Film Fund-amentals: A Binder Full of Women Filmmakers

 First published October 23, 2012.

In a coincidence that is almost as magical as a certain type of underpants, Mitt Romney inadvertently rounded off the recent release of the Women’s Impact Report 2012 with a reminder of why some folks in Hollywood thought it important to do the report.

Sure, Romney was trying to explain his approach to diversity in political hiring, whereas the Women’s Impact Report is exclusively focused on the entertainment industry. But it’s all the same thing. Despite many years of effort, the role of women within major American businesses is still limited. The same can be said about lots of other groups in the diversity zone. There have been a lot of changes over the years, but the white boys club is still pretty much in place in much of the upper levels of corporate life.

Not that anyone in Hollywood uses binders full of women as an approach to hiring. Not much of anyone is using binders these days. But binders are a useful icon for the issue. I have noticed in my experience that certain companies and institutions try to approach issues of diversity in hiring in a manner that, rightly or wrongly, ends up sounding a lot like this idea. A kind of spreadsheet mentality that doesn’t necessarily benefit either the company or the applicant. Especially the applicant, because one of the ways that some companies manage to discreetly maintain low and inequitable pay is through this kind of HR technique. One of the first ironies about some regulations designed to right a past wrong is the curious ways they get adapted to help better enforce whatever was screwed up in the first place.

But in the film industry, it just doesn’t matter. There is no rule about diversity when it comes to hiring “talent.”  Likewise, “talent” is neither sexually nor racially determined (I mean “sexually” in the gender sense; we all have heard the many sordid tales). Of course, it appears that Hollywood operates on the theory that “talent” is largely a prerogative of young white guys. The system is extremely well explained in Katie J. M. Baker’s post at Jezebel.com. Simply put, Hollywood is overwhelmingly controlled by a lot of white guys who are mentally still kids looking to make movies for lots of white guys who are actually kids (or at least still act like kids) and so they hire mostly lots of young white guys who actually are still kids.

In turn, they mostly view women as skirts. If they can act, they can play the hero’s hot looking love interest. Then when they grow old (when they turn 30), they can play the hero’s mother. Once they turn 40, they are expected to go away and maybe hawk merchandise on HSN.

According to traditional Hollywood thinking, women cannot direct. It takes balls to direct a movie. I must confess that anytime there are more than two men working in any profession, that job suddenly is a man’s job because it takes balls to do. As more men enter nursing, it is about to become a man’s profession. Hefting those bedpans takes balls, you know.

In the real world, women can and do direct movies. They also operate cameras. Handle lights. Run the sound mix panel. Though more and more women are entering many of these professions in the entertainment industry, the change is primarily taking place in television. The movie industry has been and is slow to adapt. In fact TV has emerged as the more open minded industry, while movies have slid into an increasingly weird, cloistered state of management.

As I have previously argued, the difference is because the TV industry is more focused on the actual demographic model of the audience. Since the TV industry is based on money generated through advertising, they have to be more focused on the sexual and racial make up of the people they need to attract every night of the week. As much as I hate the constant bombardment of ads on TV, it forces the industry into a more direct engagement with the audience.

Mainstream movies don’t operate that way. Sort of. Well, they really do operate that way, but the system maintains a greater buffer between itself and the audience. To be honest, most studio executives haven’t a clue who the audience is for their movies and largely operate from old models and general misconceptions. For example, most studies indicate that more than half of the film going audience is female. But this factor is largely left out of the mainstream equation. At best, the concept is packed off into the snide concept of “chick flicks.”

Likewise, many executives assume that women have a “different” sensibility that makes them unfit for handling action movies and major blockbusters. This argument even has a half-truth quality. Perversely enough, the core concepts of Feminist Film Theory has been used as justification for this idea. You see, these dames just don’t think like a big budget director. They don’t know how to go boom.

Like many half-truths, this thinking doesn’t add up to zero. You would think that the career of some one like Kathryn Bigelow would have laid this idea to rest. Heck, she can be much more violent than many macho male directors and at least a couple of her films have made me pine for a warm and fuzzy flick by that ever sensitive Walter Hill (and yes, I am being sarcastic). The ability of a woman director to work within a perceived masculine form was already proven back in the 1970s by the legendary drive-in director Stephanie Rothman, after Ida Lupino had carved out a niche in film noir in the 1940s.

But in Hollywood, much of film-making is still a manly pursuit. It is changing and will continual to change. OK, it’s a bit like watching an incredibly slow freight train,  but it is moving vaguely forward. Unfortunately, it is a pretty long train full of heavy cargo and will take a while getting anywhere.

Meanwhile, I can only offer this catchy tune I discovered (Binders Full of Chicks by Hakan Ehn). He is focused on the immediate political scene, but the tune accurately sums up the general corporate mindset.

Film Fund-amentals: The Movie Pass Revolution

 First published October 29, 2012.

Early this month, a quiet revolution started in movie theater management. Called Movie Pass, it is a rapidly emerging new system that links the box office straight to the digital universe. It is simultaneously ticking off theater managers across the country while developing a growing list of enthusiastic subscribers. Hollywood companies are roughly divided between opposition and support and are mostly waiting to see further developments. Some folks in the indie business thinks that it just might be the ticket to the future for low budget films.

Personally, I think everybody is half-right. That also means that they are half-wrong. I think I just covered all my bases.

The system was originally beta tested in San Francisco in the summer of 2011. It quickly discovered that there was a market for the system, and was only forced to shut down the testing prematurely due to the opposition of both the AMC and Landmark theaters. The theaters objected to the fact that they had never been consulted about the test. Admittedly, this showed poor judgment on the part of Movie Pass. However, it also suggests some ripe stupidity on the part of the theaters.

The core structure of Movie Pass is that the subscriber pays a monthly fee, roughly $30 to $50 a month, depending upon the region. At the theater, the subscriber goes to the credit/debit card ticket machine and uses the Movie Pass card. Movie Pass pays the theater the full admission price. Basically, the theater gets the admission fee no matter what. The money isn’t the issue.

Most major theater chains (such as AMC) have been trying to set up and run their own online value ticket clubs. For the most part, these offers and clubs are very badly designed for the consumer. In some cases, any slight discount on the ticket is negated by a transaction fee on using the system. Besides, with some of these systems you still have to go through a line at the front desk, with your credit card, to get the ticket that you had earlier purchases online, with your credit card. The apparent convenience of the online purchase doesn’t quite match up with the squirrely complexity of the actual process.

Movie Pass pretty much gets around these problems. They have, in part, done so by revamping the system and moving it further into the digital zone. You now use an app on your smart phone. Once you are within a 100 yards of the theater, you click the app. The app confirms your location and clears you for that theater. Then you use the Movie Pass card at the credit ticket machine. The theater still gets the full admission for the ticket but is otherwise completely bypassed in the process now, where previously they were involved just enough to complain. Yes, the theater managers have just talked themselves out of the loop.

Ironically, the test run last year strongly indicated that the Movie Pass system caused an increase in attendance. In the beta test, there was a 64 per cent increase in movie attendance. Some of that may have been due simply to the novelty factor. The real long term increase may drop to somewhere around 30 per cent. Either way, this is a tremendous boast to the theater system. It is also substantially better than anything produced by the various in-house clubs operated by the theaters themselves.

It appears that people using the Movie Pass are open to going more often to the movies and also to trying a wider range of possible films. This is where the indie issue comes into play. Theoretically, the Hollywood block busters and the low budget movies could have a balanced co-existence. One day a person goes to The Dark Knight Rises. The next day they can check out Moonrise Kingdom. Everybody gets a slice of the pie. Suddenly, life is good.

And this could happen. The business model behind Movie Pass is pretty sound. For people who either go to the movies four or more times a month (or who might want to do so), it is a solid bargain. In principle, every one makes money. Even the smart phone companies. It’s win-win.

Oh, did I mention the business model that underlies this beautiful system?  Basically, the app you use before you get into the theater alerts Movie Pass as to your location. The purchase of the ticket tells them what movies you are seeing. The social network system designed to connect you with other viewers (come with your subscription) gives them access to your tastes, attitudes, and opinions. They are creating an enormous and incredibly efficient data mining system for analyzing the movie audience for various forms of marketing. I half suspect that the app even tells them how many times you go to the restroom during the movie.

So the whole thing is a movie lovers’ bargain dream come true. You can also kiss your privacy goodbye. Personally, this leaves me a bit conflicted. I admire the brilliance of the concept and I can safely predict that this is here to stay, thrive, and quickly dominate movie marketing within the immediate future (either through Movie Pass or rival systems that will quickly spring up). I only wish I had some stock in this company.

But the data mining thing always gives me pause. Sure, the information gathered through the system will provide people in the film industry with the most extensive audience model known. Unfortunately, the same will be true of everything else imaginable from political organizations to shampoo companies. Such massive information gathering is extremely profitable for the company. But it kind of leaves me feeling like Patrick McGoohan back in The Prisoner.

Besides, this app could become even more interactive. The next time I doze off during a Transformers flick, I’ll get a wake up call. Cripes!  They could even make me watch the movie.

Film Fund-amentals: Are Movies Relevant

 First published November 5, 2012.

Movies are irrelevant. It’s official. The New York Times says so.

Well, not exactly. But a recent article plays with the idea. For more than a year, countless bloggers (myself included) have been saying the same thing. The Times is a bit late to the party and seems determined to sneak in through the back door, basing part of their thinking on the Academy’s decision to have Seth MacFarlane as the next Oscar host. Note to The Times: the choice of MacFarlane actually makes more sense than the David Letterman fiasco back in 1995. At least MacFarlane’s movie made money (unlike the Letterman production of Cabin Boy).

But it is a valid question for reasons The Times article barely mentions. Excuse me as I make an outrageously broad generalization, but most modern movies are pretty much meaningless to most people these days. Even for folks who are major film goers.  Not just mindless (though most movies are). Actually, a good solid mindless movie can sometimes have its own weird virtue. But I mean truly, profoundly, and deeply meaningless. As in, they don’t connect at any level with the audience.

The Times article focuses on the Academy Awards presentation, which helps to reinforce the half-bogus youth versus age dichotomy. In reality, the Academy Award show has its own unique problems caused by a rather large 2×4 jammed in a part of their anatomy. Since I am neither a doctor nor a carpenter, I’m not equipped to deal with this issue.

I have previously dealt with some aspects of other more relevant concerns. Specifically the radical shift current taking place in audience demographics and the massive dead-end of Hollywood’s obsession with recycling old film ideas. But the core problems go even deeper.

For example, there is the question of the division between the culture and society represented in the movies and the real culture and society of the audience. There is an old misconception that movies merely reflect their host society. Hog wash! At their best, movies can transfer, translate (so to speak), re-frame and redefine the society. But they do not simply, naïvely reflect it. Sometimes this process has a meaningful relationship to the society. Other times, it is simply baffling (for example, the old Doris Day movies).

A case in point is the Japanese cinema of the 1930s. To a surprising degree, the Japanese cinema of that period had a striking sense of humanitarian value and emotional yearning. Ironically, this was during the exact time that Japanese society was deep into its extreme militaristic and expansionist drive as the conquest of China and the Pacific was under way. None of this is reflected in these movies.

Then you had the ironic state of the Italian Fascist cinema. Mussolini desperately wanted to produce Fascist epics that would rival the movies of Nazi Germany. However most of the directors, writers, and actors in the Fascist Italian film industry were either secret members of the Italian Communist Party or, at the very least, close friends of people in the Party. There was simply no way that the Italians were going to make a Fascist masterpiece. Il Duce finally gave up and ordered the filmmakers to focus on romantic comedies and soap opera productions. The upside was that some of these filmmakers had the time to privately work on ideas that resulted in the creation of Italian Neorealism, which is why the movement took off before Mussolini was even dead.

In its own way, the same is true in American movies. At best, most American movies only have a passing relationship to society. These days, they largely don’t. A case in point: The Dark Knight Rises. I found the movie’s obvious comparison of the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution to be a bit of a hoot. But the real laugh riot is when Bruce Wayne loses his billion dollar business and is reduced to the lowly status of becoming a mere millionaire. Oh horrors!

Director Christopher Nolan thought he was doing social commentary. I saw it as a Monty Python gag that needed livelier direction. I also have the strange impression that Nolan thought he was connecting with the audience. But he wasn’t. I think this failure to connect was part of the reason why The Dark Knight Rises had a relatively low rate of repeat viewers. The movie simply wasn’t grabbing folks at the kind of emotional level achieved by the previous film in the series (the Joker really connects big time with the audience which is, admittedly, a scary thought).

But this problem is even deeper than any one movie. It is very hard to look at most mainstream Hollywood films and not feel as if we are watching a cinema of zombies. Strange, hungry, soulless creatures lumbering about in tired predictable ways, mechanically going through the motion of some kind of half forgotten activity that is completely devoid of any connection to either reality or the audience. At best, many movies play like garbled messages from some sort of alternative universe. But mostly, they are simple bits of gibberish.

The reasons for this are really quite straightforward. Most of modern Hollywood is part of a corporate culture that has become increasingly removed from society and the larger culture in which they operate. The executives increasingly live and work within extremely narrow circles and often have very limited direct contact with the rest of the human race (except for their kids’ nannies). Further, they truly believe they can create their own reality through media manipulation and advertising. Then, they go a step further and start believing their own ink.

To be honest, not everyone in Hollywood is like this. But these folks are viewed as oddballs. Often, they don’t even live any near Los Angeles.

As for the rest, some type of intervention will be needed. Maybe even a 12 step program. I’m still working on the details. The pledge alone is going to be a real bear to write.

Scoring Movies

 First published November 9, 2012.

Do you need music in your movie? I don’t know. Do you need salt and butter with your popcorn?  You can eat it plain. You won’t like that way but you can do it.

The same is true with music in movies. At its best, the intelligent use of a good soundtrack score enhances the emotional experience of the film. At its worst, it annoys the audience. But mostly it provides a companion to the visual experience.

For the indie filmmaker, the big question is being able to get music. When it comes to scoring a movie, there are many issues, both legal and monetary. So let me point out right now that I am neither a lawyer nor a composer. My musical experience is limited to a few years of piano and French horn and it was all so long ago that I have to think hard to remember the difference between D minor and F major. So everything I have to say on this subject has to be viewed as some very subjective and highly idiosyncratic opinions.

The first thing indie filmmakers must concern themselves with are the legal issues of using music in a movie. Ideally, they should consult with a lawyer who deals with copyright law (not somebody’s cousin who does whiplash cases). However, they tend to be expensive. But you can go online and learn about some of the issues involved, beginning with such sites as Law-Art.org and IndieProducer.net. Take your time exploring the legal issues. You will be glad you did.

The basic key is clearing the rights for both composer and performers (note to lawyers: yeah, this is an extremely simplified view; see the disclaimer above). This is especially a problematic issue for some very young and inexperienced filmmakers who might still think that they just need to download some tunes and slap them into the movie. No. It doesn’t work that way. Just because you bought the CD doesn’t mean you own the music. Same goes for movies on DVDs. I know a long list of people in academia who are hopelessly confused on this aspect of copyright law. So don’t bother listening to your professors. They are wrong.

To get a better understanding of this, you can go to ASCAP.com.You might also want to check out the Film & TV Music Knowledgebase. I would also suggest checking a site like the Boyenne Law Firm Entertainment Law where you can get some free legal tips. This means spending a lot of time on Google, but it’s worth it.

An alternative is to use royalty-free or some other form of canned music. Personally, I’m not a fan of this approach simply because the material often sounds like Mantovani performing Yanni with the 101 Strings Orchestra. But, to each their own. I would suggest checking out the advice at DIY Filmmaking Sucks and Vimeo.com. You might also want to explore the possibilities at Creative Commons.org, which provides material through an attribution share-alike license.

Or you might want to go another route, like finding someone who will do the music for you. Of course this means finding someone who is a composer. At the very least, a musician. OK, at the very least maybe they can whistle or something. If you are real lucky, you may have a buddy who knows what he is doing. If not, you might want to network through the nearest available music department at your nearest university. Music students, especially graduate students, are often looking for projects to use in their academic work. Composing the score for your movie could be a really major plus for them. It could be a big plus for you too, as long as you and the composer can work together. It helps (a lot) if the filmmaker and the composer have a shared sensibility about the aesthetic and emotional structure of the movie.

Of course, you could do it yourself. It’s not really advisable unless you have some sort of musical background and even then…well, don’t you think making the movie is already a handful?  A few people have done this, most notably cult director John Carpenter. His father had been the chairman of the Music Department at Western Kentucky University and Carpenter himself had been in a rock band. Most of his soundtracks tend to be highly rhythmic, pretty simplistic, but extremely driven and outrageously appropriate for such movies as Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween and Escape from New York.

Which also brings up the question of how you might wish to use music in your movie. There are two extreme positions: sparingly or wall-to-wall. In Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece Vivre sa Vie, the soundtrack was done by Michel Legrand. Actually, it was simply a short single track used in fragments as a punctuation to the movie’s 12 scenes as Godard presented his emotionally charged tale with extreme clinical detachment. At the other end of the spectrum, François Truffaut had composer Bernard Herrmann do a full symphonic wall-to-wall score for Fahrenheit 451. The music was to provide an emotional and psychological counter-point to Truffaut’s presentation of a world increasingly devoid of humanity. Since Herrmann was a genius, he successfully created an emotionally stunning soundtrack.

The importance of music to a movie is best demonstrated by the two versions of the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey. We are all familiar with the opening shot of the Earth and the sun set to the first stirrings of Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra. The effect is mythic and overwhelming. But there is also the other version of the opening credit as scored by Alex North, who was originally contracted to do the soundtrack. Nice music, but it sounds like the beginning of a Star Trek movie.

So you are going to want music for your film. As an indie filmmaker, you are working cheap. But you want it to be good, especially for the “feel” of your film. There are many approaches available and one of them just might work.

And by the way, my previous suggestion about having someone who can simply whistle was not really a joke. Heck, it worked for Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood.

When Worlds Collide

 First published November 19, 2012.

 

Over the past several years, I have noted the raw and increasing power of digital media. A wide variety of sites have blossomed across the internet, covering everything from animation to household tips and vast new extremes in personal narcissism. The result is a digital landscape that is a strange and unpredictable mix of film, television, and stuff that looks like it just fell off of a truck.

To get a better sense of the growth of digital presentation, you can refer to the recent chart for YouTube as provided by ChannelMeter. At the very top of the list is the YouTube animation channel Mondomedia with a subscription list of more than 1.2 million and a worldwide viewership of 1.3 billion plus.

In an age of declining TV and movie viewership, these figures from the digital realm glow like a bright beckon piercing through a deep fog of despair. Of course, they also look a lot like potential cash cows ready for slaughter.

Which helps to explain why so many heavy players are currently making major moves. Just recently in the United Kingdom, the Chernin Group has bought a large stake of Base 79, a major YouTube network. Time Warner is seeking a sizable minority stake in Maker Studios. Meanwhile, Netflix and their VoD business is so desirable (despite their many ups and downs) that they are fending off takeover bids by both Amazon and Carl Icahn.

And this is barely the beginning. Everyone and their idiot brother wants to go digital. It’s the place to be because…OK, here is where we hit the gray zone. The vast global audience available online is incredible. This obviously represents an equally vast global market. But nobody exactly knows what that means or the most effective way of tapping it. The current commercial model is still based on advertising, as if the net were mainly an extension of radio.

Take for example the recent decline of Hulu.com. In a way, Hulu represents the prefect blend of online access and cable television, which are supposed to make it a win-win site. Unless it’s actually part of the problem: maybe people are going online to search for something beyond cable TV. Maybe, just maybe the analogy to TV is wrong. The parameters of digital online media are seemingly all over the map. For example, YouTube covers a range from UFOs to post-feminist satire as well as five zillion cat videos (special note to Henri the Cat) and everything else in between. It is completely unpredictable, totally chaotic, and has no working relationship to the cable TV model whatsoever. But the major companies (such as Time Warner) have so far persisted in seeing the digital zone as an extension of cable TV and appear to be utterly clueless to anything else.

Which is not surprising. I have said this before, but I am going to say it again. Corporate media operates as a relatively rigid, top down hierarchy. Because of this, they inevitable are locked into yesterday’s model of operation (because that is basically how the current head honchos got to the top in the first place). This sharply limits their ability to adapt to a radically changing environment. It is not because they are necessarily stupid (though some are). But they are essentially clueless.

The digital world is a completely new and ever shifting environment. Its only constant feature is that it doesn’t have one. It has no center. It has no real top or bottom. It is more sideways. A rapidly and infinitely expanding sideways. It is not television, though you can use it to catch up on shows. It is not film, though you can practically do film history through it. It is its own creature in the earliest stages of its own evolutionary development.

What the major companies can bring to this process is money. Lots of it. Almost everything else they have to offer will be potentially detrimental. Virtually all significant forms of change and development within the digital zone have been achieved through its decentralized structure. Though immense rewards are potentially available, it is not an area that responds well to heavy centralized management. Ho Hos, yes. Bossy CEOs, not quite (unless their name is Steve Jobs).

The current business speculation is that Time Warner will channel their move on Maker Studios through one of their TV subsidiaries. Of course this is exactly what I am talking about. The major companies see the digital world as merely an extension of standard corporate broadcast operations. Yes, you can now sit at any airport waiting for a plane and watch old episodes of Mr. Ed. Sometimes, that is even OK.

But it is barely the tip of the digital iceberg. One of the problems with the major companies is that they have neither the ability nor a vested interest in seeing beyond this extremely limited range. Instead, they have a predatory tendency toward wanting to control and limit digital development in an attempt to contain it within established mainstream production and distribution structures. In short, they think they have a vested interest in strangling the goose before it lays too many golden eggs.

Corporate media and the digital model are virtually two separate worlds, and they are in the process of colliding. It’s almost like that old science-fiction film minus the nerdy scientists and the grasping greedy plutocrat. Or is it?  Simply substitute the characters from The Big Bang Theory for the scientists and replace the plutocrat with any studio honcho and you got the set-up.

So the real question is: Which way will the debris fly?

Big Turkey Blues

 First published November 26, 2012.

According to the British philosopher Ebeneezer Scrooge, this is that time of the year when we balance our books and note our deficits.

So I guess the Huffington Post slide-show, Box Office Flops: 2012’s Biggest Turkeys, is the first step in the process. Going where much of the audience clearly feared to tread, the piece lists 22 of the most notable failures of the year. Actually, I’m not sure why they listed only 22 titles. It’s been a banner year for flops.

With any list of failures, there are lessons to be learned. For example, two titles on this list are both by Tim Burton. Both Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie failed to reach the break even mark. Heck, Frankenweenie didn’t even make enough to cover its lunch tab. Add in the Burton-produced film Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and you have a perfect strike-out record for the guy.

More importantly, Burton amply displays three of the major fallacies of modern Hollywood. Dark Shadows is a redo of an old TV show. Frankenweenie is a elaborate remake of his old short film. Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter gives us high concept, lots of vampires, and a chance to beat Spielberg to the Lincoln punch. Of the three, only the vampire flick almost broke even.

OK, this race to the bottom suggests that the old College Humor parody about Burton is still extremely valid. Burton’s macabre sense of whimsy may have run aground with viewers. It’s a given that Burton desperately needs a solid screenwriter (like Caroline Thompson). But, like most of current Hollywood, Burton needs more. Things like new ideas, new directions, new concepts. In his own weird way, Burton has become the poster boy for the recycling factory.

Sequels and politics took a hit with Atlas Shrugged: Part II. To be honest, I thought it took a pretty big hit with Atlas Shrugged: Part I (a major flop in 2011). The sequel is primarily a tribute to stubbornness as they did a complete re-cast of the actors, reduced the budget, upped the preaching and pressed ahead in making every mistake they made the first time out while achieving even lower returns. It’s such a stumble bum track record that I can’t wait for Part III.

The extreme right wing politics of Atlas Shrugged may not be the biggest problem (though the folks involved with these movies need to realize that a lot of the audience neither know nor care about Ayn Rand). One of the major indie hits of the year was 2016: Obama’s America, a full throttle wing nutter charge at its subject. Ironically, the movie’s producer was Spielberg’s old work partner Gerald R. Molen, who followed a very shrewd release pattern for the movie. Well, that and the fact that people at least know who Obama is, unlike either Ayn Rand or Atlas (I mean the mythological figure, not the tire company).

The folly of star power is also noticeable on the list. The box office failure of Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages isn’t really all that surprising. The age of the movie musical is largely past. Besides, Tom Cruise is not the name you think of when you hear the words Heavy Metal. Likewise, the inclusion of Eddie Murphy on the list simply confirms Murphy’s current role as king of the bottom. Murphy’s whole career has been a wild roller coaster ride and this isn’t the first time this guy has been down and almost out. He has an odd ability to reinvent himself. It may happen yet again. I doubt it, but who knows.

The same is true of Adam Sandler (Murphy’s chief rival for the bottom-of-the-barrel crown). Sandler has gone from being a crude hot talent to simply crude. With the tanking of That’s My Boy, he continues an epic losing streak that makes the Chicago Cubs look like the New York Yankees.

But the real modern Master of Disaster is Taylor Kitsch. Heck, with the double whammy of both John Carter and Battleship, this guy could drive the entire Hollywood system into Chapter 11. Add in the failure of Savages (a movie with a modest budget and an even more modest rate of non-return) and Kitsch could start working with Tim Burton. Let’s get Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler to co-star.

So what does this tell us?  I mean aside from not investing in a film by Tim Burton. By itself, not much. Any list of failure is innately selective and is most useful for cheap laughs. Especially in the way it confirms the meaningless nature of star-power. Heck, Rock of Ages could have just as easily bombed with Taylor Kitsch as it did with Tom Cruise. They should have gotten Bruce Campbell. The flick would still be a bomb but would have instant cult movie status.

But it does give us a sneak peek at some of the real problems plaguing the film industry. For example, both John Carter and Battleship display the central flaw of the tent-pole movie business model. These films are being made with production budgets that in most cases can never be recouped. Hollywood has quite simply reached the point of no financial return. A few movies (for example, The Avengers) are capable of meeting this challenge. But they are the exceptions, not the rule. From any rational viewpoint, this business model is simply insane.

However, both John Carter and Battleship (and all of the films of Tim Burton) made more money overseas than in US release. The entire profit-end of the American film industry has shifted to Europe and Asia. Which is sort of OK, as long as the global economy doesn’t collapse again. At the moment, the crisis in Greece is causing big worries since it might spread across Europe. Add in the economic weight and ever- shifting parameters of the Chinese market, and you have both political and economic factors that defy any orthodox Hollywood analysis.

These issues are the emerging major factors. That, and the fact that most of Hollywood just doesn’t seem to get it. Earlier, I made fun of the folks who intend to do Atlas Shrugged: Part III. Sure, they could cut to the chase and simply flush their money down the toilet.

The same could be said about a lot of Hollywood.

Film Fund-amentals: Data Analytics at the Movies

 First published December 3, 2012.

What do the last election and modern Hollywood have in common?  I mean, aside from ridiculous out-of-control budgets and delusional assumptions.

The answer is data analytics. For example, Mitt Romney really thought he was going to win the election because of his polling data and his use of Orca, the database system that was supposed to do almost everything (including coffee, I suspect). However there were fatal flaws in their methodology on the polling data, and Orca blew up on election day morning.

