Tag: Guest Post

Guest Post: Shade Rupe: How Do You Make A Movie Screening Into An Event?

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date March 29, 2011
61 Comments on Guest Post: Shade Rupe: How Do You Make A Movie Screening Into An Event?

Eventize. It’s a goal of filmmakers and programmers alike these days. And it isn’t really even a word yet. With all the different options out there competing for our leisure time attention, a movie has trouble standing on it’s own feet these days. We struggle with what we can do to make it pop. How to give our screenings that extra oomph?

Today, Shade Rupe shares a few of his experiences as both a fan and an organizer in making the most of a movie to transform it into a memorable event.

There just ain’t nothin’ like a good show! As Edgar Wright so displayed with his sequel to his previous triumphant week of screenings at the New Beverly Cinema, and reported at his website, kids just love comin’ out for the movies, especially if you give them something to come out for: an event!

I long ago likened myself to Samuel Lionel “Roxy” Rothafel, the father of the grand experience of the movie palace, and the namesake for the original Roxy Theater at 50th and 7th, the Cathedral of the Motion Picture. Roxy managed the grand screens of Broadway including the Strand, Rialto, and Capitol, and opened Radio City Music Hall with his “Roxyettes,” later dubbed The Rockettes. Sharing all three initials with my unmet forefather, my love for the dark of the movie theater grows and grows even during the diminuation of those black spaces where excitement and imagination unfurl.

Roxy’s main purpose in life was to heighten the movie-going experience, including the innovation of syncing music to silent films and seamlessly melding separate reels of film by using multiple projectors. Roxy cared about his audience. Today there are several of us lovers of filmstrips, haulers of heavy film cans, locaters of rare prints, and we love nothing more than hosting film presentations on the nation’s single-screens, at venues ranging from 60 seats to 3000. Los Angeles hosts the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian and Aero theaters, wonderful huge rooms for the flickers to ignite our passions, the cinephiliac-run Silent Movie Theatre, and the homey New Beverly Cinema, passionately run for years by the great Sherman Torgan and now helmed by his son Michael. Quentin Tarantino honored his filmic passions with a two-month preamble of ’70s-era grindhouse films in 2007 before becoming the new landlord in 2008, and New York is gifted with Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade, one of the best facilities in the country, second only to the Academy screening room in Santa Monica. Managed by a cinema-loving staff, the 268-seat, stadium-seating venue hosted the grand Ken Russell during his Russellmania! summer tour, selling out all nine director-attended screenings with surprise guests, and loving fans.

And this is where you experience the real prize of live motion-picture exhibition. Walking into the auditorium with 83-year-old Mr. Russell first created a stir of silence, a mass intake of breath. As we made our way to the reserved seats, the clapping began. Which grew into thunderous applause. Ken turned and faced his appreciative audience for opening night, a rare 35mm print screening of his masterwork The Devils, and waved. They clapped, stood, and cheered. Ken took the mic and introduced the woman sitting next to him: Ms. Vanessa Redgrave. The applause was deafening. She stood up, waved towards the front, swirled herself in a circle and the entire crowd was elevated. Ms. Redgrave’s appearance was a marvel of luck. Amazingly, Vanessa was in town for one night only, the night of our screening, and she chose to spend it with us. Lincoln Center made the next call to Mr. Tommy Tune for The Boy Friend. Tommy was so happy to experience the film with his friend and mentor, Ken was able to convince Tommy to take the stage and dance one of his numbers from the film.

More healthy applause. While the audiences kept lining up, selling out show after show, the final night, Tommy, included a performance from local artist Bliss Blood with a ukelele serenade to Ken with a song from The Boy Friend.

And while all of these events seared the neurons of all who attended, the most memorable moments, even stronger than talented celebrity guests, were the films themselves. Ken Russell’s films are events in themselves. Well before the lazy scourge of computer graphics, well before cell phones interrupted film sets, masters like Ken Russell were able to create their art. For the first time in my filmgoing life, well over thirty years now, and for many in the auditorium during the screening of The Music Lovers, we knew what it was to be human. To feel. To know. Sitting next to Ken, as Tchaikovsky’s strings filled the room and images of a couple strolling through a sunlit forest greeted our retinas, I felt the film. A surge of warmth, and coolness, started from my groin and worked up through my heart, and by the happy sobs around me, I knew I was not alone, and I let the tears come out. All of us, everyone at the screening, felt the movie. We didn’t need loud sounds or digital relays. We had the film, and filmmaker, the man who knows how to interact with millions by the use of a camera, and actors, and music. The film as event in itself. With an audience.

