Authors — Scott Macaulay

HEY, WE’RE RECESSION PROOF… AREN’T WE?

Yes, the economy is tanking, but, hey, we’re in the entertainment business! Escapism rules in downturn. People want to go out and forget the troubles, and the price of a movie ticket is just… Reality check: Nick Wingfield and Piu-Wing Tam argue in The Wall Street Journal that the economically distressed are not heading out to the movies — they’re staying home and surfing the ‘net. From the piece: It’s been decades since Americans had this much time on their hands and — thanks to the Web — never have there been so many opportunities to burn it. In November, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2009
YOUTUBE CAST-OFF’S, READ THIS!

Via Boing Boing comes this link to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is jumping into the fray to help those who, like Kevin Lee recently, have found their clips taken down by the user-generated video giant. (For the record, Lee’s account was reinstated, although I believe individual videos remain pulled.) From the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Fair use has always been at risk on YouTube, thanks to abusive DMCA takedown notices sent by copyright owners (sometimes carelessly, sometimes not). But in the past several weeks, two things have made things much worse for those who want to sing a song, post […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2009
I AGREE WITH HARRY…

It’s a workplace incident that occurred eight months ago. None of us were there and we have no idea what happened before or after. It’s BS to post it. Have I witnessed similar? Sure… but I don’t post it here.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2009
DON’T BE A JERK

That’s the message of Heidi Van Lier at her recently posted “Indie Film Q&A” over at Film Independent. She’s right. An excerpt: Last week, in Park City, I watched several talented directors quickly ruin their opportunities right before my eyes. I wanted to use this as a chance to explain something VERY IMPORTANT to the festival process, and indie film as a whole, which is… DON’T BE AN A-HOLE. Sure this is much less important in the studio world, as that is more about who makes the most cash in the end, but in the indie world, where there isn’t […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 2, 2009
SXSW ANNOUNCES LINE-UP!

The SXSW Film Festival, unspooling in Austin, Texas from March 13 – 21, has just announced its line-up. Without further adieu… NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITIONThis year’s 8 films were selected from 737 submissions. Films screening in Narrative Feature Competition are: Artois the GoatDirector: Kyle Bogart. Writer: Cliff and Kyle BogartLab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to craft the greatest goat cheese the world has ever known and reclaim the heart of his beloved Angie. Cast: Mark Scheibmeir, Sydney Andrews, Stephen Taylor Fry, Dan Braverman (World Premiere) Bomber Director/Writer: Paul CotterA bittersweet comedy about love, family and dropping bombs […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2009
MEDICINE OPENING NOT MELANCHOLY

Congrats to director Barry Jenkins and stars Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins — their film, Medicine for Melancholy, featured on the cover of the new Filmmaker, scored the #1 spot on the Indiewire per-screen average chart this weekend. Writes Peter Knegt, “IFC Films’ one-screen debut of Barry Jenkins’ Medicine For Melancholy narrowly led all per-theater-averages this weekend, according to estimates provided this afternoon by Rentrak. Its $14,700 haul from New York’s IFC Center became the best opening for a 2009 limited release so far, and beat out Laurent Cantet’s The Class in its first week of release outside of December’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2009
SUNDANCE 2009/8 FAVORITES MEME

I discovered while in Rotterdam that Karina Longworth at Spout tagged me to take part in the Sundance 8 Favorites Meme. So, I’m a bit late with this, but here it goes. First, the rules: 1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.2. Players start with listing their Sundance favorites, separated into 8 categories.3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their 8 favorites and include these rules.4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 8 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2009
TAKEN AND THE PIRACY EFFECT

From Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily: The Super Bowl, pirated copies circulating on the web, and a lovable mall cop heating up the box office all should have depressed the North American grosses for 20th Century Fox’s thriller Taken opening. But the Liam Neeson-starrer, directed by District B13‘s Pierre Morel, and produced by Luc Besson, tackled those obstacles and turned in a super performance of $9.5 million Friday and $12M Saturday (+30%) from 3,183 theaters. That’s way more than what Hollywood expected the film would make all weekend. Now wait a minute… the film that was released in many non-North […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2009
ADVICE FOR THE NEWLY GRADUATED

Screenwriter and director John August was asked to give a commencement address at a film school, and he has posted the speech, which contains a couple of observations and simple but essential pieces of advice, on his blog. After making the observation that being able to shoot and cut together images for the web is an important skill these days (and thus speaks to the worth of a film school education), he offers another super vital recommendation: And let’s talk about your classmates. You probably have some good friends and some people you kind of hope to never see again. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2009
FREE IS NOT ENOUGH

I’ve posted previously on this blog about The Long Tail author Chris Anderson’s recent series of articles (and forthcoming book) on the economics of free. Briefly, Anderson’s proposition is that digital production and delivery, which decreases the marginal cost of goods, drives their purchase price down to zero. For most, this means adapting to the idea of distribution being ad-supported in some way, and this type of revenue scheme is what has dominated Anderson’s previous writings on the subject. But as I noted in a previous post on the Google Book Settlement, the problem with free models for the producer […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 31, 2009

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