I recently realized that 2025 is the 15th anniversary of my publishing Think Outside The Box Office, which I wrote in response to the first time (was it the first?) that the independent film ecosystem fell into crisis back in 2007. I intended the book to be a manual for filmmakers to connect with audiences directly. In other words: how they can take the power of distribution and marketing their films into their own hands.
Since writing the book, I have continued my work as a filmmaker, expanded into podcasting and spend much of my life helping hundreds (now thousands?) of filmmakers grapple with the ever evolving world of distribution and marketing.
I also launched on Substack last September. Since then, I have realized that this is the perfect platform to start the living version of Think Outside the Box Office.
I am using this platform to essentially rewrite that book for our current moment – which many people have been pestering me to do for years now. I wrote this post as actually a guest post on Ted Hope’s Substack where he asked me to write about 5 essential aspects of my career and/or what I feel is essential for people to know now. Before I get to my 5+1 links selection (and knowing that some of you may not/often don’t get to the end), I wanted to call out the next iteration of that living book:
I recently hosted the CEOs of Kinema, Jolt, Gathr and Eventive live – for each of them to tell you why filmmakers should use their platform over any other. You can catch a replay of that discussion here. You do have to be a paid member of my substack so I’m offering a 50% discount to all Slamdance followers: https://jonreiss.substack.com/50offNew
Why I Do What I Do
My introduction to film was joining the punk rock documentary collective Target Video in the early 80s. I fell in love with how a group of outsiders were taking media – music and film – into their own hands. As a neo-Marxist/anarchist economics student at UC Berkeley, I saw how the structure of media within late stage capitalism was, if not suppressing voices, certainly blocking a wide and diverse range of opinions and artforms – and the birth of DIY showed a path where artists could reach audiences directly.
That’s me on tour with Target Video in Paris
That ethos still drives me today and I feel that it is more possible now than before for filmmakers and other artists to reach audiences. However, as we have seen over the past several years, there are economic forces/structures/conglomerates that have successfully created a flattened media landscape and monopolized audience attention thus thwarting distribution and as a result creation of content expressing diverse/challenging viewpoints. Even though the intrepid artist can still reach audiences, they are increasingly coming up against an economic system that is working against them. Don’t despair – there is action we can take – see below #4 & #5!
The Algorithms We Fight
Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Content by Kyle Chayka (who also has a Substack) was a revelation to me. In this book, Chayka goes through multiple creative “industries” from music to writing/journalism to tv/film and illustrates how “In recent years, a kind of algorithmic culture has emerged—shallow, degraded, and washed-out, like a photocopy that’s been copied too many times. There’s growing anxiety around the automation of cultural production, where authenticity itself becomes suspect.” I’m feeling this – I am sure many of you are feeling this too. I’m going to devote a whole post to this book in the near future – but here are a few highlights:
To interact with anything online is to engage with a system designed to trigger and track your attention. The worship of algorithms is mutilating entire industries.
Algorithms cut off the possibility of discovery. We see it in the lifestyle influencer, the endless Marvel sequels, the lack of innovation in mainstream film and TV. Culture is being limited to the past. Mark Fisher wrote about this too—how the future feels crushed and exhausted. There’s a sense that the future is being canceled in real time. And that perception of culture is correct…
In so many cases, culture terminated through algorithms is designed to produce a sensory void—or to be flattened into the background of life. They provide a form of ambient culture, so you don’t have to think too much about consuming. Because it’s so bland, you don’t need to worry about whether it truly represents you or not.
I find this uplifting because it helps identify one of the sources of what has been happening to our industry, which has been overrun by reality television, true crime and soporific drama and comedies (with some notable exceptions) and why it has become so difficult for distinct, challenging and diverse voices to break through the constant noise. It’s uplifting because you need to know your enemy to be able to fight it.
The Lived Experience
I am a huge fan of what I call “event/theatrical” – which includes any form of film viewing in person – in any place, any time, any media.
