David Tristram on "Inspector Drake: The Movie"

What was your filmmaking background before making Inspector Drake: The Movie?

DAVID: In a nutshell, there wasn't one. To be fair, I have made quite a few corporate video programmes over the years, but a movie is a very different thing altogether. So in many ways it was a leap into the unknown.

What was the process for adapting the stage version of Inspector Drake into a movie?

DAVID: Even though it pinches a few of my favourite gags from the stage plays, this is essentially a new script, written specifically for the movie. With a stage play you're constrained by the physical aspects of the theatre and the set, and by only using a practical number of characters. With a movie, in theory, there are no such constraints, so more actors, more locations - but of course the budget acts as the ultimate brake on the imagination. I would have liked to have shot some scenes in New Zealand, with huge panoramic sweeps from aerial cameras - but had to settle for a tripod in a forest in Shropshire.

What are the three key requirements -- in your mind -- for making a successful movie for a ridiculously small budget?

DAVID: Rule One: Turn any weakness into a strength. Our film is laced with low budget jokes - it becomes an important part of the narrative - the characters refer to the obviously rubber snakes as "low budget snakes" for example. There's also a low budget cartoon torch, and a low budget foam rubber ceremonial sword.

Obviously Drake is a comedy with surreal boundaries, so that means anything goes. We often had to invent our way out of a problem - such as the time we were due to shoot a night scene in the forest as Drake "makes camp." Night scenes are difficult to do properly without a lot of equipment- generators, lights, and so on. The usual low budget solution is to shoot in the day and then add a rather unconvincing night effect in the edit suite. I didn't like the idea of doing that for such a long scene - I also realised that a lot of the visual gags wouldn't as work as well by darkening the footage artificially. Our solution? We shot in the daytime. It goes dark for a few seconds. Then Drake comes across a bathroom light cord dangling from a tree. He pulls it, and switches the forest lights back on. We were literally making something from nothing, which in the end heightens the sense of creativity.

Rule Two: Tell a good story. In the end, high budget films might have exciting special effects or action sequences - but they're never the best bit of a good movie. The best bit is always the story, and the characters. So concentrate on those - they needn't cost money. My movie is a surreal comedy, but nevertheless it's still important to have a credible story to anchor the whole thing. And the audience always has to care about the main characters.

Rule Three: Get the technical basics right...pictures in focus, good sound. Nine times out of ten what lets a very low budget film down is the sound - it's probably more important than the pictures.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome to make this movie ... and how did you overcome it?

DAVID: I'm going to be coy here and say that the biggest obstacle was probably me. Budget restraints meant I was on camera and also trying to direct, but in reality most of my brain was taken up with the fear of not getting the technical aspects right. The thought of getting it back to the edit suite to find that something was out of focus, or not exposed properly, or the sound was missing, was very scary.

I suppose I overcame the problem by preparing as well as I could, and crossing my fingers. Most of the time things were fine - there were one or two problems, as I'm sure there are with every film, but nothing I wasn't able to fix in the edit suite.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

DAVID: The smartest thing was using decent actors. The dumbest was possibly using me as cameraman, but as I say, the budget left us no other choice, and in the end at least I knew what I was getting every step of the way.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

DAVID: I think the film we've ended up with is far, far better than I would have first imagined we were capable of. So I suppose I've learnt how to successfully exploit our limitations. We're already considering whether or not to make Inspector Drake 2 - The Seagull. We'll wait to see how this effort goes down first.

www.inspectordrake.com

A Jakob Interview | Part 2

So... As promised, here's Part 2 of the short interview series about our upcoming feature film, Under Jakob's Ladder. (Missed Part 1? Click here to view it.)



If you can't view the embedded video... You can go to youtube and watch it on our channel there.

P.S. Tell us what you think about it. Leave a comment below. Or you can always pop over to youtube to rate this video or leave a comment...

Goodbye & Please Join Me: I Am Migrating To A New Home

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Today marks my last post here on “Truly Free Film” at HopeForFilm.com. Starting tomorrow you can find both my rants and ravings, and all of those of our contributors, over at IndieWire. My hope is that we can all use this opportunity to expand our community and goals in the year ahead. We can truly bring about some change if we work together to build it better.

I started this blog for many reasons, but chief among them was to work so that we don’t miss the opportunity that remains before us – the opportunity to build a sustainable future for diverse and ambitious work, free of mass market dictates and antiquated beliefs, transparent, inclusive, participatory. IndieWire’s network, syndication, and reach hopefully will bring this dream closer to reality. We need to grow community and deepen our involvement.

It is crucial for those with experience to work with those that are forging new paths, to both mentor and be mentored. My growth and knowledge over the last 18 months due to the participation of all of you who have written in and written for this blog is more than I could ever hoped for. Thank you for your generosity and commitment. It has been greatly needed in these tough economic and cultural times – you’ve kept my hope for film always growing .

The posts that we in this “TrulyFreeFilm” section will on IndieWire be titled “HopeForFilm”. A truly free film culture remains my goal though. This URL will remain intact and continue to host the other columns “TheseAreThoseThings”, “LetsMakeBetterFilms”, “Issues&Actions”, and my Kid’s Corner “BowlOfNoses”. Those feeds will continue if you subscribe..

I hope to be able to set the Feedburner Subscriptions here to the new URL so that there is no disruption. In the event I fail, I will publish the new URL for you to subscribe to. Please be patient but we should get it working soon.

For those of you who periodically received my “IndieFilmLives!” email blasts, you should now receive a weekly newsletter of my posts. I hope this is not too intrusive; I find them a useful tool to find what I missed during the week. If you don’t want it, you’ll be able unsubscribe with a simple click.

I greatly appreciate IndieWire and Snag Films offer to come to their site. Others had indicated they wanted to do likewise, but only IW & Snag took the initiative. Their growing commitment to diverse voices seems evident. The power of aggregating them all in one place and using that to facilitate great conversation is tantalizing. Our collective voice, particularly when married to ambitious film, could be a far more powerful force that I believe we even realize. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.

