Tag: producing

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Truly Free Film

Everything I Know About Producing, Pt. 1

As you might know, I was in Sydney,Australia courtesy of Screen Australia to do a Two Day Workshop on Producing, entitled HopeForFilm. Screen Hub journalist Andrew Einspruch took careful notes — and he and Screen Hub kindly agreed to share it with you.  Thanks.  Here’s Day One:

by Andrew Einspruch

Let’s start with how the movie world has changed. As Ted Hope phrased it, the first hundred-plus years in the film world were marked by three characteristics that no longer apply. “The business was built around a belief in the scarcity of product, that we have to control where people see and engage with that content, and that the only way they will do is impulsively, without education or knowledge beforehand.” 

This antiquated model has fallen over.

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Truly Free Film

Twenty Tips For Packaging Your Project Successfully

 

Wondering what’s needed for packaging?

Producing requires that you look beyond your own projects and looks at how you build it better for everybody. I frankly don’t have respect for producers who only work on their projects. I want to know they give back to the community in general.  That does not have much to do with packaging frankly, but it is why I write this blog.

To that end, I want to share with you my thoughts on how to package your film in such a way that your film will gather momentum, get made, and succeed in the marketplace.  I have come up with twenty  points.  I wanted to know what I forgot, so I hope you add to the list.

  1. Recognize what you are doing when you package a project.  You package a project because you want to finance or sell your film.  You put actors in it not just for the creative enhancement, but also for the financial benefit.  If you fail to make the movie or to use the actors well, you devalue them in the market place.  That’s a HUGE risk for them.  It’s not true that if an actor attaches herself to the project and it doesn’t get made, no harm is done.  Attaching an actor exposes them to the marketplace — and kind of checks their value.  If a project an actor attaches himself to does not get made, it appears that buyers are not interested in them (because they presume that audiences does not value them).  By attaching actors to your project, you are risking their career.  Do not even approach them, until you are can demonstrate to everyone around them that is not the case.
  2. Develop a positive reputation for consistently delivering films of quality and acclaim.  It may sound like a Catch 22, but
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Truly Free Film

When Will The Film Business Adjust To Reality?

I have given a few interviews around my new mission as the San Francisco Film Society’s Executive Director.  I recently spoke to Cinesource and we discussed a bit about where we are now and where we could hopefully go.  It is always such a challenge because the existing businesses are invested in the status quo — even when that is predicated on propping up a world that is no longer here.

I said: “The business of film has been oriented around the concepts of scarcity and control—where 50,000 titles can come out every year,” Ted points out. “It would take nearly a century to [showcase] just a single year’s output of films.” 

“The film industry has not been able to keep up with what the tech industry has brought to the forefront. The business has been stuck in ways of doing things that are not good for business. Transformations need to occur to create a sustainable investment class to continue to help filmmakers market to the new niches.” 

Hope would like to see business practices

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Truly Free Film

Why I Chose To Lead The San Francisco Film Society

To effectively serve, preserve, embrace and enhance film and film culture, we must examine, participate, and evolve the broadest definition thereof. Film, as an art, culture, community, business, and science is consistently evolving – it may be a cliché, but it’s a fact that film culture’s only constant is change. Film’s evolution needs to be embraced and experimented with –not feared.

Large well-financed interests are heavily committed to maintaining the status quo and as much as those corporate and business entities are the filmmakers’ & film cultures’ allies, those who love film first for the art and culture must act for the artists’ interests over those of pure profit.

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Truly Free Film

Thoughts On Collaboration…

Ah, the windfall of public speaking.  My two stop tour of Sydney & Auckland generated a lot of material.  I did a handful of interviews with some very knowledgeable journalists/filmmakers.  They have been coming to print and pixel. I spoke to Fiona Milburn from Transmedia NZ for the big idea on several subjects.  You can read the whole article here.  Amongst the questions I was asked about collaboration:

The key to collaboration is: the acknowledgement of what you don’t know; respect for the experience and contributions of others; and a general level of openness and discovery.  I don’t think that changes.  It is still at the core of everything.  However,

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Truly Free Film

Podcast: Everything I Know About Producing (A Start)

Courtesy of Screen Australia, you can now have access to everything I know about producing.  I gave two days of lectures in Sydney at the end of August, and the mic ran into a recording device.  It’s just audio so you don’t get to see my colorful outfits or all the nifty slides I never prepared, but it is the next best thing to being there.

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Truly Free Film

When Do You Submit A Project To A Financier Or Distributor? (continued)

I’ve written about this before, and I am sure I will write about this again.  It keeps coming up, both with my own projects and with those I consult on.

I think it is really simple and it is based on both experience and common sense.

It is my belief that there is only one chance to show a script where it will have real impact — and that is when it can be portrayed as “inevitable”.  That is usually when there are both talent and finance commitments — the two components that make a dream real for the industry.

The ideal time to submit a project is

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