The difference is that ‘associate producer’ is not an actual job, but basically a high powered thank you credit. It’s the kind of thing given to someone who helped put you in touch with a powerful actor, found a great screenplay, or dare I say it, invested money in the film. 

This is just my vibe, but I’m not sure that writing this blog post was the best way to address this … perhaps an email or phone call would have been a better option.  

Just my thoughts,

‘J-dog

“Actions speak louder than words, but sometimes words …”

I still don’t agree with you! I don’t think transparency matters one little bit, he’s an artist, he’s selling his work, it’s reasonably priced and he can sell it for whatever he wants. I don’t think he needs to be transparent, we’ve not seen a budget but I’d bargain he’s spent a lot of his own money and time making this which almost certainly won’t have been paid for. Then there’s the RED kit, the tracking kit, the lenses, the hard drives, the transcoding, the cutting, the score composition, the grading, the HDR processing etc etc I reckon you’d be staggered how long it takes to do timelapse and get it so right. So I think he can charge what he wants because it’s worth a lot of money. If the Beeb or Discovery had done it the budget would have been hundreds of thousands of pounds if not more.

If you’re only method of being paid or making income is from your work you can charge whatever you want for it and if people are willing to pay that then that’s great. He’s had millions of views on Vimeo for good reason he’s work is the best.

As for IMDB I don’t think it in anyway devalues geniune credits. Everyone knows that an Associate Producer isn’t the same as a Producer and I’m not sure that anyone holds IMDB  as gospel, it’s far too easy to make up credits, or title or films. There’s no substitute for someone’s own website, reel and CV. So I’m not sure why it’s such a big deal. My name has been used about a dozen times on IMDB for people that aren’t me. The actual me that is credited on there has credits for work I didn’t even do. So I’ve had to go by a different name for writer directing now to distinguish myself.

I’m sorry to hear you’ve got mugged off by producers it’s happened to me as well, there’s nothing worse than having your time and effort wasted but I don’t know what that has to do with Tom and his film. It seems to me to be a very honest endeavor by an extremely talented film maker.
 
I’m not surprised by the level of debate and I’m sure that people will buy his film, it looks great and is well priced for what it is. 

‘It sounds to me like…’

Is Tom in need of funds to finish his film? We don’t know. Had Tom created a page to offer us the chance to fund the completion of his project, with complete transparency as to his intentions, then I would never have written the post. God forbid I would ever condemn anyone for being innovative in the way they fund their projects. I’ve raised money through crowdfunding and offered perks in return for people’s goodwill. But it was completely transparent, you knew exactly what the money was for, and why I was asking for it. 

The point is, Tom may or may not need funds to complete his project, but if he’d stated that then I’d have applauded him for being canny enough to create an appetite and an audience for his work. All I ask is transparency when it comes to things like flogging credits. It’s a lot of money and it’s a tactic I see again and again from producers who treat everyone from the crew to their funders with the utmost contempt. 

I’m also going to have to disagree with you about the state of digital media right now: DVD was introduced in 1995, and it’s going nowhere. Blu-ray was introduced in 2006 and, on current product cycles, will be around for a very long time still. CD was introduced in 1982 and is still going strong. To suggest that these formats will be obsolete in a few years is utterly daft. 

As for standing no chance of making money on the content I would strongly argue the contrary. Tom’s work is utterly unique, there is almost no-one else producing work like this, he’s a genuine specialist in a very niche area. It won’t work as a theatrical release, granted, but if you follow Jon Reiss (and I suggest that you do) you’ll hopefully understand that niche communities are your best friend as an independent filmmaker. So here are some suggestions for Tom to monetise his content.

1. Tour the film around the country with pop-up film events. Team up with a band and create a unique live experience, like Pink Floyd providing the soundtrack to the moon landings. Charge $15 a ticket. Q & A afterwards. 

2. Serialise the content and distribute it on Blip.tv or even YouTube

3. Parcel up the best shots into a mobile content package and sell it to handset manufacturers as a pre-load

4. Sell it to the BBC, or the Discovery Channel. The archive value of the footage should be substantial

As for the ‘cost-effective’ nature of shooting timelapse films I’m again going to have to strongly disagree with you. A small team filming periodically over a two year period comes nowhere near the cost of a full feature film, seeing a project through pre-prod, principal photography, and editing. I’m pretty shocked that you think the two even come close. A much better comparison would be a documentary shoot but even then I would argue the post production on documentaries would be far more protracted than that on a timelapse film.

Like I said before, don’t mug me off.

Those who buy the film are not investors, they’re funders after the fact. The film is already made. If someone invested $1m in a movie then they would expect to see a return on that investment. The credit is a perk.