When I attended the Future of Music Conference this year I heard a lot of talk about all of the opportunities that exist today for indie musicians to create and distribute their products via digital media on the web. Later, at the Flyway Film Festival I heard former Tribeca CEO Brian Newman speak on similar topics in relation to indie filmmakers. The central theme to all of it is that indie artists can be successful without a major label contract or major studio distribution. In the end though talk is cheap and what looks good on paper doesn’t always translate […]
After a great week of discussions on our Weekly Player forum, Jon Reiss will be at the IFC Center tonight in NYC to conduct our first in a series of events at the Center on new, digital-era ways of financing, distributing, marketing and building an audience for independent films. Reiss’s seminar will teach how to create unique distribution and marketing plans for independent films. He will also be selling copies of his new book Think Outside the Box (Office): The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing in the Digital Era. Over at indieWIRE today the site has published a […]
I’m at the Edinburgh Film Festival, jetlagged bad, and I’m asked for emerging filmmaker advice by some kid. He says, in particular, he wants to know about making art films and being a writer/director. Oh boy. I try to find something to say, but it’s disingenuous and the kid knows it. I go back to the hotel room and roll around in the bed, can’t sleep. The only thing on the T.V. is Michael Jackson’s body bag. I go to the window and look at the ancient castle and the ancient fog and I think about what I would tell […]
Tonight at 7pm we will continue our Meet The Filmmaker series at the Apple Store in SoHo (103 Prince St) with a discussion with The Road director John Hillcoat. Based on the Cormac McCarthy best-selling novel, the film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as a father and son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. For the Fall 2008 issue we were granted an exclusive visit to Hillcoat’s edit room to talk to him as he put the finishing touches on the film. “The material doesn‘t shy away from the worst aspects of humanity, yet what‘s unusual about it […]
Forget the Oscars, as a producer, I can die now. (You need to watch both clips, and the first one especially to the end.) Original Video– More videos at TinyPic Seriously, when Harmony Korine forwarded me these links, I thought they were great and couldn’t stop laughing. And then I thought about what we producers go through when trying to obtain music for our films. I can’t remember how much we paid for the music rights for the Roy Orbison version of the Patsy Cline song “Crying” that closes out Gummo, but I’m sure it was a lot less than […]
If one had only a single adjective with which to describe the body of work that directing team David Siegel and Scott McGehee have crafted over the past decade and a half, cerebral immediately jumps to mind. Since their debut film Suture (1993), an austere, black and white thriller starring Dennis Haysbert that took Toronto and Sundance by storm, they have often found it difficult to get their peculiar brand of thoughtful, idea driven filmmaking off the ground. Even if it was far from experimental hijinks of a Hollis Frampton or Kenneth Anger, the fact that the original Suture VHS […]
As he did in making his debut feature Ballast, Lance Hammer ignored all the conventional rules when he released the film last year. Originally slated to be opened by IFC Films, Hammer — known best for his work in the visual effects department of Hollywood pictures like the Batman films of the Joel Schumacher era — rethought his decision and came to the conclusion that it would be better to self distribute the film. Though the attention of his dramatic move led to more ink about the self-distribution/DIY model than any other time in recent memory, it’s still hard to […]
We inaugurate our “Weekly Player” series with filmmaker Jon Reiss (Bomb It), who will be on the forums all this week (November 9 – 16) answering your questions about DIY distribution, marketing, publicity and outreach. Jon is the author the new book, Think Outside the Box (Office): The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era, and readers will know him from the great series of articles he’s written for us — “My Adventure in Theatrical Self-Distribution,” “My Adventure in Home Video,” and “How to Market Your DVD Online.” These articles grew into the book, which I’ve […]
2ND UPDATE: We have our winners. Thanks, all! UPDATE: To win a digital copy of Objectified, answer the question below and email editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com. Almost three years ago I decided to check out what seemed to be an obscure little documentary about graphic design at SXSW and was surprised to find the line to get in stretching all the way down the length of the convention hall. As the editor of a magazine, the subject matter of Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica — an examination of the historical, communicative and ideological meanings of that ubiquitous typeface — interested me. I hadn’t […]
Tonight at 7pm head over to the NYC Apple Store in SoHo (103 Prince Street) for what’s sure to be a lively and entertaining conversation with director Jason Reitman. He’ll be talking about his latest film Up in the Air starring George Clooney as a corporate downsizer whose life of collecting frequent flyer miles, perks and no-strings-attached hookups is in jeopardy. Interviewing Reitman for the Fall issue, Scott Macaulay writes: “One of the most astonishing things about Up in the Air is the clear eye it casts on 2009 America and a workforce undergoing the shock treatment of recession, outsourcing […]