What Does A Producer Do?

 First published December 10, 2012

Question: What does a producer do? Answer: 5 to 10 if he’s caught.

Putting bad jokes to one side, it ought to be a pretty simple question. After all, everybody knows that a director directs and a screenwriter writes. But credits for producers are often stretched out in various – and often confusing – ways.

For example, take my title (used occasionally) here at R&R Consulting. I am sometimes referred to as a Production Consultant. What does this mean? Got me. I have performed a very odd and varied list of functions and quite honestly, we were running out of ideas of how to describe it. The title is not so much a job reference as a loose string of associations. But it sounds good. Just like Corinthian leather.

The question becomes especially perplexing when a movie has a long list of producers, executive producers, associate producers and more. In the case of a Hollywood tent-pole flick, it is not unusual to see a list of 4 or more executive producers, 3 or more producers, a couple of co-producers, as well as an assortment of associate and line producers. But there are also increasing amount of low budget films that rival (or even surpass) the big boys in their string of credits. Heck, the movie A Dirty Shame had 7 executive producers, 2 co-executive producers, 2 producers, and 1 co-producer. It had more producers than viewers.

Which may explain why some people have gotten a tad cynical about how these titles work. At his web site, screenwriter John August gives a pretty straight forward description of these titles. A more cynical (though not unfair) presentation can be found by Rick Schwartz at Grantland.com. In each case, the articles strongly suggest the need for a major overhaul of the system.

Which is why the Producers Guild of America has been trying to create a better, more tightly defined list of what these credits should mean. Hence the slow but increasing use of the Producers’ Mark by major studios and continuing attempts to clearly define the different levels of production credit. The Producers’ Mark is designed to certify that the producer has met a precise system of job classifications and standards with the Guild. Of course, that also means that the producer is a member of the Guild. A lot of people involved in low budget indie movies will not yet be qualified to join the Guild. To be honest, the Producers’ Mark has a very limited effect in the business. But it sounds good. Just like Corinthian leather.

However, I would strongly recommend anyone currently looking to do a low budget movie to carefully read the Guild’s list of what job functions they should accept to be performed by any person seeking the Produced For credit. Over the past several years, I have received various questions from young first-time filmmakers about the role of the producer and the PGA does provide a solid guide for defining this role. For example, in the Development section,  they emphasis the producer’s role in securing the initial financing. Keep that in mind the next time you are talking with a so-called producer who offers to “produce” your movie if you can “produce” the money. As I keep telling people, that isn’t how it works. Don’t believe me, ask the PGA.

The PGA also provides a detailed breakdown of functions for most every other producer credit. It is a rational approach to the issue of production credits and makes the process pretty straight forward…until you hit one of the many gray zones. You know, like when you have an actor with the kind of name value that will help secure financing for your film but who is only willing to do the movie if they get a production credit but who you don’t want in a position of any real authority over the project because they are some kind of complete and infamous egotistical nimrod with no clue and you only want to give them the illusion of power but no real say in anything beyond ordering lunch.

Suddenly, you are calling this star a co-executive producer. With luck you only have to listen between takes to all of their hot ideas (while you zone out to your own favorite mental landscape). Unfortunately, they sometimes take the title seriously and think they have real say over the movie. If you are the director, this is when you fall back on the PGA list and make the real producer deal with it.

It also means that no matter how you try to define these various credits, there will always be exceptions. This is especially true in indie films where credits are often more available than financial rewards. Likewise, few people working on a low budget movie are going to belong to any of the guilds, and most of them are working on the movie in order to get the screen credits they desperately need for future projects. So the handing out of various producer credits becomes an essential enticement. Of course, the credits also start to become increasingly weird as the caterer becomes the co-executive associate producer.

Which is why it remains difficult to really maintain a tight control over these credits. In many movies the most significant titles will be the Produced By credit and Co-Producer/Line Producer. Half the time, the other titles are more honorary than significant. Even when they are significant, they don’t always mean much. There are a few cases where one of the executive producers got the title only because they agreed not to sue the filmmakers for some type of copyright violation. Likewise, if the movie is based on a book,  it is not uncommon to give the author an executive producer title. It briefly convinces them that you intend to faithfully pay attention to their artistic vision (until they get a look at the finished film).

So my advise is to use the PGA guidelines as the starting point for defining the various roles of producer. But if nobody involved in the movie is with the guild, you need not get too cracked up about it. Just don’t be too slap happy with the titles. They can – and will – have legal significance if and when somebody gets mad enough to sue.

Meanwhile, the attempt to make sense out of production credits will continue its curious rise and fall. The drive to abuse these credits is just too darn tempting to be easily regulated.

Film Fund-amentals 2013: Things to Come

 First published December 17. 2012

We are already well into the second decade of the 21^st century and I still don’t have my own personal jet-pack or robot. Heck, I don’t even have a lousy iPhone.

But 2013 is almost here, and everyone is beginning to peek ahead at a coming year of changes within the film industry. Of course that means looking back at the immediate past in hopes of second-guessing the imminent future. It’s a tough call. 2012 feels a bit like the year when many of us were run over by a truck and we hadn’t even left the house.

So what have we learned from 2012?  Just last summer, the big worry was the steep decline of the American box office with Hollywood insiders blaming everything from the internet to sun spots. Now the hot story is the impending surge at the box office due to the sure fire nature of upcoming holiday releases. After a long year of despair, optimism has become a new hobbit among the studios.

OK, you can’t have it both ways, can you? One of these notions has got to be wrong. Perhaps? In some respects, both views are half correct. It won’t be until early next year before an accurate assessment can be made, but it will look a bit like this: The attendance drop in 2012 was so severe that almost anything better is going to look awfully damn good. Since many of the major releases in Spring and Summer 2012 went more flat than an armadillo on a Texas highway, the late burst of box office exuberance will help to artificially peek the year to a better record (based in part on how bad it was during the holiday period in 2011). Then it will be followed by the steep drop of 2013.

Sometimes the key is not in the individual numbers but the overall pattern. Movie audiences have been in a steady decline for years. Despite the occasional fluctuations, the decline will simply continue. The success of movies like The Hobbit  and Skyfall just don’t matter in the Big Picture.

The Big Picture is part of the reason why Hollywood is beginning to discover data analytics. Behind the scene of Les Miserables is an experimental application of a data system for handling budget and revenue projections. As a colleague of mine has recently argued, it isn’t the most rigorous test: the movie has several whopping big factors already in its favor, like audience awareness, well established original property and a big name cast. But it’s a start. Since it will undoubtedly succeed in hitting its projected mark, it will be a convincing case in favor of such systems. Sometimes an easy pitch is the best way to start.

2012 was the year that crowdfunding became the salvation of indie film financing. It was also the year that crowdfunding came to the attention of the federal government and the Security Exchange Commission. New rules are about to be applied to crowdfunding. These rules may or may not have a negative effect on the process for indie filmmakers. The true taste of the impending SEC rules on crowdfunding will not be felt until the middle of 2013 (by which time we will actually know what the rules are). It’s one of those moments when all I can think of is Sam Fuller’s infamous advise to the screenwriter in the Wim Wenders’ movie The State of Things.

This has also been the year when the imbalance between the US and European box office has become a critical factor in distribution strategy. Increasingly, major Hollywood movies are making the majority of their ticket sales overseas, with the differences averaging between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1 ratios. Likewise, many big budget movies are finding it advisable to open overseas first as a lead in to the weaker American market. At the moment, the overseas audience has a big appetite for Hollywood productions. In some cases, they have a bigger appetite than Americans for weirdly jingoistic movies (e.g. Battleship). It’s good business as long as the global economy doesn’t tank again (still a serious possibility), but how much longer overseas audiences will support Hollywood movies against their own national productions? Sure, it helps that most foreign production systems are currently extremely weak in terms of production and distribution access. But all that can – and undoubtedly will – change.

