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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 70 | https://www.ranker.com/list/movies-where-actors-really-did-it/rydavis | en | 15 Movies With Real, Unsimulated Sex Scenes | https://imgix.ranker.com/list_img_v2/537/2400537/original/real-sex-in-hollywood-movies | https://imgix.ranker.com/list_img_v2/537/2400537/original/real-sex-in-hollywood-movies | [
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] | null | [
"Ryan Davis"
] | 2016-06-29T00:00:00 | Working as an actor requires being open to some crazy things. Having to film a sex scene can give even the most courageous actors some stage fright, but ... | en | /img/icons/touch-icon-iphone.png | Ranker | https://www.ranker.com/list/movies-where-actors-really-did-it/rydavis | Working as an actor requires being open to some wild things . Having to film a love scene can give even the most courageous and reputable actors some stage fright. But imagine if you had to do it for real? I mean, movies where they really did it with full on penetrative intercourse. You'd think it would be taboo, but plenty of movies have incorporated real sex between actors in order to establish a sort of genuine authenticity to the film.
While some may think that esteemed actors engaging in that kind of behavior for a movie is gratuitous and inappropriate, many actors have agreed to the conditions. Racy and controversial director Lars von Trier has utilized un-simulated scenes for several of his films, including his movie Nymphomaniac .
These types of scenes in film can be crucial to the story that writers and directors are trying to tell. But at what point is the boundary between real and fantasy crossed? For a lot of artists, both behind the scenes and in front of them, there is no line. | ||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 27 | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7288198/ | en | Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie | [
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"Tina Kubrak"
] | 2020-05-14T00:00:00 | Nowadays films occupy a significant portion of the media products consumed by people. In Russia, cinema is being considered as a means of individual and social transformation, which makes a contribution to the formation of the Russian audience’s ... | en | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/coreutils/nwds/img/favicons/favicon.ico | PubMed Central (PMC) | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7288198/ | 1. Introduction
With the development of information technology, a person’s immersion in the field of mass media is steadily increasing. A significant portion of consumed media products is occupied by cinema. According to sociological surveys, going to the cinema is the most popular way of spending leisure time in Russia today (http://www.fond-kino.ru/news/kto-ty-rossijskij-kinozritel/); the audiences of cinemas are growing, the core of which are 18-24 years olds, as well as the frequency of visits—every tenth Russian goes to the cinema several times a month (https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=1785; https://wciom.ru/fileadmin/file/reports_conferences/2018/2018-04-03_kino.pdf; http://www.fond-kino.ru/news/portret-kinoauditorii-rezultaty-monitoringa-za-i-kvartal-2019-goda/), the opportunities and frequency of Internet viewings is expanding, while interest in TV shows is also increasing. The importance of the role that cinema plays in Russia is also confirmed by the close attention currently being paid to the development of the cinema industry: the priority topics of state financing are defined (e.g., “Law and order: the heroes of modern society in the fight against crime terror, extremism and corruption”, “On the continuity of military generations, on the successors of military traditions”, "Images, patterns of behavior and creative motivation of our contemporary—a man of labor, in the military or a scientist"), while state programs are being launched to open new cinema theatres in small towns. Сinema becomes a “tool for broadcasting state ideology to the masses” (according to S. Zizek [1]), and is also being considered as a “means of individual and social transformation” (according to T. Kashani [2]) [3]. As a result, films are expected to form beliefs, influence opinions and change attitudes, including towards topical social issues.
However, the question of the efficiency of films remains open in psychology. In general, this is a key issue for mass communication research: how much emotion, cognition and behavior are changed under the influence of mass media [4,5]. There are various concepts about this: from “theories of a minimal effect” to “theories of a strong effect” [6]. Thus, for example, cultivation theory considers that mass communication contributes to the assimilation of commonly accepted values, norms and forms of behavior [7]; and a meta-analysis of studies leads to the conclusion that there is a relationship between the broadcast mass media image of reality and people’s attitudes towards it [8,9]. Despite criticisms, cultivation theory is currently being developed [10,11,12,13]. On the other hand, supporters of the opposite viewpoint point out the weak effects of mass communication, caused, for example, by the fact that people are becoming more and more subject of their mass media activity as a result of a wider variety of sources of information now and expanding their choices [14,15].
It seems difficult to identify a single mechanism of mass media impact on the human psyche and behavior and to obtain an unambiguous answer to the question about its efficiency [6]. This is due to the interconnection of various factors that mediate the influence of mass media (personal experience, realistic content, depth of identification with heroes, personality traits, etc.) [16,17,18], as well as those factors that constantly impact persons besides those in the media. Therefore, our thoughts and ideas about this issue are largely based on empirical research data, and are not limited to one theory [19].
When referring to research of cinema, we can find data on the diverse effects of film exposure. It should be noted that the effectiveness of the impact is determined by what it is directed at: it is more difficult to change human behavior than to influence opinions or attitudes [4,6]. In this regard, there is still a debatable problem on the influence of the media on the aggressive behavior of people [20]. This research focuses on the potential of pro-social, "humanistic" impact of films and their effectiveness in solving topical social issues. The studies reveal the influence of films on people’s beliefs and opinions, stereotypes and attitudes. Movies can have a significant impact on gender and ethnic stereotypes [21,22], change attitudes towards certain groups of people and cause newly formed opinions on various issues. For example, HIV films contributed to sympathy to people living with HIV [4], TV series with transgender characters contributed to positive attitudes towards transgender persons [23]; the portrayal of mental disorders in movies had an effect on people’s knowledge about and attitudes toward the mentally ill [24,25]. Also, viewing an empathy-arousing film about immigrants induced more positive attitudes toward them [26], and watching a movie offering a positive depiction of gay men reduced homophobia [27]. Other films influenced people’s attitude towards smoking and their intentions to quit [28,29], while a series with a positive donation message helped viewers to make decisions about their own donation [30]. It has been shown that emotional involvement in viewing, evaluated using surveys drawing on theories of social learning and social representations, increases the effectiveness of influence [30]; immersion in narrative, that correlates with the need for cognition, and is characterized by a shift of focus from the real world to the depicted one, explains the power of impact within the framework of transportation theory [31,32].
Cinema can change people’s opinions on specific issues without affecting more stable constructs: for example, the film “JFK” dedicated to the Kennedy assassination influenced judgments about the causes of this crime, but generally did not change the political beliefs of the audience [33]; at the same time, the movies “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty” changed viewers’ opinions about the U.S. government that reflected in an improvement in sentiments about this government and its institutions [34]. Movies create images of other countries and stimulate interest in them. For example, European films shaped young viewers’ ideas about other European countries—such results were obtained in a study of the role of films and series in the daily life of young Germans through interviews and focus groups [35]. Another study showed that whether the movies were violent, scary or happy, the more the viewers were immersed in the stories, the more favorable impressions they had of the places featured in them [36].
Various positive effects of films on children and adolescents were revealed. Dramatic films taught teenagers about social interaction with the opposite sex and adults [37], had a positive impact on their self-concept [38], and, as shown by experiments, increased ethnic tolerance [39]; humanistically oriented movies improved skills of children in communicating with peers, increased their desire to help and understand others [40,41].
One of the prime examples of positive impact is Cli-fi movies, which clearly show what we can expect in the near future, and offers ways to think about what can be done to avoid the darkest predictions. Thus, after watching the film “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004), viewers recognized their responsibility for the Earth’s ecology and the need to change consumer attitudes towards nature [42]. In general, the screening of films on climate issues increases the number of online requests and media discussions on these issues [43].
It should be noted that when analyzing the impact of films, conclusions about their effectiveness are the result of different methodological approaches, which have varying advantages and limitations. Content analysis reveals the images, attitudes, stereotypes broadcast by films (e.g., stereotypical portrayals of India [44], or images of scientists and current scientific ideas [45]) on large data sets; however, questions remain about effectiveness, strength and sustainability of the impact on the audience. The influence of films can be investigated through a survey of viewers; based on this, conclusions are drawn about the links between a person’s attitudes and his/her viewer experience, such as in the study of gender attitudes and their correlations with teen movie-viewing habits [21]. In experimental studies, exposure effects are detected using pre- and post-film questionnaires; however, the time interval between testing and a film screening, such as a few weeks before viewing the film or a several days after [26,27,29], can lead to distortion of the results that are caused by the influence on the viewers’ attitudes of other factors besides the film; moreover, usually it is not investigated whether new attitudes are retained over time. Often the effects of films are analyzed in experimental conditions where participants watch only short cut scenes from existing films [24], which limits the extrapolation of the results.
According to the empirical orientation of our approach, the goal was to obtain new data on the positive impact of films based on a specific experimental study. The task was to identify changes in young people’s attitudes towards topical social issues after watching a specifically selected film. Participants had to watch the full version of an existing fiction film. They were tested just before and immediately after watching the movie in order to avoid the influence of other variables on viewers’ attitudes. Repeated testing (two weeks after the first viewing) was intended to reveal the sustainability of the changes caused by the film.
In the process of developing the design of the work, it was specified what attitudes would be studied. The choice was determined, first of all, by the social relevance of the topic, but outside the focus of the media in order to reduce the impact of other media sources, and on the other hand, by the availability of a suitable film. Important topics as ethnic stereotypes, attitudes toward people with disabilities, etc. were considered. However, the choice of the topics had to be restricted for various reasons. For example, identifying attitudes toward certain professions (e.g., engineer), whose prestige has significantly declined in Russia in recent decades, was difficult due to the lack of relevant films popularizing them. At the same time, despite the availability of humanistically oriented films dedicated to people with disabilities, the identification of changes in attitudes to them was complicated by the need to take into account additional factors caused by increased attention to the topic and active discussion in various media, which could distort the influence of a film.
Given the limitations and opportunities for the implementation of research tasks, the subject of this study the attitudes towards elderly people. At present, attention to the topic concerning elderly people is growing in Russia, but there is still a prevalence of negative stereotypes [46]. A characteristic manifestation of age discrimination against the elderly—ageism—is a biased attitude towards them, especially among young people, as well as a low assessment of their intellectual abilities, activity and "usefulness" for society.
Studies show that the mass media have a significant impact on negative attitudes towards the elderly [47]: children have already demonstrated the same stereotypes of the elderly that were depicted in the media [48], while young people at large viewed the elderly in general as ineffective, dependent, lonely, poor, angry and disabled, which corresponded to the negative representations of elderly people in the most popular teen movies that cultivated their stereotypes [49]. Research of TV films from the 1980s–1990s revealed the stereotypes of elderly people as being social outsiders [50], but at the same time a display of positive prejudice contributed to an increase in tolerance towards them within society.
Improving the attitudes of young people towards elderly people is an important social and educational task, the solution of which involves the use of diverse opportunities. Various social projects can be implemented for this purpose, for example, "friendly visitor" types of programs in which young people visit the elderly [51,52], but also mass media, including films, which have a high potential for impact [53,54]. It was found that watching documentary films had a positive effect on both knowledge about aging and attitudes towards the elderly [55]; these films significantly improved empathy towards elderly people among university students [56].
We suggested that fiction movies, popular especially among young people, could contribute to changing existing biased attitudes towards elderly people. Based on this, the hypothesis states that there is a connection between watching a positive film about the elderly and changes in young people’s attitudes towards them in a positive way.
3. Results and Discussion
As a result of the preliminary data analysis of the group one (students), significant differences were obtained in the assessments given by them to the elderly before and immediately after watching the movie (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.05). However, the analysis of the combined sample (students and postgraduate students) did not reveal such significant differences. Therefore, it was decided to compare the assessments of these two groups of respondents. It appeared that the evaluation of elderly people differed among students and postgraduate students before the film was shown (18 of 25 scales, Mann—Whitney test, p < 0.05). This result could be explained by the individual differences of the participants (students and postgraduates), which led to the necessity to correct the hypothesis and form additional research tasks, including the comparison of groups. Further analysis was carried out separately for each group of respondents, but not for the united group.
Significant differences shown by respondents of the group one before and immediately after watching the film (students) were found in 12 out of the 25 scales ( ).
Table 1
ScalesMean before Watching the FilmMean after Watching the FilmZAsymp. Sig. (2-tailed)emotional - unemotional*1.101.68-2.787b0.005purposeless - purposeful−0.17−1.18−3.187c0.001active life position - having no life goal*−0.021.21−3.121b0.002no desire to learn anything - the desire to learn a new skill0.22−1.03−3.899c0.000cheerful - prone to depression*0.401.02−2.053b0.040passive - initiative0.28−0.88−3.325c0.001unrestrained – self-contained−0.03−0.65−2.038c0.042conflict - peaceful−0.28−0.80−2.281c0.023strives for a full life - lost the meaning of life* 0.351.35−3.451b0.001craving for spirituality - limited interests*0.681.67−2.791b0.005quickly tired - having a high stamina1.680.37−3.420c0.001new is not perceived to be good - a modern view on new things1.35−0.62−4.894c0.000
The group of students revealed changes associated with ideas about activities. The respondents saw the elderly as having less initiative, and being purposeless and weak. Moreover, they defined elderly people’s way of life as more passive, having no desire for knowledge or for living a full life. The results immediately after watching the film demonstrated that the audience perceived the elderly as being those who strived less to learn new things and perceived them to be less positive and more limited in their interests. Also, the changes of assessments related to the emotional sphere were discovered. The elderly were characterized as even more unrestrained and conflict-prone with a tendency towards depression and showing no emotions.
Comparative analysis of assessments of elderly people before and after watching the film, given by respondents of the group two (postgraduate students), showed significant differences on 14 of the 25 scales ( ). Postgraduate students evaluated the elderly, unlike students, more positively after watching the film. Changes on 9 common scales (purposeless - purposeful, cheerful - prone to depression, passive - initiative, conflict - peaceful, traditional - modern, etc.) for students and postgraduate students turned out to be of different directions. After watching the film, the elderly seemed to be more purposeful, active and successful, responsible and with a good sense of humor. There were changes in assessments of the emotional sphere (more cheerful, peaceful) and cognitive (more intelligent) in references to novelty and life in general (the strive to learn new things, the desire for a full life).
Table 2
ScalesMean before Watching the FilmMean after Watching the FilmZAsymp. Sig. (2-tailed)smart - stupid−0.40−1.10−3.383b0.001purposeless - purposeful−0.170.60−3.036c0.002active life position - having no life goal*−0.67−0.47−2.347b0.019no desire to learn anything - the desire to learn new skills−1.070.23−3.795c0.000cheerful - prone to depression*0.33−0.97−3.795b0.002passive - initiative−0.530.37−2.673c0.008takes responsibility - blames others for problems0.40−0.53−3.077b0.002conflict - peaceful−0.400.33−2.729c0.006strives for a full life - lost the meaning of life*−0.20−1.07−2.361b0.018quickly tired – high stamina−1.73−0.47−3.376c0.001considered someone else’s opinions - imposing their own opinions*1.30−0.10−4.065b0.000have achieved in life what they wanted - many things in life could not do *0.77−0.20−3.050b0.002traditional - modern −1.37−0.17−3.493c0.000with a sense of humor - without a sense of humor−0.57−1.10−2.430b0.015
Thus, the data revealed changes in attitude towards the elderly people after watching the film. According to a number of their characteristics related to motivational aspects—regulatory, emotional and cognitive spheres—significant changes were revealed, but the tendency of these changes was unexpected. After group one (students) watched the film, a tendency of worsening assessments was found. It was also determined that before the film, students described the elderly more negatively as being less intelligent and interesting, more conflict prone, angry and aggressive than young people (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.01). This generally negative attitude can be explained by a special view of quite young people on the "old age". But why, despite the attempt of the filmmakers to make the image of the elderly positive enough, did the film fail to change students’ attitude? Instead, it made the image of elderly persons even less attractive. Meanwhile, there was an opposite trend in group two (postgraduate students). Their assessments of elderly people after watching the film changed for the better. The postgraduate students, unlike undergraduate students, had already demonstrated a more "adequate" view on the elderly before watching the film. Despite a number of negative assessments, the elderly were seen by them as smart and striving for a full life, sociable and interesting.
Comparison of the two groups of respondents confirmed significant differences between students and postgraduate students in the evaluation of the elderly after watching the film ( ). The assessments given by undergraduate students and postgraduates differed significantly on 21 out of 25 scales.
Table 3
ScalesMean Rank Group oneMean Rank Group twoZAsymp. Sig. (2-tailed)smart - stupid48.8317.73−6.4300.000emotional - unemotional47.5919.38−5.310.000always comes to the rescue of others - only cares for oneself46.4420.92−5.2900.000purposeless – purposeful25.8146.95−4.4130.000An active life position - having no life goal*43.8523.50−4.2700.000no desire to learn anything - the desire to learn new skills27.2445.08−3.7590.000cheerful - prone to depression*45.8421.72−4.9840.000passive – has initiative28.3545.03−3.4790.001interesting to chat - it is hard to find a topic for communication with them45.2121.73−4.8880.000takes responsibility - blames others for problems42.6425.98−3.4390.001life experience is out of date - wise27.4946.18−3.8690.000persistent - does not complete goals 48.2318.53−6.1760.000conflict - peaceful25.9943.43−2.8650.004strives for a full life - lost the meaning of life46.4520.90−5.2810.000craving for spirituality - limited interests48.5318.13−6.2620.000balanced - aggressive43.5824.73−3.9030.000fast tired - stamina39.7829.80−2.0670.039with a sense of humor - without a sense of humor48.0618.75−6.0890.000undecisive - decisive24.4650.22−5.3580.000communicative - closed48.0618.75−6.0460.000cruel - kind 25.9548.23−4.6320.000
The opposite tendencies found in assessments after watching the film could be explained by differences in individual characteristics of respondents, which were not initially considered in our study as factors mediating the impact of the film: age of respondents (more subtle differentiation), educational status, as an indicator of individual psychological characteristics and experiences of interactions with elderly people. The suggestion of differences between students and postgraduates by personality is consistent with the results of other studies [58], and is indirectly confirmed by the fact that only about 1 out of 40 students become postgraduate students (data for Russia). In our study, differences between students and postgraduate students already manifested in differences in their attitudes towards the elderly before watching the film.
Then the film, which showed some negative aspects of life for elderly people (loneliness, needlessness, diseases, fears, physical limitations “comic” behavior), despite the optimistic ending, could strengthen the negative attitudes of very young people (students) towards the elderly, whose images might not yet be fully formed. On the other hand, postgraduate students might have a more complex view on elderly people, because of age and more diverse interactions with the elderly, for example, in scientific work. In this case, their perceptions of the film could be focused on its positive ideas, strengthening their previously formed positive image of an elderly person. In addition, postgraduate students, who have chosen the scientific career path, most likely have a high level of analytical skills that contributed to more complex perceptions of the world and a deep assessment of the phenomena that could affect their attitudes towards the older generation and the interpretation of their images in the movies. At the same time, the characteristics of the film itself, as well as the cultural differences between its creators and viewers, might cause additional negative impacts on students’ perceptions. Comedy, as a genre, could have an opposite effect. Younger people perceived the desire of older characters to give their lives new meanings in their own way and they saw a futility in these attempts. Respondents with more experience could be more tolerant to the specifics of the genre, and their perception of the film was more complicated and implemented in a broader context.
Thus, comparison of the results of the analysis for both groups of respondents suggests that the different changes in viewers’ attitudes towards objects of reality that occur after watching a movie can be explained by differences in the attitudes before watching the film. This effect can also be explained by the degree of identification with the characters [31,59,60], which is influenced by the previous attitudes of the viewers. For example, a study of the impact of films on attitudes towards migrants showed that greater identification with the characters induced more positive attitudes toward immigration, but only when previous prejudice was low or moderate [26]. In this regard, the various effects of the film on students and postgraduate students could be caused by the different degrees of their identification with the characters of the film, despite the fact that a large difference in age with the characters could complicate this process for all participants in the study. The conclusion that previous attitudes mediate the impact of the film complements the ideas of the contribution of individual differences to media effects [61]. In addition, this conclusion has practical value: in order to achieve the desired impact of films, it is necessary to identify the viewers’ individual attitudes before a screening.
