Archives for festivals

Reimagining Film Fests Panel

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After I published my recent piece on film festivals (which also ran in IndieWire), I started having a discussion with Rebecca Green of the Dear Producer newsletter about many things, including what the film fest of the future might look like. She invited me to a panel she’s hosting on the subject – this Friday at 2pm ET – and you can register for it here. I’ll be joining a few people I think are among the smartest in the biz – Karin Chien, Marilyn Ness and Rebecca (moderating) to imagine what it would look like to re-imagine festivals in a way that helps everyone – the festivals, filmmakers and audiences.

One of the ways I’ve been thinking about this panel is – if festivals didn’t exist at all, what would we create from scratch? I think that helps frame the discussion in a different manner than usual. It’s also a question I asked in a post back in 2013 – and that I return to often- “The question should be, what do filmmakers need most now? And is what they need something that a festival can help with, or do we need to start something different to solve this need? If filmmakers got together in the same spirit that led them to create film co-ops and festivals (and filmmaker organizations, and magazines, and…) then what would they make together today?” Of course, festivals also must serve audiences, and they’re all trying to survive a global pandemic. But the hope is by asking what would be build that would be most helpful for filmmakers (all of whom are coming with different needs, too, btw), then maybe we can add these ideas to what gets built out of this crisis. It is one of many different conversations being had right now – I’ve been on two other zoom panels about it this week alone, and know of two more (at least), but it’s one I hope will be interesting. 

Join us for the discussion on Friday.

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Quarantine Questions

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McCarthy in Deadline

Some questions on my mind these past few days of quarantine, in no particular order.

What’s Up With Online Film Festival Timing? – While CPH:DOX had a seemingly successful online festival (see below), I have serious questions as to how this works for other fests. But my number one question remains – in a virtual world, why are all of these online festivals taking place at different time periods, dictated by old systems built to avoid conflict, when they could all take place at the same time and amplify their message? Most of them are showing the same films anyway, and even with their idiosyncrasies built in, it seems to me that it would be better to move your dates, slow down a bit and explore the power of collaboration and joint-marketing instead of just plowing ahead. 

Whither the Trifecta/Fall Festivals? – I’ve heard rumors that the Trifecta (Venice, Telluride and Toronto) Festivals plan to take place in some form this September, along with many regional Fall film festivals. But I give you one quote: “There have been 10 influenza pandemics in the past 250-plus years—two started in the northern hemisphere winter, three in the spring, two in the summer and three in the fall. All had a peak second wave approximately six months after emergence of the virus in the human population, regardless of what initial introduction occurred.” (emphasis mine), This comes from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine‘s expertly named report – Rapid Expert Consultation on SARS-CoV-2 Survival in Relation to Temperature and Humidity and Potential for Seasonality for the COVID-19 Pandemic (April 7, 2020). Let’s do the math: March+6=September. So either these festivals get cancelled or we show up there and risk dying. That math doesn’t work – and your potential attendees know it, even if you and your board don’t, Fall festival folks.

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Inventing the New Reality

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Rube Goldbergin’ some Sanitizer

Last week, I looked at all of the ways I think the film industry is going to be impacted by this crisis, and how we won’t be going back to normal. I promised a Part Two that would be more positive, but remember that I did post positive thoughts just a week earlier. If you are looking for a list of clear solutions, quit reading now. I don’t have them, and I don’t think anyone else does, either. Instead, here’s some thoughts on how we should approach this new reality – a mindset we might bring to the situation – in the form of some slogans we would do well to remember. These are mainly written towards arthouse/indie filmmakers, but I think they apply to branded content folks (my other audience) as well.

It’s not til the Tide Goes Out that You See Who’s Swimming Naked
Often attributed to Warren Buffet, I think this slogan applies pretty well to the film business right now (all business?). While a lot of the damage from the crisis is unique – so many people losing jobs at once, no one can gather or work together, etc. – there’s also a fair amount of things that always sucked about the film business, but this crisis just laid them bare, to where we can’t deny their reality any longer. Guess what? Festivals – other than the top 5-6 – never helped sell films. As Marj Safinia said in a group conference call I was on recently – that was a false security blanket that has now been removed. The indie film world, and docs in particular, were never a sustainable career-path.  Arthouse distribution and exhibition was always a shitty business. A lot of this was a house of cards. It sucks to have a band-aid ripped off fast, but the pain ends quicker. I know this sounds pessimistic, but it’s not – now that we’ve been forced to collectively realize that few of us have our pants on below those Zoom screens, we can also start to build something based less on fiction and more on the reality we now know we live in.
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It’s time for Branded Content to Break the Rules

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I wrote another guest post this week for BrandStorytelling – check out the full article there, but here’s a teaser:

As more brands move into long form branded content – meaning feature length documentary or narrative films around 90 minutes – brands increasingly have the same plan – to premiere at Sundance or another top festival and then “get onto Netflix”. These are worthy goals to be sure, and I’ve sold multiple brand client films to Netflix and other distributors. But this is just one strategy for distribution, and I keep hoping more brands will wake up to the reality that maybe they don’t need to follow “the rules” and go down this path to distribute their films. Perhaps it could be better to break the rules of the old-school film world and forge their own paths.

This might seem counterintuitive, but if part of the goal of premiering at Sundance/SXSW and then landing on Netflix is to show prestige and break through the noise, you might be picking the most crowded path of all.

Read the Full Post here. And in case you’re wondering – yes, this applies to indie filmmakers as well, but brands are better capitalized to take control of their distribution. And no, I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep in mind the realities of the marketplace, or best practices, but I am saying that a lot of those aren’t working anymore, and we can explore new models, especially if you are a brand with a loyal following and marketing know-how.

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Surviving the Trifecta Dash, Fake film fests, brain machine interfaces, new branded content and more

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