While we were all sleeping last night the folks at indieWIRE were preparing the announcement of a deal with the site SnagFilms.

What is SnagFilms? (I had to look it up myself)

Variety describes it as "Hulu-style free streaming with social networking in that films stream for free but can also be shared or posted to Facebook pages or blogs." The doc distrib site was created by former AOLers Ted Leonsis and backed by Steve Case and Miles Gilburne. Its Beta version launched today with 250 titles supplied by PBS, National Geographic, IndiePix, Arts Alliance America and Koch Lorber with titles including Super Size Me, Paper Clips and Dig!

And the fate of iW? Seems like nothing will change. Editor Eugene Hernandez emailed me late last night (or early this evening, however you want to look at it) with the news. He will remain the editor and will now have the title Editorial Vice President of SnagFilms. (Full disclosure: I have been a frequent contributor for indieWIRE for the last five years and write the Production Report column.)

Earlier today he e-mail me again and had this to say about the deal and future of the site:

"Today has been an exciting one for us, to finally share this news that
we've been working on for so long. But, the real proof will be in our
ability to make the deal work over time. We spent months vetting this
partnership, determined to make sure that Ted Leonsis was the right
parent for our little company and setting up the relationship in the
right way.

I was reading Tom Hall's blog this morning and he said something that will stick with me as an important manifesto, "Stay true to your
mission and you cannot fail."

indieWIRE was inspired, in part, by Filmmaker Magazine and our first
desk was a donated space in Filmmaker's old DGA office on 57th St. We share a passion and commitment to indie filmmakers and their films and I believe that iW can do even more to support those who are doing this work."

If you haven't read it yet, there's a sweet letter from Eugene on iW's front page.

Congrats guys.

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 7/17/2008 10:48:00 AM Comments (0)

In an announcement sent out today, the Film Society of Lincoln Center has chosen Laurent Cantet's Palme d'Or winner The Class as the opening film of the 2008 New York Film Festival, marking the film's American debut (the film will be released later in the year through Sony Pictures Classics).

Two showcases at the Walter Reade Theater have also been announced. "In the Realm of Oshima" will celebrate the work of Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima and runs thoughout the festival while the annual "Views from the Avant-Garde" will feature a 30th anniversary of Guy Debord's In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.

The 46th New York Film Festial will take place Sept. 26 - Oct. 12.

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 7/15/2008 04:00:00 PM Comments (0)

If you're looking to escape the heat this week, starting Wednesday the Walter Reade Theater will host a weeklong Slovenian film retrospective. Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in collaboration with the Slovenian Film Fund, At the Crossroads will showcase thirteen classic and contemporary films. The series will be introduced by director Marko Nabersnik, who will also be doing a Q&A session after the screenings of his highly successful Rooster's Breakfast. Author, film writer and Slovenian scholar Joseph Valencic
will also be on hand to introduce some of the films.

At the Crossroads runs from July 16-22 at the Walter Reade Theater on 140 West 65th street in New York City.

Schedule:

Beneath her Window / Pod njenim oknom (pictured above)
Metod Pevec, Slovenia, 2003
Saturday July 19 @ 7:30pm
Monday July 21 @ 1:30pm

Dance in the Rain / Ples v dezju
Bostjan Hladnik, Yugoslavia, 1961
Saturday July 19 @ 1pm (introduced by Joe Valencic)
Tuesday July 22 @ 5:15 pm

Guardian of the Frontier / Varuh meje
Maja Weiss, Slovenia/Germany/France, 2002
Saturday July 19 @ 9:30pm
Tuesday July 22 @ 3:15pm

Idle Running / V leru
Janez Burger, Slovenia, 1999
Sunday July 20 @ 6:45pm
Monday July 21 @ 3:30pm

Outsider
Andrej Kosak, Slovenia, 1996
Wednesday July 16 @ 4pm
Sunday July 20 @ 9pm

Paper Planes / Na papirnatih avionih
Matjaz Klopcic, Yugoslavia, 1967
Monday July 21 @ 5:20pm

Raft of the Medusa / Splav meduze
Karpo Godina, Yugoslavia, 1980
Thursday July 17 @ 9pm
Saturday July 19 @ 3pm (introduced by Joe Valencic)

Rooster's Breakfast / Petelinji zajtrk
Marko Nabersnik, Slovenia/Croatia, 2007
Wednesday July 16 @ 6:15pm (Q&A with director Nabersnik)
Saturday July 19 @ 5pm (Q&A with director Nabersnik)

Spare Pars / Rezervni deli
Damjan Kozole, Slovenia, 2003
Sunday July 20 @ 1pm
Monday July 21 @ 7:15pm

Sweet Dreams / Sladke sanje
Saso Podgorsek, Slovenia, 2001
Monday July 21 @ 9pm
Tuesday July 22 @ 1pm

Valley of Peace / Dolina miru
France Stiglic, Yugoslavia, 1956
Thursday July 17 @ 2:30pm
Sunday July 20 @ 3pm (introduced by Joe Valencic)

Vesna
Frantisek Cap, Yugoslavia, 1953
Wednesday July 16 @ 2pm
Sunday July 20 @ 4:45pm (introduced by Joe Valencic)

When I Close My Eyes / Ko zaprem oci
Franci Slak, Slovenia, 1993
Wednesday July 16 @ 9pm
Thursday July 17 @ 4:15pm

# posted by Jennifer Schachter @ 7/14/2008 02:55:00 PM Comments (0)

This coming issue marks the tenth anniversary of our "25 New Faces" feature and as part of several activities we're compiling a list of the accomplishments of people who have been on the list. If you've been profiled as part of this feature, please let us know what you are up to -- what projects you've made since appearing on the list and what projects you are in the midst of making. You can email me at editor.filmmmakermagazine AT gmail.com.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/10/2008 07:21:00 AM Comments (0)

Charles Arthur in The Guardian writes about Acta, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement about to be ratified at the G8. Is it an inevitable government response to piracy and filesharing, or a belated rear guard action doomed to failure? He explores both possibilities.

Here's his lede:

The heads of the G8 governments, meeting this week, are about to ratify the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta), which - it's claimed - could let customs agents search your laptop or music player for illegally obtained content. The European Parliament is considering a law that would lead to people who illicitly download copyrighted music or video content being thrown off the internet. Virgin Media is writing to hundreds of its customers at the request of the UK record industry to warn them that their connections seem to have been used for illegal downloading. Viacom gets access to all of the usernames and IP addresses of anyone who has ever used YouTube as part of its billion-dollar lawsuit in which it claims the site has been party to "massive intentional copyright infringement".

It seems that 20th-century ideas of ownership and control - especially of intellectual property such as copyright and trademarks - are being reasserted, with added legal muscle, after a 10-year period when the internet sparked an explosion of business models and (if we're honest) casual disregard, especially of copyright, when it came to music and video.

But do those separate events mark a swing of the pendulum back against the inroads that the internet has made on intellectual property?

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/10/2008 05:38:00 AM Comments (0)

At Boing Boing, Joel Johnson interviews designer Syd Mead, whose work includes Aliens, Tron and Blade Runner.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/09/2008 04:18:00 PM Comments (0)

Here's something to mark down on your calander complements of the folks at From Here To Awesome.

DIY DAYS | fund :: create :: distribute :: sustain
July 26th 9:30am to 7:30pm
Under Spring, 1745 North Spring #4, Los Angeles, CA 90012

What's an independent filmmaker to do in these times of a failing industry, piracy and so much damn competition? The industry pioneers behind Head Trauma, Four Eyed Monsters, and We are the Strange created From Here to Awesome to help artists find their way. And from the awesomeness was born DIY DAYS, a day to bring a bunch of smart people together for a FREE event to talk about how to fund, create, distribute and sustain as filmmakers in this new environment. This free event is made possible thanks to Current TV, From Here to Awesome and the Workbook Project.

Learn more at -- www.diydays.com and http://current.com/diydays

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 7/09/2008 01:27:00 PM Comments (4)

I'm blogging from Paris where, the other night, I had dinner with two Palme d'Or-winning French producer friends. "What did you think of the Mark Gill article?" one wanted to know. Yes, Gill's speech is dinner conversation across the Atlantic. In fact, the producer had printed it out and circulated it among her staff.

I've commented before on the Gill piece, which I mostly agree with. Now we're seeing a second wave of responses to the article, and one must-read for indies is by writer/director John August, who blogs about the release of his Sundance film The Nines and relates it to the speech. (Hat tip: Karina at Spout.) There's a lot of great stuff in it, including his recap of the tough realities involved in premiering a film at Sundance; a cool new coinage ('indiefreude"); and a market recap of the other films that sold at Sundance this year. He also talks a lot about the film's release -- what went right and what went wrong -- and that discussion leads him to this conclusion:

My advice? You should make an indie film to make a film. Period. Artistic and commercial success don’t correlate well, and at the moment, only the former is remotely within your control.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have made the same movie but completely rethought how it went out into the world. I would have challenged a lot of the standard operating procedures, which seem to be part of an indie world that no longer exists. The Nines would have likely made just as little at the box office, but could have made a bigger impact on a bigger audience. Ultimately, I think that’s how you need to measure the success of an indie film’s release: how many people saw it.

Read the piece but also read through the long talk back thread that includes these very thoughtful comments from director Bill Condon:

As one of your movie’s filmmaker fans, I completely agree with what I take to be your main point, that filmmakers and distributors should stop being so wary of day-and-date theatrical/DVD/pay-per-view releases. At the same time…as someone who saw “The Nines” in its bullshit theatrical run at the Nuart…the excitement of shared discovery was palpable, and I’d hate to give that up, either as an audience member or as a filmmaker. I’m holding out hope for a third way — limited initial theatrical release in a few major cities (providing national press relatively cheaply)…followed almost immediately by a pay-per-view/online rental release…leading (here’s the third part) to a wider theatrical rollout, a combination of regional art houses, calendar theatres, universities and festivals. I know this seems counterintuitive, but who says theatres and festivals have to go first? The argument’s always been that people won’t go out to experience something they can get at home. But, in a culture where it’s almost impossible for a small film to be noticed, isn’t it possible that a few thousand early fans can take the place of a media buy? Maybe the communal theatrical experience should become something a movie earns…an end, not the depressing means (to-the-DVD-dustbin) it is now.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/08/2008 06:36:00 PM Comments (0)

At Stream, Jamie Stuart muses on the possibilities of theatrical for one's first feature.

An excerpt:

More and more independent producers and distributors with years of experience are trying to convince indie filmmakers that theatrical distribution isn't that important. This isn't because these people in the know dislike the theatrical experience. It's because they understand that the costs of going theatrical are becoming a legitimate burden, and that the real revenue streams lie in the ancillary markets, especially for small movies. Unfortunately, the thing that most filmmakers understand -- and this has nothing to do with advocating the communal experience -- is that by going theatrical, the movie is given a credibility that it would otherwise not have. This may change in another generation or so as people become more used to multiple platforms, but currently, this is still the general mindset.

To offer an example of this disparity, does anybody believe that if the IFC Center hadn't screened its mumblecore series in 2007, the "movement" and its filmmakers would've attained the same level of credibility? The three best-known voices from that scene -- Andrew Bujalski, Joe Swanberg and the Duplass Brothers -- have all received some level of theatrical distribution, whether it's micro or day-and-date. Are these three great filmmakers? I think the jury's still out on that. But, by going theatrical, they've legitimized the whole handheld DV film festival movement -- a movement that until recently, had critics, journalists and distributors constantly complaining about the amateurish production values of the movies flooding fests. Theatrical alters people's perception. Theatrical makes it a real movie.

I'd add a comment to this. Yes, I agree, theatrical makes it a real movie in the eyes of the filmmaker. It also finalizes a marketplace verdict on that same film. I remember bringing an independent film to Sundance years ago and receiving two offers: a theatrical offer and a pay-cable premiere offer. The latter was twice the money of the former. We (the other producers, investors, director and myself) all chose the theatrical offer, and we did it for two reasons. We believed that the theatrical release would boost our foreign sales, but also, I think we subscribed to the same reasoning that Jamie outlined. We wanted to have made a "real movie." Despite solid efforts from the distributor, the film tanked -- it opened on a couple of screens in New York, grossed very modestly, and then dribbled out to a few other screens across the country. The theatrical didn't help foreign in any significant way as most of the foreign deals were for TV. I often wonder if we made the wrong decision and if the cable premiere, with all of those bus-shelter ads, would have conveyed a greater idea of "success" than the failed theatrical run. As a more recent example, consider Tommy O'Haver's An American Crime, which was slaughtered by critics at Sundance after which a theatrical release from First Look evaporated. The film went on to premiere on Showtime where TV critics were much more positive towards it.

As I wrote several posts below this, one of the problems with the new day-and-date models is the lack of clearly understood metrics. The theatrical ad spend is supposed to impact both box office but also stay-at-home PPV buys, but all we in the industry see are the opening weekend theatrical numbers. We base our idea of "success" on those numbers, not the overall viewership of a film.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/08/2008 04:43:00 AM Comments (0)

Artforum reports that filmmaker Bruce Conner has died. Here is their notice:

Bruce Conner, a San Francisco–based artist known for his assemblages, films, drawings, and interdisciplinary works, passed away Monday afternoon. Conner moved to San Francisco in 1957 and quickly found his place within the city’s vibrant Beat community. His gauzy assemblages of scraps salvaged from abandoned buildings, nylon stockings, doll parts, and other found materials gained him art-world attention, as did A Movie (1958), an avant-garde film that juxtaposed footage from B movies, newsreels, soft-core pornography, and other fragments, all set to a musical score. (In 1991, A Movie was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.) Conner was active in the Bay Area’s 1960s counterculture scene, designing light shows for Family Dog performances at the Avalon Ballroom, and in the ’70s focused on drawing and photography. Art-world recognition resumed in the ’80s and continued to the present: Conner was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial, was the subject of a touring survey in 1999–2000, and is featured in the current Carnegie International. At Conner’s request, there will be no funeral.

When Filmmaker compiled its list of "50 Most Important Independent Films," Bruce Conner's A Film made the list. A tremendously important artist and filmmaker, Conner pioneered styles and filmmaking practices that resonated across experimental film, punk, and music video. Ray Pride has many links about Conner as well as quite a few embedded videos over at MovieCityIndie.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/08/2008 04:17:00 AM Comments (2)

Ryan Nakashima reports in the AP on a Lehman Brothers report that downgrades the entertainment industry because of what it sees as lower profits in the age of digital distribution.

An excerpt:

"Shifts from physical to digital will disrupt the marginal economics of the TV and movie businesses, just as it did for music," analyst Anthony DiClemente said during a conference call.

DiClemente argued that the average profit the companies see from new DVDs, including higher-priced Blu-ray discs, is $10.59. Selling the same movie through Apple Inc.'s iTunes online music and video store nets them $9.29, 12 percent less, he said.

Online movie rental services offered by iTunes and Netflix Inc., with profits ranging from $1.81 to $2.44 per movie rented, will further hurt the industry as more young people choose to rent digital copies, he said.

"Owning a collection of movies in this new digital world is really just not that cool for young adults in the target demographic that we look to for the future of the business," DiClemente said.

Others in the article take issue with DiClemente's conclusions, noting that the entertainment sector has simply been hurt by the weakening economy and that the studios are much better positioned to take advantage of digital delivery than the music business was several years ago.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/08/2008 03:37:00 AM Comments (0)

In an announcement this morning, the IFP's 18th Annual Gotham Awards will take place at the posh Cipriani Wall Street on Tuesday, Dec. 2. Last year the event was housed at Brooklyn's Steiner Studios.

The Gothams is the kick off to the awards season each year and honors independently-distributed American features. This year's nominees will be announced on Oct. 20.

For more on the Gothams go to gotham.ifp.org

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 7/07/2008 11:55:00 AM Comments (1)

i was saddened to read today that writer and poet Tom Disch committed suicide in his New York apartment on July 4th. I've always been a big fan of Disch's classic intellectual science-fiction novels of the 1970s: the amazing Camp Concentration, 334, and On Wings of Song, as well as his great collections of short fiction, Getting into Death and Fundamental Disch. Following my teenage years, when I read a lot of science fiction, Disch was one of the few writers, along with J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, and Stanislaw Lem, who retained a space on my bookshelf. I met him briefly once, when my friend Mark Binder and I invited him to speak at Columbia when we were students there. I remember him as a witty, commanding and slightly intimidating figure.

Most people reading this will probably remember a Disch story, The Brave Little Toaster, that was turned into a Disney animated film, but he was a very prolific writer whose work spanned genres. His stories were often poetic but always fiercely interrogative of power, government, authority and convention.

A number of writers and bloggers have posted remembrances. In his, Scott Edelman quotes John Clute in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:

Because of his intellectual audacity, the chillingly distant mannerism of his narrative art, the austerity of the pleasures he affords, and the fine cruelty of his wit, Thomas M. Disch has been perhaps the most respected, least trusted, most envied and least read of all modern first-rank SF writers.

Ellen Datlow remembers him here.

Nielsen Hayden remembers his early novels as well as some of his sadder later viewpoints:

I certainly read him; his SF novels of the 1960s and 70s, particularly Camp Concentration and 334, had an enormous impact on me. But “least read” may be true: according to publishing legend, his SF masterpiece On Wings of Song had a 90% return rate in its 1980 Bantam paperback edition. Despite that, he went on to hit bestseller lists with his 1991 horror novel The M.D. Just as unexpectedly, his children’s book The Brave Little Toaster was adapted into a popular Disney cartoon.

He could be hard to take, both in person and in his public interactions with the SF world. He played the game of literary politics hard, and sometimes lost badly. He frequently seemed to have no patience for his allies, much less his enemies. Of his other career, as noted poet Tom Disch, I can’t say much, except that to my mind the poetry was often good. In his later years he wrote a blog; after he began to post frequently on the depravity of Muslims and immigrants, I became unable to keep reading it.

The Disch I prefer to remember was no nicer than that, but much smarter: a brittle and brilliant ironist with a bright wit and no optimism whatsoever. Here are the concluding lines of his 1965 SF novel The Genocides, a book wedged forever up the nose of overweening skiffy can-do-ism:

"Nature is prodigal. Of a hundred seedlings only one or two would survive; of a hundred species, only one or two.
Not, however, man."

Disch had apparently been depressed over health issues, the death of his partner from cancer three years earlier, and attempts by his landlord to evict him from his rent-controlled apartment (Disch's partner, Charles Naylor, had the name on the lease). The saddest post is over at the Daily Kos, in which Eric S. writes about his own relationship with Disch as well as some of these things Disch was battling.

After reading all of this, if you're not familiar with Disch, I recommend starting with Camp Concentration. His latest novel, The Word of God, will be published this summer.

UPDATE: Douglas Martin has a very nice obituary in the New York Times. An excerpt:

But it was as an exemplar of a generation of more sophisticated, better-educated science-fiction writers who emerged in the 1960s that Mr. Disch first stood out. His dark themes, disturbing plots, corrosive social commentary and sheer unpredictability made him a leader of what was called “the new wave” of science fiction writers, those who consciously wrote literature rather than disposable pulp entertainment.

“You could finally write for grownups!” Mr. Disch said in 2001 in an interview with Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine.

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and a poet and critic, said Monday, “The reason his science fiction is important is that he combined a kind of really dark Swiftian satire with a modernist, really postmodernist sensibility.”

David Pringle, an editor and critic, most recently listed three novels by Mr. Disch on his list of the 100 best science fiction novels: “Camp Concentration” (1968), which tells of political prisoners who are being treated with a new drug that increases their intelligence, but also causes their early deaths; “334” (1972), which describes a New York City housing project that has sunk to depressing depths in 2023; and “On Wings of Song” (1979), which chronicles an Iowan who comes to New York and encounters a similar hell.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/07/2008 10:54:00 AM Comments (0)

Here's part two of Diann Borshay Liem's report from the Sundance Documentary Edit Lab. (For those who missed Part One, you can read it here.)


It’s Day 5 at the Sundance Doc Edit/Story Lab. For me, the lab started where our film ends. During our first work day, editor/advisor Mary Lampson shared a personal story about duality and living a false life. We laughed, I cried. Scott (our assistant editor) cued up “Getting to Know You” and Vivien and I danced around our edit trailer. Amazingly, through this odd process we uncovered what I think will be the ending to our film.

Before arriving I had expected long serene hours of editing amidst beautiful trees. Not so! Each day brings a stream of various advisors into our edit trailer. The first day it felt like a gentle onslaught, as with each advisor, I bared my soul anew. But now we’ve gained a rhythm – we edit then grab an advisor to watch and give comments. And what comments they are! Without exception, each advisor has offered a new way of looking at a story thread or character, a different way of connecting disparate themes, fresh ways of looking at structure.

Then there are advisor presentations. Mary Lampson screened early work from Emile de Antonio and screened a segment from UNDERGROUND. Laura Poitras screened parts of MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY as well as a work-in-progress of her current film. Kate Amend showed segments from INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS as well as BEAH, A BLACK WOMAN SPEAKS. Sam Green screened a segment from THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND and a series of his short films. Woody Richman showed TROUBLE THE WATER. Lewis Erskine screened a segment of JONESTOWN. The screenings are fantastic but most fun and instructive are their personal stories (how they got into the field, what motivates their work) as well as the close analysis of their films.

There are trees here at Sundance, and a river running through them. In Cara Mertes’ infinite wisdom, she planned and timed a hike up into the mountains just when we all needed fresh air. (Vivien and I refer to Cara as the “psychic camp director” because she knows what we need even before we know it ourselves). As we hiked single-file up the mountain, Woody Richman walked behind me sharing stories of his childhood, his experiences around race and adoption, as well as stories from the edit room of FAHRENHEIT 911 and BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. We stopped to take in views and admire wildflowers. When we reached the top, the Institute staff pulled out bottles of wine from their backpacks. The view was gorgeous, the wine frosting on the cake.

Back in our edit trailer, I ask Vivien what it’s like to have me in the edit room while she’s editing me on screen. I’m becoming a little self-conscious because there are two of me in the room at any given time. She responds, “You’re beyond schizophrenic.” I take this as a compliment. “But I have Venus in Gemini so we speak the same language.” Which is to say she’s a multiple, too, and I can put aside my self-consciousness.

Tomorrow we’ll be screening our edited scenes and rough cuts for The Group. The fear I arrived with has given way to calmness and determination. What we show tomorrow will not be perfect. But it no longer matters. We’ve leaped light years ahead on our film. On Saturday, I’ll be leaving Sundance with a greater sense of purpose, a feeling of being embraced by the filmmaking community, and a film that I thought would be good but now I think will be damn good.

-- Deann Borshay Liem, Director/Producer, Precious Objects of Desire

Photo: VIVIEN HILLGROVE, Editor, Scott Burgess, Assistant Editor at Sundance Doc Edit Lab, DEANN BORSHAY LIEM, Director

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/04/2008 01:14:00 PM Comments (2)

Over at Indiewire Anthony Kaufman writes about Ballast director Lance Hammer's decision to withdraw from a planned distribution deal with IFC to self-distribute via his own Alluvial Film Company along with Required Viewing.

From the piece:

"IFC is a really good company," Hammer told indieWIRE last week. "The problem is the larger issue that's plaguing every filmmaker right now: The distributors don't really offer any money. That's not that big of a deal if they would allow you to have control of your project, but they don't."

If the current art-house climate isn't challenging enough, Hammer's decision highlights the harsh reality for indie filmmakers: distribution advances, or "minimum guarantees," barely ever recoup a film's budget.

Hammer says conventional distribution advances for a small film like "Ballast" range between $25,000-$50,000. "If you made a $50,000 project, that makes sense," Hammer said. "If you happen to spend more money than that, it becomes difficult to justify giving up creative control."

Hammer was particularly dissatisfied with the lengthy term of the contracts. "Giving up Internet rights for 20 years, that's just crazy," he said. He also disagreed with IFC's exclusive home video deal with Blockbuster, which he called a "deal breaker."

Both Hammer and IFC execs describe the split as amicable, however.

"We're disappointed and we love the movie," admitted IFC Films' head of acquisitions Arianna Bocco. "But how can you argue with an independent filmmaker who wrote, directed, produced and financed his own movie and wants to take that final step of ownership? I respect that choice."

Of all the small distribution companies that exist, Hammer said he still thinks IFC would have "put the project out in the best way," he said. "They're very creative, the day-and-date plan actually works, but unfortunately, that only benefits them financially." (indieWIRE contacted a small handful of filmmakers who have participated in IFC's First Take program, but only one, Caveh Zahedi, director of the 2006 release "I Am A Sex Addict," said money was beginning to "trickle in.")

Hammer's action is a bold one. He's raising an additional 250K in P&A for his film on top of his production costs. With regards to his rationale, I'll say a couple of things. First, it's pretty common for films to receive MGs from distributor that are far short of the film's production budgets. When films don't sell big at the outset, filmmakers and sales agents are accustomed to "taking the best offer" and moving on, hoping that success in theatrical and ancillary markets will provide overages. And while these overages don't occur as often as they should, I think producers and sales agents understand the risk/reward ratio -- they know how much needs to get spent on theatrical P&A, and they have a rough idea of what level of theatrical box-office is required to produce significant numbers through a distributor's video distribution operation and pay-TV output deals.

When it comes to new models like the IFC's pay-per-view/day-and-date operation, however, I think producers are confused. Because it's a nascent business, they don't really know what the potential revenue can be, and thus they have a hard time evaluating the overage potential of a low-advance deal. When a film opens day and date, the theatrical box office is only part of the story. If we're to take the rationale for the program at face value, then we'd really need to know the number of PPV purchases that first weekend as well. And when filmmakers hear that accounting numbers are hard to come by (as Cinetic's John Sloss said recently on KCRW's "The Business"), or when they hear that overages are only trickling in for only a single filmmaker, then it makes decisions like Hammer's (and his investors') a bit more understandable.

I think IFC's model is a great one, and I think the PPV day-and-date makes a lot of sense for a lot of indies. But like a lot of these indies, I'd love to hear more about the terms of the PPV deals and how much revenue might flow back to the filmmaker.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/03/2008 07:33:00 PM Comments (0)

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been a ton of blogging here lately, and that’s because we’ve been working hard on the Summer issue of Filmmaker. It’s our “25 New Faces” issue, and the workload on that one is particularly heavy because we look at a ton of work before making our selections. Anyway, the issue shipped to the printer today, so we’ll try to get back into the swing of regular blog postings.

I’m also going to take this opportunity to announce a special subscription offer. If you subscribe online here during the next 48 hours for our low price of $18, your subscription will start with this “25 New Faces” issue, and we’ll also throw in free a special bonus: our first custom DVD, “Making your First Film with John Sayles.” It’s a video of Sayles’s talk at last year’s IFP Filmmaker Conference in which Sayles offers a veritable master class for new filmmakers on the subject.

And for those who subscribed earlier when this DVD was first announced, we really appreciate your patience. The replication process took a bit longer than expected, but the DVDS have been pressed and packaged and all existing orders were mailed out this week first class. If you’ve been waiting for one, you should have it in the next few days. If you haven’t subscribed to Filmmaker yet and have been thinking about it, subscribe now and the DVD will go out immediately and the magazine will arrive mid-July.


Here's the official spam:

For a limited time, subscribe online for a year of FILMMAKER Magazine at $18 and get a free DVD:

Making Your First Feature
Featuring Director, John Sayles

This exclusive 90 minute DVD includes tips on:

How to package a film to attract financing,
How to Navigate the festival circuit,
Innovative ways to reach audiences, and more.

Added Bonus:

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# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 7/01/2008 06:29:00 PM Comments (3)

Remember that Phil Dick-ian John Carpenter movie, They Live? In it, a special pair of sunglasses allows you to see the world as it really is, with all of the government's subliminal messages exposed. I thought of that film while reading this blog post at Seeking Alpha entitled "How Video is Going to Take Over the World." It summarizes a Forrester research reporter claiming that we are entering an age of "Omnivideo," in which video playback will occur on multiple surfaces all throughout our daily life.

From the post, quoting Forrester:

“Once video becomes this easy to produce, deliver, store, and share, every agent in society will not only want to participate but will have to participate in order to have a shot at reaching people with its products and services.”

In his view that means:

Consolidation and collaboration will increase even faster than before. But the pick-a-winner approach to integrating content with devices will get blown wide open as companies like Sony (SNE) and Panasonic realize they can’t bet on a single partner but have to offer access to all major content partners.

Companies will continuously “broadcast” video from inside the enterprise. The Internet has forced marketers to go far beyond a few ads and some brochures in their communications efforts. The shift to video will be much more taxing because companies have to have a strategy for communicating every message — internal or external — with video.

Every video surface will become a marketing platform. When nearly every surface in your environment can display video, marketers will pay a pretty penny to show up at the bottom of a food bowl or in a bathroom mirror, where their product marketing message will be far more relevant than it is on a TV today. “The only broker of this ad space in your home is you: We envision ad networks one day paying you for the right to aggregate your ad experiences.”

I thought of the Carpenter film when reading this comment by a poster called Big Bear Lake Hostel:

Someone will invent intelligent "media blocker" sunglasses for city people which will block out or noise cancel all electronic noise and video and replace all advertising with screen saver type images of your own choosing. how about wanting through times square and only hearing your favorite song, and what humans are saying around you, and instead of billboards everywhere you saw images from your flickr account wallpapering the buildings around you. a short of realtime TIVO for your physical reality..

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/23/2008 11:14:00 PM Comments (2)

I've posted before about Hammer to Nail, the website launched this year in which Michael Tully, Mike Ryan and others are posting opinionated, passionate and politically informed reviews and commentary on independent films and the indie film scene. Today I received an email from producer Ted Hope, who announces more content at Hammer to Nail, where he, Ryan, Tully and Corbin Day will try to make sense of today's paradigm-shifting independent business. So, if you haven't already, add Hammer to Nail to your list of bookmarks. And, below, is the entirety of Hope's email:

I was on a panel at the Provincetown Film Festival this weekend (which is a great festival - go!). Actually two panels, one on Towelhead (opening 9/12/08) and the other with Greg Araki, Mary Harron, Tom Kalin, John Waters, and Christine Vachon on "filmmaking on the edge". In these discussions, and in the articles attached below, it's clear that Business of Indie Film is looking for a new paradigm. We are between things and the old model no longer works and the new one is undefined. But I see some real hope nonetheless.

This change has been much discussed for the last fifteen years, but the digital revolution is very slow in coming. This slow trickle has, in my opinion, allowed for a withering away of what truly made the indie film world unique, which is the glue that kept it a community and not just a demographic. Digital downloads won't be anyone's salvation, but the internet can truly rebuild what has collapsed -- but it's time to look at the infrastructure first.

Time and time again, films emerge that define a community and the community comes out to support in droves. Similarly, it truly feels to me that we are at a cultural crossroads, where we -- as a community of filmmakers and film lovers -- are in real danger of losing access to a dynamic range of personal cinema, unless the various communities start to take steps to unite and speak up for the world they want. We can't keep settling for the crap that is hoisted upon us (see George Carlin RIP below).

I have several thoughts on how these communities can be brought together and strengthened, and I hope to expand upon them in the months ahead, but in the interim I wanted to point out a blog that I have started together with Corbin Day, Mike Ryan, and Michael Tully entitled Hammer To Nail. It's our attempt to build a home that has a passionate appreciation for ambitious film, for films of limited release and more limited budgets, but for films that still dare to reach, dare to aknowledge the world they come from and the world they hope to be, films that reach both narratively and formally. It's only in it's early alpha stage so be gentle. We also would love to have more filmmakers who want to write about other films and what constitutes ambitious filmmaking, so let me know if that interests you.

Sincerely,
Ted

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/23/2008 10:57:00 PM Comments (2)

Ted Hope tipped me to this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on this summer's empty arthouses. Several of the usual suspects are interviewed in a piece that talks about the high cost of marketing, the internet, downloads, the production glut and marketplace churn -- the practice of shuffling new titles out of theaters when they don't immediately click. Again, no magic solutions here, just lots of opinions, like these:

Despite the current doldrums, the market for arthouse cinema seen in the art house remains vibrant. "It's a cyclical business," Mundorff says.

Observes Bernard, who has been in specialized distribution since 1981, "The obituary for art films appears every 17 years, like the locust."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/23/2008 09:27:00 PM Comments (0)

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/23/2008 09:03:00 PM Comments (0)

There are always unusual characters at SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, from the eclectic staff and volunteers to diverse filmmakers and film subjects - the people watching is always outstanding. Primarily, the people-watching is in the movie theaters, although this year, Silverdocs was marked by the appearances of Spike Lee, recipient of the annual Guggenheim Award for lifetime excellence in social issue documentary; Music Award jurist, and pro-open source sampling documentarian/musician Paul D. Miller, (aka DJ Spooky); and on the other end of the spectrum, the theraputic robot seal, Paro, of Phie Ambo’s Mechanical Love, which looks at the brainstorming and experimenters leading the progress of android engineering.

Werner Herzog is especially apt to show a person’s most unusual side. His Encounters At The End Of The World, Shows not just the confusing and bizarre terrain of the Antarctic, but the scientists and other wandering thinkers of its McMurdo Station and outlying research camps. Herzog’s documentary techniques are elegantly revealed, showing his drama-eliciting questions and allowing the subjects ample space to answer how they ended up there. More than one interview notes that anyone who isn’t tied down falls to Antarctica, leading to philosophers driving fork lifts and linguists, in a continent with no native language, tending the hydroponic vegetables – this steamy greenhouse an oasis in a film dressed in blue-white landscape and oversized red parkas.

In Herzog’s recent interview with Filmmaker, he talks about falling in love with the world through filmmaking; this idea is behind many of the other films in the program. In Gini Reticker’s Pray The Devil Back To Hell, Leymah Gbowee’s love for her war-torn Liberia leads to a feminist peace movement. She dreams, literally, that the women of Liberia can pray for peace and make it happen. Praying alone isn’t enough, and this group of thousands of Christian and Muslim women take action with sit-ins and sing-ins, and, as in Lysistrada, a sex-strike; doing everything they’re able to stop the war. They persuade war-mongering president Charles Taylor and the rebel warlords to attend peace talks in Ghana. When the factions haven’t reached a decision after six weeks with hotel beds and catered meals, ‘General Leymah and her women’ block them in the deliberation hall without food or water, forcing the men to reach an agreement. As UN peacekeepers come to Liberia and calm is nervously settling upon Liberia, the women continue to monitor the situation, their work aiding in electing the first female head of state of any African country, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Pray the Devil… seems required viewing for feminists and peaceniks, a reminder that a committed group can make serious change with non-violent protest. Pray The Devil Back to Hell won the Witness Award, which also includes $5,000 cash.

If artists and collectors had required viewing at SILVERDOCS this year, it’s Herb and Dorothy, the tale of voracious art collectors of modest means, excellent taste and a graceful love. The Vogels - Dorothy, a librarian, and Herb, a postal clerk, began collecting minimal and conceptual works by now influential artists including Christo, Chuck Close, Richard Tuttle and dozens of others, amassing more than 4,700 works in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Now in their 70s, and faced with a full to bursting apartment, the Vogels donate their collection to the National Gallery of Art, and start a ‘50 Works for 50 States’ program which spreads it to major museums the US. First-time feature director Megumi Sasaki deftly explores their collection and their mindset, showing us Herb’s pointer dog stance when viewing work, and Dorothy’s organized temper to his compulsive buying, and introducing us to the artists they have supported as friends and collectors. Sasaki allows us to feel their passion and curatorial knowledge of conceptual art, along with the durability and love of their unique marriage. Herb and Dorothy, in person at the World Premiere, received a gracious standing ovation from the large audience, and the film Herb and Dorothy handily took SILVERDOCS’ Audience Award.

IFP alum had good showing at SILVERDOCS; Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s World Premiere screening of The Garden took the Sterling US Feature award – SILVERDOCS’ top American prize, which includes $10,000 cash and Kodak film stock. The Garden showed as a work-in-progress in 2005’s Independent Film Week “Spotlight on Documentaries” program. The Sterling US Jury, which included Sandi Dubowski, noted they gave the award for The Garden’s “tenacity in storytelling in the face of injustice, and the filmmaker's singular vision in bringing a gripping, dramatic, and important story to the public eye… It unravels a complex and layered tale of the destruction of America's largest urban farm that must not be forgotten.”

2007 Documentary Lab alum Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell screened in the Music Competition, and director Matt Wolf spoke on a panel on music documentaries. Under Our Skin, Andy Abrahams Wilson’s compelling examination of Lyme disease was an audience favorite as well, garnering one of the Festival’s coveted ‘Back By Popular Demand’ screenings. Under Our Skin screened in last year’s “Spotlight on Documentaries” program.

SILVERDOCS wraps today, finishing the week-long fest with screenings of all the award winners and the “Back by Popular Demand” films; this additional day of screenings a novel way of allowing audiences a compact place to see the festival favorites they’ve missed. To see the full list of award winners, visit www.silverdocs.com

# posted by Rose Vincelli @ 6/23/2008 05:56:00 PM Comments (0)

Film Department CEO Mark Gill spoke yesterday at the L.A. Film Festival's Financing Conference, and his speech, which Indiewire is running and which is entitled "Yes, the Sky is Really Falling," is excellent. It's a must-read summation of the current crisis in the independent film business, complete with a conclusion in which Gill discusses how one can and must survive in this business. Gill hasn't discovered any sort of magic bullet -- his advice can be boiled down to "apply smarts, passion and elbow grease"), but he's framed it all perfectly, and his lengthy discussion of the importance of quality in our 500-channel word is an important one. Here's a key paragraph:

The single biggest change should be to only make movies that we absolutely love. Not ones we like. Not ones we need to do as a favor. Not the ones we do because they seem like a good "piece of business." Not ones we do because we think, hope or wish that "the kids" will like them. Not the knock-offs of the ones that worked at the box office last year. In a word, we should only pick the films we're passionate about--and that have an audience.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/22/2008 08:03:00 PM Comments (0)

There's a good conversation going on at the always excellent blog of Jon Taplin. Entitled "Who Will the Next Fool Be," the short piece, which I'm taking the liberty of quoting in its entirety, critiques the recently announced deal in which India's Reliance may be financing Dreamworks.

Here's Taplin's post:

The movie business reminds me of that old Charlie Rich Tune, “Who will the next fool be?”. The news that a unit of one of India’s largest Conglomerate, Reliance, is contemplating starting a new Dreamworks 2 in what the Times article hints could be horrible terms. OMG! When will the world of finance finally learn? Two kinds of people make money in the movie business:Top Talent and Distribution. Everybody else, including off balance sheet finance, get screwed. First it was Wall Street (Steve Ross Era up to about 1982). Since then it has been British and German Tax Shelters, French (Canal Plus & Warner) TV partners, Japanese and Korean equity,Australian Equity (Village Road Show), Tech Moguls (Paul Allen), Hedge funds (recently badly burned & very under reported). Everyone of them thought they were the coolest kid on the block. But they all quickly retreated from the business.Hollywood is off bounds for most Arab investors, unless they had gone secular like Dodi Fayed of London and Princess Di fame. So all that’s left is the Indians and The Chinese .

Who will the next fool be?

The comments thread is already heating up with posts from people who obviously know something about the film biz. Rachel writes, "I think of it as the dinner party factor. It’s so much more interesting to be able to talk about the film you just financed than it is to talk about the expansion of your infrastructure fund. Well, maybe not more interesting, but of more interest to non-financial people. Plus these guys might get to meet [insert star du jour] at the premiere, or even at Cannes/Sundance/Berlin yada yada." Another poster, Ken B., writes, "In addition to the ego factor, there are other factors that can bring in the piece-of-the-action investors: for some it’s a tax shelter guaranteed to make a controlled business loss, a few use inflated production budgets as a money laundry that can process large amounts of cash, and then there have always been those who get caught up in the high stakes casino aspects."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/21/2008 10:29:00 PM Comments (0)

All the industry news seems to break right when we are finishing an issue and don't have the time to properly parse it. Fortunately, Scott Kirsner is on the case at his CinemaTech blog, beating everyone to the punch with his news of SnagFilms, an interesting new distribution application that will enable filmmakers to receive ad revenue from the internet streaming of their films.

More:

Snag isn't going to try to create a destination site for film fans, but is building a video "widget" that can be placed on other sites: a filmmaker's site, a blog run by an advocacy group, a Facebook profile, anywhere. The widget will deliver streaming film clips, trailers, shorts, and in some cases entire features, peppered with advertisements.

Kirsner has a lot more, including what he has heard is the revenue split, at the link. The site is being launched by Ted Leonsis, who I have written about here, and AOL True Stories.

Also this week: news of the just launched YouTube Screening Room, the viral video giant's platform promising revenue to independent filmmakers.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/21/2008 04:14:00 PM Comments (0)

Filmmaker is hosting blogs from several of the participants of the various Sundance Labs this summer. Here's part one of producer/director Deann Borshay Liem's (Precious Objects of Desire) from the Sundance Documentary Edit and Storytelling Lab, which runs June 21 - 28.



Sometimes I refer to myself as “she.” This is because I’m a character in my own film and I have to separate who I am in real life with who I am on screen. Fortunately I’m a Gemini so this splitting into two (or more) doesn’t seem that odd. Any other editor might think this was nuts, but my editor, Vivien Hillgrove, has a bit of Gemini in her too, so between the two (or more) of us, we get by fine in the edit room.

Duality has always been a theme in my life. I was particularly fascinated as a kid with stories about babies who were switched at birth and grew up in the wrong families. It turns out I had been switched, too, not as a baby, but at the age of 8 with a girl I had never met. In the film, PRECIOUS OBJECTS OF DESIRE, I go to Korea in search of this “double” in an effort to resolve mysteries about her (and my) identity. The story of this search serves as the narrative spine for an exploration of the history and ethics of international adoptions from Korea, beginning with the Korean War.

I received funding for the film from the Sundance Institute and now have the privilege of attending the Sundance Edit/Story Lab coming up in a couple of days. To establish a kind of baseline, this is where we are. We have 80 minutes of an early assembly. It’s not a full assembly yet, but a series of scenes and character sketches strung together. Vivien and I will be screening this before our fellow filmmakers and advisors this weekend to get their (hopefully merciful) input. I wish we were further along, at the rough cut stage. But we’re not. I may sound calm about this, but deep inside I’m trembling.
I’m writing this blog in part at the Institute’s invitation, but also as an opportunity to share my experiences at the Lab. Since the Lab focuses on editing and story development, I thought I’d try to write about the working/creative relationship with my editor, as well as about our experiences at the Lab itself.

But who knows, my other self may change her mind once the Lab starts and end up writing about something else.

More soon…
Deann Borshay Liem

Photo caption: Before we were invited to the Sundance Lab, nice and relaxed. (L to R – Vivien Hillgrove, Deann Borshay Liem, Charlotte Lagarde)

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 6/20/2008 04:52:00 PM Comments (0)