A Nation Of Movie-Thieving, Tech-Savvy, Film Maniacs!

If you haven’t done so already, you NEED to read this:

http://www.flicks.co.nz/features/the-2011-new-zealand-cinema-census/

This is the first ever census taken of our country’s cinema viewing habits.  Almost 4,000 New Zealanders took part in this survey about when we go to the movies, what we watch, how we choose our films, how many films do we download, what are attitudes are about piracy and about our own national cinema.  The results are quite telling; as the survey itself states we appear to be ‘a nation of movie-loving thieves’.  There are also some other interesting results – that an overwhelming majority would love to see NZ short films before features, that we’re picky about what we watch and pay attention to word-of-mouth and reviews and that we, seemingly, don’t care whether NZ films are about NZ stories or not.

Some pretty interesting and insightful results, but what does it really mean for us as a country and also for our own film industry?  This blog entry is devoted to my own personal takes on some of this intriguing collated data…

THE HARD MATH

First: a call for calm. Like all statistics, what we are presented here is not a ‘truth’ or a ‘revelation’ about the inner secrets of ‘all’ New Zealanders and their movie viewing habits.  Statistics reflect a very specific and idiosyncratic facet of any sample population and this survey does nothing different…nor does it claim to be anything else.

The 2011 New Zealand Cinema Census sourced its data from almost 4,000 New Zealanders (a worthy sample size) with a near 50% split between male and female (which is also fantastic).  The majority of those who took the survey (around 35%) were within the 26-35 year age demographic and almost 50% of those that took the survey responded with general comments to back up their statistical data (again very valuable).  While these results certainly give enough information to attain a decent standard deviation of data, it must be emphasized that the nature of statistical analysis belies one inescapable fact in this instance: this survey does not speak for all New Zealanders and certainly not everyone who goes to the movies.

So don’t panic if you disagree with its results.

The most important disclaimer (and one worth mentioning here) is that this is an online survey: executed on this, rather awesome, film hub website for New Zealand and distributed across the internet by means of social networking, messenger and email services.  What this means is that the data collected for this survey comes primarily from those who are most likely to ‘bump into’ or ‘be pointed to’ the survey…i.e. the Internet Generation…which fits our results given the 35% majority of feedback came from the young, savvy, 26-35 age group who are supposedly the largest demographic of any population that are likely to be tied into online social networking, but also interested in taking part and receiving feedback on a survey like this one.

There is the flip-side of this argument as well: people of the 26-35 age group are also the largest demographic who consume media, do so at a voracious rate and also are financially independent enough to have the choice on how they will consume it.  Younger age groups have less control over how much time and money they can spend on media consumption while older age groups are not necessarily as in tune with online services to have found and taken part in the survey.  So this age group, that represents the majority in this survey, are one of the largest contributors to movie-related income and expenditure in our country as well.

So really this survey ideally speaks for a microcosm of Kiwi film audiences who are (most likely) financially capable of choosing what they watch, notorious media consumers and are also technology savvy enough to have an interest in the survey and the skills to find it online or be told about it.  Call it an unavoidable and naturally occurring bias incurred by the means of collecting the data in the first place.  For New Zealanders outside of this specific group…the standard deviation for results could be extremely wide and in some cases data results could be reversed altogether.

PIRATES AHOY!

So lets get down to it.  Downloaded films (most of which are pirated) is rampant within New Zealand cinema culture.  In this link to the survey results: an astonishing 51% of those who responded to the survey download films and 87% of those do not pay for them.

Let’s sidestep the philosophical quagmire of net piracy, because that’s not the point of this article, and focus on the sheer fact that we do it and that there is a perception (however right or wrong) that it is bad for the movie industry in general.  Does the statistic really show us as a country of data-stream cutthroats and scallywags who don’t want to pay for our loot?

The answer, in so far as one can say with such a ‘limited’ survey, is “not necessarily”.  You see, there are many aspects that we must take into account before we can truly live up to our supposed reputation as the Blackbeards of the Internet.  First is the bias of our sample source; as discussed in the section above, our survey gathered data from a highly sophisticated, net and tech-savvy slice of New Zealand’s population.  In short, if any part of our society was likely to download movies…it would be the majority of people who responded to this survey.  This doesn’t change the nature of the results for an instant and, if anything, does lean towards the notion that if New Zealanders COULD illegally download movies…then there is a high probability that they WOULD.  But the data collected isn’t enough to actually prove such claims, only that it is a trend among the demographic most likely to perpetrate the crime.  It does not necessarily apply to sectors of Kiwi movie audiences who are not fully represented in this survey.

And here’s the other thing to think about: 80% of those who did the survey either “feel bad” about downloading films or “are opposed to it”.  Given that this doesn’t tally with the actual downloading habits recorded, does this suggest that there are other motivating forces that make audiences feel that downloading is the only answer in some instances.  The general comments certainly reflect this with many complaints that they download only because movies are not available on the same day in New Zealand as they are overseas (and this is more rampant in the downloading of television shows) and the lack of actual, reliable services for streaming films in New Zealand are practically non-existent (which is semi-true; there are services available, but few know about them and there is less than a handful anyways).