Come Spend Some Time With Brian & Me

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Three months ago, Vimeo reached out to me & Brian Newman, inviting us to have a conversation offering our perspectives on the state of the film business. Brian is a smart and engaging guy. Me, on the other hand…. Well, if you have an hour come join us here. If you just have ten minutes, you can check out Vimeo’s view of the highlights below:

Making it Happen (Highlights) from Vimeo Festival on Vimeo.

The New Model Of Indie Film Finance, v2011.1 Domestic Value & Funding

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

This was once going to be a single post.  Today is part three.  There will be at least two more to come.  I started it here. And then yesterday we tried to determine the factors for accessing foreign value.  Today, let’s look stateside.

Until the double whammy of Toronto 2010 & Sundance 2011, it looked like the US acquistion market for feature content had fully collapsed.  No reasonable P&L would have shown more than a modest six figures for US acquisitions.  Hybrid & DIY models have not been developed yet to consistently deliver returns in excess of this amount (or even at these figures).  Perhaps this is now changing, but it would still be foolish for any filmmaker or investor to expect this and we can’t budget for such expectation.

How many of the 7500 films produce in the US annually return 20% of their negative cost from US licenses?  Although it puts emerging filmmakers at a great disadvantage, I think the surest determining factor for predicting US acquisition potential is the filmmakers’ track record.  If you have found buyers previously, you are well suited to find them again — and even still exceeding that 20% is the exception and not the rule.

When the US market was depressed, I often had sales agents & finance experts challenge me with the claim that the market wasn’t down; it was just that there were no good films.  People like to think that good films sell for good prices.  If 7000 American films can raise money to fund their works and no films are selling, what are those investors thinking when they fork over their cash?  They can’t be thinking that are actually helping their children or nephews and nieces when they give them money only to recognize their failure?  They must be thinking that they are making good films, and all 7000 can not be 100% wrong.

Clearly we are at a point in US film culture where the infrastructure is not serving either the investors, the creators, or the audiences.  Good films are getting made but not being delivered to their audience.  Last year I went to a film investor conference. Several other producers were invited and we all asked to pitch projects.  None of us left with funding, but the investors said to me that I was the only one that addressed how we would deal with the reality of not just getting our film to market, but bringing it to the ultimate end-users — the audience.  As artists build communities around their projects in advance of actual production, they are developing a plan to give domestic value to their films.  It is hard to imagine that any artist will be able to do enough pre-orders to predict 20% of negative costs from the USA — unless they are working on microbudgets — but taking a step forward is still a better plan than surrender to the unknown.

So where are we now in the process of getting your films funded?  If you’ve gotten your foreign sales estimates, and you can somehow reasonably anticipate a 20% of Negative Cost US Acquisition License, you are in great shape.  That is, you are in great shape if you have foolish investors.  The wise ones will still be wondering about how they cover sales fees, sales expenses, and the opportunity costs on the money.  Those numbers are still routinely ignored in many business plans for indie film I find.  If you are working with semi-literate investors, you will still be scrambling to find another 25% or so of your negative costs.

How will you fund your film if you can not predict full recoupment from the combined US & foreign licenses?  Fortunately, if your film is set in America, you can pull in some tax credit relief.  Otherwise, I hope you carry a foreign passport, and qualify for foreign subsidies.  If you plan on cash flowing any of this soft money, don’t forget to discount them and budget for the additional legal expense.  From personal experience, I find it hard to justify the costs of cash flowing soft money on the type of budgets we are talking about  – but that’s good news.  In the NMOIFFv2011.1 you are wise to treat this soft money as revenue towards the project so that such aforementioned costs will be covered.

If you are fortunate enough to have all of these rare qualities (foreign value, US acquisition potential, strong team with a track record, soft money qualifications, and cash flow partners) inherent to your project, you probably are still wondering where’s the upside.  How do we get to profit?

I think we now have a subject for tomorrow’s post.  Stay tuned.

If We Speak With Honesty, Will People Listen & Respond?

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Today’s guest post is from filmmaker Matthew Porterfield. Matt’s contributed before, and his feature PUTTY HILL opens tomorrow. We had the good fortune to screen it recently at our screening series and had a packed house that all stayed for the Q&A. Matt blends a variety of techniques, from documentary and observational camera, to the more experimental. A portrait of a small town but through a Nan Goldin-ish eye, it is not one to miss.

It’s been a long and winding road, but this week PUTTY HILL opens theatrically in New York City.

PUTTY HILL spent the last year touring festivals and was picked up along the way by Cinema Guild, who will handle all U.S. rights, beginning with a theatrical rollout on February 18th at Cinema Village. We’re very happy to be in such strong hands and feel confident that our timing is right: if Sundance is a barometer for the state of indie film, audiences are embracing stories about America outside the mainstream.

That said, it’s hard for a little film to get noticed without substantial buzz. I remember back five years, when my first feature, HAMILTON (2006), opened at Anthology Film Archives the same day HALF NELSON hit theatres. I went around the LES with my wheat paste and posters trying desperately to find some free space beside the ubiquitous Ryan Gosling, hoping to share some of that limelight. Or, I think of Stockholm, when HAMILTON played right after a sold- out screening of OLD JOY and I thought, this is good: a perfect double feature until OLD JOY ended and everyone left the theatre but me and 11 people (one of them Ryan Fleck). Point is: I like these movies and I think audiences that like these movies will like my movies.

So how do I connect with them?
I’m not certain there’s one answer, but I’m hoping PUTTY HILL will prove we’re doing something right this time around. No matter how limited our resources or reach, it’s a fact that audiences beget new audiences. It’s called word-of-mouth.

So far, this has been at the core of a fairly simple strategy: make good work, share it with everyone we can (friends, filmmakers, programmers, press), and let it speak for itself. If it speaks with honesty, people will listen and respond.

