opportunities for old-fashioned film clubs. As Snyder explains, "It's pretty tricky to set up a screening. Negotiating with distributors, with the venue – it's a lot to do. But with Tugg, it's a lot easier." He continues, "There are a lot of film clubs already in Austin, but Tugg can create new ones of different niche things."

Snyder's experience is not unique. Tugg was contacted by a group in Chattanooga, Tenn., which was interested in showing the Oscar-nominated live shorts. That show sold out, so they then booked the animated shorts. Now they've moved on to features, and Chattanooga audiences recently sold out a Tugg-powered 214-seat screening of Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 3D. Tugg co-founder Nicolas Gonda said that, "Now as the result of those activities, there is a very large group of people that have come together to create a film-going club that uses Tugg to bring independent film to Chattanooga on a regular basis."

However, Snyder put the success of the screenings down to booking the right film. Even with a brand like The Show!, he says, "You can never count on your own audience doing it every time." Snyder compared the Tugg experience to his work setting up Kickstarter campaigns for filmmakers. "You're going to get that person's audience, and you can count on a good chunk of that, like 80 percent is going to be that. And then you'll get maybe another 20 percent from your own people." He's already seeing trends in how a successful TOD campaign will go: There will be a brief burst when the screening site is launched, then another when the filmmakers start promoting, and then a further jump if the screening is confirmed. Comments Snyder, "Everyone's like, 'Oh, there's a lot of people going,' and the people who were on the fence will go."

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Case Study #3: The Indie Filmmaker

Every filmmaker has to make a decision: How much time and effort do they want to put into promoting their film? Joe Bailey Jr. and Steve Mims, co-directors of Incendiary: The Willingham Case, are no exceptions. As Bailey says, "Incendiary has been our first and foremost obsession for the last two and a half years." However, he added, "There's only so much time you can carve out to distribute your film and keep an eye on your kid after it's grown up and gone into the world."

After opening at the South by Southwest 2011 Film Festival, Incendiary had a limited release last fall through Truly Indie, a distributing arm of Magnolia Pictures. The home crowd gave the film a four-week run at the Violet Crown in Austin, plus the filmmakers secured two weeks at the E Street Cinema in Washington, D.C. and one-week runs in Dallas, New York, Iowa City, and West Hollywood. However, Bailey concedes, theatres like that represent "a very rarefied cinema that has a nurtured audience."

After that initial run, Bailey and Mims were faced with a tough choice: Keep pushing for more public screenings, or start working on video-on-demand and DVD. Bailey says, "We could have, if we thought it was a wise business decision, have opened really wide. We would have spent a lot more money, and we could have earned some more back, but it seemed to be a diminishing return." Ultimately, he says, "There's a point where you have to ask yourself whether it's worth having a higher gross over the life of a film just for an ego boost."

However, Bailey saw Tugg's theatrical-on-demand model as a low-risk way to keep some momentum going in cinemas, and in return Incendiary has given Tugg one of its first success stories. Bailey notes, "We were probably, if not the first Tugg screening, we were the first to do several subsequent screenings in a row." The first screening was booked for Dec. 14, at the Cinemark in Cedar Park, and there have been seven more since then. "Early on," Bailey says, "we were a little more curious about how it would take off, and I probably put a little more effort into making sure the screenings happened. But the last few screenings – it's been really humbling."

"I definitely have to applaud Tugg because it's so logistically efficient," he added. It also gives access to unusual markets because it "uses the larger behemoth theatre chains as well as the smaller operations." However, the real driver behind the screenings has been word-of-mouth among anti-death penalty advocates. So far, six of the eight screenings have been presented by an anti-death penalty group, like Death Penalty Focus in San Francisco and Advocates for Innocence for the Wrongly Convicted in Durham, N.C. However, Bailey and Mims have stayed closely involved in nurturing each screening. Says Bailey, "I definitely take care to announce screenings when the Tugg page is live. But I think the great thing is that it works when the audience is engaged, and no one's left holding the bag."

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Case Study #4: The Cinema Owner

Fifteen percent. That's the figure that plagues cinema owners. On an average week, only 15% of their seats are filled. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is doing far better than most: Founder Tim League calculates that his screens are running at 37% capacity, but he's still not happy. He says, "For me, that means that we have 63% of our facilities available for more." That's why he's looking at Tugg's theatrical-on-demand model to fill some extra seats.

