Creativity Jijiji
Creativity Jijiji: "Conversations about creativity"
This podcast amplifies the voices of our true leaders—the artists. Writers, composers, producers, singers, actors, and poets show us new ways to see ourselves and the world around us. They illuminate the invisible threads that connect us, revealing the deep ties of our shared humanity.
At a time when we must come together as citizens of a small and fragile planet, the voices of artists matter more than ever.
Creativity Jijiji goes beyond the spotlight to explore the mysteries of creativity—where it comes from, why it moves us, and how it shapes our world.
Join us as we listen, learn, and celebrate the creative minds guiding us into the future.
Creativity Jijiji
Artistic Revenue in a Tech-Driven World
Can you imagine a world where artists struggle to earn a living despite creating beloved works? That's the reality we face today, as back-end revenue in the entertainment industry is vanishing, leaving creatives in the lurch. In this episode of Air Jijiji, we share a personal experience with the children's show "Chuggington" to illustrate how back-end deals once served as a financial lifeline for artists. We'll examine the seismic shifts caused by Silicon Valley's disruption, which has redefined the industry to benefit a select few while leaving many artists struggling. We'll also challenge the notion that technology and AI can replace the irreplaceable value of great art.
Shifting gears, we explore how creators leverage new platforms like YouTube and Patreon to reach audiences directly, bypassing traditional media giants. Social media's role in fostering real-time fan engagement has never been more critical. We'll also unpack how blockchain technology and smart contracts could revolutionize back-end earnings, offering a glimmer of hope amidst the tumultuous landscape. Plus, we'll discuss the balance between monetization through advertising and brand partnerships and the unyielding importance of maintaining artistic integrity. Please tune in for a comprehensive look at the evolving business of creativity and where it's headed next.
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Welcome to this week's ARGG. We're going to talk about something that is complicated, so I'm going to get through this as quickly as I can Reach out to me on studioggio with any questions you might have about this, because this is a big topic. We're talking about IP. We're talking about vanishing IP and what that means to artists today, how losing back-end revenue shattered Hollywood and the untapped IP gold mines waiting to be discovered. When the elevator to my studio opened some years back, two producers stepped off and they had a show and they were looking for music.
Speaker 1:I'll get into the show, which was Chuggington, on another episode, but today I'm talking about back-end. Back-end is the part of the deal that used to be what we work for. There was front end and we would compromise that price in order to get back end. It was a pretty simple thing. I mean, I'd look at the deal and I'd say like, look, I got to be covered, you got to cover me, you got to support me for the work I'm about to do, but I'll keep the price low because I'm looking at the back end and what's happened is the back end has been vanishing, but the front end the prices, haven't gone up, so that's squeezed the creative market. This story that I'm about to tell you is what happened to an artist's back end. Chuggington had a back end and I did a back end deal. I didn't know then that it was the end of deals like that and I was lucky to catch one, but everything was going to change.
Speaker 1:The two producers that stepped off the elevator were Sarah Ball and Don Tote. Sarah was a front-rank preschool director who had done Bob the Builder and this was her new show, chuggington. So it was pretty exciting to meet her director, who had done Bob the Builder and this was her new show, chuggington. So it was pretty exciting to meet her and it was pretty exciting to talk about this deal. But when I signed the contract to produce the soundtracks for the kids' show, the entire entertainment industry was about to undergo a disruption that would destroy the rights of artists. We'd worked years, decades, to achieve these rights and I just never really understood why artists became the low-hanging fruit for Silicon Raiders.
Speaker 1:I just don't understand it. Maybe it's just that artists were easy pickings. Maybe it's just as simple as that. Many people tell me to move on, surrender and get used to it, deal with it, and I've had many people tell me it's opened a world of creativity to all. Like high-end work was some elite group hidden behind walls that masses could not breach? And now we have opened the gates with these new tools and these new deals, this new deal structure that was given to us. We didn't ask for it, it was imposed on us and this is supposed to have made the world a better place.
