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Author: Ted Hope
26. Collaboration among filmmakers is recognized as being a necessity among filmmakers. Todd Sklar’s tour of films with their filmmakers brought vital work and their creators to places that generally went lacking. The teamwork approach benefited everyone. One can easily imagine that this model, like the collaborative finance model, will extend to production too, and not just in the aforementioned crowdsourced way, but in ways that will make individual personal films stronger too.
27. The Independent community has demonstrated that it is quick to action and embraces both tolerance and strength. Over five years ago, the indie film community joined forces to defeat the Hollywood Studios’ and the MPAA’s Screen Ban, but despite a lot of activist attitude they have not joined forces in a significant way since then. But it doesn’t mean it can’t, or won’t.
The indie film community was very vocal about their opposition to California’s Proposition 8 referendum, but never in a unified way. Similarly, many major figures within the community defended the LA Indep. Film Festival’s head’s, Rich Radon, right of political expression when it was revealed he had donated funds in support of Prop 8, refusing to engage in blacklist tactics. In the end, the obvious conflict of an organization that defines itself by tolerance, being then led by someone supportive of a discriminatory act, albeit on what is called religious grounds, seemingly led that individual to resign. There was no true organized effort by the film community itself either to defeat Prop 8 or to remove Radon, but one suspects the outcome of each will bring more unified action in the months to come.
The community’s embrace of a new issue will be a test of their abilities to act in a unified way.
28. The embrace of the “1000 True Fans” model: filmmakers are recognizing that they need to engage in regular communication — via a regular output of varied material – with their core audience. Not only is necessary because it speaks of a model of how filmmakers can earn a living , but it also offers a manner of working that will allow filmmakers, and artists in general, greater variation in the type and form of work they do. The dialogue with the audience will also keep filmmakers more attuned to what their audience responds to and why, all the while, strengthening the bonds between artists and their community.
29. Rational consolidation and expansion is taking place in the blogosphere. Indiewire, the premiere indie film news site, was acquired Snag Films, the leading documentary film streaming aggregator. GreenCine, one of the leading sites for art film appreciation, had its lead blogger go over to IFC’s IndieEye – greatly strengthening that site. Movie City News got another great editor. As these core film appreciation sites improve, we all benefit. Audiences need to know where to go to find the type of films they love and this bit of consolidation could help.
I wish I had spotted this earlier.
ITVS hired Scott Kirsner to find out what digital tools filmmakers were using and what was working. The report focuses on three main changes:
- Opening Up Production to Participation
- Finding New Audiences
- New Distribution Opportunities
They have five top strategies for social issue filmmakers.
And they have five case studies to read. Here’s the one on TFF Hero Tiffany Shlain.
One thing that particularly resonated for me — and I have heard from other filmmakers as well — is that the filmmakers wish that they had DVDs for sale at their premiere. I wonder if any filmmakers at Sundance will head this advice…
What are you waiting for? This is Required Reading.
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Sundance Trailers
2009 can already be marked as the year that filmmakers and distributors launched trailers prior to Sundance and Slamdance. We won’t yet have the majority of filmmakers being truly prepared, but new ones seems to debut daily.
I imagine next year the festival catalogue might link to the trailers. Hopefully at least the online version. Maybe they will link to clips too. For now though, we have to be content to find them ourselves.
A few weeks back we posted about Cinematical’s growing list. We can now add six more to it:
Dead Snow; dir by Tommy Wirkola (hat tip: TrailerSpy)
Disturbing The Universe: William Kunstler; directed by Sarah & Emily Kunstler
Manure (teaser); directed by The Polish Brothers (hat tip: /Film)
Roseancrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead (slamdance); directed by Jordan Galland
Taking Chance; directed by Ross Katz (hat tip: /Film)
We Live In Public; directed by Ondi Timor (hat tip: Thompson On Hollywood)
Once again though it should be noted that The Workbook Project is on it for you. For those of you that are thinking of next Sundance already, Zak Forsman has a post on how to cut an effective indie trailer. Check it out.
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Fatworld!
Fatworld is a free downloadable video game. It looks fun, and may teach something too (oh no!).
Their website explains:
FATWORLD is a video game about the politics of nutrition. It explores the relationships between obesity, nutrition, and socioeconomics in the contemporary U.S. The game’s goal is not to tell people what to eat or how to exercise, but to demonstrate the complex, interwoven relationships between nutrition and factors like budgets, the physical world, subsidies, and regulations.
It’s one thing to explain that daily exercise and nutrition are important, but people, young and old, have a very hard time wrapping their heads around outcomes five, 10, 50 years away.
You can choose starting weights and health conditions, including predispositions towards ailments like diabetes, heart disease, or food allergies. You’ll have to construct menus and recipes, decide what to eat and what to avoid, exercise (or not), and run a restaurant business to serve the members of your community.
FATWORLD comes with numerous foods, recipes, and meal plans, or players can create their own from the foods in their pantry or their imaginations.
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The New Doctor
Matt Smith (who?), age 26 is the eleventh.
Filmmaker has a post on Lance Weiler’s upcoming article on data portability. I have been hungering for this one for a long time now. Data portability’s a key issue for all of us. It would have been on my list of what I want our film culture to be but I thought it was an issue or practicality more than a way of being. Open source practices and general transparency in actions and practices is something though that is essential to a truly free film culture and it definitely should have been on my list (I have now added it). What else did I forget?
Scott’s post goes on to discuss Facebook’s policy of dropping the accounts of those who have grown too large. It’s an irksome situation and something to be aware of. Check it out.
