Joseph Matheny is the co-founder and CTO of Hukilau, host of the GSpot podcast, publisher of Alterati, co-creator of Incunabula (one of the first Alternate Reality Games), and about a million other things. He recently published in conjunction with Original Falcon Robert Anton Wilson: The Lost Studio Session. Having been interviewed by Joe three times now, I thought it was time to turn the tables on him and find out what he’s up to at Hukilau. Read on to find out how you can get an early look at Hukilau.(Update: The private betas are all gone now)

Can you start by telling us what Hukilau is and who’s involved?

Hukilau is a platform for financing, staffing, producing and distributing microbudget film, video or transmedia projects. It was born from a conversation I was having with a friend and technology partner Jonathan Siegel one day in 2009. Jon and I had built some social media application together in the past, including the first working implementation of my matching patents. I was coming off a year of promoting Pilotlite, a video platform I developed with my partner Michael Mailer. Although we received national news coverage for our “Pilots by the people” approach at Pilotlite, I was still not happy with the approach. It lacked that X factor to make it truly game changing. I also related my experience that summer at the Los Angeles Film Festival finance conference. Everyone who spoke said the same thing in essence: “There is no more money for traditional independent feature production, there might be salvation in this ‘Internet thing’ but no one has really figured it out.” This of course is the same old industry line I’ve heard since the late 90s. (See my ebook, Convergence 2000 [PDF]). I just don’t buy that. I think the reason no one has figured it out is because they’re not thinking about it the right way.

I come from the old school “independent film days” where we made films for amounts that ranged from nothing to $100,000 and they were good films. If I learned one thing with Greylodge it’s that even marginal material has a numerically sizable audience when given worldwide exposure through the Internet. (See the WSJ article on GL). The “problem” if you want to call it that, from the industry’s perspective, was that they couldn’t figure out how to leverage the Internet for mega tent-pole profits. It’s juts not necessary anymore to rake in mega profits and more importantly, when that’s your goal, a lot of good art will never get made. My thinking in this direction was accelerated by the fact that I had just read The X Films by Alex Cox.

While expressing all of this to Jonathan in a bowling alley diner in Santa Monica one afternoon, Jonathan fired back at me with, “Why don’t you just make it social, like you always do?” I was a bit stunned that I had not thought of this before. I think I was too close to the project. So, I fired back, “Want to build it with me?” Jon and I spit-balled ideas on napkins (figuratively), I then called Michael and told him about our idea for a new direction and a new partnership was built. Jon was involved with the building of some big social sites, like Funny or Die but he also understood the mechanics of digital distribution for a few reasons but mostly because he’s just a smart guy. He was also involved in Tunecore early on.

So, when I started talking about a seamless “soup to nuts” inception to distribution workflow, he knew what I was talking about. Michael also knows traditional theatrical, DVD, and on demand distribution as well as having access to known quantity talent. it really took one afternoon of me writing a vision document and we were on our way. I also asked Chris Arkenberg to come on board as a member of our advisory board, because after one quick chat, I saw he had a clear vision of where we want to go and how we can get there.

So, basically, what we offer is the option to: Crowdsource funds or talent, use tools and resources we’ll provide through partnerships to develop and produce, and distribute through a two tier system of digital or traditional, depending on the project.

How much are you looking at integration with mobile platforms?

We will be very mobile compliant. There will be a mobile version of the content channels and of the social network.

Will Hukilau be compatible with the Flash-less iPhone and iPad?

Yes, for sure. We have no plans on being reliant on Flash for anything at this time. We also will be very iPhone and iPad friendly.

Above: Cover of Incunabula Papers

Your career to date has really spanned the map – from writing fiction and non-fiction to running ARGs to producing films to organizing events. How did all of that lead to you to start Hukilau?

Well, in one way or another all that I’ve done, from PDF, DVD, eBooks, and other things has always had at it’s core, the desire to create standards, platforms, practices or technologies that encourage the sharing of independently produced information, whether it be for entertainment or information purposes.

What makes this different from video sites like blip.tv or YouTube, or micropayment services like Flattr?

Well, as I described previously, we’re offering a complete package from development to production to distribution. We will have elements of those services, such as channels to watch content, or methods to resource funds and crew, but we also offer the production and distribution services.

Can you be more specific about what you mean by “production and distribution services”?

For production we have technology and services partners that will provide low cost (or in some cases even no cost) services like marketing tools editing tools, script services, software tools for video editing, writing, scripting, storyboarding, etc.

For distribution we will be providing two tiers of distribution. Tier one: Direct digital. You can choose to use our platform as a one stop shop to distribute to multiple digital outlets like iTunes and Amazon. We’ll also provide DVD POD and distribution services.

Tier two: Theatrical and traditional DVD distribution, cable on-demand and on-line premium on-demand (like Netflix) for titles that perform well in the tier one.

So it’s like you’re Blip, Tunecore, Lulu, Flattr, and much more all rolled into one.

Yeah, kinda. I like to think of us as something entirely new. I often say we’re the 21st century equivalent of a studio.

Most recently you’ve probably been most visible for hosting the GSPOT podcast, publishing Alterati, and publishing the Robert Anton Wilson
Lost Studio Session audio book. Does this imply that podcasts and audiobooks will eventually be incorporated in Hukilau? What other media may eventually be a part of it?

You’ve been listening on on my phone calls! LOL. Seriously, you anticipate the direction correctly, After we proved the method and platform with film/video we plan to make skews for print and ebooks as well as audio (both music and audiobooks).

When will people be able to start using it?

We’re making sure we can handle the initial rush, because there’s nothing so disappointing as checking out a new web application and having it lag. I’m hoping we’ll be in private beta within weeks. I’m currently working on putting a blog on the site, so we can keep everyone updated in a more real-time fashion.

Are there any specific video projects in production now that you can tell us about? Are you going to be working on any movies or other projects yourself or will you more focused on the tech side?

There are several in development through Michael Mailer Films right now, but I cannot talk about them yet.

I will be developing several microbudget movies using Hukilau myself.

The Black Pack (working title): A suite of microbudget, made for the Internet and On-Demand distribution movies including- Duet for the Devil, Y, “Secret Project E” (a movie written by Dave Szulborski and I before he died) , Psychopath’s Bible (A bio), Ron and Jack (a bio/fiction story) to start.

As a bonus for Technoccult readers: The first 10 people who write to beta-techno@hukilau.us will get on the exclusive, invitation only, private beta list. Update: the betas are all gone now.