Independent Film Week - Case Study: Documentary Marketing - "Beautiful Losers" & "I.O.U.S.A." - Sept. 18, 2008

Independent Film Week
Case Study: Documentary Marketing – Beautiful Losers & I.O.U.S.A.
September 18, 2008

This panel was about how to consider the marketing dimensions of a film. To think through how to secure fan, organizational and subject support. Every film is unique and marketing is expression of film’s core values.

Case Study: Beautiful Losers
The film’s subjects were urban misfits, skateboarders and underground artists. It initially started as traditional documentary on small groups of artists influencing pop culture. The built in, core audience graffiti heads and skateboarders, and as a result, the film turned out to be a cinematic essay.

Twenty years ago this scene was just starting out. Now the artists are older and present in the mainstream. But the marketing campaign for film had to be DIY and grassroots in order to speak to audience. A lot of the filmmakers’ peers were creative directors at Nike, Boost Mobile, and the like… and they wanted to approach this marketing plan differently. The idea was that the core audience was so big, the reach out was going to be non-traditional outside of 30 second spots. The producers got a deal with Nike by also going to Vans, so Nike preemptively got involved because they already have foothold with this niche.

The filmmakers decided to premiere at SXSW because it was outside of major market festivals. They ultimately needed to excite the base to offer revenue streams when showing film out there. And in the mean time, the filmmakers wanted to inspire people to go out and paint, draw—do something.

In the end, some of the marketing initiatives are built around activities that were art projects in their own right. They offered something positive to the communities and relied on PR and word of mouth. The director wanted to do workshops with the artists in NY and San Francisco. Zine making. Sign making. And then do them around release dates of film. It overlapped with underground music and SXSW was a great platform for that aspect of the film. They hired a “scenester” publicist as opposed to traditional publicist for the film circuit. They wanted to save the real one for the national campaign. They started with AIGA, Art Centers and Universities to get the film out to their lists while also hitting up stores for promotions. The film’s website had an art-share aspect for artists and fans to upload their own work. The marketers wanted to speak to audience that wouldn’t necessarily respond to box office ads. A lot of times, they were reeling in kids (around 12 years old) who wouldn’t spend cash on film at the movie theater that they couldn’t get to. Then those kids would mention to their friends, etc and it became cool to go see the movie.

The goal was to get people out to make something. Most people are compelled to make stuff and the filmmakers wanted to encourage that. The emotional core of film is that you can do what the subjects in film can do.

Case Study: I.O.U.S.A.
The filmmaker started with noting that you should market for festivals first—this is critically important. You can sell your film if it plays well. Then there’s separate kind of marketing for theatrical release. They are two different things and you can do the latter without doing well at festivals.

When he was at Sundance with his first film, Wordplay, they came up with idea to make a handout with a crossword puzzle, all the clues and a pencil. It was the best $5,000 ever spent to print these. They handed them out every where. There were tons of lines for other screenings, so that was a good time to hit people with a time-passing piece of marketing. IFC said that was smartest piece of marketing they’ve ever seen at festivals. People in line were board and wanted the puzzles. They got 7 offers and sold it for a million bucks. A film is big investment of time and money. You need to go to festivals with a plan. Connect to audience. IOUSA was eventually bought after Sundance.

The subject matter was the national debt. It is a timely, Feel Good Movie of the Summer.

When they started production, people thought that this was silly idea for a subject. Things were fine a year ago. But 8-9 months into shooting, the sub-prime crisis happened. And so they scratched the film and started over because its prophecies ended up rearing their ugly heads. During this time, the producers found a lack of understanding of their subject and found purpose in that.

A non-profit bought the movie for one million and set aside another million to promote it. Roadside Attractions partnered with the film and said there are a couple thousand of theaters in country that are wired to digitally distribute film. The nonprofit organized a town hall meeting with Warren Buffet and president of AARP. They settled in Omaha and Becky Quick of CNBC moderated it. They had huge event premiering film where they fed the film to 430 theatres and showed it live. Taxi to Darkside sold 30,000 tickets total over its run and I.O.U.S.A. sold 45,000 tickets in one night. They got people there because the subject of film is on every cover of every magazine. Also, Buffet is a superstar, and everyone wants to know what he thinks.

They shopped around to all the business channels to get the moderator and event. The channel they went with promoted the event the entire week before the screening. National CineMedia has consortium of theatres, so for a month ahead they ran commercials for opening night. And the filmmakers didn’t pay for any of it. It all boils down to you really need to understand your film and understand why someone is going to go pay 10 bucks in theater.

All told, television, Netflix and the Internet are great and all, but theatrical distribution is at the top of the pyramid. People write reviews when it’s in the theatre and it activates people more than anything. If it opens in New York (for at least a week), the Times will review it. Every filmmaker needs and wants that.

--amp

No Borders Case Study with John Hadity - Sept. 17, 2008

No Borders Case Study with John Hadity
Independent Film Week
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
FIT – Katie Murphy Amphitheater – New York, NY

Last Wednesday at Independent Film Week, No Borders International Co-Production Market presented a Case Study on Single Picture Financing with John Hadity, President and CEO of Hadity & Associates, Inc., a consultancy firm that specializes in risk management and production finance for film and television. I have included the main outline of that presentation below with highlights of the transcription of Hadity's discussion. I found the discussion and presentation to be very informative. While a lot of information to ingest, this seems to be a very handy “how to” resource for producers looking for multiple ways to finance their films.

Before Hadity began his presentation, he said, “I thought it would be important to have a conversation with you about what’s happening right now out there in the finance world. With all the news last week, everything is in the toilet. I’m going to give you a bit of an overview so you understand when you are talking to finance people, you understand what’s in their head and what they don’t want to hear and what they do want to hear. I would say 99% of the time, you’re going to hear ‘no.’ It’s important that you understand why they’re saying things like that and how maybe you can mitigate your own risk before you go into these meetings. The second part is a break down of a case study of an alternative way of financing the film.”

Part 1 – Industry Overview

Health of the Industry
* These numbers are for 2006. Hadity noted that he has not yet seen all the numbers for 2007

“Box office is fairly in the same place. Theater admission down, although the number of releases have certainly gone up. This year, there were over 5,000 entries to Sundance. 10 years ago there were 500. There were a lot of movies being made and fighting to get on screen and fighting to stay on screen for over two weeks. There’s a lot of competition out there. But still, this is a very healthy industry. This is an industry an industry that’s not correlated to any asset class. When the economy is in the toilet and people don’t have money, they still go to the movies. It’s because they can’t afford a new car. They can’t afford a new house, but they can take their families to the movies."

Studio Concerns

“To give you a snapshot of what was happening in 2004/2005…what happened back then had a severe effect on independent producers and production companies that tried to finance their films. Studio movies cost about $100M. Studios were very concerned about these escalating costs. All of these studios have other businesses that they’re involved with and to tie up $100M at the time in cash, it was really crippled. They still needed to feed the distribution pipeline that was in fact the lifeblood. But they did see that all of these revenue streams would change them. In Variety or The Hollywood Reporter, you’d see how long or short a period of time films are actually on the screen, unless they are absolute break out successes. There’s an incredible amount of energy put into finding other revenue streams or enhancing other revenue streams in pictures. By far the priority is to downsize any kind of risk."

- Escalating film costs
- Cash Management
- Need to continue to feed distribution pipeline
- Revenue Streams are changing

*Pay TV deals are diminishing

*Windows are getting shorter
- Increase in piracy
- Manage downside risk

In the Financing World

“At the same time in the financing world, there was a huge growth in private capital. Hedge funds, most of the time, really didn’t hedge anything. Since 1990-2005, there’s been about a 20% growth in private wealth. There was...a year ago, almost one and half trillion dollars under management. Basically what was happening in the hedge fund world…the private capital world…is people needed a lot of cash. We have to take a very small part of our patch and invest it into something that is high risk/high reward. Let’s say 5%. There is no magic number. But most mandates were probably around 5%. Take that and put it into a high-risk category business…film got chosen. Why…first of all it’s sexy. The first thing whenever I’ve gone and stayed in a room with people with private capital that were interested in investing in a slate of movies or with studio slate deal were like, how many tickets can I get to the premiere? There are hedge funds, private capital, and banks that are comfortable with what’s called the Monte Carlo method…literally a software program that enables a financial analyst to role the dice how ever many times you want. How many times can you role the dice and lose? The Monte Carlo method is actually used to evaluate a number of slate deals that are trying to get financed by studios, specialty labels and production companies.”

