Archive for October, 2009
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Aw man, I am thinking. Last Thursday’s New York Times is up on my computer screen and I’m looking at the virtual front page, just below what would be the fold. The headline: INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS DISTRIBUTE ON THEIR OWN. It’s turf I’ve become increasingly familiar with in the last couple of months since I started plotting a DIY course for my documentary Strongman and I dig in to the article. I don’t get too far before I realize I have a serious problem—Sacha Gervasi took out a second mortgage on his house to pay for the distribution on Anvil. I don’t have a house.
Maybe it’s just as well, of course. If I had a house, I probably would have mortgaged it long ago. The truth is a lot of us would. We are filmmakers who operate on a certain amount of faith. We make films because we believe — we believe we have something to say, we believe that we can say it in a way that’s unique and we know, we absolutely know, that people will care about it once it is done. And the cost of that kind of faith, whether measured in credit card balances or our personal lives, has never been small. But as the unspoken corollary of The Times piece suggests, those costs may increasingly go up for filmmakers.
For The Times is absolutely right that there has been a sea-change in certain segments of the traditional distribution landscape. Sure, the big players may still go to Toronto with their checkbooks, but for most of us that was never really an option anyhow. They were buying the kind of indie films where they already know the players involved, where the people are known quantities. For our kind of indie — the scrapping from the street up kind of indie, the Craigslist and duct-tape kind of indie — the big players and Toronto require visa stamps most of us just don’t have.
It’s what’s happening at the next level down in the industry that matters more to us. And the stories … Read the rest
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Saturday, November 7, in Los Angeles Peter Broderick and Scott Kirsner are teaming up for “Distribution U,” a “one-day crash course on the new rules of marketing and distribution.”
From their announcement:
This one-day course will reveal the techniques successful filmmakers are using to:
• Design customized distribution strategies
• Harness the Internet and social media to launch their projects
• Reach core audiences directly
• Maximize revenue from multiple distribution channels
• Build a fan base to support your future work
This course is designed for independent filmmakers and artists determined to get their work seen widely and earn a real living in the digital age.
We’ll use ground-breaking case studies to demystify traditional distribution and illustrate the 10 principles of hybrid distribution. We’ll also spotlight the most effective tools for reaching audiences and increasing sales. This course will mix illustrated presentations, case studies with pioneering guest filmmakers, networking opportunities, current data points about revenues and deals, and a brainstorming session where Peter and Scott will improvise strategies for your projects.
Read more and learn how you can attend at the link.
As a teaser, Kirsner has kindly given us the premiere of a video he shot with Broderick at Sundance (and sponsored by Akamai) in which they discuss the new world of online distribution, among other topics. Check it out below.
The Future of Indie Film Distribution: Peter Broderick from Scott Kirsner on Vimeo.… Read the rest
Monday, October 26th, 2009
With so much press given to Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah in ’08 and ’09 (and all of it for good reason) it’s easy to forget fellow Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo also came out around the same time in both Italy and the U.S. Though not as chilling and much more stylistic and flashy than Garrone’s mafioso epic, both films display the diabolical trifecta of politics, religion and organized crime that has plagued Italy for decades.
Il Divo explores the end of the reign of Italian politician Giulio Andreotti (better known in his home papers as the Prince of Darkness, the Black Pope, the Fox, the Sphinx, the Hunchback and Il Divo). A slouchy, bespectacled hermit, he doesn’t look like a man who was one of the most powerful politicians in his country, but as the head of the Christian Democratic Party his acts led to the murders of high-level bankers, judges and journalists for decades (he was investigated for his role in the 1979 murder of a journalist who published allegations that Andreotti had ties to the Mafia and the kidnapping of Prime Minister of Italy Aldo Moro. A court acquitted him in 1999).