Which is why so many folks in the film industry are banking hard on the China strategy. The Chinese are looking to solidify and extend their holdings into various levels of American businesses. They are extremely interested in Hollywood. They have money, so Hollywood is extremely interested in them. The Chinese are already deeply involved in various major productions over here (for example, Iron Man 3). Hollywood suits are in China working on a wide variety of business deals and production arrangements. Ironically, few of these people are taking the time to try and learn anything about the Chinese beyond our Western stereotypes.

I don’t have that much direct experience with the Chinese in business matters. Some but not much. However, I would highly recommend a recent posting by my colleague Ann Rutledge who does have extensive Chinese business experience. Or a chat with an old film professor of mine, George S. Semsel. He has done a lot of work with the Chinese and they hold him in high regard.

I would also remind people in Hollywood of one thing: Garrison’s Gorillas. Right after Nixon made his visit to China in the early 1970s, a collection of old American TV shows got sold to the Chinese for broadcast. Among the various shows sent over were the 26 episodes of a largely unsuccessful (and pretty much forgotten) series called Garrison’s Gorillas. It became a hit in China. The Chinese saw it as a sterling tribute to the concept of team work and group discipline. Over here, most viewers just thought of it as a long pause between commercials. But hey, we ain’t Chinese.

Which is going to be a problem. The Chinese have a very different mind set. For one thing, they have minds, whereas the jury is still out on many people in Hollywood. 2013 may be the year for one heck of a cultural collision.

I’m just hoping for a ringside seat.

Of Critics and Curators

 First published January 3, 2013

It may be a new year, but we are still limping through the same old battles. At least, that is one reaction I had to Ted Hope’s recent additions to his original list of things that are currently wrong with the indie film business (The Really Bad Things in the Indie Film Biz 2012).

Everyone in the indie business should read Hope’s lists. Yes, lists.

It started out in early 2012 as several dozen critical observations and has grown exponentially. Before New Year’s Eve, he was hitting the 100 mark. It’s enough bad news that you may want several stiff drinks on hand as you read. Then, before you decide to give up altogether and become an insurance salesman, you should also read some of the responses  to his points. Obviously, I am inclined to recommend last week’s blog by my colleague, Ann Rutledge.  She did an excellent job of contextualizing some of the key financial concerns raised by Hope.

So most of my work is done.

Well, not quite. Hope makes a lot of extremely provocative, profound, and very critical comments about lots of things that are wrong in the indie biz. For example, he repeatedly notes the lack of any kind of substantial venue for film curatorship, as well as the lack of any kind of film critic establishment. The result is a serious gap of any kind of informational and critical discussion of film, especially on issues crucial to indie cinema. And Hope is correct on every point in regard to this failure. He’s also wrong at the same time. As an ex-film curator (13 years) and ex-film critic (5 years), I have some first-hand experience with these issues.

At almost every level, the traditional public arena for critical analysis and knowledgeable information on film has fallen into an abyss. Film critics are an extinct species, and the handful of honest-to-goodness film curators are found only at better-funded art institutions. After explosive growth in the 1960s and 1970s, film academia has largely vanished into the shadows of most universities. The public forum for film studies has become a pale ghost.

Obviously, this is a bad thing, but let’s not over-state its significance. Most mainstream daily newspapers, and many weekly alternatives, only had film reviewers on staff as an inducement for getting advertising dollars from film companies. This was also why most publicists (and some filmmakers) felt that the reviewers “owed” them. It was a complicated relationship that had to be shrewdly played and especially tricky if you had concerns about journalistic ethics. The last magazine I worked at didn’t have such concerns, and I got bounced at the request of a major studio PR staffer. So much for the Golden Age.

Add in the (half correct) perception that the average reader was interested only in the most mainstream of titles. For most daily papers, the focus was on high profile, well-known films. For most weeklies, it was on high profile, well-known and possibly “hip” titles. Most of the indie cinema was considered a waste of space. Especially if they were small indie films directed by non-white, non-male, non-straight filmmakers. I know because for a few years I was one of the few critics who made a point of covering a wide range of such material, and it was pretty darn lonely out there. I swear there were nights, as I made my way through the barren parking lot, that you could hear the wolves howling at the moon.

The situation with film curators is even worse. First, I should preface my comments by noting the curiously large number of people with no experience with the inner workings of a museum, who often have odd ideas about what goes on within this sacred structure. They seem to think the staff spend the day sipping tea (pinky finger extended) while having erudite discussions about art. That is why I always like to remind these folks that the museum world is one of the few areas of American society that the mob never tried to take over. It’s too ruthless even for those guys.

Between the political infighting, back stabbing, routine outbreaks of panic and hysteria, museums occasionally get around to the issue of art. But not that often. When they do, it tends to be a very political exercise primarily focused on what will advance a senior department head’s career. Except for a brief period of time about 40 years ago, film was not (and still is not) viewed as a form of career advancement. In most cases, film curating is more of a dead-end. This is pretty much true at even the handful of institutes with well established films programs. Or, as an ex-film curator from the Museum of Modern Art once said to me: “I got tired of taking crap for little pay.”

Anytime a film program is attempted by an average-sized museum, it tends to get assigned to the education department–a dumping ground for many museums. The programming often ends up being done by someone in the education department who sees him or herself as a bit of a film buff. Sometimes what they do is sort of OK. Sometimes it is sort of not OK. Mostly, it doesn’t matter. Within the institutional structure, the whole thing is often treated as a minor sidebar to a freak show.

Add in the fact that most film curators have a major flaw in their thinking. They do not see themselves as being there to develop a wider, more extensive program of genuine artistic or educational value. They curate based on their own personal tastes and social or political inclinations. The results are sometimes OK and sometimes not so OK. But the methodology is extremely marginal and provides a very limited forum for developing public film knowledge.

So Hope’s comments about the lack of film criticism and curating are quite valid. They are also a reminder that he has been living for a long time in New York, where traditionally there have been many exceptions to everything I just said! Ironically, these problems have been in place for over 40 years through most of the country. Heck, its really been like this since the time of the nickelodeon.

The long-standing nature of this problem makes it more manageable than disturbing. Especially when you lay to rest any illusions about the past. Oh sure, we did some really great work back in those days.

But I would also be the first to say: “Get over it and move on.”

Do You Need an Agent?

 First published January 13, 2013

Legendary film editor Dede Allen was once asked by a student, “Who is your agent?”

Allen’s reply was quick. “I don’t have an agent. I have a lawyer.”

Not a bad answer, though it works best if you are Dede Allen. Most people could use an agent. Few people will ever get one. The reason is pretty straightforward.

An agent wants clients who are marketable. That means that they are either a high profile talent or, at the very least, a prominent emerging talent. In other words, they want people who already have some sort of name value that can be commercially peddled. They want people who are in a position where they don’t necessarily need an agent.

The people who could really use an agent are those folks who are not well known. They are not very prominent. They are not particularly connected. They could really use the help that can be provided by an agent.

Too bad. They are not marketable. The system is perversely logical (if cruel) in its simplicity. Those who could most use an agent are the least likely to get one. Those who can get an agent…well, you got the drill. It doesn’t hurt to try. Just be ready to be rejected because you will be, over and over again. Most agents receiving a cold contact from an aspiring client will not even respond. On the rare occasion when they do respond, count yourself lucky.

But despite all of this, you may still want to press ahead. Actually, one good place to start is at About.com. They present a basic but significant check list of how a writer, actor, or filmmaker should approach the first stage of the search. For example, a filmmaker needs to have some sort of demo reel for presentation. If you are a screenwriter, your scripts should look professional, with a correct format and careful proofing.

You have to focus on the best way to market yourself. Don’t spend ten pages telling them that you are wonderful. You have to show them that you’re wonderful in under 30 seconds. If the agent actually looks at the demo reel, they will make a decision about you in 10 seconds or less. Most likely, it will be an assistant looking at the reel and their main job is to weed people out, not in. I’m not trying to be a downer, but you need to be realistic about the process.