- Influx of Capital
*Private Equity Growth since 2003 = $580 billion

* 20% hedge fund growth since 1990

* $1.4 trillion under management today
- Portfolio Diversification
*New asset classes
*High risk/high reward
*Comfort with statistical analyses (Monte Carlo method)
*Gap and Super Gap opportunities
*Sexy business

Recent Transactions (Recently Completed Film Deals) – 1st Page

“The first deal was August of 2004 with Paramount…a $300M deal to finance 26 films over a 5-7 year period. The arrangement on these deals, every single major investment bank is involved. If they’re not the arrangers, even the Weinstein Company deal with Goldman Sachs was a billion dollars. You have to understand that Goldman Sachs did not underwrite a billion dollars. There’s an equity component to these deals and there’s a debt component to these deals. Typically the debt in these deals is syndicated out to a number of banks. I promise you, every single bank that you’ve ever heard of has participated in…at this point it was $10.6 billion.”

Recent Transactions (Recently Completed Film Deals) – 2nd Page

“It’s over $15 billion now that has been invested into our world. And I heard someone say at dinner recently that they thought it’s more like $24-$26 billion. These deals started back in 2004, and the post-mortem is actually just starting on these deals. A lot of people that participated in these deals, especially on the debt side, are less than pleased with the results they’re seeing. The numbers that they were talking about and throwing around to each other around board rooms and conference room tables were more like 14%/16%/18%/22% returns. I think the first numbers that were actually publicly released was 4%. So people are not very happy with the performance of these deals so they are actually re-negotiating some of these deals or scrambling for a way to refinance them. Couple that with the credit crisis that’s happening right now and one thing you really need to be aware of is a banker or a hedge fund manager or investment arranger is that you’re talking to sales people. These people are in charge of bringing deals in…they’re called originators…their job is to bring in investment opportunities to financial institutions. They are not the people who are going to approve the deal. They’re going to sit and listen to your deal and tell you that it has a lot of potential, but at the end of the day, the person who’s going to make a decision is going to be a credit desk. The person behind that credit desk is going to be looking at this investment from a risk management perspective asking...What if these movies don’t perform?”

Producer Driven Financing Transactions

“There were a number of very high-brow independents that were successful in getting their slates financed. That still happens. We’re still reading about that, but from a credit desk perspective…somebody at a bank isn’t going to want to hear you have 10 really good stories. Somebody at a bank is going to want to have proof that you have a revenue stream somewhere behind you that can support the kind of money that you want to borrow from a bank. The larger independents are pretty much well taken care of. The real challenge here is to get the thousands of independent producers out there that are trying to get their movies financed on a one-off basis typically to get them their financing.”

Indy Film (“One-Off Financing)

Studio Financed
- Advantages – Money already there; Negotiating Muscle; Guaranteed Distribution; Worldwide Exposure
- Disadvantages – Lose Creative Control; Inflated Budget; Pushed Participation; Gun for Hire

Independently Financed
- Advantages – Maintain Creative Control; Controlled Costs; Better Odds for Participation; You are your own boss
- Disadvantages – Need to fundraise; Weak negotiating position; Guaranteed Distribution unlikely; Exposure Uncertain

“When I crossed over to the light side…I remember my first experience in financing a one-off picture…it was around $60M. The studio that had intended to distribute it actually budgeted the movie at $130M. The producer of mine loves to tell the story…the visual effects house that we would have used…was about 19x cheaper than using the studio’s VFX house…the studio said it’s okay, it’s soft money.”

Financing Vehicles

“Soft money is probably the number one way to finance a portion of your movie. It is absolutely irresponsible to make a movie today in a territory or in a state or in a city that does not offer an incentive, unless it’s your money. If it’s your money, you can do whatever you want. If you’re using someone else’s money to make a movie, you should not be filming in California. You should not be filming in states that do not offer incentives. This is free money. They’re incentivizing for you to come and spend money there. They’re rewarding you for dumping money into their infrastructure. You’re creating jobs. You are helping their economic development. This is free money you should take advantage of. I personally will not help people finance a movie that’s not being filmed in an area without incentives.”

Soft Money (“Incentives”) – 1st Page

“It’s really important to understand the nature of the incentive you’re chasing, because you don’t want to go there…spend a lot of money and then be left at the alter. There are a lot of people out there who know how to navigate through these incentives. It’s the film commissioner’s responsibility as well to be able to guide you through all of these resources…Any economic development person will take a meeting with you if you say the words, ‘I will create jobs.’”

- Refundable
- Transferable
- Rebates/Grants
- Up Front/Backend Production Funding

Soft Money (“Incentives”) – 2nd Page

- Best Practices

Soft Money (“Incentives”) – 3rd Page

- Web Access Tools

Production Incentives
- Domestic & International – http://www.productiontaxincentives.com/
- Canada – www.canadafilmcapital.com/taxcredit/index.html

Film Commissions
- Worldwide – http://www.afci.org/

Co-Financing Partners

“Understand that whatever percentage of the budget they’re going to put up, they’re going to want that percentage of everything that happens on the back end coming back to them. Partnerships are not about free money…now it really is about finding a partner who wants to share in your reward.”

- Studios
- Distributors
- Post Facilities
- Production Companies
- Passive Equity Investors
- Film or Media Funds
- Integrated Marketeers
- Brand/Rights Sharers
- Etc.

- Typical pro rate Scenario: % Financing = % Ownership

Production Loans

“This has a direct effect to all of those $15-$24 million worth of deals. There are still banks out there that will deduct the money, but their capacity for risk is substantially less than it used to be. You used to be able to walk into a bank telling your story and creating a very good picture about the potential profitability of your movie, and the bank would…once they felt comfortable…the bank would probably take risks that they just cannot make today. All of these loans are collateralized…now more than ever, self-bonding is not an option. You will have to get a completion bond on your film.”

Foreign Pre-Sales

“You can find co-financing partners in foreign sales agents, foreign sales companies and in distributors of the foreign territories. You don’t make a decision to make a movie without talking to foreign sales people. You shouldn’t go out there and make a movie without having a conversation with somebody somewhere that’s an expert in foreign sales…what kind of currency does this film have in the rest of the world outside of the United States? They can certainly tell you that American comedies are very challenged to travel abroad. Because of that, it’s going to help you to cast a movie with somebody that does have currency in a foreign market to minimize the risk that your comedy isn’t going to travel well abroad.”

Negative Pick-Up

“Negative pick-ups are pretty hard to come by unless you have somebody pretty extraordinary attached to the budget or it’s just a great story that a distributor wants his hand on. The deal is really simple…the money comes from a bank. You’ve got a producer and a distributor. The bank agrees to provide a loan to the production, the production agrees to make the movie and deliver it to the distributor. And the distributor is going to pay off the bank loan. A letter of intent nowadays means absolutely nothing. It is really a lovely thing to have…never take a letter of intent into a financial institution because it really carries no weight.”

Gap, Mezzanine, and Private Equity Financing

“When you look at investments in movies, equity is cash. It’s the riskiest money out there. People who make an equity investment in your film are entitled to a much better reward. They sit behind everybody else back with you, but they’re going to get a higher return. They’re paid last, but they hold a higher reward than the lender will get.”

