Pat McGowan and Blackbox Wants Filmmakers To Be Paid Fairly (224)
Pat McGowan is the CEO of and founder of Blackbox Global. What is Blackbox Global and why should filmmakers care? That’s what I try to wrap my head around in my conversation with Pat. He is on a mission to give creators more freedom in getting their fair share of passive income for their art.
In this episode Pat discusses:
What is Blackbox Global?
Pat’s long stint in the gig economy saw his work being commoditized.
User generated content has more value than ever in the digital content economy.
Blackbox Global is the “on-ramp” to passive income for creators.
Create work that you enjoy doing, keep usage rights, and earn.
Blackbox Global is a upload-once deliver everywhere platform.
Enables collaborative creative work with all parties sharing income.
Blackbox Global charges 15% of sales (net - not gross) on backend of the platform.
Fees for gig work is dropping overall as more people enter the industry.
Do your work on spec, own the IP, get the benefit of long-term revenue.
Blackbox Global is a collective of like-minded creators.
Good content comes from good teams.
Better content is what’s going to sell in the marketplace.
As passive revenue begins to build, creatives have more choices.
No charge to join Blackbox Global - it’s a consignment system.
Blackbox was created by creators for creators.
Big plans to grow and improve the Blackbox portal.
Primary object is to generate maximum value for creators.
Blackbox is not a demand-side company - they are a supply side company.
The pros and cons of revenue sharing.
Creatives haven’t had a rate increase since the 1990’s and rates are going down.
Blackbox Global is patenting the process of fractional ownership and revenue sharing.
Blackbox Global views themselves as a talent aggregator.
Pat started as a musician, became a composer of electronic music film scores.
Pat later became a nature filmmaker.
Pat shoots with Canon C300.
At one time Pat owned 4 Arri Alexa’s but sold them off.
Pat traveled to the arctic several times and filmed that unique landscape and animal wildlife.
Pat harvested over 6,000 clips from his footage and put in on the market and started earning.
Uploading that many clips caused Pat to think about how to automate the process.
His philosophy is that creators need freedom to do great work and be paid fairly.
Why Blackbox will not compete against other stock agencies.
What the future looks like for video creators in stock.
Video will likely maintain value over time longer than still photos.
Can a filmmaker make it doing solely stock work?
MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
Blackbox.Global: http://www.blackbox.global
