Ronin Rush
Tabby Vandermoon
In a presentation at this year's Australian International Documentary Conference, Ronin's managing director, Andrew Pike, spoke about the education market as a rewarding field for filmmakers. Here is an extract from an article by Andrew Einspruch reporting on the presentation:
(An) heretical statement came from Andrew Pike, MD of Ronin Films during a session called "Education Rights - Ensuring Profitability & Sustainability". At the Australian International Documentary conference, dedicated primarily to making docos for television, Pike compared making TV doc to an extreme sport. "Like whitewater rafting, it is full of pitfalls. It is full of people shouting opinions at you about which direction you should go and how you should manage your affairs. It's an area with a high adrenalin rush, and a lot of exhilaration. There's high emotion when you get a pre-sale, and high emotion, despair, and doom when you get knocked back."
By contrast, Pike called the education market the "unglamourous area of the film industry," devoid of red carpets, billboards, bright lights, or posters with your name plastered all of them. "It is an area for worker bees," he said. But worker bees can turn a profit.
The education market is, broadly, made up, by schools, universities, TAFES, libraries, and government departments and agencies. Yes, the TV audience may be bigger than the education audience will ever be. But Pike argued that the education viewers are a more attentive lot, an important distinction for filmmakers who actually want their work viewed and considered. Plus, those worker bees targeting the education market have freedoms their TV-targeting brethren will never know, including:
Lack of date sensitivity. TV buyers are date sensitive. Your four your old documentary will simply be seen as old. In the education market, films only date if the subject matter dates. Pike said some of his best performers were made in the early 1980s.
Less restrictive production values. Was your documentary shot on HD? Or SD? Mini-DV or super-8? It doesn't matter. Again, if the subject is strong and relevant, the education market can find it a home.
"You have more chance of speaking with your own voice in the education market than if you are working for television. I'll probably get shot down for saying that, but it is something I truly believe," said Pike. "Television is not the only way to make films. It's a paradigm with particular constraints and particular circumstances applying to it. The education market is another paradigm as well, but it is a much bigger, freer, wider world there, where you can be much more inventive and creative, in my view."
Pike also said that unlike home video, the demand for DVDs in the education market is still very strong. He said that 85% of his sales at Ronin are DVDs, and that is growing, not dying. And those DVDs tend to sell at a premium compared to home DVD sales.
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