- GAP – Last in, first out. Secured against foreign sales. (est. ROI 12-14%)
- MEZZ – Sits behind GAP. Secured against some part of the revenue stream. (est. ROI 18-22%)
- EQUITY – Sits behind Mezz. First in, last out; Entirely performance driven. (est. ROI mid-20s to mid-30s %)

Integrated Marketing

“Integrated marketing has become an incredible buzz word…it’s what we used to call product placement, but it’s much bigger. These deals are incredibly difficult to put together and to use as cash. More often than not, these integrated marketing deals are marketing support for the movie. They’re not going to give you cash up front to use to cover your production. They’re very rare and often involve conversations at a corporate level that you will not be able to have. I would always recommend that you first look at the kind of marketing support that you can get for the release of the film and that might actually help you go and raise the P&A money. With a lot of these integrated marketing deals, you don’t really get the majority of the cash until your partner can look at the movie.”

Part 2 – Financing a Single Picture

Hypothetical

- Assumptions: $5M budget, UK Production, Bollywood actors, post in UK, American producer/director/writer/

$5M (100%) Budget
-1.25 (25%) UK Tax Incentives
-1.5M (30%) UK Tax Incentives
-200K (4%) UK Post & VFX (equity co-producer)
-800K (16%) UK rights (presale)
-200K (4%) India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka rights (presale)
-1.05M (21%) Equity/GAP
$0 (0%)

UK Tax Incentive

- UK Spend = $5M
- UK Tax Incentive = 25% of UK spend
- UK Benefit is $5M x 25% = $1.25M

Equity Co-Producer

- Post-Production budget = $1.5M
- Offer post facility co-producer credit & 30% revenue stream for $1.5M
- Benefits to co-producer: Increased visibility, workflow, revenue stream
- Will co-producer cashflow the UK tax incentive for a fee?

UK Film Council

- Grant Application eligibility due to UK content
- Usually capped, but each project is treated individually
- Benefits to Film Council: Increased visibility, supports inward investment and economic development, creates local jobs

Foreign Presales

- Presale of territories
- Need foreign sales agent
- Need foreign sales estimates

Equity/Gap/Mezz

- Leverage foreign sales estimated for unsold territories as collateral
- Only use bank-approved foreign sales agents
- Angel investors are the hardest thing to find

Other Considerations

“Any piece can fall out at any given time.”

- Script
- Chain-of-title
- Reasonable budget expectation
- Corporate set-up and compliance
- Letters of intent
- Completion bond
- Production Insurance
- Payroll
- Banking
- Financing reporting
- Delivery
- Distribution/Sales

Independent Film Week - State of the Industry - Sept. 16, 2008

The State of the Industry
Independent Film Week
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
FIT – Haft Auditorium – New York, NY

Last Tuesday at the Independent Filmmaker Conference, Variety’s Anne Thompson moderated a discussion with indie film distribution stalwart Bob Berney, who lead Warner Bros.’ specialty division Picturehouse, which was recently relinquished into the larger fabric of the company. A few years back, Berney brought to mainstream attention such indie film hits as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Mel Gibson’s controversial The Passion of the Christ. Berney talked with Thompson about his work in distribution and the current and state of the industry and where it seems to be heading. Below are some selected moments from that discussion.

Thompson: Why are the studios losing faith in the independent specialty division sectors? Why were Picturehouse and Warner Independent both put out to pasture?

Berney: We’re really caught up in a lot of things. I think that for Warners and Time Warner having duplicate distribution systems. Obviously Warners and New Line became very similar doing the same tent-pole releases. When they closed New Line, I think they forgot about us. I thought there could have been a merger with Warner Independent and Picturehouse. They felt they only were going to make tent-pole movies like The Dark Knight. They didn’t want to have the over head. There wasn’t enough profit for their huge overhead and corporation to do independent films. If they had one, they would do it through the Warner system. At the same time in the marketplace, you saw Paramount Vantage change. It’s not quite as bad as with Warner Independent and Picturehouse, but it radically downsized. We’ll see what kind of films it will do now.

Thompson: What is it that you were able to do to build audiences for foreign language films?

Berney: Over the years for foreign language films, distribution became touch because ancillary markets behind the theatrical just didn’t perform. You go from being a niche studio where you announced you’re going to buy a foreign language films. Foreign language is just the code word for zero. I tried to pick films over the years that go beyond the language. Pan’s Labyrinth…Guillermo told the story so beautifully.

Thompson: With Mel Gibson, that was an unusual situation where you took his movie against all odds onto 5,000 screens.

Berney: It was amazing operationally as distributors to do that movie. It really changed the business because we had 23 people at the time at New Market. We opened on the level of 5,000 runs and we grossed $360 million. We couldn’t believe we could actually get the prints to theaters. They (the studios) had 500-600 people doing the same thing. It was rough dealing with all the fire with Mel, but mainly we were just focused on the exhibitors. You have to go as wide as you can because it’s not a review film. At that time, he was on his best behavior. I wasn’t caught in any of the controversy of him. At the time, as an independent, we really went big. As an independent distributor, theater chains…you’re not going to get as good a deal as you do if you’re with a studio. They really tried to screw us on that.

Thompson: What has happened with the exhibition community and the health of independent film? Why is it so bad?

Berney: I think it’s a lot of things. There’s been a lot of discussion…that panel that Mark Gill did…his theory was that all films are bad. The part that’s true is there were all of these hedge fund investors that would invest in…and part of this is my fault…in the P&A. They’d get it out there and it didn’t work. Part of it is the pressure especially in the studio divisions to do bigger films and wider releases. A lot of the studios go…it has to be Juno. It has to be that kind of level of hit. That’s a lot of pressure. DVD is falling, although there are a ton of exceptions. VOD has been coming along really strong.

Thompson: Are you going to play around with the whole digital arena?

Berney: I think one of the biggest changes recently is the announcement…I don’t know if it’s going to happen…there was an announcement about six months ago that MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount are going to start a new digital VOD service. It’s very hard as an independent to get a pay deal with HBO, Showtime or Starz, because they’re doing more original programming. This could be an interesting change that helps independent distributors maybe.

Independent Film Week - Kevin Smith - Sept. 14, 2008

A Conversation with Kevin Smith
Independent Film Week
Sunday, September 14, 2008
FIT – Haft Auditorium – New York, NY

Filmmaker Kevin Smith, whose new film Zack and Miri Make a Porno opens in theaters this Halloween, came to the Independent Filmmaker Conference to talk about his new film, his career, his upcoming politically-driven film Red State, and to shoot the shit with the audience during a fun and F-bomb-filled Q&A. It was 15 years ago that his debut independent feature Clerks was shown at the IFFM, or what’s currently called Independent Film Week. Below are selected highlights from the Q&A. (This Q&A is rated NC-17 by The Film Panel Notetaker Association of America.)

Audience Question: Can you talk about Zach and Miri?

Smith: I said raise your fucking hand! Some people seem to think it’s funny. I was trying to make an insightful exploration of the Holocaust. It turned into this other fucking thing. There’s this whole other thing about it turning from an NC-17 to an R rating. I’m kind of nervous about that. I remember last time with Clerks when it got an NC-17. Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to defend the film. We did get the NC-17, but it’s not censorship. I’m kind of hoping this time it would be a little quiet. Sure enough, people on the Internet said, it’s a publicity grab. It’s so not. That’s the last thing we want. We just screened at Toronto. It went really well for us. We got some really great reviews.

Audience Question: After making Clerks, you made Mallrats? Did you have any problems going from independent work going to a studio?

Smith: I made one independent film in my life and that was Clerks. Mallrats was made by Universal through Gramercy. Chasing Amy was made for $250, 000 with Harvey’s (Weinstein) money. Every other flick was financed by a studio. Harvey’s pretty much paid for every movie accept for Mallrats. Mallrats was made for $6M and grossed $2M, and I felt shitty after that. I lost someone $4M. The next one I’m going to do, Red State…it’s the first time in 15 years I have to look for money. Every time someone says ‘no,’ maybe I’m on the right track here.

Audience Question: What got you thinking about making Red State?

Smith: I’m not a political person by nature. I don’t go out and campaign for the candidates. I’m the dick and fart joke movie guy. Basically, I’m thinking about the climate of the country right now. It’s fucked up, there’s no one to root for in the movie. It’s a series of horrible, bad, selfish immoral students paid by a bunch of unlikable characters. Wouldn’t you pay to see that? It’s weird. It’s not a movie that should be made, but I got to do it.