Speaker 1:I am not so sure that's true. It's certainly not true for working creatives but, more importantly, I don't think it's true for creativity, and that's a big problem. It kind of is about just stuffing massive amounts of cash and using our work of cash, and using our work and by our I mean every citizen on the planet to charge a gusher of wealth into a fabled gated community on top of the mountain. The fantasy the walls can now be breached is the opposite of the truth. The walls are now higher than ever. It's almost impossible to make a living unless you're on the inside of the Silicon Valley Monetary Trust Fund, which seems to be in the pockets of about 10 people. So we're all out here Funny, it's like a plantation economy and we're the field hands and they live in the big house. That's the way it feels to this working creative who's been doing this for three or four decades.
Speaker 1:Why, why? I can't get over that question. Why, why? Was this the only way to make the world go forward by taking rights from artists, changing our work and just dismissing us as unimportant? I don't know. I really just don't know. It's free-for-all content, creative-free and used to make money for the anointed class, elite class. That's the way it feels. I'm talking about the way it feels. And the question is now how do artists make money? How does it happen If the landscape has changed? One thing has not Great art is rare and valuable and it belongs to the artist.
Speaker 1:Great art is not a training tool, it's not a commodity. That's kind of heresy, right? It's like I'm standing up in church and saying I don't believe in God. Art is not a commodity. Not great art, not true art. It's not a commodity. It may become a commodity. Van Gogh's paintings may trade and sell for more than they were ever worth when the artist created them. That's different. I'm talking about creating art. You can't create art if it's in your mind that you're being part of a commodification process. It just will not work. The artist needs to be over here in a bubble, left alone to create their art. That's the way you get the great art. You can't go and just hire an artist and say create me great art. It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:Ai, which is sort of on the scene now and is causing massive disruptions. Ai feeds on the past but art feeds on the future. Ai feeds on the past but art feeds on the future. Do you see what I mean? Without new art, ai is just a snake eating its tail. Eventually it will just collapse in on itself. So we have to look at that and say how are we going to deal with this, unless it's just you know what we have, what we have and we're not going to go anywhere new? There's been so many discussions I was reading them this morning about this problem. Somebody called it mad cow disease, mad chat disease, because the AI is just feeding on old AI and filling up the internet with AI reflections and it just ends up reflecting itself. It doesn't have any new to it. I mean that's the biggest problem we have with this. We need new and to get new we need to support the artists In the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1:Back-end revenue, the residual earnings from syndication, dvd sales, international distribution once provided a reliable source of income for creators and actors and production teams. However, the streaming era has fundamentally altered this landscape. Platforms like Netflix, hulu, disney Plus have shifted the business model from traditional back-end deals to flat-front payments. Look, if I was going to make a million dollars in residuals and now they're going to pay me a million dollars up front, we wouldn't be having this discussion. What's happening is there is no back end and they're paying me my old fee up front, which was negotiated and put together with back end vision in mind. So the prices have shrunk and I have to take on more as a producer, as an artist, than I did before. I'm responsible for the whole front end and I've got to squeeze that whole front end from these lower fees with no return. There's ways out of this and we're going to talk about that right now.
Speaker 1:I mean, you have to ask yourself if they can't afford to pay for the content that drives their profit. So if they can't afford to pay for the content that drives their profit, is it because global accounting is too complex or nobody is watching? You know, I just I just don't get it. I mean, when it comes down to Netflix, nobody's watching Netflix because the executives that run Netflix are are running Netflix. You know it's like let me tune in to see what this executive is doing. They're watching Netflix because of the working artists that have given them the content. This deal was a good deal. It was good for the executives and it was good for the artists. The new deal it's good for the executives and it really sucks for the artists.
Speaker 1:The seismic shift has made pursuing back-end revenue more elusive than ever, while the model of getting paid once and hoping for residuals over the years has faded. You must ask are there new opportunities here? Are there new strategies to create a back-end in the new entertainment market? That's the question. That's what I'm looking at today. So what is causing this entertainment shift?
