“What if a TV series started acting like a startup?”
That’s the question the BitTorrent blog posits in its introduction to Fly or Die, a pilot pitch for a new scripted series directed by Joel Bergvall, produced by Converge Studios, and available as a BitTorrent Bundle. Inspired by real-life super pop producer duo, Rock Mafia, the series chronicles the twists and turns of an industry “fueled by ego, insecurity, crazy talent, and star power.”
The catch? The show’s producers want you to help control the development process, giving consumers a voice to impact everything from storyline to distribution. As BitTorrent rather accurately portrays our current social feedback loop: Reddit shapes plot lines. Twitter is a writers’ room. American Idols are chosen via text. Youtube is our film school. Is series development something that should be open-sourced?”
It’s another valid question. I think we’ve seen a similar democratization in the music industry – artists trusting their listeners to provide relevant feedback and contribute to music videos and in some cases, complete tracks… Remember when that one guy cold called Deadmau5 on Twitter?
Furthermore, the world has changed from a top down to a bottom up kind of cultural economy. Consumers are liberated by social media and the Internet to tell the corporate brands, major labels, and big studios what they want… and for the most part, the top dogs are listening. Maybe because they don’t have a choice.
photo via Hypebot
Direct to fan methods have proven to work over and over again in the music industry… let’s just reminisce here for a moment on how a little over a year ago, Pretty Lights proved why being number 1 on BitTorrent should be a major celebration, not a cause to call your lawyer. That one example may have even been the catalyst towards the creation of the BitTorrent Bundle platform on which Fly or Die has chosen to make its home.
According to the site, a Bundle “allows artists to distribute content to 170 million BitTorrent users… Fans can unlock artist content with an email address, or a donation. The idea is to make each song a storefront; and each file more valuable, each time it’s shared.” 170 million isn’t too shabby, especially when you consider that Spotify’s active users number about 24 million.
So why should D2F not also just work, but help evolve television as well? Certainly, the popularity of Netflix original series House of Cards and Orange is the New Black demonstrate a desire from those at home to have more control over the “where” and “when” of the content they consume. Why not extend that to the “what” as well?
For Rock Mafia, that’s where the excitement truly lies:
Tim James, Rock Mafia: “Creativity is about sharing. BitTorrent supplies this vast net of new people and ideas. To get that interaction; to get that feedback: that’s the new model. These types of new distribution platforms are crucial to the creative community. They’re what fuel growth: for artists, and for entertainment. And that’s really exciting.”
Ironically, the show itself seems to revolve around a world that cannot escape the commercial, mainstream ideals and politics that still fuel some of the biggest pop records in the world. But it’s hard to say in what direction the show will eventually go, when at the moment, it’s an un-cracked “choose your own adventure book.”
Ideally, I’d like to see the world that Fly or Die is built by reflected in the world it builds for itself. Which is exactly the point.
Tim Staples, Converge: “For us, it was an opportunity to take a great show and test it; to develop iteratively, together with our audience.”
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