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This looks fun.  I wish I was going to be in Berkley on Nov. 15th.  The Haas Digital Media Conference.

Truly Free Film Heroes

I've moved the "Truly Free Film Heroes" sidebar over from my Let's Make Better Films Blog to here at TFFilms and clarified it a bit in the process (although you don't get to add a descriptive on Blogger's "Links" gadget unfortunately).  The Truly Free Film Heroes are the folks that I have found that are actively engaged in working to create a Truly Free Film Culture.  

The potential is before us to expand beyond a film culture designed only to serve the widest possible audience.  We can have something else other than a limited supply of mass market product.  We can move away from a gate keeper culture economy.  We no longer need to address only the audiences that are best served by the dominant apparatus.

The most critical work at the moment in terms of establishing this new culture is not the content itself but the infrastructure needed to support it.  Great work is being done in this regard, but we all need to share what we learn; we have to open with it.  A new model is being unearthed.  The Truly Free Film Heroes are doing the groundwork that we all will benefit from.  You need to support them.

And What Makes It All Worse Is...

As freeing as the growth and utilization of new media is, the death of traditional media certainly hurts Art Film and The Specialized Film Market.   When I read (online of course!) articles like David Carr's "Mourning Old Media's Decline", I can feel that jolt of panic.  It starts in my legs, and then spreads...

“The auto industry and the print industry have essentially the same problem,” said Clay Shirky, the author of “Here Comes Everybody.” “The older customers like the older products and the new customers like the new ones.”

The problem is that Art Film's audience is predominately over 35.  They are not generally online as much as others.  They are not participating in the blogosphere.  How is the audience going to get their information?  How are we going to get them signed up?  We need to make sure they are getting their RSS feeds of the great film lover websites like Hammer To Nail (okay, I confess to being a tad self serving on this) and Green Cine.  

I think for every film fan over 35 that you get to subscribe to such a blog, you should get a gold star.  Two gold stars if they are over 45.  Three for 55!  I don't know the solution, but we have got to sign them up.  What to do, what to do?  We have to act fast...

Actress/Writer Susan Coyne on “Slings & Arrows”

How did Slings & Arrows come about?

SUSAN COYNE: Well, I hadn't really set out to be a writer. But, I hit my late thirties, and I had two children and I couldn't travel across the country in the same way. And, famously, the parts thin out a bit as you get older. So I sort of hit my mid-life crisis and thought, "I'm just going to sit down and start writing," without really knowing where it was going to lead me. And then I got hooked up with somebody who said, "You know, I have a friend who works at Stratford and loves hearing your stories. Would you like to come up with a proposal for a TV series about Stratford?"

So I said, "Sure. I can do that." And then I came up with the premise for the series, basically, although at that time it was a half-hour comedy. We shopped it around and we got wonderful producers, Rhombus Media, involved and they put me together with Mark McKinney of Kids in the Hall, which was really kind of brilliant.

That was an interesting choice.

SUSAN COYNE: He was not the first person you'd think of pairing us with, but it was really great because Mark is so smart and really thinks outside the box constantly. He's worked a little bit in theater and so he knew something of this world as well. He said right away, "This isn't a half-hour, this is an hour, because there's too much good material here."

I think that was one of the most important things that happened, because we thought, “We're doing Shakespeare, we don't want this to be just punch lines and then cut to a commercial. We want to be brave about this and tackle what it's like to do these big plays.”

I'd never seen something like this done very well. I'd often seen actors made fun of, and it's easy. It's easy to satirize actors. I think we do it to a degree in the show. It's also easy to sentimentalize. But between those two extremes I've never seen anybody try to really show what it's like, and that in some ways it certainly matters to the people who do it and it might even mean something to those of us who watch. It might have some value, it might have some weight to it, it might not be a silly thing to do with your life. And that these people might have some passion that has some dignity to it.

Even as I say that I'm always cautious not to give it more weight than it's worth, but I think that when theater works well, everybody recognizes that there's something very powerful about it, transforming and ineffable and not silly at all. It's rare, but when you see it, there's nothing like it. You feel a little bit wrung out afterwards and your heart's beating faster and you feel chemically altered in some way.

It's that we wanted to get at: What is that thing that happens and how do people achieve that? We wanted to show people the kinds of conversations that go on in rehearsals as well as how terrifying it is and the ridiculous things we do to get ourselves where we have to be. All of that.

I always think that when there's a great deal of passion, then there's got to be some kind of dramatic or comic story. Or both.

How did Bob Martin get involved?

SUSAN COYNE: Bob was invited to join Mark and I after we had been wrestling with the series for a couple of years (in the midst of doing other projects- in my case, co-founding a theatre company and writing my first book). Neither Mark nor I had written a TV series before, but Bob had. His experience was the key to making us into a fully functioning writing team.

When you started the project, did you think it would only be for one season?

SUSAN COYNE: Exactly. Mark and I worked for a couple of years, because we were both doing other things. And it took a long time to figure out how this was going to go. We had six episodes in mind, we knew the play was Hamlet, we came up with the idea of the ghost and that our character was going to be a sort of Hamlet figure who was haunted almost in the same way that I was haunted by my theater school teachers. The ones who said those wonderful things and those terrible things, and you're always trying to prove something to them even if they're dead.

It turns out that three is a good number for a writing team, because we could always gang up on the other person and persuade them. The three-legged writing team is quite stable, actually. If you can't quite see something, one of the other two can explain it to you. And also Bob had real experience writing television in a way that Mark and I didn't. And he also has an amazing comic sensibility and a really delightful wit.

So when that came together the work started to go faster and we decided that six episodes would be really satisfying to tackle Hamlet. And that really was the plan until we finished it and watched it. The network said, would you like to go another year? And we looked at each other and I said, "Well, I think we should do a trilogy. If we're going to another one we should do three and we should do youth, middle-age and old age." That made sense to us and felt like it would be a satisfying arc.

We had the idea that, each season, we wanted to watch our characters through the filter of the play -- not in the way that you could draw straight lines between the stories and the play, but in a sort of general way being influenced by Shakespearean themes.

One of my favorite scenes in the series -- and one that really lays Shakespeare out and explains what's he's doing -- is the scene in the first season when the director, Geoffrey, explains to the actress playing Ophelia exactly what her "nonsense rhymes" actually mean. Did you find that there were scenes you created based on things you'd actually experienced?

SUSAN COYNE: There were. But some of them are so disguised that they take on a difference resonance. For example, Geoffrey reminds me of a director I worked with early on who directed me in The Glass Menagerie. He was a refugee from the Second World War, a Holocaust survivor. His family perished and he escaped to Winnipeg. He talked to me about how theater had saved his life, and it meant so much to me, the way he talked about it. It was a life force for him.

I guess there's an element where I've worked with really great directors for whom theater has saved their life. And that passion for its humanity -- for the idea of theater being a place where we can be very human with each other -- is something that I've retained and I always aspire to in the theater. The idea that it's about people communicating; there's no tricks, there's no cinema, it's just us. We're all in the same room breathing together, and if it all works out, we'll all end up having the same heart-rate at the end of the show.

Were you saddled with handling the female point of view on the show and the female characters or was that shared?

SUSAN COYNE: Oh it was definitely shared. Martha Burns, who plays Ellen, is one of my closest friends. We've known each other a long time, we grew up in Winnipeg together, so I loved coming up with storylines for her, like Ellen getting audited. But we all wrote the Ellen character and we all wrote the Anna character.

I loved aspects of Anna, but the boys, actually, I think loved Anna even more. They loved putting her in these terrible situations. The scene where she had to have sex, Mark wanted it to be really explicit and hardcore, and I finally said, "Look, guys, it's me playing the part. So let's just re-think this, shall we?"

And that's when Bob said, "Well, we could do it in the dark." I said "That sounds very good."

Do you have any special or favorite moments from the series?

SUSAN COYNE: I loved everything to do with Bill Hutt in the third season. I was in a production of King Lear with him, at Stratford in the young company, and he is a hero of mine. He's gone now, and his Lear was never filmed. So to get the little bit that we get of him, doing the great speeches, that I feel proudest of, actually.

That is the most important thing to me about the series: that we got him. We always wanted him; we wanted him in the second season and he wasn't available. But we got him in the third season. And then within 18 months he had died. So it was amazing. He was such a wonderful guy and he threw himself into it. I loved that.

Other than that, there was a tiny moment, backstage in the second season, between Geoffrey and Ellen, where they're watching Romeo and Juliet. And Ellen says, "I hate this play." I must say, watching Romeo and Juliet as a middle-aged person, you watch it and you think, "I hate this play." I mean, I love it of course, but you're in such a different headspace from the first time you played it, you can't help thinking, "What, are you nuts?"

What did you take away from the Slings & Arrows experience?

SUSAN COYNE: I learned a lot from working with two other people whose sensibilities were similar to mine, but who also pushed me ways into places I otherwise never would have gone. Although we fought a lot at the beginning, we got into a place where it was much easier to say, "Here's a sketch of the scene, but you should write it because you have that voice down better." It became very respectful -- and although there were still fights, they were good fights; not pulling in different directions, but creative fights -- where you just knew that the other person, it was just their thing and they could write it better. And you knew that when it came time to take over another scene, they would say, "You should have a go at that."

I think that's hard to replicate, when you have developed a working relationship like that with people.

As for the acting, that was more intimidating. Film is socially so different from theater. You don't have an audience; the only person who's actually watching your performance is the director, because everyone else is watching other things, like how your scarf is tied. So I found that a bit intimidating.

But there was a very collegial feeling, and we had so many theater actors coming onto the set, and so it felt much more about the work than it usually does. That was very freeing for me, because I've always felt that I'm very uptight on the set and never felt very free. And so to be with this wonderful team, on a series that you created yourself, playing this lovely character was wonderful. I adored playing Anna.

Film Festival Plan A: DVD sales

Your film screens and everyone loves it.  They want their friends and family to see it too, but there are no more screenings left.  Your audience loves your film, how are you going to mobilize them into action?

Festivals are a great place to sell DVDs of your film, but will the Festival let you? It's probably a good idea to inquire in advance. Will you be able to set up a table outside the theater? Will you need to have a website in order to sell them? Will you need to have some one do the fulfillment? Figure this out before you show up.

People that buy your DVD at a festival are your core base and they want to help you out.  Give them your card and ask them to email you.  Get theirs and email them.  Let them know that this is a special sort of DVD they bought; tell them that is a DVD for house party use.  Let them know that if they can get a certain number of friends to come over (25? 50?), you will do an iChat with them live for an hour and discuss how you made the film.  Let them know that you will get them more of these "House Party DVDs" for their House Party that they can sell on your behalf and keep a cut for themselves.  Trust people; it will do more for you than the harm the few times you do get ripped off will hurt.

Happy Birthday, Jakob!

Yes, today would be--let's see now--the 137th birthday of Jakob Seel (pronounced Sail).

That's right. The real Jakob featured in our upcoming film, Under Jakob's Ladder, was born on this date, October 29, 1871 in Ukraine.

And, yes, that's a photo of him on the right. Looking a little stern. Dressed in his uniform when he served in the Russian army during World War 1. (It's probably in that very uniform that he used to play (and win) against his superior officers in all those chess matches.)

Film Festival Plan A: Online Screening

Major Festivals are great for media exposure, but they reach a really limited audience. Sundance is predominately film industry professionals and wannabes; what about the real ticket buying people? If someone hears about your film and they can't attend the festival, how will they get to see it?

With your audience's interest piqued, is it a good time to get your film online soon after the festival screening? What method will best serve your film: streaming, ad-supported, pay per download? There are many variations on this, but the point is you need to have it figured out before your screening if you are going to take advantage of it. And you need to have some way to let people know.

Some festivals, like Slamdance, are doing this directly themselves, and I think that's a great idea.

Word Of Mouth Radio

I was just interviewed by Virginia Prescoot of WordOfMouthRadio.org for New Hampshire Public Radio.  Check out their website and download the podcast, unless you happen to be out campaigning in that state today, in which case tune in.

Film Festival Plan A: Getting The Word Out

Word of mouth is the key thing in generating want-to-see and future revenues for your film.  You want to shape that conversation as much as you can.  

It once was that film critics truly helped shape these discussions, but most have them now have been fired and lost their platforms.  Even before that, many had shifted to a simplistic way of reviewing, reducing things to a yay or nay and a synopsis.  But whom is doing this now?  There certainly is a galaxy of film bloggers out there.  And they are a lot easier to reach than their prior generation of film critics.  

If you got your film into a major film festival, I am sure the blogosphere will want to hear from you.  But why not go that extra step and get them a DVD in advance.  It's hard to see more than 25 films at Sundance and since there is five times that amount there, why not make sure that they see yours in advance?

Film Festival Plan A: Your Website

Today's post brought to you by Jon Reiss:

I thought I'd offer a few more comments about having a filmmaker website. In fact it is crazy not to have a website during production or pre production these days as a way to start building your audience.

The king of using the web is Lance Weiller - definitely check out his Filmmaker Magazine article "Lessons in DIY" from Winter 2007.

But one quick tip - you don't need to spend a lot of money designing a complex static website with lots of information about your film. I recommend using a blog as your main page. It is much easier to set up and is easier to keep current and dynamic. For Bomb It nearly all the traffic is to our blog - very rarely do people check out the other static pages on the site. With a blog format - most likely using Wordpress - you can create all the information pages you need such as "About the Film" "About the Filmmakers" and have these in a box on the right or left. (we have Press and Screenings links at the top of ours)

I am slowly turning www.jonreiss.com/blog which is what you are reading into a main page for my site. It is much easier to update all of your information using "pages" in a blog than to have a web-designer have to rewrite your information using html.

Feel free to check out the difference in:

www.bombit-themovie.com

www.bombit-themovie.com/blog

Another good example of a blog as main page, and a site you should check out anyway is www.lanceweiler.com

- Jon Reiss

This Time Last Year: Gala

A year ago today...


We were presenting our first feature film Dear J (which, at that time was still going by its working title, 'Liars and Lunatics'). The gala/screening was held at the Helen Mills Theatre in the heart of New York City.

It was also the first time the cast and crew, as well as the public, got a glimpse of the finished product. Also, the event presented a nice opportunity to get together with everyone who worked on the movie...


(Pictured left to right: Roberto Munoz, Bruce Nicholls, Hudson Chambers, Maya Serhan, Amanda Short, Michael Kricfalusi, Allison Lane, Patrick Mitchell, Joseph Halsey, Robert Glasser)

Film Festival Plan A: Corporate Sponsorship

Corporate Sponsorship of a film, in any way, is a tricky thing.   A viewer who becomes aware of multiple agendas in a film, generally is no longer going to be "with" the film.  They become suspect.  But sponsorship is not the same as turning your art into a commercial.  There are many methods and many benefits to consider when considering corporate sponsorship (I will try to cover the negative side in another post in the future).

Perhaps the most important consideration regarding sponsorship is does the brand have a natural fit with your film (I know some will argue that the amount of money is the most important thing, but still).  If the film and sponsorship is not aligned, it will read to the public as a crass money grab (which maybe it is) and they will approach the film from a feeling of distrust.

Brands have their own audience.  Corporations maintain their own data on their "audience".  This is what you want most from the alliance: audience sourcing.  In considering sponsorship, ask them what they will do to reach out to their audience.  This may very well be a much longer term relationship with many phases to it, but it's hard to leap into such an arrangement.  As people like to say about investors and other supporters: "you have to get them pregnant first".  It's surprising that such a caveman philosophy dominates in so many areas, but you get the logic.  I prefer the "one step at a time" way of thinking myself.

You do need to keep the long term forever in mind though in working with a sponsor.  You want them there with you ever step of the way, hopefully deepening their commitment with your combined success.  Work the relationship.  Give them new opportunities.  

What do you want from the sponsorship from the get go though?  Well, beyond building for the long haul, you want to do something that has immediate impact.  Generally people think that is a big blow out party.  Personally, I am not a fan of this approach, particularly at Sundance.  They don't have much impact as they are over a few hours after they start.  Further at many festivals, you are competing with many parties.  And all parties get unruly; they just aren't a good experience and they don't leave much of a memory.

I am a big fan of dinners for fifty close friends.  This approach only works if your publicist can get you high end journalists to attend.  But who doesn't like a nice meal?  The question is though how would this benefit the sponsor.  Depending on your film and your sponsor,they may very much like the one on one interaction with your stars and team.  They might want to offer this to their top level execs, as Sundance has become a bit of a corporate getaway, another perk in their arsenal.  This approach can certainly extend beyond dinners: skiing with the stars, one on one sit downs, presentation of the movie at different branch offices.

Publicity materials are a relatively high cost item that you will need to have every step of the way.  Will your sponsor pay for the cost of posters and postcards, t-shirts and hats?  What can you offer them in return?  Is it such a big deal to have their corporate logo on the poster?  Is that too much to give away for such an investment?

Precisely: The Conversation

Scott Kirsner has blogged about the the highlights of The Conversation last weekend, which I had the pleasure of participating in.  

film is just one component of a story that you start telling before your first festival showing... and continue to build on and embroider even after you've released the DVD and digital download. The "movie release date" becomes just one milestone in this conversation between you and your audience. Some people who participate in the conversation may never actually buy a ticket or a download... while others may become so engaged that they buy everything you offer, and help market your movie to everyone they know.

Bill Cunningham riffs on that further at Pulp 2.0:

This is two things:

1) utilizing the power of the internet to be different media all at once.

2) This is branding. Intellectual property building.

Filmmakers and novelists and other creatives need to figure this out now. Their book, comic, movie, animation, music, radio drama, is only the beginning. A book isn't just between the covers. A movie isn't just onscreen.

Don't think small. Think about how you can add to your creation. How you can translate it. How it can have further value - both to you and your audience

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Film Festival Plan A:Postcards

(Today's post courtesy of director Jon Reiss)

Create a piece of striking key art. 

Easier said than done. This can be expensive (starting at $5,000 - $10,000 and up) - but it does not have to be. Chances are you have a few friends that are good at graphic design - ask them. If not - try a post on Craig's List and/or Mandy.com. Since you are in a festival - you have the ability to say that their work will get a lot of exposure. Also you might consider outsourcing your graphic design. For Bomb It we had a Uruguayan group do some of our key art for Tribeca. Try to get the designer to give you a variety of comps to choose from.

Get the key art sized for a 4x6 postcard as well as at full film poster. Its way too expensive to offset your film poster now. But you can get single printouts from most digital printers for about $50-$60 each and you only need one or two.

For the postcard, have your key art on the front and have film, contact and screening information on the back. Printing postcards are very inexpensive now. You can get 4000 for $100 at NextDayFlyers.com (and 1000 postcards for $39.95). For super low budget create one postcard with your general contact and film information on the back and leave room for putting stickers for your show times. BUT since postcards are so cheap now - I really recommend printing your screening time on the back of the postcard. It can take a bit of time to print and stick the stickers on the back of the postcards and you are very busy. A compromise is to print your first festival screenings on the back (esp since this is often your most important screening) and to use the rest for other fests putting the label over your first set of screenings.

Don't forget business cards - I recommend putting your film title treatment on the front with your films website so that people remember why they have your card. Again these can be printed very inexpensively - 1000 for around $10-$20.

In a couple of weeks I will start putting downloadable PDF samples of Key Art on my website www.jonreiss.com

Film Festival Plan A: Still Need To Hire A Publicist

When I first started going to Sundance, it was just a bunch of filmmakers and a bunch of filmlovers.  Filmmakers had no entourage.  No one told them what to do or what they thought was right; instead they shared information and secrets.  But that was then.

For the last ten years, it has seemed that filmmakers arrived at major festivals with a horde in tow: lawyers, agents, managers, producer's reps, foreign sales agents, and publicists.  The list actually goes on from there.  But that was then.

These days, recognizing that a sale is very unlikely, how much do you really need?  There's definitely another few posts worth of material in that question, but I can tell you that the one I think is critical is the publicist.  After all, it is all about getting the word out about your film.

The traditional media still holds the most weight (okay, that's debatable), and any a publicist worth their salt will know how to reach them.  More importantly, the publicist will know what these critics and journalists look like, and will be able to find out what they thought of the film immediately.  Their opinion matters as it influences everyone: buyers, festival programmers, independent bookers, and other journalists.

The publicists also know the distributors and as long as you want to keep Plan D (sell your film) alive, that is invaluable as the publicists can help facilitate meetings with the buyers.

A publicist will help you draft your press notes in advance of the festival and arrange key interviews.  Sometimes they can even help find a corporate sponsor for a party (more on that later).  The publicist will collect all of the press you receive, and survey the journalists on their response.  They will collect all this material so you can share it with everyone you reach out to later.

How do you find your publicist?  Well these days they often find you if you get into Sundance or a major festival.  The key filmmaking community organizations like IFP and Film Independent can also help direct you.  Maybe I can put together a list and post it here (I will get back to you on that).

Carol Littleton on "The Big Chill"

I love this movie and I think the first reel of The Big Chill is one of the best first reels in movie history. Everything is set up so nicely.

CAROL LITTLETON: Right. All the characters are introduced.

Let me ask -- and this is just because I've always been curious about this -- William Hurt walks into the church in that reel just at the Minister is saying, ".... a man like Alex." Was that juxtaposition in the script or was it found in the editing?

CAROL LITTLETON: That was found in the editing. We could have had those entrances anywhere, in any order. Obviously he was the last one to arrive. We did cut the minister's speech down some, it was a little bit rambling. And it was just more salient to have the line over the Bill Hurt character, Nick, as he sits down.

Was that film similar to Body Heat, in that you found a lot of it in the editing room?

CAROL LITTLETON: It stayed closer to the script than Body Heat, because it was not a thriller. So we didn't have to deal with elements of timing that are alive on film but on the page are sometimes hard to judge.

But we had other things that were equally difficult, and that was how to integrate the music into the scenes and have it make sense. We discovered right away that we would not have a score, that it would be just the music from Motown stuff and things that were popular in 1968-69.

There were only two tunes that were in the script that we did to playback. For the rest of them, I cut the music and then cut the picture to the music. That was, essentially, doing it backwards. Those were not needle drops that we did after the picture was done and we just added it. It was all integrated as we were going.

I had probably 150 tunes that were in my editing room, on a rack. I would try a lot of different things until we found the right tempo and the right piece. Of course, Larry (Kasdan) is very knowledgeable about rock and roll and that era, because he was in college then.

So most of our editorial time went into the stylistic elements of making the film. Making the music choices seem seamless and making it flow from one song to the next, so that the lyrics and the tempo and the musicality of the scene matched. Like I said, they weren't needle drops; everything was cut to the tempo of the music and re-arranged in such a way that the lyrics fell at certain moments that were salient moments in the film.

So you're kind of doing it backwards; you're literally laying the track out and putting the picture to it, rather than cutting the picture and just dropping the music in. It makes a very big difference in the flow of the film, the musicality of the film, the style of it. The style of the picture is, in fact, very musical. So those were the challenges, editorially; it was really questions of style more than anything else.

Do you have a favorite moment, where it all came together?

CAROL LITTLETON: Yes, I think the episode that was very, very difficult was with the character of Meg (Mary Kay Place) who wants to have a baby. And when Glenn Close figures out that she could put her husband with her best friend, well, it's a little preposterous. This was before artificial insemination, so if you were going to have a baby, you actually had to have a partner. We knew that it was a little far-fetched and if the audience lost it in the movie it would probably be with that episode. The humor had to play a large part in allowing the audience to feel that it was appropriate and slightly goofy and also believable and tasteful.

So I think that whole section, with Aretha Franklin's "A Natural Woman," that whole section into the next morning, I felt really worked well for me. The night before, during the night and the next morning.

Let's talk about one of the most famous scenes in the movie -- the ending flashback, with Kevin Costner as Alex, that was shot but then cut from the movie. How did that come about?

CAROL LITTLETON: You could talk to five or six different people who worked on the movie and you'd get several different opinions. But being on the inside of that, the ending that Larry and Barbara Benedek wrote was to have a large flashback at the very end of how all these people were -- the roots of their personalities, the roots of who they were going to be -- were actually evident when they were students.

After I first read the script, we sat down and I said, "I feel very uneasy about this flashback. I just don't think you need it." And Larry with his nasal, West Virginia voice, said, "Carol, I can't believe you said that. You are so wrong. I can't believe it. You are so wrong." So I dropped it. When somebody says you're wrong, you drop it.

When we were shooting it I said, "This looks like a masquerade, with everybody in long hair and beads." And Larry said, "Carol, you are so wrong. The reason I wanted to write this script was because of this idea." And I said, "Yes, Larry, you're absolutely right. It's a wonderful idea. You may have needed that scene to write the script, but you don't need the scene for the movie. At all." "You are so wrong, if you mention this one more time!"

Well, in the editing, we put that flashback everywhere. We took it out of the ending, we put it up front, we put it in the middle, we put it in pieces, we spent a lot of time trying to get the flashback to work.

We showed it to the studio with the flashback and the suits came in -- Larry and I were the only people from our end -- and the guy who was in charge said, "This is not funny. Take it back, re-do it. I don't know what you guys are thinking, this is a comedy? This is bullshit. Start over again."

Well, we were devastated. Devastated. We knew it was funny, we knew it was engaging, we knew it was emotional.

And then he said, "While you're at it, that flashback is a stinko scene."

So we showed it to them the next time with an audience and the movie still did not work as well as it should. So I said, "Larry, why don't we devise an ending, drop the flashback, have two screenings -- one with the flashback and one without -- and let the audience tell us which one is more effective?"

Well, at the screenings, it was clear that the version without the flashback was better. And the next day, when Larry came into the cutting room, he said, "God dammit, Carol, I wanted you to take that thing out from the beginning! How many times do I have to tell you I'm right?"

That's how funny he is. He's wonderful.

Post-Fest Era: Further Festival Initiatives

In a post on Variety's Festival Blog, The Circuit, Steve Ramos writes about the unique launch and partnership Miramax is doing with the Heartland Film Festival and their film "The Boy In The Striped Pajamas".

Battsek approved the call to partner with the 16-year-old festival on a single-night, 31-city screening program to promote "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" to Heartland partner organizations like the Boy Scouts of America in an attempt to build national awareness for the film.

This type of re-imagining of the film festival is critical these days.  Hopefully other festivals will follow suit and find new ways to increase a film's exposure when they commit to play at a festival.  A 31 city simultaneous single day screening is possible even for the Truly Free Filmmaker in these days of digital projection.  How many festivals can extend beyond their home base?  Festivals have to think beyond their immediate community and increase their reach if they are going to offer filmmakers something truly meaningful.

I would be curious to hear what other festivals are doing to further their impact and partner with filmmakers.

Film Festival Plan A: Beyond Bonding

For years, I have recommended filmmakers do all they could to bond with the other filmmakers they met at festivals, for as the films travelled festival to festival, these other filmmakers would become their support group, their friends, perhaps even more. 

As we enter the Post-Festival Era, this support group needs to be transformed into a far more important alliance. It remains a top priority to find like-minded filmmakers, but now these fellow conspirators should be sought out as fellow distributors. With five united filmmakers you have a booking block, a touring film festival of your own making. 

If there was a way to locate all the other festival programmers, community center programmers, or independent theater bookers that attend the festival, this alliance would be in business.  Hopefully this type of independent booker will recognize that this is a new era and they can go to the filmmakers directly for an engagement.  Somehow I don't think that's going to happen this year, and these people remain hard to find.  Filmmakers need to share this information where ever they can find it.

I recognize that some may be hesitant to pursue this approach immediately after the festival.  The dreams of acquisition will still be strong.  Yet this sort of booking engagement is not a theatrical release in the traditional sense.  It is closer to a publicity tour -- a publicity tour on someone else's dime.  Field publicity is direct communication with the audience and that is the most successful way to build word-of-mouth on your film.

A Few Words Of Inspiration...

from Lance Hammer, courtesy of Ray Pride.  Check them out here.

Marketing 101: Synecdoche

Okay maybe this the long way around, but here's a great inexpensive way to get the word about your film out. First come up with a title that people don't understand, ideally a single word.  Then, make an incredibly unique and heartfelt film illustrating the full meaning of the word.  Finally, approach Dictionary.com to feature the same word as your title.  Genius!

If you are late to this post, check out the word of the day for Wed. Oct 22, 2008.

Film Festival Plan A: Basic Web Stuff

It seems ludicrous to head into a festival these days and not have a website or blog for your film in advance. It seems silly not to have that web address built into you film end credits. It doesn't have to be a final or even a polished site, but there should be something. How else will you tell your audience how they can participate in the experience or even see your film?

Beyond a website or a blog, filmmakers should do the simple outreach chores. Build a Wiki page for your film. Create a MySpace and/or Facebook profile for your film. Make sure all the info is in IMDB. 

And don't forget images. Post some stills. Hell, post some clips up on YouTube. For years, filmmakers have been told to make presskits, but why not do the things that let the audience find them directly?  Why wait for the journalists; they have all been fired!

Film Festival Plan A: Logic & Strategy

If you are so fortunate as to have your film selected for Sundance, there is a good chance that your festival screening will be the peak point of media activity on your film. Unless your film is going to be released by a major distributor, more attention will be paid during this period ever again. Are you going to take advantage of this attention or are you going to squander it?

We all know very few films get picked up these days for distribution, so why are you going to bet on that?  Well, you're not.  Over the next few days I will explore some of the questions you should ask yourself and strategies you should consider in heading to the festival.  And I won't avoid the obvious either, because these days it is still being overlooked.  I am sure I will miss a lot and I hope others write in to fill this out.

People are going to hear about your film when it plays at a major film festival; their "want-to-see" will be at its highest point when folks are talking about the festival in traditional media, online, and through conversation. What are the options before you headed into a festival in order to exploit this want-to-see?  This is the reason you are headed to the festival, isn't it?

The Story Behind "Under Jakob's Ladder" -- Part 2

A week or so ago, we were giving a bit of a history behind the feature film, UNDER JAKOB'S LADDER...

To understand the world in which Jakob lived.

Winter, 1932-33. Not a pleasant time for those who lived in the Soviet Ukraine. In fact, this year (2008) marks the 75th anniversary of what is called the holodomor.

What happened? Well, in an effort to squelch resistance to the centralized five-year plans, Stalin ordered the harvests be removed from the possession of their owners. In other words, a forced famine.

This included Jakob's village. Jakob and his family barely survived that winter of starvation. Many others did not.

But Stalin got what he wanted; the people lost their will to resist the collectivization of agriculture.

Then, in the late 1930s, Stalin began his political purges. Pitting neighbor against neighbor, even children were enticed to turn in their parents. Men were carted off by the truckloads to face false accusations imprisonment, exile and death.

The secret police would always come at night in a vehicle that was nicknamed the Black Raven. Men became scarce in the villages.

Most of what we know about Jakob and his family comes from oral tradition. The movie is intended as a tribute to the many thousands of German-Russians from the Soviet Territories who did not survive the Stalinist purges. It is also offered as a reminder of the courage of those people who did.

The Conversation: Live in Berkley 10/18

Scott Kirsner, Lance Weiler, Tiffany Shlain and others put together a great program at Pacific Film Archives this past weekend, bringing together folks from the tech, social entrepreneur, and film worlds.  There was a lot of great stuff on the new world of DIY/Hybrid Distribution.  I imagine Lance will post a lot of it over at The Workbook Project.  

This is a nice low angle (i.e. I am not quite so wide in real life -- or rather I still like to think my self not so wide) shot of my "Coffee Chat" with Scott and Dean Valentine of Comedy.com.  It captures and highlights my nasal honk quite well though.   It's the end of the session Q&A and I rant on the transformation from an impulse to a choice economy of entertainment, throwing in some speculation on the coming Post-Fest Era to boot.

On changing Festival world, Variety has an article on how the financial crisis has effected film festivals. Worth checking out.

Preparing For The Film Festivals

Its that time of the year when filmmakers nationwide get all antsy.  Sundance generally starts to let filmmakers know whether their work has been selected for the festival around the end of October.  This ritual extends for about four weeks until Thanksgiving gives everyone a break.

Generally speaking, for fifteen years now, filmmakers approach Sundance with a single plan: to sell their film for a big profit.  The logic of this singleminded pursuit is non-existent.  For several years now, great films with clear audiences screen without getting picked up.  The amount the lucky few achieve has been dropping consistently with a few exceptions.  Simultaneously, the need to work with the mainstream distributors has been dropping rapidly.  One could even argue that these distributors have defined their acquisition strategy so specifically that they need to even bother to attend the festival.

Filmmakers need to recognize that what once was the holy grail now needs to be regulated to Plan C or even Plan D.  I wish it wasn't so and I wish many of the filmmakers could walk off the mountain with their wildest dreams of wealth realized.  But we all need to recognize what Plan A and B really should be these days.

Plan A has got to be that you will need to be the leading force in the distribution of your film.  This is the DIY model.

Plan B is that various experts will all want to work with you on Co-Distributing your film, albeit for a fee.

Plan C is that buyers for different media will want your film and you need to be able to evaluate how to mix and match these offers -- or even accept those offers at all.

Plan D is that someone will make an offer of such an amount that it is worth considering giving up all your rights to your film for the next twenty years.

There are many aspects of each plan that need to be considered in addition to these various plans.  I will be doing my best to examine these aspects in the days ahead.  Although Plan D doesn't really need any further thought than where to find a good lawyer; the indie world has relied on this plan long enough.

Navigating Film Festivals

Scott Macauley linked to yesterday's post on the Filmmaker Magazine Blog and included a link to Chris Holland's book "Film Festival Secrets".  Seems like a good thing to read up on as you dream about being selected for Sundance.  I am going to give it a look.  You have to sign up, at least temporarily for Chris' newsletter and then they send you the book -- so I haven't gotten to look at it yet.

I am going to be posting some basic advice over the next few days on how I personally recommend viewing the festival circuit, and in particular Sundance, -- once you are in.  Chris' book is a very comprehensive overview on selecting your festivals,  how to get in (and manage when you don't), marketing, building your team, preparation, troubleshooting, and followup.  It's a quick read and an incredible resource.  It compiles what took me years to learn.  It does though take festivals a bit as an end into themselves, whereas Truly Free Filmmakers must see them as just the first step in building awareness about their films.  

Festivals have to be used very judiciously these days.  Festivals are going to change from many diverse and singular events to much more of a unified community focused on year round programming.  They are the keepers and maintainers of aggregated film lovers and cinephiles nationwide.  They will be able to leverage that community into a truly valuable resource for TFFilmakers, but a new model needs to be found.

The Post-Fest Era

In September, Christian Gaines wrote a provocative two-part article for Variety speculating on a new business models for film rights holders in terms of how they use film festivals.  It's required reading, and certainly got me thinking.

In this month's Independent, Paul Devlin has a piece on lessons he learned on the film fest circuit with his film BLAST.  He definitely has some good information for all, but again it was  's last paragraph that got me thinking again:

Of course, the film festival model will always serve some film very well. But diverging interests may mean that film festivals necessarily become a much less essential element of a filmmaker’s strategy for promotion and distribution. Just as we seem to be entering a “post-distributor” environment in which filmmakers eschew rotten deals and embrace DIY, we may be witnessing the emergence of a “post-film festival” environment as well.

A new model needs to be found for filmmakers choosing (or having no other option than) to hold onto their rights.

Festivals can be a great way to heighten awareness for your film, but generally only in the local community where the film is playing.  To make matters worse, many festivals these days are over-programed and as a result the films simply get lost and overlooked.  The festivals and the communities make money on the sold out shows but not the filmmakers.  With only a few sales happening and then only at the highest festival level, filmmakers can't be attending with the hopes of a deal?  So how can festivals be utilized by the Truly Free Filmmaker?

It would be ideal for local festivals to initiate deals with local theaters so that prize winning films would get an automatic one or two week booking three or four months after the festival.  I have to imagine this is done somewhere already but frankly I am clueless as to where.

It would be ideal for colleges and community centers in and around the local festivals to agree to bring filmmakers and their films out to lecture one or two months after winning at the festival.  This would allow for some local publicity to be done in advance of a future booking.

The most natural fit for regional festivals and TFFilmakers is for the filmmakers to use the festival to launch a specific DVD sale directly at the festival.  At the very least they could take pre-orders.

I found it very exciting when Slamdance announced this year that certain films would be available for streaming directly after their festival premiere.  When I have heard of a film playing a major festival, that is when my "want-to-see" is at its highest.  Six months later another 50 films have moved ahead of it on my queue.  TFFilmakers have to strike when audience desire is highest.

Towards The New Distribution Infrastructure

Are we just dreaming that we could have a distribution infrastructure to handle films based on what they actually are, as opposed to the current one that looks for films that justify significant marketing budgets?  I don't think so.

A couple of weeks back I was sitting with Lance Weiler and he told me it was already here.  I paused and wondered how I missed it.  He said it was the Obama Social Network.  So am I now dreaming of an activist film loving community that works together to make sure the films get seen and appreciated?  I don't think so on this one either.

I definitely flashed back on our conversation when I read Ari Melber's "Obama's iSuccess" article in The Nation last week.  The thought of gathering and creating regional Truly Free Film CultureVultures united through text messaging and their love of unique and personal film delights me.  There's a lot more that can be explored here and followed up on.

Nancy Morgan and Rance Howard on "Grand Theft Auto"

How did you first hear about Grand Theft Auto?

NANCY MORGAN: My agents were contacted by Ron! Can you imagine? The reason for that was when he was casting for this role he was for someone who, first and foremost, he didn't have to pay a lot. It couldn't be a star -- it had to be an unknown. At the time, one of my first movie that I'd ever acted in -- in fact, one of my first acting jobs ever, because I came to Hollywood untrained and unprepared -- was a movie called Fraternity Row, with Paul Newman's son, Scott Newman, in his first and only picture. And it was out in the theaters when Ron was casting and he liked my performance in it and found my agent.

What was the audition like?

NANCY MORGAN: Back then I used to say to myself, 'There are a lot of people here who know a lot about acting, but all I really know is that you just have to pretend that it's happening.' And so, during the audition process, I did as close to what I felt a human being would do under the circumstances, and that was to say the lines like I meant them, and then when Ron was talking to me, react to what he was saying. And that's all I knew -- that was about as much acting as I knew.

Ron later said to me, 'You know, I interviewed a couple hundred girls. Did you ever wonder why you got it?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And he said, 'Because you were the only one who, when you weren't speaking, was still listening.'

Because that was the only thing he told me, that was something that forever stuck with me as one of the things that was important and not everyone's top tool.

Did you handle any of the stunts yourself?

NANCY MORGAN: If you're a good driver, and you're a little bit fearless, you're going to do some of that stuff, because it makes it more exciting and real. So when those shots of us going, "Whoa!," I'm driving. When you see the car stop suddenly along the freeway, and fishtail along the edge, or start up really fast, it is me driving.

What I didn't do were any of the really long shots from the air -- those were all done where you can't see the people inside. The scenes where we're just talking were frequently towed. But I did a lot of driving.

Did you rehearse much?

NANCY MORGAN: The cars rehearsed. The stunts rehearsed. And the explosions rehearsed. We basically just had to know our lines and pretty much bring it to life. We would run through the scene once or twice, but really rarely for the acting of it. Ron knew what he was doing, so he didn't really need it. And every scene I was in was with Ron, so it was like, 'Could I do it? Did I know what I was doing or not?'

When you're hiring a young actress or actor and you know you're not going to have a lot of rehearsal time, you better do your best to get the person that you want to see, as opposed to the great actress who will be able to bring Paula to life. So, it's just me, saying the lines and trying to bring some life to them.

Looking at the script, there appeared to be a thousand interchangeable scenes of Ron and I in the car, talking about this and that. I understood enough about story to know that it had to build and climax and resolve. And so the first thing I did with my script was to break it down into an outline and had an understanding of where Ron and I were in our relationship, from the first scene to the last.

Ron, on several occasions -- since he was in charge of the whole picture, directing everything -- he realized that I had done this and that I was aware of where we were in the script at any given point in terms of his and my relationship. He would sometimes say, 'Where are we?' And I would say, 'Well, this has happened and this has happened and this has happened, but this hasn't happened yet, so we do know about this but we don't know about that.' And he's say, 'Okay. Got it thanks.'

My breaking it down was something that I could do that was helpful to him and that would orient him as to where we were in the scene, and then Ron just acts -- he doesn't even to have to worry.



RANCE HOWARD: Ron had acted in Eat My Dust, and it had been a huge success for Roger. He wanted to do another car chase/car crash film. Ron said, 'I will do another movie for you, with one additional job added.' And Roger said, 'What is that?' And Ron said, 'I want to direct. And Roger said, 'Well, Ron, you always looked like a director to me.'

Now the question becomes, what is the movie?

Who came up with the title?

RANCE HOWARD: Roger already had the title. He had tested it. It was going to be called Grand Theft Auto, and it was about young people on the run. He said, 'If you and your dad could come up with a story like that, we'd have a deal.'

So we sat down and put our heads together and started kicking ideas around. We did a treatment first; Roger read the treatment and loved it and we went right to script.

Why a Rolls Royce and the demolition derby?

RANCE HOWARD: We thought the Rolls Royce would be the perfect automobile for the girl's father to have, and then she would take his car because he had, in essence, taken her car. And then we'd put the car through all the punishment we could, in order to get back at her father, and then finally wreck it at the demolition derby.

I was fascinated with the demolition derby. At one time, Ron, Clint and I went to see a demolition derby, and it was just fascinating. At that time I had considered writing a script about a demolition derby. Then with Grand Theft Auto, it just seemed perfect for the car to end up in a demolition derby.

How was it for Ron working with his father and his brother on the movie? I'm guessing it's okay, as he's done it in just about every movie he's made since then.

I think any director likes to use people that he is familiar with and that he can trust and has confidence in. Both Clint and I fit nicely into those categories. And his mother, at that time, had been working quite a lot coordinating extras for other filmmakers. And so she coordinated a lot of the extras for that film, in particular the senior citizens on the bus.

Involving his mother, and his brother Clint -- an excellent actor, and who was at that time, almost as big a name as Ron -- in the film just made good sense.

We had been feeding the crew Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch every day, and they were getting close to a mutiny, because they didn't appreciate having Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch every day. And, of course, the reason we were doing it was the most reasonably-priced thing we could give them.

Ron's wife, Cheryl heard about our problem, and she said, 'Let me cook lunch. Give me the budget that you're spending for the Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I'll prepare a hot lunch for the crew.' And I said, 'Cheryl, you don't want to do that.' And she said, 'Yes, I do. I can do that.'

She enlisted the help of her grandmother, and they prepared lunches on that budget that -- if you run into any of the crew to this day -- they will comment on what great food Cheryl provided for that shoot.

What's the biggest lesson you took away from the experience?

RANCE HOWARD: Stand up for what you believe in. For example, if we had allowed ourselves to be easily talked out of it being a comedy and cut it as a straight action picture.

You need to be tenacious; you need to stick to your guns, but at the same time, you have to be prepared to compromise and negotiate. That was really driven home to me, the importance of compromise. There are a lot of aspects of making a film where you can compromise. In some places, you can't. You need to know what compromises can be made and what compromises can't be made.

Coming to that realization is important: understanding that you're not going to get everything you want, you're going to get part of what you want.

Filmmaking is a team effort, it's really team work. We happened to have a great team.

Workday in October

The work needed to get some of our locations ready for filming in the spring. Here's a bit of a look at what we did this past weekend.





Thanks to all who helped with the lifting and the hauling. And to those who scraped and scrubbed and vacuumed. And those who made sure we were all well-fed.

Thanks to the hard-working troops: Matt and Johanna, Frank and Lynn, Alberto, JJ, Reuben, Maria, Laura, Carmen, Doris, Tricia, and Diane!

Did we miss anyone?

Oh, yeah. And special thanks to Leif and Inge...

(And an extra special thanks to Tricia who found the keys... We might still be looking for them!)
The work was worth it, wasn't it?

Digital Dollar Models

Scott Kirshner has a good post up at Cinema Tech regarding a panel he was on.  In it he breaks out eight different revenue streams filmmakers can pursue for their work.  There are definitely more, and I hope to get to some of those in future postings.

One of Scott's eight, really caught my eye:

Live speaking gigs via videochat. One interesting new idea that emerged from the panels is that filmmakers might earn “speaking fees” without having to travel. Instead of asking a non-profit or educational institution to pay $2500 or $5000 to fly you out to address their group, ask them to pay $250 or $500 to have you do a short live talk/Q&A (using software like Skype or iChat) after they’ve watched your film. More groups would be able to afford that kind of filmmaker interaction than the pricier one, and fewer filmmakers would be spending time stuck in airports or jammed into center seats.

I think the live interaction element with audiences has a great deal of potential, particularly when linked with other elements.  For instance, imagine you are one of the lucky few whose film is accepted to the Sundance Film Festival.  What do you do next when you, like most, made the mistake of betting on a distribution deal?  

What if you banded together with your fellow filmmakers prior to the festival though?  What if you looked reality in the face and took action ahead of the festival?  If I was a college professor anywhere in the US and I was approached by five or ten filmmakers with films in a major festival and they told me they would provide me their film, one film a week, two or three months after the festival, AND that the students would get an hour of iChat with the filmmakers after the screening, man, would I do all I could to book the group at my school.  If the filmmakers also asked me if I knew other professors at other campuses that might do likewise, I would definitely share my list.  

In a short matter of time, the beginnings of a Truly Free Film Culture college tour would start to emerge.  Inevitably these tours would start on a regional basis, but from there the foundations would be set to start to work this on a national basis.  With such a national tour infrastructure in place, a new publicity outlet would be born.  Filmmakers could use this no cost apparatus to connect to audiences, and reach out to greater communities.

Music Vs. Film : Copyright Control Comparisons

I was reading over an article on BBC News on the state of the music business.  

Film people never like comparisons between us and them (Music vs. Film), but I find them useful.  Film vets dismiss the comparison of Music vs. Film over a couple of issues: 1) cost of motion picture production; 2) cost of motion picture marketing; 3) cost of the product; and 4) length of time required to listen/watch.  You can hear a song in two minutes for free and have a complete experience.

I think dismissing the comparison often comes down to seeing the Film Biz as 100% Hollywood.  It's true that's where the money is made these days (outside of distinct national industries and genres), but we do have potential to develop a true alternative now -- that is provided the internet can remain truly free and neutral.

In the BBC article, they cite a panel that took place between Jazz Summers, the manage of The Verve (and a proponent of artists' control of copyright) and Lyor Cohen, the head of Warner Music (and a proponent of corporate control).  Cohen stated the big money perspective:

"It's very important for us to own those rights if we are going to have an infrastructure around the world of thousands of people, if we're going to invest in new artists to create new music and promote and market it."

Cohen's perspective is also the Big Money Perspective on Film.  But here's where it's important to recognize the difference between Big Money Hollywood & Traditional Indie/Specialized on one hand and Truly Free Film culture on the other.  

Truly Free Film will be built on collective endeavor and an open source perspective on information and information sharing.  Those attitudes and subsequent action will build a new infrastructure that will allow Truly Free Film artists to earn a living.  The Truly Free Film Culture infrastructure will not be dependent on Mega-Corp investment.  

In a Truly Free Film Culture, there is no argument for anyone other than the artists owning their copyrights, or at least sharing in them with their investors.

Edie Falco on "Judy Berlin"

You've known the writer/director of Judy Berlin, Eric Mendelsohn, for a long time -- over 25 years. At what point did you become involved in the project?

EDIE FALCO: Usually he'll wait until a script is finished and then give it to me to read, which is what he did. After I read it and told him how much I loved it, he said 'I would love for you to play the part of Judy.' I was flabbergasted, because he had not said a word to me about it.

You didn't realize that he was thinking of you for the lead?

EDIE FALCO: I've read everything he's ever done and given my feedback, so I assumed that that's what this was.

What are the advantages of working with someone you know so well?

EDIE FALCO: A lot of the films I've done I've done with friends and family. The advantage is you go in there feeling no obligation to prove yourself. There's a camaraderie and a trust that is inherent in just all of you being there together. It makes all the difference in the world. It's like raising a child, I imagine. They become what is expected of them. I know they trust me and I trust them. It gets that all out of the way so we can get down to the work.

Eric took the interesting approach of keeping you and Barbara Barrie (who plays your mother) apart before your scene together. Did that help add to the awkwardness of the scene?

EDIE FALCO: It sure did. Although I thought it was just a matter of scheduling. I thought, 'All right, I won't meet her until the day we shoot.' That's the way these things are. I think in retrospect it did help.

She was a woman around whom I was unfamiliar. You hold your body differently, eye contact is different than with someone that you're comfortable around. I think physically the relationship that Judy and her mother had sort of mirrored that of strangers. In that regard, the subconscious stuff that was already taking place probably only fed what was happening in the script.

Is your preparation any different when you know you're going into a low budget project?

EDIE FALCO: No, not at all. Really nothing about my preparation or involvement is any different on anything I do. The only thing that varies is, if I read something and I like it, I'll do it. If I read something and I don't like it, I won't. Once I've decided I'm doing something, I approach everything exactly the same, whether it's a play or a movie or a low-budget movie or a big budget movie. It's irrelevant.

What's the hardest part of working on low-budget movies?

EDIE FALCO: You get a lot of directors who are nervous and they don't trust themselves or they don't trust the process. So, they might end up doing a lot more takes than they need, as if the actor is an infinite source of these things. Because at a certain point I know I'm not doing work that I'm proud of anymore, I'm just exhausted. And they are just too afraid to say, 'Okay, let's move on.' And so you'll do another four, five takes, and I start thinking, 'Oh, this is not what I meant to do, this is not the take I want.' So that's a little rough.

I wonder if I'd never done bigger budget stuff, perhaps I would never have noticed the difference. But once you start doing things where they put you in a nice trailer, and you've got people running around and taking care of you, when you all of a sudden have to change clothes in the back of a Chevy again, you think, 'You know, this does kind of stink, come to think of it. I would prefer to be in a trailer right now.'

So I don’t know if I've been a little bit spoiled by some of the bigger budget stuff. And you realize there's a reason you're taken care of, because you want to show up and do the best you can each time you're out there. It does help to be rested and warm and all that stuff.

What are the advantages of working on a low-budget project?

EDIE FALCO: There are so many advantages to working on a low-budget project. I feel a totally comfortable with the idea of trying something and having it not work. I feel a sense of freedom to just go for it, because money is not at the forefront of everything that goes on in these things. You don't have a producer standing over you saying, 'We gotta make the day!' Everybody's just flying by the seat of their pants and I feel a sense of freedom that I don't when money is being talked about. You feel the energy of these big-budget things.

Also, on a big-budget thing, there are a zillion people working on it. Oftentimes nobody knows who anybody else is and they don't necessarily care about their job, they're jus trying to get enough days so they can become an AD.

On these low-budget things, everybody's there because they want to be. They know the director, they love the work of the director, they're a friend and he needed a helping hand. You know you're not going to make money and you know it's going to be hard work and you're there because you love it. And that is infused in every moment you spend on the set of a low-budget movie. It's been my experience that nothing but good stuff will come out of that.

The Story Behind "Under Jakob's Ladder" -- Part 1

Our feature film Under Jakob's Ladder is inspired by the life of a man named Jakob Seel.

Who was this man? He was born and raised in Ukraine. He witnessed the upheaval of the advent of communism, and watched as--one by one--each of his freedoms were taken away from him and his people.

Jakob's life story is representative of so many others who lived during Stalinist great purges.

This movie, in part, means to take a look at how the Soviet system impacted ordinary people, like Jakob, in the era of the 1930s and up to World War II.

Jakob's German-speaking ancestors had been among those invited to settle in the Russian territories between the mid-1700s to the early 1800s. The initial invitation came from Catherine the Great, with subsequent invitations coming from her son and grandson who ruled after her. Today, Jakob's people are known as the Germans from Russia.

One of the initial attractions for settling these lands was exemption from military service offered by Catherine the Great. However, by the time of World War I, this pledge was revoked. While certain Germans from Russia emigrated at that time out of the Russian/Ukrainian territories, Jakob's family were among those who remained. Subsequently, Jakob fought in the Russian army against the Kaiser during the first World War.

But then came the upheavals of the Russian Revolution.

Communist rule was established, and by the time Stalin came to power, life in Ukraine was drastically altered.

Jakob, a teacher/preacher in his village, was removed from his positions. All churches were shut down (many were turned into granaries). Little by little, their freedoms began to disappear...

Know Your Digital Rights

I was on another fun panel yesterday at the Woodstock Film Festival.  All of these discussions are part of the ongoing conversation on the future prospects for both Indie and Truly Free film.  There's a lot more that I can write about that panel, but one thing I felt was the filmmakers' position getting stronger.

John Sloss, the man and the legend, and Ryan Werner of IFC Films were among the panel's participants.  IFC Films is certainly the leader in terms of number of films that they are putting up on VOD, and John, among many other things,  probably sells more films to them than anyone else.  Sloss's Cinetic Digital Rights Management initiative is also probably the leading aggregator of digital rights for feature films.

This whole arena is new for everyone and it all can easily be looked at as one big experiment for the time being.  The market is being created as I type and as you read.  The model is not yet set by any means.  Yet Cinetic and IFC are arguably the market leaders of the moment.  That's why I was so heartened by what I heard them claim they were open to -- something that could truly be a great step towards creator empowerment and ultimately also towards audience access.

Neither company, to my knowledge and according to what was said on the panel, currently does anything to provide the content generator/creator/filmmaker with access to any of the data that their work generates.  I hope that's now going to change, and what was said on that panel makes me believe it could.

Matt Dentler, Cinetic's Digi-maven, has expressed that Cinetic's DRM initiative is all about transparency for the filmmaker.  John Sloss backed that on the panel by saying that he thought it made sense that future contracts include a provision mandating that buyers provide the digital data to the filmmakers.  Not that Cinetic does that yet for its clients, but it can, and as John said, it will.  Ryan Werner also replied to an earlier question that he felt that such information could be provided to the filmmakers if they asked for it (even if they did not contract for it).

Now its up to the filmmakers to demand that their lawyers craft such language.  What will that be?  What is the information we need?  And how can we make sure that we are able to share it with each other?  It would be great if an industry leader on the legal side really stepped up and showed their commitment to filmmakers' rights and drafted something that could become industry standard.  It would be great if we could link to it now!  Who's going to help?

If you are licensing your film for next to nothing, if you have decided to split your revenue with your sales agent, shouldn't you at the very least get the information on who your audience is, where they are located, when they are watching or purchasing, whatever.  If you, the filmmaker, feel forced to make this kind of deal, shouldn't you at the very least be getting the data your work generates?  As filmmakers, not only should you be asking for language from your lawyer, but demanding that your licensor, your distributor provide this.  Do it and according to the leaders on the panel yesterday, they will listen and provide.  I hope it is so.

Joan Micklin Silver on "Hester Street"

How did you find Abraham Cahan’s novella (which was the basis for the screenplay) and what attracted you to it?



JOAN MICKLIN SILVER: One of the films that I made for the educational film company was on immigration. I read just about everything I could find on immigration and one of the things that I read was the novella by Abraham Cahan called Yekl.



I was really floundering around and wanting very much to make my own films. My husband, Ray, who was a real estate developer, told me that if I could do a film that would not cost very much, that he would try to raise money from some of the investors that he'd been going to for real estate deals. And that was how we did it.



Frankly I didn't think I'd ever get to make another film. I was pretty discouraged about it all. My family were immigrants and I wanted to make a movie that would count for them.



Was the story in the public domain at that point?



JOAN MICKLIN SILVER: Yes. And that was one of its attractions.



What challenges did you face in the adaptation?



JOAN MICKLIN SILVER: Well, the story itself is more the husband's story. I think what grabbed me about it was what happened to the wife. So it was really just telling the story from the point of view that interested me. The challenge of it, of course, was to try to make it authentic.



I felt that because my father had told me so many stories about his life as an immigrant boy from Russia, I knew that language was a huge factor in getting along or not getting along. He told me stories of not quite knowing English and once leaving some money on a bus; he was a paperboy and he had made some collections and left the money by accident on the bus. He thinks people were trying to tell him and he didn't understand what they were saying. He got off the bus and then realized it -- things like that. Knowing the English language was extremely difficult.



And also both my parents were Yiddish speaking and I can remember dinners at our house with all sorts of relatives and wonderful stories being told and then punch lines coming out in Yiddish and my mother turning to us and saying, "You know, it doesn't quite translate." She would try to translate it, but never could quite do it. And I associated that language with something very rich and interesting and enjoyable.



Were you worried about breaking some of the cardinal rules of low-budget filmmaking: You don't do period pieces, you don't do something that's half in English and half in Yiddish?



JOAN MICKLIN SILVER: I didn't know enough to know that I was breaking cardinal rules and that's the truth. I had to tell this story and I had to do what I could to tell it.



Did the fact that you knew you wouldn't have much money to shoot this movie have any impact on you while you were writing the script?



JOAN MICKLIN SILVER: Constantly. I was constantly thinking, for example, about how I could do Ellis Island, things like that. It was one thing after another, just constantly trying to figure out how I could tell the story without having a budget that would have allowed me to tell the full story, where you could recreate the Lower East Side, like they did in Godfather II.



We used one street, Morton Street, and we could only shoot in one direction, because that direction faced Bleecker, where the streets formed a "T," so that you only had to create the look on Morton up toward Bleecker.



If we faced the other way, it was Seventh Avenue and obviously we couldn't close Seventh Avenue, we didn't have that ability. In Godfather II, they had street after street, traveling shots that were gorgeous. So we just did what we could and everything was written and organized with that in mind.



My own experience in writing low-budget films is that you often have to do a part of something; a part has to stand for something larger.

The Effect Of The Vanishing Film Critics

This is an earlier post from Let's Make Better Films.  I started that blog to discuss the films and filmmaking process.  Sometimes we all just feel like we want to bury our head and avoid the biz altogether.  I started TFF to help build and rebuild the infrastructure to support those better films.

We started Hammer To Nail because we found it hard to get go analysis of what Truly Free films that were out there were truly worth watching. The mainstream critics had stopped covering the smaller films.

Ad Age is now running an article on the effect of all the firings of the established critics on the specialized film business. The loss of established voices has brought a serious drop at the box office.

"It's the consistent relationship [with a critic] that gets people to go to these movies," said Mr. Bernard. "[Editors] felt they should get critics that connect to that younger audience that's getting its news online, but they're not looking at how the box office is affected when the critic changes."

Of course, the loss of these critics had no effect on the revenues of all the interesting and great films that weren't getting the theaters or coverage in the first place. For those films, just go to Hammer To Nail.

For a discussion on the state of film criticism, check out Greencine's podcast here. 

And to keep a vast and diversified culture alive, vote with your dollars, and go out to see a movie today. Seriously. We will lose it otherwise.

There's a great new program in NYC that bumps the film experience up a notch with direct contact with the filmmakers and a post screening celebration. It also confronts head-on the over emphasis the exhibition biz puts on the first weekend revenues.

Credit the IFP and Michelle Byrd with putting their money where their mouth is an truly supporting both Independent and Truly Free films with their new First Weekend series (all done without corporate backing -- c'mon you sponsors, follow suit!). Read about it here.

And guess what their inaugural film is? BALLAST! Did I tell you how much I admire this film? How great it is? How much I like it? I think I have. Go see it.