When I read, recently, that Dave Matthews was getting into the film distribution business I thought, “Someone of means is finally going to apply lessons learned from the music industry to film distribution.”
How disappointing to discover that even Dave Matthews doesn’t get it. A decade of watching the utter dismemberment of the music business and then its miraculous rebirth as an almost purely digitally delivered medium, and Dave Matthews’ takeaway is that Twitter and Facebook are cool marketing tools.
Dave, it’s not digital marketing but digital distribution (aka streaming) that will resurrect the independent film community. Why are you acquiring and releasing films in the same broken-down manner that long ago outlived its usefulness when you’ve grown up in the digital age? When you’ve seen that digital distribution is the most powerful and pervasive tool you’ve got for connecting movies with actual eyeballs. Launch a streaming platform for your films and use it exclusively – or nearly so – for getting your films out to the widest possible audience.
You’re Dave Matthews for god’s sake. You’re a rule breaker. You’re an innovator. You’ve got the passion and the juice to make independent films relevant again.
Dave Matthews, putting out fires.