The Garden Harvest: The New Director Mindset

Your weekly digest on the intersection of the Creator Economy and Legacy Media.

FRESH CLIPPINGS

The New Director Mindset

With Obsession and Backrooms dominating the conversation, most of the industry discussion has focused on the larger implications for film, specifically the sudden realization that YouTube-native directors can make movies.

What has been mostly overlooked, though, is the mindset that this new generation of directors brings to filmmaking itself, because it’s genuinely different from anything that came before.

Blumhouse founder Jason Blum spoke about this at the Produced By conference. His argument was simple: YouTube creators are so obsessed with and connected to their audience that it fundamentally changes how they approach the filmmaking process. His example lands well. For a traditional director coming out of film school, test screenings have often been a painful exercise, something to survive rather than embrace. YouTube filmmakers treat them as a data source. Blum described them sitting in the front row, cameras out, recording audience reactions in real time.

They want to know. They have always wanted to know.

Mike DeLuca, co-head of Warner Brothers, made the same point from a different angle. These filmmakers have been in a continuous dialogue with their audience from the very beginning of their careers. Their subscribers have had direct input into every iteration of their work for years. By the time they get to a studio feature, DeLuca said, they have already had a billion test screenings.

To be clear, neither Blum nor DeLuca suggested these directors simply give audiences whatever they want with no artistic vision of their own. They simply have learned, over years of genuine audience feedback and iteration, how to make something that connects with their fans.

So what does this mean for those of us in legacy media?

It is honestly not that complicated. Trust them.

They speak to their audience every day in ways most studio executives or producers never have. It requires setting aside the instinct to manage and control, but if the honest goal is the best possible result, getting out of the way and letting people who already know their audience lead is probably the most useful thing to do.

Studios Are Adapting in Real Time…

Something interesting came out of the Enders Conference in London this week. Gerhard Zeiler, President of International at Warner Bros. Discovery, made a statement that would have been almost unthinkable from a major studio executive a few years ago: we need to get rid of an exclusivity mindset.

Zeiler was direct about what that means in practice. WBD will always protect its six-month theatrical exclusivity window, and flagship shows like Euphoria aren’t going anywhere. But beyond that core premium layer, he argued that a lot of what WBD produces should be going to other platforms, specifically naming YouTube and short-form content as areas of real opportunity. “We can’t afford not to have that,” he said.

The framing he used is the important part. He didn’t describe YouTube as a necessary evil or a distribution compromise. He described it as an audience opportunity and a revenue opportunity sitting right in front of them.

That is a significant shift from one of the largest content companies in the world. The exclusivity mindset Zeiler is pushing back against has been the dominant logic for years, built on the idea that keeping content locked to a single platform drives subscriptions and protects value. What he is acknowledging is that the same logic also locks you out of audiences who have moved elsewhere and aren’t coming back just because you have a good show.

… And So Are Film Labs

Sundance, the institute that built its reputation as the gatekeeper of American independent film, has partnered with TikTok to launch a micro-series writing program through Sundance Collab, its digital learning platform.

The four-week live course focuses on scriptwriting for serialized short-form content, designed to give creators the tools and industry guidance to develop story-driven micro-series for digital audiences. It is free, global, and built specifically around a format that most traditional film education has either ignored or treated as a lesser version of the real thing.

Sundance Collab director Patty West describes the micro-series format as producing exactly the kind of creative pressure that generates the most original work, and explicitly pushes back on the idea that short-form is a consolation prize. The goal, she says, is for creators to see it as its own distinct craft, wide open for new voices to define.

This is good news. Such a powerful storytelling institution getting its hands on short-form should only improve the craft and make the storytellers it exists to support feel more welcome than ever.

GARDEN VIEW

This is normally a video section, but this was too good to pass up. We all need some humor these days.

HARVEST QUOTE

“We were, as Hollywood, looking down on creators.”

— Emmy-winning and Sundance Film Festival-winning producer Tommy Oliver in a conversation with Lucas Shaw.

But this cuts both ways…

Lucas writes that YouTube creators have looked down upon legacy media as well, thinking that they don’t need traditional studios. That they can do it all on their own (some can, i.e. Markiplier — but they’re few and far between).

So while creators have built businesses and followings online on their own, that doesn’t mean they don’t need any help on this end. In order to release a blockbuster movie and make hundreds of millions at the box office, it helps to get support from people who’ve done it before.

Have a great weekend…

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