New Media, Old Methods

On Oct. 7, 1999, Los Angeles-based filmmakers Jason Ward, Dave Garrett and Gene Laufenberg had on their hands a self-produced short about a group of elderly women who decide to play Russian roulette. Their agent wouldn’t send the reel out because it was too dark, recalls Garrett. “We were all unemployed at this point, with no prospect of distribution on the film festival circuit or anywhere else.” Garrett had lunch with a man from San Francisco who asked if he could put their film on a Web site he was about to launch. “So we decided, ‘What the hell.’ ”

On Oct. 8, the short, “Sunday’s Game,” became the first one posted on Ifilm.com. By Oct. 10, more than 30 companies had called to set up meetings. Today, Garrett and Ward are wrapping “Corky Romano,” their first feature film for Disney, with movie and TV projects lined up at Fox, ABC, DreamWorks and Universal. Laufenberg has a job writing for Fox’s “The Family Guy” and is producing a pilot for UPN.

Did the Internet accelerate their careers? Undoubtedly. Could it happen like that today? Not a chance.

Garrett is the first to credit his big break to a one-time-only burst of perfect timing, wherein a shocking short on a red-hot site slammed headfirst into an intensely curious Hollywood community. Those days are over, he says.

“Now it’s the same problem everybody had before,” he says. With an estimated 50,000 short films clamoring for attention on a dwindling number of cash-strapped sites, Garrett wonders, “How do you get people to watch your short? You’re competing for the eyeballs.”

Still, the Web’s ability to showcase under-the-radar talent with zero connections can be a wonder to behold.

Witness Ashley Power, a 15-year-old high school student from the San Fernando Valley who last fall signed with MGM Television to develop her Goosehead.com show “Whatever” into a series for Showtime. Listen to East Trading Wang Wang, the heavy metal band from Estonia that landed a song on the “Little Nicky” soundtrack album after winning a contest on Garageband.com. Gawk at the Lake Hamilton High School cheerleading squad from Pearcy, Ark., that will appear in “The New Guy” movie thanks to votes from visitors to Mediatrip.com.

Bust or boon, one thing is certain: Even the most zealous Web-trepreneurs no longer talk about online entertainment as an end in itself. Where only a year ago now-defunct sites such as Pseudo.com and DEN.com preached the gospel of digital entertainment with “Damn the revenue model, full speed ahead” tunnel vision, today’s survival-minded content mavens may as well have stamped on their foreheads, “It’s the profit margin, stupid.”

But where’s the money to come from? Few sites can afford to wait for advertising revenue to develop from a trickle to a gusher--something analysts usually prefer to see within three to five years. And the three dirtiest words in the Web world are “charging for content.” So entertainment sites are teaming with old media studios that generate cash the old-fashioned way. The proposition: Develop it on the Web, open it wide in movies and on TV.

Hypnotic.com, for example, hooked up with Universal Pictures for its Million Dollar Film Festival. Five short-film finalists were selected by visitors to the site. Last month at the Sundance Film Festival, a jury of industry professionals screened the shorts and picked David von Ancken’s “Bullet in the Head” as the winner. Von Ancken will receive a $1-million development deal from Universal.

Hypnotic CEO Jeremy Bernard says, “Two years ago when I was putting my business plan together, I won’t say it was definitely in my plan to partner up with major studios, but it was always in my plan to work with major studios. It’s never been a question of us trying to compete with the studios. In lieu of a venture capital model, it was more like, ‘Let’s figure out ways we can work with the studios.’ ”

John Hegeman plans an ambitious slate for his sci-fi Web site, Distantcorners.com, looking to launch 26 online shows this year. But he’s got one foot firmly planted in the offline world: Revolution Studios has first-look rights to produce and distribute any properties developed on the site, including episodic tales by “Another 48 HRS” scribe John Fasano.

For Hegeman, the Internet is all about creating buzz to build a brand. It’s a notion he should know something about: Before starting Distantcorners, he orchestrated the “Blair Witch Project” Web campaign as marketing chief for Artisan Entertainment. Says Hegeman, “ ‘Blair Witch’ showed how the Web could serve as a great rubber band to hold together a bunch of different extensions, where once you introduced the property, it almost becomes the hub to your effort.”

The site’s umbrella company, Distant Corners Entertainment Group, also produces comic books, T-shirts, books, CD-ROMs and games, any one of which could generate Hegeman’s next hit. “Entertainment today is sort of being blurred; it’s sort of become this overall experience, where CD-ROMs or platform games are being created with the idea of expanding a property’s franchise into feature films and television shows.”

