I recently had the pleasure of coming across this fine bit of reading, and I thought it summed up our current state of the film biz quite well. And heck, it may even protect you from some liabilities down the road…
The Parties hereby acknowledge that there is presently no executed agreement with any distributor to distribute the Picture. The success of the Picture will be dependent upon the Company’s ability to complete the Picture, the attractiveness of the final product to distributors and the distributors’ willingness to commit substantial sums to promote the Picture successfully. The Company will not have the financial capability to distribute the Picture itself. The gross revenue derived from the Picture is dependent, among other things, upon the interest of distributors and their ability to obtain suitable distribution via theatrical, television, home video, and/or other media, and in selecting proper release dates and appropriate advertising and promotion for the Picture. The negotiation of final distribution agreements, which frequently occurs (if at all) near the time of completion of motion pictures, will have a substantial impact upon the amount of receipts available to the Company from the exploitation of the Picture. There is no assurance that such negotiations will result in revenues or profits to the Company. Furthermore, although the Company has agreed to use commercially reasonable efforts to cause the Picture to be distributed, there is no assurance that the Picture will be distributed or that such distribution will be profitable to the Company. The fact that any distributor derives profits from its distribution of the Picture will not, in turn, assure that the Company will also derive profits therefrom.
Unfortunately if I sought to get compensated for the work I do, my movies would not get made. If I sought to get paid like normal people are, I never would have been able to produce any of my films.
I have been fortunate enough to have made about sixty films in about twenty years. I am not foolish enough to think I was the deciding factor in bringing good ideas into cinematic being, but I do know that certain practices of mine, have helped significantly. Yes, it is also true that good work begets other good work, and a track record certainly helps — particularly a track record of profitability — but generally all of my films depend on two things to get made: 1) superior quality of the material, and 2) the willingness of the collaborators to make great sacrifices.
There’s more though on why these films have happened; there have been commonalities amongst all the films that have helped significantly in their getting made. I have to repeatedly go out on the limb, believing in the film and the filmmaker for years on end, with no remuneration, pushing to make the project better, figuring out how in the hell to bring more “value” to it, shopping it, strategizing and the like.
Kübler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining for time, depression, & acceptance. Where’s the film biz on this list? And where is the Indie Film Biz on the chart?
It seems to me that most are still in step one: denial. I wrote my “38 Ways The Film Business Is Failing” post from what I felt was a place of acceptance (K-R Stage 5). We should be ready to move on now. Each of my 38, and the 37 I posted the year earlier, are ironclad truths in my view 
. Seriously, though, each of the combined 75 statements are wake up calls, pleas to move on and find solutions. Can’t we just hurdle over the middle three and land on the final one?
If we accept acceptance and wake up to the world we are living in, what is our next step?
By Jon Reiss
Let me clarify some of my feelings about the PMD. I will add my universal caveat that every film and situation is different. But here are some important guidelines:
1. The best case scenario is that a PMD is on board as a full collaborator and worker from as close to inception of the film as possible – no later than beginning of prep. This allows for, what I feel, the optimum of the integration of audience connection and engagement (which is what distribution and marketing is at its essence). If you wait till you have finished your film – you are in a world of hurt (I’ve said that before, but I don’t think I can say it enough) because this connection building and engagement take time and effort and cannot be hurried.
2. The best marketing is as creative as traditional filmmaking now read more…
I think I may have posted this before. I just recently came across it again. This list was compiled by the good folks at Indiewire. I stare at it and think it must reveal some greater truth.
What does it say about our culture, about what people want to see? What does it say about the mainstream industry and what they will buy or promote?
Top Grossing Independent Films of the 2000s
1. The Passion of the Christ, 2004 (Newmarket) $370,274,604
2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2003 (IFC Films) $241,438,208
3. Juno, 2007 (Fox Searchlight) $143,395,265
4. Slumdog Millionaire, 2008 (Fox Searchlight) $141,319,928
5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000 (Sony Pictures Classics) $128,078,872
6. Traffic, 2000 (USA) $124,115,725
7. Fahrenheit 9/11, 2004 (Lionsgate) $119,194,771
8. Paranormal Activity, 2009 (Paramount) $107,753,000
9. Brokeback Mountain, 2005 (Focus Features) $83,043,761
10. March of the Penguins, 2005 (Warner Independent) $77,437,223
11. Coraline, 2009 (Focus Features) $75,286,229
12. Sideways, 2004 (Fox Searchlight) $71,503,593
13. Burn After Reading, 2008 (Focus Features) $60,355,347
14. Little Miss Sunshine, 2006 (Fox Searchlight) $59,891,098
15. Hero, 2004 (Miramax) $53,710,019
16. Atonement, 2007 (Focus Features) $50,927,067
17. 28 Days Later, 2003 (Fox Searchlight) $45,064,915
18. Lost In Translation, 2003 (Focus Features) $44,585,453
19. Napoleon Dynamite, 2004 (Fox Searchlight) $44,540,956
20. Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, 2009 (Lionsgate) $42,004,270
Are titles more than a marketing tool? They certainly can be that thing that encourages the desire, and the fond memory, the element that represents the art & the ambition, as well as being the reminder of the thing you want. Titles can tell us that the movie is distinct and worth our consideration (The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind) or warn us that we may not be the correct audience for it (Blood _______). Good titles grow richer once we see the movie (The Ice Storm) and can move from seeming initially generic into some sort of deeper resonance (as Ang’s movie did).
The industry’s holy grail is often seen as the title that gives you a clear idea of both the tone and content or concept of the film (The Forty Year Old Virgin). Some subjects demand to be put in the title (weddings, food, chocolate, blood) because they are the things that audiences love most. Life’s big subjects get more than their fair share of attention (death, sex, love, power).
Sometimes though it seems as if who’s ever picking the titles deliberately tries to confuse, read more…
Awhile back in The Huffington Post, Marshall Fine pointed to Comic Con as an example of what is wrong with the Studio Biz these days. I too miss the days when it seemed like there was business in creating work for mature audiences. I will be among the first in line for Innaritu’s BUITIFUL for sure, and when I watched FAREWELL the other night, I longed to make a film of that weight, craft, and themes. Looking at what my immediate future holds as a producer in the USA, I don’t think I will get much opportunity for such exploration anytime soon, at least not on a reasonable budget.
Nonetheless, as opposed to Marshall, ComicCon does not represent for me what’s wrong with the film biz, but quite the opposite. Although the communities are smaller , and the passion and fervor far less, the art house contingents should take note what ComicCon does. It is the only populist film event we have in this country.
I am incredibly energized by ComicCon and believe it is a model that can be extended to support work beyond the specific genre it currently supports. That is, if the audience and community for specific genres and subjects can unite the way ComicCon’s has, we as filmmakers could truly start to collaborate with audiences the way the fan boy and geek crowd does with their filmmakers. Taking SUPER to ComicCon was one of the highlights of my twenty plus years in the business. I felt unbridled support for what we’ve made, and we only offered up a wee taste.
The following is a bit of an update to the reply that I posted to Marshall on the Huff:
I share your lament about Hollywood abandoning more serious fare, but it is what it is. Let’s face it, movies for adults are difficult to execute and difficult to market; how can you blame the studios from abandoning them?
Audiences need to unite and demand what they want. read more…
I wish I could put into practice more of my recommendations and all the good ideas others have bought me. I wish I could raise money for the marketing as well as the production of my films. I wish I could plot out a six to nine month marketing & publicity campaign for my films, particularly when I don’t have a distributor to collaborate with. I wish I could slow down and take it one film at a time. I wish that I could engage in more experimental innovations that could pave the way to the future.
I believe in strategy. I am all about planning. Yet this world we are currently living in, just like the world I got my start in, requires action above anything else. We need to make this happen. We need to bring ideas into reality.
To large degree, I am a facilitator first and foremost. Sure, I am pleased when I contribute creatively to a project, but I don’t always, and I certainly don’t have to. Sometimes I am a second set of eyes; sometimes I am a sounding board. Sometimes I am the strategist, and sometimes I am the instigator. The list can go on, but the key thing is I am generative. I get things done. I make them happen. I bring it forward.
So now you’ve watched the first three parts, right? And you are dying to watch Part Four. Well wait no further.
Some Job Opportunities in Indie Film with Ted Hope (part 4) from Hope for Film on Vimeo.
Once again, courtesy of Chris Stetson. Give this man a job!
Back in 1995 I wrote an article for Filmmaker Magazine entitled “Indie Film Is Dead”. My efforts to call attention to the changing indie dynamic hardly began with Lehman Brother’s collapse; my attempts to make filmmakers empowered are long founded. And we still have a lot of work ahead of us. It begins with identification of both what could be, what should be, and what does not need to be. Although it has been a long fifteen years, I remain quite optimistic that we will build it better together.
Awhile back here on Truly Free Film, I looked back at that article that I wrote to go public with my fear we, the indie community, had grown complacent. Each time I revisit it, I gain some new perspective. I have been truly enjoying Scott McCauley’s recent posts reflecting back on the history of Filmmaker Magazine, and was quite pleased when Scott ask me to take another glance for the magazine. It again has strengthened my conviction that we can move our culture and it’s apparatus forward. This is that reflection:
I think we tend to view the past as the present and overlook the world we are really living in. Furthermore, there is always a tremendous gulf between thought and expression. As a culture and as an industry, we are very slow to react to change and particularly to clues as to what is around the bend. We only alter our behavior when the pain of the present outweighs the fear of the future. We need our canaries to have bullhorns, but usually I find that it is so easy to get so far ahead of the parade, that the crowd forgets you are leading it. The big change for today is how easy it is for people to participate. When I wrote IFID I got a nice response from ten or fifteen people but it was mostly about the wish for someone to build the system so they could benefit from it. I write to get discussions started and hope that we can all move them into action. Now when I post something particularly applicable to our culture or industry over 100 people comment and many more pass it around retweeting and posting on FB and the like. That discussion is slowly also leading to action. Indie has bifurcated into Truly Free, which is sorting out a series of best practices, and the prestige & genre arms of the corporate well-capitalized entities that still rely on practices of old.
Looking back at the article, it feels like a Macy’s Parade float of a giant tweety bird pulling down a 1000 fire alarms, read more…
Today’s guest post is once again from filmmaker Zak Forsman. Yesterday we ran part one of this post.
Now, it should be pointed out that we are not alone in trying to aid the floundering LA indie scene. There are two other LA based screening series that we have partnered and networked with. Cinema Speakeasy by Saskia Wilson Brown has had great success hosting short film workshops where the audience is invited to offer creative feedback on films in post. Film Courage Interactive, hosted by Karen Worden & David Branin, bookends their screenings with a indie film quiz show with sponsor-donated prizes and a filmmaker therapy session of sorts where filmmakers discuss the more pressing issues of the day. All of us are building a network that we hope will grow into an alternative to film festivals, where the filmmaker can make a little dough showing their movies.
Experience has taught us that many filmmakers we invite to participate often need guidance and motivation. For that reason we have adopted a tiered revenue-share model where the first 40 seats go to the venue, the next 40 go to the filmmaker and the last 20 go to CINEFIST. Anything over 100 ticket sales are split evenly. In addition to having to first satisfy the venue’s cut, the filmmakers need to meet promotional commitments in order to participate in the box office sales. It’s not automatic. Having the filmmaker push and promote can often be the difference between 15 people or 150 people attending the event. read more…
This site could not have been built without the help and insight of Michael Morgenstern. My thanks go out to him.
Help save indie film and give this guy a job in web design or film!