For the theatrical premiere of PUTTY HILL next week, we hope to cultivate the dialogue that’s taking place around the film and carry it into the theatre. Each weekend night, Cinema Village will host three post-screening discussions with the filmmakers and some very special guests, friends of the film from inside and outside the industry. The idea is to join new audiences in conversation with audiences we’ve found along the way.

I hope you, reader, will join us opening weekend. Bring your friends! The events culminate Sunday the 20th with a celebration at Lit Lounge, featuring some of the best music coming out of Baltimore right now: Co La, Dustin Wong, and Dope Body, all collaborators on PUTTY HILL.

You come to my indie, I’ll come to yours.

******************************

Friday 2/18

• 5pm screening: conversation w/ Yancey Strickler (Kickstarter), Matt Porterfield and Sky Ferreira
• 7pm screening: conversation w/ Jonathan Caouette (TARNATION), Sky Ferreira, Zoe Vance and the PUTTY HILL crew
• 9pm screening: conversation w/ Yance Ford (POV), Esther Robinson (ArtHome, DANNY WILLIAMS: A WALK IN THE SEA) and Ross Kauffman (BORN INTO BROTHELS)

Saturday 2/19

• 5pm screening: conversation w/ Jeronimo Rodriguez (NY1 News) and Matt Porterfield
• 7pm screening: conversation w/ Richard Brody (The New Yorker) and Matt Porterfield
• 9pm screening: conversation w/ Amos Poe (filmmaker) and Matt Porterfield

Sunday 2/20

• 5pm screening: conversation w/ Amy Dotson (IFP) and Matt Porterfield
• 7pm screening: conversation w/ Chris Keating (Yeasayer) and Matt Porterfield
• 9pm screening: conversation w/ Jem Cohen (filmmaker) and the PUTTY HILL crew

Matt Porterfield studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and teaches screenwriting, theory, and production in the Film & Media Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. His first feature, Hamilton, was released theatrically in 2006. Putty Hill premiered in 2010 at the Berlinale’s International Forum of New Cinema.

Brett Anstey on “Damned By Dawn”

What was your filmmaking background before making Damned by Dawn?

BRETT: I had been working in television since the early 90's, initially shooting commercials, drama and music videos.

During this period a group of friends and I would make quite elaborate short films on weekends. We'd borrow the equipment from work and shoot these really ambitious films, some of them took years to complete due to the extensive visual FX and stunts.

It was a great way to learn how to cut corners and to achieve maximum production values for very little money.

Where did the idea for Damned By Dawn come from? What was the writing process like?

BRETT: Originally I wanted to make my own little Hammer horror film. The type of film I grew up watching on late night TV - the sort of film that relies heavily on atmosphere, mood and classic "horror" imagery.

So we were kicking ideas around trying desperately to find a slightly original antagonist. And I remembered that scene in Darby O'Gill and the Little People that featured a Banshee, which scared the crap out of me when I was kid. So I was scratching my head trying to think of another film that featured a traditional Banshee. And I couldn't think of any. Then it become a case of figuring out what parts of the mythology suited our story best.

After the first draft was completed, it soon became apparent that we couldn't afford to make a period horror like the Hammer films - horse drawn carriages, period wardrobe & stately manors were beyond our paltry budget. So in the next draft I moved the story forward one hundred years and off we went!

What type of camera did you use to shoot the film and what did you like about it .... and hate about it?

BRETT: We shot the film on the Panasonic HVX 202 which uses the P2 cards. Before principle photography we shot some tests and the P2 camera seemed to tick all the boxes. The one negative was the lens. It just wasn't long enough. But overall it was a great little camera at the time.

How did you achieve such great production design on a low budget?

BRETT: By the time we made the film, I'd already spent 15 years shooting stuff so I knew how to cut corners, save money but not compromise the final result.

And the other guys - David Jackson the Production Designer, Justin Dix doing the Make Up FX and also Dave Redman the editor - we've all been collaborating for years and our mantra is every cent spent must be visible on screen!

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

BRETT: I'll start with the dumbest, which was making the film with no money! That was really tough trying to overcome a different obstacle and challenge every day. It really was a battle.

I'd have to say that shooting those scenes with Evil Nana attacking Claire close to suburbia was easily the smartest thing we did. Dawn Klingburg who played Nana was over 70 years old & the prosthetics took 3 or so hours to apply - so it was a challenge making sure she was comfortable & warm as she crawled across the forest floor in the dead of night.

And for those scenes we decided to shoot in a small section of woods that was only a 5 minute drive away from Make Up artist Justin Dix's home, which made the whole process so much easier on Dawn. I should point out the rest of the film was shot at a location that was a 3 hour drive away.

And, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

BRETT: Never ever work with roaches, because surprisingly they have a mind of their own and never do what you want! In future I vow to only work with human actors!

A Jakob Interview | Part 1

We've put together a short interview series about our upcoming feature film, Under Jakob's Ladder. This is Part 1 of the interview with producer and screenwriter, Roberto Munoz...


If you can't view the embedded video... You can go to youtube and watch it on our channel there.

P.S. Watch for Parts 2 & 3, coming soon! (to be posted here over the next couple of weeks.)

The New Model Of Indie Film Finance, v2011.1, Foreign Value

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Today continues my efforts to try to define the takeaway from the two most recent and robust US acquisition markets of Sundance & Toronto.  I (and hopefully we) will try to extrapolate from them where we are today.  How can we use our most recent experiences to determine the reality of our filmed dreams today?  How can we move to a more realistic model of indie film finance?

Foreign estimates still set the initial value for films, and it is CAST that is the predominate determinator for this value.  Before a film is shot, there are three types of actors that mean something to foreign buyers:

• 1) stars that have been in big hits in the relevant territories;
• 2) stars that have been in popular television shows in those territories;
• 3) stars that can be expected to generate a great deal of publicity everywhere.