At the third stage of the study, it was examined whether changes remained over time. Two weeks after watching the movie, respondents (group one) re-took the test.
Significant differences were found only on 4 scales (strives to a full life - lost the meaning of life, craving for spirituality - limited interests, quickly tired – high in stamina, traditional - modern) ( ). The continuing changes in the characteristics related to the inferiority and limitations of elderly people’s lives may indicate the most striking and memorable moments in the film that had the greatest impact on viewers. The assessments of the other characteristics did not differ significantly from those that were identified before watching the film. That leads to the conclusion that a single movie viewing, in general, did not have a lasting effect on the viewers’ attitudes toward the elderly. Most of the changes discovered immediately after watching the movie did not remain over time. Studying the mechanisms of the formation of sustainable changes is a task for future research. One of the directions of such research could be to investigate the influence of additional cognitive processing (e.g., discussion after watching the movie) on the viewers’ attitudes towards objects and the sustainability of changes over time.
Table 4
ScalesMean before Watching the FilmMean in 2 Weeks after Watching the FilmZAsymp. Sig. (2-tailed)emotional - unemotional*1.101.14purposeless - purposeful−0.17−0.43active life position - having no life goal*−0.020.23no desire to learn anything – the desire to learn a new skill0.22−0.14cheerful - prone to depression*0.400.77passive - initiative0.28−0.23unrestrained - self-contained−0.030.06conflict - peaceful−0.28−0.11strives for a full life - lost the meaning of life* 0.351.00−2.050b0.040craving for spirituality - limited interests*0.681.31−2.037b0.042quickly tired - high stamina1.681.03−2.096c0.036traditional - modern 1.350.63−2.850c0.004
The correlation between the gender of the respondents and changes in attitudes after watching the film was determined by comparing the assessments separately for males and females in each group. As a result, in group one, women were found to have significant differences in ratings on 13 scales, and men in three, two of which were common (no desire to learn anything - the desire to learn new skills, traditional - modern, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.05). The data showed greater changes in the attitudes among women than among men after watching the film. At the same time, a comparison of the male and female participants in the group two did not reveal such results. The analysis found an equal number of significant differences in assessments (on 10 scales) before and after watching the film (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.05). Thus, it can be assumed that gender had a lower impact on changes in attitudes after watching a film than other individual characteristics of respondents.
The data on the frequency of watching movies was obtained: 56% of respondents watch movies several times a week and more often, 44%—several times a month and less often. However, there were no differences between these viewers in the assessments before and after watching the film (Mann-Whitney U test, p < 0.05). The degree of general interest in cinema did not affect the change of viewers’ attitudes after watching the film.
It was not possible to determine the connection between liking the film and the changes in attitudes, since the differentiation of respondents by this factor was not found. Only six young people noted they did not like the film, while the others gave it a positive evaluation.
The study has limitations caused due to an assumption of no significant differences between students and postgraduates in the effectiveness of the film’s impact on them. The revealed differences between undergraduate students and postgraduate students led to the initial sample of young people being divided into two samples with smaller sizes already used during the research. In addition, for the same reason, some variables that could more accurately demonstrate the differences between students and postgraduate students and explain the effects of the film were not considered. The respondents’ attitudes before watching the film were taken into account, as well as additional factors on the impact effectiveness, such as the degree of general interest in cinema and liking of the viewed film, which could presumably increase its impacts. But a deeper study, for example, of the processes of identifying viewers with the film characters, probably linked to the viewers’ attitudes before watching, could reinforce these findings. | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 10 | https://legacy.friends.ca/explore/article/hollywoods-bergstein-buys-canadas-thinkfilm/ | en | Hollywood's Bergstein buys Canada's ThinkFilm | [
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"Richard Blackwell",
"Gayle MacDonald"
] | 2006-10-25T00:00:00 | Explore the issues that FRIENDS are actively working on, which span Canadian Stories, the CBC/Public Broadcasting, Culture and Public Policy. | en | https://legacy.friends.ca/favicon.ico | https://legacy.friends.ca/explore/article/hollywoods-bergstein-buys-canadas-thinkfilm/ | ThinkFilm, an independent Canadian film distributor that has made waves by handling controversial and edgy movies, has been sold to a big U.S. outfit that will bring it greater financial clout.
The deal will see ThinkFilm become part of the film conglomerate being assembled by Los Angeles-based producer David Bergstein, who earlier this year bought British-based Capital Films and merged it with his production company Mobius Pictures.
The price he paid for ThinkFilm was not released, although sources in the industry say it was between $15-million and $25-million.
ThinkFilm chief executive officer Jeff Sackman said the firm was willing to operate on a shoestring for a time, but it was clear from the start -- it was established in 2001 -- that eventually it would need more financial backing. The alternative was to try to raise money from individual investors, but it was "a smarter play" to sell to someone with deep pockets, he said.
Mr. Sackman said he will stay on to run the firm under its new ownership, and will try to maintain the company's focus on high-quality independent films. Sources in Los Angeles, however, doubt that he will be around for the long term.
ThinkFilm has raised eyebrows with the release of films such as Born Into Brothels and The Aristocrats, and is currently distributing Shortbus, a controversial movie that features non-simulated sex.
In a statement, Mr. Bergstein praised ThinkFilm contributions to the film landscape as "nothing short of an extraordinary accomplishment."
Mr. Sackman founded ThinkFilm with other former employees of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., where he had been head of the distribution arm. In 2003, producer Robert Lantos came on board as an investor. The two have been feuding, according to people in the film business, but they both agreed to sell their holdings to Mr. Bergstein.
In an interview Mr. Lantos described ThinkFilm as "a little jewel of a company in the specialty film niche which is ripe with opportunity." Asked why he is selling, Mr. Lantos said "I have been known to sell great companies with more opportunity than ThinkFilm has."
When making films, "I operate from passion," he said. "When it comes to business deals, I operate from cold blooded profit motive."
One question that hangs over the sale is what happens to Canadian films that ThinkFilm has in its pipeline. These movies were eligible for special tax treatment and marketing funding from Telefilm Canada, while the company was Canadian owned, but will no longer qualify.
Mr. Sackman said those issues have not yet been settled. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 12 | https://netflix.fandom.com/wiki/Bordertown | en | Bordertown | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/netflix/images/0/0d/Bordertown.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200811063511 | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/netflix/images/0/0d/Bordertown.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200811063511 | [
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] | null | [
"Contributors to Netflix Wiki"
] | null | Bordertown (Finnish: Sorjonen) is a Finnish crime drama series created and co-directed by Miikko Oikkonen and starring Ville Virtanen as Detective Inspector Kari Sorjonen. It premiered in Finland on October 16, 2016, on Yle TV1 then it was internationally distributed by Netflix later on. This... | en | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/netflix/images/4/4a/Site-favicon.ico/revision/latest?cb=20210617054825 | Netflix Wiki | https://netflix.fandom.com/wiki/Bordertown | Bordertown (Finnish: Sorjonen) is a Finnish crime drama series created and co-directed by Miikko Oikkonen and starring Ville Virtanen as Detective Inspector Kari Sorjonen. It premiered in Finland on October 16, 2016, on Yle TV1 then it was internationally distributed by Netflix later on. This series ended with the last episode on February 2, 2020.
All three seasons will leave Netflix globally in May 2023.
Summary[]
Cast and Characters[]
Ville Virtanen as Detective Inspector Kari Sorjonen
Matleena Kuusniemi as Pauliina Sorjonen
Anu Sinisalo as Detective Constable Lena Jaakkola
Lenita Susi as Katia Jaakkola
Kristiina Halttu as Detective Superintendent Taina Perttula
Olivia Ainali as Janina Sorjonen
Ilkka Villi as Detective Constable Niko Uusitalo
Episodes[]
Awards[]
This series has received three wins.
Gallery[]
Promotional Videos[]
Promotional Images[]
See More[]
on Netflix | ||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 51 | https://www.thewrap.com/mark-urman-veteran-indie-film-distributor-dies-at-66/ | en | Mark Urman, Veteran Indie Film Distributor, Dies at 66 | [
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] | null | [
"Rosemary Rossi",
"www.facebook.com"
] | 2019-01-14T00:06:17+00:00 | The president of ThinkFilm and Paladin steered Oscar campaigns for films like "Monster's Ball" and "Affliction" | en | TheWrap | https://www.thewrap.com/mark-urman-veteran-indie-film-distributor-dies-at-66/ | Veteran indie film distributor Mark Urman, most recently president and CEO of New York-based Paladin Films, died Saturday following a bout with cancer, a rep for Paladin confirmed. He was 66.
Urman began his career in the international publicity department at United Artists, followed by publicity positions with Columbia Pictures and the studio’s Triumph Films. In 1997, he left the PR firm Dennis Davidson and Associates to join Cinepix Film Properties as its head of U.S. distribution.
While serving as distribution president at ThinkFilm in the early 2000s, Urman steered seven films to Oscar nominations in six years, with “Taxi to the Dark Side” and “Born Into Brothels” both winning the gold for Best Documentary Feature.
He also shepherded successful Oscar campaigns for the films “Monsters Ball,” “Affliction,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and “Gods and Monsters,” as well as securing a Best Actor nomination for Ryan Gosling in his breakout performance in 2007’s “Half Nelson.”
In 2009, Urman founded and was president/CEO of the independent distributor Paladin Films, whose titles include Taika Watiti’s “What We Do in the Shadows,” “Boy,” “Douchebag,” “Being Charlie” and “Rockaway,” which is in theaters now.
“It has been a difficult time and hard to believe he is gone,” a rep for Paladin told TheWrap.
“Sorry to hear about the passing of Mark Urman,” Scott Macaulay, an indie producer and editor of Filmmaker magazine, said in a Sunday post. “I remember well his passionate, engaging and erudite pitches during his days as a publicist, which coincided with the early days of this magazine. He’d keep you on the phone until you too were a believer.”
Matt Dentler, former SXSW producer and now head programmer for Cinetic Rights Management, offered his own tribute. “I always admired his ability to balance marketing with the artists’ goals,” Dentler wrote on Sunday. “No distributor gave statements in press releases like he did.” | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 65 | https://playbill.com/article/john-cameron-mitchells-sex-filled-film-finds-distributor-com-133215 | en | John Cameron Mitchell's Sex-Filled Film Finds Distributor | [
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] | null | [] | 2006-06-15T12:05:00-04:00 | John Cameron Mitchell's new film, "Shortbus," will be released in the fall by ThinkFilm. | en | Playbill | https://playbill.com/article/john-cameron-mitchells-sex-filled-film-finds-distributor-com-133215 | The Hollywood Reporter says that ThinkFilm has obtained the North American rights to Mitchell's comedy-drama, which features actors engaging in actual sex on screen. "Shortbus," according to the industry paper, is largely improvised and "explores the lives of seven straight and gay New Yorkers seeking an emotional connection with one another."
ThinkFilm's Mark Urman, who heads the indie company's theatrical division, told the Hollywood Reporter, "We [at ThinkFilm] all saw it together, and were unanimous about it. It's quite groundbreaking, and we were all impressed with how natural and normal and comedic the extreme sex became without being offensive."
Because of the movie's explicit nature, marketing of the film may be a challenge, but Urman said, "Maybe we won't take TV ads. . . [but] there'll be enormous pre-awareness, and once you let the cat out of the bag, that cat should be allowed to prowl."
"Shortbus" was written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The cast features Raphael Barker, Lindsay Beamish, Justin Bond, Jay Brannan, Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy, Sook-Yin Lee, Yolonda Ross, Daniela Sea, Rachael C. Smith and Peter Stickles. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 29 | https://observer.com/2008/02/beastie-boy-forms-indie-film-company/ | en | Beastie Boy Forms Indie Film Company | [
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] | null | [
"Gillian Reagan",
"observer.com",
"gillian-reagan"
] | 2008-02-05T21:14:03 | Ch-check it out! Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA of the Beastie Boys, is launching his own independent film distribution company. "We're kind of winging it," Mr. Yauch told the Hollywood Reporter. He plans to release two to 10 films in the first year. | en | Observer | https://observer.com/2008/02/beastie-boy-forms-indie-film-company/ | Ch-check it out! Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA of the Beastie Boys, is launching his own independent film distribution company. "We’re kind of winging it," Mr. Yauch told the Hollywood Reporter. He plans to release two to 10 films in the first year. Former ThinkFilm vice president David Fenkel will run Oscilloscope Pictures, an arm of Mr. Yauch’s music and film production outfit Oscilloscope Laboratories. These guys worked together on the Beastie Boys documentary Awesome! I F***in’ Shot That! at ThinkFilm. They’ll oversee postproduction and marketing work at the Oscilloscope Laboratories’ downtown Manhattan production space. The duo plans to acquire narrative and documentary features from festivals for release in the U.S. and provide funds to complete and release unfinished films. Mr. Fenkel told the Hollywood Reporter that many of the company’s marketing campaigns will incorporate an "indie music-style, DIY approach." Keepin’ it real, we see. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 6 | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/obituaries/mark-urman-dead.html | en | Mark Urman, Champion of Independent Films, Is Dead at 66 | [
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] | null | [
"Daniel E. Slotnik"
] | 2019-01-17T00:00:00 | As a distributor, Mr. Urman helped documentaries and other art-house fare reach more and more moviegoers instead of fading into obscurity. | en | /vi-assets/static-assets/favicon-d2483f10ef688e6f89e23806b9700298.ico | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/obituaries/mark-urman-dead.html | Mark Urman, a distributor who championed independent films and documentaries, helping movies that might have faded into obscurity reach audiences and win major awards, died on Saturday in Newark. He was 66.
His wife, the writer Deborah Davis, said that the cause was respiratory failure and that Mr. Urman had recently learned he had bone cancer.
Mr. Urman was an important part of two distribution companies that focused on independent films: ThinkFilm, which was founded in 2001 and essentially shuttered in 2008, and Paladin, which he founded in 2009.
A distributor’s job is to market movies and place them in theaters. What distinguished Mr. Urman was his devotion to independent movies that can hardly compete with Hollywood blockbusters; he had to persuade moviegoers and theater owners to choose films with subjects that were unfamiliar and, at times, seemingly unappealing.
The challenges facing independent distributors have become more pronounced in recent years as the number of small films produced annually has spiked and the number of distributors to place them has declined.
With more independent movies vying to be shown in the same number of art-house theaters, they are getting less screen time, making it much harder for them to develop an audience through word of mouth or critical acclaim.
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 73 | https://sva.libguides.com/film | en | SVA Library Research Guides at School of Visual Arts | [
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] | null | [
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] | null | SVA Library resources for Film studies. Use the tabs to toggle between pages. | en | https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/customers/3062/images/favicon.ico | https://sva.libguides.com/film/home | The SVA Library owns 10,000 film titles on DVD and Blu-ray, and the Film Library owns over 15,000 titles.
The library also has well over 1,000 unpublished shooting film scripts, which appear in various draft stages and sometimes include annotations from the writer. Our main book collection also has a large collection of commercially published scripts.
All can be searched from the Library Catalog.
The library also subscribes to many streaming film collections: | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 13 | https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/u-s-financier-buys-canadian-indie-distributor-thinkfilm-1.604880 | en | U.S. financier buys Canadian indie distributor ThinkFilm | [
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"CBC Arts"
] | 2006-10-25T16:34:00+00:00 | Canadian film producer and distributor ThinkFilm, known for putting edgy and acclaimed indie productions such as Shortbus and Born Into Brothels into theatres, has been sold to a U.S. film financier. | en | /a/apple-touch-icon.png | CBC | https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/u-s-financier-buys-canadian-indie-distributor-thinkfilm-1.604880 | Canadian film producer and distributor ThinkFilm, known for putting edgy and acclaimed indie productions such as Shortbus and Born Into Brothels into theatres, has been sold to a U.S. film financier.
The Canadian-based company announced the decision in a statement on Tuesday, adding that producer and financier David Bergstein had alsoalready purchased Capitol Films, a European production company that specializes in international projects.
The two acquisitions will create a "formidable new force in the independent marketplace," ThinkFilm said.
Financial details were not released.
Jeff Sackman, ThinkFilm's Montreal-born president, CEO and founder, said the sale allows the company to remain based in Canada.
"We're a Canadian-initiated company based in Canada but we decided to operate in the volatile waters of the U.S.," Sackman said in an interview.
"This sale represents a reverse brain drain, in a way. It's a matter of nationalistic pride that I get to stay in Canada. I really didn't want to live in New York or L.A. and this proves you can be successful in this business and stay here, in a better country," said Sackman, a former Cineplex and Lionsgate Filmsexecutive.
Established about five years ago, ThinkFilm has developed a name for itself as a Canadian success story, with multiple Academy Award nominations and one win in its young history.
In addition to Shortbus and the 2005 best documentary Oscar-winner Born Into Brothels, ThinkFilm's credits include Where The Truth Lies andThe Assassination of Richard Nixon, the documentaries Murderball, The Aristocrats and Spellbound, cult films Strangers with Candy and Awesome: I⦠Shot That, and recent titles Tideland, Half Nelson, Everything's Gone Green and Citizen Duane. | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 11 | https://archive.org/details/pressbook-wb-bordertown | en | Bordertown (Warner Bros. Pressbook, 1935) : Warner Bros. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive | https://archive.org/services/img/pressbook-wb-bordertown | https://archive.org/services/img/pressbook-wb-bordertown | [
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] | null | [] | null | Pressbook for the film Bordertown, directed by Archie Mayo and distributed by Warner Bros. | en | Internet Archive | https://archive.org/details/pressbook-wb-bordertown | Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.
Search the Wayback Machine
Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass.
Save Page Now
Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.
Please enter a valid web address | |||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 4 | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4937942/ | en | Bordertown (TV Series 2016–2020) | [
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"Photos",
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"Synopsis",
"Trailers",
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] | null | [] | 2017-01-18T00:00:00 | Bordertown: Created by Miikko Oikkonen. With Ville Virtanen, Matleena Kuusniemi, Anu Sinisalo, Lenita Susi. Quirky police detective, in Finland, delves into his memory palace to solve despicable crimes all the while trying to keep his family together. If Sherlock was based in Finland this would be it. | en | IMDb | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4937942/ | Firstly, I don't write reviews unless I've watched the whole show or series. I watch a lot of foreign content and loved this series. Whilst I agree with one reviewer who criticised the show for wrapping up episodes a little too quickly, thus making the conclusion a tad hard to understand, this really affected only 1 or 2 episodes. Overall, the stories are well thought out, the acting is good and the scenery superb.
I liked the way the characters were developed and found myself invested in their personalities and lives. It's not just a cop show - you experience both the professional and private relationships of Kari, his family members and his work alliances. And whilst the stories do stand alone, it's best to watch the series in sequence to fully appreciate and understand the interrelationships that develop.
I believe a lot of thought went into the casting of the series. Ville Virtanen as the lead character Kari Sorjonen is superb - as well as being a nice bit of eye candy for we ladies. Matleena Kuusniemi, who plays Kari's wife Paulina, is just delightful and I cannot imagine anyone better for that role. Olivia Ainali, who plays their daughter Janina, looks like she could be their offspring and plays her role as a young adolescent, coping with all the complexities of that age group and peer pressures, very convincingly.
I'm hoping for a second series. Nine out of ten from me. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 49 | https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/descriptions-and-essays/ | en | Brief Descriptions and Expanded Essays of National Film Registry Titles | http://www.loc.gov/static/images/favicons/open-graph-logo.png | http://www.loc.gov/static/images/favicons/open-graph-logo.png | [
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] | null | [] | null | Brief descriptions of each Registry title can be found here, and expanded essays are available for select titles. The authors of these essays are experts in film history, and their works appear in books, newspapers, magazines and online. Some of these essays originated in other publications and are reprinted here by permission of the author. Other essays have been written specifically for this website. The views expressed in these essays are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Library of Congress. | en | The Library of Congress | null | Brief descriptions of each Registry title can be found here, and expanded essays are available for select titles. The authors of these essays are experts in film history, and their works appear in books, newspapers, magazines and online. Some of these essays originated in other publications and are reprinted here by permission of the author. Other essays have been written specifically for this website. The views expressed in these essays are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Library of Congress.
