Burn After Reading

Left pane: Joel and Ethan Coen; Top right: Brad Pitt in a still from Burn After Reading; Bottom right: George Clooney on set.

Evening Coen fans! So as if them Coen’s haven’t been titillating the press enough recently with their smash hit film No Country for Old Men, some lavish critic lovin’ and no less than four Oscars, yesterday they announced the release date of their new film Burn After Reading.

As most of you will know news about the production has been circulating for a while, but Focus Features officially made the announcement that they will be releasing the Coen’s “dark espionage comedy” on September 12th in North America. When it will come to these shores has not, as yet, been revealed however we know it will premier at Cannes Film Festival on May 14th and according to IMDB (known for its unquestionably reliable information ahem) Finland will be graced with the film on the 21st of November. So if you’re looking for a Finger Lickin’ prediction, I’d say the UK will see the film around the second week of October… but don’t quote me on that.

Burn After Reading boasts an impressive cast including, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, and Joel Coen’s wife, Frances McDormand who also played the adorable Marge Gunderson in Coen classic Fargo. As is often the case, the script is an original piece written by both the brothers and centres around a disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent that ends up in the hands of two reprobate gym employees who attempt to sell it. The flick is currently in post-production and is reported to contain the Coen’s usual mix of dark drama and comedy. Other stuff in the Coen’s pre-production pipeline includes: Suburbicon due in 2009, written by the lads, and directed by George Clooney; a remake of 1966 crime comedy Gambit; and back-burner project, the 1920s periodpiece Hail Caesar. So, from that little collection, it looks like the prolific duo are showing no signs of slowing down.

That’s it from me… take it easy,

K

Film Festivals Ain’t Workin’ Folks!

I know bang on about this all the time – but just watch the video…

And click some links…

From Here to Awesome – A new way forward.

Submit a Film – And join the revolution.

Arin Crumley – Democratizing Indie Film Distribution.

YouTube – Watch more of the same.

K

Film festival audience award employs digital technology

US indie film festival the Cinema Eye Honors presented by Indiepix has announced that it is to add a new audience award that will utalise both online distribution and voting process. The festival have chosen the BroadRamp platform to distribute the films and is requesting that viewers cast their vote online after watching. Indiepix are said to have chosen BroadRamp’s Content Distribution System because it does not require the user to download a third party browser plugin. However, this is a claim that confuses me slightly because taking a look at BroadRamp’s site they seem to be very much utalising flash video in their player which of course uses the “third party plugin” Shockwave. Soooo… unless I’m missing a trick and I they’ve some swanky technology they’re not showing off on their website… you still need a plugin folks.

BroadRamp seem to be best known for their work in the field of interactive e-commerce video. What’s interactive e-commerce video I hear you cry. Well, the basic concept is that you’re sitting watching a video online, or wherever, and you see a t-shirt you really like. You hover your mouse over that t-shirt and a pop-up appears giving you information, price and an option to buy the shirt. An idea then that seems to be genius and utterly horrific all at the same time.S o the cynic in me is thinking, will the content from this film festival be used as a film testbed for this evil genius video creation? Or am I turning into a internet conspiracy theorist? Either way, I am delighted to see that festivals are recognising the problems in the industry and making steps to rectify it. It does however seem bizarre to me that they would not use a more well known platform, such as blip.tv, vimeo or even the big daddy YouTube. My jaded mind is still mulling over the marketing potential of the BroadRamp system in festivals to come – you’ve been warned!

Anyway, the festival selections have been made and announced, more information can be found at the Indiepix and Cinema Eye Honors websites and voting commences on March 1st.

Right, that’s enough from me. Good night Finger Lickers, I will see you in the morning.

K

Calling all filmmakers!

Evening all. So I’ve been banging on a lot about From Here to Awesome and the wonderful things they’re doing to encourage self distribution and discover new talent. So… Arin and his cronies have started releasing vids and here’s one of their first. Have you made a film and keep thinking what next? Looking for a festival that might actually see your work getting distribution? Check out this vid. Subscribe to their channel. Join the revolution!

Give it away, give it away, give it away now!

There is something sick in the film industry. We all know this. From an average DVD-buying consumer to the indie filmmaking community to the academics in their ivory towers to the disgruntled industry insiders, we all know that the rot set in a long time ago. Whether you’re a film school grad trying to get a break or a filmmaker trying to get funding or a consumer standing in the cinema with only four choices on the menu – film is hard, way too hard. Now, I’m not here to get into a discussion about the film industry creating an impenetrable bubble for those of us who are trying to get in, what I am here to talk about is giving your film away for free.

Much of this blog is fueled by the likes of Lance Weiler and Arin Crumley who are actually doing this kinda stuff in practice. My inspiration for writing this blog was the incredibly brief treatment of the “give your art away” discussion in this months Filmmaker Magazine. Arin and Susan gave another interview about their experiences in the world of self-distribution a while ago and during the course of that interview he said something way more interesting than anything Filmmaker published. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here folks, brace yourselves, that it would have been more beneficial for them to have had their movie already up on YouTube while they were doing the festival tour. It is this issue that I believe is so much more important than anything else surrounding the self distribution debate.

We’re are being constantly bombarded by people telling us not to blow our creative and commercial load too soon, excuse the analogy, but we are. For example, in a meeting earlier this month about a web tv project I have ties with, a University lecturer made a point that completely threw me. She said that you need to hold off as long as possible, launch all your content at once and hit the students with a high impact marketing campaign to ensure that they watch. What? Now, while everything else she said was brilliant and useful and insightful this just made no sense to me. Where’s the longtail? Where’s the viral tasty morsels that all those media snacking YouTube junkies wanna stuff down their faces?!?! This is old world thinking people surely it would be better to launch the site with basic content and release regular episodes to encourage stickiness? What I’m trying to say is that giving it all away in one big dollop of flash video is surely not the way forward. Arin and Susan have the right idea, give it away for free, get a sticky following, so to speak, and release the goods themselves when you’re most high-profile to your given audience. So in the case of indie film you need the viral video episodes and the film online. You’re not losing anything by giving it away, you’re not diminishing your selling power with distributors you’re gaining more ammunition to prove that this film has an audience and if you snap it up now there’s a theatrical life for this film just as much as there’s an online life.

The industry and us as filmmakers need to stop thinking of our films as precious and start whoring. How can we get people to view this flick? How can we create a revenue stream from that viewing method? How can we get our video blogs onto every video sharing site on the Internet? And how can we get the film itself onto as may of those sites too!?! Now, I’m not saying there aren’t obstacles to this – upload limits in terms of size and film length as well as average viewer attention span etc. but seriously if you play this right folks you can get that regular viewing audience that are interested enough to watch the whole film online and you can prove to the web 2.0 industries that it is viable for them to sponsor your flick and in turn the film industry must surely pay notice.

I’ve said enough… but check out the following links for further information and some inspiration.

From Here to Awesome – A alternative discovery distribution film festival.
Arincrumley.com – Arin’s personal site, loads of blogage and self-distribution info.
Tube Mogul – Distribute your video to a plethora of online sites.

K

Scoring Brick.

When it came for writer/director Rian Johnson to score his début film Brick he turned to musician cousin Nathan Johnson of The Cinematic Underground. Nathan’s background was not in scoring soundtracks, his primary experience was playing instruments in bands and writing lyrics. However, the relationship between Rian and Nathan allowed them to work together to build an incredibly striking score for what I believe to be one of the best neo-noir films ever made. Brick’s score is haunting and by using specific instruments for each character Nathan allowed for interaction between elements of the score, just as the characters are interacting on screen. It’s quite a brilliant effect.

