Tag: foreign sales

Categories
Truly Free Film

30 Really Bad Things In FilmBiz 2014

IMG_9903It is now time for my complete list of The Suck In Today’s Film Biz. Earlier this week, I’ve dropped some bits on Keyframe and Filmmaker Mag. IndieWire picked it up. There’s so much that is wrong, it is easy to share the wealth. But here is all of those combined lists  plus many more. Can’t you hear everyone screaming “OMG, there is so much too fix! It is time we made this really work for ambitious and diverse film once and for all!”?  We wish, right?

I have been chronicling the negative in our film industry for sometime now — six years in these type of posts, but my original rant goes back to 1995 for Filmmaker Magazine.  Much of what I have stated in years’ passed remains still in need of getting done. Dig in to my past lists and when you combine them you will have well over 100 things that we could be doing better.  You’d think with so much wrong, more people would stand up and say “this has got to change!”. Where is the film industry’s national leadership? For the first time I believe we are capable of conceptualizing what an entire systems reboot could be — and one that looks out for ALL the stakeholders.  Isn’t it time for a international summit on this?

I have been also chronicling the good too, but today that’s for another day. Come back tomorrow for my comprehensive list of 30 Good Things In The Film Biz 2014.

By detailing what we have failed to do, done wrong, or continue to ignore, we build a road map of how we can improve things for the future. Here’s my contribution to that map for 2014.  Let’s build this better together.

  1. The “Winners Take All” Blockbuster Model Has Stomped “The Long Tail” Flat (in Hollywood). And as much as I hoped people would try to resist
    Continue reading “30 Really Bad Things In FilmBiz 2014”
Categories
Truly Free Film

4 industry trends Revealed at AFM 2014

Despite the growing trend towards self-distribution, AFM is still a hugely important event in the industry, and something to which we should all pay attention.  I spoke with AFM’s Managing Director Jonathan Wolf on Wednesday about his opinions about the show and the general state of the industry.  Here’s what you need to know as a producer

1. Asia’s importance as a territory is growing.

This should come as a surprise to precisely no one; at least no one who has been paying attention to industry trends.  However by the numbers, buyers from Asia represented 30.7% of total buyers, and 28.3% of total buyer companies attending AFM. 

Continue reading “4 industry trends Revealed at AFM 2014”
Categories
Truly Free Film

Is International Presale Financing On The Edge Of Collapse?

Limited Time While Supplies Last!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.

Continue reading “Is International Presale Financing On The Edge Of Collapse?”

Categories
Issues and Actions

Foreign Sales Agent Masterlist

Courtesy of Screen Australia and sourced via Sheri Candler, three cheers for the sharing of information!

Continue reading “Foreign Sales Agent Masterlist”

Categories
Truly Free Film

17 Things About The Film Biz That Should Significantly Influence Your Behavior

Note: If you’d like to share this article, this is the short link: http://bit.ly/FilmBizRealities

On May 2nd, 2013, I launched the A2E (Artist To Entrepreneur) program at the San Francisco Film Society with OnRamp (The Direct Distribution Lab).  This is a pilot lab of a pilot program designed to give filmmakers the necessary entrepreneurial skills to achieve a sustainable creative life amidst this changing paradigm.  We will be working out some bugs but I hope to launch the second iteration as soon as possible (but to do so requires some support, both financial and otherwise, so if you know anyone or any organization that might be interested in advancing film culture and enterprise, please do send them my way!).

As part of the lab, we have a first day of big ideas and case studies that hopefully will give the participants the foundation for a design for living and thriving on their art.  As part of that I have prepared three brief lectures focused on what every filmmaker needs to recognize about the business, the culture, and their practice if they want to have a sustainable creative life.  Split between the three categories, I came up with fifty things you should know.  I will provide them to you over the next week or two, but I wish you all could have been there.   It’s always different when you are in the room.

Today, I will unleash what I think it is necessary to recognize about our industry if you are a filmmaker looking to survive from the work you generate.

It's Not That We Are Alone, It's That We Are Still Green

WARNING: taking any of these points out of context, could create unnecessary fear or depression. If you want to

Continue reading “17 Things About The Film Biz That Should Significantly Influence Your Behavior”
Categories
Truly Free Film

16+ Thoughts On Picking A Producer’s Rep

Toronto, Sundance, SXSW, Cannes, Berlin, Venice, or any small town -- it's all 1 Festival!
Toronto, Sundance, SXSW, Cannes, Berlin, Venice, or any small town — it’s all 1 Festival!

You’ve made your movie.  You’ve even applied to some great film festivals, and maybe they’ve been encouraging.  Now people are calling you, asking to see it, and offering to license it on your behalf.  How do you determine whom to collaborate with?  What questions need to be asked BEFORE you make a deal?

The best thing you can ever do is talk to other filmmakers who have worked with the rep — and not just the ones that the rep recommends.  Make those calls.  The second best thing you can do is to have a face to face meeting with the proposed rep.  The personal approach matters.  Look them in the eye.  Connect.  Have a beer or a cup of coffee.  Ask yourself if you’d like to have dinner with them a year for now.

Now start to ask some questions, ask for some help, and gain a better understanding of both the process and the individual or company you are considering.

Continue reading “16+ Thoughts On Picking A Producer’s Rep”

Categories
Truly Free Film

Why Good Films Don’t Just Sell Themselves

I found that it never was just the film that drove sales, but very much a cocktail of:

  • relationships that the sales company & its executives had (and their product flow),
  • the marketing support/strategy the sales company created,
  • the passion by which the sales company communicates to position the film,
  • the prestige or urgency by which the film is launched,
  • the prestige/popularity of the collaborators,
  • the quality of the film, and
  • the critical response to the film at the time it is released.

If films are not reaching traditional foreign sales percentages, does this indicate that your film is not what you think it is, your sales agency is not serving your film, or that the industry has significantly changed?

Can we even compare apples and oranges?  As another sales agent recently said to me: “It’s very dangerous to compare movie deals in that spectrum of films where none of the films are really comparable.”

And of course there is a much bigger question: Is there even a foreign sales business for indie or art film when 30% of the market vanished last year (Italy, Japan, Spain, & Greece)?