I understand your concerns. I just want you to understand that there’s a lot more than $500 in it for filmakers. Also, I’m a native New Yorker and I live in LA now and 500 bucks for potentially an hour of my free time (which I’m probably enjoying) in creating a pitch or just watching videos seems like a pretty good deal to me, even if it is on spec. What seems like a bad deal was all those years I spent writing spec feature scripts that didn’t sell because either no one read them or they weren’t bad high concept romantic comedies, and got $0…

Also, keep in mind that most talent agencies (CAA, UTA, ICM, etc.) and production companies pay their assistants about that, $500 a week. These are young professionals who are smart, ambitious and went to good schools, who are mortgaging their lives to break in to the business. Sometimes, these people are aspiring directors or writers and they are just doing the job to make connections, Tongal should give them a chance to work in a two-way creative economy. I truly, truly believe that talent is scarce, but the conventional wisdom in town is that there are 5 people who can do a job, whereas I believe there are 5000 or maybe more.

On the filmmaking side, we’re talking about upwards of $10,000 or more for winning videos in big contests, or even more as the site matures. Also, we’re not expecting feature films, we’re expecting 30 second commercials or two minute shorts. I know a lot of work goes into this stuff, but, it can be done over a weekend, and most people are doing it for no pay or no prospect of pay.

Look at these guys http://www.teamtigerawesome.com: they are my friends, they have spent thousands of hours and their own dollars making these videos for the Internet. They are funny and talented, and from personal experience being a studio and agency “gatekeeper” the road is long for guys like them. I’m giving them a chance to make money while they pursue their dream and try to take the next step. What I think is crazy is paying a director for hire (I wont name names, but the guy who directed “After the Sunset” or the guy who directed “Pearl Harbor”) $1,000,000 to direct a commercial. Depending on your perspective, those guys are talented, but that’s too much money, especially when the company paying them has to pay a big ad firm %15 on top of it. I’d rather take that $1 MM and spread it out amongst a group of filmmakers or people who want to participate in the creation of content. I truly believe that this will not eliminate work because of outsourcing, it will create it, or I wouldn’t be doing it, Id be cannibalizing myself.

Think about it this way: a local business like a pizza parlor could never afford video advertising. They may be able to scrap together enough to make a low rent commercial with some local crew, but then, they need to buy the ad space on tv, which they can’t afford, but they do anyway and it plays at 3 AM after an episode of Welcome Back Kotter and no one ever sees it and they have thrown their hard earned money away. With Tongal, for the same price, they can get the content and the marketing that goes with a contest that lasts over a month, for the same price, plus, the users(many of whom have won money in the contest) are spreading the ad for the pizza place all over the web and hopefully the pizza place is making more money, and the guy who owns it suddenly tells the guy at the Italian restaurant he needs to do this too. So there can ultimately be more work, and more creativity fostered. This is not just for greedy corporations.

I guess the prospect of Tongal is semi threatening to established “industry” types, but as an established “industry” type myself, I would welcome it. I’ve been overpaid and also have overpaid for work and the business is truly inefficient. Especially since the structure in most of entertainment is so top heavy. where typically, people who work the hardest get compensated the least (As I mentioned earlier, assistants working 80 hour weeks for $500) because they want in the door so badly. We’re just trying to level the playing field a little.

I really hope guys like you in the creative community welcome this, we need people like you to make it work, and I believe that then it will really work for you.

I commend the entrepreneurial spirit and the very clever idea. The spirit of this site is a great one and it seems very well thought out with the best intentions in mind.

However, this may be great for a writer who can submit a few sentence summary of an idea, but for the filmmaker, a ton of effort goes into creating a finished work and the idea of putting hundreds of man hours into something with the potential for no pay is not very desirable for anyone other than maybe students or people who live in remote areas with no media job prospects.

Ultimately I fear that this will lower all of our net rates by enabling easy outsourcing of work, including writers and idea people.

The problem with the “global economy” is that only the corporations win. They get the cheapest labor. Consumers in rich countries (like America) are not allowed to enjoy the low prices that consumers in poorer countries can enjoy. So it is never really a true “Global” community where everyone gets the lowest price.

Corporations win, and in some cases (like your site) people in areas with lower costs of living win. $500 to someone in Indonesia may seem like a lot but to someone in NY or LA that money doesn’t go very far. If agencies have an easy option to outsource work like this it will ultimately drive down the rates of local artists who have a much higher cost of living.

I know, I know. Anyone can move. My point is that this is another tool in the belt of corporations to get cheaper labor as a result of the global economy.

I would like to see a tool that will let Americans legally buy DVDs for the lowest price, or prescription drugs or any other product that is sold at much much lower prices around the world. When someone can navigate the legal red tape set up to keep consumers from enjoying the benefits of the “global marketplace” and make a tool that encourages true supply and demand on a global scale for consumer products the way that labor costs are outsourced to the lowest bidder, I will applaud.

I guess your tool, for someone not in the industry is great. But for people who have made their way and make a living at this, it is just another form of outsourcing which lowers our value.

This isnt a scam, we’re just eliminating middlemen. If your work is good, you have a good shot at making some real money at Tongal. Case in point, check out http://www.topcoder.com

Our entire site was built by them, there is a kid in Indonesia who makes over $500k a year entering his graphic design in top coder contests. I don’t think he’s being taken advantage of, he’s being given an opportunity to find work despite geographic boundaries…If you think differently, then that’s a really bad way of looking at this. I’m a screenwriter by trade and I had to write for free for years to get paid. How would anyone know if I could write if I didn’t?

I hope you check out the site when it launches next month

James

Cute animation though. Ghostbot rocks! I bet they got paid.

But on a positive note, the animation was great. Cool illustrations and great timing.

maybe i’m just jaded by the internet but this tongal thing sounds like a million billion other websites out there that ‘generate revenue’ from user-created content and then give out a percentage of it to the users which usually equates to 2 cents or less per whatever thing was made, and thats on the sites that ARENT scams.
there really seems to be no easy way to make money online by being creative without ridiculous luck.