07 Feb Back to Basics

It's always the same set of questions. Is there any way to tell if a movie is going to be good? How can we tell if a film will be successful at the box office? How can we tell if a movie is worth investing...

20 Jan Film Fund-amentals: A Whole Lotta Scamming Goin’ On

Every year I have to take a moment to remind folks of some very basic rules. Real simple rules that are easy to forget. Unfortunately, there are legions of people out there hoping that you do forget. That's why the rules are always worth repeating. Especially...

02 Jan Toward 2014, Step Two

At the end of last year, we dealt with the train wreak known as Hollywood. But that was 2013, a year that is so over and done. It is now 2014, a year full of bright new promise and exciting possibilities. OK, I can't tell the difference either, but let's pretend. What does the new year offer for the indie filmmaker?  I suspect it will be both the best of times and the worse of times. Predicting the future can result in a dickens of a fit. The two key issues at the core of predicting indie future are: 1. financial and 2. digital. The financial question is the simplest and the hardest to resolve. Indie filmmakers need money. You see, it's extremely straight forward. They know that money is out there, somewhere. As I said, it is incredibly straight forward. They can't find it. Damn!  I knew there was a tricky part.

10 Dec Toward 2014, Step One

It is easy to dismiss John Landis' recent comments about Hollywood (see the IndieWire story) as sour grapes.  After all, his last movie (Burke and Hare) earned $947 at the US box office ($4.3 million internationally).  Heck, I even know a few people who are still complaining about Blues Brothers 2000.   Unfortunately, he is also right.  There are no film studios any more.  They are media companies.  In turn, they are owned by large media conglomerates.  Those are owned by gigantic multinational corporations who in turn own about two-thirds of the planet, more or less. Likewise, making movies is not part of the function of the major film companies.  Not really.  Making movies imply a creative process.  Large companies are not interested in vague  notions like the creative process.  Large companies are involved in ownership.  

21 Nov VOD Revenue: TS/SCI or OII

Should companies make public the revenue generated by films distributed via video on demand (VOD)? According to The Hollywood Reporter, this question is a hot topic among indie filmmakers. I'm not so sure that's true, but it ought to be.  Since VOD is the most probable...

01 Nov The Generals of Genre

The romantic comedy genre is dead. The horror genre has received numerous obituary notices over the past ten years. Film Noir is pretty much an historical concept used for stylistic flourish and the occasional directorial hommage. Genre film-making – a major backbone to the low budget and indie cinema – is often treated as a dead commodity. Reports on the demise of various forms of genre appears almost as frequent as rumors of Bill Cosby's death. They are also about as accurate.

23 Oct Social Media for the Anti-Social Type

Where ever you go, the topic is social media. It is the quick fix for everything from fund raising to film promotion and distribution. It is all things to all people, which is why it is a good thing we have so many self-professed experts online to tell us how to use it. It plays a bit like that scene with Groucho and Chico in A Day at the Races. So let's begin by stating that I am not an expert on social media. Never have been, and never will be. To be honest, I have a strong anti-social streak which works against the whole concept. I am even thinking of developing my own social media site based on the principle that people ought to mind their own business. I thought I would call it MySpace/Not Yours.

11 Oct New Approaches in Film Financing

Ted Hope may or may not have left his heart in San Francisco.  But he has left his job.  After slightly more than a year as director of the San Francisco Film Society, Hope has quit. Officially, he wants to get back to work as an indie...