Of course this also means that you have a good body of work to present. That is a point strongly emphasized by Marc Maurino in a blog report he wrote about a panel discussion on films and agents at the Independent Film Week in 2010.

And, you are going to want a lawyer, preferably an entertainment lawyer but, at the very least, a lawyer who works with contracts. I know: this is one more pain-in-the-rear item on the plate. But anytime you go to sign up with an agent, you are signing legal papers. So you need to have somebody in your corner who actually knows what you are signing.

Obviously signing up with an agent brings up the question of finding an agency. My first response is to skip the whole question and just wish you good luck. There are many pitfalls to this process and no magic fix. You might start by simply using Google, where you can find lists like the one at FindTheBest.com. It’s respectable but also incredibly mainstream list. If your material is really good and your presentation is truly hot, you just might get a very personal and touching rejection letter. When that happens, please keep in mind that “no” is never an absolute.

Take time researching these lists and conduct extensive checks on any and every agency that comes up, especially the lesser-known ones. There are some perfectly fine small agencies that may even be more suitable for an indie filmmaker. There are also a lot of complete flakes and scammers out there. Any one who has read my previous pieces on this issue should know the routine. If not, I’ll just sum it up fast: cross-check and verify everything.

For example, all agencies will post lists of their better known clients. You need to verify that these people really are their clients. There are various ways to do this, though the Pro version of the IMDb.com database is the quickest. If the agency doesn’t have a client list, walk the other way. Real agencies live and die by their client lists and love to show them off. Only bogus agents are shy about naming names. If you need a more detailed list of warning signs, you might refer to Top Ten Ways to Tell if a Talent Agency is a Scam. Though the article is focused on the modeling business, many of the tips apply to all agencies.

Which brings us back to the question at the top of this piece: when do you need an agent?  There is no real answer. The best answer anyone can give is, when you feel you are ready. Of course you have to be at a stage where you have material to show. You are working in a professional, career orientated capacity. You can look in the mirror and say that you are good enough and smart enough without falling into a fit of hysterical laughter.

Then you might be ready. Or you can do what one highly successful indie filmmaker did, and get your father to handle a lot of this work for you.

Just remember to always say, “Thanks, Dad.”

The Convergence of Sex and Violence

 First published January 24, 2013

Gun violence in movies and media is a hot topic. Just ask Robert Redford, who devoted part of his opening address at the current Sundance Festival to this issue. In his address, Redford frames the question in terms of social responsibility.

Questions concerning sex, specifically sex and public health, are also hot. Just ask the lawyers for a collection of major porn companies in Los Angeles County. They are filing suit based on the legal argument that the mandated use of condoms in adult movies is a violation of the First Amendment. Which means that we are about to witness a fascinating exercise in linguist convergence as the debate on these issues take a wild flip flop from their traditional focus.

Let’s start with sex. During the past decade, the porn industry has taken many major hits. All the free online amateur material has drastically reduced the “professional” profit margin. It use to be easy to make a quick, if dirty buck. Now, the porn industry finds itself trying to upgrade production quality and even resorting to “scripts” and “plot lines” in hope of luring an audience that has way too many options for cheap thrills.

Then there have been some major health problems. Last year, there was a syphilis outbreak in the industry that resulted in a brief production shut down. There has also been recurring HIV concerns. The problem of STDs is taken seriously enough in the porn business that they have their own medical agency (the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation). Testing for STDs is done on a regular and systematic basis. The industry says that they’ve got the issue covered, so their performers don’t need to be “covered.”

But some studies indicate otherwise, such as a recent report from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. I suspect what these studies are discovering is that the industry approach is reactive, not proactive. They can discover and deal with a performer who has come down with an STD, but they cannot truly prevent it. Which is why the county of Los Angeles has approved a measure forcing porn “actors” to use condoms. It is viewed as a public health issue.

Except that the industry is appealing on the grounds that it is an infringement of their Right to Free Expression as guaranteed in the First Amendment. After all, when the Founding Fathers were dripping their quills and drafting the Constitution, they were referring to both their big and little brains. The real problem is that the legally enforced use of condoms takes away the “money shot,” which is a major commercial staple of the industry. It is about business, not opinions. But the porn industry is working very hard at turning a health issue into a Constitutional fight. Gun violence in the movies is already protected by the First Amendment, more or less. Ironically, the industry largely does not press on this First Amendment protection. Instead, they prefer insisting that violence in media does not influence public behavior and even if it did, it only reflects the violence in the society.

This has always been a slippery argument. Movies do not operate in a vacuum (though some films are empty headed enough to seem like they do). Likewise, since the industry has already admitted that they “reflect” the society, it does not take much to ponder the larger effect of some type of social and behavior exchange between the society and the reflected image. In other words, a pattern of stimulus, response, reward, and reinforcement. Which is why the debate on gun violence in media is moving away from the First Amendment and heading toward the mental health zone. In some recent interviews, Quentin Tarantino has been directly asked this question. So far, his less than brilliant responses have convinced almost everybody (including Fox News for crying out loud) that there may be a point to the mental health argument.

So the question of violence in movies is becoming a public health issue, while the use of condoms in porn is a free speech concern. The first question has been a ticking time bomb in the movie business for a long while; and the industry is finally going to have to seriously deal with it. As for the other, well I guess we now know which brain does the talking in certain businesses.

How dare the citizens of Los Angeles try to gag the gabby little darlings.

Sundancing the Indie Biz

 First published February 4, 2013

Low budget indie movies are hot.

That is supposedly the message from the recent Sundance Festival, where distribution purchase records were being set. Titles were being grabbed at $2.5 million (Fruitvale),  $4 million (both Austenland and Don Jon’s Addiction), and finally hitting the grand jackpot of $10 million for The Way, Way Back.

Are they sure this was Sundance? Sounds more like a sweepstake being worked by Ed McMahon. But hey, it’s a great boom for a few indie filmmakers. The question is: Does this help the indie business?

It certainly suggests a resurgence of interest in medium budget movies. Take for example The Way, Way Back. It’s not really low, low budget. It was directed by the two guys who previously scripted The Descendants, which means that they are not exactly newcomers. (If you count TV, they’ve been around for a while). It’s designed to be a slightly quirky, mildly feel-good, low key crowd pleaser.

In other words, it is the kind of movie that mainstream Hollywood use to make on a more regular basis several decades ago.  This is the case with virtually every one of the movies that received large pay outs (the notable exception being Fruitvale). It is a reminder that there is Indie (capital “I”) and then there is indie (small “i”). Not to criticize any of these films, but there is a difference. I mean I like both donuts and doughnuts, but I have been thoroughly lectured by some hard-core baker types about the difference.

These generous purchases at Sundance will not necessarily mean much for the vast majority of Indie (capital I) filmmakers. In principle, they can’t hurt. They say a rising tide lifts all boats.

Except it really doesn’t. Not in this case. The cash outflows in this process have been very narrow in focus and will not raise the price in other movie categories.

Then there is the other little problem. Of all the movies that received large pick up deals, most likely only one will ultimately go any where. At the best, several of these movies will do some modest business. One of them – maybe – will go wide and prosper. This is simply the harsh logic of modern movie distribution.

Unfortunately, such harsh logic also sets the stage for a perceived pattern of failure, which will depress the rest of the business. Sometimes a high tide sinks all boats.

Which is where the other side of Sundance comes into play: The VoD market was also hot. Technically, the emergence of VoD was supposed to be a major focus at this year’s festival. It got a bit lost in the news reports, but it was there.

The VoD debate usually comes down to the question of online distribution versus theatrical release. In reality, there isn’t much of a debate. Most low budget Indie (again, capital “I”) movies will either have no theatrical distribution or, at the very least, extremely limited release (often 6 to 12 screens, tops). Then they turn to VoD.

