Filmmakers should fight the Comcast/Time Warner merger.
As the WGA points out:”Comcast’s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable is bad for everyone:
Tag: IndieWire
I was asked by the New York Times to contribute to a think piece on how to improve the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Ted Hope, chief executive of Fandor, a film-streaming service and former San Francisco Film Society executive director, recalled his first encounter with the organization: a showing of the Coen brothers’ “Blood Simple” at the New York Film Festival. “I was so excited to be in such a beautiful room with so many people who seemed to love cinema as much as me,” he said. “I want every program to recreate that excitement, and it comes from providing context, community and a sense of event — something both fleeting and permanent.”
Today marks my last post here on “Truly Free Film” at HopeForFilm.com. Starting tomorrow you can find both my rants and ravings, and all of those of our contributors, over at IndieWire. My hope is that we can all use this opportunity to expand our community and goals in the year ahead. We can truly bring about some change if we work together to build it better.
I started this blog for many reasons, but chief among them was
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My New Home Means…
Today is my first post on IndieWire. I think it is going to be a great home, and like any home most of the value comes from opening it up to guests. As we now reside on a platform dedicated to expanding its reach, our collective voice just got a whole lot louder. It’s time to expand our community.
I got into the habit of defining HopeForFilm/TrulyFreeFilm as part of my experiment in social media. When I got started blogging, the media mattered a great deal more to me than the social. As I begin my experiment v2.0 the social matters more to me than the media.
There were a lot of reasons why I felt I needed to step forward and begin blogging. Business has been bad in the film world for several years, but opportunity still remains great. The potential to have a sustainable culture and community dedicated to diverse and ambitious voices, free from mass market dictates, grows daily — what I define as Truly Free Film. Social media is second only to the film community’s desire in terms of being the necessary foundation . The community still lacks leaders with experience dedicated to an open and transparent film culture that embraces the audience and the artist alike. In fact, the majority of participants in our film culture remain dedicated first and foremost to their own individual work rather than the health of the community at large. I remain committed to the belief that we all benefit when our focus moves away from ourselves and towards true unity. Independent is the antithesis of what I hope non-corporate filmmaking can become. Artist-driven for sure, but community-centered.
I have always been a generative sort. I have enjoyed having an outlet that encourages community but doesn’t require perfection. Blogging has exposed me to new ideas, new processes, and new friends. It has given me a front row seat to an ever expanding community of Brave Thinkers and committed artists. My greatest rewards have come from contact with other bloggers and offering up this platform to the community at large. The conversation we have here and the diverse ideas and methods we have are truly the initial steps towards building it better together.
The strength of a society can be seen in the culture it creates. Corporate filmmaking, driven by profit only, rarely any more gives rise to the sort of movies that inspired me, helped me empathize with people from all walks of life, connected me to individuals and communities of ambition for a better world, or exposed me to the expansive and transformative nature of the human spirit. Independent film — as we can build it to be — will never die out, but it desperately still needs our help to gain the foothold that can allow it to really flourish. Those days are before us, but it takes more than just lending a hand. We determine the culture we have. It requires stepping up and giving voice.
It is my sincere wish that HopeForFilmv2.0 continues to expand well beyond my own musings. I am easy to find. Let me know what needs to be said and say it. This will not be my blog. I want it to be ours.
Sunday September 19th, as part of Independent Film Week, the IFP invited me to a “Cage Match” with Jeff Lipsky on Indie Film’s relationship with youth culture. The discussion was spurred on by a post of mine “Can Truly Free Film Appeal To Youth Culture “, and the robust discussion everyone had in our comments section to that post, and then still further by discussions on Filmmaker Mag Blog and Anthony Kaufman’s column. It was a good discussion before IFP even proposed the CageMatch, but I appreciated the opportunity to give it more thought.
You might have missed it but it’s been summed up pretty well by Robert McLellan on GlobalShift.org (thanks to Shari Candler for tipping me to that), Ingrid Koop on the FilmmakerMag Blog, and Eugene Hernandez at Indiewire (although I don’t agree, or believe I said, that Indie Film is aimed at white women over the age of 45 — although they are the dominant audience — but that we have to prevent Indie Film from being the province of the privileged, old, and white (i.e. me!)). Jeff and I could have blabbed for hours. I have plenty more to say on the issue.
As both a community and an industry, it is critical we look at both the creative, infrastructure, and societal factors for answers of why we have so failed to develop the alternative and youth sectors. Every other cultural form has a robust young adult sector that is defined both by it’s innovation and opposition — yet in film that is the exception and not the rule.
To me the issue comes down to the fact that unless Indie Film appeals to the under 30’s, Indie Film will continue to marginalize itself into the realm of elitist culture like Chamber Orchestras and Ballet.
Cassavettes’ former distributor announced last week that he was going back to his old ways and taking other people’s films to the people. This week he (Jeff Lipsky) did a must read article to try to explain why. It’s in the pop form of a list and after each bullet point he goes into some detail to back up his assertion. Check it out. I post the list (w/o the explanation) below.
There is some food for thought in Jeff’s positions and I look forward to discussing it further. I have always believed in a collective sub-conscious; is there really a new? In reading, Jeff’s list it reminded me of several points from filmmaker Michael Barnard, who’s thoughts on the current state I am posting today and tomorrow. Stay tuned…
The whole article is on IndieWire and you should read it. Jeff’s bulletpoints are:
1) My number one job as a distributor-for-hire is to run a collection agency.
A new model is emerging and Peter Broderick is here to explain it all for you:
Writer/Director/Blogger John August endorses Peter’s approach with examples of what he encountered on The Nines:
(thanks @andrewbrotzman)
