At the risk of overstaying my time on the soapbox (more fiction coming soon, I promise), I'm going to expand a bit on my previous post regarding the current state of independent movies. Bear with me through a brief diagnosis of a problem in the current system before I get to the rainbow...
Currently, film festivals have become the de facto conduit by which most independently produced movies reach the audience. While festivals are terrific opportunities to present curated rosters of new or rare work, they've proven to be completely insufficient as a means of distribution.
The volume of quality work produced far exceeds available spots in festivals, creating a severe bottleneck and gumming up the works.
Quality is, of course, subject to taste. Specifically, the tastes of festival programmers, and many in the Industry believe that a curatorial component is critical to distribution.
This is a flawed notion.
While individual exhibitors will naturally want to choose product based on their audience, too often the curatorial process has the effect of choking off new voices and modes of storytelling and encouraging homogeneity in the marketplace.
The danger is that large sectors of a potential audience become alienated. For example, does anyone who isn't a post-collegiate twentysomething care about Mumblecore? (Sorry. No knock on the filmmaking or the filmmakers, but I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and if I wanted to watch a bunch of tragically semi-articulate hipsters puzzle over a doorknob I'd look out the window.)
By allowing only works that they like, or that adhere to a trend or 'movement,' exposure to the market, festival programmers have, unfortunately, come to represent the same obstacle to the circulation of feature-length movies that the old-line corporate studios and broadcast networks have.
As I said last time, in order for markets to function optimally, goods need to be able to get to the marketplace.
The stated fear seems to be that lowest-common-denominator business realities could squeeze out serious or challenging works. (What's worse? A bunch of Jackass wannabes or a bunch of Juno wannabes? Depends on who you ask. And those audiences aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.)
But if media-makers are able to find their audience and an apparatus exists to reach them, odds are that more good and interesting work will be made as more talented people are able to work.
I guess I believe that independent movies should be made for more people than just festival programmers.
Another danger of the festival system as it exists is the dead-end effect. Say a movie plays at a festival and three hundred people in the audience love it and put the word out to their social circles. Where can they see it? The next festival it plays, wherever that may be?
And be honest, have you ever watched a movie because it won the jury prize at the Bumblefork International Film Festival?
(I was a little hard on Netflix last time. They pushed the Puffy Chair pretty hard and it did well for those guys.)
Alright. Enough complaining. Time for some constructive thinking...
One model that I find interesting is the regional theatrical distribution of independently produced movies in the 1950's, where small local companies would take on the regional promotion and distribution of independents, mostly genre pictures, booking screens, hanging posters, wrangling local press and generally working to get asses in the seats.
Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. was in the regional distribution business, and with funds raised from pre-sales to other regional distributors financed what I think was the first indie blockbuster -- 1958's The Blob.
Granted, the model doesn't translate exactly because, at the moment, the primary markets for independents are small-format. Emerging Pictures seems to have a toe in the water with this model, but it's not yet enough.
I mentioned in my last post that I believe in indiepix's model for small-format distribution. (Shameless plug: Don't forget to pick up your copy of Every Dog's Day today!)
All this said, I'm honestly excited by the number of genuinely talented people making movies these days, and encouraged by the increasing number of them whose works are being made available by various means, and I urge everyone who happens to read this to get out there and explore what's going on.
copyright, © 2008 Andy Biscontini
Showing posts with label Indiepix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indiepix. Show all posts
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
New Media Now
Last week I attended a panel discussion sponsored by the IFP New York on alternative distribution models for independent movies.
Just to be clear, I'm defining "independent" as "produced outside of a corporate infrastructure and without corporate investment" and "movies" as "moving pictures, not specifically on celluloid."
With the exception of indiepix founder Bob Alexander (full disclosure: indiepix is distributing the feature I made called Every Dog's Day), it seemed as though everyone was more or less still looking at independent movies according to the Industry status quo, where they're generally regarded as a junior-varsity farm system for Hollywood or expensively marketed and unlikely-to-recoup art-house 'cache' vehicles for stars.