In the past, this pattern was viewed as failure. But it isn’t. Limited theatrical exposure can be serviceable as an advertisement for VoD. Digital distribution is already a major extension for indie release and will, within the next several years, largely replace theatrical presentation. The real issue is what role, if any,  theaters will have in the emerging new system.

Perhaps the most significant Indie (capital…you know the drill) moment at Sundance was the screening of Escape From Tomorrow. Made for just over half a million and employing guerrilla filming techniques as well as the Canon EOS 5D camera (looks like a standard still camera but has a video mode), the movie is already a major legal controversy due to its unauthorized use of Disney World as the main location.

Disney is still debating what – if any – legal actions they may take against the film or film-maker. As a general rule, it is not a good idea to film at any commercial location without approval. Oddly enough, Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu argues that a solid legal argument can be made in favor of the film. Most likely, the winning argument will have to be sorted out in court.

But doesn’t this narrative sound a lot more like it is related to “Indie” rather than “indie” film-making? Heck, the threat of legal action by Disney is the greatest kind of press a low budget movie could ask for! Escape is also a fantastic model of just how far digital film production has progressed. It doesn’t even matter if the film is any good (though the initial reviews are positive). It is already some kind of bizarre but important benchmark.

Which also means that Escape From Tomorrow has delivered on the full, genuine, and potent promise of Indie film-making. The filmmakers have taken all of their weaknesses and played them for strengths, tossed the conventional rule book out the window, and plowed ahead with the single-minded determination to make a movie.

Sometimes that really is what the business is all about.

Future Tense

 First published February 12, 2013

For some, the glass is half empty. For others, it is half full.

But for a few of of us, the real question is: What glass?  I see only water.

Which partly sums up my own attitude when assessing the possible future developments involving the film industry and the digital revolution. Three recent blog articles do an excellent job of summarizing several key issues that have formed over the last several years.

In a post titled The Independent’s Guide to Film Exhibition and Delivery 2013, Jeffrey Winter of The Film Collaborative does a superb job of describing the rapidly emerging digital system for commercial movie distribution. He is especially good at outlining how a new distribution system that could (in theory) be a plus for indie filmmakers is actually being designed for increased control (as in near total control) by the major media companies.

The digital distribution system that will be standard by the end of this year is a top-down structure that excludes virtually everybody (including the theaters) from any real and active say into the system. The major companies do not particularly like the digital form. In many respects, they don’t really understand it and they are actually half afraid of it. But by gum, they are going to own it by hook or by crook. The glass is half empty and they want the glass.

Which brings us to the other must-read blog post of the month. Knowing the Film Market – Part I of HBS Study on Blue Potato by Kathryn Ogletree is part of a highly significant research project by four graduates from the Harvard Business School on new models for indie films and their relationship with major media companies. They are creating business models that would allow indie filmmakers to enter this emerging structure sideways (so to speak).

The Blue Potato team (it’s the name of their film project) is doing a great job of formalizing a complex business model that has previously occurred somewhat haphazardly in indie filmmaking. They are not looking to challenge the top-down management system. Instead, they are attempting to slip into it either through the backdoor or the kitchen window. Under the current distribution system, this project provides a fantastic set of guidelines and should be read by all indie filmmakers.

So yes, the glass is half full and though you may never own the glass, you might be able to lease it.

Of course, that is under the current distribution system. Over at GQ.com, there is the article And the Award for the Next HBO Goes to…. a long interview with Reed Hastings, the co-founder and CEO of Netflix.

Before I say more, I should confess that my track record with Hastings is, at best, only fifty-fifty. Some years ago, I warned that the move by Netflix from mail order DVDs to online content would be potentially disastrous. I was wrong. I also warned that such a move could be prone to other major missteps that could implode into a disastrous piece of corporate over reach. The failure of Qwikster did wonders for my damaged sense of self-esteem.

But the more I read interviews with Hastings, the more I kind of like this guy. He is all over the place like a rapidly rising tide. Yep, he is all about water. Who needs a stinkin’ glass?

Before reading this interview, you might want to keep in mind a couple of key historic points about cinema. Film was a unique artistic and technological byproduct of the Industrial Revolution. Notice I used the past tense. Even the development of the movie audience was a result of unique sociological features caused by  industrialization. Again, I am using the past tense.

With the Digital Revolution, everything has changed. We still talk about film and the film industry much the same way that we still refer to the rising of the sun. But the sun doesn’t rise (it has something to do with the rotation of the earth) and film is now an historical relic. Virtually every element of the media industry is evolving into something extremely different from anything we have previously known. A person like Reed Hastings knows enough to know that basically we know nothing. What ever the future will be, it will be unlike anything we are currently envisioning.

The interview with Hastings kept reminding me of an odd conversation I had back in the late 1980s. I was working with a guest curator on a museum presentation about the current state (back then) of computer generated imagery. The guy I was dealing with would later become a very prominent figure in CGI and special effects in an impressive range of major movies, and I found myself getting a pretty good introduction to the whole field. But as we were talking, a seemingly bizarre – perhaps even evil – idea occurred to me.

Based upon everything he was saying about the emerging digital model, why don’t we just cut to the chase and simply connect cable straight into the audience’s cerebral cortex for direct distribution of the material?

He actually thought I had a good idea. I was joking, but he was serious.

I learned two things that night. The first is that the possibilities are endless. The second, I really got to watch my mouth. The last thing I need is to have some one wrapping tin foil around my head so we all can get better reception.

Brave New World

 First published February 19, 2013

Previously, I outlined some major actual or impending changes taking place in the film industry. Many of these are related to distribution strategy.  But there are even more significant changes in the works. These will affect not just the production of films but also how the creative process is conceptualized. Some impending changes may even alter our conception of humanity.  But, before we lose our grip altogether, let us go back and look at film’s early beginnings, since the patterns of the future usually can be found within the rubble of the past.

The first film experiments were conducted in the late 1880s, with moving images.  These were very simple bits of film, like Roundhay Garden. The link I’ve included is to a reworked version with added title cards. The surviving version of the original is about 3 seconds long.  By the mid-1890s, Thomas A. Edison http://www.thomasedison.com/ and his company were experimenting with sound movies.  Developed for Edison by William Dickson, these short films attempted to synchronize the moving image to a wax cylinder.

The first step toward the development of color motion pictures took place at the end of the 19^th Century.  An early form of color film stock was successfully created in 1909.  A version of Kodachrome color film was tested and available by 1922.  Experiments in color were used in various silent films such as the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera.

Almost all of these early experiments were half ignored and, in many cases,  forgotten. The clips I have provided links to are all relatively recent discoveries. Yet, in many respects, the technical history of the entire first century of movies can be found within these early experiments.  It just took a long while before the industry caught up with the implications.

The same process is happening today.  Two recent little films on the internet are major examples of the future.  At the moment, they are easy to ignore.  They lurk on the fringes and mostly play like an exercise in digital punkin’.  For example, there was the recent YouTube clip slyly entitled UFO Over Santa Clarita.  Like a lot of UFO videos on YouTube, this quickie visual extravaganza is an exercise in digital effects.  The space ships are not real.  Nor is anything else in the footage.  Even the skyline isn’t real.

As detailed in a recent Wired article (“The UFO Is Fake in Animator’s YouTube Prank — But So Is Everything Else“) the film is a highly sophisticated creation of digital programming created by Aristomenis Tsirbas.  Though Tsirbas is already employed as a digital designer for a wide range of films, TV shows, and lots and lots of ads, he is spending his free time developing the totally synthetic image.  Movies that exist solely within the software.

For now, the creation of a totally digital film is a time consuming and costly process.  But that will eventually change.  So far, attempts at creating a feature movie that operated in this form has largely failed.  Despite the technically ambitious efforts of the 2004 production of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the audience was mostly unimpressed.  Admittedly, the dang film played as if it were written by a machine….