As tech companies work overtime to isolate us – I find gathering in community so important and I feel that I am not alone. We are yearning to be in community – especially in the face of the techno-futurist/techno-fascist takeover we are witnessing. I find seeing film in community with others – especially if those experiences are eventized – is so meaningful. This was one of the inspirations for Chayka writing in Filterworld:
“This book is an attempt to reclaim our experiences from recommendation systems—to revisit the things we like and experience together. . . . Real learning happens off the platform—when we finally take time to put things together ourselves.”
Many if not most filmmakers make films to be seen with an audience in a physical space. Since I wrote TOTBO, many systems have also developed to facilitate these experiences and more are developing every day. However, I have found that a lot of filmmakers have confusion over which platform is right for them, let alone the best strategy to leverage the power of these platforms.
As I mentioned, last week I brought together the CEOs of Kinema, Gathr, Eventive and Jolt to explain why they built their platforms and what makes their platform unique from all the others – eg – why theirs is the right one for you. Because of the expense of doing these webinars, I am asking that you be a paid member to be able to watch the webinar and also see the incredible grid with over 100 comparison points between the different platforms. But offering a 50% discount to all Slamdance followers: https://jonreiss.substack.com/50offNew As a paid subscriber you can watch the webinar and all others like it for free and also engage in my monthly live AMAs, case studies and dig into the rest of my posts.
Fight the Power, Part 1
Over the past years, we have seen how technology companies are extraordinarily problematic for democracy – and now we are seeing how the streaming platforms are adding to this problem. In the past few weeks, the Trump administration has been taking an axe to arts funding and threatening one of the mainstays of documentary film – PBS.
It is essential that we mobilize as a community to preserve our artform not only to promote dynamic, energizing, diverse content, but because it is this very content that helps an exchange of ideas that is at the very core of a democratic society. This is the reason I helped found The Future Film Coalition with Keri Putnam, Jeffrey Kusama Hinte, Abby Sun, Brian Newman, AJ Christian, Sanjay Sharma and Barbara Twist with an early assist from Ted Hope to advocate for the economic future of independent film. If you are interested in possible solutions to what ails our indie ecosystem and how you can take action, I highly recommend joining our community.
One of our recent newsletters pointed out:
Since early April, here’s what’s been terminated: funding to all 50 state humanities councils and 1,434 NEH grants supporting culture and humanities programs across the country, including the only federal grant program funding the development and production of feature-length documentaries.
The terminations affect our field, from museums, film festivals and arts nonprofits that rely on state humanities funding, to filmmakers in the middle of production. A coalition of seven nonprofits, from the International Documentary Association to the Center for Independent Documentary, issued a statement explaining: “The blanket termination of active grants, including those awarded under a previous Presidential administration, is a blatant attempt to impose ideological control over artistic production and will continue to devastate the affected productions.”
Our intention was to spend our first year coalition building (we intend to engage our entire sector) and researching what policy actions we could advocate for in our second year. But circumstances have changed and we are already becoming involved in the fight for public media and arts funding as well as advocating for an independent carve out in the potential increased California tax incentive.
Fight the Power, Part 2 – Why Support Oligarchs?
While it is easy to feel helpless in face of the right wing/alt right/authoritarian takeover of our government, I feel that there are things that we can do that not only make us feel better but actually might make a difference.
I highly recommend participating in Tesla protests – quite fun and in part very effective in making Elon feel some economic pain of his own while he inflicts massive economic havoc on millions of Americans. But only a few can effectively make the privileged choice to boycott buying a Tesla.
However we can all boycott X, Meta, Amazon and other corporations that fund oligarchs. This could be a post unto itself or a series of posts – but one of the other inspiring aspects of Filterworld was Chayka’s account of how he weened himself off of the dominant social media platforms. I have pretty much gone dark on FB and Instagram – spending my time on Substack and newly starting on BlueSky.
Once the NY art world moved en masse from Soho to Chelsea – a coordinated effort in the face of rent gouging. I would propose that filmmakers – especially documentary filmmakers who use Facebook a lot – collectively move from Meta to BlueSky.
And last, I have finally started weening myself off of Amazon (yes something I should have done years ago). If you are interested in joining me – here is a handy guide on how to do so including a plethora of options to Amazon both IRL and online.
Thank you for reading. I look forward to your thoughts and solidarity!
Jon