In most cases, the images linked to Registry titles listed below were selected from the Library's Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, however some are drawn from other Library collections.
View a list of all expanded essays
7th Heaven (1927)
"Seventh Heaven" (also referred to as "7th Heaven"), directed by Frank Borzage and based on the play by Austin Strong, tells the story of Chico (Charles Farrell), the Parisian sewer worker-turned-street cleaner, and his wife Diane (Janet Gaynor), who are separated during World War I, yet whose love manages to keep them connected. "Seventh Heaven" was initially released as a silent film but proved so popular with audiences that it was re-released with a synchronized soundtrack later that same year. The popularity of the film resulted in it becoming one of the most commercially successful silent films as well as one of the first films to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Janet Gaynor, Frank Borzage, and Benjamin Glazer won Oscars for their work on the film, specifically awards for Best Actress, Best Directing (Dramatic Picture), and Best Writing (Adaptation), respectively. "Seventh Heaven" also marked the first time often-paired stars Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell worked together. Added to the National Film Registry in 1995.
Expanded essay by Aubrey Solomon (PDF, 694KB)
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
Special-effects master Ray Harryhausen provides the hero (Kerwin Mathews) with a villanous magician (Torin Thatcher) and fantastic antagonists, including a genie, giant cyclops, fire-breathing dragons, and a sword-wielding animated skeleton, all in glorious Technicolor. And of course no mythological tale would be complete without the rescue of a damsel in distress, here a princess (Kathryn Grant) that the evil magician shrinks down to a mere few inches. Harryhausen's stunning Dynamation process, which blended stop-motion animation and live-actions sequences, and a thrilling score by Bernard Herrmann ("Psycho," "The Day the Earth Stood Still") makes this one of the finest fantasy films of all time. Added to the National Film Registry in 2008.
Expanded essay by Tony Dalton (PDF, 900KB)
3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Considered to be one of the best westerns of the 1950s, "3:10 to Yuma" has gained in stature since its original release as audiences have recognized the progressive insight the film provides into the psychology of its two main characters that becomes vividly exposed during scenes of heightened tension. Frankie Laine sang the film's popular theme song, also titled "3:10 to Yuma." Often compared favorably with "High Noon," this innovative western from director Delmer Daves starred Glenn Ford and Van Heflin in roles cast against type and was based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. Added to the National Film Registry in 2012.
12 Angry Men (1957)
In the 1950s, several television dramas acted live over the airways won such critical acclaim that they were also produced as motion pictures; among those already honored by the National Film Registry is "Marty" (1955). Reginald Rose had adapted his original stage play "12 Angry Men" for Studio One in 1954, and Henry Fonda decided to produce a screen version, taking the lead role and hiring director Sidney Lumet, who had been directing for television since 1950. The result is a classic. Filmed in a spare, claustrophobic style—largely set in one jury room—the play relates a single juror's refusal to conform to peer pressure in a murder trial and follows his conversion of one juror after another to his point of view. The story is often viewed as a commentary on McCarthyism, Fascism, or Communism. Added to the National Film Registry in 2007.
Expanded essay by Joanna E. Rapf (PDF, 258KB)
12 Years a Slave (2013)
This biographical drama directed by Sir Steve McQueen, and produced by Brad Pitt’s production company, is based on the 1853 slave memoir “Twelve Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup, an African-American free man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. by two conmen in 1841, and sold into slavery. He was put to work on plantations in the state of Louisiana for 12 years before being released. The film received nine Academy Award nominations, winning for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay for John Ridley, and Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong’o. Added to the National Film Registry in 2023.
13 Lakes (2004)
James Benning's feature-length film can be seen as a series of moving landscape paintings with artistry and scope that might be compared to Claude Monet's series of water-lily paintings. Embracing the concept of "landscape as a function of time," Benning shot his film at 13 different American lakes in identical 10-minute takes. Each is a static composition: a balance of sky and water in each frame with only the very briefest suggestion of human existence. At each lake, Benning prepared a single shot, selected a single camera position and a specific moment. The climate, the weather and the season deliver a level of variation to the film, a unique play of light, despite its singularity of composition. Curators of the Rotterdam Film Festival noted, "The power of the film is that the filmmaker teaches the viewer to look better and learn to distinguish the great varieties in the landscape alongside him. [The list of lakes] alone is enough to encompass a treatise on America and its history. A treatise the film certainly encourages, but emphatically does not take part in." Benning, who studied mathematics and then film at the University of Wisconsin, currently is on the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Added to the National Film Registry in 2014.
Expanded essay by Scott MacDonald (PDF, 316KB)
20 Feet from Stardom (2013)
Directed by Morgan Neville and produced by Gil Friesen, “20 Feet from Stardom” uses archival footage and interviews sharing behind-the-scenes experiences, and shining the spotlight on backup singers, including Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill, Jo Lawry, Claudia Lennear, and Tata Vega. Archival footage includes performances with Sting, David Bowie, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Tom Jones, Ike & Tina Turner, Luther Vandross, and more. A highlight of the film includes an interview with Mick Jagger telling the story of how Merry Clayton came to sing the iconic background vocals on “Gimme Shelter.” Added to the National Film Registry in 2023.
42nd Street (1933)
At a little less than 90 minutes, "42nd Street" is a fast-moving picture that crackles with great dialogue and snappily plays up Busby Berkeley's dance routines and and the bouncy Al Dubin-Harry Warren ditties that include the irrepressably cheerful "Young and Healthy" (featuring the adorable Toby Wing), "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and the title number. A famous Broadway director (Warner Baxter) takes on a new show despite his ill health, then faces disaster at every turn, including the loss of his leading lady on opening night. The film features Bebe Daniels as the star of the show and Berkeley regulars Guy Kibbee, Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell, and Ruby Keeler, whom Baxter implores, "You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!" Added to the National Film Registry in 1998.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Stanley Kubrick's landmark epic pushed the envelope of narrative and special effects to create an introspective look at technology and humanity. Arthur C. Clarke adapted his story "The Sentinel" for the screen version and his odyssey follows two astronauts, played by Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, on a voyage to Jupiter accompanied by HAL 9000, an unnervingly humanesque computer running the entire ship. With assistance from special-effects expert Douglas Trumbull, Kubrick spent more than two years creating his vision of outer space. Despite some initial critical misgivings, "2001" became one of the most popular films of 1968. Billed as "the ultimate trip," the film quickly caught on with a counterculture audience that embraced the contemplative experience that many older audiences found tedious and lacking substance. Added to the National Film Registry in 1991.
Expanded essay by James Verniere (PDF, 691KB)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)
Directed by Stuart Paton, the film was touted as "the first submarine photoplay." Universal spent freely on location, shooting in the Bahamas and building life-size props, including the submarine, and taking two years to film. J. E. Williamson's "photosphere," an underwater chamber connected to an iron tube on the surface of the water, enabled Paton to film underwater scenes up to depths of 150 feet. The film is based on Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and to a lesser extent, "The Mysterious Island." The real star of the film is its special effects. Although they may seem primitive by today's standards, 100 years ago they dazzled contemporary audiences. It was the first time the public had an opportunity to see reefs, various types of marine life and men mingling with sharks. It was also World War I, and submarine warfare was very much in the public consciousness, so the life-size submarine gave the film an added dimension of reality. The film was immensely popular with audiences and critics. Added to the National Film Registry in 2016.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Freight handlers Bud Abbott and Lou Costello encounter Dracula and Frankenstein's monster when they arrive from Europe for a house of horrors exhibit. After the monsters outwit the hapless duo and escape, Dracula returns for Costello whose brain he intends to transplant into the monster. Lon Chaney Jr. as the lycanthropic Lawrence Talbot, Bela Lugosi in his final appearance as Dracula and Glenn Strange as the Monster all play their roles perfectly straight as Bud and Lou stumble around them. Throughout the film, Dracula and the Monster cavort in plain view of the quivering Costello who is unable to convince the ever-poised and dubious Abbott that the monsters exist. until the wild climax in Dracula's castle, where the duo are pursued by all three of the film's monstrosities.
Expanded essay by Ron Palumbo (PDF, 424KB)
Ace in the Hole (aka Big Carnival) (1951)
Based on the infamous 1925 case of Kentucky cave explorer Floyd Collins, who became trapped underground and whose gripping saga created a national sensation lasting two weeks before Collins died. A deeply cynical look at journalism, "Ace in the Hole" features Kirk Douglas as a once-famous New York reporter, now a down-and-out has-been in Albuquerque. Douglas plots a return to national prominence by milking the story of a man trapped in a Native American cave dwelling as a riveting human-interest story, complete with a tourist-laden, carnival atmosphere outside the rescue scene. The callously indifferent wife of the stricken miner is no more sympathetic: "I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons." Providing a rare moral contrast is Porter Hall, who plays Douglas' ethical editor appalled at his reporter's actions. Such a scathing tale of media manipulation might have helped turn this brilliant film into a critical and commercial failure, which later led Paramount to reissue the film under a new title, "The Big Carnival."
Expanded essay by Molly Haskell (PDF, 330KB)
Adam's Rib (1949)
With an Oscar-nominated script by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, "Adam's Rib" pokes fun at the double standard between the sexes. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn play husband and wife attorneys, each drawn to the same case of attempted murder. Judy Holliday, defending the sanctity of her marriage and family, intends only to frighten her philandering husband (Tom Ewell) and his mistress (Jean Hagen) but tearfully ends up shooting and injuring the husband. Tracy argues that the case is open and shut, but Hepburn asserts that, if the defendant were a man, he'd be set free on the basis of "the unwritten law." As the trial turns into a media circus, the couple's relationship is put to the test. Holliday's first screen triumph propelled her onto bigger roles, including "Born Yesterday," for which she won an Academy Award. The film is also the debut of Ewell, who would become best known for his role opposite Marilyn Monroe in "The Seven Year Itch", and Hagen, who would floor audiences as the ditzy blonde movie star with the shrill voice in "Singin' in the Rain."
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
When Richard the Lion-Hearted is captured and held for ransom, evil Prince John (Claude Rains) declares himself ruler of England and makes no attempt to secure Richard's safe return. A lone knight, Robin Hood (Errol Flynn), sets out to raise Richard's ransom by hijacking wealthy caravans traveling through Sherwood Forest. Aided by his lady love, Maid Marian (Olivia de Havilland), and band of merry men (including Alan Hale and Eugene Pallette) Robin battles the usurper John and wicked Sheriff of Nottingham to return the throne to its rightful owner. Dashing, athletic and witty, Flynn is everything that Robin Hood should be, and his adversaries are memorably villainous, particularly Basil Rathbone with whom Flynn crosses swords in the climactic duel. One of the most spectacular adventure films of all time, and features a terrific performance by the perfectly cast Flynn. Only a spirited and extravagant production could do justice to the Robin Hood legend; this film is more than equal to the task. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score won an Oscar, as did the editing and art direction.
The African Queen (1951)
Adapted from a novel by C.S. Forester, the film stars Humphrey Bogart in an Oscar-winning portrayal of a slovenly, gin-swilling captain of the African Queen, a tramp steamer carrying supplies to small African villages during World War I. Katharine Hepburn plays a prim spinster missionary stranded when the Germans invade her settlement. Bogart agrees to transport Hepburn back to civilization despite their opposite temperaments. Before long, their tense animosity turns to love, and together they navigate treacherous rapids and devise an ingenious way to destroy a German gunboat. The difficulties inherent in filming on location in Africa are documented in numerous books, including one by Hepburn.
Airplane! (1980)
"Airplane!" emerged as a sharply perceptive parody of the big-budget disaster films that dominated Hollywood during the 1970s. Written and directed by David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, the film is characterized by a freewheeling style and skewered Hollywood's tendency to push successful formulaic movie conventions beyond the point of logic. One of the film's most noteworthy achievements was to cast actors best known for their dramatic careers, such as Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges, and provide them with opportunities to showcase their comic talents.The central premise is one giant cliche: a pilot (Robert Hays), who's developed a fear of flying, tries to win back his stewardess girlfriend (Julie Hagerty), boarding her flight so he can coax her around. Due to an outbreak of food poisoning, Hays must land the plane, with the help of a glue-sniffing air traffic controller (Bridges) and and his tyranical former captain (Stack). Supporting the stars is a wacky assemblage of stock characters from every disaster movie ever made.
Expanded essay by Michael Schlesinger (PDF, 477KB)
“¡Alambrista! (1977)
“¡Alambrista!” is the powerfully emotional story of Roberto, a Mexican national working as a migrant laborer in the United States to send money back to his wife and newborn. Director Robert M. Young’s sensitive screenplay refuses to indulge in simplistic pieties, presenting us with a world in which exploitation and compassion coexist in equal measure. The film immerses us in Roberto’s world as he moves across vast landscapes, meeting people he can’t be sure are friend or threat, staying one step ahead of immigration officials. “¡Alambrista!” is as relevant today as it was on its 1977 release, a testament to its enduring humanity. Added to the National Film Registry in 2023.
Expanded essay by Charles Ramírez Berg (PDF, 556KB)
Interview with Edward James Olmos (PDF, 2MB)
Alien (1979)
This film's appeal may lie in its reputation as "a haunted house movie in space." Though not particularly original, "Alien" is distinguished by director Ridley Scott's innovative ability to wring every ounce of suspense out of the B-movie staples he employs within the film's hi-tech setting. Art designer H.R. Giger creates what has become one of cinema's scariest monsters: a nightmarish hybrid of humanoid-insect-machine that Scott makes even more effective by obscuring it from view for much of the film. The cast, including Tom Skerritt and John Hurt, brings an appealing quality to their characters, and one character in particular, Sigourney Weaver's warrant officer Ripley, became the model for the next generation of hardboiled heroines and solidified the prototype in subsequent sequels. Rounding out the cast and crew, cameraman Derek Vanlint and composer Jerry Goldsmith propel the emotions relentlessly from one visual horror to the next.
All About Eve (1950)
Scheming ingénue Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) ingratiates herself with aging Broadway star Margo Channing (Bette Davis) moving in on her acting roles, her friends and her stage director beau. The dialog is often too bitingly perfect with its sarcastic barbs and clever comebacks, but it's still entertaining and quote-worthy. The film took home Academy Awards for best picture, best director (Joseph L. Mankiewicz), best screenplay (Mankiewicz) and costume design (Edith Head and Charles Le Maire). George Sanders won a best supporting actor Oscar for his performance as the acid-tongued theater critic Addison DeWitt. Thelma Ritter as Margo's maid, Celeste Holm as Margo's best friend, and Marilyn Monroe, in a small role as an aspiring actress, give memorable performances.
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All My Babies (1953)
Written and directed by George Stoney, this landmark educational film was used to educate midwives throughout the South. Produced by the Georgia Department of Public Health, profiles the life and work of "Miss Mary" Coley, an African-American midwife living in rural Georgia. In documenting the preparation for and delivery of healthy babies in rural conditions ranging from decent to deplorable, the filmmakers inadvertently captured a telling snapshot at the socioeconomic conditions of the era that would prove fascinating to future generations. Added to the National Film Registry in 2002.
Expanded essay by Joshua Glick (PDF, 391KB)
Watch it here
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
This faithful adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's classic pacifist novel is among the greatest antiwar films ever made, remaining powerful more than 80 years later, thanks to Lewis Milestone's inventive direction. Told from the perspective of a sensitive young German soldier (Lew Ayres) during WWI, recruited by a hawkish professor advocating "glory for the fatherland." The young soldier comes under the protective wing of an old veteran (Louis Wolheim) who teaches him how to survive the horrors of war. The film is emotionally draining, and so realistic that it will be forever etched in the mind of any viewer. Milestone's direction is frequently inspired, most notably during the battle scenes. In one such scene, the camera serves as a kind of machine gun, shooting down the oncoming troops as it glides along the trenches. Universal spared no expense during production, converting more than 20 acres of a large California ranch into battlefields occupied by more than 2,000 ex-servicemen extras. After its initial release, some foreign countries refused to run the film. Poland banned it for being pro-German, while the Nazis labeled it anti-German. Joseph Goebbels, later propaganda minister, publicly denounced the film. It received an Academy Award as Best Picture and Milestone was honored as Best Director.
Expanded essay by Garry Wills (PDF, 713KB)
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All That Heaven Allows (1955)
The rich visual texture, using glorious Technicolor, and a soaring emotional score lend what is essentially a thin story a kind of epic tension. A movie unheralded by critics and largely ignored by the public at the time of its release, All That Heaven Allows is now considered Douglas Sirk's masterpiece. The story concerns a romance between a middle-aged, middle-class widow (Jane Wyman) and a brawny young gardener (Rock Hudson)—the stuff of a standard weepie, you might think, until Sirk's camera begins to draw a deeply disturbing, deeply compassionate portrait of a woman trapped by stifling moral and social codes. Sirk's meaning is conveyed almost entirely by his mise-en-scene—a world of glistening, treacherous surfaces, of objects that take on a terrifying life of their own; he is one of those rare filmmakers who insist that you read the image.
Expanded essay by John Wills (PDF, 187KB)
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All That Jazz (1979)
Director/choreographer Bob Fosse takes a Felliniesque look at the life of a driven entertainer. Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, channeling Fosse) is the ultimate work (and pleasure)-aholic, as he knocks back a daily dose of amphetamines to juggle a new Broadway production while editing his new movie, an ex-wife Audrey, girlfriend Kate, young daughter, and various conquests. Reminiscent of Fellini's "8 1/2 ," Fosse moves from realistic dance numbers to extravagant flights of cinematic fancy, as Joe meditates on his life, his women, and his death. Fosse shows the stiff price that entertaining exacts on entertainers (among other things, he intercuts graphic footage of open-heart surgery with a song and dance), mercilessly reversing the feel-good mood of classical movie musicals.
All the King's Men (1949)
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren and directed by Robert Rossen, "All the King's Men" was inspired by the career of Louisiana governor Huey Long. Broderick Crawford won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Willie Stark, a backwoods Southern lawyer who wins the hearts of his constituents by bucking the corrupt state government. The thesis is basically that power corrupts, with Stark presented as a man who starts out with a burning sense of purpose and a defiant honesty. Rossen, however, injects a note of ambiguity early on (a scene where Willie impatiently shrugs off his wife's dream of the great and good things he is destined to accomplish); and the doubt as to what he is really after is beautifully orchestrated by being filtered through the eyes of the press agent (Ireland) who serves as the film's narrator, and whose admiration for Stark gradually becomes tempered by understanding. In addition to its Oscars for Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge, the film won the Best Picture prize.
All the President's Men (1976)
Based on the memoir by "Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein about uncovering the Watergate break-in and cover up, "All the President's Men" is a rare example of a best-selling book transformed into a hit film and a cultural phenomenon in its own right. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, the film stars Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, and features an Oscar-winning performance by Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee. Nominated for numerous awards, it took home an Oscar for best screenplay by William Goldman (known prior to this for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and after for "The Princess Bride"). Pakula's taut directing plays up the emotional roller coaster of exhilaration, paranoia, self-doubt, and courage, without ignoring the tedium and tireless digging, and elevating it to noble determination.
Expanded essay by Mike Canning (PDF, 72KB)
Allures (1961)
Called the master of "cosmic cinema," Jordan Belson excelled in creating abstract imagery with a spiritual dimension that featured dazzling displays of color, light, and ever-moving patterns and objects. Trained as a painter and influenced by the films of Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren, and Hans Richter, Belson collaborated in the late 1950s with electronic music composer Henry Jacobs to create elaborate sound and light shows in the San Francisco Morrison Planetarium, an experience that informed his subsequent films. The film, Belson has stated, "was probably the space-iest film that had been done until then. It creates a feeling of moving into the void." Inspired by Eastern spiritual thought, "Allures" (which took a year and a half to make) is, Belson suggests, a "mathematically precise" work intended to express the process of becoming that the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin has named "cosmogenesis."