He first met Tugg co-founders Nicolas Gonda and Pablo Gonzalez in mid-2011; they presented their plan over lunch. League says, "They had a little binder with pictures that explained what the concept was and how the idea came about, and whether or not we'd be interested in doing some beta testing with their content." League immediately saw the appeal to tap into new audiences "and we've been fast friends ever since."

The relationship has become extremely close. The two firms share a PR company, Fons PR, and there have been multiple Tugg screenings at Drafthouse locations. League's new distribution company Drafthouse Films has put two films into Tugg's catalogue: the Oscar-nominated Bullhead and bizarre dystopian dance-off The FP. League himself is putting his own Tugg event together – a birthday celebration for Tura Satana. League said, "Instead of sticking it in the calendar, which I reserve the right to do, why don't I put it up on Tugg and see if there actually is an audience for it?"

The Drafthouse understands the concept of communities attracted to niche programming. Says League, "We do a lot of oddball special screenings already, so people are used to that ... You'll look at our calendar and you'll see The Avengers, but you'll see a music documentary the very next night, or some kind of crazy sing-along event, or some extra added value." Those are the two aspects that the staff behind both Tugg and the similar Gathr suggest works best: Specialized programming targeting microcommunities, with added value at the screenings. Since both are already core parts of the Drafthouse business model, it may be a little surprising that League would see any use for Tugg. However, he argued that it's a natural fit for his chain. "I think what Tugg is trying to do is find these niche little groups that are excited about coming to the cinema, and some of their toolbox is the same as ours."

It's still early days for Tugg, but League describes himself as "bullish on the idea that this could be a decent revenue stream for everybody involved – for us, the promoter, and the content rights' holder." However, he also sees potential for reshaping his own business, and he'll be keeping a close eye on which promoters – Tuggs' term for the people who organize screenings – stand out from the crowd. As he says, "I see it as a breeding ground for people that might show real promise as an in-house programmer."

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Case Study #5: DIY TOD

Theatrical-on-demand doesn't necessarily need a firm like Tugg to run it. In fact, it only really needs two things: First, a theatre. The second? Demand.

That's what documentarians Robin Bond and Dave Wruck found out by accident when they launched a Kickstarter campaign for their Roller Derby film Derby, Baby!. Barring a couple of film festival outings, they had pretty much bypassed a theatrical release. Says Bond, "We'd learned that it wouldn't be in our best interests to go through some of the mainstream theatres, because they would have such a big take in our movies." Instead, they were going to use the Kickstarter appeal to pay for the DVD release and to subsidize a limited theatrical self-release. However, Bond notes, "To go to independent theatres around the world, including the travel we wanted to do to attend them, was not an inexpensive endeavor."

At the suggestion of producer Ron Patrick, they added a one-night public screening as one of the Kickstarter donor rewards. Now this self-released indie doc has 160 screenings lined up for 150 screens internationally. "It took on its own life," says Bond, "and it became, 'Wow, this is its own distribution model.'"

The key was finding a community that was interested in their film – in this case, the international women's flat track Roller Derby community that was the subject of the documentary. For them, the screenings made simple economic sense – $350 secured a screening, and the majority of the pledges came from derby leagues (many of whom were featured in the film). Split that $350 between all of the skaters, officials, friends, family, and fans, and, even with the cost of renting a screen, that's a pretty good return. Bond notes, "The thing that really struck us [is] that our subject, our audience, and our distributors are all the same people. We can't find where that's ever been done before."

Bond and Wruk's Kickstarter campaign closed out in May; their original target was $30,000, but the pair raised $80,762. That's a big financial boost but, unlike a filmmaker using a TOD service like Tugg or Gathr, now Bond and Wruck have to organize the distribution themselves. That's a tall order since the first screening was scheduled for June 16, in Denver, followed by a screening June 17, in Napier, New Zealand. The key now is in promoting outside of the derby community, and that's where the filmmakers will stay most closely involved. Says Wruck, "We're going to start driving non-derby-related people to those screenings."