Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Marc Schiller Talks the Benefits of Movie Bundling
This week Bond/360 launched what they’ve dubbed a “Creativity Bundle” — four movies having to do with making and creation downloadable from VHX for a single, pay-what-you-wish fee. In a blog post I wrote about Bond/360’s use of what’s become known as “the Radiohead model,” based on the recording group’s pricing strategy for their In Rainbows album. But there’s another innovation going on here, and that’s the bundling of titles. Film packages are a staple of foreign sales, but usually they work in a different way. A distributor must buy a package of films in order to get the one […]
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Nine Lessons for Self-Distributing Filmmakers with No Money and No Experience
This article by Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez about the distribution of their Detroit firefighter documentary Burn originally appeared in our Fall, 2013 print edition. It is appearing online for the first time. “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” — Mark Twain As filmgoers are increasingly flooded with new media options to keep them at home, the prevailing theory is that the days of theatrical releases for independent films are in their last slow throes. We disagree because we just spent the last year filling 300- to 2,000-seat theaters in 170 cities with our firefighter documentary Burn. We […]
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Platform Monopolies: Good or Bad for Independent Filmmakers?
Dubbed “a novelist from the day after tomorrow” in Sunday’s New York Times, Vincent Zandri profits, quite well, by living in the Amazon universe. His mystery novels are edited, published, marketed and sold by Amazon. Perhaps most importantly, the mechanism through which new readers will discover his work, the latticework of likes, referrals and recommendations, are increasingly controlled by Amazon and its related properties, like Goodreads. For Zandri, who achieved modest success through traditional publishers before signing with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint, the internet giant’s model is the new way. Reduced to “returning bottles and cans for grocery money,” […]
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Bond/360 Launches “Pay What You Wish” Four-Movie “Creativity Bundle”
Hailed as revolutionary back in 2007, “the Radiohead model” — pay-what-you-wish downloadable media pricing — never flourished in the years following. Even Radiohead abandoned it. Yet, as Bond/360 is setting out to prove, it may still have its place when it comes to independent film. Tonight at midnight they’re launching a four-film “Creativity Bundle” download through VHX. Pay what you want to own — not rent — four movies. And, just as Radiohead’s In Rainbows was one of their best, these titles (or at least the two I’ve seen) are excellent: Indie Game, Helvetica, Sign Painters and Beauty is Embarrassing. […]
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Distribution Strategies for the Regional Festival Circuit
A little while back, I looked at a small portion of The Film Collaborative’s most recent book, Selling Your Film Outside the US, which considered an unusual case of DIY distribution in Europe. Now, over at their blog, Sheri Candler and Orly Ravid are running a series on distribution preparation for filmmakers worldwide. As submissions for Sundance are already open, the latest entry centers on festivals, and why you should already have a distribution strategy on the back burner before your acceptance, or, rejection. If you don’t get into one of the top-tier festivals (Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, etc.), teeming with reluctant buyers, the chances that your film will […]
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A Round-Up of the Last Non-Linear Editor Updates
June proved to be a rich month for non-linear editor users. Adobe released their latest Creative Cloud update, Apple updated Final Cut Pro X, Motion, and Compressor, the public beta of DaVinci Resolve 11 was released, and the Mac beta of Lightworks finally appeared. Adobe Creative Cloud On June 17 Adobe released the second major update to Creative Cloud. For Premiere Pro this release adds a new masking feature for effects. You can now easily add an effect mask either using an Oval or a four-point polygon tool. A built-in tracking tool makes it possible to track a shape […]
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Trailer Watch: Starred Up
David Mackenzie’s Starred Up is more or less an exemplary entry in the prison drama genre. Narratively speaking, there isn’t anything wildly original at work, as the hotheaded protagonist Eric Love (Jack O’Connell) is starred up from juvie to the same higher security prison as his estranged father (Ben Mendelsohn). There, he is quick to make enemies amongst both the incarcerated and the administration, with the one exception being a puppy-eyed counselor (Rupert Friend), who claims to see something in Eric worth healing. What sets Starred Up apart are the performances (the charismatic O’Connell has received much notice, but Mendelsohn yet again proves he can do […]
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Borscht Corporation Launches Crowdsourced Scarface Redux
“Say hello to my little friend!” If you’ve ever fantasized unleashing your inner Tony Montana — or, more accurately, your inner ’80s-era Brian DePalma — then the latest crowdsourced art project from the Miami-based Borscht Corporation is for you. Borscht has announced Scarface Redux, a fan remake of the 1983 drug lord epic, with filmmakers from all over the world invited to direct and submit their own 15-second segment. The clip can be “live action, animation, puppets, legos, Chihuahuas, it doesn’t matter!”, the site says. The finished film will be screened at the Borscht Film Festival in December at a […]
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Parsing DIY Distribution with the CRI Virtual Toolbox
Need to make a snap decision about a crowdfunding or DIY distribution platform? Then check out the Virtual Toolbox from NYU’s Cinema Research Institute. The Cinema Research Institute at NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Graduate Film Program selects four fellows a year who “engage in the entrepreneurial exploration of the film business and initiate valuable research to be leveraged by the film community at large.” This year’s fellows have explored everything from dynamic pricing models to modeling film investment, but while we wait to learn more about their work, recommended and available online now is the Virtual Toolbox, created […]
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Malcolm X in Dinesh D’Souza’s America: A Dialectical Double-Feature
Cities with active repertory theaters offer options for constructing cross-town do-it-yourself double-features, and a chance this Sunday to follow Malcolm X at BAMcinématek’s Spike Lee retro with Dinesh D’Souza’s America: Imagine the World Without Her seemed too dialectically productive to pass up. The connecting common component turned out to be a compact Malcolm soundbite (“We don’t see any American Dream. We’ve experienced only the American Nightmare!”), recited by Denzel Washington at the end of a longer peroration in Lee’s opening credits and presented as a stand-alone snippet from the real Malcolm in D’Souza’s film. It’s no surprise America ditches the […]
