Authors — Scott Macaulay

TALKING ‘BOUT OUR GENERATION

New models, new forms of storytelling, convergence, how we will make money, how we will make art — being an independent filmmaker or investor or producer right now is all about talking. Being part of the dialogue. Taking part in the conversation. Appropriately, then, Scott Kirsner of the CinemaTech blog, Ken Goldberg, Tiffany Shlain and Lance Weiler are co-hosting The Conversation/The Future of Cinema, Games and Online Video: New Tools/New Distribution/New Rules at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California on October 17 and 18th. The official spam: This October, pioneers at the forefront of change in cinema, video, games, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 6, 2008
TRUE DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

Back in 1995 Ted Hope wrote a full-throated and trenchant critique of the indie film business for Filmmaker that was entitled “Indie Film is Dead.” It’s either sad, funny, curious or fascinating (take your pick) that much of what Hope wrote 13 years ago still applies today. (If you haven’t read this piece, I really recommend hitting the link and taking a look at it.) I thought of this piece today while reading something on his Truly Free Film blog — a report from a panel discussion at the Woodstock Film Festival. First, from the old Filmmaker piece: The film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 6, 2008
ANTONIO CAMPOS ON SCREEN

Filmmaker 25 New Faces writer/director Antonio Campos is written up in the New York Times today by Dennis Lim. About his new feature Afterschool, which plays at the New York Film Festival: Afterschool, which Mr. Campos called a “present-day sci-fi film,” wrestles with a strange and relatively new fact of life that we have barely had time to process. We live in a world where, he said, “it feels like YouTube has been around forever and will always be around.” For more from Campos, visit the Filmmaker Videos page, where our friends from Filmcatcher have produced for us a short […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 5, 2008
THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED IN THIS WEEK’S NEWSLETTER

Every week newsletter subscribers receive an email from us in which we link to key stories from the blog and the website from the previous seven days, highlight various pieces of news and festival deadlines, and in which I write a brief Editor’s Letter. I tend to write stuff that I don’t post elsewhere on the site or in the magazine, and it’s free to join — just subscribe by typing your email address in the box at the left. I’m posting below the letter from this week’s newsletter as I used it to plug two great movies opening this […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 2, 2008
MUSIC ROYALTY RATE LEFT UNCHANGED; iTUNES LIVES

Rex Crum at Marketwatch reports: The Copyright Royalty Board on Thursday left unchanged the amount record companies will pay songwriters for the sale of CDs or digitally downloaded songs. The three-judge panel said the record companies will continue to pay 9.1 cents a song, while the National Music Publishers Association had sought an increase to 15 cents a song. Apple Inc. and other online music stores had opposed the potential price increase. Additionally the CRB set a payment rate of 24 cents each for songs sold as ringtones for cellphones.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 2, 2008
FILM TAX BREAKS INCLUDED IN BAIL-OUT BILL

Nikki Finke points to this Los Angeles Times piece that reveals that pro-movie biz breaks are included in the bail-out bill that just passed the Senate and which is headed for the house. Specifically, the bill extends the film production cost deduction included in the 2004 Jobs Creation Act to December, 2009, and it lifts the budget cap on eligible films. Now, instead of being limited to films budgeted at up to $15 million, the deduction is capped at $15 million for any single film no matter what the budget.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 2, 2008
APPLE: TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY…

The Fortune article entitled “Digital Music Showdown” is linked all over the web today as it contains a seemingly bombshell-like piece of news: that Apple is threatening to shutter the iTunes music store over the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C.’s proposal to increase the royalty rates for digitally-sold music by six cents a song. The story is grabber, and it grabbed me — I playfully lifted a page from Keith Olberman to protest what I called Apple’s “preposterous piece of brinksmanship.” Of course, the devil is always in the details, and as a number of posters to the original […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 2, 2008
APPLE… WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD!!!

I’ll steal a page from Keith Olberman as I link to this CNN article on Apple’s threat to shut down its iTunes movie store over a dispute over artist royalty rates. From the piece by Devin Leonard: The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C. is expected to rule Thursday on a request by the National Music Publishers’ Association to increase royalty rates paid to its members on songs purchased from online music stores like iTunes. The publishers association wants rates raised from 9 cents to 15 cents a track – a 66% hike. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) declined to discuss […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 1, 2008
QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Examining the record of past research from the vantage of contemporary historiography, the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well. Of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 29, 2008
TED HOPE ON A TRULY FREE FILM CULTURE

Over on our Web Exclusives page I’ve posted Ted Hope’s just-concluded keynote address at the Film Independent Filmmaker Forum. Please read at this link and post comments if you have them. Here’s how he opens: I can’t talk about the “crisis” of the indie film industry. There is no crisis. The country is in crisis. The economy is in crisis. We, the filmmakers, aren’t in crisis. The business is changing, but for us –us who are called Indie Filmmakers — that’s good that the business is changing. Filmmaking is an incredible privilidge and we need to accept it as such […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 27, 2008

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