Month: September 2009

Categories
Truly Free Film

Wanted: List Of Film Clubs & Societies

We’ve been curating a regular screening series in conjunction with our friends at Goldcrest all year. It’s free and every screening has been filled to capacity. We send out 800 emails to “influential media types” here in NYC and have 60 seats. Makers Mark Bourbon gives us some fine sippin’ whiskey to share afterwards. The filmmakers always come and we do a Q&A afterwards. It’s a lot of fun, the films have been great, and the filmmakers have made important connections from it. Most importantly it builds word of mouth for these films that deserve more. My dream is to get some form of sponsorship so we could give the filmmakers a speaking fee and fly folks in from out of town.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of more. My friend Pericles Lewnes and his wife Lisa have a series down in Annapolis, Maryland called The Pretentious Film Society and they have gotten good press. And you can follow them on Twitter here. But there’s got to be a whole lot more of such clubs, right? Let’s find them.
Imagine if we had a list of 50 or so of these, that could be used to build advance buzz for your films so that when they eventually played in those markets you had supporters who would help promote your film to their social network. Wouldn’t that be great?
Imagine if all these societies actually had a little funding to bring filmmakers to town so that they could do advance publicity in anticipation of their release. Field publicity always helps but its expense makes it out of reach of most Truly Indie filmmakers, particularly those taking the DIY route. Finding a way to decrease this cost is crucial to indie film’s survival.
So let’s get started. Let’s build this list. You did a great job building the list of blogs that cover undistributed films (although Jake Abraham still gets the most gold stars for his contribution).
Do you know of any film clubs? How do we contact them? What do they like to show? Do they require filmmakers to be there? Can they pay anything? There is a spot in our Indie Film Hero list for whoever contributes the most information.
Subsequent notes:
Christophe Lepage pointed out on FB this great listing of over 92 Film Clubs world wide:
http://www.filmclub.com/film_festivals/action/?go=club_search
And finally, if you don’t know of a film club in your area, why not start one? We did. I am sure I can put a lot of indie filmmakers in touch with you who would love to screen their film.
Categories
Truly Free Film

Mandatory Viewing: David Poland’s State Of The Union

David Poland’s has long been on a mission to demystify the film business for the rest of us, and he does a great job at it. His columns frequently are filled with crucial nuggets of knowledge. Now he’s done a 30 part series on the State Of The Union (of the film biz). If the rest is as as good as episode one with Bill Mechanic, all of you will soon have a much better handle on the business. Thanks David!

http://moviecitynews.com/views/dp30/2009/billmechanic.html
Categories
Truly Free Film

What Do Directors Look For In A Producer?

On Episode Seven Of Christine & Ted Talk To Directors At Sundance ’09, Lee Daniels speaks of the need to turn water into champagne, Alan Cumming talks about sharing passion, and Jeff Lipsky about protection and not knowing:

Categories
Truly Free Film

Jeff Lipsky On How Being A Distributor Prepared Him To Work With Actors

Episode Six of The Christine & Ted Talk To Directors At Sundance ’09 Show, Jeff does just that. And he discusses “triangulation of trust” as a bonus:

Categories
Truly Free Film

Plea To The New Generation: Embrace Transmedia Storytelling!

We have a guest post today from Anita Tovich.

I am Chair of the producing dept. at the New York Film Academy. In reading TFF’s recent transmedia storytelling post I realized this is it! This is it! This is a far reaching piece of the puzzle for my producing students and I sent the article to all current students and some former.

The onus is always on me to make some prophetic statements and decisions based on the research available to me for the students. But I’m no prophet. So I scour the internet day in & day out for some morsel of food to feed the sparrows. Some twig of hope to feather the nest. And every day, we, as a group fly hard against the prevailing winds.

My students are scared. One of them called me for an emergency meeting when his mother wouldn’t stop crying and telling him he was going to live under a bridge some day if he didn’t give up his dream to be a producer. He’s a working producer in Germany right now btw. Another told me yesterday she had a dream she was hit by a truck and screamed at the EMT to get her to her final pitching sessions here and not take her to the hospital. We had a good laugh, but it was ominous indeed.

Transmedia storytelling is a way out of the doldrums. I have these Failure Is Not An Option panels for and with my students. I bring in very disparate members of the community. Jeff Gomez who was mentioned in the blog was kind enough to attend. This man is a gem. He feels that young directors and producers do not necessarily understand what he does. Maybe they regard it as too lofty and/or cognitive. But his filmic universes can be the bread and butter for the newbiest of our community. As the blog stated, it’s not for every film but we should examine it before we abandon it.

I tell my students that if you want to get rich you have probably chosen the wrong profession. Wall Street is a hop, skip, and jump away-go there. Or maybe dental hygiene is in your future. But if you want to align yourself with the Jeff Gomezes of the world who enjoy giving a soul to inanimate objects-those things that wouldn’t have a soul if left to those corporations whose name(s) we dare not say. We don’t need to abandon art or character or humanity or heart or spirit.

I told a former student of mine this morning that a documentary she’s currently pitching has a lot of monetary upside, especially if she configures a new world for her characters. I know her characters from a short doc she did about them and I wouldn’t mind a bit abandoning myself to their world. She maintains this is not necessarily appropriate for a documentary. We are now at the stage where we agree to disagree. But I’m right. J

Help us fly against the wind. If there are enough of us, the wind doesn’t stand a chance.

Anita Tovich
Chair/Director
Producing Dept.
Director
Industry Speaker Series
Director
Intern and Mentorship
New York Film Academy

The transmedia / cross-platform storytelling discussion continues, both here on TFF and over at The Chutry Experiment.
Categories
These Are Those Things

Two Greats Together: Bob Dylan & The Rolling Stones

Was it the semi-narrative, the accusatory question (How does it feel?!), the multiple meanings of the chorus, the propulsive rave up, or just the great tune over all, but how many songs manage not to just stick for decades but rise to the pinnacle of great rock songs? And then to get the namesake and the creator together in their fifties still rockin’ it before multiple cameras and a giant swarm of fans loving every minute.

It’s definitely entertainment:

(hat tip to Amos Poe for this one!)