Many more films and screenings have occurred since then, having now helmed several midnight-movie introductions at the Landmark Sunshine, including a great screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World with a new special intro written by Edgar Wright for us to read out, and moderating a spirited Q&A with Gaspar Noé over his extended cut of Enter the Void at the IFC Center. Yet the one that still haunts me is that evening double feature of The Music Lovers and Women in Love. The one where we all further learned what it is to be alive. It’s something that doesn’t happen with a portable digital viewing device. It happens in the theater. With an audience.

— Shade Rupe

Shade Rupe is the author of Dark Stars Rising: Conversations from the Outer Realms (Headpress, 2011), a 568-page collection of 24 years of interviews with Tura Satana, Divine, Crispin Glover, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and 23 more innovative creators. He presents and attends theatrical film events in New York and abroad.

Tags Eventize, Guest Post, Shade Rupe

Truly Free Film

Guest Post: Conor Horgan “What I Learned From Making My Movie”

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date March 28, 2011
59 Comments on Guest Post: Conor Horgan “What I Learned From Making My Movie”

One Hundred Mornings screened at Slamdance 2010. It then won The Workbook Project‘s Discovery & Distribution Award. We hosted it at our Goldcrest Screening Series to great success. It is now having a NY run and the NY Times honored it with a Critics’ Pick notice. When we screened it I noted:

“End of the world scenarios come in all forms, but rarely are they dressed in such human(ist) clothing. Big concepts too often forget that it is all about life and how we live it. One Hundred Mornings keeps the characters (and all their foibles) front and center in the most relatable of manners. As much as we need each other, we are still only human. Society may have broken down but the every day stuff of love, jealousy, betrayal, and jerky neighbors is still what it takes to get through the day.”

I dig the film and love the use of genre to get to deeper subjects.

Now that everyone in NYC has a chance to revel in this tale, I reached out to Conor and asked if he could share some of experiences. He’s come up with a list of what he learned that helped him reach and hit such a high mark.

One question really stood out to me at the Q&A following the Goldcrest screening of One Hundred Mornings in New York last year. It was a simple one, but hard enough to answer: what did I learn from making the film? As I recall, my answer at the time ended up being about the virtues of the Red Camera (we were the first Irish feature to shoot on it) but I know I learned much more than just how to work with a new piece of kit.

Now that we’re back in New York, with the film playing this week at the Rerun Theatre in Brooklyn, I thought I’d have another go at it- so here are a few of the things I learned from making One Hundred Mornings.

Use the limitations
We wanted to make a realistic film about a modern Western society on the cusp of a complete breakdown, but with a tiny budget. We ended up making the absence of things part of the world of the film: the characters have very different takes on what’s going on, and as there are no communications they can’t find out otherwise. The cast wore the same clothes much of the time, and most of the story takes place around one central location. There is almost no music and many of the scenes play out in a single shot- indeed, a lot of them were shot from only one angle in only two or three takes (which actually really helped the actors give such focused performances – they knew they had to take every chance they could)

This all helped us shoot within our resources, sure, but let’s face it – the audience could care less about the size of the budget. What this approach also did for us was something really important– it helped the world we created within the film feel very believable, almost to the point of feeling inescapable. I’m certain that if we’d made a cutty film full of music from the same script we wouldn’t have found the same kind of intensity.

By the way, the other reason there’s hardly any music is that when I was thinking about what I’d miss most in a world without electricity, it was beautiful, complex music that came pretty close to the top of the list. After the minor details of food, water and shelter, of course.

Don’t always play to my strengths.
Really? My background as a photographer, sometime DoP and director of many TV spots gave me a lot of experience in making things look good on camera. It also showed me that for a lot of my early career when things weren’t going too well on set I tended to start concentrating on what I was most comfortable with – the camera. And when I say things weren’t going too well, that almost always meant with the actors – I didn’t really know how to talk to them to get what was needed. One Hundred Mornings is my first feature, so I really wanted to try something different.

I had to leave my comfort zone far behind, which meant taking a couple of acting classes. After getting over the embarrassment ( which took a while) I discovered that I wasn’t quite as terrible at it as I’d feared, and could actually even enjoy it at times. I’m very grateful to a friend who subsequently cast me in a small role in one of his short films, because that experience really helped me understand what actors most need from a director – understanding, honesty, respect and compassion. Or in other words, a bit of love.

Try to remember what it was that inspired me.
It’s surprisingly easy to forget. Directing this very ambitious film was an intense, almost hallucinatory experience. As I ricocheted between the triumphs and disasters that happened every single shooting day, there was a real possibility I might lose my way and end up making a film that bore little resemblance to the one I started out making.

What I found that really helped me was this: I had a central question that was always the heart of the film for me. I mentioned it to the people I was working with but didn’t make a song and dance about it – I just needed a kind of a touchstone that I could return to when I was in the thick of it. I really hoped that keeping this question in the forefront of my mind would help make a coherent piece of work, that might speak to people in some way. So you can imagine how happy I felt when I opened the New York Times on Friday morning to find a version of that question, rounding off a terrific, insightful review of One Hundred Mornings. Which shows that when you stay true to your inspirations, people will really get your film.

