Category: Truly Free Film

We are on the verge of a new film culture and infrastructure.

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Truly Free Film

CHILDREN OF INVENTION: Why They Are Glad They Went DIY

Again today we have a guest post from Mynette Louie and Tze Chun, the producer director team behind CHILDREN OF INVENTION. The film opens this weekend in New York and their whole journey through DIY/DIWO distribution has been fascinating to watch and a learning experience for us all. They have been truly brave and really generous sharing a lot of information along the way. I really love this film and truly admire both of them. Please support their film.

Yesterday they shared their Top 10 Reasons Why They Turned Down The Distribution Offers They Received. Check it out.

Top 10 Things We’re Glad We Did

1.   Didn’t take an all-rights distribution deal. For reasons enumerated above, but most of all, for freedom!

2.   Played as many film festivals as possible, and traveled to as many of them as possible. We were one of the smallest films at Sundance.  It’s a great festival to premiere at, but the press does give most of the attention to the star vehicles and bigger films.  So, it was really over the course of the entire festival circuit that we got our buzz, awards, and reviews.  It was also great to interact directly with audiences, who essentially act as focus groups for your film.  We were able to discover what people respond to in the film, and which demographics respond best.  Building a relationship with your audiences is really important.

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Truly Free Film

CHILDREN OF INVENTION: Why They Turned Down 8 Distribution Offers

Today we have a guest post from Mynette Louie and Tze Chun, the producer director team behind CHILDREN OF INVENTION.  The film opens this weekend in New York and their whole journey through DIY/DIWO distribution has been fascinating to watch and a learning experience for us all.  They have been truly brave and really generous sharing a lot of information along the way.  I really love this film and truly admire both of them.  Please support their film.

Tomorrow they will share their Top 10 Reasons Why They Are Glad They Turned Down The Distribution Offers They Received.  Stay Tuned.

Top 10 (alright, 11) Reasons Why We Turned Down 8 Distribution Offers

1.    Couldn’t get straight answers about revenue projections, accounting and recoupment. Why this is bad is self-explanatory.

2.    Term was too long. Yes, it’s a lot of time and hard work to self-distribute, but we could always choose not to exploit some distribution channel if we figure it’s not worth it. We can’t, however, choose to get out of a 10 to 25-year deal. And if we did a 25-year deal, we’d probably be in old-person diapers by the time the rights revert to us.  And that’s just sad to think about.

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Truly Free Film

Should Movie Poster Tag Lines Be Transformed

“Earth.  It Was Fun While It Lasted.”  Armegeddon’s tag line sticks with me, because I instinctively substitute “Earth” for “Indie Film” when I read it.

In these days of RampantFilmBizChange,  everything is ripe for reconsideration.  MCN hipped me to AdWeek’s collection of “66 Great Movie Taglines“.  Sure the list gets a smile regularly from me, but I walk away deadened and jaded.  The sell is obvious.  The dominant clever factor feels like a child beauty pagents’ related icky. “Look at me!  Look at me!  Give me a trophy!  Now!!!”.  Get me outta there.

Can’t we do better?  Or at least do different?

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Truly Free Film

Thoughts On Last Night’s Oscars

The opening  number felt so inappropriate that I first hoped that the show would keep up a feel of a high school spoof of the Spirit Awards.  Shouldn’t such a celebration of art & entertainment aim to contextualize all that is great about this Dream Factory?  Okay, if they can’t figure out how to do that, I would be fine with several hours of pure crass classless puns like the song & dance intro promised too, but no.  We get 4 hours of dullness instead.  The fun of the show becomes critiquing all the mistakes.

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The Next Good Idea Truly Free Film

Invest in Artists, Not Art; in Individuals, Not Projects

MCN tipped me to this article in Barrons on Creative Capital’s practice of investing in the artist, and not the project.

BRENT GREEN WAS 25 AND ABOUT to relinquish his dream of becoming a filmmaker when he discovered Creative Capital.

Green had been looking high and low for a $14,000 grant to finish an animated film. Creative Capital, a nonprofit based in New York, sized him up and offered something entirely different: $43,000 to help support his career over the next three years. It would go toward everything from equipment to transportation to the cost of a publicist. In return, Green would give Creative Capital a small cut of any profits.

In the five years since then, Green’s work has been shown at the Sundance Festival and a number of museums and film festivals in North America and Europe. He has even found himself turning down galleries eager to represent his work.

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Truly Free Film

Thoughts on The New Festival Model

I love that the Tribeca Film Festival has facilitated an immediate VOD launch for some of the films premiering there this year.  This is a key step in freeing festivals from their geographic limitations.  With the collapse of print and the firing of local film critics, festivals have become our most vital curatorial voice.  Whether we like this or not, it is the time we are living in, and it requires festivals to aggregate their audiences and expand their base; that is if they really want to help film culture grow and deepen, which I thought was their mandate (maybe that no longer is what it about; maybe it is now, like everything else, primarily financially motivated).

Unfortunately though the VOD experiment as currently structured (or at least as I understand it) is not the distribution or marketing solution for filmmakers that is necessary.  I worry that the lack of prior promotion,non-existant window, and filmmaker-led marketing will lead Tribeca’s bold step forward to mirror the popular (and negative) wisdom that came from the Sundance YouTube experiment (i.e. Fail!).  This is totally avoidable.  We already have better answers.

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Truly Free Film

Make Your Microbudget Film An Event: The Waiting List

Today’s guest post is from Mike Vogel.

I recently premiered my first microbudget feature The Waiting List in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. I’ve read a lot of blogs and tweets about how important it is to turn your screening into an event. There are many well thought-out reasons for this, but the only true reason is that no one wants to see your crappy indie film. Or my crappy indie film. I’m not saying yours–or mine–is actually a crappy film, but since it didn’t get into Sundance and doesn’t have any recognizable stars from Entertainment Weekly, it must be plotless, poorly acted and guaranteed to be boring. Like a foreign movie or something. I assume that’s the mindset of 95% of the people I’m trying to convince to watch my movie–let alone pay to watch it. So the amazing opportunity to see my movie at an out-of-the-way theater on a weekday evening has got to be pretty compelling. Here are a few small things I did to make it interesting for someone who has never heard of me or my movie.

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