January, 2006
During negotiations with Universal for his upcoming drama feature "Blink," Gaghan hammered out a separate deal with the studio for a TV show made specifically for the iPod and other mobile devices.
"With the way the world is going and how busy people are, there will be special events like a movie with a special type of story that brings people out to share that journey and a catharsis in a public space," Gaghan says. "I think (mobile devices) will lead to a change in the type of stories that are promotable, to more nuance and, ultimately, a new revenue stream. It's like, adapt or die."
That sense of urgency is not lost on the Directors Guild of America. As the union prepares to celebrate 2005's finest on Saturday at the 58th annual DGA Awards, its leaders are looking ahead to 2006 and beyond, making sure its members are aware of — and can benefit from — mobile entertainment. It helps that the DGA is between major negotiations, giving the guild nearly a year to focus on internal issues that range from upgrading its residual-tracking systems to unionizing reality TV directors.
But if one issue has driven directors to call for action in an entirely new way, it is the arrival of a new medium: the "third screen."
"We're very attentive to these developments and have devoted substantial resources to the understanding and study of these issues," DGA national executive director Jay Roth says.
Having assembled consultants and committees to determine how the third screen will affect its membership, the DGA is finding that mobile content presents a new and complicated set of issues: Will one type of device — a hand-held player, a cell phone, a portable gaming console — become a preferred medium? What will people want to watch on a 2-inch screen, and how rapidly will the market grow at home and abroad, where nations are often well ahead of the U.S. in terms of mobile broadband? And how will members get paid for their work?
To a group like the DGA, which protects workers' rights, these times are both exciting and eerily familiar. The late-1940s introduction of television had the film industry up in arms, and the VCR jumbled the picture all over again during the early 1970s. Both eventually were harnessed to the benefit of the film industry, but each time the DGA had to fight for its share — including negotiations in 1960 to establish residuals for movies shown on television.
"You never know whether people are flying by the seat of their pants or whether this new technology is something real, with a real business plan attached to it," DGA president Michael Apted says. "Clearly, there's something going on in the economics, and we have to protect our membership and make sure that they get properly paid and that their creative rights are properly protected."
Portable video is nothing new, but Apple's October launch of the video iPod was a defining event because along with the player, consumers suddenly could purchase popular TV shows, music videos and short films through the iTunes store. No one was more surprised by that development than Hollywood's unions and guilds, which were not consulted ahead of the content deals Apple struck with ABC and NBC.
The DGA and other major entertainment unions immediately issued an unusual joint statement demanding that the industry explain how it intended to compensate artists for reuse on mobile platforms. The concern was that there was no agreement as to how a director would receive residuals once an episode of a series such as ABC's "Lost" or NBC's "The Office" was sold on iTunes for $1.99.
The market for content has exploded since that announcement, but DGA leaders are still waiting to hear from industry negotiators as to how the guild will fit into the picture. DGA leaders believe that their members' work is covered by existing contracts, but the question is: Which one? Talks are expected to nail down the answer this year.
"We believe that the people who make content must be in a position to be properly paid for their creative work," Roth says.
For now, though, there is no desire among union leadership to rush into any single formula, especially because the mobile industry remains in flux and, proportionately, generates a tiny amount of revenue. But it would be shortsighted to ignore the birth of that market, which undoubtedly will change rapidly: Spending on wireless content, which reached about $4.2 billion last year, is forecast to grow to $9.6 billion by 2009, according to research company Veronis Suhler Stevenson. The hottest sector will be entertainment content, including video downloads, which generated $150 million in 2005 but are expected to generate nearly four times as much annually during the next five years.
Directors also face a unique set of creative-rights issues as mobile companies look to excerpt or serialize feature films that consumers can "snack on" or shuffle, much as they do now with music. After all, should a film be viewed as a full course, or are snacks acceptable?
"I don't think you should break things apart. It should remain the director's call," says Gaghan, who believes that "Syriana" "doesn't work if you get up to go to the bathroom — so I can't imagine how it's going to work in three-minute increments, all jumbled around."
Such shuffling could create a new style of filmmaking, but the prevailing sense for now is that mobile will gain traction by repackaging existing shows — much as television relied on proven radio formats during its early days. But down the line, the mobile medium undoubtedly will come into its own, with material designed specifically for such devices.
It's already happening: Last year, DGA member Jeff Labbe directed one of the first "mobisodes," called "Head and Body," a collection of eight, three-minute short videos made for cell phones that was co-sponsored by Motorola and MTV. DGA leaders took an interest and debriefed Labbe last month about his experiences with the technology.
"They picked my brain about the process to help create some standards," says Labbe, who previously directed commercials. "At a minimum, these things are coming — and I hope they will be active in it because it's a medium that can't be ignored."
Even as the guild does its part to fight online piracy, mobile video is likely to drive consumers to demand even greater control of the content they buy. "The overriding issue that creative people face is that the consumer wants control," says entertainment attorney Peter Dekom, co-author of the 2003 book "Not on My Watch: Hollywood vs. the Future." "There's not a damn thing we're able to do to individuals in their private use, even though they're looking at movies in ways that directors never would have contemplated."
With an emerging generation of filmmakers who do not require $100 million budgets to make their projects, most observers expect mobile platforms to generate their own type of star directors. First, though, established veterans need to adjust to the new medium.
"The challenge is to take one or two minutes and create content that catches the user's imagination immediately," says Lorane Poersch, president and CEO of Crazyfunbabe, a firm that for the past three years has targeted females ages 16-24 with mobile content.
That process helps her company understand what niche markets want, according to Poersch. On a more practical level, she adds, it helps to avoid flashy graphics and quick movement, which do not translate well on a 2-inch screen.
"There's a big adjustment in terms of the content, both in the technical aspects as well as the conceptualization of the content," says Fun Little Movies president and chief creative officer Frank Chindamo, whose company enjoys mobile distribution in 25 nations and a channel on Sprint's U.S. network. "Just as movies are a very different animal than TV and the Internet is a different iteration as well, now we've got a whole new world that is mobile."