After spending time as a pizza chef, puppeteer and geo-electrical surveyor in the Northern Rif Mountains of Morrocco, Conor Horgan trained as a photographer before going on to direct experimental, documentary and drama films. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/movies/conor-horgans-one-hundred-mornings.html?smid=tw-nytimesmovies&seid=auto

Buy tickets here.

Tags Conor Horgan, Goldcrest Screening Series, Guest Post, One Hundred Mornings, Slamdance

Truly Free Film

Guest Post: Eric Mendelsohn on “Have We Forgotten What We Really Need To Talk About?”

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date March 20, 2011
67 Comments on Guest Post: Eric Mendelsohn on “Have We Forgotten What We Really Need To Talk About?”

We spend so much time trying to find a way to make it this indie film thing work, to get good work seen and appreciated, to have a sustainable working model that might afford one to have a reasonable middle-class existence creating quality work (is that too much to ask?), we sometimes forget about why we are doing it.

Today’s guest post is courtesy of Eric Mendelsohn, whose Sundance Best Director Award winning 3 BACKYARDS opened this weekend. What have we lost in our effort to survive and build together a better world for truly ambitious work?

Ted Hope was kind enough to ask me to write something for his site to accompany the release of my film, 3 BACKYARDS. I hesitated for a number of reasons. For one, I am uneasy about filmmakers spouting about the state of this or that in print. But more to the point, I actually think I was uncomfortable revealing a truthful representation of my relationship to independent film as well as to the type of conversation that regularly dominates film websites, film festival panels, etc. But, expanding upon and incorporating a piece I had written for the Sundance website, I decided that as long as I wrote honestly and strictly from my own perspective, there might be some validity in doing so.

There is only one part of the term ‘independent cinema’ that has ever held any interest for me. That is cinema. For years now, I believe the art form I love has been the subject of a highjacking of sorts; the conversation has been– reductively, tediously, mind-numbingly– about ‘indie-film’ when it should have been about film.

I didn’t grew up with the term “independent film.” When I was a kid, indiscriminately watching everything that appeared on TV via “The 4:30 Movie”, “The MIllion Dollar Movie” and “Chiller Theater”, there was no such thing as indie film as we now know it. In fact, like many people my age, I was illiterate about film in a way that isn’t even conceivable today. I happily watched pan-and-scan films and thought the camera movements were part of some coherent Hollywood style. When TV stations scrunched up the opening credits of epics to fit television screens, I thought it was a way of telling the audience that an elegant, important film was about to begin. I watched great films and schlock, 1940’s melodramas and foreign arthouse classics, all on the same tiny black and white TV, lying on the carpeting in my mother’s dining room.

And so, when I began to differentiate those films that had a hand guiding the visuals from those that just seemed to photograph whatever the actors said, I never discriminated against the film’s origins. I saw that guiding hand in films like The Magnificent Ambersons and Psycho, for sure, but I also saw it in The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom and the originalSuperman. I saw that the same guiding hand could organize and orchestrate images in the manner of classical music, like in David Lean’s Oliver Twist, or fracture and destroy them like in Nicholas Roeg’s Performance. Sometimes, I would wait for a film to come on television just because one shot excited me. The Little Foxes had only one moment that caught my attention as a kid—when Bette Davis, foregrounded and unable to move, refuses to help her dying husband, who is staggering through the background trying to get his medication. There is a single shot in a film called The Mummy’s Ghost, where the limping Egyptian creature carries a woman up a railroad trestle— in a long-shot, executed in terrible day-for-night—that I find existentially terrifying. I recall lying on my belly, stunned into silence, as Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and The Beast opened itself up to me on the TV and it felt like an unreal portal had been revealed in the walls of the house.

I didn’t care or even know about the aura that surrounded moviemaking. Instead, I had fallen in love with the silent, persuasive visual strategy called directing.

And so, it was with a sense of real, personal disappointment that, when I began going to festivals with my first half-hour film, Through an Open Window, I found the conversation surrounding filmmaking had been reduced to coy, ‘aw shucks’ back-stories about how each film got made. The very first question I was asked after my film, Judy Berlin, premiered at Sundance— while the actors sat in the audience and just after the credit music had stopped- was about the budget. I wanted to talk about shots. I wanted to talk about Fellini, from whom I’d certainly stolen my own little heroine, played by a pre-Sopranos Edie Falco. I wanted to talk about those weird, sometimes-clunky, Frank Perry films that had partially influenced the film. I certainly wanted to talk about Jacques Demy whose films mythologized the coastal towns of France in a way that was to give me license to set my films in the towns of Long Island. But the era of the low-budget indie film had arrived and all anybody wanted to know about was how low the budget was, did I have a great backstory about the film getting made. Though I refused to answer the question in deference to the entire creative team in attendance, I have been guilty since then about playing into the feverish desire for bone-headed, scrappy-fimmaker stories and the vogue for cutesy “Look Ma, no budget!” anecdotes.

