Schuyler Moore appears to think so. The title of his recent Forbes post “Netflix Will Rip The Heart Out of Presale Financing” says it all. Or at least his view of it. There is certainly a lot more to the picture than just the reach of Netflix.
Category: Truly Free Film
We are on the verge of a new film culture and infrastructure.
Copyright law, net neutrality, media consolidation, fair use, antitrust, DMCA — you have to not just know these, but know how you can influence the rules that influence you. Ultimately, it’s not just the laws that set the rules; it’s also the technology. The good news is that history has shown that the community, particularly when they find the right leaders, can truly make change happen.
This episode of ReInvent Hollywood has it all:
Theatrical is a profoundly different experience than most home viewing and fears of cannibalization are grossly over rated. So many titles are generated each year that there is no shortage of titles that could be theatrically released, and although there are not so many titles that will ever appeal to all audiences, there are certainly enough to address the niches on a grand scale.
Festivals (and support organizations) should organize a nationwide network of year round couch surfing / bed & breakfast local supporters to build a national support structure for the touring film makers.
If you asked me how I came to the film world and I told you I essentially started by selling vintage clothing on eBay, you would probably think I answered the wrong question. This myopic line of thinking is exactly why you might think it’s hard to make, sell, and distribute a film. When I started selling on eBay 10 years ago, it was like the Wild Wild West – there were no instruction manuals or established models for success. I was trying to figure out how to sell something that my customers couldn’t touch or feel (or even see that well, as I still had no idea how to operate a camera).
The new world of independent film is looking more and more like this uncharted territory everyday. With existing consumption patterns becoming outdated, crowdfunding emerging as the new normal, and myriad new digital distribution models developing, there’s really no *one* right way to get your film made, sold, or seen.
Here are five things I learned from selling on eBay that might help:
TV is known as a better place for writers than any of the other dramatic media, with the sole exception of the theater, of course. Besides, TV drama is nowadays so highly regarded that it is already changing some of the old rules regarding old industry traditions. The crossover of the boundary between cinema and TV, whereby writers can move once again from one medium to the other, with greater ease, is one of the changes. It remains to be seen whether the crossover experiment will affect the writer’s importance in other media too – especially in film.
Categories
Brand? Oh…
As the democratization of film has made it possible for just about anyone to make a film, it has conversely made it more difficult for the individual filmmaker and his or her films to stand out. Online content platforms now offer a hundred times more films in their catalogs then the films cataloged by IMDb from the inception of film (1,764,727 titles as of 14 Jan 2011). So despite assertions to the contrary, branding is more important than ever.
Filmmakers Are Brands, Their Films Are Products Though difficult for some in a creative pursuit to accept, in the words of Moonstruck (1987): “Snap out of it!” The music world has brands Madonna Louise Ciccone and Joanne Angelina Germanotta, known by their much more memorable brand names, Madonna and Lady Gaga.
