He's not making a film.
He's making a website, to show other peoples' "black" films on.
Build it, and they will come... right?
tv Just in Time for Black History Month-Black Hollywood TV
- Thread starter Poetrynmoshun
- Start date
He's not making a film.
He's making a website, to show other peoples' "black" films on.
Build it, and they will come... right?
right =)
He's not making a film.
He's making a website, to show other peoples' "black" films on.
Build it, and they will come... right?
He's not making a film.
He's making a website, to show other peoples' "black" films on.
Build it, and they will come... right?
Oh... Gotcha. Remind me to put on my reading glasses.
Well, that will be less fun. For me anyway. I still build and market on occasion. Well, good luck. As the former owner of a dating site, videogame site, and fanzine, I don't envy your path. Populating those websites nearly drove me insane.
And this will be uber niche. You will first have to show people why there is a need for this. Once they understand the need, you will NEED original content and a lot of it. If you can acquire the content and show how useful the site is, as compared to all others, you will be able to build a core group of consumers.
Don't expect them to do anything to grow your brand. They won't. They will use your site if it is useful, move along if something better comes along. Recruitment contests on the site WILL NOT WORK.
Visiting websites like this to pimp your ideas/site, will not work. Adwords and Facebook ads will be too expensive. You will end up paying way more per subscriber than it is worth.
If the consumer can not get something for free, at least initially, they will not sign up.
Think long and hard about your strategy.
It seems to me what we're really talking about here is casting, rather than screenwriting.
If you've written a script and it doesn't specifically focus on themes related to being black, then it doesn't really matter what race the characters are labeled as in the script. You can cast whoever you want in the roles and it doesn't matter - this is very different than a film like Red Tails where casting non-black actors in the lead roles would be ridiculous. So don't label them in the script at all, and if you've got a strong script you may be able to get some interest in producing it without it getting it categorized as a 'black film'.
The real challenge arises at the casting stage... because in general if a role doesn't require an actor of a specific race then the default is white. This is a less visible form of racism, but one that's pervasive in the entertainment industry, and it affects any actor who's not white. Most of the roles that an actor of color is going to get called in to audition for are going to be based in racial stereotypes at some level simply because otherwise the role wouldn't specify a non-white character.
Now there is certainly a difference between overt racism - a studio saying they won't cast an actor of color - and covert racism where things just default to white. That doesn't change the fact that the second one exists and negatively affects people, and honestly it's probably even more difficult to deal with the second one because of it's 'invisible' nature - which is where you're going to run up against a wall.
So if you've got a generic script and the director casts an all white cast, nobody really says anything - it's just 'normal'. But when you try to cast an all black cast you step out of the easy, comfortable 'normal' space and suddenly people want to know why. If the answer is "it's targeted at a black audience" then it fits back into the comfortable norm. However, if the answer is "I don't see myself represented in mainstream roles and I'd like to do something about that" you immediately call attention to the fact that there is covert racism in the system, and that a lot of people are implicit participants in it - many of whom consider themselves liberal, and progressive, and anti-racism, and who will become defensive at the slightest hint that they are in fact part of the problem.
And that's going to be the real challenge. Anything you do that calls attention to the problem will make people defensive because they are implicated in it. Once someone's defensive it's hard to have a reasonable discussion. People start accusing you of reverse racism, asking why we can't just all be color blind, rail against 'affirmative action', etc. For instance...
The fact that the mere idea that you want to cast a black actor in a role that doesn't require it is seen as an act of activism, and that the only reason you would is that you must have a point to prove or axe to grind, only goes to prove that it's still not considered 'normal'.
As far as the BlackHollywood.tv platform - it's an interesting idea. I think creating a space for films targeted at a black audience which aren't the usual industry-defined 'black films' could help expand the boundaries of that definition until it essentially overlaps the 'normal' mainstream films. And if you can prove that there's money to be made there it could drive change in the industry - hollywood's not known for taking risks, so they're not likely to take a chance on something that's outside of their normal approach until someone else has led the way. But, as others have said - building a site like that is tough. I wish you luck, just know it's going to be a lot harder than you think... do you have any experience building sites like this? Because your $7,000 goal to get it started is pretty low unless you're doing a lot of the work yourself.
