Don't Call It Film

I've worked in film production since the Eighties, and I've seen lots of changes in the technology, most for the better. There has been a lot of discussion about digital vs film. This blog will look beyond the technical to the affect digital has had on what I'm calling cinema culture. I hope to have discussions with industry professionals from different departments to get their take on this subject, and lots of guest posts.

When people approach me about producing or line producing a short film, and we begin to discuss budget, one of the first things I ask is the reason for making it.  Seems like a simple enough question, but many people really haven’t thought it out.

There are many reasons for making a short.  One obvious one is to build a reel.  Sometimes, a specific short is either a part of a feature the director would like to produce, and the short serves as sort of an advanced teaser for investors.  I’ve done a couple like this.  I recently worked with a French director on a his first feature who said that among his film friends in France, doing shorts is an art form in and of itself.

Yes, it is possible to get sales for shorts, but, as the director  suggests, if you are only in it for the money, you might want to think again.

directingfilm:

Short Film Distribution: In It For the Money - 

I received our royalty report from Shorts International today.  Before I get to the nitty-gritty, I’d like to offer up some context.  The film above, Refuge, was signed to a distribution agreement with Shorts International about a year ago.  We negotiated back and forth for about a month and ended up in a pretty good place.  The only sticking point involved some online exclusivity which bars us from showing the film in full, online, for free.  We almost walked away, not because we thought their policy was irrational, but because we felt we could get more eyes on the film if we gave it away.  But that’s a different post for a different time.  We ended up signing the deal and I’m happy we did.  

In return for ceding our right to stream Refuge for the next four years, we gained valuable distribution experience, a new partner and about 30 different runs on the Shorts HD channel (which can be found on AT&T and DirecTV).  We were also paid a grand total of $72.00 for the last 6 months of royalties.  In light of two years of hard work and the $35,000 spent making the film, it isn’t much, but that’s the nature of the beast.  The route we take on future films like The Assassination of Chicago’s Mayor will likely be different - but Shorts International remains a valuable part of the ecosystem.

~ü

Neil Gaiman: It's Extra Magic Bonus Happy Leap Year Day!

neil-gaiman:

Please celebrate Leap Year Day in the traditional manner by taking a writer out for dinner.

It’s been four years since many authors had a good dinner. We are waiting. Many of us have our forks or chopsticks at the ready - some of us have had them ready for days. We will repay you by drifting off…

directingfilm:

The Wabi-Sabi of Celluloid: 

The film strip is the line between making movies on celluloid and shooting with a digital sensor.  Each frame of film is new material reacting to light.  As the strip travels through time, dust settles, scratches happen, and the world touches the medium.  

This is the sublime essence of the film strip.  I embrace it.  The medium itself shows us the insubstantiality of the reductive narrative on screen.  It conveys to us the imperfection of our own world.  And as twenty-four frames go through the gate every second, the impermanence becomes a tangible fact. 

As celluloid ebbs it’s position as the dominate image-making medium, the material will regress to its essence.  It will no longer attempt to be perfect.  It will become more honest about what it is.  Exposing film is like brewing tea.  Spectacular.  Beautiful.  Imperfect.  Nuanced.  

~ü

You really hit on something here, and very eloquently said.  Our eyes can give us as close to a perfect representation of what we see we need, perfection in reproducing an image is not art, any more than a photograph has any intrinsic advantage over a painting as art.  Film helps bring us images through the eyes of the filmmaker the way painting brings us images through the eyes of the painter.  Thank you.

Will The Delivery System Deliver The Ultimate Irony?

Maybe I’m an alarmist, but I couldn’t help but see parallels between the the Nigerian movie industry, and a director trying to elevate it, and the US movie system, which may be heading in a different direction. (Click on the title above for a link to a wonderful NY Times Magazine article on the Nigerian Film Industry, below for the video story,  and how it relates to our situation).

The Making of the Nigerian Film Industry

A little about the industry in Nigeria, a $500 million “business (that) churns out more than a thousand titles a year on average, and trails only Hollywood and Bollywood in terms of revenues. The films are hastily shot and then burned onto video CDs, a cheap alternative to DVDs. They are seldom seen in the developed world, but all over Africa consumers snap up the latest releases from video peddlers for a dollar or two.”

I know what you are thinking.  ”What is he talking about?  The Hollywood system is star-driven, and thrives on big-budget films.  The two are completely different.”

On the surface, the two systems couldn’t be more different, but they come closer as we get deeper in the article:

The article describes the distribution hubs for these cheap CD movies, Alaba, with movies piled high in cheap paper sleeves.  ”Castoff plastic discs, the detritus of digital replication, litter the muddy ground like seashells.”

The author then makes a connection:

This may not be quite what Jean-Luc Godard had in mind when he recently declared that with digital cameras, “everyone is now an auteur.” But it certainly represents a vision of what the future could hold — and not just for Nigeria — if the practice of making entertainment ceases to be rewarding to professionals. … When everyone is an auteur, who values artistry? (bold mine)

Much is made now of the democracy of both the new technology, and the ability to bypass normal distribution channels and get movies directly to audiences.  There are a lot of sites and services that do this now, but short of the genre films, I don’t see many competing in terms of not just the money earned, but, more importantly, the exposure of major motion pictures that are part of “the machine.” Without a doubt, that will change.

While the technical quality might not be as low as it is for many of the movies in the Nigerian market, a look through these sites tells you that for every one bright new director with a unique script and a talented young DP, there are at least a thousand that don’t reach much higher than film school quality.  Film school is nice - but is that really the acceptable quality level?

There will always be those who strive to be better, like the hero of this article, Kunle Afolayan, who strive to deliver something better for the sake of being better.  Afolayan is not looking to make art flicks, though, but rather big, Hollywood-style movies.  The budget for his latest movie is $500,000, way beyond the average Nigerian budget.

The article talks about other Nigerian directors who are also striving to create better quality movies, but the system is a definite impediment.  

How about our system, and where we are heading.  The thing that may most distinguish us from the Nigerian system is that going to the a movie theater to watch movies is much more ingrained in our DNA (though the article points out it was the same way for Nigerians before their economy collapsed in the 1970s).

That, too, can change here, especially as the economic divide in this country becomes more pronounced.  Again, Nigeria today:

One night I took a glass elevator up to the Silverbird Cinema, an American-style mall multiplex in a nouveau riche section of Lagos.(bold mine) After paying about $7 — an exorbitant sum in Nigeria — I watched “The Mirror Boy,” a hot New Nollywood release. It was about an African boy, raised in Britain, who returns home and ends up on a long quest through the jungle, accompanied by a ghostly guide, played by Osita Iheme.

The cinema I go to regularly now charges $13.50 for a ticket.  That may not match Broadway or Met Opera prices, but it’s heading upward, and with the financial divide we are experiencing in this country, the thought of a family going out and buying three, four, or five tickets at this price can definitely be a pricey decision, especially when the family is already paying a flat fee to see as many movies as they want on their home screen, screens which technology is making more and more like theater quality and size.

Does this sound that far from where we can be in a short time? Below, a Nigerian marketer speaks.

The marketers contend that spending more would be foolish, because the low price of Nollywood movies is part of their appeal. “You must first identify who your primary market is,” Isikaku, a shrewd and sinewy operator, told me. “If your primary audience is the elites and the middle class, the people that can go to the cinema, fine, well and good. But there are some programs that are meant for the people on the street.”

If your primary audience is the elites and the middle class?  Some programs are meant for the people on the street?  As delivery to the home becomes cheaper, and attending the cinema becomes more expensive, are we really that far behind the system described in this article?

Yes, as the article points out, our own movie system started with the nickelodeon.  My mom, who is 91, talks about seeing double features for a dime.  Those double-features were not divided by class; she was seeing the same movies in East Harlem that the folks on Fifth Avenue were seeing.  We managed to evolve to a system that allowed everyone to afford to go to the movies, much as Henry Ford understood that he would sell more cars if everyone could own one.

I’m not so sure that is where our economy, or our industry, is headed.  I welcome new auteurs, and costs that are within reason to allow them to bring their talents to the forefront.  Still, I worry that the digital divide we may be approaching may create a two-tier system where quality films in the cinema are thought of as a luxury for hedge fund managers on a date. 

Will the ultimate irony be that as making movies becomes more accessible for the aspiring movie-maker, going to see it in the theater will become less accessible for the aspiring movie-watcher?

Party Scene From Man of The Century

Party Scene From Man of The Century

Will Digital Liberate Us From 35mm Tyranny?

If one were to believe the articles online, the advent of digital film-making will lead to a liberation of the movie industry from the tyranny of the high cost and exclusive nature of 35mm film-making, and allow cinema to finally become the province of the proletariat.

Many of us are familiar with Francis Ford Coppola’s statement that as technology advances, the next great film may well be by some kid with a home camera.  That statement was made in the 1990s, and with the digital advances, we should see such a movie.

We should see it, but it doesn’t exist.  Why?

Digital technology has certainly been a boon for genre movies, the B-Movies which date back to the Studio days.  Bloody crime dramas, horror films, sci-fi, et al, are all films that found distribution easily when they were shot on film, and still find distribution today. Many were shot on 35mm film, many others on 16mm to save money, but throw in a generic formula, and an Eric Estrada or Bruce Campbell or Lance Hendrickson (oh, and don’t forget a busty chic or two), and you had yourself a sale.

For these movies, digital is indeed a boon.  The advances in post combined with digital technology probably means most of these movies can be done every better than in the film days, as money can be more wisely spent.  Their intended market is the home market, whether it be digital, online, or some other delivery, and not intended for the big screen.  This is all perfect for digital.

What about cinema, though?  What about movies made for the big screen, even if they are independent?  Are those independent films easier to make?  More importantly, once made, are those movies getting wide, theatrical distribution?

Again, this is why I speak of cinema culture, the experience of sitting in a darkened theater watching a well-made film on a big screen.  Alas, I know we are more than ever looking at digital projection, and Roger Ebert has some good articles on the flaws in both digital and film projection in theater, notably the classic The Dying of the Light.

Good independent filmmaking still requires certain things; a good script, talented actors, good production value (from cinematography to art direction) and a director with a vision.  Only the latter can be discounted, assuming the director is also the producer and willing to take his money on the back-end.  All of the others cost at least some money, as much if not more than they did in the past.  Locations are rarely free, and, last I looked, gas stations, toll booths and other facts of movie life don’t give indie discounts.

The fact is, films were made on budgets similar to those now being done digitally in the 35mm era.  Let me take one real-life example.

Few would deny that The Artist is one of the best films this year, maybe one of the best films of the new century.  We can debate the latter some other time; it’s a well-made movie that was well-received.

There is no way the look of that film, which had significant financing, could have been done digitally, not today, not as the technology currently exists.

Here is where I can draw from personal experience.  Man of the Century was released in 1999.  The Artist was shot on color stock and printed to black-and-white to achieve that look; Man of the Century used a similar technique, and for a similar reason, to evoke a different era.  Man of the Century is a comedy with music about a contemporary reporter who lives as though it is the 1920s; as such, his world is represented in black-and-white.  The film, co-written by director Adam Abraham and lead actor Gibson Frazier, featuared 1920s music and a cast of talented New York-based actors like Cara Buono, Rent’s Anthony Rapp, veterans Anne Jackson and David Marguiles and the music of pianist Bobby Short (who played himself) among others.

The film was shot for less than last year’s indie hit Martha Marcie May Marlene, which boasted coming in at $625K or so.  I can’t give the exact figure for proprietary reasons, but as line producer of the film, I can tell you it was impressive.  The film was completely financed by friends and family.

The film, by a first-time feature director right out of film school, won the Audience Award at Slamdance, among others, and was distributed by Fine Line.  I highly recommend it if you want a film that is good, light fun, and very clever.  I re-watched it recently, and it still makes me laugh.

If this liberation digital was supposed to bring us were true, every major festival from Sundance to Cannes would be filled with movies made for, $20-30K, since that would be the type of number you would have to approach before you can talk about a cinema distribution accessible to everyone.

Oh, people are making movies on a shoe-string, and, indeed, that was happening even when movies were shot on film.  It is even possible that many more movies are being made with the ease of point-and-shoot digital technology. 

However, until these films Occupy Theaters, I will continue to suggest that the revolution has not come, and that proletariat kid with his digital camera, while he or she might enjoy seeing their efforts on YouTube, is still far from the theater gates.