13 Mar Structural Divergence

There must be mornings when the typical indie filmmaker barely can crawl out of bed. On the receiving end of so much bad news, it's a miracle he or she can even get in the mood to dress before noon. Barely a week goes by without some new post of doom and gloom for the indie business. For example, a recent blog piece by Ted Hope could be mistaken for a zombie alert warning. Actually, it is an important read for everyone in the indie business. But man oh man, there are times when ol' Ted starts to sound like one of those depression ads on TV. Unfortunately, Hope does have some very good points. Especially in regards to the recent article in The Economist titled Hollywood: Split Screens. In turn, this article does a solid job of outlining many of the reasons why the current Hollywood business model is busted. Busted?  It's way past that point. Heck, the Hollywood business model is in worse shape than a guy who has just been run over by a truck and the truck driver backs up to see what that “bump” was in the road. Under the current Hollywood model, you spend around $300 million making a film and then hope to score a billion globally in its release. Once in a blue moon, a movie succeeds in pulling off this stunt. This is called dumb luck, and luck is not a business model. This tent-pole madness has had profoundly negative consequences for indie movies.

06 Mar Floating in the Post-Oscar Debris

The words “boobs” and “Academy Awards” have often appeared together in a sentence. Normally we have meant the non-anatomical meaning of boobs. But not this year. In a pitch to a younger demographic audience model, the Oscar presentation went on a bumpy joy ride combining its usual institutional blandness with an occasional bitch slap at the audience. I don't mean the TV audience. I mean the fancy-dressed folks sitting for more than three and a half hours like hostages in the Dolby Theatre. I am not particularly interested in debating Seth MacFarlane's handling of the hosting duties at the Oscars. Hosting this show has to be one of the most thankless jobs around. An Oscar host is expected to be a toothless court jester. They are suppose to spoof the business but not the egos as they provide biting commentary but only so long as they lack either bark or bite. No wonder Billy Crystal doesn't want the lousy job. To be honest, MacFarlane was better than David Letterman. But then, a colonoscopy was funnier than Letterman. Of course, I also thought that Chris Rock did a swell job back in 2005, so I am not speaking from a mainstream Academy perspective. However, the fallout from this year's Oscar presentation has been a singular spectacle. Granted, every Oscar show has its controversies, things like, “How did the movie Crash ever get nominated, less alone win” etc. But this past week most press reports have been so obsessed with women's breasts and Anne Hathaway's nipples, I'm beginning to confuse the Oscars with lunch at Hooters.

19 Feb Brave New World

Previously, I outlined some major actual or impending changes taking place in the film industry. Many of these are related to distribution strategy.  But there are even more significant changes in the works. These will affect not just the production of films but also how the creative process is conceptualized. Some impending changes may even alter our conception of humanity.  But, before we lose our grip altogether, let us go back and look at film's early beginnings, since the patterns of the future usually can be found within the rubble of the past. The first film experiments were conducted in the late 1880s, with moving images.  These were very simple bits of film, like Roundhay Garden. The link I've included is to a reworked version with added title cards. The surviving version of the original is about 3 seconds long.  By the mid-1890s, Thomas A. Edison http://www.thomasedison.com/ and his company were experimenting with sound movies.  Developed for Edison by William Dickson, these short films attempted to synchronize the moving image to a wax cylinder. The first step toward the development of color motion pictures took place at the end of the 19^th Century.  An early form of color film stock was successfully created in 1909.  A version of Kodachrome color film was tested and available by 1922.  Experiments in color were used in various silent films such as the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera. Almost all of these early experiments were half ignored and, in many cases,  forgotten. The clips I have provided links to are all relatively recent discoveries. Yet, in many respects, the technical history of the entire first century of movies can be found within these early experiments.  It just took a long while before the industry caught up with the implications. The same process is happening today.  Two recent little films on the internet are major examples of the future.