Tag: Glen Basner

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Truly Free Film

Who Did What For Me When: Introductions

None of us would ever get anywhere if our friends didn’t look out for us.  Our lives are not of our own making.

Milton Berle said “If opportunity does not knock, build a door.”  But the reality is you need some tools to be able to build; your bare hands won’t suffice.  Certain tasks too really are to big to tackle on your own. Someone sometimes has to hand you that hammer.  Fortunately, I have had some generous people in my life, who have helped me to connect the dots.

This is a time for giving thanks. Perspective comes with offering gratitude.  We need to be reminded of our good fortune.  We did not make it on our own.  Our lives are complicated habitrails, where others build our ramps, rooms, and wonderballs.

I have hesititated in my life fearing that if I displayed thanks, I would inevitably make a mistake and leave people out.  Like me, this is a work-in-progress.  I will make a mistake.  I will leave people out. But we have gratefully left that analogue world of completion and perfection, and here in the land of digital, everything is constantly evolving.  We are free to fuck up. So….

Thanks (in alphabetical order by the introducer’s first name):

Ann Goulder put me in touch with

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Truly Free Film

The Triumphant Return of Good Machine

Yes, it is true.  Good Machine is back.  But in a new and improved form.  Perhaps we should have done a press release, but I thought I should do it here instead.  Press releases are so yesterday.

If you went to Sundance, perhaps you noticed the secret stealth return of our so-called 90’s powerhouse.  Or if you were at the Golden Globes, it must have caught your eye.  Hell, even if you just watched the Golden Globes.  If you missed all that, certainly by perusing the Oscar noms, something should have caused a bit of stir.  I’ve been waiting for some sharp newshound to break with the story, but nope.  So here’s the real buzz…

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Truly Free Film

The Good Machine No-Budget Commandments

Good Machine logo

Back in the day, back when indie film was a workable financial enterprise, back before I ran the San Francisco Film Society, back before there was a Double Hope, back before I was part of This is that, I had a production company called Good Machine. James Schamus and I founded it together, and we later partnered with David Linde. Mary Jane Skalski and Anthony Bregman were also partners, and we had the good fortune to work with a host of other talents including my later partners Anne Carey and Diana Victor, and Ross Katz, Glen Basner, Heta Paarte, Lamia Guelatti, Melinka Thompson-Gody, Jean Castelli, Kelly Miller, Dan Beers, Eric Papa, Jawal Nga, and many other later-legends to be.

As good as the films we made, as great as the individuals we got to collaborate with, we also had a genuine fondness for memos and how-to’s. Those were the days when you stored things in file cabinets.  The 90’s are in boxes now in my garage.  Once things went digital, it as if they are lost.  I stumble through less.  When they were paper I occasionally had the pleasure of sorting through the files, finding choice nuggets. My madeleines… like this.

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Truly Free Film

The Rise No-Budget NYC. Good Machine ’97

I don’t even know what this was for, This was for something on WNYC called “Egg” produced by Jeff Folmsbee.  but I do know that my friend Dan McGuire was also heavily involved in the shooting and editing of it.

I co-founded Good Machine back in 1990. We made a lot of good films and had some good times too. Iget a big kick out of seeing glimpses of folks from so long ago: Mary Jane Skalski, Heta Paarte, Glen Basner, and James Schamus and Ang Lee.  Nothing like seeing those gigantic computers and roladexes too. Too think we could make a film without an iPhone…

It also feels so fresh to me.  The same drive and ideas that made Good Machine a good idea back then, holds true to this day.  Everything is new again. We founded that company on the idea of a no-budget film fund (okay micro-budget in today’s vernacular) could make money and build a better mousetrap in the process. That, and the fact that I had a good long list of directors who needed some help. Both those things still hold true.

Although I must admit I no longer have a Che poster behind my desk, although the Obama “Hope” won works as the same sort of litmus test.

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Truly Free Film

Determining Foreign Sales Fees

The question came up over one of last weeks posts, why foreign buyers base license fees on budget percentages.  I have accepted this for so long, I had stopped questioning it — but it is one of those things worth questioning, so I am glad it was raised.  Thanks.

It made me feel we should have an ongoing “ASK THE EXPERTS” section over here at Truly Free.  For this one I went to the legend of Glen Basner, a graduate of the Good Machine School of Everything, and the man behind the founding of the new sales powerhouse FILM NATION.  The Baz explains:
There are many factors in determining what a territorial license fee should be – a percentage of the budget is only one. These are standard amounts that are “typical” for an individual territory based on what distributors have paid historically (Yes, the world has changed quite a bit recently!). I don’t believe that they apply in singular fashion unless you are contemplating some form of output deal. 
On a single picture license, a distributor will want to know what the budget level is so that: a) they understand what the production value will be; and b) they can feel comfortable that they are not paying an excessive amount in relation to the cost of the film. These are valid points but what people forget is that ultimately the budget of the film does not necessarily have a correlation with its success at the box office (Blair Witch etc). 
Our approach is to think like a distributor and run estimates – both revenue and expense – for a film in all media to determine a low, base and high value a film is likely to have in any given territory. With these estimates we can back into a license fee figure that would allow for a distributor to make money should the film turn out well. The budget comes into play if the sum total of our international estimates do not raise enough money to finance a film.
Curiously enough, the WSJ has chimed in today on the issue of value of foreign licenses, albeit the lack thereof.  Check it out here.