If you've written a script and it doesn't specifically focus on themes related to being black, then it doesn't really matter what race the characters are labeled as in the script. You can cast whoever you want in the roles and it doesn't matter - this is very different than a film like Red Tails where casting non-black actors in the lead roles would be ridiculous. So don't label them in the script at all, and if you've got a strong script you may be able to get some interest in producing it without it getting it categorized as a 'black film'.
The real challenge arises at the casting stage... because in general if a role doesn't require an actor of a specific race then the default is white. This is a less visible form of racism, but one that's pervasive in the entertainment industry, and it affects any actor who's not white. Most of the roles that an actor of color is going to get called in to audition for are going to be based in racial stereotypes at some level simply because otherwise the role wouldn't specify a non-white character.
Now there is certainly a difference between overt racism - a studio saying they won't cast an actor of color - and covert racism where things just default to white. That doesn't change the fact that the second one exists and negatively affects people, and honestly it's probably even more difficult to deal with the second one because of it's 'invisible' nature - which is where you're going to run up against a wall.
So if you've got a generic script and the director casts an all white cast, nobody really says anything - it's just 'normal'. But when you try to cast an all black cast you step out of the easy, comfortable 'normal' space and suddenly people want to know why. If the answer is "it's targeted at a black audience" then it fits back into the comfortable norm. However, if the answer is "I don't see myself represented in mainstream roles and I'd like to do something about that" you immediately call attention to the fact that there is covert racism in the system, and that a lot of people are implicit participants in it - many of whom consider themselves liberal, and progressive, and anti-racism, and who will become defensive at the slightest hint that they are in fact part of the problem.
And that's going to be the real challenge. Anything you do that calls attention to the problem will make people defensive because they are implicated in it. Once someone's defensive it's hard to have a reasonable discussion. People start accusing you of reverse racism, asking why we can't just all be color blind, rail against 'affirmative action', etc. For instance...
The fact that the mere idea that you want to cast a black actor in a role that doesn't require it is seen as an act of activism, and that the only reason you would is that you must have a point to prove or axe to grind, only goes to prove that it's still not considered 'normal'.
As far as the BlackHollywood.tv platform - it's an interesting idea. I think creating a space for films targeted at a black audience which aren't the usual industry-defined 'black films' could help expand the boundaries of that definition until it essentially overlaps the 'normal' mainstream films. And if you can prove that there's money to be made there it could drive change in the industry - hollywood's not known for taking risks, so they're not likely to take a chance on something that's outside of their normal approach until someone else has led the way. But, as others have said - building a site like that is tough. I wish you luck, just know it's going to be a lot harder than you think... do you have any experience building sites like this? Because your $7,000 goal to get it started is pretty low unless you're doing a lot of the work yourself.
Last edited:
"And that's going to be the real challenge. Anything you do that calls attention to the problem will make people defensive because they are implicated in it. Once someone's defensive it's hard to have a reasonable discussion. People start accusing you of reverse racism, asking why we can't just all be color blind, rail against 'affirmative action', etc. For instance..."
Exactly the problem I come across when discussing this with mixed company!
"just know it's going to be a lot harder than you think... do you have any experience building sites like this? Because your $7,000 goal to get it started is pretty low unless you're doing a lot of the work yourself.."
I feel like this would be the starting point..I was given the advice from a friend to not try to get all funding through crowdfunding. So The 7,000 would be to develop a Beta version of the website to showcase to high cash investors-from there to have a full version up by the fall..
Exactly the problem I come across when discussing this with mixed company!
"just know it's going to be a lot harder than you think... do you have any experience building sites like this? Because your $7,000 goal to get it started is pretty low unless you're doing a lot of the work yourself.."
I feel like this would be the starting point..I was given the advice from a friend to not try to get all funding through crowdfunding. So The 7,000 would be to develop a Beta version of the website to showcase to high cash investors-from there to have a full version up by the fall..
Yeah, I'm with the OP on this one. If I understand his logic correctly, I strongly agree with it.