Which gets to the next experiment, the short film Do You Love Me.  Directed by Chris R. Wilson and scripted by Cleverbot, the movie is an oddly amusing take on Artificial Intelligence and  its inability to fully grasp certain ins and outs of human language and thought.  This isn’t exactly the point of the movie, but it sort of comes off that way. You can easily watch the movie for a few cheap chuckles and leave convinced that a computer cannot achieve the conceptual and linguist level needed to “write” a movie.  However, I have personally dealt with computer systems that have a greater verbal level than Cleverbot (to be honest, the system strikes me as a little old guard and half funky).  As for story lines, get real.  Most mainstream Hollywood movies are already practically plotted by computer.

Eventually, there will be a totally computer generated production.  Everything from script to images to music will be solely generated from software programs.  Will it be any good?  Probably not, but who knows.  That will not be the point.  The technical possibility is the point.

Being just a tad cynical, I suspect that the computer script will be incorporated into the industry faster than the total digital production process.  The film industry is weirdly conservative in many odd ways and the idea of replacing Brad Pitt with a program called Pitt 2.0 will be a hard one for the industry to accept.  Heck, there goes all of the flashy publicity and brief bursts of glamor.

But computer scriptwriters?  Let’s face it, there are some distinct pluses.  Computers don’t drink.  They rarely go on strike and when they do, you simply reboot.  And they never, ever demand creative input.  From the viewpoint of a studio executive, it is a dream come true.

Of course, it should also be noted that a computer could eventually replace most studio executives.  We really are not that far from Hal 9000 and eventually the average round of negotiations in a Hollywood office may sound a bit like the classic scene in 2001.

And it will all be coming very soon to a digitized automated theater near you.

Film Fund-amentals: Why Hollywood Is No Longer Number One

 First published February 25, 2013

According to a recent Sky News report, China will soon outstrip Hollywood in film production. In a recent piece from the Agence France Presse, China is now number two to the US market in ticket sales. Though Hollywood movies produce the stronger revenue at the Chinese box office, there are increasingly powerful exceptions. The biggest current hit in the Asian market is the Chinese movie Journey to the West.

Of course, all estimates about who is number one in the international market is always open to debate. It depends upon how you frame the question. The American box office is number one in the amount of money made primarily because of the cost of tickets in the US. In reality, American movie attendance has been in steep decline for years (and will continue dropping). Heck, that attendance decline is one of the reasons why theaters keep upping the ticket cost.

Likewise, American mainstream movie production has dropped. Currently, Hollywood only produces about 15 per cent of the movies made internationally. We are way behind India in the amount of movies made, and almost as far behind as Nigeria. Eventually, Nollywood will surpass Hollywood in sheer terms of output.

But does this matter?  After all, we have Johnny Depp and they don’t. More importantly, Hollywood has the kind of money that can buy Johnny Depp, and they don’t. Money – and lots of it – has always been the secret to Hollywood. In theory, the Hollywood cinema took global dominance because of its superior quality. In reality, it had to do with a series of extremely convenient historical factors.

The first was the formation of the classical Hollywood studio system. The classical studio system was a vertical and horizontal monopoly structure that gave Hollywood an incredible financial base from which to dominate the international film market. No other country had this model; arguably, the closest were fascist cinemas of Germany and Italy in the 1930s, which enjoyed a unique control of the European market.

In the aftermath of World War II, these rivals were kaput, and Europe became Hollywood’s backyard. Besides, most all foreign competitors lacked a “special something” that Hollywood had in its favor.

Before I continue, let me post a quick disclaimer. I am about to engage in a highly subjective and completely idiosyncratic presentation of film history. If you should come across books on film history presenting the subject in the following manner, you should immediately toss them.

What Hollywood had – and that everyone else lacked – was a solid sense of crap. I am using the word “crap” in a completely non-judgmental sense. There is “good crap,” and then there is “bad crap.” Hollywood had successfully created a foolproof formula for churning out lots of pretty-OK crap. Oh sure, various foreign filmmakers could create artistic masterpieces that would make the average Hollywood flick look like a pale imitation of nothingness. But a film industry does not create a large audience with artistic masterpieces. It survives by producing movies that audiences will consume in large quantities. For every occasional outlier like Citizen Kane, Hollywood managed to produce hundreds and hundreds of Westerns, soaps, comedies and other types of completely enjoyable crap.

Throughout the post-World War II era in cinema no other country could equal Hollywood’s production of crap. Oh sure, the Italians gave it a try (and still do). Occasionally, the Italian crap movies would even become significant and turn into major important films (for example, the Westerns of Sergio Leone). But basically, Hollywood had a stranglehold on the mainstream crap market.

But that was then. This is now. Hollywood is no longer able to make good, dependable crap. Sure, they can still crank out the occasional significant or exciting movie. But they no longer know how to crank out solid, reliable crap. For that stuff, you have to go to TV; and, to be honest, the average filmed drama on TV is currently better than the average Hollywood movie.

If you go back and scrutinize recent success stories of Chinese movies like Journey to the West, you may notice something. By all account, this movie is a fun bit of Hong Kong stylized crap. It is lively; it is well done; and it is finding a very large audience in the increasingly vital Asian market. Hong Kong has long been a major player in the international B movie market. As they successfully integrate into the Chinese movie system, they bring to China something that the Chinese didn’t have in their system. They bring major entertainment crap to the production table.

Previously, China has produced great cinema. Many of the major films of the Fifth Generation movement are milestones in modern international cinema. If you care about the art of the cinema, these films are a must. But if you are looking for fun, check out Kung Fu Hustle.

In the emerging collision between Hollywood and China (and trust me, it will turn into a type of collision), you have got to keep an eye on the crap. Crap has always been a major determining factor in the film business. Hollywood has become shoddy in its ability to make good crap. China is learning how to successfully make entertaining crap.

Which means that the crap is about to hit the fan.

Floating in the Post-Oscar Debris

 First published March 6, 2013

The words “boobs” and “Academy Awards” have often appeared together in a sentence. Normally we have meant the non-anatomical meaning of boobs.

But not this year. In a pitch to a younger demographic audience model, the Oscar presentation went on a bumpy joy ride combining its usual institutional blandness with an occasional bitch slap at the audience. I don’t mean the TV audience. I mean the fancy-dressed folks sitting for more than three and a half hours like hostages in the Dolby Theatre.

I am not particularly interested in debating Seth MacFarlane’s handling of the hosting duties at the Oscars. Hosting this show has to be one of the most thankless jobs around. An Oscar host is expected to be a toothless court jester. They are suppose to spoof the business but not the egos as they provide biting commentary but only so long as they lack either bark or bite. No wonder Billy Crystal doesn’t want the lousy job.

To be honest, MacFarlane was better than David Letterman. But then, a colonoscopy was funnier than Letterman. Of course, I also thought that Chris Rock did a swell job back in 2005, so I am not speaking from a mainstream Academy perspective.

However, the fallout from this year’s Oscar presentation has been a singular spectacle. Granted, every Oscar show has its controversies, things like, “How did the movie Crash ever get nominated, less alone win” etc. But this past week most press reports have been so obsessed with women’s breasts and Anne Hathaway’s nipples, I’m beginning to confuse the Oscars with lunch at Hooters.

Some of the controversies we can cut through real quick. Yes, the “I Saw Your Boobs” song-and-dance bit was demeaning, insulting, and just plain rude. It was also quite infantile and might have worked better in Mad Magazine. I assume that the appearance of the Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus was meant as an extra dash of hip irony, but it mostly came off as a bad snarky night at Circus Disco.

The routine might have been salvageable if they’d had the gall to take it further, like maybe a nifty number about leading men and their dick size. Based upon her past comments, Dame Judi Dench might have been willing to present. Sure, it would be rude and crude, but fair is fair…. And I hear she brings her own tape measure.

As for Anne Hathaway’s nipples, enough already. With the cut of the grown she was wearing, it would be almost impossible to tell what was cloth and what wasn’t. Besides, I am a very old fashioned kind of guy who firmly believes that type of display goes with a cover charge and a two-drink minimum. If it is taken outside of that context, I am left confused.

