Whenever I walk into a grocery store, I can’t help but wonder if people really want so many choices. But does the same applies to tomato sauce or frozen waffles also apply to art, literature, music, and movies? Sure Pandora can source new music for me based on my prior expressed preferences, but music also works as a background pleasure. The same is hard to say for movies. And man, do we sure have a lot of great stuff readily available to us. What are we going to do to filter and search through all our choices?
Tag: Netflix
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Maybe It Shouldn’t All Be Free
I find the current debate regarding micro-payments for print journalism fascinating. Each morning, I work to talk myself out of a panic that we will soon be deprived of all the great newspapers, writers, and journalists. A friend chimed in that after the papers fall then next up is the free internet. The line of dominos is really easy to imagine.
But maybe it shouldn’t all be free. I, like all my film friends, are looking for a model of survival, no longer success. Reading Steve Brill’s defense of micro-payments makes me wonder if there is anything that film fans and workers are really committed to paying for. Variety & Hollywood Reporter start to feel like real luxuries these days. Guilds and unions, like membership in IFP and Film Independent, are crucial in the same way that if you want a vaccine to work, virtually everyone has to partake — but my son still screams with every shot (maybe if vaccines had a networking attribute like these organizations my son would respond better…).
But what will we pay for? My Netflix subscription seems like a better value with each new film that is available for streaming, even if I still prefer DVDs. As they just hit 10 Million subscribers it seems that everyone will pay for access to every film. As a devourer of new international film, I need a festival diet of projected new work from around the world every two or three months. It’s one of the reasons I can never leave NY. Jaman may offer it online but I need to see it large in a room full of people. And as much as I like to see it, I like to talk about it, read about it. So what will I pay for? I honestly don’t know.
Anyway, read Brill’s suggestion, and ponder the applicability to our world of film. I am.
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They Want To Give You Money
Netflix and Film Independent have teamed to offer a first time feature filmmaker a production grant worth $350,000. And you will get it distributed on Netflix too. The application is here. The deadline is February 9th. Get to it.
9. Plenty of DVD manufacture & Fullfillment places (see sidebar).
10. Plenty of places to place your content online for eyeballs to find (anyone want to generate a comprehensive list to share?).
11. Things like Netflix and Blockbuster.com make it possible for anyone with a mailing address to see any movie he or she wants. A lot of viewers who haven’t had access to theaters or even video stores that stock smaller films can now get them if they know about them. (thanks Semi!)
12. The Major Media Corporations retreat from the “Indie” film business. This will open up distribution possibilities for entities not required to produce high profit margins or only handle films that have huge “crossover” potential and necessitate large marketing budgets.
13. A new turn-key apparatus is evolving for filmmakers who want to “Do it with others” in that they can hire bookers, publicists, marketers – all schooled in the DIY manner of working. Instead of hoping for a Prince Charming to arrive and distribute their film, TFFilmakers are seeking out the best and the brightest collaborators to bring their film to the audiences.
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Finally: Instantly
So much to celebrate today. Besides the obvious, I found this. As a Mac user and lover, this also brought me real joy, albeit not quite equal to the election, but still substantial. Now if only I could find a way to expand my day to 48 hours.
Repeated exposure to ambitious films improves the audience’s taste. The longer someone is a member of Netflix, I have been told, the more their taste gravitates to auteurs. Perhaps the revolution has begun and no one has noticed.
Thank you Film School Rejects!