Flixer.com is the first Web site to produce a full-length feature via its Flixer Studios division. When “Girl’s Best Friend” wraps this spring, Chief Creative Officer Chris Buchanan, a former agent at UTA, and his partner, Robert Lazarus, an ex-Turner Broadcasting System executive, will seek a distributor. “We’re treating this as if it’s an independent film,” he says. “We’ll set up screenings and meet with people the same way you would if you’re a conventional indie. The good news for Robert and I is, we don’t have to figure out the acquisition process. We’ll go out to the people we already know.” The game plan for Flixer shifted abruptly earlier this month when the site dropped its community elements. Visitors could set up their own online portfolios, offer feedback to first-time filmmaker Jin Ishimoto as he progressed through the making of “Girl’s Best Friend” and design posters for the movie, one of which will be included in the press kit. Now, the site will serve as a showcase for Flixer marketing services and products.

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Some short film and animation sites have formed alliances outside the studio system. Seattle-based Atomfilms.com, which positioned itself from the outset as a renegade outfit that “values artistic vision and community participation over power lunches and opening-weekend box office,” merged in December with Shockwave.com, a San-Francisco-based site. Who Wants To Be A Movie Star.com is financing its in-progress feature, written by “Mouse Hunt” scribe Adam Rifkin, with funding from Blockbuster.com and MP3.com along with cash from ordinary citizens who bought roles in the film via Yahoo! Auctions. (The practice was later declared in violation of California labor laws; to get around that, sponsors bought the roles and gave them to the original bidders.)

And early last year, Sputnik7.com, one of the first sites to focus on short films, announced a partnership with RES Media Group, which produces a movie magazine and touring film festival.

Indeed, the Web may emerge as this decade’s equivalent of the indie film festival circuit--if it were programmed by 16-year-old guys with a penchant for toilet humor.

Says “Sunday’s Game” producer Garrett, “The Internet is not the place to look for mainstream fare; that’s something you can find on television or at the movies. Our film was perfect for the Internet. You couldn’t see it on TV because it had old women shooting themselves.”

But will quirky pay the bills? Mark Gilstrap and Peter Brooks don’t think so. They initially created their “Lil’ Pimp” animated series for Mediatrip.com. Last fall, Mediatrip’s offline partner, Revolution Studios, offered them a contract to write a “Lil’ Pimp” feature film.

Recalls Brooks, “A year ago, you know, we were fortunate: ‘Oh, a 9-year-old white kid who’s a pimp? Yeah, here’s some money!’ Today, you’re not going to get anybody with any money to throw money at something like that.”

Adds Gilstrap, “We always felt like we’d have to get some real media stuff going. We’re gonna have to have a TV deal, we’re gonna have to have a movie deal, we need to work with stars, because that’s what’s gonna pay the rent, that’s what’s gonna afford us to do what we want to do. Because, you know, the Mark and Peter Show is cute and everything, but there’s a certain undeniable aspect--when you’re working with people who are recognized in popular culture as opposed to people who aren’t recognized.”

While Brooks appreciates the Web’s role in garnering ‘Lil’ Pimp’ a potentially broader audience, he’s skeptical about the Internet’s ability to serve as a pipeline for up-and-comers from the hinterlands. “I couldn’t tell anyone [today] that they could possibly replicate what we did. If you’re some unknown, a couple of unknown schmucks like we are, or were, and you go like ‘Here’s our show that we animate!’--there’s no chance for it to see the light of day.”

Even well-known talent can have a tough time of it. David O. Russell spent much of last year working on a digital video documentary commissioned by Anteye.com, but the “Three Kings” director couldn’t save the entertainment site from going under in December. Icebox.com entered the fray last May powered by a potent roster of contributors, including “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David and a raft of writer-producers from “The Simpsons.”

Within six months of its launch, the site had sold a sci-fi series to Showtime and a sitcom pilot to Fox. The deals, it turned out, weren’t lucrative enough to sustain the company. Earlier this month, the once-hot Icebox ran out of cash and shut down operations.

Even if the first Web-spawned crop flops, these Internet experiments offer an intriguing glimpse of how show business-as-usual might be conducted in the future. For example, the Greenlight project led by “American Pie” producer Chris Moore and his partners, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, is the very model of new-media savvy melded with old-media distribution.

Last fall, Projectgreenlight.com solicited what turned into an avalanche of more than 7,000 screenplays. But instead of having a crew of bleary-eyed readers plow through the world’s tallest slush pile, Greenlight set up a peer review system, allowing contestants to read and rank their rivals’ scripts. The winner, to be announced March 15, will get to shoot a feature for Miramax. The making of the movie will be documented for an HBO reality-based series.

Can we look forward to the day when an online plebiscite will pick between Tom Hanks or Mel Gibson as the star of M. Night Shyamalan’s next epic? Will filmmakers of the future endure “notes” from a committee of 300,000 Internet fans demanding a new third act? Maybe. But more likely, the Web will emerge as one more tributary funneling fresh talent to Hollywood.

Kevin Misher, outgoing president of production for Universal Pictures, is bullish about the studio’s partnership with Hypnotic.com and envisions the Internet a few years down the road as a self-sustaining medium. But for now, he says, “the Web is another avenue for talent to be discovered. One year it’s film school, another year it’s film festivals, another year it’s writer-directors. Time will tell where the next wave of filmmakers will come from.”