About 3 months ago we made the decision to self-distribute BLUEBIRD in North America. From the beginning, our goal was to make an intimate, quietly affecting ensemble drama. For writer/director Lance Edmands, there was a specific kind of feeling he was trying to express with the film. There was a unique sense of loneliness, solitude, and isolation that was linked directly to a region of Northern Maine and the culture that permeates the area. Lance grew up in Maine, and he felt that these melancholy emotions stood in stark contrast with the great rugged beauty of the state. We wanted to explore that conflicted feeling in way that would resonate personally with a viewer. It was important to us to maintain the subtle, quiet tone of the film both in the way we made it and the way we brought the film to an audience. With that in mind, we spent the last year considering various distribution offers and scenarios as we traveled with the film to festivals.
Month: July 2014
Market figures
Different sources provide different figures but the bottom line is the same — too many films are being made on an annual basis.
“Too many” seems like a very broad term – but it isn’t. A recently conducted study resulted in a finding that the international community of audiences (those able to attend theaters, view content remotely traditionally as well as on mobile) was able to absorb 1,000 film per year.
The problem — roughly 8,000 films we produced/released in 2013.
With the markets therefore over-saturated by 87.5% – the cliched adage once again applies: something’s got to give.
By Christina Kallas
One thing’s for sure: people don’t go to writing to be rewritten. But they still are, first and foremost by the showrunner. The showrunner is the writer who tells the writers what to do, and who will eventually do it herself.
So should a showrunner polish the final draft of every episode to preserve the “voice” of the series, or should each individual writer be allowed to use their voice to bring out new sides to the characters and the series?
Began as producers & recognized problem
Before launching BondIt – our speciality financing operations to cover union deposits for feature films and theater productions – our team at Buffalo 8 Productions produced over 30 feature films.
Ranging in budgets and sizes — we dealt with the development, pre-production and post-production process — and branched in to the sales side of the business out of the necessity to build a revenue stream capable of sustaining a functioning business model.
As we grew as producers the company grew as well — offering new projects, larger budgets and further opportunities for the model we had built to pivot, adjust and expand.
More than anything – we recognized that capital allocations had changed for many of our colleagues as producers and production companies – with tight operating budgets and even tighter margins of profitability.
Categories
Never Miss A Deadline Again
This is awesome. POV’s “For Filmmakers” calendar includes funding deadlines, calls for entries, festivals and other documentary events.
I am a judge for Viewster’s Online Film Festival. It is so great to give money to filmmakers. $100,000.00!!!! This installment was “It’s Complicated” and it takes a global tour through relationships.
The thing I found most striking was the exposure to filmmakers from around the world. Sitting hear in America, I mostly see local work, and you become accustomed to the dominant strain of fast cut, tight story telling. In contrast, these shorts on Viewster had room to breathe, offering nuance, performance, and audience consideration in a way that American films rarely do.
Why does the feature film form have to change? What can society gain from this change? I thought I knew the answers, but what I discovered leading the conversation on ReInvent Hollywood’s episode on “The Form” is something even more inspiring and exciting.