I've reached the same conclusion, regarding the gender, ethnicity, sexual-orientation, weight, etc., of protagonists. Just to use gender as an example -- sure, there are a few exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of films have male protagonists, when you could tell the exact same story with a female protagonist. Imagine Back to The Future, but with a female hero. It'd basically be the same damn movie. Imagine Forrest Gump with a female lead. There's no reason why you couldn't tell basically the same damn story.
John McLain could've been black. Jake Sully could've been black. Kaiser Soze could've been black. But they weren't, because the VAST majority of the time, if the role of the protagonist is not ethnicity-specific, it goes white (as well as being straight male). And I don't think this is simply a matter of casting. Gender, ethnicity, and all sorts of stuff, are written into roles.
But for the most part, non-straight-white-skinny-male protagonists are only written in when the story depends on a specific gender, ethnicity, or whatever, and could not be told with any other. Same is true of minorities.
Some of you have made lists. You've named maybe 12 movies, spanning the course of three decades, that have black protagonists. And most of the movies you've cited couldn't be told with any other ethnicity as lead. And those that could've told the same story with any ethnicity were all Star Vehicles. Will Smith makes any movie he wants to make, because he's a fucking juggernaut.
Of course, this is a money thing. The biggest money-making demographic for major release films is young, straight ,white males. So if you wanna make money, make movies for the people who buy the most tickets. I don't think this is racism, just safe business practice.
That being said, I think it creates a HUGE vacuum for movies that don't put the young-straight-white-male demographic first. I think this is something that could be especially important for us ultra-low-budget folk to keep in mind. Why not fill a niche? If the story you want to tell does not require any specific gender/ethnicity/orientation/etc, why not write the protagonist to be something other than what we're used to seeing?
All of this of course doesn't help with the OPs hope to make a website that streams these kinds of flicks. To that end, Poetrynmoshun, I wish the best for you. To be honest, though, I just can't imagine how a $7000 budget is going to afford you the ability to acquire the rights to many films, or the ability to stream them. Maybe I misunderstood something in your pitch?
Anyway, for what it's worth, I think you could get much more mileage out of a blog. Blogs can start small but grow bit. Aintitcoolnews is now a major force, huge news-source, but they started small. If you created a blog or website that shared news/reviews/etc for the films you want to highlight, I think you could find an audience. Best of luck!
I've reached the same conclusion, regarding the gender, ethnicity, sexual-orientation, weight, etc., of protagonists. Just to use gender as an example -- sure, there are a few exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of films have male protagonists, when you could tell the exact same story with a female protagonist. Imagine Back to The Future, but with a female hero. It'd basically be the same damn movie. Imagine Forrest Gump with a female lead. There's no reason why you couldn't tell basically the same damn story.
John McLain could've been black. Jake Sully could've been black. Kaiser Soze could've been black. But they weren't, because the VAST majority of the time, if the role of the protagonist is not ethnicity-specific, it goes white (as well as being straight male). And I don't think this is simply a matter of casting. Gender, ethnicity, and all sorts of stuff, are written into roles.
But for the most part, non-straight-white-skinny-male protagonists are only written in when the story depends on a specific gender, ethnicity, or whatever, and could not be told with any other. Same is true of minorities.
Some of you have made lists. You've named maybe 12 movies, spanning the course of three decades, that have black protagonists. And most of the movies you've cited couldn't be told with any other ethnicity as lead. And those that could've told the same story with any ethnicity were all Star Vehicles. Will Smith makes any movie he wants to make, because he's a fucking juggernaut.
Of course, this is a money thing. The biggest money-making demographic for major release films is young, straight ,white males. So if you wanna make money, make movies for the people who buy the most tickets. I don't think this is racism, just safe business practice.
That being said, I think it creates a HUGE vacuum for movies that don't put the young-straight-white-male demographic first. I think this is something that could be especially important for us ultra-low-budget folk to keep in mind. Why not fill a niche? If the story you want to tell does not require any specific gender/ethnicity/orientation/etc, why not write the protagonist to be something other than what we're used to seeing?