Other than stars, there are a few other aspects of a film that create foreign value.  Stars are another entity altogether from cast or actors — and it is really the stars that determine foreign value.

Are there any other factors that help shape what your project is determined to be worth overseas? Fortunately, yes!  The track record of the collaborators have impact on a distributor’s willingness to consider a project.  Experienced directors and producers have more foreign value, provided they have made films that have fairly recently been well received, either commercially or critically.  Similarly, proven cinematographers, designers, editors, composers, and vfx supervisors can mean something.

When the foreign markets were more hungry for US product, it was partially due to their paid and free television’s appetite for it.  Although that has been vastly diminished, if your film will fit well into foreign television programming, you have some security.  It is generally thought that comedies and “urban” (i.e. non-white) content doesn’t travel.  Nonetheless I have had buyers get excited about an office place comedy precisely because they feel like television but aren’t.  Similarly, as new niche channels develop, new audiences aggregate.  I still remain confident that as much as hip-hop transcended music to become a global lifestyle, “urban” programming can get some international  legs once it gets its foot in the door.

Every international territory struggles with the same challenges of expensive marketing.  When a project comes even with the hopes of decreasing some of those costs, buyers perk up. I have seen those results come both from aggregated audience action (i.e. twitter followers, facebook friends, and data lists) and transmedia builds.  Although there is not yet the model that can be used to demonstrate success, let alone predict it, these first efforts still increase the appetite for acquisition among buyers, and thus potentially also the value.

For there to be foreign value, you need to have the potential to sell.  The things that increase that potential also increase a film’s foreign value.  At acquisition markets you see this phenomenon in full play as film’s that appear to be headed to a subsequent (and more major) festival, get snapped up far more readily.

Tomorrow Friday, we will look at why a film might hope to get acquired in the USA and where else can funding come from in the states.

The New Model Of Indie Film Finance, v2011.1

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

I recently had one of the top sales agents explain to me that the only indie film that gets made or sold these days are those projects that make absolute sense.  Okay, granted what he was referring to was only within the mainstream indie business — the type of films that he and his cohorts commission — but it is worthy of our time to delve a bit deeper into this.  What indie film project makes absolute sense?

The agent said there was no room for guess work in today’s mainstream indie business.  If you want to get your film made, you have to have to make it for a price that all concerned feel it will certainly recoup at.  ”Absolute sense” is this regard is a film that will inevitably make back what it cost.  ”Absolute sense” can also mean a project that a company feels it has to have, usually due to the people involved or the timeliness of the concept, but those “packages”  are frankly even harder to come by than those that seem to be inevitably recoupable.  You are looking for  the needle in the haystack with either, and need to build it yourself if you want to hope to come close.

My last few projects all were designed to remove any guess work for financiers.  Between foreign sales estimates, tax credit rebates, and the undisputed value or attraction of the stars, if you want to be sure your film will get made, your project needs to read that the value of the work will exceed the cost of creating it.  Value in this regard, is strictly business related, and not cultural (sorry art-for-art’s-sake fans, this isn’t going to be one of those posts).  As much we can understand or even accept, those words though, what is the math that adds up to this formula? And where do the numbers even get their value anyway?

Even with 39 or 40 (and still rising)  films selling at Sundance this year, the first take away from it is we probably should keep our budgets below $5 million.  Granted the highest sales were the ones that had budgets towards the higher side of the scale, but those were also the ones that had the most to lose.  The films at Sundance 2011 were acquired for reasonable amounts with the US acquisition price generally in the low 7 figures or below.  No one, even the large corporate distributors, can stomach losing a great deal of money these days, and the business is currently designed around this preventative action of covering one’s ass (no surprise that several of the corporate funded indies are now exploring the micro-budget field).

If the film business remains in an era of risk mitigation (and how in this economy could it not be?), just as acquisition prices will continue to be reigned in, budgets will be kept to a minimum by most investors.  Let’s leave the issue of how to attract experienced producers and directors to a project when you can’t afford to offer them a reasonable rate aside, and not worry about how budget effects the quality of the project; instead, let’s try to give some greater understanding to what this principal of risk mitigation looks like in practical terms of getting our movies made.

As foolish as it is, the mainstream indie film industry relies on estimates from foreign sales agents to set the value for the films.  It is this “market value” that truly determines the budgets for the films that get made under this system.  Forget for the moment that everyone recognizes that those estimates rarely hold water any more these days.  Let’s ignore the fact that international sales have been dropping 20-30% annually for several years.  Dismiss it as anomaly that certain former major territories no longer license films like they used to.  Until we develop the tools and know how to assign valid figures to the other factors that actually determine a film’s success, this is the system we have.

Tomorrow, I will get into how foreign value appears to be determined.

Wondering Why Music Licensing Is The Way It Is

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

The NYTimes has a nice article on Matt Porterfield’s truly free film PUTTY HILL. I got to moderate a discussion around the film last year after its Berlin premiere and again this year for our screening series at Goldcrest — yet the movie had a significant change during the time that passed. The Times piece touches upon it: The Rolling Stones wouldn’t even enter into discussions about licensing “Wild Horses” to Matt and his team.

Why is it if you are an artist whose art is singing other people’s songs, our culture has worked it out in the most frictionless way manageable? But if you are an artist whose art is filming artists whose art is singing other people’s songs, you have to go to herculean tasks to gain permission?  Filmmakers are required to go through a much more difficult process to practice their art in this instance.

To sing another artist’s song, you pay a royalty on record’s sold (and in countries outside the USA, even when it is performed in a public context). To film an artist performing a song, be it theirs or someone else’s, you can’t simply pay a royalty, you have to get permission. In the case of PUTTY HILL, this lead to a costly reshoot to replace The Rolling Stones. Now some may say, why film this to begin with if you don’t have permission, but what if your style is, like PUTTY HILL’s, a combination of fiction and doc, where you are trying to capture the world as it is when it is, and that includes someone singing “Wild Horses”? Shouldn’t we find a way for our culture to be inclusive and allow this to happen?