Like Gomorrah, if you have knowledge of the events or the main players you will appreciate what’s going on a bit more, but Sorrentino does a good job of giving a cliff notes of the issues and events surrounding the 2003 trail accusing Andreotti of having corruption ties to the Vatican and the Mafia — dubbed the “Trial of the Century” — which inevitably destroyed the Christian Democratic Party. A prime minister three different times in Italy, and later given the title “Senator of life” (a position he still holds to this day at 90), actor Toni Servillo (yes, he starred in Gommorah) plays Andreotti in a tour-de-force performance.
Most of the film looks inside the lavish lifestyle Andreotti leads, though he is anything but. Rarely showing emotion (outside of a twirling of his fingers), Sorrentino and Servillo depict Andreotti as Italy’s Richard Nixon.
With a powerful score and top notch camera work, … Read the rest
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Jamie Stuart uses the latest edition of Apple’s Final Cut Studio to create the short Isn’t She?…, an ode to John Hughes that follows a day in the life of Claire (Lauren Currie Lewis) as she tries to claim unemployment insurance.
WATCH short here.
Running time: 15:23
Visit Jamie’s site at www.mutinycompany.com.
Learn more about the songs in the short at www.ediesedgwick.biz
Read parts 1 & 2 of Jamie’s review of Final Cut Studio.
See how Jamie created the visual effects here.… Read the rest
Monday, October 26th, 2009
With Ti West‘s latest film The House of the Devil opening this weekend (look out for our interview with him on the site later this week), over at IFC.com his web series Dead & Lonely premiered today. The series stars Justin Rice (Mutual Appreciation) as a guy in search for love on a dating site and Paige Stark (A Relationship in Four Days) as the girl who finds his profile, but she has a secret (okay, the picture gives it away, she’s a vampire).
New episodes will be posted on their site all week.… Read the rest
Monday, October 26th, 2009
We asked Jamie Stuart to use the newest edition of Apple’s Final Cut Studio to make a short and write up his reaction for our Fall issue. You can read the piece here. But when he got into post he found more things to highlight about FCS so we’ve posted Part 2 of his review in Web Exclusives.
And check out the teaser of the short he made at the bottom of the Part 2 piece. Titled Isn’t She?…, it is an homage to John Hughes while commenting on the current state of the economy. We’ll put the short on the site tomorrow.
UPDATE: Watch Isn’t She?… here.… Read the rest
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Here’s Part 2 of Jamie Stuart’s look at Apple’s new Final Cut Studio, which he used to make his short film, Isn’t She?…. Read Part 1 of Stuart’s review in the Fall issue.
A week before I was set to resume shooting Isn’t She?…, I installed Apple’s new OS Snow Leopard. I proceeded to spend the entire week flipping out, losing hair, sending dozens of freaked out e-mails to Apple.
The cause of my China Syndrome? QuickTime X. And ColorSync.
For Snow Leopard, Apple decided to realign the OS’s color mechanics to work with ColorSync. Furthermore, the new version of QuickTime, QuickTime X, was not just designed to upgrade the program from 32-bit to 64-bit, but they also sexed up the standard interface to make it more palatable to casual users.
Simply put. In no uncertain terms. QuickTime X is a fucking abomination.
And Apple knew it wouldn’t fly for professional users. So they’ve maintained a new version of QuickTime 7 that works with all pro applications. In fact, they even confirmed to me that QuickTime X, with its over-saturated, over-bright picture that bizarrely features the controls over the image, is specifically for common users — while they recommend QuickTime 7 for pros.
Thing is, though, QuickTime 7 doesn’t even look exactly how it used to — because the OS is now synched to ColorSync. The blacks aren’t as rich. The color is a little less saturated and milky.
What this means is that, let’s say I create and upload a Quicktime for people to see online. I’ll be mastering it using the new Quicktime 7. However, once it’s online, because QuickTime X is the OS default, it’ll be viewed in QuickTime X if you’re on Snow Leopard. If you’re on a previous OS, you’ll view it using the old QuickTime 7. Or, if you download the video and you’re on Snow Leopard, you can watch it with either X or the new 7. Point is: Whereas in the past I was mastering for a one-format-fits-all-sensibility, now my work, while mastered with one program, might actually be … Read the rest
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
For the past several weeks the Hawaiian film community and Native Hawaiian activists have been abuzz about Barbarian Princess, British director Mark Forby’s new film on Princess Kai’ulani, one of Hawaii’s most revered historical figures whose tragic life story—sent into exile in England as a teenager, she became an international voice against the American-business-led coup that virtually overthrew the Hawaiian government in the 1890’s, and returned to Hawaii to protect her people’s rights, but died tragically at the age of 23—is indeed the stuff of cinema. Last Friday, on the second day of the Hawaii International Film Festival and the anniversary of Kai’ulani’s birth, audiences finally got a chance to see the film for themselves.
Debate had already been raging as to the film’s casting of a non-Native Hawaiian actress as the princess (Q’orianka Kilcher, The New World, who is half-indigenous Peruvian and actually grew up in Hawaii) and especially its rather spurious title, which is defended as “ironic” by its producers, who insist that it references 19th century American newspaper headlines about the princess, and is meant to be ultimately undermined by the reality of her as an elegant, proud, well-spoken woman. “The title Barbarian Princess is intended as an ironic juxtaposition meant to capture the interest of people who know nothing about the history of Hawaii,” noted one producer in an attempt to defuse the situation. “What moviegoers around the world will learn from this film is that Princess Ka`iulani was an intelligent, beautiful and powerful defender of the Kingdom of Hawaii.” At the festival’s opening press conference, Forby fended off one pointed question by stating “the title was meant to bring in, and then challenge audiences from, say, middle America who might be expecting something like sexy dances at a luau.”
Others, however, are less than thrilled with having one of their most beloved historical figures (streets, schools, and other institutions are named after the princess in Honolulu alone) being referred to yet again as a “barbarian,” even if it is ironic. “It is a perpetuation of the wrongs and hurtful aspersions … Read the rest
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
I met with an online distributor a few months ago who told me about GMX, the Global Media Exchange, saying he thought it was going to revolutionize the film sales business. In short, he described it as an eBay for media content, where film buyers (broadcasters, distributors, etc.) can connect and transact with sellers (studios, production companies, independent producers) within a sophisticated interface set up to deal with the complicated terms of international film licensing agreements.
GMX recently launched with over 4,000 titles from such companies as “NBC Universal Global Networks France, London-based ContentFilm’s Fireworks International, U.K.-based On Demand Group, Paris-based Carrere Group, alongside Lifetime TV, Disney Channel, Broadway Video Entertainment, Image Entertainment and The Food Network.”
Over at his Biracy Project blog, David Geertz says he’s been given an online tour of the site:
As a producer I was able to research the buyers online and make direct contact with the acquisitions manager. This is great as everyone knows that this could eliminate the costly trips that are required 3-5 times a year to attend markets. If all of the buyers can now log in and be purchasing directly this will reduce costs to the producer and leave more money in the pockets of film investors that are finding it tough to write checks to indies.
GMX essentially provides you with all the tools and for this they will charge a fee. I believe the fee is somewhere around 7-9% and is based on a sliding scale. This is also great as it will allow producers to represent themselves and remove the costly sales agent, sub distributor, or aggregator.
From the tour I was given, I was told the project is still in BETA but the plan is to also implement an online transaction process.
The distributor I spoke with felt that GMX could be a real boon for producers of smaller-scale films, who might now be able to cost-effectively market their films to international buyers and meaningfully aggregate a string of smaller scales. (He also felt that GMX was a real threat to specialty film sales … Read the rest
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
A couple of weeks ago I tweeted about a Brooklyn party I attended for the web production company Dinosaur Diorama and the launch of the latest episode of their hit web series, The Burg. The first new episode in two years, it’s titled “Change,” and is directed by Peter Sollett, of Raising Victor Vargas and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Here’s the teaser, and we’ll post the link when it premieres next week.
… Read the rest