But a taste for misogyny was epidemic this year. The controversy over The Onion tweet concerning nominee Quvenzhané Wallis was tangential to the broadcast, yet in a crude way it highlighted the hostility of the evening. Personally, I have a rule about leaving children out of the line of fire.

Also, various mouthpieces for the Right Wing are outraged that Michelle Obama was allowed to announce the winner for Best Picture. I even heard one of these chaps claim she violated the sanctity of the Academy. The what?  The Academy is not a church and it has never had any sanctity. Besides, the intrusion of political figures into the Oscars is not exactly new. Laura Bush presented a little pep talk back at the 2002 Oscars about what movies meant to her. Just one of so many so-called magical moments I am still trying to forget.

But, still it was odd that they trusted the First Lady with one of those semi-precious and all so secret envelopes. Especially with her being off-site and all. Personally, I have always had my doubts about the level of secrecy surrounding those envelopes. It is just possible that the Secret Service is capable of handling the job (despite some of the recent scandals).

On the other hand, 2013 seems to have been the year for the off-site approach. Even the orchestra was somewhere down the road at Capital Studios. In my experience with musicians working a gig, you never want to leave them so thoroughly unchaperoned. To my point, they started off the evening playing Jaws theme as a cut off signal to long winded acceptance speeches. By 10pm, I half expected the band to shift to a funky riff on Hit the Road Jack.

Maybe the orchestra was offsite because they had ticked off somebody in the international Jewish conspiracy who secretly runs Hollywood. First off, let me point out that there really isn’t such a conspiracy. Honest to God, there really isn’t. I don’t care what that foul-mouthed teddy bear says. Beyond that, I would just as soon let the Anti-Defamation League  handle this one (and between Ted and Joan Rivers, I suspect they have their hands full). But I must admit that the last time a so-called comedy routine was derived from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the punchline turned into World War Two.

These incidents (and many others yet to be noted) signify that we have just survived the single most mean- spirited Academy Awards show in history. By the time the evening had wrapped up with Kristen Chenoweth and Seth MacFarlane singing a final back-handed dig at the losers, some of the attendees were probably ready for a long hot bath and a stiff drink for recovery.

Can’t blame them this time. It was a rough night, especially for anyone who wasn’t a young white guy. So I tell you what, why don’t we just bring back Chris Rock. At least he has more diversity in his insults.

Structural Divergence

 First published March 13, 2013

There must be mornings when the typical indie filmmaker barely can crawl out of bed. On the receiving end of so much bad news, it’s a miracle he or she can even get in the mood to dress before noon.

Barely a week goes by without some new post of doom and gloom for the indie business. For example, a recent blog piece by Ted Hope could be mistaken for a zombie alert warning. Actually, it is an important read for everyone in the indie business. But man oh man, there are times when ol’ Ted starts to sound like one of those depression ads on TV.

Unfortunately, Hope does have some very good points. Especially in regards to the recent article in The Economist titled Hollywood: Split Screens. In turn, this article does a solid job of outlining many of the reasons why the current Hollywood business model is busted.

Busted?  It’s way past that point. Heck, the Hollywood business model is in worse shape than a guy who has just been run over by a truck and the truck driver backs up to see what that “bump” was in the road. Under the current Hollywood model, you spend around $300 million making a film and then hope to score a billion globally in its release. Once in a blue moon, a movie succeeds in pulling off this stunt. This is called dumb luck, and luck is not a business model.

This tent-pole madness has had profoundly negative consequences for indie movies. Why spend $100 million on ten modest movies when you could blow $200 million on one lollapalooza with all the glitz and glamor of big time showbiz?! A lot of the thinking that goes into producing movies is based on irrational impulses. Which is why the film industry is going down the financial sink. As the Economist article points out, the financing role of the film studios (within their larger conglomerate structures) has dropped (big time) over the years. They make movies that require enormous financial resources but with returns that are – at best – negligible. Basically, the TV industry is propping up the film business.

Obviously, this begs a question. Why do it?

The major media companies can’t exactly answer that question. Since they don’t have a working business model and they are engaged in a practice seemingly devoted to increasing costs with no viable returns, then what’s the point?  Fame, glamor, and lots of easy puff pieces on Entertainment Tonight is not a substitute for business management.

So yes, the once-unthinkable will become the highly probable as the major studios go down. Essentially, there are no more studios anyway and the value of their brand names is pretty meaningless. Film production companies are simply small components in large systems and as these small units become too costly to maintain, some one is going to be rude enough to start pulling the plugs. Since most of the majors have sharply reduced their annual production output already, several companies could be phased out with barely a whisper.

But what does this mean to the indie filmmaker?

It means nothing. For all practical purposes, low-budget indie cinema was booted out of the film industry several years ago. Oh sure, once in a blue moon some odd little item will get picked up by a major and then, for about two years, there will be the usual chatter about the industry rethinking their business model. After that, the big companies will go back to their main focus, to be the first to produce a film that breaks the $600 million budget threshold. Most likely this will happen by the end of 2013.

Meanwhile, a growing number of indie filmmakers are beginning to realize that being abandoned by Hollywood is a bit like being booted from the Titanic just before the iceberg arrives. They are losing access to production funds that, in all honesty, they were never going to get anyway.

They are also losing access to the theatrical distribution system, which, increasingly is controlled by the major distributors who foot the bill for massive digital conversion (see The Independent’s Guide to Film Exhibition and Delivery 2013) and now impose a usage fee, the Virtual Projection Fee or VPF. Averaging $800 to $1000 per screen, it places theatrical access out of range for many indie productions. As many indies are now going elsewhere either by direct online distribution or alternative systems like xBox Release, distribution eventually will become irrelevant as the video-game industry becomes the next wave for indie movie releases.

So in the broader scheme of things, indie filmmakers haven’t really lost anything other than their illusions, and that may be a good thing. With little else to lose, indie filmmakers have expanded into new venues to which the majors are still oblivious, and half-clueless.

And while the majors retain near-total control over the access to money, indie filmmakers have gone elsewhere by way of various crowdfunding approaches. Crowdfunding is not a sure thing. At best, it has roughly a 30 per cent success rate. But 30 per cent is already a vast improvement over nothing, which is all the majors have offered them for a very long time.

So yes, the current scene for indie filmmakers is very bumpy at best. But no, the end is not near. Not by a long shot. If anything, it is the major companies that ought to be worried.

After all, they are the ones fighting to achieve a monopoly over a bankrupt model.

Secrets of Writing A Screenplay

 First published March 20, 2013

First thing, right up front, there are no secrets. None whatsoever.
Or at least, that was what I thought until I recently got a variety of spam for assorted hot offers that unlock the ancient secrets of the screenplay. Heck, some of these promotions sound as if I will be spending the next twenty years in a Tibetan monastery. Good thing I can substitute my credit card number in lieu of esoteric training.

In reality, some of these folks (and their various web sites) can teach you how to write a screenplay. That doesn’t mean they can teach how to write a good screenplay or even a marketable one. All they can do is give you the basics about how to format and structure something that just might resemble a plausible script in the most elemental sense of the term.

Of course, you could figure that out for yourself if you were so inclined. But it is different strokes for different folks and buyer beware and all of that standard advice. People have a Constitutional right to pay as much as they want for any amount of screenwriting seminars they desire. I have heard reports from folks who claim they come out of these seminars feeling truly inspired, which I assume is why they keep going back every year. Few if any of them have yet to produce a single marketable screenplay, but they have lots of inspiration.

