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By John Root Stone
Online video is exploding
The global market for online video is expected to grow to $37 billion by 2017. In April, according to Comscore, 182 million Americans – 83% of US Internet users – watched 38 billion videos online. This growth is fed by a vast and ever-growing supply of content that is original and archived, professional and amateur, and distributed across more platforms than anyone cares to remember.
It’s a challenge and an opportunity
For filmmakers, this growth and complex market mix makes it increasingly difficult to find useful and profitable distribution channels. The film distribution hierarchy of yesteryear is flatter than ever with first run premium content competing nearly side-by-side with user-generated content (UGC) for the audience’s time. While this offers both challenges and opportunities to filmmakers, understanding how to take advantage of this new marketplace is anything but simple. [...]
Perhaps this blog is now obsolete (now wouldn’t that be excellent!). Or maybe blogging just doesn’t work the way I hope it would (man, that would be a real shame!). Perhaps change in the film business just about impossible. I am growing afraid it might well be — at least the kind that comes from positive and strategic influence as opposed to spontaneous or reactionary disruption (that kind of change that always is constant). So what is the next step? And why the bleep do I have to ask?
What is going on in this world when everyone agrees that something is totally f*cked but no one with power appears to be doing anything substantial to improve it? Are there secret plansof a new cultural infrastructure hatching and [...]
By Russ Collins
Gary Meyer wrote: I do not like to be a doom and gloom guy but I think there are big changes afoot for commercial cinemas, but not the scenario predicted here. Steven Spielberg Predicts ‘Implosion’ of Film Industry
by Andrew Einspruch
Filmmaker Andrew Einspruch recently attended the Australian International Documentary Conference and wrote a series of articles for the event, which he’s graciously allowed us to reprint here. These articles originally appeared in Screen Hub, the daily online newspaper for Australian film and television professionals.
“You learn the most when you have a success,” said Marcus Gillezeau of Firelight Productions. That’s because you find out what exactly you signed away and what you held onto in your contracts back in the beginning. He also said that there are only two times that people read their contracts – when something fails (so they can get out of it) or when something does well (so they can figure out how to get some of the money).
Gillezeau should know. His company is riding the success of Storm Surfers 3D, a feature film that follows on from their previous Storm Surfers TV series. As the award statues cluster on the mantle, more and more people want to get in on the action. He has become something of a self-made expert on ancillary rights, and shared some of that knowledge in a session at this year’s Australian International Documentary Conference.
Gillezeau started by putting this clause up on the screen:
All rights in all media now known or that may be invented in the future in all territories including the universe… and it’s territories and colonies… in-perpetuity. [...]
By Reid Rosefelt
Today many marketers are making twice as much money on Pinterest as they are on Facebook. Does that mean that for you–my filmmaker and artist readers–Pinterest is worth twice as much of your precious time? Yes, and there’s a simple reason.
All the big social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram have struggled to translate their large numbers into revenue. Eventually, the costs to simply keep in operation get so astronomical that they throw up their hands in despair–and the only answer they can come up with is advertising.
On the other hand, the ability to market and promote is built into Pinterest’s DNA. Pinterest is a colossally effective store that is as fun and addictive as “Angry Birds.” Like that thing you’re looking at? Click. Buy. It’s Google search on steroids. [...]
By Felicity Price
I remember reading someplace that a good story often just falls into your lap fully formed. Now I don’t want to speculate over whether my story is a good one or not, that conjecture is now in the capable hands of film going audiences everywhere, so you can make your own decision, but that’s how it came to me – fully formed. However it still took four years to shape into a script that anyone was willing to finance.
I was stretched out on my couch testing a new theory that perhaps sitting with hunched shoulders and bleeding eyeballs in front of my computer was what was stopping that elusive story from falling… and there it was… I remembered a vaguely told story about a man who went missing in South East Asia while holidaying with his partner and another couple. Tragically, in that true-life story the man was never found again. I was horribly fascinated by the loss and responsibility those left behind might feel and the mystery of what had happened to him. I linked that with a story I already had in my mind about a couple who would fight to keep their relationship together even after the worst kind of betrayal and suddenly I knew I had the skeleton of a feature film. [...]
Part of producing is engineering serendipity. At least part of good producing is. How do we elevate work to the higher levels? How can we bring the mediocre into magnificence? Good producing comes from both the practical side and what many seem to think is the magical side. You have to know how to make basic shit happen on a consistent basis and then you have to learn how to make the rare occur as much as it ever could. It is not magic, but it goes far beyond being practical.
To make the positive aspects of the rare occur more frequently, I have [...]
I am hoping the entire universe shows up for CHINA IN THREE WORDS at the Palm Springs International ShortFest on Saturday, June 22nd at 1030A for “This Just In“, a collection of six short films ripped from the world headlines of social change. China, Japan, Korea, Syria, & the USA are all featured in the program. The whole […]
I received this letter this weekend. I don’t know the cinema, but it looks real nice. I don’t know the letter writer, but I sympathize with his plight. “Public Cinema” sounds like it was a great program and will be a shame to be lost. There are always many sides to any story, but this does sound like a […]
Maybe it comes from recognizing depressing stories don’t generally perform well at the box office, but the film industry remains infected with positive thinking. I certainly enjoy seeing a happy face in the morning, but I still prefer to face the truth. As one who has always enjoyed the dark side of tale telling, I have had to confront the […]
Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are what drive people once they get beyond financial reward. If we can stop worrying about money we work towards these other things. I never liked anyone telling me what to do. I like to feel good about the work I generate and I want people to need it. Ultimately I want to feel that
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