Amadeus (1984)
Milos Forman directed this deeply absorbing, visually sumptuous film based on the lives and rivalry of two great classical composers — the brash, youthful Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the good, if not truly exceptional, Antonio Salieri. Based upon Peter Shaffer's highly successful play, which Shaffer personally rewrote for the screen, "Amadeus," though ostensibly about classical music, instead shines as a remarkable examination of the concept of genius (Mozart) as well as the jealous obsession from less-talented rivals (Salieri). In an Oscar-winning performance, F. Murray Abraham skillfully lays bare the tortured emotions (admiration and covetous envy) Salieri feels for Mozart's work: "This was the music I had never heard...It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God. Why would God choose an obscene child to be his instrument?"
America, America (1963)
"My name is Elia Kazan. I am a Greek by blood, Turk by birth, American because my uncle made a journey." So begins the film directed, produced and written by Elia Kazan, and the one he frequently cited as his personal favorite. Based loosely on Kazan's uncle, Stavros dreams of going to America in the late 1890s. Kazan, who often hired locals as extras, cast in the lead role a complete novice, Stathis Giallelis, whom he discovered sweeping the floor in a Greek producer's office. Shot almost entirely in Greece and Turkey, Haskell Wexler's cinematography evokes scale and authenticity that combines with Gene Callahan's Oscar-winning art direction to give the film a distinctly European feel. Intended as the first chapter of a trilogy, the epically ambitious "America, America" also earned Oscar nominations for best director, best screenplay and best picture.
American Graffiti (1973)
Fresh off the success of "The Godfather," producer Francis Ford Coppola weilded the clout to tackle a project pitched to him by his friend, George Lucas. The film captured the flavor of the 1950s with ironic candor and a latent foreboding that helped spark a nostalgia craze. Despite technical obstacles, and having to shoot at night, cinematographer Haskell Wexler gave the film a neon glare to match its rock-n-roll soundscape. Lucas' period detail, co-writers Willard Huyck's and Gloria Katz's realistic dialogue, and the film's wistfulness for pre-Vietnam simplicity appealed to audiences amidst cultural upheaval. The film also established the reputations of Lucas (whose next film would be "Star Wars") and his young cast, and furthered the onset of soundtrack-driven, youth-oriented movies.
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An American in Paris (1951)
Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Georges Guetary, (The film was supposed to make Guetary into "the New Chevalier." It didn't.) The thinnish plot is held together by the superlative production numbers and by the recycling of several vintage George Gershwin tunes, including "I Got Rhythm," "'S Wonderful," and "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Highlights include Guetary's rendition of "Stairway to Paradise"; Oscar Levant's fantasy of conducting and performing Gershwin's "Concerto in F" (Levant also appears as every member of the orchestra). "An American in Paris," directed by Vincente Minnelli, cleaned up at the Academy Awards, with Oscars for best picture, screenplay, score, cinematography, art direction, set design, and even a special award for the choreography of its 18-minute closing ballet in which Kelly and Caron dance before lavish backgrounds resembling French masterpieces.
Interview with Leslie Caron (PDF, 1.36MB)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Director Otto Preminger brought a new cinematic frankness to film with this gripping crime-and-trial movie shot on location in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where the incident on which it was based had occurred. Based on the best-selling novel by Robert Traver, Preminger imbues his film with daring dialogue and edgy pacing. Controversial in its day due to its blunt language and willingness to openly discuss adult themes, "Anatomy" endures today for its first-rate drama and suspense, and its informed perspective on the legal system. Starring James Stewart, Ben Gazzara and Lee Remick, it also features strong supporting performances by George C. Scott as the prosecuting attorney, and Eve Arden and Arthur O'Connell. The film includes an innovative jazz score by Duke Ellington and one of Saul Bass's most memorable opening title sequences.
Animal House (1978)
(see "National Lampoon's Animal House")
Annie Hall (1977)
Woody Allen's romantic comedy of the Me Decade follows the up and down relationship of two mismatched New York neurotics. "Annie Hall" blended the slapstick and fantasy from such earlier Allen films as "Sleeper" and "Bananas" with the more autobiographical musings of his stand-up and written comedy, using an array of such movie techniques as talking heads, splitscreens, and subtitles. Within these gleeful formal experiments and sight gags, Allen and co-writer Marshall Brickman skewered 1970s solipsism, reversing the happy marriage of opposites found in classic screwball comedies. Hailed as Allen's most mature and personal film, "Annie Hall" beat out "Star Wars" for Best Picture and also won Oscars for Allen as director and writer and for Keaton as Best Actress; audiences enthusiastically responded to Allen's take on contemporary love and turned Keaton's rumpled menswear into a fashion trend. Added to the National Film Registry in 2001.
Expanded essay by Jay Carr (PDF, 302KB)
Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman (1974)
Directed by Jill Godmilow and Judy Collins, this Oscar-nominated documentary chronicles the life of musician-conductor Antonia Brico and her struggle to become a symphony director despite her gender. Told by many that it was ridiculous for a woman to think of conducting, she admits, "I felt that I'd never forgive myself if I didn't try." And the pain and deprivation which she has known all her life are over-shadowed in this film by her ebullient, forthright warmth. The narrative of her life alternates with glimpses of her at work—rehearsing or teaching. She also reflects on the emotional experience of conducting— including the acute separation pangs that follow a concert.
Expanded essay by Diane Worthey (PDF, 458KB)
The Apartment (1960)
Billy Wilder is purported to have hung a sign in his office that read, "How Would Lubitsch Do It?" Here, that Lubitsch touch seems to hover over each scene, lending a lightness to even the most nefarious of deeds. One of the opening shots in the movie shows Baxter as one of a vast horde of wage slaves, working in a room where the desks line up in parallel rows almost to the vanishing point. This shot is quoted from King Vidor's silent film "The Crowd" (1928), which is also about a faceless employee in a heartless corporation. Cubicles would have come as revolutionary progress in this world. By the time he made this film, Wilder had become a master at a kind of sardonic, satiric comedy that had sadness at its center. Wilder was fresh off the enormous hit "Some Like it Hot," his first collaboration with Lemmon, and with "The Apartment" Lemmon showed that he could move from light comedian to tragic everyman. This movie was the summation of what Wilder had done to date, and the key transition in Lemmon's career. It was also a key film for Shirley MacLaine, who had been around for five years in light comedies, but here emerged as a serious actress who would flower in the 1960s.
Expanded essay by Kyle Westphal (PDF, 428KB)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The chaotic production also experienced shut-downs when a typhoon destroyed the set and star Sheen suffered a heart attack; the budget ballooned and Coppola covered the overages himself. These production headaches, which Coppola characterized as being like the Vietnam War itself, have been superbly captured in the documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. Despite the studio's fears and mixed reviews of the film's ending, Apocalypse Now became a substantial hit and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Duvall's psychotic Kilgore, and Best Screenplay. It won Oscars for sound and for Vittorio Storaro's cinematography. This hallucinatory, Wagnerian project has produced admirers and detractors of equal ardor; it resembles no other film ever made, and its nightmarish aura and polarized reception aptly reflect the tensions and confusions of the Vietnam era.
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Applause (1929)
This early sound-era masterpiece was the first film of both stage/director Rouben Mamoulian and cabaret/star Helen Morgan. Many have compared Mamoulian's debut to that of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" because of his flamboyant use of cinematic innovation to test technical boundaries. The tear-jerking plot boasts top performances from Morgan as the fading burlesque queen, Fuller Mellish Jr. as her slimy paramour and Joan Peters as her cultured daughter. However, the film is remembered today chiefly for Mamoulian's audacious style. While most films of the era were static and stage-bound, Mamoulian's camera reinvigorated the melodramatic plot by prowling relentlessly through sordid backstage life.
Apollo 13 (1995)
The extreme challenges involved in space travel present compelling cinema storylines, and one cannot imagine a more harrowing scenario than the near tragic Apollo 13 space mission. Director Ron Howard’s retelling is equally meticulous and emotional, a master class in enveloping the audience into a complicated technological exercise in life-and-death problem-solving. Based on the 1994 book “Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13” by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, “Apollo 13” blends skillful editing, crafty special effects, a James Horner score, and a well-paced script to detail the quick-thinking heroics of both the astronaut crew and NASA technicians as they improvise and work through unprecedented situations. The talented cast includes Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan. Howard went to great lengths to create a technically accurate movie, employing NASA's assistance in astronaut and flight-controller training for his cast, and obtaining permission to film scenes aboard a reduced-gravity aircraft for realistic depiction of the weightlessness experienced by the astronauts in space. Added to the National Film Registry in 2023.
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
John Huston's brilliant crime drama contains the recipe for a meticulously planned robbery, but the cast of criminal characters features one too many bad apples. Sam Jaffe, as the twisted mastermind, uses cash from corrupt attorney Emmerich (Louis Calhern) to assemble a group of skilled thugs to pull off a jewel heist. All goes as planned — until an alert night watchman and a corrupt cop enter the picture. Marilyn Monroe has a memorable bit part as Emmerich's "niece."
Atlantic City (1980)
Aided by a taut script from playwright John Guare, director Louis Malle celebrates his wounded characters even as he mercilessly reveals their dreams for the hopeless illusions they really are. Malle reveals the rich portraits he paints of wasted American lives, through the filter of his European sensibilities. He is exceptionally well served by his cast and his location--a seedy resort town supported, like the principal characters, by memories of glories past. Burt Lancaster, in a masterful performance, plays an aging small-time criminal who hangs around Atlantic City doing odd jobs and taking care of the broken-down moll of the deceased gangster for whom Lou was a gofer. Living in an invented past, Lou identifies with yesteryear's notorious gangsters and gets involved with sexy would-be croupier (Susan Sarandon) and her drug-dealing estranged husband.
The Atomic Café (1982)
Produced and directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty, the influential film compilation "The Atomic Cafe" provocatively documents the post-World War II threat of nuclear war as depicted in a wide assortment of archival footage from the period (newsreels, statements from politicians, advertisements, training, civil defense and military films). This vast, yet entertaining, collage of clips serves as a unique document of the 1940s-1960s era and illustrates how these films—some of which today seem propagandistic or even patently absurd ("The House in the Middle")—were used to inform the public on how to cope in the nuclear age.
Expanded essay by John Willis (PDF, 45KB)
Attica (1974)
The September 1971 Attica prison uprising is the deadliest prison riot in U.S. history. To protest living conditions, inmates took over the facility, held hostages, issued a manifesto demanding better treatment, and then engaged in four days of fruitless negotiations. On Day 5, state troopers and prison authorities retook the prison in a brutal assault, leaving 43 inmates and hostages dead. Cinda Firestone’s outstanding investigation of the tragedy takes us through the event, what caused it, and the aftermath. She uses first-hand interviews with prisoners, families and guards, assembled surveillance and news camera footage, and video from the McKay Commission hearings on the massacre. An ex-inmate ends the film with a quote hoping to shake public lethargy on the need for prison reform: “Wake up, because nothing comes to a sleeper, but a dream.”
The Augustas (1930s-1950s)
Scott Nixon, a traveling salesman based in Augusta, Ga., was an avid member of the Amateur Cinema League who enjoyed recording his travels on film. In this 16-minute silent film, Nixon documents some 38 streets, storefronts and cities named Augusta in such far-flung locales as Montana and Maine. Arranged with no apparent rhyme or reason, the film strings together brief snapshots of these Augustas, many of which are indicated at pencil-point on a train timetable or roadmap. Nixon photographed his odyssey using both 8mm and 16mm cameras loaded with black-and-white and color film, amassing 26,000 feet of film that now resides at the University of South Carolina. While Nixon's film does not illuminate the historical or present-day significance of these towns, it binds them together under the umbrella of Americana. Whether intentionally or coincidentally, this amateur auteur seems to juxtapose the name's lofty origin—'august,' meaning great or venerable—with the unspectacular nature of everyday life in small-town America.
View this film at Moving Image Research Collections, University of South Carolina External
The Awful Truth (1937)
Leo McCarey's largely improvised film is one of the funniest of the screwball comedies, and also one of the most serious at heart. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a pair of world-weary socialites who each believe the other has been unfaithful, and consequently enter into a trial divorce. The story began life as a 1922 stage hit and was filmed twice previously. McCarey maintained the basic premise of the play but improved it greatly, adding sophisticated dialogue and encouraging his actors to improvise around anything they thought funny. "The Awful Truth" was in the can in six weeks, and was such a success that Grant and Dunne were teamed again in another comedy, "My Favorite Wife" and in a touching tearjerker, "Penny Serenade." The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
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Baby Face (1933)
Smart and sultry Barbara Stanwyck uses her feminine wiles to scale the corporate ladder, amassing male admirers who are only too willing to help a poor working girl. One of the more notorious melodramas of the pre-Code era, a period when the movie industry relaxed its censorship standards, films such as this one led to the imposition of the Production Code in 1934. This relative freedom resulted in a cycle of gritty, audacious films that resonated with Depression-battered audiences.
Expanded essay by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (PDF, 819KB)
Back to the Future (1985)
Writer/director Robert Zemeckis explored the possibilities of special effects with the 1985 box-office smash "Back to the Future." With his writing partner Bob Gale, Zemeckis tells the tale of accidental time-tourist Marty McFly. Stranded in the year 1955, Marty (Michael J. Fox)—with the help of his friend eccentric scientist Dr. Emmett Brown (played masterfully over-the-top by Christopher Lloyd)—must not only find a way home, but also teach his father (Crispin Glover) how to become a man, repair the space/time continuum and save his family from being erased from existence. All this, while fighting off the advances of his then-teenaged mother (Lea Thompson). The film generated a popular soundtrack and two enjoyable sequels.
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Vincente Minnelli directed this captivating Hollywood story of an ambitious producer (Kirk Douglas)as told in flashback by those whose lives he's impacted: an actress (Lana Turner), a writer (Dick Powell) and a director (Barry Sullivan). Insightful and liberally sprinkled with characters modeled after various Hollywood royalty from David O. Selznick to Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, witty, with one of Turner's best performances. Five Oscars include Supporting Actress (Gloria Grahame), Screenplay (Charles Schnee). David Raksin's score is another asset.
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Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Though only 81 minutes in length, "Bad Day" packs a punch. Spencer Tracy stars as Macreedy, a one-armed man who arrives unexpectedly one day at the sleepy desert town of Black Rock. He is just as tight-lipped at first about the reason for his visit as the residents of Black Rock are about the details of their town. However, when Macreedy announces that he is looking for a former Japanese-American Black Rock resident named Komoko, town skeletons suddenly burst into the open. In addition to Tracy, the standout cast includes Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Dean Jagger. Director John Sturges displays the western landscape to great advantage in this CinemaScope production.
Badlands (1973)
Stark, brutal story based on the Charles Starkweather-Carol Fugate murder spree through the Midwest in 1958, with Martin Sheen as the killer lashing out against a society that ignores his existence and Sissy Spacek as his naive teenage consort. Sheen is forceful and properly weird as the mass murderer, strutting around pretending to be James Dean, while Spacek doesn't quite understand what he's all about, but goes along anyway. Director Terrence Malick neither romanticizes nor condemns his subjects, maintaining a low-key approach to the story that results in a fascinating character study. The film did scant box office business, but it remains one of the most impressive of directorial debuts.
Ball of Fire (1941)
In this Howard Hawks-directed screwball comedy, showgirl and gangster's moll Sugarpuss O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck) hides from the law among a group of scholars compiling an encyclopedia. Cooling her heels until the heat lets up, Sugarpuss charms the elderly academics and bewitches the young professor in charge (Gary Cooper). Hawks deftly shapes an effervescent, innuendo-packed Billy Wilder-Charles Brackett script into a swing-era version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or "squirrely cherubs," as Sugarpuss christens them. Filled with colorful period slang and boogie-woogie tunes and highlighted by an energetic performance from legendary drummer Gene Krupa, the film captures a pre-World War II lightheartedness.
The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982)
Directed by Robert M. Young, produced by Moctesuma Esparza, and co-produced by Edward James Olmos, who stars as Gregorio, some of the film’s most beautiful scenes come from acclaimed cinematography Reynoldo Villalobos. “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” is one of the key feature films from the 1980s Chicano film movement. Edward James Olmos was a working actor but not yet a star when he and several friends, meeting at what would become the Sundance Film Festival, decided to make a film about a true story of injustice from the Texas frontier days.
Shot on a tiny budget for PBS, “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” accurately tells the story of a Mexican-American farmer who in 1901 was falsely accused of stealing a horse. Cortez killed the sheriff who tried to arrest him, outran a huge posse for more than a week, barely escaped lynching and was eventually sentenced to more than a decade in prison. The incident became a famous corrido, or story-song, that is still sung in Mexico and Texas. While some characters speak in Spanish and others in English, the filmmakers decided not to use subtitles to give audiences the same experience as those caught up in the unfolding tragedy.
“This film is being seen more today than it was the day we finished it,” Olmos said in a 2022 interview with the Library of Congress. “‘The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez’ is truly the best film I’ve ever been a part of in my lifetime.”
Interview with Edward James Olmos (PDF, 2MB)
Bambi (1942)
One of Walt Disney's timeless classics (and his own personal favorite), this animated coming-of-age tale of a wide-eyed fawn's life in the forest has enchanted generations since its debut nearly 70 years ago. Filled with iconic characters and moments, the film features beautiful images that were the result of extensive nature studies by Disney's animators. Its realistic characters capture human and animal qualities in the time-honored tradition of folklore and fable, which enhance the movie's resonating, emotional power. Treasured as one of film's most heart-rending stories of parental love, "Bambi" also has come to be recognized for its eloquent message of nature conservation.
Expanded essay by John Wills (PDF, 360KB)
Expanded essay by Gail Alexander (wife of Stan Alexander - “Flower”) (PDF, 371KB)
Original drawing of Bambi
Bamboozled (2000)
Mixing elements of “A Face in the Crowd,” “The Producers,” “Network” and “Putney Swope,” Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled” showcases his unique talents, here blending dark comedy and satire exposing hypocrisy. An African American TV executive (Damon Wayans) grows tired of his ideas being rejected by his insincere white boss, who touts himself with an “I am Black People” type of vibe. To get out of this untenable situation, Wayans proposes an idea he feels will surely get him fired: a racist minstrel show featuring African American performers donning blackface. The show becomes a smash hit while at the same time sparking outrage, including militant groups leading to violence. As with the best satire, the focus is not on believable plot but rather how the story reveals the ills of society, in this case how Hollywood and television have mistreated African Americans over the decades. Added to the National Film Registry in 2023.
The Band Wagon (1953)
Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan star in this sophisticated backstage toe-tapper directed by Vincente Minnelli, widely considered one of the greatest movie musicals of all time. Astaire plays a washed-up movie star (in reality he'd been a succesful performer for nearly 30 years) who tries his luck on Broadway, under the direction of irrepressible mad genius Buchanan. Musical highlights include "Dancing in the Dark" and "That's Entertainment" (written for the film by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz) and Astaire's sexy Mickey Spillane spoof "The Girl Hunt" danced to perfection by Charisse. Fred Astaire would only make three more musicals after "The Band Wagon," before turning to a film and television career that included the occasional turn as a dramatic actor.