The only thing that rivals our society’s fetish with the enormous budget of Hollywood movies (when did we start to know or care about Monday morning grosses?) is the independent world’s fetishizing of our own low budgets (“made for twelve dollars in green stamps and recycled bottles!.”) The insidious danger in having diverted the conversation to either the back-story or the budget is that neither is good for film. The films I love of the Italian Neo-Realists and of the French New Wave were made under enormous financial constraints and deprivations, but that is not eventually where their greatness lies. Instead, it is their uncompromising artistic rigor and the startling inventiveness of their writing and directing that we still celebrate and are in awe of today. I don’t think that Ted Hope’s “The budget IS the aesthetic” was intended to focus us slavishly upon the budget nor the aura of cool that surrounds NOT having great sets, professional actors or neat-o equipment. It was intended to encourage filmmakers to utilize what was before them as the Neo-Realists had done with real locations and open air shooting. The budget is NOT the aesthetic. The only guiding principle in a work of art is internal to that work of art or artist.

The responsibility for the creation of better films is the filmmaker’s. Film is an art form as well as a commercial endeavor but its practitioners must be artists, craftspeople and creators first, before they are multi-platform, social media, soap-box, agenda-laden, guerilla this, viral that, trans media, new model, off-Hollywood, micro, mini, anythings. We have an obligation both to the filmmakers of the past in whose steps we follow and to the filmmakers of the future who are looking for guidance to redirect the conversation to one that is worthy of the art form.

I am a professor of film at Columbia University’s graduate film program. I mention this because it is there at Columbia, in the classrooms where student work is gone over shot by shot, in the edit suites where three frames are added and then one removed, and in the hallways where there is always a conversation going on about the plot of a current film that I see the most hopeful expression of where independent film, and film in general, might be going. It is, however, what isn’t being said in those rooms where I find the most meaning.

The conversation no longer seems to be enslaved to the kind of shrill, militant, indie-for-indie’s sake battle cry. My students are interested in shots, in edits, in stories, in characters. In short, they are interested in movies.

— Eric Mendelsohn

Tags 3 Backyards, Eric Mendelsohn, Guest Post, Sundance

Truly Free Film

Guest Post: Zeke Zelker: DIY Days NYC: You Missed An Incredible Gathering Of Incredible People

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date March 16, 2011
32 Comments on Guest Post: Zeke Zelker: DIY Days NYC: You Missed An Incredible Gathering Of Incredible People

Why does it still feel amazing that a whole group of people come together to share knowledge, organize that gathering, and take the resulting inspiration out into the world — and that they do it for free? That question is worthy of a future post, but for now we are here to celebrate DIY DAYS, the event that we must now ordain as a necessary institution. I was a keynote speaker last year. This year Christine Vachon and I discussed our past and hopes for the future. Earlier I ran a post on Chuck Wendig’s presentation he did this year on “Where Storytelling & Gaming Collide” . Today we are happy to offer you Zeke Zelker’s overview of the event, which at the very least should make sure you plan on joining us next year. Check it out. I promise you will leave wiser and inspired.

It is always exciting going to DIY Days, It’s like main lining a shot of learn-to-know-how adrenaline straight to the heart. There were many things that I took away from last week’s conference, many of which we will be implementing for WTYT960.com as we push out the site. WTYT960.com is a virtual radio station where bands submit their music to be a part of the playlist, the playlist is created by fan interaction on social media sites and votes.

A couple of highlights from DIY Days that still resonate. Newman’s tell it like it is approach to reclaiming DIY, I just sewed new patches on my britches and am rolling up my sleeves, getting down and dirty with making stuff. Hope and Vachon’s fireside chat on their amazingly prolific careers as the top indie producers, that’s right, each of them have produced 70 films. That’s absolutely amazing. Johnson’s chat about NFC technology that I feel will be another outlet for filmmakers to further expand their storyscape. Weiler’s review of Pandemic 1.0 that we produced at this past year’s Sundance. Chirls introduction of html 5, I’m still wrapping my head around the possibilities of this new programming tool and Clark’s discussion on how he has worked with brands in the past, this opportunity needs to be explored further. There were many others who presented and their insight was worth much more than the price of admission.

The only thing I wish is that more presenters would have been more straight forward on how they do/did things not what they did. I think this would be extremely valuable to those who attend these types of conferences.

