CHOW Film Panel 2012
Lou Douros
1. Introductory Remarks
10 years ago, the 11 month old girl my wife and I adopted
from China could not speak English. Mei An eventually learned to say her name,
but it came out as “na”. The word “milk” came out “nunk” and her word for cup
was “chup”. So when she would say, “Na nunk chup”, it meant “Mei An wants milk
in a cup”.
We later adopted a 2 ½ year old boy from Taiwan. Tynan had a
language, but his version of Taiwanese was not useful … AT ALL. But he did
learn that “Na nunk chup” meant he got milk. He adapted, why? Because he REALLY
WANTED MILK. He learned the language because it mattered.
Today, “more than 50% of all content consumed on the
internet is video content”. In addition, according to YouTube reports, in the time
I’ve been talking, 48 hours of video content has been uploaded.
Film (and online video) has become its own sort of language,
or at least the primitive beginnings of a language. I say primitive because if
the predictions are correct, three things are about to make us fluent, not in
English, nor Mandarin, nor Spanish… but fluent in video.
• Massive increase in IP traffic
• Massive increase in mobile devices and their capabilities
• Massive increase in IP delivered VIDEO content
Cisco, only a few days ago, released a forecast[i]
for 2011 – 2016.
Here are some of their predictions:
INCREASE IN IP
TRAFFIC
In 2016, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross
global IP networks every 3 minutes.
Global IP networks
will deliver 12.5 petabytes every 5 minutes in 2016. (A Petabyte is 1 Million
GB, or 1,000 TB).
INCREASED MOBILE
Globally, mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold between 2011 and
2016.
Mobile data traffic
will reach 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016. (1 Exabyte = 1 Billion GB or 1 Million
TB)
ALSO… Google has recently predicted[ii]
that 1 billion people will use a mobile phone as their primary tool to access
the internet in 2012.
INCREASED VIDEO
By 2016, it could take over 6 million years to watch the amount of
video that will cross global IP networks each month.
Every second, 1.2
million minutes of video content will cross the network in 2016.
Video-on-demand traffic will triple by 2016. The
equivalent of 4 billion DVDs per month.
Last November, Cisco predicted that in three years, 90% of all internet
traffic will be video.
The point is this. If you want to make your point, you
better learn to speak the right language. If online video is the language, then
documentary is something like an dialect. As with any language, there needs to
be structure, rules and standards… and the structure of film is STORY.
2. Love the story. Passion.
Something special happens when we start to care about
stories.
A few years back, Mark DiOrio and Mara Kerr became deeply
interested in the humpback whales that migrated between Alaska and Hawaii and
gotten entangled in marine debris. Mara was especially touched by the effort to
free them. In short, she started to care. The more she knew about it, the more
passionate she became, and that fueled her already deep involvement in the
ocean as an author. And that’s when Mark and Mara shared their contagious
passion with me.
>> VIDEO CLIP 1
<< (1:11)
So that provided the setting for the film. Classic story has
a setting, a hero or protagonist, and a journey. And that’s what resonates with
us.
“In The Wake Of Giants” was not a film about whales. I spent
most of my 30 year career telling the stories of missionaries and NGO’s in
developing countries. What I learned in that time was to tease out who is who.
Our humpbacks are the damsels in distress. Our hero, in this case Ed Lyman, who
represents the Marine Sanctuary Program and the whole network of rescuers who
took us on a journey.
>> VIDEO CLIP 3
<< (1:15)
So… the journey, it’s pretty clear that what’s at stake in
this case is the life of a whale. This is the kind of thing that connected with
Mara in the first place. You’re pulling for the whale and the rescuers there to
rescue it. You get the feeling that they whale and the rescuers are working
together to meet the task. And this story had the reward built in, as they make
the cut and the whale is freed.
A couple things about style.
• MUSICAL SCORE I insisted that we score the film. We had no budget so I
recruited my son Blaise, a talented but untested composer. Music played a key
role in moving the story forward… why? Because our audience is musically
literate. We had to respect our audience. They’re fluent. Blaise and I
collaborated heavily on moving the story both visually and musically.
• CREATING WONDER Even a 5 year old is video literate. I
recently watched a three year old navigate an iPad to Netflix to find her
favorite kid’s program… Good story has a sense of wonder, (that’s done by
asking the right questions), and highly disciplined editing.
• SEDUCTION Shortly into our 90 day process of
making ITWOG, it occurred to me that my job was not to close the gap between
the audience and the ocean… but to narrow the gap. The true test of persuasion
is if you can get your enemy to do a double-take. If a whaler could say, “I
disagree with you, but cool film…” I’ve narrowed the gap.
There is a difference between a
lecture and a story. I believe we need to lecture less and seduce more.
3. Invest in Film
There used to be patrons of the arts. The Medici’s funded
the art of the day because it made them powerful and the desire to be a
powerful force in Italian culture. To own art was to own the message. That’s
not so different is it? Do you want people to care about the ocean? They have
to fall in love with it, and I believe that’s done through story.
If you believe what Cisco is predicting is even close… you
better start reserving part of your budget for making your work relevant to
today’s viewers. Today we search for our content, but increasingly… our content
has a way of finding us. YouTube reports that the vast majority of videos
watched are not a direct result of a search. We watch what is recommended to
us.
Bob Talbot said to me recently… “At my age it’s more
important to be effective than to be right.” Another way to say that is… pay
attention to how people are wired, LOVE the story you want to tell and tell it
in a way that seduces them to narrow the gap between them and the ocean.
Believe it or not, you will not save the oceans. You know who will? The
billions of people who don’t see their connection to it. Film can connect
people and the sea.
Ocean managers… grant writers… researchers… even corporate
investors, the newest and most prolific language is evolving all around you.
It’s time to step forward in a meaningful way and put funds into film… Develop
a trusting relationship with a filmmaker who is fluent in story… when they
become passionate about your work, others will begin to care about the ocean.
Wouldn’t it be disappointing if, by 2016 your only meaningful message was… “na
nunk chup”
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