Lobby card
Additional artwork
The Bank Dick (1940)
Perhaps more than any other film comedian in the early days of movies, W.C. Fields is an acquired taste. His absurdist brand of humor, at once dry and surreal, endures for the simple reason that the movies bear up under repeated viewings; in fact, it's almost a necessity to watch them over and over, if only to figure out why they're so funny. In his second-to-last feature, The Bank Dick (which he wrote under the moniker "Mahatma Kane Jeeves"), Fields as unemployed layabout Egbert Souse -- Soosay, if you don't mind -- replaces drunk movie director A. Pismo Clam on a location shoot in his hometown of Lompoc, California before chance lands him in the job of bank detective -- after which the movie becomes a riff on the comic possibilities of his new-found notoriety. The stellar comic supporting cast includes future Stooge Shemp Howard as the bartender at Fields' regular haunt, The Black Pussy, and Preston Sturges regular Franklin Pangborn as bank examiner J. Pinkerton Snoopington.
Expanded essay by Randy Skretvedt (PDF, 401KB)
The Bargain (1914)
After beginning his career on the stage (where he originated the role of Messala in "Ben-Hur" in 1899), William S. Hart found his greatest fame as the silent screen's most popular cowboy. His 1914 "The Bargain," directed by Reginald Barker, was Hart's first film and made him a star. The second Hart Western to be named to the National Film Registry, the film was selected because of Hart's charisma, the film's authenticity and realistic portrayal of the Western genre and the star's good/bad man role as an outlaw attempting to go straight. Added to the National Film Registry 2010.
Expanded essay by Brian Taves (PDF, 1692KB)
Watch it here
The Battle of the Century (1927)
"Battle of the Century" is a classic Laurel and Hardy silent short comedy (2 reels, ca. 20 minutes) unseen in its entirety since its original release. The comic bits include a renowned pie-fighting sequence where the principle of "reciprocal destruction" escalates to epic proportions. "Battle" offers a stark illustration of the detective work (and luck) required to locate and preserve films from the silent era. Only excerpts from reel two of the film had survived for many years. Critic Leonard Maltin discovered a mostly complete nitrate copy of reel one at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1970s. Then in 2015, film collector and silent film accompanist Jon Mirsalis located a complete version of reel two as part of a film collection he purchased from the Estate of Gordon Berkow. The film still lacks brief scenes from reel one, but the film is now almost complete, comprising elements from MoMA, the Library of Congress, UCLA and other sources. It was restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in conjunction with Jeff Joseph/SabuCat. The nearly complete film was preserved from one reel of 35mm nitrate print, one reel of a 35mm acetate dupe negative and a 16mm acetate print. Laboratory Services: The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, Cineaste Restoration/Thad Komorowksi, Point 360/Joe Alloy. Special Thanks: Jon Mirsalis, Paramount Pictures Archives, Richard W. Bann, Ray Faiola, David Gerstein.
The Battle of San Pietro (1945)
John Huston's documentary about the WW II Battle of San Pietro Infine was considered too controversial by the U.S. military to be seen in its original form, and was cut from five reels to its released 33 minute-length. powerful viewing, vivid and gritty. Some 1,100 men died in the battle. scenes of grateful Italian peasants serve as a fascinating ethnographic time capsule. Filmed by Jules Buck. Unlike many other military documentaries, Huston's cameramen filmed alongside the Army's 143rd regiment, 36th division infantrymen, placing themselves within feet of mortar and shell fire. The film is unflinching in its realism and was held up from being shown to the public by the United States Army. Huston quickly became unpopular with the Army, not only for the film but also for his response to the accusation that the film was anti-war. Huston responded that if he ever made a pro-war film, he should be shot. Because it showed dead GIs wrapped in mattress covers, some officers tried to prevent troopers in training from seeing it, for fear of morale. General George Marshall came to the film's defense, stating that because of the film's gritty realism, it would make a good training film. The depiction of death would inspire them to take their training seriously. Subsequently the film was used for that purpose. Huston was no longer considered a pariah; he was decorated and made an honorary major.
Expanded essay by Ed Carter (PDF, 423KB)
View this film at National Film Preservation Foundation External
The Beau Brummels (1928)
Al Shaw and Sam Lee were an eccentrically popular vaudeville act of the 1920s. In 1928 they made this eight-minute Vitaphone short for Warner Bros. The duo later appeared in more than a dozen other films, though none possessed the wacky charm of "The Beau Brummels." As Jim Knipfel has observed: "If Samuel Beckett had written a vaudeville routine, he would have created Shaw and Lee." Often considered one of the quintessential vaudeville comedy shorts, the film has a simple set-up—Shaw and Lee stand side by side with deadpan expressions in non-tailored suits and bowler hats as they deliver their comic routine of corny nonsense songs and gags with a bit of soft shoe and their renowned hat-swapping routine. Shaw's and Lee's reputation has enjoyed a recent renaissance and their brand of dry, offbeat humor is seen by some as well ahead of its time. The film has been preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" is an animated, musical retelling of the fairy tale by Jeanne-Marie Leprince du Beaumont. The film follows Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara), an intelligent and rebellious young French woman, who is forced to live with a hideous monster, the Beast (voiced by Robby Benson), after offering to take her father's place as the Beast's prisoner. Unaware that the Beast is actually an enchanted prince, Belle falls in love with him. "Beauty and the Beast" was the first animated film nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture category. Alan Menken won an Oscar for his original score, and he and lyricist Howard Ashman (posthumously) earned Oscars for the film's theme song "Beauty and the Beast."
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Becky Sharp (1935)
Actress Miriam Hopkins had a long and successful movie career, appearing in many classics, including "Trouble in Paradise" and "Design for Living." However, it is as this film's titular heroine that she received her only Academy Award best-actress nomination. Based upon Thackeray's novel "Vanity Fair," "Becky" is the story of a socially ambitious woman and her destructive climb up the class system. "Becky Sharp" merits historical note as the first feature-length film to utilize the three-strip Technicolor process, which, even today, gives the film a shimmering visual appeal. The lengthy, complicated restoration process of "Becky Sharp" by the UCLA Film and Television Archive marked one of the earliest archival restorations to garner widespread public attention. Partners in this painstaking effort included the National Telefilm Associates Inc., Fondazione Scuola Nazionale di Cinema, Cineteca Nazionale (Rome), British Film Institute, The Film Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Paramount and YCM Laboratories. More information can be found at https://cinema.ucla.edu/restoration/becky-sharp-restoration External.
Before Stonewall (1984)
In 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. After years of harassment, this infamous act proved a tipping point and led to three days of riots. The Stonewall riots are credited with launching the modern gay civil rights movement in the U.S. Narrated by Rita Mae Brown, "Before Stonewall" provides a detailed look at the history and making of the LGBTQ community in 20th-century America through archival footage and interviews with those who felt compelled to live secret lives during that period. Elements, prints and a new 2016 digital cinema package are held in the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Behind Every Good Man (1967)
This pre-Stonewall UCLA student short by Nikolai Ursin offers a stunning early portrait of Black, gender fluidity in Los Angeles and the quest for love and acceptance. Following playful street scene vignettes accompanied by a wistful, baritone voice-over narration, the film lingers tenderly on our protagonist preparing for a date who never arrives. The film is preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preservation funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation on behalf of the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project. Special thanks to John Campbell, Stephen Parr and Norman Yonemoto.
Being There (1979)
Chance, a simple-minded gardener (Peter Sellers) whose only contact with the outside world is through television, becomes the toast of the town following a series of misunderstandings. Forced outside his protected environment by the death of his wealthy boss, Chance subsumes his late employer's persona, including the man's cultured walk, talk and even his expensive clothes, and is mistaken as "Chauncey Gardner," whose simple adages are interpreted as profound insights. He becomes the confidant of a dying billionaire industrialist (Melvyn Douglas, in an Academy Award-winning performance) who happens to be a close adviser to the U.S. president (Jack Warden). Chance's gardening advice is interpreted as metaphors for political policy and life in general. Jerzy Kosinski, assisted by award-winning screenwriter Robert C. Jones, adapted his 1971 novel for the screenplay which Hal Ashby directed with an understatement to match the subtlety and precision of Sellers' Academy Award-nominated performance. Shirley MacLaine also stars as Douglas's wife, then widow, who sees Chauncey as a romantic prospect. Film critic Robert Ebert said he admired the film for "having the guts to take this totally weird conceit and push it to its ultimate comic conclusion." That conclusion is a philosophically complex film that has remained fresh and relevant.
Expanded essay by Jerry Dean Roberts (PDF, 118KB)
Ben-Hur (1925)
Adapted from General Lew Wallace's popular novel "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" published in 1880, this epic featured one of the most exciting spectacles in silent film: the chariot race that was shot with 40 cameras on a Circus Maximus set costing a staggering (for the day) $300,000. In addition to the grandeur of the chariot scene, a number of sequences shot in Technicolor also contributed to the epic status of "Ben-Hur," which was directed by Fred Niblo and starred Ramon Novarro as Judah Ben-Hur and Francis X. Bushman as Messala. While the film did not initially recoup its investment, it did help to establish its studio, MGM, as one of the major players in the industry.
Expanded essay by Fritzi Kramer (PDF, 254KB)
Lobby card
Ben-Hur (1959)
This epic blockbuster stars Charlton Heston in the title role of a rebellious Israelite who takes on the Roman Empire during the time of Christ. Featuring one of the most famous action sequences of all time -- the breathtaking chariot race -- the film was a remake of the impressive silent version released in 1925. Co-starring Stephen Boyd as Judah Ben-Hur's onetime best friend and later rival, it also featured notable performances by Hugh Griffith and Jack Hawkins. Directed by Oscar-winner William Wyler, who found success with "Mrs. Miniver" "The Best Years of Our Lives" and others, "Ben-Hur" broke awards records, winning 11 Oscars, including best picture, director, actor, supporting actor, and score. Famed stuntman Yakima Canutt was brought in to coordinate all the chariot race stunt work and train the driver The race scene alone cost is reported to have cost about $4 million, or about a fourth of the entire budget, and took 10 weeks to shoot.
Expanded essay by Gabriel Miller (PDF, 499KB)
Bert Williams Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913)
In 1913, a stellar cast of African-American performers gathered in the Bronx, New York, to make a feature-length motion picture. The troupe starred vaudevillian Bert Williams, the first African-American to headline on Broadway and the most popular recording artist prior to 1920. After considerable footage was shot, the film was abandoned. One hundred years later, the seven reels of untitled and unassembled footage were discovered in the film vaults of the Museum of Modern Art, and are now believed to constitute the earliest surviving feature film starring black actors. Modeled after a popular collection of stories known as "Brother Gardener's Lime Kiln Club," the plot features three suitors vying to win the hand of the local beauty, portrayed by Odessa Warren Grey. The production also included members of the Harlem stage show known as J. Leubrie Hill's "Darktown Follies." Providing insight into early silent-film production (Williams can be seen applying his blackface makeup), these outtakes or rushes show white and black cast and crew working together, enjoying themselves in unguarded moments. Even in fragments of footage, Williams proves himself among the most gifted of screen comedians.
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
A moving and personal story directed by real-life veteran William Wyler, the film depicts the return to civilian life by three World War II servicemen, portrayed by Dana Andrews, Fredric March and Harold Russell. Adapted by Robert Sherwood from MacKinlay Kantor's novel "Glory for Me," Gregg Toland's deep-focus cinematography is memorable for emotionally evokative long dolly shots. It also starred Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Cathy O'Donnell, and Virginia Mayo. The film won nine Oscars including Best Picture, as well as two awards for Russell, who lost his hands in the war.
Expanded essay by Gabriel Miller (PDF, 319KB)
Betty Tells Her Story (1972)
Liane Brandon’s classic documentary explores the layers of storytelling and memory - how telling a story again can reveal previously hidden details and context. In this poignant tale of beauty, identity and a dress, the filmmaker turns the storytelling power over to the subject. Deceptively simple in its approach, the director in two separate takes films Betty recalling her search for the perfect dress for an upcoming special occasion. During the first take, Betty describes in delightful detail how she found just the right one, spent more than she could afford, felt absolutely transformed … and never got to wear it. Brandon then asks her to tell the story again, and this time her account becomes more nuanced, personal and emotional, revealing her underlying feelings. Though the facts remain the same, the story is strikingly different. “Betty Tells Her Story” was the first independent documentary of the Women’s Movement to explore the ways in which clothing and appearance affect a woman’s identity. It is used in film studies, psychology, sociology, women’s studies, and many other academic disciplines as a perceptive look at how our culture views women in the context of body image, self-worth and beauty in American culture. The film was restored with a grant from New York Women in Film & Television’s Women's Film Preservation Fund.
Inductees' Gallery - Liane Brandon, producer and director
Big Business (1929)
As gifted in their repartee as they were in their physical antics, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were the perfect team for the transition from silent film comedy to sound. Their legendary career spanned from 1921 to 1951 and included more than 100 films. This two-reeler finds the duo attempting to sell Christmas trees in sunny California. Their run-in with an unsatisfied customer (played by James Finlayson) lays the groundwork for a slapstick melee eventually involving a dismantled car, a wrecked house and an exploding cigar. The film was produced by the team's long-time collaborator, Hal Roach, the king of no-holds-barred comedy.
Expanded essay by Randy Skretvedt (PDF, 308KB)
The Big Heat (1953)
One of the great post-war noir films, "The Big Heat" stars Glenn Ford, Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame. Set in a fictional American town, the film tells the story of a tough cop (Ford) who takes on a local crime syndicate, exposing tensions within his own corrupt police department as well as insecurities and hypocrisies of domestic life in the 1950s. Filled with atmosphere, fascinating female characters, and a jolting—yet not gratuitous—degree of violence, "The Big Heat," through its subtly expressive technique and resistance to formulaic denouement, manages to be both stylized and brutally realistic, a signature of its director Fritz Lang.
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The Big Lebowski (1998)
From the unconventional visionaries Joel and Ethan Coen (the filmmakers behind "Fargo" and "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") came this 1998 tale of kidnapping, mistaken identity and bowling. As they would again in the 2008 "Burn After Reading," the Coens explore themes of alienation, inequality and class structure via a group of hard-luck, off-beat characters suddenly drawn into each other's orbits. Jeff Bridges, in a career-defining role, stars as "The Dude," an LA-based slacker who shares a last name with a rich man whose arm-candy wife is indebted to shady figures. Joining Bridges are John Goodman, Tara Reid, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steve Buscemi and, in a now-legendary cameo, John Turturro. Stuffed with vignettes—each staged through the Coens' trademark absurdist, innovative visual style—that are alternately funny and disturbing, "Lebowski" was only middling successful at the box office during its initial release. However, television, the Internet, home video and considerable word-of-mouth have made the film a highly quoted cult classic.
Expanded essay by J.M. Tyree & Ben Walters (PDF, 354KB)
The Big Parade (1925)
One of the first films to deglamorize war with its startling realism, "The Big Parade" became the largest grossing film of the silent era. From a story by Laurence Stallings, director King Vidor crafted what "New York Times" critic Mordaunt Hall called "an eloquent pictorial epic." The film, which Hall said displayed "all the artistry of which the camera is capable," depicts a privileged young man (John Gilbert) who goes to war seeking adventure and finds camaraderie, love, humility and maturity amid the horrors of war. Along the way he befriends two amiable doughboys (Karl Dane and Tom O'Brien) and falls for a beautiful French farm girl (Renée Adorée). Vidor tempered the film's serious subject matter with a kind of simple, light humor that flows naturally from new friendships and new loves. A five-time nominee for Best Director, Vidor was eventually recognized by the Academy in 1979 with an honorary lifetime achievement award. Both stars continued to reign until the transition to talking pictures, which neither Gilbert nor Adorée weathered successfully. Their careers plummeted and both died prematurely.
The Big Sleep (1946)
Howard Hawks directed this Raymond Chandler story featuring private eye Philip Marlowe, played by Humphrey Bogart. Appearing opposite him in only her second film was a former model named Lauren Bacall, with whom Bogart had fallen in love (and vice versa) during filming of "To Have and Have Not" earlier that year. Hawks and his writers attempted to untangle the threads of Chandler's complicated plot which caused frequent production delays. More than a month behind schedule and about $50,000 over budget, the film was ready in mid-summer1945, and that version was distributed to servicemen overseas. Shortly thereafter "To Have and Have Not" was released, and audiences loved the Bogart-Bacall chemistry, so the wide release of "The Big Sleep" was further delayed the wide release by rewriting scenes to heighten the chemistry and bring out Bacall's "insolent" quality that audiences found so appealing the pair's earlier film. The pre-release cut is only two minutes longer, but contains 18 minutes of scenes missing from the final picture. The first "draft" was discovered at the UCLA Film and Television Archive where both versions have since been preserved.
The Big Trail (1930)
This taming of the Oregon Trail saga comes alive thanks to the majestic sweep afforded by the experimental Grandeur wide-screen process developed by the Fox Film Corporation. Audiences marveled at the sheer scope of the panoramic scenes before them and delighted in the beauty of the vast landscapes. Hollywood legend has it that director Raoul Walsh was seeking a male lead for a new Western and asked his friend John Ford for advice. Ford recommended an unknown actor named John Wayne because he "liked the looks of this new kid with a funny walk -- like he owned the world." When Wayne professed inexperience, Walsh told him to just "sit good on a horse and point."Wayne's starring role in "The Big Trail" did not catapult him to stardom, and he languished in low-budget pictures until John Ford cast him in the 1939 classic "Stagecoach."
Expanded essay by Marilyn Ann Moss (PDF, 375KB)
The Birds (1963)
"The Birds" was the fourth suspense hit by Alfred Hitchcock—following "Vertigo," "North by Northwest" and "Psycho"—revealing his mastery of his craft. Hitchcock transfixed both critics and mass audiences by deftly moving from anxiety-inducing horror to glossy entertainment and suspense, with bold forays into psychological terrain. Marked by a foreboding sense of an unending terror no one can escape, the film concludes with its famous, final scene, which only adds to the emotional impact of "The Birds."
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
This landmark of American motion pictures is the story of two families during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Director D.W. Griffith's depiction of the Ku Klux Klan as heroes stirred controversy that continues to the present day. But the director's groundbreaking camera technique and narrative style advanced the art of filmmaking by leaps and bounds. Profoundly impacted by the novel "The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan," Griffith hired its author Thomas F. Dixon Jr. to adapt it as a screenplay. At the heart of the story are two pairs of star-crossed lovers on either side of the conflict: Southerner Henry B. Walthall courts Northerner Lillian Gish, and the couple's siblings, played by Elmer Clifton and Miriam Cooper, are also in love. The ravages of war and the chaos of reconstruction take their toll on both families. The racist and simplistic depictions of blacks in the film is difficult to overlook, but underneath the distasteful sentiment lies visual genius.
Expanded essay by Dave Kehr (PDF, 599KB)
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Black and Tan (1929)
In one of the first short musical films to showcase African-American jazz musicians, Duke Ellington portrays a struggling musician whose dancer wife (Fredi Washington in her film debut) secures him a gig for his orchestra at the famous Cotton Club where she's been hired to perform, at a risk to her health. Directed by Dudley Murphy, who earned his reputation with "Ballet mécanique," which is considered a masterpiece of early experimental filmmaking, the film reflects the cultural, social and artistic explosion of the 1920s that became known as the Harlem Renaissance. Ellington and Washington personify that movement, and Murphy—who also directed registry titles "St. Louis Blues" (1929), another musical short, and the feature "The Emperor Jones" (1933) starring Paul Robeson—cements it in celluloid to inspire future generations. Washington, who appeared with Robeson in "Emperor Jones," is best known as "Peola" in the 1934 version of "Imitation of Life."
The Black Pirate (1926)
This swashbuckling tour-de-force by Douglas Fairbanks, king of silent action adventure pictures, is most significant for having been filmed entirely in two-strip Technicolor, a process still being perfected at the time, and the precursor to Technicolor processes that would become commonplace by the 1950s. Fairbanks plays a nobleman who has vowed to avenge the death of his father at the hands of pirates, and once upon the pirates' vessel, protects a damsel in distress (Bessie Love)taken hostage by the band of thieves. Fairbanks wrote the original story under a pseudonym, and Albert Parker directed.
