Manohla Dargis’ recent thoughts from the Cannes Film Festival pointed out this hole in film festival information. Particularly in this day and age of a plethora of choices and easy access & distribution of information, why aren’t festivals telling the audience these details?
Fests, please take note. Filmmakers, please make this request when you apply. Without A Box and Festival Genius, please allow and supply this information.
Dave ponders at The Hot Blog.
Eugene wonders at Indiewire.
I happily sit at home.
As traditional media merges with new & social media, the issues we need to be concerned about also start to change. Filmmakers are only now starting to wake up to the fact that they should be the owners of the data that their work generates, particularly if they are being asked to license their work for such low fees as currently are in vogue.
Let’s say that you do gather 500,000 email addresses during the build and release of your movie. What are you going to do with those addresses? What moral and ethical issues are related to this?
Is it just my imagination or have I really not seen a privacy panel at a film convention? Who is going to take the lead on this?
And whom would you suggest be on this panel?
Have you checked out the Electronic Privacy Information Center?
A year ago (May 15, 2009) I wrote a blog post ” 38 American Independent Film Problems/Concerns”.Unfortunately, all of the problems I listed then still stand today; four or so from that list have improved slightly, but they certainly remain issues. Of more concern is that the list keeps growing and growing. I can contribute another 38 even more pressing issues today. You do the math: we now have over 75 things wrong with our industry that we are not taking action to fix.
In fact, we have no one to blame for this list but ourselves. It is our inability to be proactive that has brought on us this terrible state. Ask yourself what currently concerns and frustrates you about where film culture and the film business are today. What heights is our industry capable of reaching and how does it compare to where we actually are? Do we really have the capacity to sit and wait to get there? Isn’t our silence delaying the trip?
I must admit that I am a bit disappointed that I had no difficulty adding another thirty-eight items to this list of where we are failing. The exciting part (and why #38 of last year ‘s list was “lists like this make the foolish despair”) is that these lists demonstrate a tremendous opportunity for those willing to break from the status quo and take action. Things may be wrong, but they could always be worse. From here, we just have to work together to make it better. It is that simple. Every deficit is an opportunity for the creative entrepreneur, right?
So how has the film biz continued to reveal itself to be troubled this year? What do I suggest we start to focus on, discuss, and find solutions for? This list is a start, and I wager we will expand it substantially in the days ahead.
Over at The Workbook Project, Saskia Wilson-Brown continues her thoughtful consideration of the role of film festivals and how to improve it. She provides a good bullet list precisely about what festivals can do to better serve both filmmakers and their communities. Read it. Absorb it. Adopt it. Spread it.
“Blood Simple” was the first film I bought a ticket for at a film festival. It was screening at the NYFF and I soon came to recognize that the films accepted to that fest were of a exceedingly high quality. The curatorial taste behind that festival choices was something I had confidence in. They gained my trust precisely because they have never tried to be all things for all people, and for that I have always been willing to pay a premium for. The NYFF was, and is, a trusted filter.
Too many festivals these days program too many films without revealing, or reveling in, their curatorial hands, diminishing the power of their brand in the process. If festivals are going to become the new curators, that will have to change. Festivals must emphasize their unique taste, if not overall, then within sidebars at the festival.
If only 30% of people’s online time is spent viewing content, then there is real hope for indie film. The other 70% of users’ time is spent in search and social. We know that people not only want to discover stuff (like great stories and films) but even more so, they want to talk about it.
One way to define Film is as the transformation of leisure time into intellectual capital and then into social capital.
The question all filmmakers need to ask themselves is what can we do to get the others to talk about film more. How can we improve the conversation people have about film? We have the tools.