All of this of course doesn't help with the OPs hope to make a website that streams these kinds of flicks. To that end, Poetrynmoshun, I wish the best for you. To be honest, though, I just can't imagine how a $7000 budget is going to afford you the ability to acquire the rights to many films, or the ability to stream them. Maybe I misunderstood something in your pitch?
Anyway, for what it's worth, I think you could get much more mileage out of a blog. Blogs can start small but grow bit. Aintitcoolnews is now a major force, huge news-source, but they started small. If you created a blog or website that shared news/reviews/etc for the films you want to highlight, I think you could find an audience. Best of luck!
Is this clear on your IG page?
You are now raising money to pitch a website to another tier of investors - not actually delivering the final product.
Thank you for your support! And you are absolutely correct about where I'm coming from! As far as the 7 grand goal-Because Not all people are going to get what I'm trying to do, it's not going to be a "popular" crowdfunding project. So I wanted to put a goal that was realistically obtainable. If I reach that goal, I can develop a website with those funds where I may be able to showcase a few films of the criteria on the website (Indie Produced) just to show investors who may have bigger pockets.
I believe I said that funds will be used for the development of the website. If the website is created when the funds are received and if I receive funds from other investors afterwards is that still delivering the final product? Should I had make it a higher goal?
Is this clear on your IG page?
You are now raising money to pitch a website to another tier of investors - not actually delivering the final product.
Yes, if you use the funds raised to deliver a site with streaming films to the people who donated I think you've met your obligation to the campaign. After that you can continue to raise funds any way you like to grow and expand it. You will definitely need more money, but I think it's already going to be hard to hit your current goal so making it higher won't necessarily help.
This still seems pretty tight to me. I could certainly build a basic subscription streaming service myself for well less than $7k out of pocket if it were a personal project... but if someone wanted to hire me to do so I probably wouldn't touch the project for less than 3x that much, and even then I'd have reservations because I know how much work a project like that will realistically be in the end. But then to build a beta, attract significant investment, and build out the full sight by the fall seems completely unrealistic just from a timetable standpoint - unless you've got a development team ready to go right now who are willing and able to work full time on deferred pay, and solid potential investors lined up who are just waiting to see something before committing.
I'm also a little concerned about the business model... have you thought that out much? Looking at the perks ($25 for 3 days of unlimited streaming, $100 for a month, $1000 for a year) I'm wondering how those relate to what you're planning to charge for the site? $100 a month is a lot of money. For $8/month I get unlimited streaming from netflix to my tv, phone, tablet and computer. What is your site going to offer that makes it worth spending so much more for?
Well there was two ways I was going to charge customers-They could either get charged by single movie files (I was thinking $2 for sd, and $5 for HD to view online (a little extra to download) or $30 a month for unlimited views-which would include the ability to download the file to their computer Though the price does not compete with netflix, the marketing push is show customers we have movies that Netflix doesn't have..
When I was a Netflix subscriber, up til 2011, the problem that I had, the films/Tv shows I wanted to watch with just the online streaming service wasn't available on their server. So I was forced to get on the Cd delivery services. Another thing that kind of bothered me was the lack of selection. I know it's kind off topic but I think the Value of Netlfix has gone down as far as movies are concern..Showtime TV shows are a different story.
But I think Hulu is gonna take over soon..
When I was a Netflix subscriber, up til 2011, the problem that I had, the films/Tv shows I wanted to watch with just the online streaming service wasn't available on their server. So I was forced to get on the Cd delivery services. Another thing that kind of bothered me was the lack of selection. I know it's kind off topic but I think the Value of Netlfix has gone down as far as movies are concern..Showtime TV shows are a different story.
But I think Hulu is gonna take over soon..
$2 for sd and $5 for HD, or $30 monthly?
I would suggest seriously researching the market, love film, Netflix, sky now
All charge £6-8.99 which is like $15 a month with no contract who have also secured better films and deals in the future, there's even Volta who have a cheaper scheme,
You need to be able to secure films with big money this isn't an easy venture, are you going to compete with The companies who are streaming to multiple platforms? It's a big ask a lot of effort and needs a lot of money way more than your asking for now.