When it was my turn with Vlad, who has a really great project, Zenith, it was interesting to see people’s reactions as we discussed our transmedia projects, Vlad’s is wrapping up, mine is just getting started. I take the capitalist money making approach to my filmmaking efforts, where I always encounter push back from the indie film/DIY community. I never understand this. This is show Business people, with a capital B, which is a true balance of art and commerce. Shouldn’t we all take more of a money making approach to our filmmaking? It is truly empowering. Instead of playing the “I hope I can sell my film for big bucks at a festival that I hope I can get into lottery.” Shouldn’t we be more fiscally responsible to our funders? Really. I fund my projects by whatever means possible. Right now I am raising equity, seeking donations, and forging brand partnerships.

I believe that the story telling experience can be augmented for the better with brand interaction. Brands can enable artists to further their storyscape, something that I’m doing with Billboard an Uncommon Contest for Common People! as well as my next three projects. I like giving a big fat hug to responsible corporate brands who can help me further tell my story. We all have those products we love, why not make them a part of, and a device in, the story telling experience? For instance I love my Radius toothbrush, a company with ergonomically correct handles made out of recycled material. Right now I’m brushing my pearly whites with a handle made from recycled U.S. currency. Just living the dream! The company is also from my hometown and these types of things excite me. A great product from my hometown that I’ve partnered with to help tell a story. You can’t get any better than that. How does a toothbrush support a story? Just wait. You’ll see.

Newman http://springboardmedia.blogspot.com/
Johnson www.kineticfin.com/ –
Hope now here on IndieWire. Archives at http://hopeforfilm.com
Vachon http://www.killerfilms.com/
Weiler http://lanceweiler.com/
Chirls http://chirls.com/
Zenith zeniththefilm.com/
Radius http://www.radiustoothbrush.com/

– Zeke Zelker

Zeke Zelker, filmmaker/entrepreneur, has embarked on his latest transmedia project, Billboard an Uncommon Contest for Common People! a story that transcends various medias as it empowers various artists to be a part of the story telling experience.

PS. If you need a bigger fix, before the DIY DAYS NYC event, way back in 2008, Lance Weiler hosted a DIY DAYS DINNER. I was there and we had the camera running. Check it out here.

Tags DIY Days, Guest Post, Lance Weiler, transmedia, Zeke Zelker

Truly Free Film

Guest Post: Orly Ravid: Subtitles in Digital America Part 2

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date March 16, 2011
50 Comments on Guest Post: Orly Ravid: Subtitles in Digital America Part 2

Yesterday, Orly Ravid, co-founder of The Film Collaborative, started another one of her incredibly thorough posts examine the current state of distribution. Her recent focus is on foreign language film distribution in the US, but the outlets she points to are applicable to all of us.

You will want to bookmark this one for sure.

Yesterday’s posts focused on VOD distribution on the cable platforms. Today we look at…

FOREIGN LANGUAGE CINEMA
VIA OTHER DIGITAL PLATFORMS and REVENUE MODELS:

DTO (Digital Download to Own (such as Apple’s iTunes which rents and sells films digitally) – this space has been challenging for foreign films in the past, and most services do not have dedicated merchandise sections. Thus, the only promo placement available is on genre pages, so the films need to have compelling art and trailer assets to compete. iTunes and Vudu (now owned by WALMART – see below) are really interested in upping the ante on foreign films over the next 12 months. Special consideration will need to be made for the quality of technical materials, as distributors have encountered numerous problems making subtitled content work on these providers.

SVOD (Subscription VOD such as NETLIX’s WATCH INSTANTLY) – this space is probably the best source of revenue for foreign content because the audience demos skew more sophisticated and also end users are more inclined to experiment with new content niches. Content in this space should have great assets and superior international profile (awards, box office), and overall should evoke a “premium feel” for the right titles, license fees can be comparable to high end American indies. Appetite for foreign titles will increase as the price for domestic studio content continues to accelerate. Genres are a bit broader than VOD/DTO, but thrillers, sci fi and action still will command larger sums ($). Good Festival pedigree (especially Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, etc.) will also command higher prices. Overall, it’s a great opportunity as long as platforms keep doing exclusive deals. NETFLIX has surpassed 20,000,000 subscribers and a strong stock price and is in a very competitive space and mood again. (See more below). Hulu expects to soon reach 1,000,000 subscribers “to approach” half a billion in total revenues (advertising and subscription combined) in 2011, up from $263 million in 2010. That’s from $108 million in 2009. (see more below)

AVOD (Advertising Supported VOD – such as SNAG and HULU) – Another great space for foreign content (as evidenced by the recent exclusive HULU – Criterion deal – (see below) although that deal is actually for HULU’s subscription service (Hulu Plus). These platforms are more willing to experiment with genres and content types and favor art films and documentaries over genre films. Depending on the film, annual revenues can approach low to mid four (4) figures in rev share. SNAG recently was capitalized to the tune of $10,000,000 but seems to be spending that money on marketing and not on “acquiring” so a film’s revenue is likely to be dependent on performance and rev/share unless one strikes an exclusive deal with SNAG and manages to get an MG. HULU’s revenues are covered above. Films report low 4-figures but sometimes 5 and 6 figure revenues but up until now those higher performing films have been English language and appeal to younger males.

