Archives for September 2011

The State of Indie Film in Graphs

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I recently discovered Google Insights for Search. You can see how search for any term, or set of terms has changed. Wow, what fun can be had. Here’s some Friday fun for you.

Here’s Google trends for search on the term Independent Film. Not looking good:

Here it is for Documentary Film:

Here’s Indie vs Documentary:

Here’s Music Documentary:

Here’s a comparison of a few, including foreign film and French Films:

Note that if you type “social issue documentary” or any close variant, there’s not enough data to pull it up at all. But here’s some interesting insight – look how the trendy word “transmedia” fares vs Indie Film. Why…it’s just about as unpopular now!

What does this all mean? I’m obviously no scientist, but I think it’s fun to play around with, and I’ll let you make your own conclusions.

Transmedia Activism and Docs at the NYFF

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NYFF

Looks like I’ll be joining a panel at the New York Film Fest this Saturday night at 7pm to speak about transmedia activism and documentary films. If you are in town and interested in the subject, please stop by and say hello (while asking a question in the Q&A perhaps). The event is in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater at 144 West 65th St, which is a good space for this type of event (seriously, it’s great for a conversation).

Here’s the description from the festival (more panelists TBA):

Session 2 of “Beyond the Screen: The Immersive Media Forum.”

Through the last century documentaries have played a pivotal role informing the public on issues of social and global justice and have served as calls to action, mobilizing citizens and leaders.  As filmmakers and advocacy groups meet on the fluid platforms of the web, a new form of activism has emerged, dubbed “Transmedia Activism.” This panel will discuss this emergence, and the role traditional documentaries and web savvy advocacy groups will play moving forward.

Beyond the Screen: The Immersive Storytelling Forum
Contemporary technologies have always had a profound effect on the way we tell stories.  Just as the printing press paved the way for the novel and television gave us the sitcom, so to the computer is changing the face of entertainment.  This is by no means a new idea – critics, creators, and audiences have been talking about the fact that the digital age is altering the traditional role of the storyteller and audience for some time.  What we hope to do at the Beyond The Screen is to move the conversation along, if only by asking one very simple question: “How?”

It’s a new age for telling stories and with it comes a new set of rules, a new critical vocabulary, as well as new models for doing business.  From video games with ever more realistic graphics and complex narratives to immersive worlds built atop our own that permit audiences to physically explore story in three living dimensions, a change is taking place.  Audiences are transitioning from simple consumers of entertainment into dynamic participants in their media of choice.  Beyond the Screen is a series of panels, presentations, and special events that seeks to draw together the makers driving these changes – the writers, producers, story architects, and designers in the fields of transmedia and video games – for a discussion of the state of the art as well as an exploration of the roll film has played in effected these emerging modes of storytelling…and how these emerging fields have effected the relatively new art of film.  Designed to be accessible to both active producers of transmedia and those just discovering the form (or forms as the case may be) for the first time, BEYOND THE SCREEN aims to change the way you think about storytelling – from how story is told to who is telling it.

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My Personal Kickstarter Policy

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I’ve supported many projects on KickStarter, and I’m a big fan of it and other crowdfunding sites. I’ve shared my thoughts on it a few times here. I also will often blog, Tweet about or otherwise share links to projects I think are worthy of support. I’ve never personally supported a project where I didn’t somehow know the person(s) involved. Maybe we weren’t friends, but I’d met them at some conference or film festival, or had at least seen them pitch their project somewhere else.

I know many people support projects by people unknown to them, even people they’ve never heard of. I think this is a valid practice, but it’s not for me. My wife, on the other hand, has only supported one project and it wasn’t someone she knew at all, she just liked the thing this person was trying to do, but she had no account so I made the donation on her behalf.

Sometimes I support projects that are or have been clients of mine, or where I have some business relationship with the person, or have had something like this in the past. I try to always disclose this, but usually in a blog post, not on Twitter due to the 140 character limit.

I get asked to spread the word about projects all the time. Increasingly, I get asked by people I’ve never met, to support films by people I’ve not only never met, but whose films I’ve never seen. I understand the impulse – when spreading the word about a project, this is what people think you have to do. Cold calling. But I don’t think it’s the proper way to fundraise. If you want me to support your project, I’m simply not the kind of person who responds to a Tweet and then Retweets it to my (small amount of) followers. Plenty of people find someone who knows me and asks them to make an introduction. I’m not that hard to find this way. There’s a slim chance I might respond to a random email or Facebook introduction – with some explanation of why I might care about your project, but I’ll never just auto-retweet to help you out. Sorry.