And there’s also that large pink elephant in the room that rarely gets discussed in the media: New Zealand’s appalling and expensive broadband services.  While it is easy to find soundbites of PR-people from all our different telecommunication companies that service this country proclaiming that this ‘just isn’t the case’…those who work in the field, who track the development of the internet and track the monopolies held by these companies in our country know better.

New Zealand’s online speed and pricing are abysmal and practically third-world.  With paleolithic data speeds, extortion-level-fees and the use of data-caps (the concept of which is all, but gone in most first-world countries) we are among the slowest and most expensive nations in the developed world for Internet access.  And this makes legal media downloading an absolute joke (at worst) or a kind of high-end luxury as unaffordable as flying business class for a middle-income family (at best). What possible motivation does anyone have for legally downloading or streaming films when the hit on your pocket is harder than it would be to even go to the cinemas?  Your only option left – if you want to enjoy a film on the same day it is released in other countries – is to download illegally.

Does this mean that if we had faster, cheaper internet service that New Zealanders would pirate less films?  The data of this survey cannot really convince us one way or another, but it remains important to understand that when people want media they will attain it by any means; especially if they’re bluntly told that their money is ‘no good here’.

A VICTORY FOR SHORT FILMS

Surprising for some (though not for me, personally) was the overwhelming enthusiasm for the idea of watching New Zealand short films before features at the cinema.  A notable results considering the minor ballyhoos during the 1990’s where exhibitors and distributors felt that audiences didn’t want to see shorts and banished the tiny handful we used to get from movie screens altogether.

Of course the bias applies here; an enormous amount of people who would take the Film Census are people who care about about film and the role it plays in their lives and are probably aware that New Zealand has a pretty standout short film history.  Perhaps the notion of shorts before feature films does have a touch of preaching to the converted given that film-crazy, net-savvy, young New Zealanders are likely already fans of our country’s work and success with short films locally and internationally.

But the limits of the survey’s sample size doesn’t allow too much speculation on what greater New Zealand may think.  The results are the results, an overwhelming 83% of participants want to see New Zealand short films played before feature films in the cinemas…and why the hell not? The preservation of our country’s unique film platforms are very important both on a cultural and an industry level – we produce a metric buttload of shorts every year and we sorely lack a venue for displaying our work to the public (paying or otherwise).  There is an additional inference of probability that short films playing before movies will be one more added piece of ‘value’ towards going to the cinema rather than sitting in your living room with your Blu-Ray home theater.

The decision to screen shorts is not without cost however: shorts before features will add to the running time of each session which means either the cinema has to run less trailers and ads (unlikely) or that they will be able to run one less session a day from the cumulative time eaten up by the short film.  Cinemas hone their operations like clockwork, attempting to balance getting the maximum amount of sessions for a movie per day against audience comfort, cleaning and practical logistics.  The addition of 5-15 minute short films in front of features would throw that balance out of whack considerably and the cost of running shorts could result in less returns for cinemas than not running them and keeping things as they are.

Of course, in this industry it always pays to listen to what the audience wants.  And, for the moment, it seems the audience wants to see what awesome shit our short filmmakers are producing and taking out prizes all over the world with.  And there is value in that and perhaps, in the interest of keeping the cinemas competitive against the home theater, there is cause to take a financial hit now for sustained returns in the future.

NO EXCUSES LEFT FOR NEW ZEALAND FEATURE FILMS

Lastly, and most surprisingly for me on a personal level, the survey has revealed that those who participated are very film-conscious and film-savvy.  Apart from the interest in NZ short films, cinema-goers in this country have an awareness for the quality of services they expect at movie houses (good seats and big screen/sound experience rated as the most important aspects) and also are acutely aware of the areas where cinemas – especially our multiplexes – fall short such as ejecting people who talk or use phones in movies, being aware of focus and sound problems or just being attentive to audience needs.  Audiences want theater-owners to acknowledge that ‘going to the movies’ is a special experience and should therefore treat their customers and the cinema experience as a highly valued commodity.

New Zealanders also instill the same high demands on the films they watch.  65% of those who participated choose to see films based on word-of-mouth or good critical reviews with only 27% determining if they’ll watch a film from its trailer or marketing.  70% of those who took part also judge international film critics and user reviews over local film reviewers…an interesting blow to the local film critiquing industry *rubs chin thoughtfully*.  76% of us are still interested in watching some films in 3D and the technology in general as well as 58% of those surveyed indicated they are not spontaneous movie watchers and will actively plan ahead, sometimes weeks, to see a certain film rather than merely waltzing into a cinema to see what’s on.

And then…there’s my favourite statistic: 84% of those surveyed ‘don’t care or don’t want to see NZ filmmakers tackle NZ-specific stories’

As someone who works in film and TV, this is a particularly hot potato and bugbear for many in New Zealand and represents a simultaneous pandora’s box and line-in-the-sand to our local industry.  Perhaps we should call it a Pandora’s Trench…with quick-release steel roofing keeping all the nasties in for now.  Without revealing confidential information that I cannot share in a public forum like this, the vague summary I can offer is this: New Zealand films, particularly government-funded ones, are regularly not making their money back and it is now officially threatening our ability to make films in the future.