Sometimes you just want to do something that makes you feel better about yourself. Really, nobody can teach you exactly how to write a screenplay. What you can learn, is how to structure a screenplay. That occurred to me while reading an article at The Guardian by the BBC writer/producer John Yorke. In What Makes a Great Screenplay?, Yorke unreels a quick but highly detailed breakdown of key narrative and dramatic components in the screenplay structure.
I’m not sure that I would totally agree with every point Yorke makes in this piece. But it is worth careful scrutiny by anyone interested in learning narrative craft. Yes, I said craft. Great writing is an art, but getting a solid job done involves craftsmanship. What Yorke provides is an introduction to basic concepts of narrative analysis and structure. If you are a beginner, it may be a bit advanced. Especially when he starts referencing Vladimir Propp. In my days, Propp was largely used as a sneaky ringer to spring on graduate students.
If you are a complete beginner, one of the first most basic things you need to know is length. A lot of people will tell you 120 pages. Keep in mind the general estimate of one page of script for one minute of screen time. 120 pages is roughly a two hour movie (give or take a few minutes). You should not be coming in at this length, especially as a beginner: 90 to 110 pages is preferred, with 120 as the absolute max point. I have heard of producers who will not read any scripts longer than this. I even know a few of their names.
As a general rule, you will only want three main characters. I call this the Star Trek rule. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy offers a concise but extensive spread of personality differences for maximum narrative and character development containable within the confines of a movie. If you want more than three strong characters, you should plan on doing TV. I call this the Star Trek: the Next Generation rule. This is why the simpler original series always played better on the big screen than the more complex and superior sequel show.
Traditionally, screenplays are viewed as being composed of three acts. Some have suggested that it is more like four acts. Others attempt to break it up into sequences. It doesn’t matter. Any movie has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Personally, I see the structure as more resembling a chess game with an opening strategy. For those who cannot stand chess, you might use the classical concerto structure as a reference point. Of course, a few might just want to go for the obvious and use theatrical plays.

Why did I not mention the theater in the first place? Simple. You are trying to write a screenplay, not a theater piece. There is a big difference. Plays are about language and the performers. Movies are about visual structure. If movies were to be compared to any form of traditional stage-based presentation, the closest relative would be opera rather than plays. So maybe you should start boning up on Verdi.

Learn to write dialogue. You should try to develop a good sense for naturalistic dialogue. You know, something that sounds similar to the way people actually talk. Better still, study the range of how people speak. In general, a doctor will speak differently than, say, a cab driver. Good screenwriters have a knack for these differences. Great screenwriters have a glorious field day with it.

Don’t overwrite the script. Unless you are doing My Dinner With Andre, Part Deux, you don’t need a lot of dialogue. Remember, you are writing for a visual art form. Whenever possible, you are looking to “show” the audience, not “tell” them. Once in a blue moon, a film gets by with being a “talk fest.” But that is more the exception than the rule.

And always, no matter what, try to keep your sense of passion in the process. If you can keep yourself engaged in the work, it is just possible that you might engage the audience as well. Not necessarily, but it is a definite plus.

One last bit of advice. Unless you are the Lord Almighty, your words are not written in stone. Always be ready to do extensive rewriting. Often this is the best writing of all.

The End of DVDs

 First published March 30, 2013

Some people are still pondering the business market for DVDs. Guess they haven’t seen the memo. It’s over!  Kaput  The DVD is not yet dead, but it has been admitted into hospice. Various news agencies are already working on the obituary. It will eventually join the rank of such other great devices as the VHS cassette and the Laserdisc. I don’t think it will be a sudden death. More like a lingering decline (which is already well underway). But the end of the DVD format is in sight and the reasons are all pretty straightforward.

Technically, the format has long been iffy. It wasn’t supposed to be, but that thinking was based upon the presumed archival possibilities of DVDs. At the beginning, it was claimed that DVDs could store material for 100 or more years. Of course, they were talking about gold plated discs. Though there have been many vast improvements in discs, the cost of any type of real archival format is still expensive.

Which is why DVDs for the home market has always been cheaply produced. Because of that, the quality and reliability is highly variable. Likewise, the cheaper format has a shorter shelf life. The longevity issue is open to wide debate because the material hasn’t been around long enough for real testing, but the rough estimate for the average disc sitting on your bookshelf at home is about 12 years. Less, if you watch the movie frequently.

But that is OK since planned obsolescence is a traditional American business model. However, business models are the other major problem with the DVD market. There have always been too many models, none particularly compatible with any others, and all designed as solutions to immediate short focused goals.

For example, most major DVD distribution companies started with the “found money” model. The original structure was that the movie made its main profit at the box office and then the extra money generated through video and DVD sales and rental was a nice extra on the side. Then, as the box office began to drop, DVD profits became crucial. For a brief period, DVDs became the salvation of Hollywood. Then the market plunged. So that model is now dead.

Then you had companies that were exclusive distributors for DVD material (the so-called straight-to DVD market). The purest example of this business model was the porn industry. Porn moved into the video and DVD market with a vengeance. The home market became porn’s main focus, and business boomed. People who would never be caught sneaking into an adult theater were more than thrilled to take some discs home. There was an especially large increase in the female viewership of porn.

However, the rapidly expanding arena of online (and increasingly homemade) porn has basically savaged the business. So the porn model has been shattered while numerous sites on the internet offers something that could be titled  America’s Naughtiest Home Videos. While the industry has made major moves into online distribution, it is still trying to figure out a new and workable business model that can compete with the vast range of amateur freebies.

This leaves the indie movie model. Except there really isn’t one. Not exactly. Some of these movies are in that strange gray zone in which they enjoy limited theatrical distribution (but not enough to mean anything) and then go to DVD in hopes of finding a larger market. For the most part, they don’t. At least not enough to matter.

Others are films that have never seen the inside of a theater. Some are movies with significant names attached that quite simply got dumped by a major distributor before release. Others had extremely weak distributors who probably couldn’t open a film successfully no matter what. A few have been the byproducts of investment scams.

But mostly,  they are a strange mix of exploitation quickies and indie hopefuls. The exploitation line is best demonstrated by Troma Entertainment who first shifted from VHS to DVD distribution and are now moving aggressively into digital release. Troma YouTube channel is the eye candy as they precede to set up shop in the VoD trade.

One of the more successful approaches for indie filmmakers going straight-to-DVD has been niche marketing, most notably with some documentary and children productions. Certain types of social and political “issue” movies can drum up business, too, though this is heavily based on the filmmakers’ ability to find the choirs they intend to preach to. The marketability of children’s productions mostly depends upon desperate parents seeking something that will occupy the little rug-rats for a couple of hours. Ironically, one of the more successful straight-to-video productions ever was the Purple One himself, Barney. Early success in video rental stores is how it became a PBS series.

Unfortunately, most indie filmmakers are lucky to wind up in a remainder box at the local Big Lots. These discs are handled by very small (and sometimes dubious) companies, or else the filmmakers simply pay for production out of their own pockets in hopes of being able eventually to cover cost. This is why, no matter what, digital online distribution is taking over. It may not be any more effective, but it can be cheaper.

Which means that the effective life span of the DVD is numbered. In lieu of flowers, it has been requested that you send your donations to the Kickstarter campaign of any digital production of your choosing.

The Never-Ending Cycle

 First published April 5, 2013

Sometimes I shouldn’t be allowed into a theater. Take last December when I went with my son to see The Hobbit. He’s a big Peter Jackson fan. Me, I just occasionally like seeing how lots of money gets splashed on the screen.

So we are stuck there for about twenty or more minutes of previews. Normally, I love previews. They are often better than the actual movies. But it occurred to me that all the previews looked like the same film, over and over again. The earth is a wasteland after some kind of disaster with our hero facing some sort of plot by nefarious plotters or whatever. You got Tom Cruise in one of these suckers, Will Smith and his son in another one and I forget who all else in about two dozen other variations of basically the same script.

Then we had terrorists blowing up and taking over the White House, also over and over again. So I stand corrected. Hollywood has two scripts that they are endlessly recycling. Though wait a minute. If you destroyed the Earth, I bet you had to blow up the White House, so why not combine these two scripts?  Just be sure to book Morgan Freeman. After all, he seems to be in half of these movies.

