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Truly Free Film

How Holes in Data Analysis Can Overstate the Prevalence of Racism, Sexism and Success in Film

By Beanie Barnes

Data is a funny thing.  It can, at once, confirm and discredit the exact same theory.  For example, if a $500m film makes $100m at the box office on its opening weekend, it could mean that the film is a) a bust or b) gaining momentum.  Such was the case with Avatar.   By the end of 2009, several people were calling the film a “flop,” but by mid-2010, it was obvious that, of all the words to describe Avatar, “flop” was not one of them.  And although the film has been hailed as a marketing and technological success, if it had failed, it very likely would have been called it a marketing and technological bomb (with marketing heads rolling at the studio).

Misreading data is prevalent in film.  It isn’t so much that we misread the tea leaves, so much as it is that, rather than reading the tea leaves as they are, we’re more prone to read the leaves the way we want to see them or only read the leaves at the surface while overlooking others hiding below.

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Truly Free Film

BondIt: Organizing Big Data & Technology Theory For a Better Film Business

By Luke Taylor & Matthew Helderman

UploadThe term “big data” gets thrown around more often in technology circles then within film producing circles — but recently there’s been a shift. A noticeable shift that becomes obvious when a producer steps back and analyzes how the majority of their pre-production, production and post-production problems are solved. Whether it’s financing a new project, searching for potential talent or calculating an ROI structure.

Big data, the practice of organizing large quantities of information, has radically transformed every industry.

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Truly Free Film

Nobody Knows Anything #2: What Makes A Film Good?

By Charles Peirce  

Nobody2-300

Everyone, I’d hope, has some thoughts about what makes a film good. Perhaps it displays a degree of craft or a particular aesthetic sensibility, covers specific subject matter, has a quality story, certain stars, etc. As you get older and your exposure to cinema becomes both richer and more refined, that definition probably becomes more nuanced. Still, if further pressed most people will also have some few “guilty pleasures” — films that don’t fulfill all their own requirements of what makes for a good film but which they like anyway. Perhaps they were childhood favorites, particular genres or kinds of stories that give comfort, or they just have an indescribable something. It can all seem very subjective, but that discrepancy, between our self-defined tastes and our secret loves, is a telling one.

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Truly Free Film

Nobody Knows Anything #1: Marketing and the Collective Unconscious

By Charles Peirce

Nobody1-300In Adventures in the Screentrade, William Goldman famously opined that “nobody knows anything” in Hollywood, a curious concession for a man with such a marked record of success. The truth, though, is that Hollywood has always known something — its very business centered not just on creating hits but also on predicting future ones.

Originally the Studio System developed a series of principals which, if not always guaranteeing success, at least mitigated against disaster. That legacy persists today, albiet more loosely: in coverage, screenwriting structure, and the identifying of a film with its stars. The rise of the blockbuster didn’t undo the Studio System legacy, but it did change the metrics of success — once the end product becomes less bodies in seats and more associated merchandise, the thinking on what makes a good movie changes significantly. New aims call for new methods, and Hollywood has evolved its strategies with the times.