For the longest time, this was never a problem.  New Zealand had cornered the market in the English-language arthouse genre and our films sustained themselves through that market, film festivals, award-recognition and by ultimately living up to our government mandate of producing cinema that tells ‘our stories’ and takes New Zealand to the world.

But the problem is that the world has now changed.  Flow-on events from the recession, changes in technology, studio-domination of the exhibitor market and content over-saturation during the glory years of Sundance in the first half of this decade (call it the “Little Miss Sunshine/Napoleon Dynamite Years” if you’d like), the arthouse market has all, but collapsed.  In short, there are less people and places in the world for us to sell our kind of films to.  And while the film industry is for the most part ‘recession-proof’, our government and various film-financing bodies are not and this has changed the layout of the land in terms of who will give New Zealand money to make its movies and what kind of movies they would like us to make.

New Zealand films over a certain budget cannot make their money back in our own box-office.  This is FACT. There are not enough New Zealanders in our country to statistically allow a major NZ film to make its money back alone in this country.  So we MUST sell our films overseas in the hopes of getting back into ‘the green’ as it were.  This plan, however, gets complicated if what we’re selling overseas doesn’t become the hit that it was here in New Zealand: for instance a successful New Zealand comedy that does well in local box-office could play as a very dark or depressing or slow film in America, Europe or even Australia if the movie’s colloquial quirks don’t translate to foreign cultures.

There is a specific, government-mandated, plan for how publicly funded New Zealand films get made.  They must:

a) be of significant cultural value to (i.e. be a distinctly ‘New Zealand story’)

b) be produced specifically for theatrical release in the New Zealand

c) be financially successful in the New Zealand box-office and overseas.

Some people argue that this three-part plan could well be impossible to meet given the various gates that protect the notion of what constitutes a ‘New Zealand story’ and what the notion of being ‘financially successful in New Zealand’ actually means.  Some have complained, particularly in the recent film industry review commissioned by Peter Jackson, that we are a nation who gives up on foreign accessibility in order to be ‘culturally true’ to a committee-decided definition on ‘New Zealand-ness’; in effect chopping off our own ankles just so we can get a movie made at all. Measure this convoluted mess up against the Census result that New Zealand audiences don’t seem to care about ‘New Zealand stories’ (at least the stories we’ve done TO DATE) and it gives one cause to pause and ponder what kind of films should we be making and what our box-ticking culture is doing to cultural and entertainment value of our movies.

While their industry is suffering from a slew of other problems, our cousins across the ditch certainly have walked the fine line between cultural value and entertainment/box-office-receipts better than we have.  From highly commercial genre films like The Man From Snowy River, Babe, Crocodile Dundee, Wolf Creek, Dead Calm, Daybreakers, the wonderful Mad Max trilogy to more culturally authentic, career-launching fare like The Proposition, Shine, The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Chopper, The Dish, Muriel’s Wedding, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Gallipoli, Strictly Ballroom, Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Castle, Australia has no shortage of financial success stories that have perpetuated in an industry of diverse films produced with market-friendly insight.  Of course I AM being unfair here – the Aussies have A LOT more money than we do and there are plenty of Australian films that flop which we don’t hear about.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the implosion of the arthouse market isn’t as huge a concern for them as it is for a tiny industry like ours.

So.

84% of those surveyed don’t care or don’t want to see ‘NZ specific stories’.

It is very likely that their opinion of the non-entertainment value of ‘NZ specific stories’ is derived from other films that we’ve produced about ‘NZ specific stories’. They look back at what we’ve produced and go “Yeah, not my thing. Call me when we’re doing it better.” Brutal, but admittedly a fair assumption if you’re not impressed with our previous output.

Because we can never actually make money on large-scale NZ films in our country, there is little point in placating local audiences unless you want to rebuild the industry to cater solely to the 16% who WANT to see culturally specific, NZ stories on our screens…and write off any notions of making any money back on those films ever (which is fine, state-funding for art is very important to our society).  The other option then is to make films for the international market, focus our strengths on making a financial return, launching careers of producers and directors and taking on growing the “foreign genre film” sector head-on…at least if making money is important to the government (and making money WILL grow our industry, make no mistake about that at least).

Of course we can’t do EITHER of these options without breaking our three-part government mandate on what New Zealand films are supposed to be. So, for the time being, we are stuck with our lot until things change. But on this point, there’s one final thing to take away: 84% of New Zealanders who took this survey don’t give a damn what we do. And when the majority of your own audience doesn’t give two shits about you, that’s when, as an industry, we need to think very seriously about what’s happening around us.

 

For my part, I think this census has been a terrific exercise and I want to thank Flicks and Ant Timpson specifically for getting it up off the ground, collating the data and giving us back such amazing and insightful results.

Thanks for reading.