I would suggest seriously researching the market, love film, Netflix, sky now
All charge £6-8.99 which is like $15 a month with no contract who have also secured better films and deals in the future, there's even Volta who have a cheaper scheme,
You need to be able to secure films with big money this isn't an easy venture, are you going to compete with The companies who are streaming to multiple platforms? It's a big ask a lot of effort and needs a lot of money way more than your asking for now.
Definitely invested in doing more research-I guess a question to the public would be if you are a netfilix subscriber (or former) how many movies did you watch a month? Me for example on an average I would have to say 10 movies or less..
Just a few things -
I've been reading this with interest, and as a female writer/producer I agree with and appreciate what Cracker Funk said about both black and female actors, and the tendency for leads to be skinny white young males.
When producing my feature, one of the important but smaller roles was listed in the casting breakdown as "any race" and we were thrilled to cast JD Williams, who had starred in HBO's The Wire. In the next screenplay that I'm working on (which I'm hoping to shoot in the summer of 2014), I'm consciously writing it in a way that will let me do that with more characters (first one was dominated by a family that was Irish and Italian). I'm not doing that to be "nice" but because I think (a) it increases the number of actors I can consider and (b) the US, where I live, is increasingly diverse and I think it's better for marketing. Yup, it does come down to money, as everyone has said, but I'm just looking in a slightly different way.
Between my husband and me, we probably stream 20 movies or so a month, in addition to what we get on DVD from Netflix.
I've been reading this with interest, and as a female writer/producer I agree with and appreciate what Cracker Funk said about both black and female actors, and the tendency for leads to be skinny white young males.
When producing my feature, one of the important but smaller roles was listed in the casting breakdown as "any race" and we were thrilled to cast JD Williams, who had starred in HBO's The Wire. In the next screenplay that I'm working on (which I'm hoping to shoot in the summer of 2014), I'm consciously writing it in a way that will let me do that with more characters (first one was dominated by a family that was Irish and Italian). I'm not doing that to be "nice" but because I think (a) it increases the number of actors I can consider and (b) the US, where I live, is increasingly diverse and I think it's better for marketing. Yup, it does come down to money, as everyone has said, but I'm just looking in a slightly different way.
Between my husband and me, we probably stream 20 movies or so a month, in addition to what we get on DVD from Netflix.
Last edited:
That's awesome that you are doing that! JD Williams is a great actor!
"Between my husband and me, we probably stream 20 movies or so a month, in addition to what we get on DVD from Netflix"
Really? Wow! I guess I never thought about married households when I first conceived this idea..interesting!
"Between my husband and me, we probably stream 20 movies or so a month, in addition to what we get on DVD from Netflix"
Really? Wow! I guess I never thought about married households when I first conceived this idea..interesting!
JD Williams is definitely a great actor! It was good for the movie, because we got an actor who is well known to fans of The Wire. And I think the role was attractive to him because he was playing a returning, wounded war hero (who had lost an eye in Iraq) and is the main character's ex-boyfriend.
Re married households - numbers on streaming will be even higher when you add in families with kids.
Re married households - numbers on streaming will be even higher when you add in families with kids.
There is a reason for this. The majority of big budget wide release films come from where? Hollywood. Where is Hollywood? In the United States of America. A quick check just told me that in your 2011 census the US had about 78% WHITE people. BLACK people was 13%. Now If I understand correctly (as I believe I do) this would say that on average there is no more than around a one in ten chance of a black person being cast as a main role in a film. I'm not sure if that is the amount but I would be willing to say that there is probably less, and there is a reason. As cinema started as a 'white mans entertainment' white people have a bigger history and so it wouldn't surprise me if the ratio of white actors to black actors is much more significant than the ratio of those actually living in your country. For the record California only has 6.6% black people (ie 1/20 chance). I know over here in Australia though that chics dig black guys. (Ever heard of Sister Act? Like all female black ladies)
Personally I don't go out of my way to watch films with black cast...or films with white cast for that matter. I go to a film because it potentially has a good storyline and has been directed well.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that especially in modern cinema most people don't care about the characters race AND therefore IMO won't go out of there way to go to a website to search for films with a lead cast of African Americans. And what I'm ultimately saying is that this is a very very niche and small market so i wish the best of luck for your endeavour
Last edited: