One of the main goals of the chat was to encourage viewers to rent the film, which is currently available on demand in conjunction with Tribeca Film through In Demand, Comcast, Charter, Cox, and Time Warner Cable.
During the chat, Burns admits that the old model for independent film distribution is broken, and that by distributing the film through Video On Demand, he gives more people the opportunity to see the film (as opposed to showing the film on screens in New York and LA only).
At one point (about 35 mins) Burns talks about some advice from Tyler Perry in which Perry encouraged him to "serve his niche" more through tailoring his body of work to be more about Irish American families. Give the people what they want.
The Internet's democratization of media allows for niche-tailored content to find an audience, and this is apparent more and more with the success of websites and online content becoming more catered to specific demographics. If you have an audience, the Internet let's you find them. When the content is valuable, and easily accessible, then fans will pay for it too.
Last month, Louis CK released his stand-up special to his fans with no DRM or pirating restrictions, and a note encouraging fans to just "buy the thing". They did. In return, he made much more of a profit than he would have had he distributed through other methods (related article). It will be interesting to track theses two trends; artists continuing to serve a niche and artists distributing digitally without a middle man. Traditionally, distributors allowed artists access to an audience, but on the Internet, if the content is appealing, then an audience will find it.
Watch live streaming video from tribecafilm at livestream.com
