spotlight
DEKKOO
CREATING CONTENT WITH BRIAN SOKEL by joel martens
STREAMING GAY CULTURE
The media universe is one that has changedquite dramatically in recent years. The act of producing a film or television series, once only the purview of large studios, has evolved far beyond the giants who once controlled what we saw, who was portrayed and when we saw it. It’s an industry that certainly still thrives, producing work that flows across the nation’s film screens and our televisions in their attempt to captivate and catch the largest possible audience share. A process that some say, is limited by the weight of that burden, because reaching the necessary numbers can exclude content that is suited for smaller, “niche markets.” Such is the way of the hit series and the blockbuster film. Conversely, there has always been a myriad of smaller works out there, produced by the creative
genius of filmmakers and producers who have a vision and the wherewithal to take them to fruition. Once accomplished, a brief dance with success may occur, through the lenses of local Film Festivals that dot the landscape, but, especially if their content is LGBT, the “circuit” tends to be short-lived. The exception of course, is if you happen to be one of the “lucky ones who got picked up” by a large studio as mentioned earlier. By the way, if you’ve never been to your local film fest, make it a point to do so. You will find some of the most amazing, creative work, happening there. Millions of which would never see the light of day, if not through that purview. Independence is something that is bred into the creative psyche and it has given us some of history’s great masterpieces, in all mediums. But, even those great works need a platform for their expression. Small films, short films and independent episodic works do have places, but they are few and far between…And, if your content is LGBT? The landscape becomes even drier. DEKKOO, a new, gay streaming service looks to change that idea. Their concept is simple, to gather as much relevant content as they can, be it old or new and offer it up to audiences.
Brian Sokel, DEKKOO’s COO sat down with The Rage Monthlyto explain the concept:
Please tell us the story of DEKKOO. When did you launch the service? We launched DEKKOO in October of 2015, so
we’re just a little bit over a year old. We did a soft launch, because we were rolling it out to get a feel for what the response would be. We were basically building subscriber rates and growing very organi- cally. I would say, that we truly came on line in June of 2016 and it’s only been in the last six months that we’ve been cooking. To give you a little background, DEKKOO is
owned by a company called Gaius Media, which is sort of an entertainment company that has multiple holdings. Our sister company, TLA Releasing, has been around forever, since 2000. A lot of our experiences have all been around gay film and cinema and the universe of film festivals. When everything was still about DVDs, we
started having conversations, because the Netflix and Blockbusters of the world had started scaling
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RAGE monthly | FEBRUARY 2017
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