TELEVISION / BROADCAST SALES: For foreign language cinema unless one has an Oscar™ winner or nominee, or an output deal, the prospects of a meaningful license fee are slim. Even worse, if you do secure a deal, it will likely preclude participation in Cable VOD, Netflix and any of the ad-supported VOD platforms such as Hulu and Snag.

KEY SPECIFIC TOP SPECIFIC DIGITAL PLATFORMS / RETAILERS:

• AMAZON reportedly is readying a service that would stream 5,000 movies and TV shows to members of its $79-per-year Prime free-shipping membership program. Amazon being corporately tied to extremely popular entertainment information service IMDB and the film festival submission service WITHOUTABOX gives it a potential edge in the market, one that has never been fully harvested but easily could be and seems to be looming. And since its inception, Amazon has let film content providers open up shop on their site directly without a middle-man. Middle man aggregators get slightly better terms. Amazon presently offers 75,000 films and television shows combined and plans to soon exceed 100,000. It should be noted Amazon VOD has been US-focused though recently bought Love Films in the UK.

• FOCUS FEATURES’ NEW DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION INITIATIVE: There is not much information out on this yet but FOCUS/UNIVERSAL are launching a new digital distribution initiative that may or may not brand their own channel on iTunes etc., but does seem to be focused on niche cinema to some extent and this may speak to foreign language titles. An option to watch out for.

• GOOGLE is working on encroaching into the content delivery market with its launch of GOOGLE TV, which unfortunately has not created quite the fanfare the company planned for. It boasts: The web is now a channel. With Google Chrome and Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Google TV lets you access everything on the web. Watch your favorite web videos, view photos, play games, check fantasy scores, chat with friends, and do everything else you’re accustomed to doing online. GOOGLE TV does come with the Netflix App and others. Google partnered with some of the leading premium content providers to bring thousands of movie and TV titles, on-demand, directly to your television. Amazon Video On Demand offers access to over 75,000 titles for rental or purchase, and Netflix will offer the ability to instantly watch unlimited movies and TV shows, anytime, streaming directly to the TV.

• HULU: Hulu’s numbers keep growing for certain films, which has to-date not been foreign language but that may change given the Criterion Collection announcement. Hulu is also now a subscription service (HULU PLUS) and announced the Criterion deal is for that. Criterion of course specializes in classic movies from the canon of great directors–Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini, etc.–and has about 800 titles digitized so far, many of which are also available via Hulu competitor Netflix. It’s understood that this will be an exclusive deal, and that the Criterion titles that Netflix does offer will expire this year. Hulu Plus subscribers will initially get access to 150 Criterion films, including “The 400 Blows,” “Rashomon” and “Breathless.” Hulu says the movies will run without ad interruptions, but may feature ads before the films start; the free Hulu.com service will offer a handful of Criterion titles, which will run with ads. Hulu, owned by Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and News. Corp.’s Fox introduced the Hulu Plus pay service last year. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar says the $7.99-per-month offering is on track to reach one million subscribers in 2011. Competing for exclusive content seems to be on the rise as platforms compete for household recognition and top market share.

• iTunes (APPLE): iTunes dominated consumer spending for movies in 2010 but that may not last long. One can get onto iTunes via one of its chosen aggregators such as New Video, IODA, Tune Core, Quiver… Home Media Magazine reported the findings of an IHS Screen Digest report that showed that Apple was able to hold off challenges from competitors like Microsoft’s Zune Video (via XBOX Kinect), Sony PlayStation Store, Amazon VOD and Walmart’s VUDU. Despite the new competition, the electronic sellthrough and video on demand market rose more than 60% in 2010, Apple iTunes still came out on top, perhaps due in part to the release of the iPad last spring and Apple TV last fall. Research director of digital media for IHS, Arash Amel, said, “The iTunes online store showed remarkable competitive resilience last year in the U.S. EST/VOD movie business, staving off a growing field of tough challengers while keeping pace with a dramatic expansion for the overall market.” However, it’s important to note that although iTunes staved off competition, the overall iTunes consumer spending fell almost 10% in 2010 to 64.5%. It was 74.4% in 2009. Insiders predict it will not hold its market dominance for long.

• Microsoft’s Zune Video was one of Apple’s biggest competitors last year, accounting for 9% of U.S. movie EST/iVOD consumer spending in 2010 but this does not seem a key platform for foreign language cinema.