Speaker 1:Several things. First, there's streaming over syndication. Traditional syndication models, where shows were sold to networks globally, generating long-term revenue, have largely been replaced by streaming deals. These are often structured as flat rates, like we talked about, with no ongoing financial benefits. There's no benefits as the content gets more views or is licensed internationally. There's just no back end. Another is this is really interesting the shorter lifespans of content.
Speaker 1:Our global ADD doesn't help. Content cycles are shorter than they used to be In the past, a hit TV show might have enjoyed years of syndication or DVD sales, but today content has a faster turnover on streaming platform. I mean, it's incredible. You can go and do an epic fantasy 10 episodes, you know an hour each, and once you're through it it's like it's done. People don't even rerun it, unless you're like me and you watch everything 10 times. But they just are hungry for content. We need more content and yet they don't want to pay for it.
Speaker 1:I don't know the way out of this. Globalization has not helped, with streaming services distributing content internationally. From the get-up, the traditional aftermarket revenue from foreign distributions has diminished. Algorithm-driven discoverability streaming platforms rely on algorithms to push new content to viewers, meaning older content doesn't benefit from reruns or resurgence in popularity like it once did. I think as we get deeper into that, that's going to be a little less true. I think older content, evergreen content, game of Thrones content will be watched again and again and again.
Speaker 1:However, there is no benefit for the performers and the writers and the directors when that happens, the producers. There's no large benefit. We're fighting for it, but so far we haven't been that successful. So are there new back-end opportunities? Yeah, I think there are, and finding them is the whole game, and it's probably a more interesting part of what I'm talking about today. And number one, something that we've been working on here at the studio is ownership of intellectual property. Creators, who own their content their TV series or film or music podcast have more control over licensing deals and distributions. Negotiating to retain IP rights can lead to long-term earnings through merchandising adaptations, future distribution deals.
Speaker 1:Don't sell the farm. That's what I say to young, up-and-coming artists. Don't sell the farm, just buy more feed and seed the field. Set up shop. Don't sell Grow. I think that that's key to what we're looking at here.
Speaker 1:You can also diversify platforms. It used to be you did a deal with Disney and Disney delivered the eyeballs. Disney delivered all the eyeballs, or TV's or CBS, but that's not the case anymore. That's probably the single biggest change. It's the audience that drives the market. Now more than ever, they are like a horde of wandering eyeballs wandering the digital media scape and deciding what to watch. It's as likely as to be TikTok as NBC. Rather than depending solely on one distributor, creators can distribute content across multiple platforms Netflix, hulu, disney+, yes, amazon, prime, video, shure, hbo, max, apple, itunes, but also Google Play, vimeo, youtube, apple Podcasts, spotify, crackle Shutter, even Patreon you get the idea. I've got a list that's a mile long of places that you can distribute your beautiful show. As long as you own it, you can make the deals and just put it out there until you find where it needs to be, until the audience finds you, until the right quorum of eyeballs show up and go like, hey, I like this show.
Speaker 1:Then there's direct fan engagement. I mean, I've always been about direct fan engagement. When I was young and I had rock and roll bands, the whole goal in those days was to get a line outside the club. If you could get a line outside the club on the night you were playing, that was like yes, that was like your KPI, your key performance indicator. Hey, there's 100 people outside the club. That was cool, you were making it.
Speaker 1:Things haven't changed that much. We can now directly engage with the fans and I call it the line-out-the-door theory. It's as old as the hills, but in 2024, it's on steroids. You can build a community globally if you do it right. With platforms like Facebook, instagram and TikTok, and then even as a writer, substack social channels, live exclusives, a million ways you can engage with people directly and by engaging them directly, say to them this is what I'm doing, do you like it? Until they say like, yes, I do like it. It's sort of like live, interactive, immersive focus groups, which used to be such a process but is now a daily event that you can put into your production schedule.
