Month: November 2014

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Truly Free Film

A First Time Writer/Director’s Trial by Fire, Part #4: Unhealthy Obsessive Persistence

Welcome to the game that everyone trying to make a movie wish they would never have to play but do: Unhealthy Obsessive Persistence and Unlikely Approval! (Applause) What do we have for our contestant behind Door #1… wait, Door #1 is locked? Then what’s behind Door #2? A brick wall you say? What about Door #3? It just revolves back to point A. Congratulations! You don’t win! (Audience moans) Adding insult to injury, I have to pay for my own craft service.

At times, working to get a project noticed appears to dip into pointlessness,

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Truly Free Film

No Accidents in R: Struggle of the Homegrown Cinema, part II

Staying relevant. It is a fear actors, directors, content creators, and to be honest, most human beings grapple with constantly. The more than half-century year-old Sunset Boulevard exemplified this fear in the delusional Gloria Swanson. And while I’m sure this obsession is a random extraneous facet of the greatly evolved human consciousness, it may be spin-off on our desire to survive.


This wasn’t part of Birdman. This was Emma Stone actually telling MK the truth.

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Categories
My Films

My Greatest Films That No One Has Ever Seen

whathappendposterRecently Jon Brooks at KQED wrote up a very nice piece on Tom Noonan’s WHAT HAPPENED WAS (1994). That film won multiple awards at Sundance but barely go seen.  Unfortunately it does not sleep alone in my bed of barely seen almost-masterpieces.  As strong as my track record may be, it still holds some flops, misfires, and damn bad luck experiences. It’s great that Tom’s flick may get some of the love it so richly deserves, albeit twenty years after it’s debut.

On my pleasure planet, Frank Grow‘s revolutionary LOVE GOD (1997) would have turned our business on its head.  

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Issues and Actions The Next Good Idea

Sometimes We Forget To Do The Obvious

If the best solution is the easiest solution, what takes us so long to do it?  The film industry complains about piracy.  But what do we do about it?  If you want to find a movie available illegally, all you have to do is search for it.  But what if you don’t want to have the artists or their supporters suffer? What if you want to make sure that they are compensated for the work they have created? How do you find the legal sites?

Now there is a solution.  Finally…

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Truly Free Film

It Broke My Heart But The Mission Remained Intact

You’ve given me the support I needed to go forth and try to get this done. Granted, I had enough support from the beginning to actually believe there was a chance I could not just make movies, but make good movies. That is a real gift, an advantage few have. Courage, faith — those things were there, but so was doubt and fear. Love and hate. The wolves in battle.

What if it didn’t work? And then when that was true, when it did stop working, or at least start to stop working for most, what made me think I could help build something better?

What gives us the strength to make big decisions? To change our path? To take on new burdens?

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Truly Free Film

4 industry trends Revealed at AFM 2014

Despite the growing trend towards self-distribution, AFM is still a hugely important event in the industry, and something to which we should all pay attention.  I spoke with AFM’s Managing Director Jonathan Wolf on Wednesday about his opinions about the show and the general state of the industry.  Here’s what you need to know as a producer

1. Asia’s importance as a territory is growing.

This should come as a surprise to precisely no one; at least no one who has been paying attention to industry trends.  However by the numbers, buyers from Asia represented 30.7% of total buyers, and 28.3% of total buyer companies attending AFM. 

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Truly Free Film

Presale Market Alive and Well at AFM

Surprising, right?  Everything you read is that presales are a dying business, but according to Jonathan Wolf, AFM’s Managing Director, about 60% of the business done at this year’s AFM was in presales.  This means more than half a billion USD in presales alone.  

According to Mr. Wolf, the market for foreign presales came back by 2010 or 2011. 

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