Below is a video that I found on the Brick forum quite a long time ago now but I’m only just getting round to posting it. I believe this video gives a wonderful insight into the workings of not just the score but also the amazing process behind its creation. Sadly WordPress will not allow me to embed Blip.TV videos and YouTube will not allow me to upload anything more than 10mins so I’m afraid all you’ve got is a link… so get clickin’! Oh, and don’t forget to check out Nathan’s band, The Cinematic Underground because their stuff is brilliant!

Filmmaking at 10mph in the fast lane.

Director/Producer Hunter Weeks co-creator of 10mph the conceptually brilliant comic-documentary that follows a pair of aspiring filmmakers as they travel across the United States on Segways. You’re no doubt wondering, what the hell is a Segway? Or perhaps if you’re a Californian police officer you know them well. Basically, these scooter devices, which you may have seen on YouTube, or TV, or around your local park go a max of 10mph. With these devices these two filmmakers travel across America and document the hilarious consequences.

Anyway, I haven’t seen this film but they seem to be generating a great buzz and I’m very keen to check the flick out. However, my reason for writing about this is to request that you all support these DIY filmmakers by signing up for ourstage.com. Just like Four Eyed Monsters, ourstage.com have been brilliant and offered to pay 10mph $1 for every sign up they get. This is an amazing model for independent film revenue generation and it deserves all the support we can give.

So, please, please, please, sign up for ourstage.com via http://www.10mph.com/ourstage to make a real difference to some great filmmakers. Likewise, please check out the video below where Hunter talks about the project and how you can help them make their next film.

Arin Crumley Talks about From Here to Awesome

I’ve cut together a condensed version of an interview that NewTeeVee.com conducted with Arin Crumley about his new venture From Here to Awesome.

Here’s some links that might be of interest…

My blog about From Here to Awesome

The entire interview on Arin’s YouTube channel.

From Here to Awesome

K

Sundance, Deals and Distribution

Spout.com blogger, Karina Longworth, who’s currently at Sundance 2008 has written an interesting piece about the lack of deals being made so far at this year’s festival. Karina, speculates about a number of reasons for the relatively low number of distribution deals. Firstly, she references the mainstream press who are apparently suggesting that the buyers haven’t found that magic they have in previous years. Which is of course suitably vague and journalist speak for “we haven’t got a damn clue”.

Next, she discusses a comment by Sony’s Tom Bernard where he states that, we, the bloggers are to blame for taking the mystique out of the film buying and distribution process. According to Bernard the immediacy of blogging means that the press coverage of a film is happening too quickly and therefore they lose control of the media machine.

Finally, Karina suggests that possible the solution could be as simple as the fiftieth anniversary of Sundance has a pretty weak offering of dramatic feature-length flicks. Whether this is the case, is not for me to judge, I haven’t seen any of the films in question. Maybe next year, with a shiny Finger Lickin’ press pass around my neck. But, what these sluggish sales do make me wonder about is the value of a festival like Sundance to the filmmaker. Sure, it gets you some first rate press and sure it gets a very select audience into a cinema for 120minutes to watch your film. But where’s the real benefit? Where’s that golden ticket, the distribution deal that everyone is looking for? Has the time come where festivals like Sundance aren’t delivering the goods? It’s all well and good being able to put “Official Selection Sundance Film Festival” at the opening of your trailer but if only those three hundred ticket holders attending the festival get to see the film… where’s the real benefit to you, the filmmaker?

Distribution is key. The more I learn about alternative, exciting and innovative methods of getting your film seen and turning those views into earnings the more I believe that while there’s a place for the festival route, you need to think bigger.

Read Karina’s blog post here.

The Comic Book Guide to Copy Right Law.

This is a great resource for all DIY and Independant filmmakers out there. Copyright law is an absolute minefield of mind numbing dos and don’ts and you never quite know if it’s legit to use something or not. Whether it’s displaying a Coke can in the foreground of your shot or understanding music licensing this graphic novel guide to indie filmmaking and copyright law is indispensables.