• MUBI: www.Mubi.com having added Sony Playstation to its platforms reach, MUBI now has reportedly 1,200,000 members worldwide and is finally in a better position to generate revenue. Still its own figures estimates amount to 4-figures of revenue and that’s for all its territories. Mubi’s partnership with SONY does not extend into the US.

• NETFLIX as reported in Multichannel News “as its subscriber base has swelled, Netflix has become a target for critics complaining that it is disrupting the economics of TV” is now a competitor to Cable and in fact Cable VOD companies won’t take a film if it’s already on NETFLIX’s Watch Instantly service. But Netflix is realizing it erred by losing focus on the independent and is now quietly offering bigger sums that compete with Broadcast offers and that are on par with the 5 and 6 figure revenues generated by Cable VOD for the stronger indie / art house films. Having films exclusively may be the driving force of future monetization in digital, or least in SVOD. Regarding 2011 outlook, Netflix’s “business is so dynamic that we will be doing less calendar year guidance than in the past,” the execs said. For the first three months of the year, Netflix expects domestic subscribers to increase to between 21.9 million and 22.8 million, with revenue between $684 million and $704 million and operating income between $98 million and $116 million. Internationally — meaning, for now, Canada — the company expects 750,000 to 900,000 subscribers with revenue of $10 million to $13 million and an operating loss between $10 million and $14 million.

• REDBOX: Redbox, whose brick-red DVD vending machines are scattered across the country, is aiming to have a Netflix-like video streaming subscription service up and running by the end of 2011, company executives told investors mid February. Redbox is a wholly owned subsidiary of Coinstar. The Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based company claims to have rented more than 1 billion DVDs to date through vending machines at about 24,900 U.S. locations nationwide, including select McDonald’s, Wal-Mart Stores and Walgreens locations. It should be noted though that Redbox is very studio title focused and wide release focused but its streaming service will likely move beyond that.

• WAL-MART bought VUDU and is expected to be a major player. Walmart is the world’s largest retailer with $405 billion in sales for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2010. In the U.S., Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates more than 4,300 facilities including Walmart supercenters, discount stores, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Club warehouses. VUDU, is Walmart’s recently acquired online media source where consumers can rent or buy movies and TV shows for their internet-ready HDTV, Blu-ray Disc players or PlayStation 3 consoles. Like iTunes, there are no monthly fees. Consumers can buy and rent movies when they want, and 2-night rentals are only $2. It will be interesting to see how VUDU will rise as a contender in 2011 and whether iTunes will suffer as a result of their success. Wal-Mart advertises that regarding VUDU: “from Internet-ready HDTVs to WiFi enabled Blu-ray players, you’ll find all the VUDU ready electronics you’re looking for at Walmart.com. Whether adding a flat panel TV to your dorm room or upgrading your home entertainment center, our selection of VUDU ready HDTVs has you covered. You’ll also save money on our VUDU ready products when you select items with free shipping to your home. With VUDU, you’ll be able to stream HD movies directly from the Internet to your TV in dynamic surround sound for a great low price. Shop VUDU ready HDTVs and Blu-ray players at Walmart.com — and save. “ And the retail giant makes sure all relevant devices / electronics it carries are VUDU-enabled. 2011 and beyond will be telling. Wal-Mart caters to the average American so it remains to be seen if there is an appetite for foreign language film via VUDU in the months and years to come. In its inception VUDU was catering to early adaptors of new technology and those eager to watch HD but now it seems to be becoming more generic. New Video is a preferred aggregator to VUDU, among others.

• VODO (Free / monetized Torrent): www.VODO.net
This has not been tried in the US by most distributors if any and not for foreign language cinema but it has worked for several projects such as Pioneer One which generated $60,000 USD by having the content made available for free and then getting donations in return.

• Other emerging retailers entering the digital space:
Sears and Kmart are the latest over-the-top threats to pay-TV providers’ video-on-demand businesses. Sears launched its online movie download service, Alphaline Entertainment, which will let Sears and Kmart customers rent or purchase movies, including on the same day they are released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, provided through digital media services firm Sonic Solutions. Titles currently available to rent or buy from Alphaline include studio and successful TV shows. Under Sonic’s multiyear agreement with Sears, the companies will provide access to Alphaline services through multiple devices including Blu-ray Disc players, HDTVs, portable media players and mobile phones. Sears and Kmart, said in a statement. “We’ll continue to increase the reach and flexibility of the Alphaline Entertainment service by providing consumers on-demand access to the latest entertainment from a range of home and mobile electronics.” Sears, which merged with Kmart in 2005, is the fourth largest retailer in the U.S. The company has about 3,900 department stores and specialty retail stores in the U.S. and Canada. It remains to be seen if they take on foreign language cinema. New Video is also an aggregator to them.

That’s all she wrote folks. Until the next time.

