Film preservation is a difficult thing. And it has gotten more difficult. But it could be made easier. Like many things, although there is not yet an app for that, there is a simple fix.
If you are reading this now, I am going to assume you know about the “digital dilemma” and recognize that we probably are going to lose a great deal of the films that have been created over the last decade.
Although I have never really been a fan of Thanksgiving as it is currently celebrated, I REALLY like the idea of it — and want to expand it (and better prepare for it). In my vision of it, it is something we all would do together. And I mean all of us, everywhere.
Thanksgiving here in the United States falls this year on Thursday, November 28th. But for what I want to do, we need the week. We need the week to reflect. Really we need the days leading up to it to reflect. I am getting started now.
I am going to reflect on what I am grateful for, on the kindness and generosity others have shown me, and how I can give back. I am going to make a week of such gratitude. It would be awesome if others could join me. That is why I am writing to you now.
That sort of thing. You in?
This year I am going to write a list (aka a blog post) each day of the week and name names:
There’s certainly many other such lists that can be helpful: what I am thankful for on this earth, what I am thankful for that has happened to me in my life, what I am thankful for that has happened to others, what I am thankful for for having recognized, and many more I am sure you can come up with.
As it’s kind of nice to keep track of these thanks, we can follow them via the #HopeAndThanks hashtag.
By Colin Brown
“I lost money for the first time ever in my career over the last two years,” beamed Matthew McConaughey in his signature drawl as he picked up this year’s actor trophy at the recent Hollywood Film Awards. “But I did have a helluva lot of fun.” McConaughey’s conscious decision to”recalibrate” his shirtless rom-com persona into something edgier has since led him to a succession of eye-catching performances in director-driven, lower-budget films – MAGIC MIKE, KILLER JOE, THE PAPERBOY, MUD – and now to the brink of Oscar recognition with DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. It’s the kind of Travolta-style career revival, a McConnaissance if you will, that should give fresh hope to indie filmmakers still hitting heads against talent agents’ doors in their casting quests. At a time when Hollywood slate-pruning has seen the studios essentially abandon mid-budget dramas, pretty much all actors are open to stimulating roles that may require them to sacrifice their customary compensations. Besides wanting to work, actors know there’s always a chance that their fun will laugh all the way to the bank.
In McConaughey’s case, that financial pay-off will come soon enough. Next month, he will be seen playing right opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s $85 million-plus THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. And this time next year, he will surface again as the top-billed male star in Christopher Nolan’s even pricier space-travel spectacular INTERSTELLAR, headlining a cast that also includes Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Matt Damon.
Your parents taught you to cover your ass didn’t they? You like to be prepared, right? You can’t expect to have dinner if you haven’t put food in the refrigerator, right? How come then we make films and don’t have any distribution options lined up in advance? Are we expecting others to always take us for dinner?
When someone is encouraged to make a movie and bring it to market without having any backstop distribution or marketing plans in place, that advisor clearly has another agenda at hand than the investors’ (or filmmakers’) best interest.
By Jay Webb
Previously: Indiestreet Post #5: Indieconomies of Scale: Distribution
Indieconomies of Scale, Part 4 (of 4): Marketing
The DIY marketing of an Independent film has always been an overwhelming, and somewhat foreign prospect for an artist. For me it’s one of those things that seems to be more of a “Where do I even start?” type of problem, especially in today’s fast paced environment. There are new free to use marketing/networking platforms that pop up everyday, but how do we know what will work? And even more importantly, what will work for our film specifically? While the internet, social networking, data mining, and targeted ad networks do make it possible for Indie filmmakers to market their own films more effectively, they surely do not make the marketing process any less complicated.
So let’s try to simplify the idea of transitioning from filmmaker to film-marketer, and then we will talk about why a group mentality can make all the difference in this transition.
1. Marketing = a cousin of storytelling
Sure storytelling is your born talent and passion; not commercial exploitation. Well the best marketers are the ones that can tell the story of their company in a brief, memorable and entertaining way. So before you run and hide during the marketing phase of your film, just realize that a filmmaker and a marketing professional are actually some type of bizarro storytelling cousins.
by John Sayles
The first storytelling I got to do was as a novelist in the 1970s, and in those days there was a phenomenon known as the ‘vanity press’. Today we would call it ‘self-publishing’ with little hint of derision, but back then it was considered something lesser, tacky in a way, amateurs so deluded about their lack of talent they ponied up and paid somebody to print their work and then gave it away as presents to their friends. There were exceptions made for ideologues– medical, philosophical or political– who were too far out for even the most adventurous publishers, but though their plight was understood these people were considered to be mere pamphleteers rather than ‘professional writers’. A professional writer didn’t pay to be published, and in many cases got an advance against royalties from their publisher. My first advance for a novel was for $2,500 in 1975, when the minimum wage was slightly over a dollar an hour. Two years ago I got a $3,000 advance for my novel A Moment in the Sun. Minimum wage, thankfully, has advanced more steadily than my earning power as a novelist. But it was still a big deal to
By Colin Brown
“More than 90% of directing a picture is the right casting,” suggests Martin Scorsese in the revelatory documentary CASTING BY. Producers might well reach a similar assessment for financing a picture as well since actors remain by far the most enticing lures to potential investors. But settling on just who might be “right” for that picture is another matter entirely – and a source of constant tension as filmmakers struggle to reconcile the urgent needs of the story with the erratic tastes of the global marketplace and its appointed gatekeepers.
Casting is rarely a sequential, yes-or-no decision-making process that involves working your way down a long list of actors who have been somehow calibrated according to their creative merits and box office bankability. That would be too easy. Unless your director’s name happens to be Scorsese, more than 90% of the time will be spent casting out again and again into an ocean of uncertainty and inconsistency not knowing which way the winds will blow. You need good hooks as well as good fortune to fish in those waters, the tenacity to keep going, an unwavering hand and eye to thread that needle, and the improvisational skills to react to what’s constantly changing around you. Not unlike acting itself.