Speaker 1:Of course, sponsorships and brand partnerships this is all still available, except that it's available to the producers. It used to be that people would buy media plans from Disney. They would have these big up fronts in New York and say this is where we're going and the brands would line up. That still goes on and that's still big business. None of this precludes, by the way, big business. I know, in advertising they've been talking about the death of the 30-second TV commercial for mass marketing forever, but it hasn't died. There's a lot of it. You see it out there all the time. It's all over the place. These things tend to accommodate each other rather than wipe each other out. So sponsorship and brands for sure, the opportunities to partnership with brands is stronger than ever.
Speaker 1:Branded content, product placement you can successfully work outside of traditional models, for sure, but be careful, you can't compromise your work as an artist. You just cannot. You cannot tie chains around your spirit, and some brands will do that. There are brands out there that will say, like we're sponsoring you, go around your spirit. And some brands will do that. There are brands out there that will say, like we're sponsoring you, go do your thing. So you have to kind of pick your spots. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I spent time in the video game industry, so I was introduced to much of what I am going to talk about now. It's a cursed idea and wholly misrepresented and misunderstood. The value is still undetermined, but as an artist and someone who signed an old school contract that still pays the rent today, I found a lot of what I will talk about next intriguing. Let's just say that it's intriguing. It's also the Wild West and there's a lot of pirates out there or what do you call outlaws out there, bandits out there but it's intriguing. There's something there and what I'm talking about is talking about is blockchain technology used to benefit artists? There's been artists out there who've been looking at this pretty extensively and there's a sense that it can work. Problem is, right now it's a lot of con, so you've got to be really careful. The rise of blockchain technology presents a new frontier for back-end earnings. So how does that work?
Speaker 1:As a producer, I might attach a smart contract to my work to offer solid returns to the creatives who work on my project. Right? What is a smart contract? A smart contract is like think of it as a box and you put little digital assets. So Chill Blow does a voice on a project and I give him a smart contract which goes into the box. Now, whatever happens to my project, joe Blow's smart contract is attached to it. I could sell the project. His contract stays attached to it. It gets played in South Korea.
Speaker 1:We learn about that because the smart contract is in the project. I mean, it's kind of blows your mind a little bit, right, I mean it really does. That means we have an efficient way of doing this. Now, how do we pull it off with all the shenanigans being used on blockchain? I don't know. I have a feeling that's a solution for the next generation of producers, but the idea, the idea is probably the most dynamic idea that's been presented to us as artists to recover our back end, which has gone missing in the hallways of silicon valley.
Speaker 1:All right, um, the contracts attached. Let's call them digital assets. I say digital assets, but what? What I mean in plain English is the music, the voices, the actors, the performers, the singers, the animators, the scriptwriters, the copywriters, the directors. The new digital contract, which is a living contract, in that as the creative grows, as the show goes from audio drama to animation, to video games, the contract goes with it. Use, which is what back-end is really about. Use how it's used, how many times it's used, is tracked in pertuity precisely and paid directly to the artist. Are you getting excited? Because this actually excites me. If it doesn't excite you, I don't blame you. I'm kind of a geek for this kind of stuff. I know it's complicated to follow, but how cool, how cool would that be?
Speaker 1:Most working artists work on the assumption they do not receive 100% of the royalty. I mentioned the show Chuggington. I had an old school contract that was signed in like 2007, before YouTube was even a thing, and I've done really well with it. I mean, it's given me my residuals every 13 weeks for years, weeks for years, but I've always known I don't get 100% of the royalty. You know, because the reporting is a little slipshod, especially when you have a hit like that and it gets played in 100 countries. It's like you know how many times have been played in South Korea. You know, finding that out is difficult. Some places like Germany do a fantastic job of reporting and my royalties from that country show it. In the United States it's a little wishy-washy, you know, and my royalties show it. So the understanding is maybe you get 60, maybe 70, maybe, on a good day, 80% of your royalty, but you're never getting 100%.
Speaker 1:With what I'm talking about, blockchain technology, you're going to get 100% of your royalty and that's probably why it's going to be hard to put in place. I kind of wonder, because the performance royalty societies, they're interested in 100% accuracy. I really do. You have to wonder. Blockchain is a way forward, but who can trust it? I don't know.