Audience Question: How important are film festivals, for example with Red State?

Smith: Red State is totally a festival film. Geoff Gilmore introduced us at Sundance in ’94. It’s the film festival story that people love to read...about a fucking guy from Jersey who works at a convenience store who made a movie. It kind of worked out for us. Film festivals hold a place in my heart, because without them, I would not be standing here talking to you. I’d still be working at that fucking convenience store.

Audience Question: There’s been a lot of changes going on in the independent film industry such as the closing down of specialty divisions. Do you care about those changes? Does it affect you?

Smith: No, I don’t think so. Obviously I was affected when Harvey and Bob left Miramax and created the Weinstein Company. Do I stay or do I go? I felt like they gave me my break. The closing down of specialty divisions, it’s kind of sad more than anything else. I’ve seen that happen so often. Now I’m kind of used to it. I think everything goes cyclical. In 10-15 years, a bunch of specialty divisions will open up again because somebody else is going to make a movie that makes $100 million and it looks like shit, and it will be viable again and open up a bunch of places.

Independent Film Week - Working with Doc Subjects - Sept. 18, 2008

Independent Film Week
Working with Doc Subjects
September 18, 2008

Again, this panel was composed of all Femmes who each provided clips exhibiting their wonderful films. In each, it was clear that they had to make their subjects a part of the film to accomplish it. Ethics is in the bloodstream of a filmmaker.

Most of Nina Davenport’s previous films have been personal. She wanted to make her latest, Operation: Filmmaker, universal, so she approached it with an eagerness to be on the outside. She did shoot some scenes with her providing her subject with filmmaking advice, and was especially compelled to let him know when he was alienating people. Then she shot the scenes with her not in them. But over time, when he needed visa, money, credit for directing the film, etc. she grew tired of his manipulation and keep their interactions in the film. It then ended up being about their relationship.

Tia Lessin, co-director of Trouble the Water, says it’s not entirely possible to be objective. Filmmakers inevitably inject passion, outrage, anger, hope, and ultimately a point of view. She aimed to not make her film about victims or criminals, but the survivors of Katrina. The subjects were residents of New Orleans, who shot a lot of the original footage that inspired the film. These residents couldn’t gain access back unless they were attached to media, so it comes across that there was aggression on the ground against the people. The footage from the subjects painted the film.

Lucia Small is also of personal documentary background. For The Axe in the Attic, she conducted hundreds of interviews. She narrowed the bunch down to 32 and struggled a bit with structure due to the many characters. She strived to get a variety of people: white, black etc. The filmmakers flagged people along the way who were more than eager to tell their stories, but they also were avoided as they appeared to be carpetbaggers. Characters in her film were generous, but trust was a serious issue, especially in the context of New Orleans at the time. A filmmaker can never be totally objective despite efforts to abide by a journalist code. The camera is a link for the filmmaker to witness a story. In the case of Lucia’s film, the challenge was to gain their trust, sometimes in mere.

Cynthia Wade wanted to carve out narrative arc in theme which came naturally in Freeheld, which had a subject who had limited lifespan and had particular goal. Her physical condition was visibly different from one shoot to the next. In this case, the story dictated that it had to be chronological. Also, because it was a short film, it was liberating to not push for coverage that a feature requires. There was pressure in interviewing the main character. Cynthia had to rack her brain for every little idea and question because there was no way to go back. She gave her subject cameras because it alleviated her guilt to be in their house and in their face doing it herself. It was a sentimental and emotional thing to shoot.

The entire panel felt that subjects should not necessarily be compensated. It is exploitative although in the case of Tia’s film, they expanded their relationship by licensing the footage from her subject. Geraldo seemed to have ruined that mantra for journalists. It all seemed to change with his coup of subjects getting compensated, but in the field you worry about that truth in depicting story. It does get complicated in this economy and with the exchange rate in third world, but the consensus was, do not put money between the filmmaker and the subject.

--amp

Independent Film Week - "Medicine for Melancholy" - Sept. 15, 2008

Medicine For Melancholy – Opening Night Film
Independent Film Week
Monday, September 15, 2008
Clearview Chelsea Cinemas – New York, NY

(Medicine for Melancholy actor Wyatt Cenac and director Barry Jenkins)

Photo by A.M. Peters

Before the screening of Independent Film Week’s opening night film Medicine for Melancholy, New York State Governor’s Office For Motion Picture and Television Development Commissioner Pat Kaufman announced the winner of I Love New York’s New York City Regional competition, “Love in New York.”

Filmmaker Magazine editor-in-chief Scott Macauley introduced Medicine for Melancholy and its director Barry Jenkins, one of the magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film (which by the way is celebrating its 10th anniversary. A party was held later in the evening at Strata for the commemoration).

Macauley said he first saw Medicine for Melancholy at SXSW at its premiere screening and thought it was fantastic with “a real visual imagination” and is also “really smart about politics.” Macauley said of the middle sequence in the film that “a lot of other people would have maybe not been bold enough to include this sequence. It’s a little digressive from the main story, but for me it’s one of the things that really made the film.”

The following are some highlights of the post-screening Q&A with Jenkins and one half of the film’s stars, Wyatt Cenac who plays Micah (Tracey Heggins who plays Jo was not there). By the way, the Q&A was done almost entirely in the dark, as the house lights had yet to come on, which made for a rather fun discussion.

Q: What camera did you shoot on?

Jenkins: Panasonic HVX.

Q: What was the budget of the film?

Jenkins: We can’t really talk about the budget. If you drove a car here tonight, the car you drive probably cost more than the total budget of this film.

Q: What was your inspiration?

Jenkins: I moved to San Francisco after living in L.A. I met a woman in San Francisco. She broke up with me. I need to prove myself as a filmmaker, so I’m going to make a movie. I channeled all the energy from the break up and living in San Francisco. I wrote the script really quick in about three weeks. I wrote it to be shootable for myself and five friends. Once the script was together, I raised enough money to do this.

Cenac: There’s no greater motivator than hate. That’s a lesson you should all take out. Hate something enough.

Q: What was your casting process? Did you have Wyatt in mind?

Jenkins: I had no idea who he was. We wrote the movie and tried to cast in San Francisco, but San Francisco was 7% African-American. 1% of San Francisco is actors. If you take 1% of 7%, we couldn’t find anybody in San Francisco, so we went to L.A. Tracey was the first one we saw. We saw other women, because I’m a director, and I can’t make up my mind. And then we saw 50 guys. None of them were working. A friend of ours happened to know Wyatt. Justin, our producer, sent me a clip on YouTube called “My Best Black Friend.” It was a weird pilot that Wyatt was in about a white guy who has a reality show with a best black friend.

Cenac: Not just his best black friend, his only black friend.

Jenkins: Months later we were casting and Justin said, what about that one guy? So we called Wyatt.

Cenac: You didn’t call me. I got a Myspace message.

Q: Can you explain your choices of music?

Jenkins: Everything in this movie is kind of designed to be doable. We need to get the rights to these songs. I had a playlist from iTunes. 80% of the music in the movie is from that playlist. The rest of the music was pulled together by Greg O’Bryant. It was important to have music I thought reflected the fact that this black guy living in this quote-on-quote un-black world. Also being able to make the movie really fast, we wanted to music know ahead of time what the scenes were going to be cut to.

Cenac: This is on a complete side not, but there’s a woman in the third row who’s either completely passed out or dead. (Huge LOL from the audience)

Q: How much rehearsal time did you have?

Jenkins: None. Wyatt and Tracey were both SAG ultra, ultra low budget actors, but we still had to pay them for every day they worked on the movie. We couldn’t afford to pay them any money, so we couldn’t bring them out to San Francisco for rehearsal. So they got there literally 12 hours before we shot the first shot. But we shot it in sequence, so it worked. We got two people who don’t really know each other. As we were making the film, they kind of got to know one another.

Q: How much of it was improvised?

Jenkins: Really not much of it was improv’d. There’s certain jokes in the film where I would write a joke and Wyatt would take the liberty of extending it. The only completely improv’d scene was the Bill Cosby scene.

