Sandy Grushow is president of Filmaka, an online global creative marketplace formally launched earlier this year by noted film producer Deepak Nayer. Prior to its opening in April, the company was in beta test mode for a year, assembling an active online community of more than 3,600 aspiring filmmakers from 95 countries.
Fast forward to today and the Filmaka network has grown to some 8,000 active filmmakers–a mix of new and established artisans–in 123 nations. Through a variety of competitions offering real-world exposure and business/creative opportunities, Filmaka has helped connect filmmakers with ad agencies and clients on the branded content front, and with decision-makers in TV and theatrical features.
For example, in the ad sector, JWT Team Detroit recently came to Filmaka to tap into its online community for the creation and production of web shorts promoting 2010’s Ford Mustang.
Prior to Filmaka, Grushow was chairman of Fox Television Entertainment Group overseeing both Fox Broadcasting Company and 20th Century Fox Television Studio’s entertainment operations. Under his leadership, FOX launched new series such as Malcolm in the Middle, 24, American Idol, The OC, The Bernie Mac Show, The Simple Life and Arrested Development.
Grushow’s roots, though, are in marketing. He started out in the feature film marketing department at 20th Century Fox Film Corp, and was then asked to start the first integrated marketing department at the fledgling FOX TV Network in the late 1980s. Grushow had a hand in developing the broadcast network’s brand and identity. He next became president of the FOX Network, then moved over to build the TV studio which went from having five shows on the air to 22 within three years. Grushow later became chairman overseeing both the studio and the network.
His experience reflects and embodies the very place that Filmaka is now in–at the intersection of entertainment and marketing.
SHOOT: How did the 2010 Ford Mustang campaign come about?
Grushow: JWT Team Detroit approached us on behalf of its client Ford. The agency believed short films on the web represented the perfect medium for filmmakers to showcase the unique relationships that people have with their Mustangs. We conducted a competition open to our global online community to explore that relationship on film.
The competition generated nearly 400 scripts from filmmakers in 28 countries. Filmaka culled this field down to 75, and then JWT and Ford teamed to pare the field down to 22 semi-finalists who each received $5,000 to produce their films, 10 of which were selected to be featured on a special Ford Mustang website. The first film, Numskull directed by Zack Resnicoff, debuted on Sept. 24 and benefitted from a promo spot during the premiere of NBC primetime series Knight Rider, which drove traffic to the site.
Each of the 10 winners received an additional $5,000 and one will be chosen for the grand prize, the opportunity to direct a film for JWT Team Detroit and Ford.
By being in business with companies like Cisco [currently involved with Filmaka on a project via Ogilvy] and Ford, we give filmmakers the kind of access that heretofore most of our online community members could only dream about. That’s the power of our business model–bringing together extraordinarily talented people from around the world with agencies and clients as well as with people in TV and features.
The tone was set in our first feature film competition which was won by Nuru Rimington-Mkali on the strength of his short, And I Refuse to Forget. Entries were judged by a panel of industry notables [Paul Schrader, Bill Pullman, Wim Wenders, Neil LaBute, John Madden, Zak Penn, Colin Firth, Werner Herzog]. The feature, which will mark Rimington-Mklai’s theatrical movie directing debut, is being produced but not financed by Filmaka.
SHOOT: The business model not only provides quality talent but certain economies as well.
Grushow: Yes, the need for high quality, low-cost content for new and traditional distribution platforms has never been greater. Through our competition engine, we continue to discover talent from around the world that is capable of servicing the needs of the marketplace in an efficient way.
To have JWT come to us says a lot about our business model. For one, they wanted to access our online marketplace of filmmaking talent. Plus brands today need a healthy volume of professional content that is produced efficiently. An expensively produced :30 does not a web presence make, especially as a brand is programming a dedicated site. Filmaka assists agencies in a complementary fashion, meeting the needs of high quality and relatively lower cost. And to have JWT extend what was initially intended to be a web campaign into television with the introductory promo on Knight Rider made the project even more high profile.
SHOOT: Besides Ford and Cisco, Filmaka has been involved in competitions that have translated into creative shorts for such clients as SAB Miller and Red Bull. What about your business model relative to TV programs?
Grushow: The FX Network was Filmaka’s first foray into TV program development. We had an FX competition. In fact a group of guys in New York called Quad Deuce–who were one of 22 semifinalists in the Ford Mustang competition–won the FX competition that was held earlier through Filmaka and they are currently writing a pilot outline for which they will be given $40,000 to produce a 15 to 20-minute pilot presentation for FX. It will be up to FX to determine whether or not that pilot is good enough for a series ..
SHOOT: That was also the case with the short You Don’t Have To Be A Superhero to Work Here But It Helps, directed by up-and-coming filmmakers Lawrence Axe and Robbie Gibbon. As earlier reported, the short told the tongue-in-cheek story of a business which dispatches super heroes to disasters as they’re happening. What’s the status of that project?
Grushow: For a $10,000 investment in five short episodes, we have a viable series in development. We are in an evolving content marketplace where hungry filmmakers are needed who can work within budgets more in line with today’s economic reality…It’s a departure from the Hollywood lazy Susan of fat and happy development deals…In our current age of fragmentation, you are no longer able to aggregate enough eyeballs to justify more production expenditures.
We were able to attract to the project a talented writer whom I am not at liberty to identify. He spent years working on The Simpsons.
The five short episodes have elicited interest here and overseas. We are in the process of pitching an animation version of the show to a U.S. broadcast network. Simultaneously it is being pitched as a live-action show to networks in the U.K.
On a separate front, we are currently negotiating with a major TV studio in Hollywood that wants to access our community of filmmakers.
SHOOT: What about feature films?
Grushow: In addition to the project for Nuru Rimington-Mkali, Filmaka is set to shortly announce a brand new media competition.
This competition is being launched through our relationship with a movie studio that came to us in order to reach out to our global community. I’m not yet free to announce the identity of the studio but it is linking with us to try to come up with an interesting new idea in a specific film genre.