This tells me several things. First off, Hollywood was kind of banking heavily on the rumors of the Mayan Apocalypse. I suspect they may be a tad off on this one. Second, I am beginning to rethink my many previous comments over the years about the lack of original concepts in mainstream movies. Sure, I’m right, but it looks as if Hollywood is taking my criticism as a form of solid advice. Oh my God! What have I done?

Then I was recently trading notes with someone about the key element that separates indie movies from mainstream tent pole productions. Everything kept coming back to the story. Indie movies always need good scripts with strong stories and complex characters. After all, a low budget movie can’t afford the big “Oh Wow” visual approach and has to focus on such basic elements as plot and performance. But the typical big budget movie barely needs a script. Mostly, they seem to be using notes jotted down on the back of cocktail napkins.

Which is kind of odd. I mean, they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on these suckers. You would think that the least they could do is spend a few bucks on the storyline. Ironically, they do but it just doesn’t matter. The average tent pole production has to appeal to the broadest possible audience model. That is why no one wants to take any chances on doing something that hasn’t been done already. It really is a case of monkey see, monkey do.

Likewise, the visual demands of such an extravaganza preclude any opportunity to develop anything beyond two-dimensional characters (really one-dimensional with a minor flaw to make the main character more “human”). The more the film costs, the greater the imperative to keep it simple. Otherwise, the dialogue takes away valuable time from the visual effects.

Since it is important for tent pole movies to copy from one another, the same mistakes in judgment are repeated. Take for example the current craze for the reinvented fairy tale. You take an old fairy tale and give it a darker, grittier, more edgy spin (like Snow White and the Huntsman). Or better still, take the name and throw the rest out of the window (most of the other movies). Jack up the violence, add in lots of elaborate special effects and shoot it in 3D. Then kick back and rake in the….

What!  No money?  OK, even before the Jack the Giant Slayer fiasco, the modern fairy tale movie was notorious for not making much at the box office. There is virtually nothing to indicate an audience for these movies, yet many more are coming. Heck, right now there has to be a studio executive busy contemplating the Die Hard-like qualities of Humpty Dumpty.

So why are they making them?  Because everyone else is doing it. And everyone else is doing it because…it’s a cycle. A self-perpetuating, never ending cycle. Now your mother probably once said something about not following the rest of the crowd as they jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, but your mother never produced a multimillion dollar movie. The minute the first studio executive jumps off the bridge, everybody is expected to jump.

Obviously I am simplifying some issues and making the average studio exec sound kind of stupid. That’s OK. A recent article in Variety makes the average studio exec sound both stupid and lazy. So I’m cutting them some slack. I just think that the average executive lives in fear that someone knows something they don’t, and are jumping at shadows in a desperate but futile attempt to score. In the process, they have forgotten the most basic elements of the business.

The major studios are locked into a costly, highly dysfunctional pattern that has virtually overwhelmed every other aspect of the filmmaking process. Even some senior studio figures are announcing that the tent pole model has broken the business structure. In turn, they cannot extradite themselves from this pattern because they quite simply have no clue how to do so. I seem to recall that the former head of Disney got booted right after he forced the filmmakers of The Lone Ranger movie to lower the budget to a mere $220 million. Now the film is costing over $300 million. Success or failure, The Lone Ranger is already a bizarre tribute to the current mainstream concept of “real filmmaking.”

These movies have to cost a bundle just to be taken seriously. That is one of the reasons why Hollywood doesn’t want to do low budget movies. They have convinced themselves that a small budget is somehow not “real filmmaking.”  The attitude is stupid but it is also firmly (if subconsciously) locked into their mindset.

Which is too bad. The major companies could easily make some serious investment into low and modest costing movies, using them as a test ground for new talents and new approaches. In many businesses,  this would be called research and development. By doing this, they could even take some of the risks they can’t afford to do with a tent pole production. Such major risks like original material and screenplays.

A few major companies seem half-inclined to try something along these lines. But it remains to be seen if they are willing to dig in and make a real commitment. The cost is not actually that great. But breaking themselves free of the never ending cycle will be, at best, a herculean effort.

Old habits are hard to break. Bad habits are almost impossible to give up.

Lots of Advice (for What It’s Worth)

 First published April 16, 2013

The British director Michael Powell once told me his notion of giving advice when he was working as a consultant to Francis Ford Coppola and Zoetrope Studios. Powell described the process quite simply: “I tell them what I think they should be doing, they pay me a lot of money and then completely ignore everything I said.”

Yes, Michael Powell inspired me to become a film consultant. I am still working on that lots of money part, but I love the rest of the arrangement. Just hand out advice and move on.Unfortunately, it is an extremely competitive field. Heck, every five minutes a new blog post appears somewhere online about the top five (or ten, or whatever) things filmmakers need to do when crowdfunding. All any indie filmmaker needs to do is spend about the next six months on Google and get hot tips on everything from product placement to mysterious Arab producers to pointers on social media, and everything in between.

It’s a wonder more movies are not being made with all of the free advice out there!

OK, my first tip about all of the free advice – some of it is sort of OK and some of it is sort of not so OK. A cinematographer once described his work to me in this manner and I felt it pretty much summed up almost everything.

Take for example all of the tips on crowdfunding. Most of these tips are sort of OK. The whole concept of crowdfunding is pretty nebulous so almost any advice might be helpful. Especially since successful crowdfunding depends heavily upon building a community  behind your project. This involves finding and engaging the people and groups that might be innately interested in your film. A good example is the recent Veronica Mars crowdfunding effort. The TV series already had a strong and enthusiastic audience. Many web sites were devoted to it.  It had a large, pre-established fan base. In many respects, half of the job of community building was already done.

Which means the Veronica Mars model isn’t very useful to most indie filmmakers except as a general idea. Most people have to start from scratch. Build web sites, develop Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and all of that online hustle as you seek out other people connected to key aspects of the film you want to make. In other words, network like crazy in order to build a presence.

This leads us to the other ironic aspect of the process. Branding. Yes, you have to build a brand. Your process doesn’t have to resemble an episode of Mad Men, though the mindset is not necessarily that different (minus the drinks, the smokes, and the oinker sexuality). But if you are going to crowdfund, you will have to market yourself.

Many artists have been masters of branding. Take for example Andy Warhol. Or Salvador Dali. In a sense, Rembrandt was branding when he shifted from his full name and began to simply sign his paintings, Rembrandt. So don’t worry about the commercialism. Branding has a long artistic tradition.

I’m not saying that you have to do a Warhol. For one thing, neither your family nor friends may tolerate the life style. But you will want to find a way of branding your project. What is unique about your movie?  What is that special something that you can quickly sum up in a single sentence?  Yes, you are looking for the spin. Whatever is your spin, it will become the linchpin to your crowdfunding campaign.

Crowdfunding isn’t the only way to get the money needed for your indie movie. According to a recent piece in Variety, you just need some major stars who want a juicy role in lieu of a fat paycheck. I noticed that some folks find this advice to be just swell, though I am more tempted to quote Tommy Flanagan, the pathological liar: “Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

It obviously doesn’t hurt if you can get a major name to do your little indie film for next to nothing. But I can’t help noticing in the examples used by Variety that the filmmaker was either a close personal friend of the star or a tight friend of a friend of the star. So I guess if you know somebody important, use it. If you don’t…you may be SOL.

Which gets back to what I said at the beginning. There is a lot of advice out there. Some is good and some is, at best, sort of so-so. Depending upon your situation, some of the advice may be a good fit. Other bits of advice will be either useless or utterly destructive. You have to decide for yourself. Yep, I’m starting to sound like your father. You have to listen carefully, pay close attention, and then make the best decision you can. Depending upon your belief system, a few quick prayers and a couple of lit candles might not hurt.

And if you are looking for solid advice based upon extensive experience, you might want to check out the 10 Lessons on Filmmaking From Director Ken Loach. He makes good points, many of which are valid no matter what your budget might be.