On “The Devil And Daniel Johnston” some great scenes of Daniel covering others’ compositions could not be included in the film precisely because of this reason.

Maybe someone can explain the logic behind this for the rest of us…

How To Triumph In A Contract Negotiation

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

This pretty much sums it all up. Thanks Mr. Cheyefsky!  Thanks Mr. Lumet! (and thanks Amanda Johnson-Zetterstrom for the tip!)

Get Ready For The Indie Film Investment Deluge!

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Let’s celebrate!  The prospects look good for a lot of smart money to be available again for appropriately budgeted indie films.  The key now being the “appropriately” part of the equation.

The days of Machiavellian moves to maximize an limited audience art film’s budget seem thankfully over — and as sad as I will be to seem some friends’ films become obsolete, I smell another golden age brewing.  Filmmakers and investors seem to have both embraced the “less is more’ ethos.  Expect may more films to be made in the lower than $5M bracket, and far fewer indie works in Mark Gill’s former sweet spot.  The large indie finance companies of 5 years ago, had to make films at higher budget levels in order to justify their overheads and salaries.  Those companies have crashed and so did the silly models of $20M art films.

The Film Biz is coming off two consecutive extremely robust film markets.  Toronto 2010 saw almost 30 deals close during the festival.  Sundance 2011 exceeded that mark.  Surely there were quite a few deals done post market too (I have not seen any reports to track this; let me know if you know any).  Coming off of two years where the prudent would not expect anything for US rights, this an exceeding positive change.  With a well produced and well positioned films, investors can reasonably hope to recoup — and then some.  Now the challenge for producers will be to be disciplined enough not to allow the budget creep to return.

There are other factors, beyond the sales market itself,  that heighten my optimism.  The financing model for indie films shifted over the last couple of years to be generally inclusive of additional investors.  Seasoned producers generally try to keep investors to a minimum in order to better manage the relationships — although having more than one (but still as few as possible) is still a recommended strategy so that creative control is not beholden to another.  The increase in the number of investment partners was due to a both a reduction of available capital and new investors’ tendency to look towards others to verify a project’s value, and their desire to limit exposure.

With more films selling, and those films having more investors than previously, logic reveals that we have more investors out there who may have actually recouped their investments.  The best part of this is that they are now investors with experience, who hopefully have gained the knowledge on how best to collaborate.

It’s interesting to look at the ROI (return on investment) for the films that sold. Although I don’t have the time to do an accurate comparison, I can tell you what it feels like to me.  The highest ROIs have come from the micro budget world that delivers quality to a quantifiable audience, particularly when they have a somewhat recognizable cast.  Sundance hit, LIKE CRAZY is the posterchild of this model with three accomplished young stars and a tale of love, helmed by a director of proven ability.  Word is that it delivered ten times it’s negative cost on the Sundance sale alone.

For those that want to increase the production value in order limit risk and deliver a more polished look, the low budget range of $500K – $2M did very well this year.  The multiples were not as high, but several films at Sundance seem to have doubled their negative cost by sticking to this formula.  As Kevin Smith pointed out though, the days of Happy Texas sales are long gone.  Granted the higher budgeted star-cast flicks at Sundance may have had the highest sales, but certainly not the highest ROIs, particularly when one factors in the cost of the money, both literal and opportunity-wise.

The challenge this new investor breed faces in repeating this season’s success is how to afford the experienced directors and producers when working on limited budgets.  Genius does bloom every year, but that is a risky game to play.  I have produced about 25 first time feature directors, and as much as I believe that talent is a recognizable attribute, experience is a more valuable resource when navigating the rapid speed and intense volume of decision making that feature film production requires.  Budgets of $2M and less will struggle to attract directors and producers with similar track records.  Lucky for them, many of us still truly love movies and want to see great stories told!

There Is SOME Online Rental Business

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Okay, okay.  I stand corrected, but it was a good headline, wasn’t it?  And I am not sure if $385Million per year in the US of online renting and downloading is cause to rejoice.

Besides, if you noticed, my post was really a jumping off point to try to address how we want to watch, or at least like to watch.  We do have to offer our work for single transactions, but we have to recognize that is not how most people are choosing to watch.  And yes, as many noted, we should not judge the lack of traction on YouTube for online rentals as representative of much.  As Scilla Andreen pointed out, you need to honor your work with appropriate placement.  YouTube has done so well building a community of generators and viewers accustomed to watching for free, it may be antithetical to the experience to pay anything ever there.

Everything Is A Remix

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

 

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Video Essays are one of the most under utilized art and communication forms. Kirby Ferguson makes this clear with his fun and engaging series “Everything Is A Remix”. He tops most of my film school education and delivers it in about six minutes, and in a form that easy to share and consume. (Thanks to NYMag’s Vulture for the tip!)

Follow Kirby on Twitter here. And check out his website. Part One focuses predominately on music covers and knockoffs, via Led Zep.

Useful New Discovery Tool: BlipSnips

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Discovery is deeply connected to relevance.  In our time-challenged culture, getting quickly to the meat of the message is crucial for attention gathering (granted, deep context is required fo true understanding, but that’s an issue for later).  You don’t want to just send your friend an article, but you want to tell them why you find it interesting.  The same holds true for videos, but it has been difficult to tell them what point of the video demands their attention.  Problem solved!  BlipSnips to the rescue!

TechCrunch reported late last month on the new video tagging tool BlipSnips:

BlipSnips allows users to mark “moments” within videos that mark specific events. Users can also caption these moments with comments and descriptions.

Another unique capability within BlipSnips is the ability to tag Facebook friends within a video. This differs from Facebook’s tagging features because BlipSnips allows users to tag and mark friends within in the video, so a viewer can see where a friend makes an appearance within the timeline of a video (as opposed to just a general tag). And BlipSnips iPhone app includes all of this functionality. You simply log-in to the app via your Facebook credentials and you’ll be able to post and tag videos on the go.

