Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.screendaily.com
Studios and independents might be falling over themselves to work with creators following the success of Backrooms, Obsession and Iron Lung, but top agents and creator economy execs have stressed that the attraction is mutual.
Selling out theatres is every artist’s dream despite the millions they might be able to make through TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, said Obsession director Curry Barker’s literary agent Jordan Lonner, who is co-head of UTA’s motion picture literary department.
“When we all talk to our clients, creators and traditional TV creators, they always want to go make movies…As an industry, it’s something to always remember with all these different changes that we’re going through [in the industry].”
Mickey Meyer, president of Blink 49’s Global Creator Studios, said it was exciting to see the movie business, which he called the “pinnacle of the entertainment industry”, catching up with the creator economy.
Meyer said that Instagram and TikTok are the best places to identify up-and-coming, fresh new talent to work with because of its low barrier to entry for creators. YouTube, by comparison, is tougher because it requires creators to spend time, money and invest in infrastructure to succeed. “YouTube is minimum two years, probably if you are a company $2m worth of investment, to go and build yourself to get to a place that is more sustainable.”
“A lot of times, if a creator has gotten to YouTube and gone through the gauntlet enough to get a following, they don’t need you. So short form [on Instagram and TikTok is where] you can identify someone that you can really help,” added Meyer.
However, Brett Rosen, manager at TFC Management & Productions, noted that the advantage of YouTube is that it is “the one place that allows creators to put up enough of a proof concept” for projects.
He said the success of YouTube creators in the film industry has also led studios to look at younger short film directors, and “really competitively go after their projects as well.”
The executives were speaking at an AFM Summit panel this week titled “The New IP Value Chain: How Stories & Storytellers are Finding New Paths to the Screen.”