Q: How long did it take you to shoot film?

Jenkins: We shot 15 days in November (of 2007). And we had the rough cut by New Year’s Day, and we mixed in February (2008). It was a really quick process.

Q: Can you talk about your style. A lot of your sequences seemed like a hybrid of experimental and documentary.

Jenkins: James (Laxton, director of photography) and I lived together in film school. We shot designed about half of the film. As an exercise, we wanted to kind of figure out ways to shoot it. As far as the color, we decided really early on that we wanted reflect the title, Medicine for Melancholy. We wanted that melancholy reflected in the actual image. We knew we were going to de-saturate the colors palates. We super saturated in production, and de-saturated in post to kind of protect their skin tones. There’s certain places in the movie where the characters just react with one another and all these issues with race, and at those moments, it’s the most color. Karina Longworth of Spout.com wrote one of the first reviews of the film. She said the film is 93% saturated and it’s reflective of San Francisco’s 7% African-American. If you look at our color files, the film is 93% saturated. We didn’t do that intentionally. We really tried to reflect what was the emotional connection with the characters.

Independent Film Week - Show & Sell: Positioning for Festivals

Sunday was the first day of Independent Film Week 2008. At the Filmmaker Conference, I attended a panel on positioning for festivals that addressed once you've finished your film, what do you do next? How do you manage your expectations for film festivals? Below are some highlights of that discussion.

Show & Sell: Positioning for Festivals
Independent Film Week
Sunday, September 14, 2008
4-5pm
FIT – Haft Auditorium – New York, NY

Moderators:
Howard Gertler, Producer – Process Media
Susan Stover, Producer – Laurel Canyon

Panelists:
Courtney Hunt, Director – Frozen River
Ryan Kampe, Partner, International Sales – Visit Films
Jarod Neece, Programmer – SXSW
Tom Quinn, SVP Acquisitions – Magnolia Pictures
Reid Rosefelt, Marketing Consulting and Publicity

Gertler: When did you submit Frozen River to Sundance?

Hunt: I submitted the film by deadline in September. We did not have a finished score. By and large, the movie was cut. In that instance, we felt we were ready. It was a real serious rush to get it done.

Gertler: What condition was the film in when you brought it to premiere at Sundance? What was your experience like?

Hunt: When we got into the festival, it was done. We brought in two composers. Once we were in, we were really quite serious about getting the score. We really couldn’t use the temp score. Once we got it to Sundance, it was already done. We had titles. We just hadn’t seen it in front of a crowd. In terms of positioning it, what happened in my case was, and I’m not sure how this happened, but I don’t think it’s a secret, the big agencies, William Morris, etc., learned about the film and started calling up and saying they wanted to get a sales agent to see it. That was tricky. We didn’t know if we were in Sundance or not. That seemed like a lot of trust. Do we show it? What if we don’t get in afterward? We did end up showing it…having no idea if anyone would buy the film. For me, the whole experience was about connecting to an audience. Did the film work? Were people getting it? William Morris would report that so and so saw it today. I think it sold on the fourth day before it won the Grand Jury Prize. I went into this little house and met Tom Bernard and Michael Barker from Sony Pictures Classics. It was really kind of mom and pop in that sense.

Stover: At any time when you were editing, when you’re finishing your film and get it into a festival, do you show it to an acquisitions person before it screens at the festival? Is it a pro or con doing that?

Hunt: We didn’t have any acquisitions people asking to see it. I don’t think I would have done that. Here’s the thing…it’s not like they helped me fund the film, so I felt like they could wait to see it. If you’re coming in with post money, that’s one thing.

Gertler: If you’re first-time filmmaker, how do you help to manage their expectations when submitting to your festival?

Neece: If they’ve already been accepted, it’s just a matter of getting calls from agents and sometimes acquisitions folks. You have to ask yourself the questions…are you going to get a publicist? A sales agent? I think publicists are worth the money, especially for the press. If you get press, that may in turn may get distributors to want to see the film. I don’t know about sales agents. It just depends on what you want. What are you looking for? Are you looking for exposure of people to just look at your film?

Stover: What’s the game plan for publicity at festivals?

Rosefelt: I can speak to what you might be doing as a filmmaker to take your film to a festival. Not all of you are going to be able to afford a publicist. The first thing when you’re creating your materials is you want to keep them really short, because you’re making this thing for a critic or a journalist who is seeing three or four films a day and doing interviews, going to parties. In general, reviews from festivals are very small paragraphs. When creating your materials, think about the person who’ll actually be using this. Keep it very economical. If you feel like you have to give them this long essay about your film, put it on your website because they’ll get that written piece of material when they go to the screening or at the press office. If it’s too long, they’re just going to give cast and credits. The other thing that’s really important is stills. You really want to have a picture that makes your film like something you want to see. It indicated what kind of movie it is. Let’s say your film has erotic content, whenever you shoot a scene, where the actors are naked, you usually ask the still photographer to leave the room so that at the end of the movie, you don’t have anything that looks like what the movie is actually about, because you never took anything. You can set up photos while you’re shooting. It’s commonly done. Francis Coppola does it. You just come in and pose everybody. You can talk to the producer and director and discuss what stills you would like to have. Just make sure you get them. If you get to the end of the movie and you don’t have a still, stage one. If you get into Sundance, they’re going to call and ask you to send them a still. That doesn’t mean send us a still next week, it means send us a still right now. You’ve got to think about that. You’re trying to get something that will make people want to see your film. You always have to create some kind of short synopsis. I suggest a book called I Wake Up Screening by Laura Kim and John Adamson. It’s really the best book I know of about preparing for festivals.

Gertler: How do you prepare for a festival?

Kampe: Primarily we’re doing international sales. We come in on two different scenarios. First is the easy scenario – Cannes, Toronto or Berlin. We would come on board after we see an announcement. What we want to do is come on board as early as possible because we need to put our marketing and PR people behind the film. There’s so many titles that are out for sale, we want to start to differentiate them. As soon as the announcement comes out, we ask for screeners. The second scenario is that we want to get on as early as possible to start selling the international options. If we’re on at the script or shooting stage, what that allows us to do is look at it and see which festivals might take it. As a first-time filmmaker, you probably don’t have the connections with Sundance, Toronto or Berlin. As a company, we place the films with the right programmers.

Quinn: We’re a little different then some of our competitors because we deal with a wide range of films. This month, we just distributed “What Just Happened?” “Man on Wire,” a small Chilean film starring a martial arts star. It’s a pretty wide palate. We travel to every single festival that we deem half important from Sundance to Cannes to Toronto, but we also travel to Austin twice a year to SXSW and Fantastic Film Fest. We basically track the crap out of these movies. At Toronto, there were 140 films. It’s a constant filtering process. The way we do that is look at the sign posts along the way, which are reviews, art work, trailers. How do we get to the point where we deem these films to be priority films. It’s a very long-winded process. My personal preference is seeing movies at 3am in my own house. I know it’s important for filmmakers to send their films to the right festivals, but by the same token, I have to say that we’re one of the few companies that buys a lot of blind submissions.

Stover: What’s the issue of showing your film to an acquisitions person before anyone else sees it?

Quinn: It’s a bad idea. It’s a constant barter of information. What is this other company screening? What do they think? It’s a very small circle. I call it a circus of acquisition execs who throughout the world really know each other well. That’s a bad way to launch your film. It’s very important for you to pick a company you trust and will not discuss your film with anyone else. Whether you want to sign a non-disclosure agreement, we’re happy to do that. There are other companies that are sort of like the mafia and work behind closed doors in not letting other people know about what they see. It’s a risk.

Gertler: When preparing for Sundance, what did you discuss with your agents about goals?

Hunt: It was more like, this is who we know. This is who may be interested in it. It depends on what kind of film you’re making. If you’re making a very experimental film, you have to be really careful about showing it to the wrong acquisitions person. On the other hand, if you have confidence in the work, there probably is a good argument for showing it. We didn’t really talk about strategy so much. We really talked about how the film impacted the audience.

Gertler: How many films do you see a year?

