Hukilau – Changing how film & video is made, distributed & watched

I had the opportunity to chat with Joseph Matheny, who is a founder of Hukilau . . . . well in his own words a ‘Serial entrepreneur and transmedia storyteller. Hukilau/Alterati/Greylodge founder. In my  words – a great f*ing guy.

My first question was “What the hell does Hukilau mean?”

Okay – a little help from Wikipedia ::

A Hukilau is a way of fishing invented by the ancient Hawaiians. The word comes from Huki, meaning pull, and lau, meaning leaves. A large number of people, usually family and friends, would work together in casting the net from shore and then pulling it back. The net was lined with ki leaves, which would help scare the fish into the center of the net. [1] Consistent with the Hawaiian subsistence economy, anybody that helped could share in the catch.

Great concept right?!

Independent film as I understood it meant that you were in it together – cast and crew. It also meant that the amount of effort and time you put in – you would get out of it. But Joseph quickly pointed out that the organic landscape of independent films had changed over the years to resemble more of a shallow set on a back lot . . .and that independent films were not going to stay Hollywood’s bitch for long.

This is how Hukilau started for him . . .

“It was a weird juxtaposition of things. I started reading Alex Cox‘ book called the X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker – Alex was the guy who made Repo Man and Sid & Nancy and the thing about Alex is – those two movies were huge – and then you notice he’s not around anymore – and it wasn’t because no one would hire him – its because he dropped off the Hollywood map. HE dropped off the Hollywood map of his own volition. I loved those films and I liked him as a director and I was always curious what happened to him and why so I read the book. The book was an outline of all the things that were wrong with the film industry. Alex wanted to remain true to his vision and all he found in Hollywood was – that he would come up with a good idea for a movie and it would get into a studio and by the time he could actually make it – it had been perverted – it was all because the studio’s were applying more pressure to make it more commercial, to make it dumber, to make it this – make it that. So he decided that he wanted to retain his soul and from that point on he was only going to make micro budget films. Now at the time he started doing that – the technology that’s around today wasn’t as accessible as it is.”

“If you go back to the root of independent films which is back before the studios caught on that this was some sort of milieu that they could make money on – back in the early 90’s when I worked independent films – it really meant independent. It meant that the money either came from a personal private source or the director, the producer and a couple of the crew got together and maxed out their credit cards and made a movie. It was usually like 30 thousand dollars – 50 to a 100 thousand dollar realm. And some of the best independent film came out of that.”

“These are the films that got the attention of the studio’s and that’s when they said “Oh, well we want to own that market too.”  Then they moved in and independent film became something completely different. Well – studio’s have dropped that as a milieu that they care about any more – the only thing that they care about anymore is Iron Man, Batman, and Avatar. They want to make big investments and they want to make big profits. They don’t care bout the long tail approach anymore. And that’s where all the good film comes from.”

Joseph’s work with the Los Angeles Film Festival last year was an integral part in his path to changing the independent film landscape back to something more recognizable. There was an entire weekend conference at the Landmark where they talked about finance. “Which, in independent films, is a big issue – and every year there are different trends in finance. I recorded all of them so that I could pod cast them later – and I talked to people who were keynote speakers and they all basically said the same thing – which baffled me -  that “There were no more hedge funds – that there was no more money coming out of Dubai and all of the places that you guys were getting the money to make independent films are gone – dried up- bankrupt- disappeared. However we do think that there will be a renaissance of independent film.”

A renaissance is all well and good I’m thinking – but how does that affect the independent film makers who are struggling to pay their rent much less foot the bill for some boom mics on their visa?

This is where Hukilau provides a unique opportunity by (in their words)”offering services to film, video and Alternate Reality Game projects for crowdsource funding and staffing, matching funds, distribution and marketing services for aspiring and established creators and producers alike.”

Basically – if you want to make a movie – you can make a movie – You no longer have to worry about some hollywood exec adding love scenes and explosives to your script just to make a few extra bucks.

Joseph also points out that “What’s around now is red camera’s which is what they used to film District 9 – very affordable. Basically anyone can go out and get a Mac and they can put Final Cut Pro on it and can edit a movie to look just as goo as anything that comes out of a Hollywood post production facility. So the only thing that was missing from this equation was distribution – and the distribution is there – it’s a pipe called the internet . . . it’s just that nobody’s really figured out how to put these pieces together so that anybody who wanted to make a movie can make a movie and not have to rely on studio’s and still find an audience . . . that was the part that was missing. Distribution means finding your audience. And you could make a movie and put it on the internet but who’s gonna see it unless your just really lucky and you get a YouTube breakout – that’s about it.”

After reading Chris Wilson’s Will My Video Get 1 Million Views on YouTube? I can see why Joseph (DPRGRM/Pilotlite), Michael Mailer Films and ELC Technologies announced in January a joint venture to launch a “crowdsource” style studio called Hukilau. . . so what are you waiting for?

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Filed Under: Entertainment • Uncategorized

Tags: Alex Cox, Alterati, featured, Greylodge, Hukilau, independent Films, Joseph Matheny, Michael Mailer