Being Discovered in the World 2.0

Until the invention of 16mm, it was almost impossible for any independents to make films.  The equipment was too expensive.  Even at the beginning of 16mm, you had to have some pretty heavy cash reserves to start making movies. 

In the world of music - the home 4 track recorders which started showing up in the early 80s were the first time home musicians could start to think about  recording multi track music.

Today the tools are very accessible for both music and movies.  The result of this is - there is a sudden plethora of recording musicians and filmmakers.  Years ago it would have been unrealistic to think that someone in their home could do what 12 year olds are now doing daily.

At the same time, the internet has enabled any single person to "go global" from their home.

The convergence of these two phenomenon have created a flood of media into the world.  Most people like to think that what they are creating is brilliant - so lets assume everything that everyone is creating is, in fact, brilliant - but you need to find an audience who thinks the same thing.

There was a time that if you could just plain finish a movie in the can, it would be seen somewhere.  This is no longer the case.  The value of a finished product for music and movies is now zero.

The value of a good finished product is even now debateable.

So what can you do other than just be good?

You need to really define what you're doing.  You need to delineate it somehow from the rest of the crowd.   In the 70's and 80's for movies you could define yourself by putting a little more horror or a little more sex in your movies than a major studio would and you would then find na audience.  that isn't even a possibility now because the studios do that themselves.

Let's look at some examples of people who are defining themselves:

Examples:

Music:

Tilly and the Wall.   - It's not that unique - but it's unique enough that people remember them - one of the primary instruments is a tap dancing girl.  It very much supports  the rythm, the atmosphere - the mood.  It's very unique.

Doctor Steel  - This guy is gaining a growing fandom with his very strang combinationof 30's music with hip hop all combined into a crazy fnatasy toy world for adults. 

Movies:

Obviously special interest documentaries will catch attention because they appeal to a passionate audience. 

Most movies are divided automatically into sub-genres and niche groups - so all the categorizations are not really going to make a movie stand out.  (Categorizations are like - Asian themed, gay themed, religious themed, "urban" themed.)

Ashes and Snow this movie was only playing in a specially consturcted traveling museum which had still shots from the movie.  They took this really unusual film and turned it into an event.  And it worked.  Very unique movie, unique experience.

Eraserhead - this is an old film - but it still was so different back then that it really stood out from the crowd.  After Eraserhead David Lynch directed many stand out films - but by that time, he was his own sub-genre and so I don't think it applies to the indie who is trying to find an audience.  Eraserhead is when he found that audience.

Tarnation is a movie which I thought was very unique - though I do not fully recommend it.  It definitely caught people's attention.  It was a movie made up of home movies of a guy who had a relatively unusual family/home life with a mentally ill mother.  What made it interesting was that it was a person biography and his openness.  It lacked some story telling strengths - but this WAS a documentary - but since it was different enough it is bending the realm of documentary  - so it was worth mentioning.

I am focusing on music and movies here - but this of course would apply to design, art, writing, or any other creation medium.

To find an audience in today's world, you have to  reach inside yourself and pull out what it is that makes you and your personal style unique and how would you share that with the world.