September 15 at 11:10am

TIFF IFF Discussion: DIY, DIWO, But Just Do It

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Eugene at Indiewire caught the essence of the public conversation I had with Thomas Mai of Festival Darlings to kick off the IFF at TIFF the other day. I particularly like the photo, so check it out here.

In a nutshell it came down to the fact that we seem to be fighting for the role of Nero as our culture burns down around us. The audience were producers with great projects, maybe 50 or 75 were there (invite only). Only one of them had a blog. Only one of them curated a film series. Only one of them had a project priced at under $1.5M. Maybe 10 were on Twitter. About 25 were on a social network.
It’s kind of shocking how the film biz is such a luddite culture. Innovation has been the key to my survival and it’s never been because of things I invented, just utilized.
THE WEDDING BANQUET is often said to have been the first narrative feature cut on an Avid. Granted it meant working on AVR Level 3 and having as a result 8 out of focus shots in it, but that didn’t stop it from winning the Golden Bear in Berlin.
LOVE GOD was one of the first films originated on video and output to film, and although it never secured distribution, it never would have made it to Sundance and beyond without Sony & Apple both granting us free tools and processes to make the film.
Good Machine may have been the first American-based producer-driven international sales company, but regardless of whether it was or not, it capitalized on the obvious (that our full film’s cost could come from overseas) at a time when the status quo was something else, and ultimately gave us something to sell beyond the films themselves.
I got some of my initial breaks because I had built a budget program when they weren’t yet commercially available, explored product placement prior to agency involvement, and other early adoptions that were available to anyone with their eyes open.
I have been a beneficiary of others’ slack behavior. I got full advantage of an inefficient, lazy, inbred, elitist system. I have gotten to make over 60 films in 20 years. It gets much harder from here. I am doing what I can to help and there are some others that are out there doing the same, even a few doing more, but it is not enough. We have work harder to increase the reach of our web, to shrink the holes in our net. We have to get our comrades to adopt and utilize the tools before them.

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  • pangofilms
    @shortcinema I don't know what that would be and would hope that someone would surprise me. I'm pretty open-minded.

    How about that rule that a film has to be about something? Why can't a film be about a lot of different things? Who made up that rule that a film has to be about one thing in particular? It seems to me a dated idea of what film should be.

    Why does a screenplay have to be "tight"? I like tight sometimes, but sometimes loose is good, and sometimes people tighten their scripts into being stupid and unbelievable. Tight doesn't always mean better, and loose doesn't always mean that someone didn't work very hard to get it that way.

    There's a million of these unwritten "rules" that just evolved out of nothing. Maybe it's time for some of them to become extinct.

    A film I've been thinking a lot about is District 9. The hero isn't your usual macho asshole who works too hard and has charisma shooting out of his eyes. He's a clownish bureaucrat who abuses the petty powers that he's given. And the style of the film, too. It's sort of documentary when it wants to be, and then changes to action, and then back to doc. It's different. And it's refreshing to see.
  • Linda Nelson/Nelson Madison Fi
    Here, here! When will filmmakers wake up. We now have the opportunity to build an audience for our films as we prep and shoot them. We just wrapped DELIVERED and already we have almost 2,000 fans that actively participate in a conversation about the film. And it doesn't cost us a cent - no e-mail lists to buy, no webhosting costs. We have hundreds of video clips and over 1,000 photos of behind the scene material and people are loving it. Check it out at http://www.deliveredmovie.com
  • ShortCinema
    @pangofilms I hear your plea for something different but I see no offers of examples. What have you seen that has broken away from "..."character arc" or "sympathetic hero" or...Hollywood habit of justifying... action of a character by some crazy motivation.

    You are clear about what you DON'T want to see but clarification would be nice on what you would like to see or have seen that is innovative in storytelling.

    re: Eugene/Indiewire. His article is a wonderful call to Web 2.0 arms. A point he made that resonated is that filmmakers are being asked to do more and more for their films. This may be why so few are using new digital tools. They may not be luddites, they may just be tired. But because of this the meek will not inherit the earth.
  • Mike Merell
    I'm listening. And fight with you. I wish I could have been at the event though. I'm in Toronto and have seen some screenings.

    MIKE MERELL
    www.desertvows.com
    http://desertvows.blogspot.com...
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/...
    http://twitter.com/DesertVows
  • David Geertz
    Ted,

    What is happening now in the marketplace of film and other media is similar to that of a plague. We are going through a thinning out period where people will need to adapt or die on the vine. Great producers have always been resourceful problem solvers and if you are not up to speed with how to work in the information age - you will perish.

    That being said there is still an immense amount of competition out there because when it comes down to brass tacks, there are only so many hours in a day to consume media as an audience member, and part of that weeding out process will making good producers visible again.

    Scripts don't go away. Producers do. If one luddite can't get it made....you can!
  • pangofilms
    It's not just technical innovation that's needed. It seems to me that a lot of producers, development people, studio people are still being guided by script ideas that were the norm fifteen, twenty years ago. They all came of age with McKee, or worked for Miramax (they all seem to have worked at Miramax at some point), and they seem stuck trying to make the same movies over and over again. And then the process of financing is rigged to make the same movies too, mainly because the stars are so important to getting money: so we get the same characters over and over.

    I'm not talking about multi-platform story telling, just something different than "character arc" or "sympathetic hero" or even the nasty Hollywood habit of justifying every possible action of a character by some crazy motivation. Sure, it's nice when timeframes are rearranged ala Pulp Fiction, but is that really all there is?
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