Quinn: I did a study in January looking at how people do in the marketplace, especially films I care about. $5 million and under grossing films. They’re independent films that are usually released on 600 prints or under. In the last eight years, that number has doubled and yet that audience hasn’t grown theatrically. Specialty, performance-driven films like Tell No One, Frozen River, and Man on Wire. I think there were fewer films in the marketplace, at least for that particular audience in the middle of the summer. I think “The Sky is Falling” and all that stuff going on around us, there’s going to be less films on the acquisitions side and would be distributed in the marketplace potentially. I would love to see less films. I would love to see festivals like Toronto decrease in size. I would like to see more quality over quantity in terms of premiere status.

Gertler: What’s the relationship between acquisitions and film festivals?

Neece: Premiere status is pretty important these days. You have to play the game. You have to do research. It’s competitive. SXSW gets 3,500 submissions and plays over 200 films and 90 shorts.

Quinn: We go to SXSW and Fantastic Fest to find an overlooked nugget, but also to see what’s really a healthy theatrical audience. My favorite theater chain is there, The Alamo Drafthouse. We bought films at both festivals last year. It worked really well for us. Same thing for the Woodstock Film Festival.

30th Annual Independent Film Week Preview

Be on the look out next week for a slew of notes from the great panel discussions planned at IFP’s 30th Independent Filmmaker Conference being held during Independent Film Week in New York at Chelsea’s Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) and surrounding venues. This will mark my seventh return to the conference, which was called IFP Market & Conference and held in The Puck Building when I first attended in 2002. If it were not for this conference, I’m not sure The Film Panel Notetaker would even exist. The seeds were definitely firmly planted there, which have since then sprouted into what you see today and continually grows.

IFP Executive Director said of this year's panels, "We’ve got a remarkable series of speakers and panels scheduled that cover the state of independent film today. From “Alternative Distribution” to “Film & Philanthropy,” whether you’re a filmmaker or film buff, there’s something for everyone interested in independent filmmaking."

And right she is. If you have never attended, and you’re thinking of producing or directing your first narrative or documentary feature and looking for financing, or have a completed film, but want to know the best ways to go about getting distribution both through traditional and newer alternative methods, and how to build audiences, then this is the place for you. There are many panel discussions from which to choose. Each day offers a different theme.

Day 1 – Sunday, Sept. 14: Making Your First Feature
Day 2 – Monday, Sept. 15: Filmmaking 2.0
Day 3 – Tuesday, Sept. 16: The Global Marketplace
Day 4 – Wednesday, Sept. 17: Alternative Distribution
Day 5 – Thursday, Sept. 18: Truth About Non-Fiction
Day 6 – Friday, Sept. 19: Film & Philanthropy [Panels on this day are F-R-E-E!]

And to get an idea of panels from the past, here are a few selected examples of notes I’ve taken at previous conferences:

- 26th Annual IFP Market & Conference (2004)
- Getting the Word Out: Social Networking (original post 9/21/06)
- Conversation with John Sayles & Maggie Renzi, "Honeydripper" – Sept. 16, 2007

(See photo below of Sayles & Renzi from last year's conference. Picture courtesy of IFP.)

And for a summary of everything to expect at this year’s Independent Film Week, please find IFP’s official announcement below.

New York, NY - IFP announced that IFP alumnus Kevin Smith (Clerks), filmmaker and activist Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism), and SnagFilms.com CEO Rick Allen will headline public events during the 30th Annual Independent Film Week, September 14-19. For the first time, Independent Film Week will be held at Chelsea’s Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.).

Formerly known as the IFP Market, Independent Film Week is the leading forum in the U.S. dedicated to discovering, showcasing, and supporting new independent film projects and talent. The six-day event consists of: the Independent Filmmaker Conference; free screenings of films by IFP alumni and emerging short filmmakers; and the Project Forum, a showcase for over 150 works-in-progress. It is presented by IFP, the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers.

Smith will kick off the daily “Conversations With” series during the Independent Filmmaker Conference on September 14th with a discussion on making a first feature. His classic 1994 debut feature, Clerks, got its start as a work-in-progress at IFP in 1993. His new film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks and is scheduled for release by The Weinstein Company on Halloween. Greenwald will discuss the power of film to spur social change on September 18th, while Allen, who recently launched SnagFilms.com with AOL Vice-Chairman Ted Leonsis and AOL founder Steve Case, will explore the future of film distribution on September 17th.

In addition to the “Conversations With” series, the conference showcases a range of panels on the art and business of independent film. Each day’s panels are structured around a specific theme: Making Your First Feature, Filmmaking 2.0, The Global Marketplace, Alternative Distribution, The Truth About Non-Fiction, and Film and Philanthropy. The full schedule of panels can be found at www.filmmakerconference.com.

For the second year, IFP and Rooftop Films Present special programs including:

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Rooftop Films and IFP present
Trinidad (PJ Raval, Jay Hodges Colorado, Austin 1:26:00)
40 years ago, Dr. Stanley Biber transformed a sleepy mining town in Colorado into the Sex Change Capital of The World. 



Venue: on the pier at Solar One
Address: 23rd Street @ the East River (Kips Bay, Manhattan)
Directions: R/6 to 23rd St., walk all the way East, or take the B23 bus all the way East.
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Sound Fix presents live music by Frances
9:00PM: Film
Rain: In the event of rain, there will be some covering for the audience, but we suggest you bring an umbrella.
Tickets: Free!
Presented in partnership with: The Independent Feature Project, IFC.com, New York magazine & Solar One.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Rooftop Films and IFP present
Selections from the IFP Narrative and Documentary Labs
A sneak peek at trailers and scenes from independent fiction and documentary films that will be next year's hot festival and indie releases.

Venue: on the pier at Solar One
Address: 23rd Street @ the East River (Kips Bay, Manhattan)
Directions: R/6 to 23rd St., walk all the way East, or take the B23 bus all the way East.
8:00PM: Doors open
8:30PM: Live music presented by Sound Fix
9:00PM: Films
Rain: In the event of rain, there will be some covering for the audience, but we suggest you bring an umbrella.
Tickets: Free!
Presented in partnership with: IFC.com, New York magazine, IndieGoGo, and Solar One

* IFP’s NextGenNYC Short Film Showcases (90 min. each) - Documentary and narrative short films by CUNY graduates. NextGenNYC is a new program initiated by IFP and the New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting and is designed to provide a spotlight on New York City’s emerging talent from four colleges within the City University, including: Brooklyn College, City College of New York, the College of Staten Island and Hunter College. (Narrative Showcase, September 16th, 1:30pm, Chelsea Cinemas, 260 West 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues; Documentary Showcase, September 17th, 2pm, Chelsea Cinemas) There is complimentary access with a ticket or pass to the Independent Filmmaker Conference.The full schedule of film screenings open to the public during Independent Film Week can be found at: http://www.independentfilmweek.com/.

“The annual state of the union on independent film began 30 years ago with IFP’s founding event, now known as Independent Film Week,” says Michelle Byrd, Executive Director of IFP. “Since then we’ve expanded our mandate to give the public a greater opportunity to experience the films we nurture through our programs and meet the innovators who are shaping the future of independent film.” Tickets and passes for IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Conference range from $20 for single events to a variety of passes ranging from $70 per day to $320 for the week including all 35 panels, workshops and case studies. Tickets can be purchased at http://www.filmmakerconference.com/.

Where Internet and Film Collide - "Learn" - June 8, 2008

IndieGoGo along with IFP co-presented Where Internet and Film Collide, a program held in conjunction with Internet Week NY. The first part of the presentation, “watch,” was held last Thursday at IFC Center with a screening of short films made for the Internet and mobile devices. Part deux, “learn,” came in the form of a panel discussion that identified online media's future trends and actions to take now at Apple Store Soho on Sunday. All of the panelists were open to the opportunities the Internet has in store for the film world, though some were mostly positive and one had a bleaker outlook.