Not that Orca would have mattered. Everything I have read and heard about the Romney campaign’s approach to data analytics strongly suggests they would have been better off sniffing sulfur fumes and reading goat entrails. They were primarily taking raw data and cherry picking whatever information suited their beliefs and made them look good.

Does this sound familiar? Yes, except we call it show business.

For the film industry, data analytics barely exist. Sure, Hollywood has long been obsessed with focus groups and audience polls. But these days, those approaches are both primitive and extremely limited. Which is why they are not getting any real information and are routinely surprised at box office failure.

But this is changing. Last Wednesday, USC and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism together with IBM presented The Power of Crowds: Social Sentiment and the Future of Film, a meeting of data experts and studio honchos. In theory, it was an attempt to create a bridge between data analytics and entertainment production. But if you read the Variety report DailyHeadlines, it sounded a bit more like a polite head-butting contest between science and magic.

OK, we all know the drill. The film industry is composed of a wide range of components that cannot be quantified and reduced to any form of statistical based analysis. That isn’t really true, but it is a deeply held belief in Hollywood. Despite the largely routine and banal predictability of much that happens in the business, it is supposed to be a magically elusive enterprise understood by only a chosen few who have some sort of divinely inspired instinctual knowledge about what the audience wants. Keep that in mind the next time you see the same old crap for the umpteenth time.

Give me a break. A pack of monkeys could do the job of some studio executives. But the magic theory still predominates within the business. There are occasional hints of change and various people within the film industry have explored (and a few have adapted) to new approaches. But the resistance level is high and mostly focused on the concept of social media analysis. For many folks in film, the main use of data analytics is solely to determine if a movie is going to bomb or not. Since this determination is made about a week or two before its opening, it’s a bit like a heart doctor who will only examine the patient while the guy is in the ER with chest pains. Not big on that prevention thing, you know.

Though this resistance is starting to shift, there are still many doubters. Certainly a lot of people in the film industry are convinced that adapting to any form of data analytic system in the production process is going to over ride the necessary creative aspects of the process. Or as Rob Friedman of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group said: “You will never see us make a movie based on a series of questions posed in a research environment….”  Actually, I am a little surprised to hear Friedman say this because the research polling method is only one small part of the modern equation, and is in need of a major overhaul. But I understand his concern.

The pros and cons were better addressed by the political commentator and author David Sirota in his blog article, Could the Nate Silver Approach Work in Hollywood. As Sirota notes, both the film and music industry are already moving in this direction. So is almost every other form of major business. Heck, even the CIA is working with various database models, and the NSA practically invented the whole thing. In most cases, the results have been good. Data analysis has made possible sustainable models that produce more reliable results.

Of course, Sirota is also correct about the cons. He argues that an excessive application of such approaches would result in a film industry that would increasingly refuse to “…invest in a new wave of genre-busting and paradigm-shifting talents.” The truly non-quantifiable elements of the film making process will indeed suffer if data analytics are applied in a heavy-handed manner without expert input or feedback. A knowledgeable human element is critical to any form of data analysis. Based upon my own experience, an interface between the human and the digital is absolutely required. It is not about choosing one or the other. You need both working together as a system of creative checks and empirical balances. We could call this the Kirk/Spock Synergy theory.

Besides, Sirota’s dire warning about data analytics posing a threat to the riskier but essential nature of the creative process has one slight problem. The drab and banal corporate-produced “cinema of nothing” that he predicates is what we already got. The modern Hollywood system does not need a computer to create mediocre movies. They have been capable of that for years all on their own. The full-blown application of data analytics might just further this grim process. But that has to do with the people using it (which takes us back to the pack-of-monkeys theory). I have no doubt that certain executives within the mainstream film industry would use it as the supreme digital overlord simply because it saves them the time-consuming effort of creating bad movies on their own. Likewise, when the movies still bomb they can then blame the analytics and give themselves a bonus.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. It can it be done differently. It can be done better. It will involve extensive use of data analytics. The systems are ready. We just need to prepare the humans who will be interacting with these systems.