Geoff Gilmore asks himself and us all the right questions about change, independent film, and the evolution of film festival's in this Indiewire First Person piece, launched on the eve of this year's fest. I especially liked his riff near the end about stopping our natural tendency to "date" films based on their release date.
From the piece:
Theatrical admissions have trended downwards for a number of years and the importance of consumer preference and choice, of filmgoers seeing films when and how they want, is essential to success for the film industry in the future. The “long tail” of availability, the keeping of films in the market for longer periods of time is especially important for independent film. And that a film’s release is ordered by an antiquated theatrical universe is one of the fundamental obstacles facing the independent arena. Indeed why are films “seasonal” instead of “evergreen?” The practice of dating films, i.e. assigning a year of release, strikes me as a holdover from the marketing past. How and where films will be made available depends on the establishment of new outlets and new strategies. It simply makes no sense that most of the year’s quality films are all released against each other in a cutthroat fall campaign. In the future perhaps festival platforms could further serve to give films long-term visibility. At the very least new web venues, transformed marketing strategies and dynamic new concepts for consumption are at the core of making films available.
It's true, we in the press are absolutely hardwired to the concept of the new, and of syncing our coverage of films to things like theatrical openings. But Gilmore is right -- if the distribution ideas surrounding the
Long Tail have any chance of catching on, then we must promote longer windows during which films are deemed relevant and discussion-worthy. This year we all witnessed critics wrestle with their "10 Best" lists and films like
Silent Light, which had a protracted multi-year release spanning festival openings, museum screenings and limited theatrical. How can we -- and, perhaps more importantly -- how can filmmakers continue to recharge interest in their films among communities long and small during what may be much longer periods of "initial release"?
Comments (2)
I read the Gilmore piece three times and still cannot figure out what the hell he's saying... Can someone help decipher his ramblings?
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posted by @ 1/13/2009 10:29 PM
I made a conscious decision in the second year of programming my festival, The Sarasota Film Festival, to drop the concept of "premiere status" from any discussion of our program. We have had "word premieres" and "regional premieres" and "Florida premieres" and "Southwest Gulf Coast on a Tuesday" premieres every year, but I realized very early on that (outside of market festivals of which there are 5 or 6) the issue of "premiere status" (another issue of timeliness that the media clings to), only serves the institution of the festival itself and had begun to get in the way of the filmmaker's strategy for their own film.
This year, as we negotiate films for our program, we have already received numerous "I assume since I am playing in so-and-so festival that you won't have us" e-mails; To the contrary! We will take films that are new for our audience, and that means films that will be in various stages of the festival/ theatrical/ DVD release life cycle. Why? Because I'd rather show a great film that is new to my audience and has a filmmaker passionate about fitting us into THEIR strategy than I would a new film I am showing simply because it is new.
The great irony is, of course, that Sundance (as a market) will never make that decision, because their purpose is to bring new work to market. But we've been working the "evergreen" niche for a long time; I have been hoping and waiting for the industry to normalize around this concept... I still have hope, especially for the filmmakers.
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posted by Tom Hall @ 1/13/2009 11:49 PM