Speaker 1:But this is where it gets crazy and where I say don't sell your IP, just don't sell it, don't sell your IP. I mean, think about it. Iconic imagery, quotes or characters from your content can be turned into products. All right, from your IP you can get the products Lunchbox bonanza kind of right. Only you make the lunchboxes yourself and pocket the change. License the IP. You know that guy, mr Wonderful, on Shark Tank. He's always saying license, I want a license, I want to be involved in licensing deals. He is so right about that. He is so right about that.
Speaker 1:Elements for games and apps and virtual environments, the metaverse. The metaverse is sort of like come and gone, it feels like. But you know the ideas. We're talking about the ideas. These can help sustain creativity long after the initial release of the creativity Element. Licensing, asset licensing it's the new syndication in video games. They got this down. They make as much money from sales of the game as they do from selling a little sword that gives your character more power. In-game sales are worth billions. I wish I had some of those Tuckington trains in my back pocket.
Speaker 1:To be honest with you, that show is a goldmine of untapped IP. But the producers came from another generation and they've just let it kind of sit there. So you know you want to do something. Call me I don't even know who owns the show, but call me. Okay, we have things like crowdfunding. That's pretty cool, right Another kind of line out the door and audio Audio. That's why I'm doing it at studio jijiji. We start with audio. It's controlled budget, it's creatively flexible, it's ours. I can do most of it right here in my studio, I mean it's growing in popularity. They provide creators with another way to recycle and monetize existing IP spinoff podcasts, audio adaptations of films or TV shows, even deep dives into the creative process, like on AirGigi, you know, advertising subscription revenue can follow.
Speaker 1:This is good, artists, about what we can do in this marketplace that we had no say in and it's been handed to us. But we're not going to start, we're not going to stop creating our art. I mean that's not going to happen. So how do we survive? What's out there? It's a new reality. All right. The entertainment industry constantly evolves and the flattening of the back-end revenue streams has forced artists to rethink their business models. Our corporate overlords are either clueless or unscrupulous your choice, you decide which way it is. The new reality favors the hustler and, honestly, it's a pain in the ass. It's a pain in the ass.
Speaker 1:I much preferred it before, when I would work like a dog and I would send it out and other people had to promote it and other people owned it. But I would keep a piece. You know, I'd keep a piece, which I would the writer's piece usually, or maybe mechanical relatives, or maybe a piece of the publishing we would do these deals and then someone else would administer it and the checks would come in the door and I would just put them in my bank and I could focus on what I do best, which is creating new projects. That's me. That's what I do.
Speaker 1:Nowadays. You have to put on a lot of hats and be a hustler. That's the way it is, but there's also some opportunities in that, because creativity is not just coming up with a cool script or writing a cool song or editing a cool video. Creativity is also can be how you put the project together, how the budget works, how the money is raised and how the money is spent. If you put your keep your creative hat on all the time, it can really help. The world was a lot simpler. Yes, in the old days when all you had to do was get a pencil and paper and send the results into the wind and wait for the windfall, there were some nice years just doing that, but those years are gone. That does not mean there's no opportunities. It actually means there is new opportunities. That's essentially what entrepreneurship is in the big picture, and creative entrepreneurship is what we're talking about here. So go out there, be open, take control. Do not sell your IP and look for opportunities to use it in new and creative ways. You start thinking like that. You'll start thinking there's an amazing amount of opportunities out there for us. Good luck and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:This is Air Dajiji. We're on here every week and we're talking about all things about the business and practice of creativity, and we're lining up some guests so you won't have to just listen to me talk all the time, but we have some guests. We're going to be revisiting all these topics with guests who can give us new perspective on these topics. So subscribe wherever your ears wander. We're on Apple Podcasts, we're on Spotify, we're on iHeartRadio. I have a soft spot in my heart for iHeartRadio because I love radio, so I'm very proud to be there, and thanks once again for listening.