Kentucker Audley on "Open Five"

What was your filmmaking background before making Open Five?

KENTUCKER: Right out of high school I began borrowing cameras and making short films, and learning to edit. I went to art school initially but dropped out after a year to work and write a script. I got a job at FedEx unloading packages, went to work every morning at 5 AM, got home and worked on the script for a year. My parents became concerned that I wasn't going back to school until eventually my dad told he'd give me $2,000 to make my first film if I went back to school and graduated.

I took the offer and 3 years later I graduated, and that's how we made Team Picture. Two years later in '08 we made Holy Land with the money we made from our Team Picture DVD deal.

What was the writing process like?

KENTUCKER: The last couple years I've tried to write less and less. With Team Picture I was eventually unsatisfied with how 'written' and joke-based the film was. So I gave up on writing jokes initially and then gave up on any writing whatsoever.

During that period it was hard for me to watch a film and not be distracted by the writing. All I could hear was the writer writing, actors saying the writer's lines. But I wanted to hear everyone onscreen. Even the best writer in the world doesn't get it right, how people actually talk.

So I started working from the foundation that if I let other people write their own parts, I'd end up with more life onscreen. Not just me, other people. Team Picture was just me, and I didn't think that was enough. The subsequent films Holy Land and Open Five are not me whatsover except the scenes I'm physically onscreen.

What type of camera did you use to shoot the film and what did you like about it .... and hate about it?

KENTUCKER: We filmed with the Panasonic HVX. I don't care what camera we use technically. I don't have quality judgments to make on any camera pro or con. The only consideration I have deciding on a camera is to use a camera that everyone's using, ultimately so the film looks like now, the day and age it was made.

I was never interested in shooting on film for nostalgia or aesthetic reasons. Mainly because I can't objectively view film image quality as beautiful or not. (Everyone used to think the 80's home video look was terrible and cheap, but now it feels incredibly strange and evocative and expressive. The digital video quality from a couple years ago that everyone decried as the death of cinema will have its own feel 20 years from now that will try to be replicated and declared better-than by some.)

Everyone says Team Picture looks like shit. But the whole point was to use a common camera and not manipulate anything, down to not changing the factory setttings. And besides, I don't want to make visually dynamic films. I don't want you, the audience, to have anything to fall back on if you don't care about the characters interactions. I want to make it difficult to see the quality so that you can't like it for superficial reasons.

That being said, we're using the Canon 7D for our new film, Open Five 2, which is generally considered to produce beautiful images, but the reason I'm using it is because it's the new trend.

Did the film change much during the edit?

KENTUCKER: Open Five came together pretty quickly, which was the goal coming off of Holy Land which took years to shape. But yeah, of course, it still changed dramatically over the course of several months.

As far as the basic structure though, there wasn't much wriggle room, in that the film takes place largely over one weekend. We always had specific ideas of how Friday should feel, and how Saturday and Sunday should feel. With Holy Land, I experimented tremendously with the edit. At various points, I had incorporated still photos, home videos, stock footage, and narration.

What was the smartest thing you did during production? The dumbest?

KENTUCKER: Nothing really stands out as particularly smart or dumb. You might think that having your real friends and girlfriend in your movie is dumb. Particularly when you delay important emotional conversations so you can film them (waiting until the shooting schedule allows), but doing in this way is essential to the types of films they are.

I always say the tensions that spring up behind the scenes are always more interesting than the actual film, and I want it that way. The really good stuff doesn't belong in the movies. I hold on to that stuff myself. That's why these films are often considered borderline films. People see my films and say things like the "well, the acting is believable, and the situations are believeable, but it's not a movie."

But to me if the acting and situations are believable the film is a complete success. Those my only goals. I'm not in search of the most dynamic or the most heartbreaking or uplifting story. I'm in search of ordinary situations, nothing over-heated or life-or-death.

I guess this is getting away from the original question.

That’s okay. So, finally, what did you learn from making the film that you can take to other projects?

KENTUCKER: I'm not good with lessons learned. I guess all experience adds up to something, but as far as extracting any single lesson, my brain can't work in that way.

But I'm glad I had a chance to work with everyone involved. And several of them, notably Jake Rabinbach and Caroline White, I'm working on a sequel with. Obviously it is helpful for continuing artistic relationships to put it to the test.

Okay, one more question -- how did you get the name Kentucker?

KENTUCKER: I'm from Kentucky. When I moved to Memphis, I started going by Kentucker. It's a take off on the soldier at war nicknaming system, I.E. you go by the state you're from.

Kentucker stars in the film BAD FEVER, which is premiering at SXSW in March.

badfever.com

Learn more about Kentucker at his website:
kentuckeraudley.com

5 Pitfalls of a Remake

Have you ever thought much about movie remakes? How many of them have you actually really enjoyed?

Often when people talk about a remake of a particularly beloved film, they usually say something like "Why did they have to spoil a great movie?"

Remakes don't usually have a good reputation. So, why do they exist?

Oftentimes, it seems that a remake exists to update the story. For example, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) is a heist movie that takes place in -- can you believe this? -- the 1970s. So, it's a bit dated. Not in a bad way. But certainly in a 1970s way. The updated version of the movie came out in 2009.

Pitfall #1 - The Need to Update the Technology
This one assumes that modern audiences just won't be able to understand what life was like back in the 1970s.

Since thirty years years after the original, the folks in Hollywood decide the story needs to be updated. In the original movie, the transit police (i.e. the good guys) have no clue what was happening in the hijacked subway train. The hijackers were equally blind to what was going on above ground. This actually works to the hero's benefit. Police Officer Garber is able to stall for time. It also keeps him ignorant to the hijacker's identities, which is key to the final scene when he's searching door-to-door.

In the remake, they make a point to give Ryder (i.e. the bad guy) internet access. This also applies to a laptop that just happens to have its webcam eye on the subway car. A particular plot point that, when it comes down to it, doesn't really have a point.