Orly Ravid has worked in film acquisitions / sales / direct distribution and festival programming for the last twelve years since moving to Los Angeles from home town Manhattan. In January 2010, Orly founded The Film Collaborative (TFC), the first non-profit devoted to film distribution of independent cinema. Orly runs TFC w/ her business partner, co-exec director Jeffrey Winter.

Tags distribution, Film Collaborative, Guest Post, Orly Ravid, platforms, tools

Truly Free Film

Guest Post: Orly Ravid: Subtitles in Digital America Part 2

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date March 15, 2011
60 Comments on Guest Post: Orly Ravid: Subtitles in Digital America Part 2

With today’s guest post, Orly Ravid of The Film Collaborative looks at digital distribution opportunities for foreign film here in the USA.

Recently I was invited to be on a panel at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) and participate in their mentoring sessions and the lab at Cinemart. Great experience. I am always amazed by the difference between the US and Europe. The whole government funding of films and new media initiatives as our government is about to shut down. Well, their policies and practices do take their own financial toll too but one I think is worth it. For all my europhileness I have to note that the Europeans can be just as guilty of not wanting to watch subtitles in fact some countries dub films instead. And of course we know that Hollywood is big business in Europe too. But all in all, art house cinema seems to reach more broadly in Europe and even some parts of Asia than it does in the US. Films in Cannes and other top fests can sell all over Europe and never in the US or success in opening theatrically only in NY and maybe LA and overall it seems to me box office is generally down for foreign language cinema.

International filmmakers want US distribution and it was painful for me to discuss their prospects at IFFR because for so many, the prospects are slim. But this one’s for you! (Please note this blog is focused on digital distribution and not healthy categories for foreign language cinema such as Non Theatrical including Museums, Films Festival, Colleges, Educational / Institutional).

Cable VOD was 80% of the digital revenue in the US in 2009 but it’s now declining little by little, now estimated to be in the high 70’s (approx 77%) and may decline further still. The reason for this change, which is expected to continue, is that Internet based platforms are growing.

Regarding FOREIGN LANGUAGE ON CABLE VOD: Distributors and aggregators agree that foreign language cinema is very hard to get onto Cable VOD platforms and slots for non-English cinema are reserved generally for marquee driven films and/or films with a real hook (name cast/director, highly acclaimed, genre hook). A big independent Cable VOD aggregator notes a real struggle in getting foreign language films to perform on Cable VOD and even Bollywood titles that had wide theatrical distribution and a box office of upwards of $1,000,000 still perform poorly (poorly means 4-figure revenue, 5-figure tops). They have had some success with foreign martial arts films and will continue with those in the foreseeable future.

Time Warner Cable (TWC) remains more open to foreign language cinema though it plays the fewest films, a range between 190 – 246 at any given time (with a shelf life usually of 60 days and with 2/3rd of the content seeming to be bigger studio product, and the rest indie). By comparison Charter and AT&T play about 1,000 and Verizon plays 2,000, and Comcast plays about 4,000. [See below for the 2010 breakdown of Cable subscription numbers.] Hence, individual titles may perform better on Time Warner Cable for obvious reasons, Comcast may have more subscribers but there’s less competition and TWC is in New York, the best demographic for art house cinema.

Generally speaking, platforms overall are far more receptive to foreign films following the recent success of DRAGON TATTOO, TELL NO ONE, IP MAN, etc. than they have ever been before. However as one can see from the titles noted, foreign genre films are preferred because they have the opportunity to reach broader audiences than the usual foreign film. Genres that reportedly work include: sci-fi, thriller/crime, action, and sophisticated horror. Dramas have had limited success, and comedies often don’t translate, nor does most children’s content.

In regard to Cable VOD – foreign box office is becoming an important proxy, because the marketing and pr tend to build US awareness on the larger titles prior to being available here. Many companies have built very successful VOD businesses pursuing a day and date theatrical or DVD strategy. Again, genre films work best, with horror and sci fi being the top performers. 3 of the top 10 non-studio titles in 2010 were foreign language subtitled releases. Small art house distributors say that at most it’s a small dependable revenue stream via services such as INDEMAND http://www.indemand.com (iN DEMAND’s owners are and it services Comcast iN DEMAND Holdings, Inc., Cox Communications Holdings, Inc., and Time Warner Entertainment – Advance/Newhouse Partnership.) Distributors and aggregators all site Time Warner as being far more open to foreign language cinema than Comcast, because it’s urban focused (NY, LA, etc) not heartland focused as Comcast is.

In terms of these titles finding their audiences on Cable VOD, Comcast announced improved search functionality by being able to search by title and Cable VOD is aware of its deficiencies and is said to be improving in terms of marketing to consumers but Cable VOD is still infamous for its lack of recommendation engines and discovery tools. Key aggregators work to have films profiled in several categories and not just the A-Z listing.

Tags distribution, Film Collaborative, Guest Post, Orly Ravid, tools, VOD

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