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Q&A with Mind-Made Media

Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Craig Erpelding

Mind-Made Media is a Los Angeles-based independent production company started by two indie and big-budget filmmaking veterans: Alexandra Austin and Mike Walsh. Recently, the company produced award-winning viral content to promote the book 10 Birds with 1 Stone. For more information on Mind-Made, visit the company's Reel-Exchange profile at reel-exchange.com/members/339bd8ac/profile.

With your background and the projects that Mind-Made does, what's your view on traditional Hollywood as we move into a different era of content creation and distribution?

Walsh: I don't think the current Hollywood model can continue to keep making movies at huge budget levels; it's just not viable economically unless you're talking about the current crop of superhero franchise films. Traditional Hollywood is changing: Ready or not, here it comes. There will always be a certain percentage of spectacle movies because spectacle is a money-maker, but in a way, we're actually closer to the traditional roots of filmmaking now than we've ever been because it's more accessible. I believe filmmaking was always intended to be small, a personal relationship and collaboration between the vision and the medium. Corporate machines have turned filmmaking into what it has become today because there is big money to be made, but real filmmaking is more intimate than that. The digital era and the explosion of the Internet allows that intimacy and gives people who aren't Hollywood decision makers a chance to throw their hats in the ring. Now you don't have to go through the corporate machine to be involved, and you can still make money.

Austin: The big question is: How are you going to get your work out there? How are you going to connect to an audience? Theatrical distribution is still the Holy Grail for filmmakers, because of the trickle-down to the ancillary markets — DVD, pay-per-view, domestic and foreign cable, network TV, most recently digital downloads. But it costs a huge amount of money to market a film, and Hollywood has theatrical locked up for the most part. There are less than 500 theatrical slots per year and around six times as many films made each year. So the odds aren't great for independents, to say the least, if the big screen is your ultimate goal. Now, the emerging markets are becoming financially viable for those creating their own content and marketing through festivals, websites, word of mouth. But you need smart people to help you. No one can be a filmmaker, business manager, lawyer, and marketing genius all rolled into one.

For example, we've just started working with Mitch Stein, who is a producer in the broadest and best sense of the word. He is creative, intuitive, and has a staggering understanding of the Internet as a marketing tool and the unique ability to drive huge audiences to projects online. Without a Hollywood in, the best path can be to create an audience for your work on the Web. So we have turned to Mitch to help us market our documentaries. He produces his own work, both independent features and a successful web series, and also helps others successfully market their projects. There's just no way we could do it on our own; marketing is a full-time job in itself, and not one we want to spend all our time doing. We want to be making films.

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