Free Movies

500 Words on Thursday | Written by Lee Schneider

Watch a movie for free. Everybody likes the sound of that. Except for people who work at movie studios, marketers and big ad guys who are running around the side of that building right now and puking into paper bags – that’s how upset they are. Filmmakers are taking it one day at a time and taking one antidepressant a day.

“Free” happened with music, with stock photography (on Flickr) and now, with movies. Pricing is on a roller coaster straight into the dirt. I hate roller coasters. I’d rather deal with scary clowns. But there’s no escaping that more videos have been posted to YouTube than have been seen on television in the history of the medium.

“Do you know why they call it a medium? Because it’s rarely well done.” –Fred Allen

A lot of videos on the web are free and a lot of them are junk. But at the end of a day watching them I often sit back with a rosy sense of satisfaction and think, Man, that was junk. In other words, they get me nowhere.

What about free media that is good, and further, free media that inspires people to do good? Now you’re on to something. KarmaTube is all about “do something” videos that are intended to help everyone be the change they want to see in the world. (Yeah, it’s a quote from Gandhi.) The KarmaTube guys are like that – they want to find a way to massage your consciousness so you’ll do one small good thing that leads to other good things and then to real change.

As a documentary director, I’m working with KarmaTube on a channel of my recommendations for films that are inspiring, cinematic and nudge the world. Want to help me? Send suggestions for inspiring cause and change-advocating short films to @docuguy and I’ll recommend those that I like to the KarmaTube board. To give you some ideas, here’s a film I’ve recommended called Unshaken. Beautifully directed by Paul Pryor, it’s a moving first-person appeal made bolder by unforgettable images. Paul Hawken gives a great speech in this talking-head-fest with surprisingly powerful visuals. Check these out and more on KarmaTube.

David J. Neff is a busy guy. Once upon a time he designed online and media communications for the American Cancer Society. Now he’s writing about non-profits in 501derful.org.

Lights. Camera. Help. is project he started to match filmmakers with non-profits. Then there’s the film festival he’s doing in Austin, the world’s first, David told me, dedicated entirely to nonprofit and cause-driven films. “The films we show here have to have that call to action,” David said. He’s looking for films with a mission and those that move you. Judges will choose finalists based on cinematic considerations, but they want to know if the movie asks something of you. Any film that heavily features a cause will be considered. This includes films by or about nonprofit, non-governmental or grassroots organizations. Feature length films, shorts and public service announcements are ok to submit. The deadline is June 30th. Go for it and you could get your movie screened in Austin July 29-August 2nd.

Going from free and foolish online to free and worthwhile is progress. Still, that “free movie” thing continues to give my bottom line a headache. How do you give away a movie for free and still pay back investors? Working on it. Will get back to you.

Gandhi image credit dougdelshaw via of Creative Commons License.

Gift Economy

I just watched an inspiring short video. It didn’t cost me anything. It was on KarmaTube and is part of a movement called the gift economy.

What’s the gift economy? In simple terms it’s about giving stuff away for free without expecting anything back. Hold on, isn’t everything supposed to be monetized? Where’s the revenue stream in a gift economy? In other words, “show me the money!” Or, if you work at Goldman Sachs, “Where’s my multi-million-dollar bonus that I peeled from the hide of the American people?”

Well, what happens if there is no cash bonus, Mr. Blankfein? Worse, what happens if there is nothing tangible bartered or traded?

Now even I’m getting dizzy.

To steady my nerves I looked up a guy called Nipun Mehta, who is a leader in the gift economy movement. He has a lot of projects. There’s Charity Focus, a site that brings together volunteers with worthwhile projects. It started with the idea of gifting time.

Nipun Mehta was an engineer at Sun Microsystems who quit his presumably well-paying job at the age of 25. The Wall Street Journal published this explanation from Mr. Mehta: “I loved what I was doing and the people I worked with (but) I wanted to experiment with this idea of giving without any strings attached, doing things just for the love of it.”

He started building websites for nonprofits and this led to HelpOthers.org. It’s a site dedicated to small acts of kindness, like people paying for stranger’s meals at restaurants. Mehta is also giving away something called “Smile Cards” which give you ideas for nice things to do. You can freely download the designs and have them printed up. If you don’t want to do that, he’ll send you a few for free.

“We don’t charge for anything, nor do we advertise anything. The project is sustained by anonymous friends who donate what they can, not as a payment for what they have received but as a pay-it-forward act for someone they don’t know … someone like you.” – Nipun Mehta

He’s also practiced the gift economy in a project called Karma Kitchen. There are no prices on the menu and the check reads $0.00. It works because the person who was there before you pays for your meal, and when you leave, you pay for the next person. The experiment happens on Sundays at a restaurant in Berkeley, California and in another in Washington, DC. Berkeley, I get that. They are all communists there. But DC? If these goods and services are being given without strings attached, what is everyone gaining?

Something given away can even have a higher value than something paid for. In one of his blog posts, Mr. Mehta cites research that suggests that unless the compensation for work is adequate, you might as well not pay anything and get more effort. As he writes, “You get what you pay for. And if you never try paying for it, you might even get more.”

Which brings me back to KarmaTube. As somebody who’s made a living off media for several decades, I haven’t really warmed to the idea of free media. But Vimeo has become a useful tool to share work with others and build community. And some of that free stuff is pretty good. Like this: