Archive for March, 2009
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
We at Filmmaker are big fans of Errol Morris, who we have interviewed numerous times and have placed on our cover. Morris is a very successful commercials director (that’s part of what enables his ambitious doc work), and we’ve linked to some of his TV spots before too. So, in the interests of completeness, we embed his latest, a commercial directed with his customary real-person adeptness for Depends.
The folks at AdGrabber, who picked this up, seem to be perplexed by Morris’s approach, though. “Many brands use analogies to help explain their product features and benefits. Even makers of diapers for grownups. But seriously, WTF? Touting the new line of Depends by comparing the fact they’re different to the fact men drive differently than women and commentary on who rules the world; men or women?”
Find more videos like this on AdGabber… Read the rest
Monday, March 30th, 2009
One of my favorite aspects of this (at times) overwhelming festival is its panel discussions. The Tribeca Film Festival, since its inception, has always brought in well-respected, usually very blunt professionals to talk about everything from films they’ve made to industry topics. And what better time to hear what the state of the business is than right now. Here’s the panels I feel will help benifit a filmmaker the most.
“Tribeca Talks Panels”
The Future of Independents
Sponsored by the Directors Guild of America
Great art often comes out of great struggle. With the film industry suffering the same upheaval as many other great American industries, where does the future of independent filmmaking lie? Please join members of the DGA’s Independent Directors Committee in a discussion of how an independent film gets made in today’s rapidly shrinking global economy. Directors Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, TFF ’07), Rose Troche (The L Word, Go Fish), Raymond De Felitta (City Island, TFF ’09), Gary Winick (Bride Wars, Tadpole) will discuss some of the challenges ahead for independent directors with David Carr of The New York Times.
DATE: Friday, May 1
TIME: 5 PM
LOCATION: Directors Guild Theater
“Tribeca Talks: Industry”
Tools of the Trade: Alternative Distribution, Marketing 2.0, and Beyond
Sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter
Every filmmaker is looking for an audience. With the emergence of innovative and widely successful strategies such as marketing on Facebook or digitally distributing on YouTube, the old studio-driven business model of film distribution and marketing has been turned on its head. There are now multiple ways that filmmakers can control what happens to their film once they’ve made it, so how do they come up with the best formula for success? Does one size fit all? This panel will explore a number of key marketing and distribution strategies available to both short and feature filmmakers. Panelists include Sara Pollack, Entertainment Marketing Manager, YouTube; filmmaker Jon Reiss; and Cynthia Swartz, Partner, 42 West. Moderated by The Hollywood Reporter’s Steven Zeitchik.
DATE: Tuesday, April 28
TIME: 2 PM
LOCATION: SVA Theater 2
(Untitled): A Case Study … Read the rest
Monday, March 30th, 2009
Ari Folman‘s Waltz With Bashir took home four awards including Outstanding Achievement in Direction at last night’s Cinema Eye Honors, which highlight the year’s achievements in non-fiction. Handed out by the event’s creators — filmmaker AJ Schnack and Thom Powers, documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival — at the Times Center in the New York Times building, James Marsh‘s Oscar winning doc Man on Wire was awarded the evening’s big award, Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction, along with two other prizes. Yung Chang‘s Up the Yangtze won the Debut Feature award as well as Audience Choice.
The full list of winners are below.
Outstanding Achievement in Non-Fiction Feature Filmmaking
MAN ON WIRE
directed by James Marsh; produced by Simon Chinn
Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Ari Folman for WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Simon Chinn for MAN ON WIRE
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Peter Zeitlinger for ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Jinx Godfrey for MAN ON WIRE
Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation
Yoni Goldman & David Polonsky for WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition
Max Richter for WALTZ WITH BASHIR
Outstanding Achievement in International Feature
WALTZ WITH BASHIR
directed by Ari Folman; produced by Ari Folman, Serge Lalou, Gerhard
Meixner, Yael Nahlieli & Roman Paul
Outstanding Achievement in Debut Feature
UP THE YANGTZE
directed by Yung Chang
Audience Choice Award
UP THE YANGTZE
directed by Yung Chang… Read the rest
Monday, March 30th, 2009
An additional $350 million for the New York State Film Production Tax Credit program has been found to continue supporting the state’s popular film and TV tax incentives. The funds were announced as part of the budget that was proposed today; however, given that last year the state issued $460 million in film and TV tax incentives and that this new $350 million is capped, it’s clearly a stopgap motion for the program. The lack of long-term visibility means that TV shows in particular will be wary of setting up shop in New York for fear that the program will not be extended in future years. George Szalai in The Hollywood Reporter has the details, and he quotes John Johnston from the New York Production Alliance:
Johnston and [Silvercup's Stuart] Suna said the industry will continue to push for legislation outside the budget bill that would provide unlimited funding for the production incentives.
“We certainly don’t want to wait until next year’s budget to talk about this,” Johnston said. “This is a short-term fix, not a long-term solution.”
Industry folks point out that the incentives get paid out long after the state gets additional tax revenue from productions, which also employ more people. This means the tax credits are a boon for the state at a time of declining tax revenue and gaping budget holes due to the recession.
The Ernst & Young report found that for 2007, New York’s incentives program created and retained 7,031 industry jobs in New York, or 19,512 when including other sectors. The study also found that production credits amounting to $184 million for the year led to added state taxes of $209 million. For 2004-10, the study predicted $2 billion in added revenue from incentive-related economic activity in the state.
“This is an economic engine, but it needs fuel,” Johnston said.
Everyone who lobbied or called in support of the program should consider this at least a partial victory. We’ll keep you informed as to the next round of lobbying.… Read the rest
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
William Grimes in the New York Times reports that Steven Bach, former U.A. studio executive and author of Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate has died of cancer at the age of 70. As an exec he was associated with such films as Annie Hall, Cutter and Bone, and True Confessions, but he is perhaps best remembered for Final Cut. Says critic David Thomson in the Times obit: “It is the best book ever written about the making of a movie. It gives you an understanding of the battles, the egos, and how a film like that could come about. It’s all the more remarkable because he’s one of the stooges in the story: he let it happen, and he admits that.”
I’ll second Thomson’s recommendation. It is the best book about studio moviemaking that I’ve read, possibly because failures are more illuminating than successes, but also because the wrenching experience of making Heaven’s Gate cast the egos, emotions and machinations of its participants in a kind of bas-relief that Bach able captures in his writing. Even though the age of this kind of cinematic folly is largely over, I think because of its insights into the logic of production decisionmaking this book is a worthy read for anyone making studio movies.… Read the rest
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Mark Cuban asks on his blog the question, “Are Tweets Copyrighted?” Wondering whether republishing a tweet violates copyright law, Cuban puts a legal spin on something that I wondered when I joined the service recently. In fact, the first day I was on I tweeted (?) the following: “Wondering: is Twitter quotable outside the Twitterverse? Or is that bad nettiquette?” The response I got was that tweets are public speech and yes, people can quote them. Funnily, this made sense to me even though I do think copyright law generally prevents people from quoting in full. In other words, I viewed Twitter’s 140 characters as more a public utterance than a piece of writing which is, after all, contradictory because tweets are text.
In Cuban’s post, he writes:
I got to thinking about this when I tweeted about an NBA game. I tweeted to the people who follow me. While I never asked that they not distribute it to other tweeters, i did not give anyone permission to republish my tweets in a commercial newspaper, magazine or website.
So when an ESPN.com or any other outlet republishes a tweet, have they violated copyright law ?
Is twittering the process of publishing in 140 characters or less, or is it a private communications to those that follow you ? Even if you dont block outsiders from seeing it ?
So far, the comments that have appeared on his blog seem to take the “copyrighted speech” position. I’d be curious to hear what everyone here thinks. Oh yeah, and for Cuban, this isn’t just a theoretical discussion.
As Sports Illustrated explains:
The NBA slapped Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with a $25,000 fine Sunday for publicly criticizing the officials after Denver’s 103-101 win over Dallas.
Cuban used Twitter to complain after Friday’s game that Denver’s J.R. Smith was not called for coming off the bench to taunt Antoine Wright after he missed a shot near the Nuggets bench.
Cuban said in another posting Sunday that he “can’t say no one makes money from twitter now. the nba does.”
… Read the rest
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
At GreenCine Aaron Hillis spies a freelance opportunity for some kind of film critic and relays this ad on Craigslist:
Hi,
We just finished a film and need to buy a one sentence quote from someone who calls himself a film critic. Thanks.
Hillis writes:
Now, in my relatively brief tenure as a full-time journalist, I’ve had my share of unprofessional favors asked of me, including one that permanently estranged a years-long camaraderie because I refused to watch a friend-of-a-friend’s movie with the explicit purpose of giving a pullquote for their forthcoming DVD. Yet while I laugh at the above posting because it was clearly instigated by a filmmaker who doesn’t understand the professional position of a critic, I half-worry that an unscrupulous somebody might just take that person up on the offer. On the other hand, perhaps it’s a positive sign for critics, that our opinions still hold a monetary value.
And re that Craigslist post, please not that it is NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests!… Read the rest
Saturday, March 28th, 2009
Here’s the third of our guest blogs from Sundance Lab-supported filmmaker Gayle Ferraro, who is blogging from the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
Day 3
No sleeping in after the late night, this is the last day and a short day at the forum so we have to get moving. The morning sessions were again a great offering. I opted for one called “We are the government and we are here to help,” which had a funny ring to it even though I had no real idea what it would be about. At the session, Barry Coleman from Riders for Health, whose work is delivery of health care services with motorcycles, said of his approach when entering a new village, “You look for the woman in glasses and she probably does all the work.” Something about that was not lost on the women in the room.
Our Sundance Team regrouped for a debrief lunch on our own. We gave feedback on our experiences — all very positive and how we thought it could be improved in future years. We walked around Oxford center doing our last minute obligatory gift shopping, stopping for tea at a pastry shop (like we needed yet another meal…) and just enjoyed the time off for a few hours before the final night tapas in town with our Skoll hosts.
As I head out in the morning for NYC I have to reflect on what a wonderful experience this had been for me — meeting the other filmmakers and spending time with them; the Sundance Institute and the detailed care they took of us; the Skoll Foundation and the fascinating organization pushing for unusual and meaningful changes in so many ways; and the countless impressive social entrepreneurs I spoke with. At this point I have little else except my admiration and appreciation of some very dedicated, talented and future-thinking people. Thanks for bringing me along.… Read the rest
Saturday, March 28th, 2009
Just a quick note to let the filmmakers in our readership know that the IFP Narrative Lab, which I am leading along with Gretchen McGowan, has a deadline of April 17. The lab is a five-day intensive series of workshops, roundtables and presentations for filmmakers whose works are at the rough cut stage and who are seeking guidance about editing and reaching picture lock, sound design, festival strategy, distribution and legal issues, and DIY releasing strategies. It takes place in New York June 8 – 12. A number of past participants have blogged about their experience over at The Workbook Project, and you can see a short video that gives you a taste of the labs here.
Obviously I’m biased because I’m a part of it, but I think this is a great program. It’s open to first-time U.S. filmmakers who have complete their principal photography. Further criteria can be found at this link, and the application can be downloaded at the site above.… Read the rest
Saturday, March 28th, 2009
I previously blogged Clay Shirkey’s “Newspaper and Thinking the Unthinkable”, which is an essential article about the media business in this time of transition. Via Keeyool.com I just came across this short interview with Shirkey that is also tremendously thought provoking not just for media outlets and companies but for anyone in the content business.
Key quotes:
“The transition is going to go to the people who have the lowest cost of experimentation for the highest value.”
“Digital lowers the cost of failure.”
“The heightened ability to experiment means that you have to embrace the idea that instead of reducing the likelihood of failure your organization is going to reduce the cost of failure and fail forward fast.”
See it below.
… Read the rest
