24 Aug

Posted at 15:55h in Film Fundamentals
When Fred Willard recently got busted doing his fly-fishing impersonation, the news story contained an amazing tidbit. There is actually a porno theater still in operation somewhere in the United States. Goodness! This half-dilapidated joint is virtually a museum piece. Heck, the whole concept of a porn theater is such a relic, I'm half surprised that Willard doesn't tell the court that he was simply working as a re-enactor. Just like those folks in Colonial Williamsburg. The porn industry has long been a bellwether of trends in the commercial film industry. A major example of this was the lead porn took in jumping into the video home rental market back in the 1980s. The format war between VHS and Betamax was not determined by porn. The industry went both ways and was primarily focused on moving big time into the home market, period. The reason was simple.

17 Aug

Posted at 11:01h in Film Fundamentals
A week ago last Monday was the 21st Anniversary of the first web site. This site wasn't much more than an introduction to the basic concept of a web site, but it was the first breeze before the great historic storm. Back in 1991, Microsoft was just releasing Windows 3.0a, while Apple had just introduced System 6.0.8. Meanwhile, Bill Gates and IBM were fighting over control of DOS. Home computers were still viewed as expensive toys and the internet browser was still in the design stage. Typewriters were the backbone of any business and many people thought that a PowerPoint was somebody making a rude gesture. Despite many futuristic predictions, the emerging power of the World Wide Web was barely a whisper. I should know. I mostly spent my time during this period ignoring the whisper until I was literally dragged into the computer age in the mid-1990s.

09 Aug

Posted at 17:19h in Film Fundamentals
Near the end of The Dark Knight Rises, a character quotes the final lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. But the summer box office might be better described by the novel's opening: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” For Hollywood, the best was at the beginning. The Avengers was the kind of successful big budget movie of which studio executives dream. With a current global return of more than $1.4 billion, this movie delivered the sweet promise of an endless summer that would justify the crazy model of the tent pole movie. Even better, it is still playing in first-run. In retrospect, they could have simply canceled the rest of the summer after the opening of The Avengers.

27 Jul

Posted at 14:53h in Film Fundamentals

The immediate and tragic effect of the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre is grimly obvious (except maybe to Playboy models). But the long term effects are just beginning to take shape. With a dozen people dead and over two dozen wounded, it seems almost ghoulish to contemplate...

19 Jul

Posted at 16:21h in Film Fundamentals

Recently, I received a comment that what investors want to see is a strong, solid script. It sounds like great advice. Too bad it doesn't actually work that way, but golly gee whiz it should. Unfortunately, one of the first things that any aspiring screenwriter...

12 Jul

Posted at 14:38h in Film Fundamentals

Last week, I made a little mistake.  I said that The Amazing Spider-Man was the type of film that would open on 3,000 to 4,000 screens. Actually, it opened on nearly 4,400 screens.  Since there are roughly 40,000 screens in the US, this sucker took up space...

06 Jul

Posted at 11:35h in Film Fundamentals

Summer is a time for daydreams. Bucolic months full of hopeful visions of the future.So why am I spending this summer sweating non-stop in periodic blackouts caused by severe storms in a massive heat wave while my phone is ringing off the hook with every political...