I’ve helped many people run successful Kickstarter campaigns. We target and reach out to people who don’t know us, but we always contextualize the ask – “Hey Mister Blogger about topic this film covers, we think you might care about this because of X,Y and Z. If you agree, we’d love your support by way of spreading the word. If not, sorry to bother you, and we won’t contact you again.” Works much better than “Hey @bloggerpants show me some love.” What works even better? “Hey Jill, we met at DIYDays and had a nice chat in the hall. I noticed you know Ms. Famous Blogger, and I wonder if you could make an intro so I can explain this film I’m working on, and why I think she’d like to help spread the word.”

I also don’t think the few people who read/follow me would appreciate me turning on the firehose. Part of the reason I follow people and respond to their requests is because they curate what they promote. I do the same – I’m not spreading the word about something unless I know the people involved somehow, know their work and/or it’s something I’m passionate about. IMHO, this is how fundraising works generally, in both the old and new fashioned worlds, and more people need to realize the old quality/quantity argument applies here as well.

Why do I bother to write this up now? Because I can’t respond individually to everyone who asks me for help. As crowdfunding gets more popular, I am getting such requests often, sometimes several in a day. I’m sure people with more followers than me are getting deluged with requests as well. I’m sure each of these projects is worthy, and some might be 100 times better than what I’ve supported. But I support the person as much as the project, and now you know why I’m not tweeting about more projects.

I don’t automatically follow people who follow me online either, but that’s a whole ‘nother post.

Now…back to making my list of people to contact for my next Kickstarter campaign!

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(No title)

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There’s another great Helen Hill retrospective screening down in Atlanta, as part of a new micro-cinema there. The Contraband Cinema will be screening The Florestine Collection, finished by her husband Paul Gailiunas, as well as films by a few other folks.

I’ve been a big fan of Helen’s work, and am so glad Paul took on the task of finishing her last film. As the ContrabandCinema website explains:

“Employing ingenious and resourceful DIY methods, documented in her book Recipes for Disaster, Helen Hill created films and taught filmmaking at the academic and community level. She was much loved in the experimental animation community and continued to work until 2007 when she was killed in New Orleans during a home invasion. She is survived by her husband Paul Gailiunas, their son, two cats and a potbellied pig. There are several awards dedicated to the memory of Helen.”

If you live in/near Atlanta, be sure to check it out.

(No title)

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I met Ben Kalina when doing a consultation in Philadelphia. He’s asked me to help him a bit with an upcoming Kickstarter campaign, but I wanted to share info on his film now. Ben’s new film, Shored Up is shaping up to be a pretty timely look at beach erosion, given the recent events caused by Hurricane Irene. Check out his trailer here, visit the film’s website and follow him on Twitter. He was also a recent guest on Democracy Now, and that’s worth watching if you care about what’s happening on barrier islands due to beach erosion (which also affects the surf, you know, which people come for). All around, a great project.

(Source: http://vimeo.com/)

How not to show a film

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image

On Labor Day, my wife and I decided to finally go see Senna at a movie theater. We were just about to go see it at the Landmark Sunshine Theater, when we realized we could stay nearer to our hood and see it at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, saving a trek and supporting an awesome organization closer to us. I’d been there before for a panel presentation, but hadn’t seen a film in the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (yes, of course, we’ve been to their other theaters over the years).

How surprised we were when we entered the theater and realized we weren’t getting seated in either of the two new, supposedly amazing theaters, but in the Amphitheater – which is basically a little room with glass walls and six or so rows of bench style seating with a gigantic tv screen in front. This is where I’d been to a panel, and the room works fine for such an event, but… we were here for a movie. What the FSLC likes to call a film. What they were, in essence, built to celebrate as an art form.

Senna is no ordinary documentary. It is (supposedly) a tour de force doc about a powerful sportsman in a sport that kinda demands the big screen (Formula 1 racing), big noise, treatment. Not something I wanted to watch from the comfort of my living room, or someone else’s for that matter. (oh, and btw, yes, I watch many films on my laptop, etc, but by choice, and at a different price point, and not at a temple to film, and…).

We reluctantly took our seats, it was about half full, which isn’t bad for a Holiday evening. But, due to a big design flaw, my wife’s feet couldn’t touch the floor. So, not only is this not stadium seating, but it’s not even standard theater seating, or standard…anything seating. She rested her feet on her bike helmet and we began debating our options – see this in a less than ideal space (to be charitable) or walk out and try to see it on a real movie screen in the future. Well, our decision-making process had barely gotten started when the usher came in to let us know the film would be starting soon, but there would be some light issues due to the design of the space and to let them know if it bothered us.

??

That was enough to get us to leave. They gave us a refund after pointing out that we’d paid cheaper – $10 instead of $13 – because of the theater. I decided the poor ticket seller had nothing to do with this absurdity and just smiled as I got my refund. We left. We fumed about the state of cinema-going.

What the heck has gone wrong here? How does a film society, not just any society, but THE Film Society of Lincoln Center thinks it’s acceptable to show a film this way and charge admission? I’m not going to bother to point out all the reasons this isn’t acceptable – I can’t believe that any of the cinephiles I know at FilmLinc would possibly think this is acceptable, and I’m sure they know the reasons why. I know that the current leadership wasn’t there when this theater was designed, so I’m not blaming them for not realizing that Mr. Fancypants Architect designed them a no-good amphitheater that wasn’t practical for showing films. But I do think all of them should take a little retreat, perhaps to a cinema like The Paris, and have a big talk about how they might better showcase this “important art” we call film.

I am guessing that showing films in the amphitheater is a purely financial decision. These new theaters were expensive, the economy is pretty bad and nonprofits always need a way to make more money, and I can understand that need, but this is not the way to do it. Frankly, I’m also surprised that any distributor would let their film be shown this way. I’m all for shaking up how we think of seeing films, and I think we all need to be open to new ideas, which is why I love the ReRun, for example. But this doesn’t feel like a bold experiment to me. It just feels like putting a film where it isn’t meant to go.

In all the reading I’ve done about the Center, I never read that the amphitheater was meant for showing films. I heard about it being used for talks, for special presentations and such. I could see it being used in any number of ways, but not as a first-run, arthouse theater. Give me some lectures, even with some film examples being shown. Give me screenings with running discussions. Showcase some of the great art-world films that usually only get seen in a gallery. Heck, I’d love to see something like The Clock in there (well, maybe not, the gallery here was more comfortable). But please, stop showing films like this, and if you must, please make it much more clear on your website that the film won’t be seen in a real theater so cinemaniacs don’t waste their time and money.

I’m off to do that tonight, finally going downtown to Landmark. I’d rather not. I am a huge fan of the FSLC and their new leadership and staff. I want to spend every one of my cinema dollars at their Center. I’ll still go when I’m 100% sure the film won’t be in the amphitheater, and I’ll go to that space for other, non-cinema, events. People don’t take constructive criticism well in this business, but if they read this, I sure hope they do this time.

(Photo from Film Society of Lincoln Center website)

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FilmDIY Guide to the Interweb

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Recently, I was lucky enough to meet Kobi Shely, the filmmaker of MacHeads, and founder of both DocMovies and FilmDIY. FilmDIY is a very filmmaker-friendly e-commerce site where you can sell your film online at any price you want, nonexclusive terms and get an automatic 70% return. His company also helps with some promotion and things like Facebook apps, etc. Kobi sent me this excellent video they made to promote the service, and it’s pretty smart. Check it:

What is filmDIY? The Filmmaker’s Guide to The Interweb from filmDIY on Vimeo.

Breathing New Life into Your (old) Film

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I’ve long thought that people give up too easily on older indie films that didn’t break into the big time on the first go-round. Usually, it’s the distributors that give up, (not to beat up on them, but because many older indie films that one has ever seen are locked up with distributors, not lying in the filmmaker’s closet), but sometimes it’s the filmmaker not being creative enough with their older titles. I understand this – people want to move on to the next project, so spending much time re-positioning an older film may not be worth the time. But when you have a little success that first go-round, you’re well positioned to tap back into that fan base, and bring in some new ones, and noting does that better than an event-based screening.

Which is why I’m so happy that Milt Thomas is planning a 10 year anniversary screening of his little masterpiece, Claire. A very smart event-based anniversary screening. See, Claire was always an event-based screening kind of film. Shot on a hand-cranked, Mitchell 35mm camera in Black and White, Claire was a silent film only shown with a live orchestral accompaniment. This made for quite the magisterial screening, but it was also quite expensive to pull off. In fact, one very famous, major film festival turned down the film solely for this reason, but the film premiered at the Frameline San Francisco LGBT Festival and went on to play multiple festivals and cities. One of these was recorded to make a DVD of the film, but the real way to see this film has always been live.

Now, Milt is putting together an anniversary screening on November 3, 2011 in Atlanta, GA and he’s holding a very tiny Kickstarter campaign that will pay for the venue rental and for the composer, Anne Richardson, to re-compose the film for a string quartet, which will allow the film to travel to other venues much more economically. This is a very smart idea, and I imagine Milt can get a fair amount of 10th Anniversary bookings. I’m planning to support him, and to travel back down to Atlanta to be there for this screening. I recommend you do the same – Atlanta is great in November, and this promises to be a great event. I hope to see you there!