Where Internet and Film Collide
Internet Week NY
June 8, 2008

Panelists:
(AJ) Alex Johnson – Freelance Digital Strategist (formerly of Deep Focus)
(SWB) Saskia Wilson Brown – Current TV
(BC) Brendan Choisnet – Director, Cult of Sincerity (first film to have its world premiere on YouTube)
(TH) Ted Hope – Producer, This Is That Productions

Moderator:
(JB) Janet Brown – Cinetic Media

JB: How does the Internet affect the process and stages of filmmaking and the final product?

SWB: The Internet is changing the format because films are more accessible. A lot of content is adjusting to be quicker and faster paced.

JB: What are you seeing with the collaboration of advertisers and producers?

AJ: Product placement in the movies is matching a film personality with a brand. My interest is in the webisode world. There’s a lot of talk of people only watching short content online, but that’s not always the case. There’s been crossover from Myspace to television. For example, the series Quarterlife, which didn’t work well on TV. The filmmakers were quite frank about it. The models are changing. At Blip TV, they have an advertising model where you can opt into a 50/50 revenue share.

JB: What was the process of getting Cult of Sincerity onto YouTube?

BC: It was a little bit of luck. We entered a contest for the movie Juno. We had to follow certain criteria and had only six weeks to make a movie. Our film placed in the top 20. YouTube expanded their short format to allow the entire feature to be played. The prize was to meet with Fox Searchlight executives. YouTube was very frank that they couldn’t pay us, but they were open to allowing us to explore alternative distribution opportunities.

JB: How do you view the ability of the Internet to reach audiences?

TH: I am astounded by how slow change has come. The promise has been there for a long time. I had a conversation with our marketing staff about how we could use the Internet to build audiences. For Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we put up some hoax sites to expand the universe of what the film is offering unique, exclusive content. My son says a movie is just a DVD, but what about all this other stuff? We don’t even know how to describe all that yet. To me, that’s what a movie should be. It’s so slow. That’s why independent film is going through changes and an incredible paradigm mind shift.

AJ: Building an expanded universe around a film is incredibly important, and we’re not doing nearly enough. It’s about people spending time with a brand. Television is doing a good job with that. FOX did a promotion on Myspace where they updated character blogs every few days. DIY filmmaker Lance Weiler worked with Hammer Films on Beyond the Rave to create subliminal messages for an alternate reality game creating a social experience.

JB: How can you make money on the Web?

SWB: Current acquires content. It’s rare in the online filmmaker landscape, though YouTube is on our heels. We work mostly with documentary filmmakers. We tend to find them easily, but to keep them, we have to provide them with some asset like money. There are other new models coming forward, like sponsorships.

BC: We’re working with a partner site called AmieStreet.com, an online community for people who like music. You can sign up on their site and get $2 of free music and for $3, you get a download of our movie. They pay us for every person who engages with what they ask them to do.

JB: You have experience dealing with traditional film distribution models. The Internet is disrupting this flow. Is there an opportunity for filmmakers to take greater control of their work now?

TH: It’s evident that this business has been in complete chaos for a couple of years now. The whole model of investing in films seems to be over. Some of this parallels how the Internet has been slow to deliver. The promise to get niche films on computers or TVs has been slow. Traditional ways have completely withered. The problem with films on the Internet is people have short attention spans. As a producer now, you not only have to find a good cast, crew, and money, but you also have to build an audience.

SWB: We have total control of our audience, but it relies on doing a lot of work. We can go online and aggregate our audience.

BC: We emailed all our friends and made a list of bloggers to promote our films. It’s difficult. FOX Business was the one place we got any major media recognition.

AJ: We’re in this in between stage. In the music industry, there’s always been trusted word of mouth that’s not happening inside the film world. From Here to Awesome is an online film festival where filmmakers are a part of the distribution process.

SWB: The problem with film festival is there is a huge amount of content. From Here to Awesome creates a new model of distribution. At Current, the big thing is the concept of curration. That’s what From Here to Awesome is also doing.

AJ: We’ve got to the stage where filmmakers just have to be good marketers. There are so many tools out there for them to use such as TubeMogul.

TH: I was inspired by Four Eyed Monsters. They were able to organize screenings based on people who requested them on their website.

BC: The Internet has also made the filmmakers themselves more accessible.

JB: What are some of the changes on the Internet in the future that you look forward to happening?

SWB: Current is excited that television and the Internet are merging. We’re doing live judging of pods (short-format). I don’t know how this will work for long formats.

AJ: Ad sharing revenue models will be interesting.

TH: There’s going to be a complete and total revolution. Big media corporations will win and put an end to net neutrality. People will get pissed. I don’t think anyone is doing enough to stop this from happening.

BC: At the end of the day, there’s still story. I’m excited to continue to have new opportunities to tell stories.

Where Internet and Film Collide - "Watch" - June 5, 2008

IndieGoGo along with IFP and Filmmaker Magazine co-presented Where Internet and Film Collide, a program held in conjunction with Internet Week NY. The modus operandi of this presentation was “watch” and “learn.” The “watch” portion came in the form of a series of short films created for viewing on the Internet or mobile devices, at IFC Center on Thursday evening. And coming this Sunday will be the “learn” part when a panel discussion at Apple Store SoHo will explore online media's future trends and actions to take now.

(L to R: "The West Side" directors Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo & Zachary Leiberman, Filmmaker Magazine's Scott Macauley, "Drawn by Pain" director Jesse Cowal and IndieGoGo's Slava Rubin)

Slava Rubin, IndieGoGo founder, introduced Scott Macauley, Filmmaker Magazine editor-in-chief, who moderated the discussions with the filmmakers after each film, which started with Green Porno, a series of shorts that can be seen on SundanceChannel.com about the sexual behavior of insects directed by and starring Isabella Rossellini. The episodes shown were “Snail” and “Praying Mantis.” Sundance Channel’s Christopher Barry said Green Porno was conceived about a year ago when Sundance Channel was doing a series of 10 shorts called “The Art of Seduction.” He approached Rossellini about making a series of shorts for small devices with thee conditions—1) Keep them short; 2) Keep them green; 3) Make them stand out. Did they conceptualize these shorts to guarantee huge traffic because of the word “porno,” Macauley asked. Barry said Rossellini has always been a maverick and she wasn’t thinking of search engines. For her, sex was a natural element to explore, but she didn’t want it to be ridiculous, just funny. Within the first two weeks, there were approximately two million page views. Were there any unexpected avenues for distribution that came up, Macauley asked. Barry said the whole process has been an experiment, but their main strategy was to start on SundanceChannel.com, then syndicate out to other sites like YouTube. They even got a call from the Mobile World Congress to present the films to mobile operators in Barcelona. The challenge has been figuring out how to monetize and aggregate the films and attract dollars to make your next projects.

Next on the agenda was Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo’s and Zachary Leiberman’s Webby Award-winning The West Side, as an online episodic urban western. They saw an opportunity to make something on the Internet without spending a lot of money. Lieberman said they are big believers in keeping the serial on their own website and drawing traffic to it. They’ve seen a spike in viewership because of the Webby award, but they didn’t do any PR. It’s all been word of mouth. Bilsborrow-Koo said if you make something of quality, people will watch it.

A trailer for Jesse Cowal’s Drawn By Pain, another Webby winner, followed. Drawn By Pain is described as “a dramatic action packed 12-part series in a sea of comedic web content…(that) engages its audience by leading them through an episodic spiral into one woman’s search for salvation as her animated madness fights for her sanity in the real world.” Cowal said that for his first web series in 2003, YouTube didn’t exist, but since then technology has caught up. His goal is to make Drawn By Pain a branded entity on multiple viewing platforms. “You have to whore yourself out,” he said. “It’s a brutal universe, but what’s wonderful about it is that it’s very honest.” What are some steps or tactics to building audiences online, Rubin asked. Cowal offered this advice, “Just keep telling people till you’re blue in the face. Be passionate, be nice and establish partnerships.” By partnering with other websites, there’s a greater opportunity to be seen by their viewership.

The next filmmakers showcased were Jamie Stuart with NYFF45: Part Two (featuring Nicole Kidman from the Margot at the Wedding press conference) and 12.5 Second Later (shot in my neighborhood of Astoria, Queens), and Ari Kuschnir and Scott Thrift of M ss ng P eces (yes, that’s right, but in case you’re wondering, it sounds like “missing pieces”) who presented TED, and eight-minute short about TED, an “idea” conference in Monterey, Calif., and Reset, a series of shorts in development with Sundance Channel. Macauley asked Stuart what his creative process was for NYFF45: Part Two. Stuart said there really isn’t any preproduction done on his film festival videos. They are a combination of improvisation and editing. How did M ss ng P eces come about, Macauley asked Kuschnir and Thrift, who said they got together in film school in 1999. Around 2005, they found that traditional filmmaking didn’t make much sense anymore. They’ve since then made about 200 short films. Rubin pointed out that the three fellas’ films seemed to be grounded in reality and asked them if that was a conscious decision on their parts. Stuart said he has no interest in reality. His goal is to pervert reality in one way or another. Surrealism has been on his head a lot lately, but no intentionally. He never trusts people who tell him he’s developing a film language; it’s the form he’s messing with. Thrift noted that TED encompasses everything he and Kuschnir want to say in a film. The idea is to get that kind of commentary and weave a story from it.

Finally, Lance Weiler, director of the DIY cult phenomena The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma, presented an episode of Beyond the Rave, an online series from Britain’s well-loved Hammer Films, for which Weiler developed a an extensive game world. How was this developed for Myspace, Macauley asked. Weiler said the shorts were released episodically on Myspace by Hammer, and after they had seen his “Hope is Missing” alternate reality game (based on Head Trauma), brought him in to develop something similar for Beyond the Rave. He created a game world around the films. Each episode is layered with subliminal frames that contain clues to the game. Viewers, often in teams, play and pause the films to find the clues. The game created very high levels of engagement where people would spend anywhere from six to 20 hours a week playing. How do you know if your film is right for an engaged viewing experience, Rubin asked. Weiler replied that some of the best things that are happening right now come from the independent game world such as World Without Oil funded by ITVS. It all depends on the kind of conversation you want to have. Viewers want the ability to touch something and be a part of it. The film is one thing and all the stuff around it something to drive in revenue.

The conversation continues on Sunday at Apple Store SoHo, followed by a party later in the evening at Chinatown Brasserie.

IFP - Alternative Models of Distribution - March 14, 2008

On Friday, IFP organized an event in conjunction with the Consulate General of Canada in New York for Canadian producers and directors whose work is screening at MoMA as part of their Canadian Front series. I attended a panel discussion on Alternative Models of Distribution during this event. Below are my notes. Once again, Jason Guerrasio proved to be a stalwart moderator asking very on-topic questions, and getting some pretty meaty answers from the panelists. This was a very well programmed panel.

IFP’s US Industry Immersion
Consulate General of Canada in New York
Alternative Models of Distribution
March 14, 2008

(L to R: Jason Guerrasio, Arianna Bocco, Tom Quinn, Slava Rubin and Lance Weiler)

Moderator:
Jason Guerrasio, Managing Editor, Filmmaker Magazine

Panelists:
Arianna Bocco – Vice President, Acquisitions and Productions, IFC Entertainment
Tom Quinn – Senior Vice President, Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing
Slava Rubin – Founder & Chief of Strategy and Marketing, IndieGoGo.com
Lance Weiler – Partner, Seize the Media & Co-Founder, From Here to Awesome

Opening Remarks

John McNab (Deputy Consul General, Consulate General of Canada in New York):
This was the first occasion I had to participate in this, the fifth anniversary of coming together of the Canadian film community. It’s maturing into quite an event. Last night at MoMA, I saw Poor Boy’s Game. It was an edgy film. There was a discussion after with Canadians and Americans talking about distribution and financing.

Michelle Byrd (Executive Director, IFP):
The program is based on the relationship and success of the International Alliance, a new IFP program. Last week, we did a program with Unifrance. In November, we’ll do one with the Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival. We feel New York City is the capital of independent film. Today’s event was inspired by four years of working with the Consulate General of Canada.

Susan Boehm (Managing Director, International Programs, IFP):
Poor Boys Game participated in IFP’s No Borders program in 2004. Those participating in today’s event will become digital members of IFP.

The Discussion

Before asking questions to the panel, Guerrasio said that the film The Lilliput, which is featured on IndieGoGo.com (founded by panelist Slava Rubin) has raised approximately $10,000 through IndieGoGo.

Guerrasio: Are traditional models of distribution going to the wayside?

Bocco: I look at it on a sliding scale. I don’t think it’s dead, but crippled severely. I don’t think distribution can survive on just traditional models. There’s more films out there, more competition for screens and rising costs.

Quinn: I feel crippled, handicapped and screwed. For the last eight years of theatrical distribution, there are at least twice as many prints. Ticket prices have raised approximately 30%. The price to produce a movie has raised approx. 40%. The million dollar theatrical gross was attainable three to four years ago, and now is only attainable to about $300K-$400K.

Rubin: When does distribution really start? Do you think about strategy from the start of making your film? Is online distribution an option? The challenge is the capacity of distribution and the cost to make film is still a hurdle. The risk is slowly coming out of that process. What medium do you want to have your film distributed? Folks coming to IndieGoGo.com are not taking for granted their film has to get theatrical distribution.

Guerrasio: How do you get your films out there?

Weiler: The Democratization of tools has created a surplus of films. When I released my film on DVD, it performed well at retail stores like Best Buy, but there is shrinking retail space. The excitement is with the direct connection to your audience. I start early in the process. I got my audience to help me to amplify my message. You see this mostly in the music industry, ie. artists trying to get control of their work such as Radiohead.

Guerrasio: Magnolia Pictures and IFC Films are successfully using the day-and-date model. How has the model worked for you?

Quinn: It always comes back to the content. Unless it’s tailored for a particular release, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Look at the figures and numbers of what day-and-date are doing. Magnolia is pushing 40 million households on VOD. The benefit is we also own Landmark Theatres, a chain dedicated to specialized film in the top 21 markets. This enables us to flex our muscles in the day-and-date model. Our showing of the Oscar short films was very successful surpassing $500K. It was simultaneously released on iTunes. Theatrical money always jumps from there.

Bocco: The key is prints & advertising (P&A). The whole notion of the amount of money spent on traditional distribution has really changed. IFC releases about two films per month or 24 films per year. You have to be conscious of P&A spent. Our day-and-date model (IFC FirstTake) has worked incredibly well. It has evolved. We release films theatrically and on VOD simultaneously, ie. Paranoid Park. There’s certain reciprocity with theatrical releases and VOD. It actually helps your box office. Word of mouth really spreads. With 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, we projected low VOD numbers, but probably quadrupled our expectations. It’s also about to go to $1M at the box office.

Quinn: It’s an ever evolving thing as far as content goes.

Guerrasio: Is the FirstTake model being used for every IFC film now?

Bocco: Yes. We’re now in 50 million homes for VOD. We just made a deal with Blockbuster. It’s been really successful. Why go backwards to a traditional model? We have a lot of these ‘Mumblecore’ movies. They embrace this model. I see a generational difference in filmmakers. Even someone like Gus Van Sant is all for it.

Rubin: Robert Greenwald’s Iraq for Sale was a successful and controversial film. My point is that he needed to raise approximate $750K, but could only get about $350K. He sent an email to people who saw his other films and raised around $250K from them. He already had an embedded audience. Instead of Do-It-Yourself (DIY), we call it Do It With Others. How do you create a multi-platform universe where your project can exist?

Weiler: For Head Trauma, I had a VOD release through Warner Bros. I knew they wouldn’t promote the movie, so I created an alternative reality game (ARG). The storyline ran in tandem with Head Trauma called Hope is Missing. I released it through a variety of outlets. I saw 2.5 million people play the game spending many hours with it. I also did guerilla drive-in screenings. People found out about them through the game. I also used this to promote the DVD release. Day-and-date sees consumers driving the way the market is going. The game experience created this whole world. A perfect example is World Without Oil where uses created content. It’s a form that’s emerging and has a lot of possibilities. If it’s compelling, people will engage in it. Th