Some good advice for filmmakers (as well as recent college grads) comes from Arthur C. Brooks in the NY Times last weekend:
1. Earn everything: people who do not feel responsible for their own successes spend 25 percent more time feeling sad than those who feel they are responsible.
2. Fail & rebound: the average entrepreneur fails almost four times before succeeding.
Author: Ted Hope
By Jay Webb
Previously: Making A Film? Why?
Audience building interview 1
There is no such thing as art without audience. A motion picture does not even exist without its impact on human viewers. As an independent creator without established lines of distribution, how do you build an audience that yearns for your specific stories? How do you keep them excited about your stories of the future? In today’s market, your response to this question may be the difference between a “one & done” and having a long, sustainable career as a filmmaker.
The Surveillance State’s seemingly shy cousin is starting to strut more on the dance floor. The siren song of censorship grows louder as governments and multinational corporations rock out to it as a means to fortify their power and wealth, knowing the rest of us will remain silent if we too believe we can accumulate even more green before the music ends and we have to take our seat. Isn’t it time we got our priorities in order?
You’ve seen what is happening, right? Russian forbids profanity in the media. China draws hard lines on what can and will be said. The European Court allows history to be erased from search. And here in the US not only do we continue to train ourselves to police ourselves, armed with the knowledge that Big Brother, I mean the NSA, is always watching, but we limit our own access — as well as our ability to innovate — by continuing to progress to a “he-who-pays-the-most-can-and-will-control-all” state and the consequent end of Net Neutrality.
By Matthew Helderman, & Luke Taylor
Determining specifics on the success of a product’s launch is always speculative. We’ve seen the same story countless times — a studio primes their latest release to be a massive box office success, only to watch the film crash and burn into box office bomb oblivion. Cloud Atlas, Mars Needs Moms, John Carter, Battleship, The Lone Ranger— we’re all familiar with these recent examples of big-budget bombs that were projected for success and proved to be poor investments.
The reasoning and research behind the cause of these failures and successes is endless — timing, marketing, money, foreign sales, lead actor status, direction, writing, length, acting — any of the above can be blamed for poor results. The reality is, it is simply impossible to determine the exact needs of an audience or consumer before any product is launched. Market research, development, and beta testing can certainly provide some statistics to lean on — but there is unfortunately no exact science until you are out there in the marketplace.
EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY
press release
EFA Board Calls for Release of Ukrainian Director Oleg Sentsov
The Board of the European Film Academy calls for the immediate release of Ukrainian director Oleg Sentsov.
Sentsov, who has been involved in supporting the Euro Maidan protests in Kiev and has opposed the annexation of Crimea by Russia, was arrested at his home in Simferopol, Crimea, and accused of organizing a terrorist attack. It is believed that the director has been flown to Moscow where he is facing trial.
By Colin Brown
Jane Campion remains the only woman director ever to get a hand on the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival when her film The Piano shared the Palme d’Or with Farewell My Concubine back in 1993. This week, the same New Zealand-born filmmaker notched up another Cannes milestone of sorts by becoming the first woman other than an actress to serve as the festival’s Jury President. But even if her jury ends up bestowing laurels on one of the two solitary women filmmakers in competition this year, Campion herself remains unimpressed by such belated dents on the celluloid ceiling. “You’d have to say there’s some inherent sexism in the industry,” she lamented at Wednesday’s news conference on the Croisette. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” Campion then added, looking across at some of her fellow jurors sitting alongside her, “but the guys are eating all the cake.”
I am not sure cell phones have really helped because I used to be able to always be on set. When cell phones came along, the producer was always on the phone. Sure schedules used to be done by hand. Nothing was wireless. But what was it that helped make movies more efficiently or creatively? What were the big advances that I can recall? Did they all actually help? Did some hurt?
