The future of movie distribution

Next time you have a free hour and a half, enjoy this treatise on the future of movie distribution.  Me and many others have been saying the same thing for a few years now, but it's interesting to hear it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.  Mai is a former distributor sales agent.

Thanks to Lorie Marsh for hipping me to this presentation.

Thomas Mai Presentation ETMA, Strasbourg from Thomas Mai on Vimeo.

My sentiments exactly

Amen.

Stu Maschwitz set to direct Psy-Ops movie

Stu Maschwitz, author of the DV Rebel's Guide to Making Action Movies on the Cheap, and the incredible resource blog Prolost (get the RSS feed of this blog on our Texas Film Scene) has been tagged to direct the new biggish-budget film Psy-Ops. Excsssssellent. I'll be there.

Attention, Movie Tech Geeks: Great interview with Stu on why 24p rocks, here. Sorry, it's not embedable video (boo!).

Amazing art!

Next time you think your movie needs lots of talky dialog, watch this video, and remember that we trade in a visual medium.

Straight to Audience, not Straight to Video

I love this post by Sherri Candler, a Los Angeles-based low-budget film marketing advisor, where she suggests that we change the term "straight to video" (or straight to DVD) to "straight to audience." Amen!

Filmmakers have been doing this for decades, now, probably as far back as John Cassavetes. But the difference now is the presence of The Great Disintermediator- the Internet. Search engines, YouTube and it's ilk, and social networks have made it possible to find an audience simply by posting your content online. Doing that and only that will not necessarily gain you much traffic, or any money, but it can help you find what Kevin Kelly calls 1,000 true fans.

With such a core audience, you become your own distribution company, for whatever content you produce- movies, music, books, blogs, podcasts, speeches, etc. It's an approach I've been advocating for sometime here on this blog, and on the Texas Film Scene, and is also the thrust of a book I'm writing on entrepreneurship in the digital age (if you're interested in knowing when this book is shipping, email me).

Straight to audience is not as sexy as a box office release, but considering that most indie filmmakers now only score a box office release if they (a) get chosen by the Festival Gods, or (b) pay for their own 4-walling, it certainly is a lot cheaper. Straight to audience has also helped Texas filmmakers like Blake Calhoun and Mike Maden score pretty sweet Hollywood production deals on the strength of their straight-to-audience work. Besides- and I know this is heresy- on most nights, I would rather enjoy a movie on my dirt-cheap home theater system than pay $20+food+gas+babysitter for a movie ticket. At $35 per outing, it takes only 25 movies to recoup the cost of my 47-inch LCD. Avatar or Star Trek is a different story, of course.

Straight-to-audience also scares people because it sounds like sales, which it is. It's time for artists to stop fearing sales, and start embracing it. If you love what you're selling, then selling is no chore. If you don't, why are you making that movie, again?

$50 horror flick 'Colin' takes Cannes by storm

Well, actually it was fifty pounds (Sterling), but I don't have the British keyboard settings enabled. Still, pretty cheap.

Colin is a no-budget movie by London director Marc Price, which tells the story from the zombie's perspective. A nice twist, playing on the American Werewolf theme.

Price took 18 months to organize (and write?) the project, cast and staffed entirely with volunteers from his Facebook group. The project garnered acceptance to Cannes, and awards at many smaller festivals worldwide. It has done so well, in fact, that it has an extensive theatrical release schedule! Not bad for fifty bucks.

No doubt many in Hollywood will trash the movie, and call attention to all it's low-budget production faults, instead of focusing on what a determined young director was able to do with no money. Smart studios will see this as a great way to mitigate their risk. As with Texas' own Pink: The Series, and the recent Uruguayan director who made a 5-minute version of War of the Worlds for $500, studios are making big offers to small indy filmmakers who prove that they can attract eyeballs in the vast Internet wasteland, and proving once again that it doesn't have to cost millions of dollars to make good movies; Hollywood just doesn't know any other way.

Stay at home actor

I love this. Reminds me of the Tonya Harding vs. Paula Jones sketch on SNL a while back. Thanks to Robert Dugan for the link.

Austin's funniest villain? Find out Dec. 14!

I had a blast doing my comedy debut at Cap City Comedy Club back in November. Now, I'm ready to go back for seconds. Come join me and several dozen of my closest friends on Monday, December 14, at 8 p.m., for a great lineup of some 20 rookies, and a veteran headline act. It's a fun night out. Besides, after all the fiscal doom and gloom this year, who couldn't use a good laugh?

Comcast-NBC deal on the brink

Cable provider Comcast is eyeing NBC-Universal for a price of about $30 billion, according to Bloomberg. In a previous post, I predicted this would happen, since it makes sense for cable companies to find ways to add value to customers, beyond just being a series of tubes.

What about you?

What does this mean for filmmakers, actors, writers, and directors? As with vertical integration in any industry, it should stabilize the demand for content, and those artists and skilled tradespeople who provide it... for a while. Let's face it: if you want to create art that takes $40 million of stars and special effects, you need a big studio behind you. Hollywood will continue to consolidate not only structurally, but in terms of content, too: big, comic-book, tent-pole movies will become Hollywood's main (perhaps ONLY) competitive advantage. There will be fewer shows made, probably, and they will likely continue to skew young. So if you're 18 and hungry, you should still plan on moving L.A. to jump start your movie-making career.

Regardless of NBC's short-term fate, the industry still faces larger issues, including a business model that doesn't depend on traditional commercial advertising and DVD sales. The music business highlights the importance of finding new ways to monetize digital content. NBC-Universal is a player; Universal Music Group, which bought BMG, is the largest of the "big 4" major labels.

So if you don't fit the major studio demo, or want to make movies outside that niche, try looking to the indie music industry, which is finding ways to redefine what business they are actually in.

Epic development

Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM have launched a new TV network called EpixHD. It will feature movies that are still in the "pay TV window"; that is, after their theatrical run has finished, but before the DVD release.

What sets the new network apart, though, is that it will bundle an on-demand Internet streaming service, similar to Netflix Streaming or Hulu, allowing users to watch 720p high-def movies from the Epix catalog on demand, rather than be subject to run-of-schedule, like HBO subscribers, who are forced to endure the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm 56 times in a week.

Originally, the company wanted to have cable providers like Time-Warner and Cox bundle the service with existing cable packages, shifting the burden of payment from subscribers to cable providers. Verizon, for one, said no thanks. They will offer EpixHD on their FiOS TV network, but at a $9.99 premium charge. Other cable providers and ISPs are likely to follow suit.

To combat that move, EpixHD is offering a free 30-day pass on their site. No doubt they will use information they get from you to lobby the ISPs and cable providers to bundle the channel, and to spam you with offers. But hey, it'll save you $10 or so!