Pitfall #2 - Retooling Character Traits
Now, let's compare the performances of the leads. You got some great actors in the original. How do you top it? Well, you get equally good (or at least well-known) actors for the remake. You might even do a little retooling with the character traits.

Cool and calculating Robert Shaw (as Mr. Blue, the leader of the hijackers) vs. the loose-cannon, John Travolta (same character, but called Ryder in the remake). Denzel Washington's character (2009's Garber) gets some shades of gray with a backstory involving a bribery. Walter Matthau (1974's Garber) has his foibles, but is clearly the hero.

How do Washington and Travolta compare with Matthau and Shaw? Well, sometimes it's a matter of personal preference.

Pitfall #3 - Getting Rid of Supporting Actors
In addition to the lead actors, sometimes a remake will lessen the importance of a supporting role. In this case, the motorman-turned-hijacker. In the remake, he's killed off halfway through the movie. In the original, he gets a lot more screentime. In fact, it's his story that closes the movie.

Pitfall #4 - Trying to Find Deep Meaning
This is a heist movie, plain and simple. And the 1974 version treated it as such with a dash of comedy.

The remake sought to find deeper meaning in the story by trying to psychoanalyse the characters. The whole bribery subplot illustrates this. Did the hero (Garber, played by Denzel Washington), or did he not, take the bribe?? The movie doesn't really answer that question. This ambiguity actually puts Garber more or less on the same level as the bad guy, Ryder. Because it isn't clear on what really happened, the audience can make the assumption that it isn't that important to the story. (Take it out, and you wouldn't miss it.)

In the original, the bad guy (Robert Shaw) and his methodical calculations aren't given backstory. And, it works. The main thrust of this movie is, will Garber (Walter Matthau) foil the hijackers? Or will the hijackers succeed? Simple enough. It works.

Pitfall #5 - Relying on a Cookie Cutter Ending
The remake often will fall into the we-need-more-explosions pitfall. While the movie tries hard to bring meaning to the actions of Ryder/Garber, it also decides to use the cookie-cutter ending of most action movies. Add a car chase. Get actors running after each other on a bridge. These are all rather predictable and rather over-used in the industry.

In the original, there's the element of chase, but it's more low-key. What's interesting is that Robert Shaw's story does not close the movie. All the hijackers are dead, except one. And he's the motorman. We know his identity, but Matthau's Garber does not. So, the tension's pretty high when they come face to face... But we won't spoil the ending (in case you haven't seen it).

These are just some of the pitfalls that many remakes face. Do you agree? Have you come across a remake that defies these pitfalls?

Answering The Questions: “How do I make sure that in twenty years I will feel good about the choices I make today?”

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Earlier this year I proposed what I saw as the five most critical questions for someone to answer in order to have a fulfilling and sustainable career producing films.  I went on to list out eighteen more. I think the answers to these questions don’t have a right or wrong answer; they should be profoundly personal.  Yet I also think it is very hard to answer these questions on your own.  Frankly, I think the answering of these questions should be part of any film school curriculum — but I am also not sure that film school is a necessary component for all producing careers.  Anyway, I thought it might be helpful for those considering this path to have someone try to answer these questions.  Today that someone is me.

Producing benefits from having addressed certain moral and ethical challenges before they actually confront you.  Hell, what field or way of life doesn’t?  I have encouraged the consideration of some of these “challenges” before in virtual party game manner, but I do think it is always worth considering.  I think it comes down to the questions of “what do you value?”  People? Money? Principles? Property?  And how much do these matter to you?

If you’ve set your values — or at least have a firm handle on them–, if you then seek to make the product of your labor (i.e for a film producer, your movies) reflect your values, you will be on your way to still feeling good about what you are doing twenty years from now. Essentially this is the “Know-what-you-care-about-and-reflect-that-in-your-work” approach.  But it alone is not enough to carry you through the twenty years.  It is the content driven approach and you will have to also consider the process and the environment you inhabit to stay satisfied.

To feel as good twenty years from now as you do today (and that is assuming you feel good today of course), it is not just the destination that you must concern yourself with but also the journey.  It is the daily interactions and the small things that require as much attention as the big picture.  How do you treat the people around you?  Do you see them as just as important as you?  If you value people, maintaining their equality with you is something you won’t want to ever lose sight of.  The hierarchy of a film set can chip away at this if you are not vigilant.  I’ve certainly seen many filmmakers whose work reflects such values but their day to day interactions reflect something quite different.  Always ask yourself: “How are your values reflected in the smaller interpersonal processes?”.

I wish it was as easy as making sure that both your work and your processes reflected your values in order for you to feel as good a couple decades out as you do when you start — but it is not going to work that way.  The next part of the equation is the one of building an environment around you that you admire.  Certainly for some in the film field, this seems simply to apply to the design and decor of the office — which usually is meant to convey some sort of power message.  Ultimately, this is really about whom you choose to surround yourself with.

I think that it in the long run it is important to have the people who you work with reflect your values as much as your work and processes do.  It is a bit harder when it comes to people, because not only do you not control them, but they don’t always know their own values, and even when they do, they are not always static.  I almost left my first company Good Machine when my partners would not dismiss a mid-level employee who could not treat those below (or really around) her decently; I ultimately wasn’t going to leave the company over another person, but it was when I first knew that I would need to move on to something else if I valued my happiness.  Working with decent people who care about things in a similar fashion to you is not a privilege of the film business, but a necessity since the industry is otherwise over run with those that will stop at nothing to make a buck.  Unfortunately, it is also one of the more difficult things to achieve.

Having your values reflected in your work, your processes, and your environment, seem to me to be the three most important factors in making sure you feel as good today or tomorrow as when you started out.  I am sure there is a lot more to it though and I hope you can help me figure it out a bit more fully by your comments.

There Is No Online Rental Business

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

As I write this The Weinstein Company’s top rental on YouTube is Michael Moore’s SICKO, with a whopping 151 views.  In reading PaidContent’s article on the TWC/YTube alliance, you can’t help wonder if there IS any business to be had in online rentals.  Is the online one-off transactional content-rental business completely non-existent?  And if so why?

I think we are starting to move away from the impulse buy mentality. It just doesn’t fit with the world we are living in.  Even with the convenience of online rentals, there is not enough value in it. If we are going to offer films in a single transaction, we need to offer more than the film.

My netflix queue, or rather my family’s queue, is almost 2500 strong, including the WatchInstantly.  I know what I want.  I know what it is on the queue.  I also have at To Watch list at home that is close to 500 titles.  I recognize that those that don’t try to earn a living in the film biz may not have such a robust list, but who in their right mind would rent a film that might be mediocre, when for twice the rental amount they can have unlimited streaming for the month.

A world of surplus and access require a different business model from one of scarcity and control.  Single transactions — without a richer context — are an old world model.

If we build a social world around that film, it may be enough to jump me from my already planned choices of viewing.  If we build a ramp of consistent discovery to that film, it may divert me from what I already scheduled.  If you offer me additional rewards for my viewing, I may opt in.  But if you ask me to fork over my hard-earned cash, all you give me is a film, particularly if it is not guaranteed to be great, and you ask me to watch it all alone, I will go elsewhere.  And evidently everyone else is too.  Well, everyone other than those 151.

Addendum: The failure of TWC titles to gain traction on YouTube has caused much reflection.  What other factors contributed to the dismal performance?  Scilla Andreen blogged the other day that the fit between content and platform was off.  What else?

Addendum 2/10/11:  LA Times reported a few days ago that downloads in US are up 40% to $385M/yr.

“I Am A Nobody Filmmaker”

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

Today’s guest post is from filmmaker & blogger Christopher J. Boghosian.

I’m a nobody filmmaker: I don’t have a recognizable name nor a recognizable film. In essence, most of the world couldn’t care less about me nor my movies. This sounds pathetic, I know, but coming to grips with this reality has truly liberated me and provided an invaluable perspective on my work and career.

As a result of the internet, mass media, and proliferation of panel discussions and seminars, beginning filmmakers can now listen in on the conversation between film industry experts. Insider tips and wisdom are readily available, from casting celebrities to negotiating a VOD deal. It’s true: gurus sometimes discuss broad principles and concepts that apply to every level of filmmaking, but more often than not, there is a buried assumption in their discussion: that a filmmaker or their project has a considerable amount of credibility, hype or leverage. As a result, many of these conversations are inapplicable to nobody filmmakers who have no reputable name nor a film with high salability. Nevertheless, in our earnest search for success, us nobodies continue to invest a lot of time, energy and money on experts.

A beginning filmmaker can learn all about financing, film production, marketing and distribution, but if s/he has little or nothing to back it up with, what’s the point? Living in LA, I’ve met countless filmmakers trying to raise thousands of dollars, even millions, with very little to their credit. Who do they think they are? What other business or profession operates like that? Like every other profession, filmmakers must earn the right to ask for thousands of dollars. They must earn the right to mass market and distribute their film. In the end, most of these filmmakers discover that only their friends and family are willing to invest in them, since that is with whom they have earned trust.

The baker bakes, the architect designs, and the filmmaker must continually make films. What baker bakes one loaf of bread and asks for thousands of dollars to open a bakery? What architect designs one home and expects to have thousands of fans on Facebook? None. It’s ludicrous. As a nobody filmmaker, I have come to realize that I need to earn my right to ask people for their time and money. And the way to do that is by consistently making films, plain-and-simple.

In fact, even the desire to make a great film must be earned. An expert baker who has studied and worked for years would scoff at a novice attempting to develop a great loaf of bread. It takes years of trial-and-error, blood, sweat and tears to bake great bread. How is filmmaking any different? Why do so many beginning filmmakers strive to make a great film? It’s presumptuous and disrespectful toward the art and craft of filmmaking.

Coming to grips with my nobody-ness as a filmmaker has set me straight in many ways. Rather than attempt to make a great film and attain thousands of fans, my focus now is to continually make the very best films I can within my means. Additionally, I have come to realize that I am, in fact, a somebody to a few folks out there. Most are friends and family members who watch my films, read my blog, and anticipate my future work. Thus, as I continue to make films and develop my craft, I will, first and foremost, share with them. Rather than create my own Facebook Fan page, I will call and email them, letting them know what I’m up to. And, hopefully, if my films are any good, they’ll spread the word and, maybe, create a Fan page for me!

-Christopher J. Boghosian

Christopher J. Boghosian is an independent filmmaker in Los Angeles, California. His blog, FollowMyFilm.com, focuses on the emotional side of filmmaking as well as highlighting the progress of his first feature film, Girlfriend 19.

This Is Transmedia

This entry was originally published at Hope For Film

I am producing Lance Weiler’s HOPE IS MISSING (with Anne Carey). It’s hard to call it just another feature film when Lance does so much more to expand the story world. In the past, I have encouraged filmmakers to make a short to demonstrate their skills or help clarify the world they want to create. Yes, Lance made a short for HopeIsMissing (aka H.i.M.), and you can watch it at the bottom of this post, but that’s just a tip of the iceberg.

When I speak about it to studio execs, most still don’t know what I mean when I say it is a transmedia project. Hopefully that will never be the case again once we make the feature. One would think that this would have already changed though by what has been done already.

Perhaps you were at Sundance and encountered the PANDEMIC. It was an installation at New Frontier. It was an online experience. It was location-based ARG. It was story R&D. Lance explains:

How I Learned to Start a Pandemic from Turnstyle Video on Vimeo.

We had Lance on KillerHope and he explains it a bit more:

The press sure picked up on it. I posted some of it here before. Here’s Gizmodo.

Oh yes, and here’s the short: