DIstribution Roulette
Audio of the CineVegas round table where different distribution strategies are proposed for different films.
[Via CinemaTech]
Audio of the CineVegas round table where different distribution strategies are proposed for different films.
Mark Cuban pours cold water on the meme of the moment.
Let's look at the rule that eventually KILLS all freemium-based content plays:--When you succeed with Free, you are going to die by Free « blog maverick
There will always be a company that replaces you. At some point your BlackSwan competitor will appear and they will kick your ass. Their product will be better or more interesting or just better marketed than yours, and it also will be free. They will be Facebook to your Myspace, or Myspace to your Friendster or Google to your Yahoo. You get the point. Someone out there with a better idea will raise a bunch of money, give it away for free, build scale and charge less to reach the audience. Or will be differentiated enough, and important enough to the audience to maybe even charge more. Who knows. But they will kick your ass and you will be in trouble.
For Google, who lives and dies by free, we don't know who their Black Swan company will be. But we all know it will happen don’t we? The only question is when.
You may remember the review here of the micro-budget indie movie ...Around, about a homeless film student, made by a homeless film student. Now filmmaker David Spaltro writes to me that it has achieved distribution:"...Around" is officially available to be rented/downloaded and streamed at Amazon.com through Amazon On-Demand. It's a first of the platform release through Cinetic Media-Cinetic Rights Management that will soon include iTunes, Netflix, DVD and various other outlets.
I'm writing this email to inform you and ask for your support, please...
Know this isn't about money. Without digging into the complicated folds that are various reasons I'll never be able to see a penny from this film, I'll assure you I cannot but that there's something far bigger to be gained than finances from this film being seen, shown and making an impact. It's about something much more. It's about a group of talented and passionate people coming together over 26 days two summers ago, coming together in this city to work hard and overcome all obstacles while doing what they love and sharing the experience. The work that they put in that made this project and that experience something special, making that known and given it's just dues has always been the mission.
Many of you I'm writing now directly or indirectly were and are involved in this project and it's journey. Even those of you who really were not involved in this particular project, in a way you still are. All of us are out there trying, believing and attempting to pursue something in one way or another. We live with the doubt, the struggles, the questioning glares of others as we push-on through our own personal journeys. The story of the "...Around", the film, the behind-the-scenes war of it stands for something that is truly universal, that we can all relate to no matter where we come from or where we're going.
...
I'll be completely honest. For someone who's led a fairly peripatetic life in more ways then one... this whole journey and fight may be the only place I've ever called "home" and really meant it and felt it with my whole being. The simple, uncontrollable love for it...
...
Thank you for all your support!
I give my best to you all always,
David.
As a follow-up to the Facebook for Filmmakers post, I thought I'd link this interesting post from filmmaker Brian Spaeth, who lays out his strategy for promoting his film Who Shot Mamba? on various social networks.MYSPACE
I’m gonna have to do a page for WSM?. I hate MySpace, and I know it’s shrinking, but it’s still a major force, especially in the video world – plus it skews young/teen, which WSM? does, also. To me, this one is just a numbers game anymore, so it is what it is.
Guest post from Germain Lussier. Enjoy.
3D filmmaking might be giving the phrase “Here’s looking at you, kid,” a whole new dimension.
Each process has its own positives and negatives. What In-Three employees explained, though, was that their process was so fluid and customizable, it could take into consideration the most important thing: The audience.
The Panasonic DMC-GH1 is the hot new camera with its ability to use interchangeable lenses and shoot HD. It does have some limitations, since it evolved from DSLR stills cameras. Filmmaker George P. Schnyder shares his secret recipe for getting great moving images out of the GH1...
Thursday evening, I braved the freeways and the helicopters circling the late Michael Jackson at UCLA Medical Center to get to the Mann Center in Westwood for the LA Film Fest Screening of Cold Souls.
Supporting performances are also fine, other than Emily Watson, whose character isn't written with any chance for her do anything of interest. Katheryn Winnick, as the Russian actress Sveta, I thought was just fine, although my Russophile friend said her fake accent stood out like a sore thumb next to all the real Russian actors, including the actor playing her shady mob-boss husband, who was wonderfully menacing. (Giamatti praised him in the talkback, calling him Dimitri and saying he is like the Martha Stewart of Russia. He speaks no English and had to learn the lines phonetically. I could find no Dimitri on the imdb page as of writing -- so I'm not sure of the full name.)The folks at Language Log talk about the language of the Transformers and speculate a bit as to whether the writing is phonetic or syllabic. Some funny comments ensue.
Enjoy this guest review from Jonathan Chang, production designer, model builder and general movie enthusiast. WARNING NOTE: "IMAX Digital" is different than the traditional large-format IMAX experience reviewed here, so be wary of the theaters who try to mislead you.Nice cheat sheet from Truly Free Films with some ideas of how to turn festivals to your advantage:
1. Some festivals will pay you--Truly Free Film: Cheat Sheet #3: Profit From Festival Play
2. Maybe they can do a PAL dub for you
3. Foreign fests could supply you with translation that you can use later on DVD
4. Connection to local theaters
A pretty heated debate broke out on the Twitters last week about the merits of giving a film away for free. Here is a portion of it:
-- this quote was brought to you by quoteurl
lmcnelly I know everyone thinks giving your film away for free online is the future, but I'm not convinced. Does it help the filmmaker? lmcnelly It seems like it essentially turns the film into a commercial lmcnelly @thraveboy @britmic but if you give it away, aren't $1k and $1M equally far away? lmcnelly @thraveboy @britmic i love it too, but i like not living in my car more. :) i can't make the films I want to make for $100 lmcnelly I'm not against using a film to build and audience and brand yourself, but I'm wary of an approach that relies completely on that.