This status quo is unsustainable. From a business perspective, does it make sense to invest the time, effort and capital involved in making a movie just so one or two people can maybe come out of it with an agent? Uh, no... And while I do appreciate that working popular actors want to make work they care about outside Hollywood, it's been proven again and again that name-recognition does not equal profitability any more than a classical three-act structure with redemptive characters does.
On that particular panel, Bob seemed to be the only person who understood, or cared, that the explosion in the production of independent media, fueled by accessible technology and a growing skilled work-force, requires the expansion and nurturing of markets for that media and had put together a smart business model that was fair to filmmakers. (With props to indie gogo for forward thinking)
It's basic free-market economics. In order for the market to function optimally, goods have to be able to get to the marketplace.
Until the costs of theatrical distribution are effectively reduced (no, I don't want to see 35 mm burn out into oblivion, either. Or two-inch tape, for that matter), those markets are small-format.
From my point of view, that means that the product (yes, I am an artist who refers to his work as 'product') needs to be catered to those markets -- it needs to work visually on a small screen and be made with minimal capital investment.
To my mind, an analogy can be drawn between today's independent movies and the pulp novels of the previous mid-century and the penny-dreadfuls and dime novels of the century before. The kind of cheap mass-market media that gave us Charles Dickens, Dashiell Hammett and Philip K. Dick among others.
That said, it remains to be seen if a living can be made at it, let alone if it can recoup. But that's the nature of the market.
The big question is: where are those markets and how do we get to them? And do they have eight or fifteen bucks to drop on a movie every so often? (Netflix, God bless 'em, is great for movie-lovers, but there ain't much of a profit margin for individual movie-makers.)
The audience is the future of independent media. And I'm convinced they're out there. As to whether or not they have eight or fifteen bucks to drop, we'll have to see how deep this recession bites.
Or is every creative professional doomed to be forever beholden to behemoths like Publicis (which envisions thirty-second spots tailor-made for every possible demographic in every platform) or News Corp (full disclosure: I too have suckled Rupert Murdoch's golden teat, having built sets for Fox News) in a future where eight people are employed to sell every one person a tube of toothpaste?
Don't get me wrong. I like big Hollywood movies and art-house flicks. If movies didn't cost twelve bucks a pop I'd be at a theater four nights a week (then again, with the same movie on six out of twelve screens at the average multiplex, what would I see?). And I don't have a problem with big corporations paying for media as advertising or through sponsorship, but I do have a problem with that being the only option for creative professionals to make a living.
copyright, © 2008 Andy Biscontini
Just to be clear, I'm defining "independent" as "produced outside of a corporate infrastructure and without corporate investment" and "movies" as "moving pictures, not specifically on celluloid."
With the exception of indiepix founder Bob Alexander (full disclosure: indiepix is distributing the feature I made called Every Dog's Day), it seemed as though everyone was more or less still looking at independent movies according to the Industry status quo, where they're generally regarded as a junior-varsity farm system for Hollywood or expensively marketed and unlikely-to-recoup art-house 'cache' vehicles for stars.
This status quo is unsustainable. From a business perspective, does it make sense to invest the time, effort and capital involved in making a movie just so one or two people can maybe come out of it with an agent? Uh, no... And while I do appreciate that working popular actors want to make work they care about outside Hollywood, it's been proven again and again that name-recognition does not equal profitability any more than a classical three-act structure with redemptive characters does.
On that particular panel, Bob seemed to be the only person who understood, or cared, that the explosion in the production of independent media, fueled by accessible technology and a growing skilled work-force, requires the expansion and nurturing of markets for that media and had put together a smart business model that was fair to filmmakers. (With props to indie gogo for forward thinking)
It's basic free-market economics. In order for the market to function optimally, goods have to be able to get to the marketplace.
Until the costs of theatrical distribution are effectively reduced (no, I don't want to see 35 mm burn out into oblivion, either. Or two-inch tape, for that matter), those markets are small-format.
From my point of view, that means that the product (yes, I am an artist who refers to his work as 'product') needs to be catered to those markets -- it needs to work visually on a small screen and be made with minimal capital investment.
To my mind, an analogy can be drawn between today's independent movies and the pulp novels of the previous mid-century and the penny-dreadfuls and dime novels of the century before. The kind of cheap mass-market media that gave us Charles Dickens, Dashiell Hammett and Philip K. Dick among others.
That said, it remains to be seen if a living can be made at it, let alone if it can recoup. But that's the nature of the market.
The big question is: where are those markets and how do we get to them? And do they have eight or fifteen bucks to drop on a movie every so often? (Netflix, God bless 'em, is great for movie-lovers, but there ain't much of a profit margin for individual movie-makers.)
The audience is the future of independent media. And I'm convinced they're out there. As to whether or not they have eight or fifteen bucks to drop, we'll have to see how deep this recession bites.
Or is every creative professional doomed to be forever beholden to behemoths like Publicis (which envisions thirty-second spots tailor-made for every possible demographic in every platform) or News Corp (full disclosure: I too have suckled Rupert Murdoch's golden teat, having built sets for Fox News) in a future where eight people are employed to sell every one person a tube of toothpaste?
Don't get me wrong. I like big Hollywood movies and art-house flicks. If movies didn't cost twelve bucks a pop I'd be at a theater four nights a week (then again, with the same movie on six out of twelve screens at the average multiplex, what would I see?). And I don't have a problem with big corporations paying for media as advertising or through sponsorship, but I do have a problem with that being the only option for creative professionals to make a living.
copyright, © 2008 Andy Biscontini
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
My Friend Andy
My friend Andy Biscontini and I grew up together in Delaware County, PA. Since then he's lived all over the world, but he loves New York. In fact, he loves New York so much, he's even got a soft spot for sides of the city most people don't much care for - the small time chiselers, three card monte hustlers, rent scammers, strippers on the make, illegal immigrants trying to keep one step ahead of the INS... You know, the kind of people you have to warn visiting friends about.
EVERY DOG'S DAY is his offbeat valentine to the men and women who eke out an existence on the short con. It's sorta like IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD made for peanuts and directed by Jim Jarmusch, with assists from the ghosts of Robert Altman and Frank Tashlin. It's loose and fun, surprisingly sweet and charming and well worth your time. What's more, the thing is an ensemble piece with a (uniformly excellent) cast so large, chances are if you've ever spent any kind of time in the city you probably know someone in there. Or, more likely, been swindled by them.
I'm sharing this information because aside from my liking the film, I know Andy busted his ass making this movie, then busted it again trying to get it released so people could actually see the thing. Now IndiePix has done right by him and slapped it on a silver platter, making it available to the general public for $15. Then this week I got an email alerting me that as a promotional special this week, they're making the film available as a download for only eight bucks. Eight bucks! You can't even go to a movie in a theater for eight bucks these days! Unless maybe you're by yourself. And it's a third run release. And you like having your feet stick to the floor. And you're ok with the smelly guy in the seat next to you who keeps making eyes at you and touching your knee.
If this sounds like it might be your cup of stuff, what are you waiting for? Support the Arts. Support an independent. Support my friend Andy! Gamble eight bucks on the download and check out his movie. And if by some outside chance you have a sudden lapse of taste and actually don't enjoy the film, I'll buy you a coffee next time I see you and then you're almost coming out even. Hell, a lot of you owe me eight bucks already!
Follow the links below:
Buy a disc for $15: http://www2.indiepix.net/film
Download for $8: http://www2.indiepix.net/film
And if you're on MySpace, add the movie as a "friend" and say hello to Andy while you're at it: http://www.myspace.com/everydog
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