Expanded essay by Tracey Goessel (PDF, 356 KB)
The Black Stallion (1979)
When a ship carrying young Alec Ramsey (Kelly Reno) and a black Arabian stallion sinks off the coast of Africa, Alec and the horse find themselves stranded on a deserted island. Upon their rescue, Alec and horse trainer/former jockey Henry Dailey (Mickey Rooney) begin training the horse to become a formidable racer. Directed by Carroll Ballard and based on the Walter Farley novel of the same name, the film was executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola who finally persuaded United Artists to release the film after shelving it for two years. The film's supervising sound editor, Alan Splet, received a Special Achievement Award for his innovations including affixing microphones around the horse's midsection to pick up the sound of its hoof beats and breathing during race sequences. "The Black Stallion" was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Best Supporting Actor for Mickey Rooney and one for Best Film Editing for Robert Dalva.
Expanded essay by Keith Phipps (PDF, 375 KB)
Blackboard Jungle (1955)
In a 1983 interview, writer-director Richard Brooks claimed that hearing Bill Haley and the Comets' "Rock Around the Clock" in 1954 inspired him to make a rock & roll-themed picture. The result was "Blackboard Jungle," an adaptation of the controversial novel by Evan Hunter about an inner-city schoolteacher (played in the film by Glenn Ford) tackling juvenile delinquency and the lamentable state of public education— common bugaboos of the Eisenhower era. Retaining much of the novel's gritty realism, the film effectively dramatizes the social issues at hand, and features outstanding early performances by Sidney Poitier and Vic Morrow. The film, however, packs its biggest wallop even before a word of dialog is spoken. As the opening credits roll, Brooks' original inspiration for the film – the pulsating strains of "Rock Around the Clock" – blasts across theater speakers, bringing the devil's music to Main Street and epitomizing American culture worldwide.
Blacksmith Scene (1893)
Not blacksmiths but employees of the Edison Manufacturing Company, Charles Kayser, John Ott and another unidentified man are likely the first screen actors in history, and "Blacksmith Scene" is thought to be the first film of more than a few feet to be publicly exhibited. The 30-second film was photographed in late April 1893 by Edison's key employee, W.K.L. Dickson, at the new Edison studio in New Jersey. On May 9, audiences lined up single file at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences to peer through a viewing machine called a kinetoscope where glowed images of a blacksmith and two helpers forging a piece of iron, but only after they'd first passed around a bottle of beer. A Brooklyn newspaper reported the next day, "It shows living subjects portrayed in a manner to excite wonderment."
First Motion Picture Copyright Found
National Film Preservation Foundation - Blacksmithing Scene External
Blade Runner (1982)
A blend of science fiction and film noir, "Blade Runner" was a box office and critical flop when first released, but its unique postmodern production design became hugely influential within the sci-fi genre, and the film gained a significant cult following that increased its stature. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a retired cop in Los Angeles circa 2019. L.A. has become a pan-cultural dystopia of corporate advertising, pollution and flying automobiles, as well as replicants, human-like androids with short life spans built for use in dangerous off-world colonization. Deckard, a onetime blade runner – a detective that hunts down rogue replicants – is forced back into active duty to assassinate a band of rogues out to attack earth. Along the way he encounters Sean Young, a replicant who's unaware of her true identity, and faces a violent confrontation atop a skyscraper high above the city.
Expanded essay by David Morgan (PDF, 358 KB)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
This riotously funny, raunchy, no-holds-barred Western spoof by Mel Brooks is universally considered one of the funniest American films of all time. The movie features a civil-rights theme (the man in the white hat (Cleavon Little ) turns out to be an African-American who has to defend a bigoted town), and its furiously paced gags and rapid-fire dialogue were scripted by Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg and Alan Unger. Little as the sheriff and Gene Wilder as his recovering alcoholic deputy have great chemistry, and the delightful supporting cast includes Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, and Madeline Kahn as a chanteuse modelled on Marlene Dietrich. As in "Young Frankenstein," "Silent Movie," and "High Anxiety," director/writer Brooks gives a burlesque spin to a classic Hollywood movie genre.
Expanded essay by Michael Schlesinger (PDF, 662 KB)
Bless Their Little Hearts (1984)
Part of the vibrant New Wave of independent African-American filmmakers to emerge in the 1970s and 1980s, Billy Woodberry became a key figure in the movement known as the L.A. Rebellion. Woodberry crafted his UCLA thesis film, "Bless Their Little Hearts," which was theatrically released in 1984. The film features a script and cinematography by Charles Burnett. This spare, emotionally resonant portrait of family life during times of struggle blends grinding, daily-life sadness with scenes of deft humor. Jim Ridley of the "Village Voice" aptly summed up the film's understated-but- real virtues: "Its poetry lies in the exaltation of ordinary detail."
The Blood of Jesus (1941)
Also known as "The Glory Road," this was among the approximately 500 "race movies" produced between 1915 and 1950 for African-American audiences and featuring all-black casts. In this film, a deeply devout woman (Cathryn Caviness) faces a spiritual crossroads after being accidentally shot, and is forced to choose between heaven and hell. Spencer Williams, who wrote, directed and starred in the film, produced the film in response to a need for spiritually-based films that spoke directly to black audiences. Long thought lost, prints were discovered in a warehouse in Tyler, Texas, in the mid-1980s.
Expanded essay by Mark S. Giles (PDF, 256 KB)
View this film at Southern Methodist University Central University Libraries External
The Blue Bird (1918)
Maurice Tourneur's beautiful expressionist adaptation of Maurice Maeterlink's play remains one of the most aesthetically pleasing films. The film is a sumptuously composed pictorial entrance into a fantasy world, which tries to teach us not to overlook the beauty of what is close and familiar.
Expanded essay by Kaveh Askari (PDF, 445 KB)
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, then both best known for their star-turns as part of the "Not Ready for Prime-Time Players" troupe on TV's "Saturday Night Live," took their recurring "Blues Brothers" SNL sketch to the big screen in this loving and madcap musical misadventures of Jake and Elwood Blues on a mission from God. An homage of sorts to various classic movie genres — from screwball comedy to road movie — "The Blues Brothers" serves as a tribute to the lead duo's favorite city (Chicago) as well as a lovely paean to great soul and R&B music. In musical cameos, such legends as Cab Calloway, Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and John Lee Hooker all ignite the screen. Added to the National Film Registry in 2020.
Interview with Dan Aykroyd (PDF, 2MB)
Interview with John Landis (PDF, 2MB)
Body and Soul (1925)
One of the truly unique pioneers of cinema, African-American producer/director/writer/distributor Oscar Micheaux somehow managed to get nearly 40 films made and seen despite facing racism, lack of funding, the capricious whims of local film censors and the independent nature of his work. Most of Micheaux's films are lost to time or available only in incomplete versions, with the only extant copies of some having been located in foreign archives. Nevertheless, what remains shows a fearless director with an original, daring and creative vision. Film historian Jacqueline Stewart says Micheaux's films, though sometimes unpolished and rough in terms of acting, pacing and editing, brought relevant issues to the black community including "the politics of skin color within the black community, gender differences, class differences, regional differences especially during this period of the Great Migration." For "Body and Soul," renaissance man Paul Robeson, who had gained some fame on the stage, makes his film debut displaying a blazing screen presence in dual roles as a charismatic escaped convict masquerading as a preacher and his pious brother. The George Eastman Museum has restored the film from a nitrate print, producing black-and-white-preservation elements and later restoring color tinting using the Desmet method.
Bohulano Family Film Collection (1950s-1970s)
Delfin Paderes Bohulano and Concepcion Moreno Bohulano recorded their family life for more than 20 years. Shot primarily in Stockton, California, their collection documents the history of the Filipinx community (once the largest in the country) during a period of significant immigration. The couple moved to the United States following American military service during World War II. They were involved in the local Filipino American community, including the building of Stockton's new Filipino Center in the early 1970s. The movies record community events, family gatherings, trips to New York, Atlantic City, and Washington, DC, as well as the family's 1967 visit to the Philippines. The 15-reel collection is shot on Super 8mm, 8mm, and 16mm, and in color and silent. Preserved by the Center for Asian American Media. Added to the National Film Registry in 2023.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Setting filmmaking and style trends that linger today, "Bonnie and Clyde" veered from comedy to social commentary to melodrama and caught audiences unaware, especially with its graphic ending. The violence spawned many detractors, but others saw the artistry beyond the blood and it earned not only critical succes which eventually showed at thebox office. Arthur Penn deftly directs David Newman and Robert Benton's script, aided by the film's star and producer Warren Beatty, who was always eager to push the envelope. Faye Dunaway captures the Depression-era yearning for glamour and escape from poverty and hopelessness.
Expanded essay by Richard Schickel (PDF, 530KB)
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Born Yesterday (1950)
Judy Holliday's sparkling lead performance as not-so-dumb "dumb blonde" Billie Dawn anchors this comedy classic based on Garson Kanin's play and directed for the screen by George Cukor. Kanin's satire on corruption in Washington, D.C., adapted for the screen by Albert Mannheimer, is full of charm and wit while subtly addressing issues of class, gender, social standing and American politics. Holliday's work in the film (a role she had previously played on Broadway) was honored with the Academy Award for Best Actress and has endured as one of the era's most finely realized comedy performances.
Expanded essay by Ariel Schudson (PDF, 394KB)
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Boulevard Nights (1979)
"Boulevard Nights" had its genesis in a screenplay by UCLA student Desmond Nakano about Mexican-American youth and the lowrider culture. Director Michael Pressman and cinematographer John Bailey shot the film in the barrios of East Los Angeles with the active participation of the local community (including car clubs and gang members). This street-level strategy using mostly non-professional actors produced a documentary-style depiction of the tough choices faced by Chicano youth as they come of age and try to escape or navigate gang life ("Two brothers...the street was their playground and their battleground"). In addition to "Boulevard Nights," this era featured several films chronicling youth gangs and rebellion — "The Warriors" (1979), "Over the Edge" (1979), "Walk Proud" (1979) and "The Outsiders" (1983). The film faced protests and criticism from some Latinos who saw outsider filmmakers, albeit well-intentioned, adopting an anthropological perspective with an excessive focus on gangs and violent neighborhoods. Nevertheless, "Boulevard Nights" stands out as a pioneering snapshot of East L.A. and enjoys semi-cult status in the lowrider community.
Boys Don't Cry (1999)
Director Kimberly Peirce made a stunning debut with this searing docudrama based on the infamous 1993 case of a young Nebraska transgender man who is brutally raped and murdered (along with two other people) in a small Nebraska town. Released a year after the killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, the film brought the issue of hate crimes clearly into the American public spotlight. Sometimes compared to Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," "Boys" raised issues that are still relevant 20 years later: intolerance, prejudice, the lack of opportunity in small towns, conceptions of self, sexual identity, diversity and cultural, sexual and social mores. New York Times' critic Janet Maslin lauded the film for not taking the usual plot routes: "Unlike most films about mind-numbing tragedy, this one manages to be full of hope." Several things helped create that result, particularly the performance of 22-year-old Hilary Swank, who won an Oscar as Brandon.
Boyz N the Hood (1991)
In his film debut, John Singleton wrote and directed this thought-provoking look at South Central L.A.'s black community. A divorced father (Larry Fishburne) struggles to raise his son, Tre (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) in a world where violence is a fact of life. Tre is torn by his desire to live up to his father's expectations and pressure from friends pushing him toward the gang culture. Roger Ebert praised the film for its "maturity and emotional depth," calling it "an American film of enormous importance." The lead players are backed by strong supporting performances from Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, Tyre Ferrell, Angela Bassett and Nia Long.
Brandy in the Wilderness (1969)
This introspective "contrived diary" film by Stanton Kaye features vignettes from the relationship of a real-life couple, in this case the director and his girlfriend. An evocative 1960s time capsule—reminiscent of Jim McBride's "David Holzman's Diary"—this simulated autobiography, as in many experimental films, often blurs the lines between reality and illusion, moving in non-linear arcs through the ever-evolving and unpredictable interactions of relationships, time and place. As Paul Schrader notes, "it is probably quite impossible (and useless) to make a distinction between the point at which the film reflects their lives, and the point at which their lives reflect the film." "Brandy in the Wilderness" remains a little-known yet key work of American indie filmmaking.
This article by director Paul Schrader originally appeared in the Fall 1971 issue of "Cinema Magazine." (PDF, 1764KB)
Bread (1918)
Billed as a "sociological photodrama, "Bread" tells the story of a naïve young woman in a narrow-minded town who journeys to New York to become a star but faces disillusionment when she learns that sex is demanded as the price for fame. Ida May Park, director and scenarist of "Bread," was among more than a half-dozen prolific women directors working at the Universal Film Manufacturing Company during the period in which Los Angeles became the home of America's movie industry. Park directed 14 feature-length films between 1917 and 1920, and her career as a scenarist lasted until 1931. She reasoned that because the majority of movie fans were women, "it follows that a member of the sex is best able to gauge their wants in the form of stories and plays." In an essay Park contributed to the book "Careers for Women," she stated that women were advantaged as motion picture directors because of "the superiority of their emotional and imaginative faculties." In the two surviving reels of "Bread," one of only three films Park directed that are currently known to exist, she displays an accomplished ability to knowingly vivify her protagonist's plight as she fends off an attacker and places her frail hopes in a misshapen loaf of bread that has come to symbolize for her the good things in life.
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Truman Capote's acclaimed novella—the bitter story of self-invented Manhattan call girl Holly Golightly—arrived on the big screen purged of its risqué dialogue and unhappy ending. George Axelrod's screenplay excised explicit references to Holly's livelihood and added an emotionally moving romance, resulting, in Capote's view, in "a mawkish valentine to New York City." Capote believed that Marilyn Monroe would have been perfect for the film and judged Audrey Hepburn, who landed the lead, "just wrong for the part." Critics and audiences, however, have disagreed. The Los Angeles Times stated, "Miss Hepburn makes the complex Holly a vivid, intriguing figure." Feminist critics in recent times have valued Hepburn's portrayals of the period as providing a welcome alternative female role model to the dominant sultry siren of the 1950s. Hepburn conveyed intelligent curiosity, exuberant impetuosity, delicacy combined with strength, and authenticity that often emerged behind a knowingly false facade. Critics also have lauded the movie's director Blake Edwards for his creative visual gags and facility at navigating the film's abrupt changes in tone. Composer Henry Mancini's classic "Moon River," featuring lyrics by Johnny Mercer, also received critical acclaim. Mancini considered Hepburn's wistful rendition of the song on guitar the best he had heard.
The Breakfast Club (1985)
John Hughes, who had previously given gravitas to the angst of adolescence in his 1984 film, "Sixteen Candles," further explored the social politics of high school in this comedy/character study produced one year later. Set in a day-long Saturday detention hall, the film offers an assortment of American teen-age archetypes such as the "nerd," "jock," and "weirdo." Over the course of the day, labels and default personas slip away as members of this motley group actually talk to each other and learn about each other and themselves. "The Breakfast Club" is a comedy that delivers a message with laughs. Thirty years later, the movie's message is still vivid. Written and directed by Hughes, the film's cast includes Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy.
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Director James Whale took his success with "Frankenstein," added humor and thus created a cinematic hybrid that perplexed audiences at first glance but captivated them by picture's end. Joined eventually by a mate (Elsa Lanchester), the Frankenstein monster (Boris Karloff reprising his role and investing the character with emotional subtlety) evolves into a touchingly sympathetic character as he gradually becomes more human. Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorious is captivatingly bizarre. Many film historians consider "Bride," with its surreal visuals, superior to the original.
Expanded essay by Richard T. Jameson, (PDF, 672KB) examines "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein" in a single entry.
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The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
At the heart of David Lean's antiheroic war epic about a band of British POWs forced to build a bridge in the wilds of Burma is the notion of men clinging to their sanity by clinging to military tradition. The film's cast, which reflects a broad spectrum of acting styles, includes Alec Guinness as the British commanding officer and Sessue Hayakawa as his Japanese counterpart, and William Holden as an American soldier who escapes from the camp and Jack Hawkins as the British major who convinces him to return and help blow up the bridge. Lean elects to keep the musical score to a minimum and instead plays up tension with nature sounds punctuating the action. For many film critics and historians, "Bridge on the River Kwai" signals a shift in Lean's directorial style from simpler storytelling toward the more bloated epics that characterized his later career.
Sessue Hayakawa and Alec Guinness in a scene from "The Bridge On The River Kwai"
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
In this fast-paced screwball comedy from director Howard Hawks, Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), an eccentric heiress with a pet leopard named Baby, proves a constant irritant to paleontologist David Huxley (Cary Grant), who is trying to raise $1 million to complete his dinosaur skeleton reconstruction project. Based on a short story by Hagar Wilde, Hawks worked closely with Wilde and screenwriter Dudley Nichols to perfect the script, in which the role of Susan Vance was written specifically with Hepburn in mind. Although now considered a cinematic classic, "Bringing Up Baby" received mixed critical reviews upon release and performed well in only certain areas of the United States, thus reaffirming the film industry's then-current view of Hepburn as "box office poison." Significantly, "Bringing Up Baby" is possibly the first American film to use the term "gay" as a reference to homosexuality.
Expanded essay by Michael Schlesinger (PDF, 25KB)
Broadcast News (1987)
James L. Brooks wrote, produced and directed this comedy set in the fast-paced, tumultuous world of television news. Shot mostly in dozens of locations around the Washington, D.C. area, the film stars Holly Hunter, William Hurt and Albert Brooks. Brooks makes the most of his everyman persona serving as Holly Hunter's romantic back-up plan while she pursues the handsome but vacuous Hurt. Against the backdrop of broadcast journalism (and various debates about journalist ethics), a grown-up romantic comedy plays out in a smart, savvy and fluff-free story whose humor is matched only by its honesty.
Expanded essay by Brian Scott Mednick (PDF, 432KB)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
"Brokeback Mountain," a contemporary Western drama that won the Academy Award for best screenplay (by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana) and Golden Globe awards for best drama, director (Ang Lee) and screenplay, depicts a secret and tragic love affair between two closeted gay ranch hands. They furtively pursue a 20-year relationship despite marriages and parenthood until one of them dies violently, reportedly by accident, but possibly, as the surviving lover fears, in a brutal attack. Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the short story upon which the film was based, described it as "a story of destructive rural homophobia." Haunting in its unsentimental depiction of longing, lonesomeness, pretense, sexual repression and ultimately love, "Brokeback Mountain" features Heath Ledger's remarkable performance that conveys a lifetime of self-torment through a pained demeanor, near inarticulate speech and constricted, lugubrious movements. In his review, Newsweek's David Ansen wrotes that the film was "a watershed in mainstream movies, the first gay love story with A-list Hollywood stars." "Brokeback Mountain" has become an enduring classic.
Broken Blossoms (1919)
Most associated with epics such as "Intolerance" and "The Birth of a Nation," D.W. Griffith also helmed smaller films that struck a chord with silent era audiences. "Broken Blossoms," Griffith's first title for his newly formed United Artists, is one example. Set in the slums of London, it concerns an abused 15-year-old girl, Lucy, portrayed by Lillian Gish and the former missionary turned shopkeeper Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess) who rescues her from her brutal father. More than a tender but chaste love story, "Broken Blossoms" entreats audiences to denounce racism and poverty.
Expanded essay by Ed Gonzalez (PDF, 495KB)
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A Bronx Morning (1931)
Part documentary and part avant-garde, this renowned city symphony was filmed by Jay Leyda when he was 21. It features sensational and stylish use of European filmmaking styles The images movingly show the resilience of people persevering with style and enthusiasm during the early years of the depression. "A Bronx Morning" won Leyda a scholarship to study with the renowned Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Added to the National Film Registry in 2004.
Expanded essay by Scott Simmon for the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) (PDF, 284KB)
Watch it here
Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
"The best Wim Wenders documentary to date and an uncommonly self-effacing one, this 1999 concert movie about performance and lifestyle is comparable in some ways to "Latcho Drom," the great Gypsy documentary/musical. In 1996, musician Ry Cooder traveled to Havana to reunite some of the greatest stars of Cuban pop music from the Batista era (who were virtually forgotten after Castro came to power) with the aim of making a record, a highly successful venture that led to concerts in Amsterdam and New York. The players and their stories are as wonderful as the music, and the filmmaking is uncommonly sensitive and alert," wrote film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.
The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man (1975)
This powerful documentary by the Kentucky-based arts and education center Appalshop represents the finest in regional filmmaking, providing important understanding of the environmental and cultural history of the Appalachian region. The 1972 Buffalo Creek Flood Disaster, caused by the failure of a coal waste dam, killed more than 100 people and left thousands in West Virginia homeless. Local citizens invited Appalshop to come to the area and to film a historical record, fearing that the Pittston Coal Co.'s powerful influence in the state would lead to a whitewash investigation and absolve it of any corporate culpability. Newsweek hailed the film as "a devastating expose of the collusion between state officials and coal executives."
Expanded essay by the film's director Mimi Pickering (PDF, 793KB)
Bullitt (1968)
The winding streets and stunning vistas of San Francisco, backed by a superb Lalo Schifrin score, play a central role in British director Peter Yates' film renowned for its exhilarating 11-minute car chase, arguably the finest in cinema history. In one of his most famous roles, Steve McQueen stars as tough-guy police detective Frank Bullitt. The story, based on Robert L. Pike's cr | |||
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"Bulletproof Screenwriting"
] | 2023-02-17T09:30:15+00:00 | Our guest on today's episode is Emmy award-winning filmmaker, actor, Filmtrepreneur, best-selling author, and instructor Shane Stanley. Shane's be ... | en | Bulletproof Screenwriting | https://bulletproofscreenwriting.tv/shane-stanley/ | Alex Ferrari 0:21
I'd like to welcome Mr. Shane Stanley man How you doing?
Shane Stanley 4:20
Alex I'm good Thanks for having me. How you doing?
Alex Ferrari 4:22
I'm as good as we can be in this crazy upside down world we live in sir.
Shane Stanley 4:27
Whoo. Every day. I keep thinking it may just start finding its right way back up and then the wheel and the ball just spins back. Yeah.
Alex Ferrari 4:35
And then and then it starts raining murder Hornets. So I mean,
Shane Stanley 4:42
and what was the new animal they threatened us with last week.
Alex Ferrari 4:47
25 foot 25 foot Grizzly like I don't know it like it's it's it just saw but this is this is going to be a film geek thing before we get started. Did you see that the trailer for Grizzly too. The film that was shot in 1980 something and is now being being released in 2020. But starring George Clooney, Laura Dern and Charlie Sheen.
Shane Stanley 5:11
Oh, wow.
Alex Ferrari 5:12
And I saw I just saw it was on my Facebook feed. I was like, This is never been released. It was sitting in someone's closet and they finally Brent remastered it and edited.
Shane Stanley 5:23
You know what's weird, is I used to run Charlie Sheen's production company from 96 to 99. Okay, he was he was friends with George Clooney. And he kept saying, Yeah, we did a movie together years ago. That's it years ago. And and wow, I'd like this and it never came full circle. Now it did.
Alex Ferrari 5:44
I'm glad I can bring closer to that part of your life
Shane Stanley 5:47
is wondering what that was because it never I never got answers
Alex Ferrari 5:51
Grizly to start. It says George Clooney, Laura Dern and Charlie Sheen. And oh, God, the guy. No, the star of credit. The star of it is Oh my god, I can't john. JOHN Reese, the guy from Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings. With the big the big voice in the beard.
Shane Stanley 6:13
Yeah, I know. You mean he's English actor.
Alex Ferrari 6:16
Yeah, he's an English actor. Exactly. Yeah. He's, he's, he's the star of it. And you see him. And I saw him and I saw him in the trailer. He's literally lassoing a 25 foot which is so obviously not a 25 foot crazy, but it's just so brilliant. I can't wait to watch it. So I'm sorry, everyone. We had to start off with a little bit of film geekery But so, uh, so Shane, tell me how you got into the business.
Shane Stanley 6:51
You know, Alex might my journey into Hollywood was was a little different than most but not uncommon. My father when I was born, was a working actor. And he had been in films like ice station, zebra rock cuts, and Mannix modsquad. He was a working blue collar actors under contract with MGM and Aaron Spelling. And as I was born, he volunteered me for a national television commercial. It was for a new company called century 21. I was the little baby in diapers that this new couple was buying a house and so I became a childhood actor before I could even walk and did that for a number of years and was quickly bored with being in a trailer and being there all day to do a couple of minutes of work. And my father had transitioned into becoming a filmmaker, a documentarian and a very successful one. And he had a movie all around the house. He had the RS 16 millimeter cameras, the flatbeds splicers, and I was fascinated by that equipment, Alex, and before I was seven years old, I was running a movie Ola, I was assisting him and his editors doing sound sync and splicing and fixing films that would come in and needed repair. And I just, I fell in love with the process of just from watching them storyboard ideas and doing educational and documentary films and then seeing it on the screen when it was all done was just that whole concept of delivery was fascinating to me and that that's really what what brought me in
Alex Ferrari 8:22
and, and then you you worked on a film called gridiron gang starring the Rock Can you tell us how you got involved with that project?
Shane Stanley 8:29
I executive produced that it was an interesting story. I'm being independent filmmakers. My my father, my my stepmother, Linda and I were producing this documentary series called the desperate passage series, which ran from 1989 to 94. And in involved at risk youth taking them out on at sea expeditions, you know, Michael Landon, Lou Gossett, Jr, Marlo Thomas, Sharon, bless Eddie James, almost all used to host and we had a great pool of talent. And there was a story in the LA Times about this juvenile football team that had hatched up at the local prison. And we had already shot I think five or six films up there. Camco Patrick in Malibu. So my stepmom found the article, she brought it to my dad and said, I think we should do this. My dad said, No, I'm kind of done. I mean, we've done five or six of these shows on these kids. Let's move on. And she wanted us to really pursue it. So he called probation and so he helped us again, we'd like to do it and he said, Oh, get in line. Hollywood's Hollywood's come knocking in some, some big studio had the rights to do it. And three weeks later, they called us and said, do you want to do it get up here they start practice tomorrow. So my dad myself, Philip Byrne, Ken Schaefer and David Johnston God rest his soul, went up to camp Kilpatrick and shot for three weeks, and a documentary that became known as gridiron gang, which as soon as it aired became in 94. Those property your parents have gotten more Really and then 15 years later we made that pyramid Saudi Columbia for 15 years before we made it.
Alex Ferrari 10:09
So yeah, that's a that's a lovely little thing that film filmmakers listening should understand that the Hollywood is not fast. by any stretch of the imagination. It's still these. There's projects that stay in development for decades and decades.
Shane Stanley 10:24
Well, what was really interesting is we weren't in the gridiron gang and nobody would Eric for two years and we had already had a ton of success with acid series. We had 13 Emmy nominations, we won like eight. And I don't know I think it was because it was football, you know, high school football who wants to air that that's that, you know, and they're kidding.
Alex Ferrari 10:46
Like, everybody wants to see how like so many people want to watch high school football.
Shane Stanley 10:49
9192 different time, Friday Night Lights hadn't hit. So once it got aired on, KTLA, everybody wanted it. And it was interesting, too, because a lot of actors want to know, Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, we were talking about john candy share. You know, as Sean Penn, a lot of people were calling for the rights and wanted to get involved. And then we made our deal with Sony. And they put it on the fast track. And at the time, Mark Campbell was the president of the studio and they were going to attach everybody from Bruce Willis to Andy Garcia to Dustin Hoffman. They had all sorts of plans. And then it went into turn around when more Canton would show the door at Columbia wanted to turn around and sat for another eight years without, you know, being able to do anything because they had over $2 million charged against the film. So anytime a producer called us Alex and said hey, whatever happened gridiron getting be great to make that. Yeah, great. You know, pay Colombia 2 million. And then we can talk about as a they had that much invested in those terms.
Alex Ferrari 11:52
And then how did so then they sold it over to paramount. Paramount picked it up?
Shane Stanley 11:55
No, no, no. What happened was is Neil Moritz was a budding producer. You know, Neil is known for fast and furious SWAT and about every other hit Hollywood is cranked out in the last decade. And Neil was was somebody who was involved with us early on, and he went on to do fast and furious and SWAT and triple x and all these great films and we always stayed in touch with Neil he's he's genuinely a good guy. He endorsed my book as you saw. And Friday Night Lights came out and then we knew we were Marshall was getting made facing the Giants was this big indie Christian head. And it was like movie after movie invincible. We heard in one thing we have to admit Alec, you and I joked about this before we started as Hollywood repeats itself, they copy it's a copycat industry. And it was kind of like if there was ever a time to make Baron gang, it's now so my dad and I called Neil and said, Do you want to make it? He said, Yes, let's meet tomorrow, but have a cast in mind. Because that's what's always stalled this thing out so I'm coming up with a cast list a mile long Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis again, let's go with these guys. And Jason state them and, and my wife, then girlfriend at the time, was in the bedroom watching TV. And she came in and she said, I need you to come see something and I said, I'm busy. I'm making a list for Neil Moritz. And she said, Stop what you're doing come in here and look at what I'm watching and it was the E True Hollywood Story on the rock. And he had been arrested a dozen times before his 18th birthday. He had played a very high level in the national championship. Miami Hurricanes was drafted into the CFL NFL blew out his knee and started from dirt and made something great of themselves. And I watched that five minutes Alex and I went back to my office I tore up my list of 35 plus names that I'd spent four hours coming up with, went into Neil's office the next day. We caught up a little while since we saw each other and he said alright, where's your list? And I said, I got one name for you. I said Dwayne Johnson. And he yelled to his assistant, Nikki, Nikki, when's my dinner with the rock? She said tomorrow, he said, Give me a copier. Give me a DVD of the grid of the documentary you and your dad made. Two days later. We were up at the jail with Dwayne Johnson walk in the premises. And he knew we were making a movie. I mean, you know,
Alex Ferrari 14:06
that was and and Dwayne. I mean he was he was the rock but he wasn't the Rock like he was he was big but he wasn't what we know of him today.
Shane Stanley 14:14
He just done Walking Tall Scorpion caves
Alex Ferrari 14:17
early early. He had done if
Shane Stanley 14:20
it was early Yeah. And he was leaving to go do God that video game movie he did right? Oh, don't do
Alex Ferrari 14:28
that. Do that. Yes. He jokes quite a much about a bit about that. But it was still early on. Yeah, walking to Walking Tall was a hit and you know, but he wasn't what we would call like the rock now is the rock.
Shane Stanley 14:43
And I can't think of a I can't think of a person who deserves the success more talking about humble, sincere, gracious human being. I feel honored to say that we're to this day. 12 years later, we're still good friends. We stand regular touch. He's if anybody has earned it, and you really know his story. You would say it's him. And if you ever get a chance to work with a run to it, you'll be glad you did.
Alex Ferrari 15:05
That's amazing. Yeah, he's, I'm a huge rock fan. I've been watching the rock since the WWF days and I frickin love the rock. Oh, no, the I could do one eyebrow, that's it, I could do. I could do the Y kit. I could do one, I can't do the other one. Now, you wrote a book called what you don't learn in film school, which is basically my entire brand. What I've been, it's been pleasure. No, it's been what I've been talking about for years. And it's like, Guys, you know, one of the reasons why I started the podcast was like, I didn't hear anybody really out there at the time. telling it how it is from a place of someone who's walked the walk, like being in the industry, and really getting the shrapnel and getting the hell out beat out of them. And, you know, 20 I mean, at the time I launched, I was already like, 18 to 20 years in, you know, and just working with a ton of people. And I've been, you know, in all sorts of craziness. And, and I wanted to give like a voice to like now guys is not really what it is. So that's when I when I found out about your book, I was like, Oh, I gotta I gotta have shading out. We got it. We got to talk. So what are your thoughts on film schools in general? Do you do need to go?
Shane Stanley 16:21
Well, I think you know, it's a question that is the the age old it's a $64,000 question. I am not against film school, what I am against is charging PVS six figures to get a degree in French noir cinema. Yeah, theory in cell silos and how to keep it preserved in an archive. I mean, there are curriculum that I think are completely useless. But there are things here that I think are important, and I definitely know, like me, you're a blue collar guy, you know, if you come on to set on my Jane Seymour film, if I wasn't working with Jane or my dp, I was physically unloading the grub truck and helping the guys set up. It's just who I am. But I think there's a lot of us who didn't have a parent who bought us a camcorder or we didn't grow up at a time when our phones could make movies. Or I really was like his maid who grew up with movie holders and dads who were making documentaries. So if you don't have an understanding of the craft, or have any idea about it, I think, you know, to become an architect, you would go to school to become an architect to become a lawyer, you would do that. I think the most important thing somebody can do is read a book like the one I wrote or be involved with websites and movements, like indie film, hustle, because there's only so much they're going to teach you at school. They have to keep the persona on that you do need this or there without work. I mean, that's the way it is. But there's so much the business of the business that they don't teach in school is, you know, they don't teach about distribution deals. They don't talk about how to hire crew or how to make I mean, I do all my own contracts, whether it's actors Screen Actors Guild, I IATSE teamsters, it'll teach that. Nope. Look, where are you going to learn it, you're going to learn it from guys like you and me and the other people out there that have that have, you know, stood on a soapbox and try to promote it. So I think film schools are good, I get nervous where a lot of them their instructors are not tried and true filmmakers are people that that haven't been on a set in 20 or 30 years. I go around the country and do workshops and seminars will now that we're on zoom, I do them from air, but it amazes me the lack of credentials, the teachers teaching our next generation of storytellers have that's all just third generation stories about the history of cinema that's not filmmaking.
Alex Ferrari 18:44
No, I agree with you 100% I again, I always tell people look if you can if you can, if you have no understanding and you have no no other way to get this information. Then school is wonderful. At a price at a at a price like my film school. I went to full sail and I paid 18,000 bucks. I know what well, I paid 80,000 bucks in 1990 something and and for 18 grand it was was well worth the cost. You know, because I learned how to ride. I'm sorry.
Shane Stanley 19:15
Were you in Orlando?
Alex Ferrari 19:16
I wasn't I was there for a year and a half.
Shane Stanley 19:18
I was there in 93. I taught us a workshop in 93 in Orlando. I
Alex Ferrari 19:22
don't know if he was I was I was not there yet. I'm a little bit a little bit older than you a little bit a little bit younger than a little bit older than that. I'm not a little bit older.
Shane Stanley 19:31
I'm sorry. I'm 49.
Alex Ferrari 19:33
Well, sir. Well, no, I'm I guess some were similar vintages. Let's say. We're similar vintages. So but the thing is for that 18 grand, which I still think was a little bit pricey for my taste, because I learned how to wrap cable. And I learned how to make a cup of coffee. Those were the two biggest takeaways from my film education because because the technology was changing when I went so I was I was Did you know I was I was still told by my post production professor, that a computer will never be able to produce broadcast quality images. So yeah, that was a quote. I was like, wow, okay. Yeah. Okay. So the big issue I have with film schools is that, yes, I do have some great stuff in it. But the ROI is not there cannot charge somebody 60 7080 100 $120,000 for an education that you and I both know, will not return its investment. If you're going to be a doctor, there is a system setup to get your money back. If you're a lawyer. If you're a pilot, if you're an architect, if you're any of these other if you're an engineer, there are ways their system set up for you to start. And it might take time, I'm not saying the doctors, they cost like, you know, 300 or 300 $400,000, for their education, but there's systems in place to get that money back. Whereas in filmmaking, there is absolutely nothing you can do to guarantee anything, and you and I both know, that it will take if you're good and lucky, and you hustle like there's no tomorrow, maybe five years before you start generating enough money to support yourself if you live in Los Angeles, and that is like the outskirts, more likely 10 years.
Shane Stanley 21:28
You couldn't you couldn't say it best and a better and, and you know, my whole thing. When I started this, I learned the hard way. Because, you know, I like you was trying to come up with a way where in between films, what could I do to make a living and also help others there's got to be way because I tried to be a teacher, I squeaked out a high school. So nobody has hired me as a teacher because I didn't have a degree. Yes. Okay, fine. I get it. So how can I help? And my things, I was meeting with some of the top film institutions in the country. And I said, and I still am very close to a few of the chairs, and they let me in on some very private stuff. But I would be under exaggerating. If I said they know 86 to 92% of the kids who go through their full programs will never earn a dime in this industry Absolutely. Know that. And my original approach Alex was, what if because of the connections I have in my passion to help these students become because they are a next generation of storytellers, my way of giving back, how about if we started a mentorship program their senior year, so when they get out, we're almost handing them a baton. So people like numerous people like Amy Powell, who was running Paramount at the time could know these students and help place them in introduce them. And maybe once a year, we can have a gathering, you know, obviously before COVID in an arena or something where there's a lot of film people, a lot of students who can make connections. No, nobody wanted to do it. No, they didn't want to do
Alex Ferrari 23:03
no, and there's and look, they're selling the sizzle, man, they're not selling the steak. And that's that but that's the that's the thing. They have to sell the dream Hollywood needs to keep this dream alive. Where if you go to film school, and by the way, before that was the truth, which was you had to go to film school to get the kind of education you needed to get even a job in the industry in the 70s that's true in the 80s there was no other option where now there's guys like you and me out there talking writing books, doing podcasts, YouTube channels, there's so much information out there that you don't need to and I know a lot of filmmakers who decided you know what i got $50,000 for an education I'm just gonna go make a movie and they learned so much more by just going out and making a movie which might be good or bad regardless, it's an education I promise you if you go make a movie it's it's
Shane Stanley 23:59
you will you will learn more making a movie whether it's a short or a full length because you know you've made more than I I learned something about others. I learned something about how society interacts because I come back to a cave you know, I shoot a movie. I do concepts of delivery. So I'm usually editing it I'm post supervising it it's an 18 month process for me. I go away Well, I think it's safe to say the last 18 months our world has been to quite a bit in my studio last 18 months working on break even which comes out later this year. So to be honest with you, I kind of know what's going on but I can't wait to get back on a set it schooled and reminded where we really are I use those as such learning curves for me because I go in and I'm like okay, this is where we are today. And it's it keeps me on my game. It's an exciting experience. And every time I do something I learned
Alex Ferrari 24:53
no without without question every single time I want to set every single time I do you know in post production every time writing a script, you learn more and more, it's, it's like anything else, you got to learn the craft in every part of our craft, and it's so complex, it's not just writing a song, it's not just playing an instrument, it's not just carving wood, a table out of some wood.
Shane Stanley 25:19
You're right,
Alex Ferrari 25:20
it's multiple disciplines that you need to understand at least if you don't have to do them all. But you should understand this entire process, which is massive. It is what it is a complex art form. And we haven't even talked about the business. That's just the art form, then the business is a whole other conversation.
Shane Stanley 25:38
There's the business side, you're right, you've got to go hustle your your money to get attached to the project to get the actors to sign them up to get going. And then you got to crew it and cast it and location it and feed it and make it and then sell it.
Alex Ferrari 25:54
It's a process and the do it all again. And and it doesn't and it doesn't generally, generally speaking doesn't work out exactly how you have planned whether the positive or the negative, it's always something else. And, and it will break your heart. More times than not. It's it this is a horrible relationship. This industry we have with it. It's an abusive relationship. It's an absolutely. It's a toxic, abusive relationship.
Shane Stanley 26:21
It's so well said it's awesome.
Alex Ferrari 26:22
But with that said, we can't quit crazy. We can't we can't quit. Like I need
Shane Stanley 26:32
it said it says bro back now I just can't quit you right?
Alex Ferrari 26:35
I can't quit you, man. It's the truth. It's the truth. You can't quit. Because, you know, I've been saying this for a while. It's kind of like you catch it. You catch it. And it's with you for life. You can't get rid of it. It flares up. Sometimes it goes dormant for decades, even sometimes, but it Oh, I'd literally had a conversation with a filmmaker the other day, who was 65 just retired and said, Hey, I'm starting to write my screenplay, because I always wanted to make a movie. And I'm like, that is the case it's it's flaring up. It's flaring up now.
Shane Stanley 27:11
Well, you know, it's funny, I I've had a good run if I if I dropped it tomorrow or was told I'd never make another movie. I'd be sad, but I fought the fight. I won some battles. I'm proud of my body of work. So I wanted to just become a workshop guy and a seminar guy and a mentor to these film students. I was done I feel if I don't make another movie again. I'll be on a team I've done my I fought the fight my resume is there and I don't want to go teach. And I did that for six months and and I still love teaching and mentoring and workshopping. I do it a few days a week now. But I couldn't wait to get back on a set. I missed my crew. I missed five oh, the writer. I missed arguing with a dp and fighting with an actor and being told I don't know shit and you know the hell with you and having them stormed off and all that fun stuff that actors do and they know they're wrong. And I missed it. I missed being the big one. Why did I get that extra angle? God dang it. Why aren't we got to make it work anyway, you know, I missed that
Alex Ferrari 28:09
I just can't quit. You just can't I just can't. I can't I always say I just can't quit crazy, because it's crazy. It's it's insanity. Now, what is the biggest thing you see film schools leaving out of their education, besides absolute honesty that 93% of the people going through the program more likely will never make a diamond the business?
Shane Stanley 28:34
I you know, that's a great question. I think when you look at a standard curriculum, I think that the most important thing that film schools leave out is the importance of learning different variables within our industry. Because when I go to a seminar, the first thing is how many you guys want to be writers hands go producers, hands go up directors, all the hands go up. And I say, look, there's 200 of you in this room right now, if two of you were able to make a living as a director in 10 years, I will eat this podium, still haven't eaten yet. And I say you know what, I always try to preach it, you have a choice. And you you touched on it. Alex's it takes five to 10 years to get a foothold in this industry. And what I always tell the students in the kids coming up, and I do a lot of work with community colleges now more than university because they're older, they've had to fight for everything they have they take buses to school and skateboards and kids and but what I always say is I you want to write I get you want to produce direct or act and I love that don't ever let that passion go. But if you want to work in this industry and better you're learn how to be a gaffer, learn how to be a grip, learn how to be an AC learn how to edit, learn how to learn how to learn how to because I bet you would much rather be on a film set as a script supervisor than driving Uber. I bet you'd much rather be helping unload a grip truck and setting up for a cinematographer than flipping burgers. And if you're honest that you're going to be around actors, producers and directors, and if you stand out and you conduct yourself, Well, people will take notice and want you for the next journey. And that is what I feel the film schools leave out, which isn't a specific curriculum. It's common sense. It's life skills. It's how if you don't make it as the next Quentin Tarantino or Billy Bob Thornton, or you know, Damian, helped me to
Alex Ferrari 30:31
sell, sell, sell, sell
Shane Stanley 30:34
those three, which they always tell you, you can be what you're going to do. And one thing I love is Chris Christopher Rossiter, for anybody listening at La Community College, he has an entire course off of cinematography, that is just grip and electric. He does that so people can learn a blue collar skill on a set and go make three to $500 a day.
Alex Ferrari 31:00
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. I can't even tell you that's like music to my ears. Because when I first started out, I didn't know how to do anything. I start pa and I realized that pa ng sucked. I hated it. It is atrocious. It was horrible. And I worked. I worked at Universal Studios Florida. I worked in Disney MGM. If Are you familiar with the Orlando area during that time, the other productions?
Shane Stanley 31:33
My father's whole side is from Orlando. Okay,
Alex Ferrari 31:36
so I so this is just a little bit of a trivia I've never I've never even said this on the air before but a little bit of trivia. Let's see if you can. Let's see. I'm gonna test your Orlando knowledge. Live first, pa job, which was an internship pa job started off as an internship intern pa was with Kim Dawson. On the back on the backlot of Disney MGM, he was the producer of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Oh, geez. And he did a show called the news on on the backlog of universal so then he started off they started off on on Disney MGM, but they actually shot it on the back lot of universal and then we moved over to Universal. And it was like, it was like a Saturday live ripoff. And I that was like the coolest thing ever to work for the producer of it, which at the time was the biggest independent film of all time.
Shane Stanley 32:34
And it's made a comeback.
Alex Ferrari 32:35
Yeah. Oh, now it's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Obviously they've done. They've done well. But that was that's why and then I worked on Seaquest I worked at Fortune Hunter.
Shane Stanley 32:45
Did you work on Seaquest in LA?
Alex Ferrari 32:47
No. Universal Studios, Florida.
Shane Stanley 32:49
You know they had they also shot here at Universal here. I worked on seaquest here. There you go. Castle Rock back in 9394. On Seinfeld, they throw me on Roseanne even I was at a castle rock show. They threw me on seaquest American girl and a couple other ones. And they would occasionally coach and they would throw me on seaquest when they needed extra bodies over there. And it was usually the fake dolphin in the tank.
Alex Ferrari 33:13
Oh, yeah. All day, I get to see Roy Strider and on the set was the coolest thing ever. And then I was there when they switched the seasons that Michael Ironside is the lead. So I mean, I it was it was it was an entertainment. But that was my whole and I also worked in Nickelodeon. Of course.
Shane Stanley 33:30
That's cool.
Alex Ferrari 33:32
I worked jobs. I actually worked on global guts. Global guts was like this. This show for it was kind of like a it's like American Ninja for kids back in the day. And it was awesome. It was so awesome. But anyway, we're taking. We're just going down the Orlando road
Shane Stanley 33:52
going down memory lane. Well, we did a film with Dennis Hopper called held for ransom him dead Bayes R and I think that deal and it was based on Lois Belkin book who wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer my dad directed and we went out and shop with them for was when they were first getting started, you know, for oil has done a million things since then. And that was quite a hoot going out there to see family and work on this film. It was interesting, but that was the only time I ever actually did a film out there.
Alex Ferrari 34:21
What Don't forget that don't forget that Orlando was going to be the next Hollywood don't you? Don't you remember it was gonna it was gonna be the next Hollywood everything's the next Hollywood
Shane Stanley 34:30
next Hollywood.
Alex Ferrari 34:31
I mean, the only thing that's even come closest Georgia at this point became that they've actually pick up the next Hollywood
Shane Stanley 34:38
start wearing masks, they actually may have a chance.
Alex Ferrari 34:42
So what is the what are some of the biggest mistakes you see first time filmmakers make? You know that?
Shane Stanley 34:51
I'd say some of the mistakes that that I see first time filmmakers make Alex is and I touched on it in the book. I feel everybody's trying to make that move. For Sundance they're so convinced their ideas fresh and bright and are going to be the next you know Damien chazelle are gonna be the next you know, whoever and I like you and probably guests on set all the time I get invited first time filmmakers last time filmmaker, same difference. And it's the attitude. It's this air of arrogance and all this bs precisely, just shut up. treat people with respect make your movie the best you can and learn from it. And to me, it's, it's they try too hard to to be a part of something that's probably not going to datum as you and I were talking about before we started this interview. And hey, if you get into Sundance and all that, that is the greatest thing an indie nobody can get on their on their resume, and I hope it happens for them. But go make a movie, enjoy the process embracing consume, learn, be a team player. Don't be above that all because you raise $6 or you're directing this stupid movie to go help a guy who's struggling setting up a craft service table, I watch more people's egos. You know, you go work on a film like gridiron gang or some of the studio films I've done even though there's union rules, it's unbelievable how helpful everybody is for one another. And you get on some of these indie show Oh, fighting for position of what their value is or what they're worth, maybe, God forbid, they see a guy who cuts his arm off trying to figure out a, you know, hydraulic lift out of a moving truck before they discover and help the guy and that's to me is put your pride aside, help each other out. You'd be so amazed how far you can go.
Alex Ferrari 36:39
I always find it interesting that filmmakers in general, they're taught and the myth in the industry is that you're going to be the next winter. And you know, you're you're going to be the next Robert Rodriguez. That is, but what they don't tell you is like, well, that's nice. And one out of a billion people is going maybe that'll happen too, because we're still talking. We're still talking about guys in the 90s. Who made it you know, there's not a lot of new up and coming stories. There are a handful. But
Shane Stanley 37:12
I'm not to cut you off. I'm a firm believer Hollywood, make sure there's one or three every other year just to make sure that
Alex Ferrari 37:18
keep that keep that thing going. Yeah,
Shane Stanley 37:20
to keep that. Absent not to cut you off. But I do believe there is a method behind the madness of development out of nowhere. Success, I think there is
Alex Ferrari 37:29
no there's no question but they don't teach you what happens if you don't become the next point Tarantino if you don't become that, and that is so toxic for for a filmmaker and when you're young. And I was definitely a guilty of this. The ego is rough. I mean, there's a reason why I called my last film the corner of ego and desire because as a filmmaker, if you have even a remote amount of just if you get an award at the local Film Festival, your ego is out of control. And I early on in my career got a lot of attention for some shorts. And that was a little bit I was already beat up a bit. But I was a little bit in a little a little ego. egocentric in regards to the way I approach stuff. But I never once walked on a set with a big hat that said director on it. Or a big t shirt that said director on it or walked around with a eyepiece that I didn't know how to use not like a net like the James Cameron like, you know, let's set up a shot or Martin Scorsese. Yeah, a real like no, like one of these really small ones that have no association to the lens that you're going to use. It just makes you feel like you're a director, the only thing that were that they were missing was a monocle and a blow horn. I mean, it was it's insane. The stuff and I've seen these stories, and I've seen these directors on set. And And nowadays, like when I see that happen, I'll just don't Don't worry. worry about it. He'll be fine. It'll be fine. It all works itself out. It all works itself out.
Shane Stanley 39:05
I found that the best experiences the best synergy vibe on a set is when you know you may be the guy who raised the money, the guy wrote the script, producing it directing it going to do the whole thing. And you make everybody feel comfortable. Everybody feels safe. And that's our thing. You know, as you read in the book, it's about respect. It's about treating people how you want to be treated. And I know that sounds so cliche, but it seems to me unless you're a few of the real crazy tyrants out there. I won't name them. It seems like the smaller the filmmaker, the bigger the ego. And that's just something that's always wrote I just don't it's true, I think missing tremendous opportunity to collaborate with some great people that feel stifled that can. I'll give you an example. We were shooting breakeven last summer. There we CJ Wally. Up who, you know, wrote this scene, as I asked him to write it, I gave him a Google image of the harbour we're at, there's a part where the two people come off of paddle boards onto the dock, walk down the dock, throw a guy in the water, jump on a speedboat and steal it. Okay. And I wanted it as a winner on steady cam that would pick it up. And I'm looking at the logistics of the actual now that I'm here, and the boats here in the fuel docks are there and this and that, I'm going, I can't get what I designed. And, you know, I've got 40 people staring at me. And the first thing I did was I said, guys, take 10, if you can contribute to the thought process here, I welcome you to stay in, if you can't just go get some food, we'll call you in a minute, I got to rethink this out. And I need help because this is not what I envisioned. It's not what I envisioned won't work. And I suggest anybody has an idea to sit with me. And you know how hard that was to do. Here. I am, Rector, producer, and I'm leading the charge and I'm sitting on the bow of the boat. And I'm like, what I want to do won't work. And I want some help. I need some suggestions. And it was probably a second AC that came in and said, Hey, why don't you do this? Holy Toledo. That's not a bad. Alright, everybody, let's go. And
Alex Ferrari 41:12
you know, but that's as opposed to someone who has no confidence in themselves, because that takes a secure person. And I think that does come with age, man. Like unless you're wise beyond your years. Age is where that comes from, or just life experiences where that comes from. Because it's like, I couldn't like a twin. I'm afraid of what would have happened if I would have I had a project that I worked on when I was in my mid 20s that had big stars. And I wrote a whole book about it and about like working with a mob and all this kind of craziness. And I was afraid I look back now like if that would have gone. If I would have actually gotten a $15 million movie and was working with the caliber of stars that I was meeting and working out I would have I would have completely self destructed I would have would have I would have never been able to handle that because I was not prepared for it for
Shane Stanley 42:07
nothing all over again.
Alex Ferrari 42:08
Oh, sure. Yeah, Jeremy. And if it didn't, if it nobody knows that Troy Duffy, please. I wrote a whole giant article about Troy Duffy and the and the boondock saints. And you why you've got to watch the movie overnight. Every filmmaker should watch to watch that every filmmaker has to watch. Because you see the deterioration of of of a film director who's out of control. And by the way, years later, I had a friend of his on my show, and he told me about you because because you still talk to Troy he goes yeah, talk to Troy all the time. Troy By the way, did very well on boondock Saints to like he did he didn't millions did extremely well. Nobody's crying for joy. No, no one's crying for joy right now. But, um, and of course ever since the whole Harvey Weinstein thing which he you know, he Harvey he was making Harvey to be the villain and overnight and now you look like, Okay, this now makes sense. He maybe he wasn't wrong about that. But he said it goes imagine dude, if someone ran ran around with a camera during your early 20s when you would do in a movie like that? I promise you, you probably wouldn't look that great. And I go You know what? You're effing right, man. You're absolutely right. If someone had been following me during that time period of my life, and now that is the image of my name and with my brand for the rest of my career a Troy would have to do so much to break away from that. But that is
Shane Stanley 43:30
you're right. And you know, what's funny is is you know, we talked about the George Clooney, Charlie Sheen Grizzly movie. Yeah, I was I was very young and I was put in a situation of running a movie stars production company. And he was at a point in his life where Okay, was he still do he just come off terminal velocity in the arrival and shadow conspiracy and he wanted to he was hot. Yeah, he was. Charlie was still making 11 $12 million. A movie. Yeah. Who's rolling? We were we he was rolling. We were getting a lot of moving money to make movies. And he wanted to start doing indie films, and they paid us a lot of money to do indie films. I was, let's see was 96 was it 2526 years old? I'm sure I was. I thought I was being nice. I never really became a deck that I know of. I don't have those cringe worthy moments. When I look back. There's a few things I said or may have done to people that I wish I hadn't said it in that tone or with such enunciation. But you know, I look back and go thank god people weren't following me around with a camera I was on my best behavior.
Alex Ferrari 44:27
But the thing is to also you were raised at the business so it's so it's not like you kind of grew up with this. So it's not as like from coming from nowhere to all of a sudden being associated with big stars and big projects. And then all this crap that Hollywood in the film festivals shoved down your throat like the myth the Tarantino's Robert Rodriguez, you're going to be the next big thing. And then and then you're not. So
Shane Stanley 44:53
to me every day is a grind. I always you know, people always say what was it like growing up with nepotism? Well, to me, it made it harder. When I was a child, I was given jobs. I remember when I was done pursuing a professional music career and said to my dad when I was 17, okay, I'm serious. Now I want to be a filmmaker. He said, Great. Do you want my Rolodex? You want to call some people and see if they'll hire you? I'm not hiring you. I was like, Well, what do you mean? You got to find pitcher deal? What do you and he's like, I can hire you go work for the world, dude. Give me a call. He said, Oh, and by the way, the other phase down there third door to the left. Why don't you go spend five or 10 years in there, and then we'll talk you'll go learn filmmaking. He didn't. He didn't give me anything. I mean, my dad was a maverick. He pissed off a lot of people off which which made it hard for me to get meetings. And still some of those calls ever been returned. But I wouldn't want it any other way. It keeps me It keeps me fired up. It keeps me churning. It keeps me doing things like this and wanting to inspire others it just don't ever get complacent. And it's never easy.
Alex Ferrari 45:52
It look I got in a lot of people get all caught up with nepotism. And all you got to you got to weigh in. I'm like, Look, man, they might nepotism might open the door. And it might get you a meeting. And it might even get your project. But it's you and I can get you a job. But it's you doing the work. And actually seeing if you have talent, and can you make the money. That's the only thing that keeps you in the door. I don't care if you're max Spielberg, that doesn't mean anything. You're gonna get a meeting, if you're max. And Max didn't go into the business to my knowledge, they'll know what it's like. So he's like, no, I if you're max Spielberg, you can get a meeting, though everybody, everybody, that's how we'll meet with you. And maybe even get you a job. And maybe even you just start to direct, but it's about you, your hustle, your work ethic, all that other stuff that's going to keep you inside the door so I don't nepotism, yes, it does give you some opportunities that might have not gotten elsewhere. Like my kids. If my kids want to get into the business one day, I would yell at them first. But if, if they if they ever want to do get into the business, they're going to have, you know, decades of my experience that guide them, which I never had. I was in Florida.
Shane Stanley 47:04
Well, you know, there's something that I've always tried to remind people and I know a lot of people who had nepotistic opportunities who are selling storage bins right now they're selling cars, and there's nothing wrong with that. But they've got a list. Parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers running studios, and they can't keep a job in Hollywood anymore. And what I learned quickly was it's not okay. It may not be what you know, it's who you know, but you better know what you're doing when you get there. And you better put all that nepotism aside in your conduct. And I think when you're when you have a contact to get through the door, you have to work that much harder, because so many people are hoping you'll fail. I remember the first job my father ever picked up a phone and got me and all it was was was a second AC job on a on a Richard credit movie back in the late 80s. Yeah, all the DP he knew and said, Look, I don't care if you pay him or not. I'll send them with a sandwich. I want to get the kid on a few sets that I'm not running. I want him to get his ass kicked, thrown to the wolves. So they threw me on this Richard credit film. I didn't get paid, I was allowed to eat.
Alex Ferrari 48:09
That's awesome.
Shane Stanley 48:09
I remember the DP didn't like me anyway. But he liked my dad. And him and I are friends now, which is great. We've done a ton of things together. But back then I was at 17 year old punk. And he threw me to the walls man. I got called every name of the book. People were playing tricks on me. They were putting signs on my back. They just wanted me to fail. And I wasn't even getting a paycheck. I was just another guy to just move cable and hang a barn door. And you know, they didn't care.
Alex Ferrari 48:34
Oh, no, I'll tell you what I had. I was consulting a friend of mine who works in the business. She works over at Universal but like in the legal department or accounting or something like that. And her daughter was just getting out of film school, a local film school that would remain nameless. And and then she was like, can you talk to her a little bit about what the business is like, I'm like, do you do you want me to? She's like, Yes, I want you to tell her the truth. I'm like, okay, so I had I had coffee with her. And I said, Listen, I want you to you know, you see that your mom and this and your mom can make a few phone calls and get you on into our, you know, into the DP section or are in the art department or someone you can get on the backlot, she could do all that for you? And she's like, Yeah, I know, you know, and I'm like, if I were you just understand that if you do go in that path, and I By the way, if it was me, I would take that opportunity, because anything you can get get it. But understand that the second you walk on the set, if anyone finds out how you got the job, you've got a target on your back. That's right. And she's like, what do you what she'd like you could literally see that she never thought of that. And you really have like deer in headlights. What do you mean she's like, they will want you to fail because the same person that's next to you the same PA. That's next to you. came up from Kansas. Drove cross country is living on someone's couch right now and is in busting their ass to get to the same place that you got because mommy made a phone call.
Shane Stanley 50:03
Yep. I you couldn't, you couldn't be more correct. I remember I used to produce a bunch of commercials for an ad agency here in town. And I remember the owner of the ad agency said, Hey, I need a favor. There's a newscaster, who will remain nameless. But she is one of the biggest 3040 year running broadcast news anchors in the business. Her son just graduated high school, he's thinking about getting into production, can you find a job for my school, I can't be a PA. And he's like, I don't know, just treat him well, mom's a good friend. And I remember like getting 50 or 60 people wanting that job. But he got the job because of who he was. And I sat him down. And I said, I happen to know your mom. I haven't seen her in years. But I've met her I thought she was wonderful. I said, Look, you have a target on your back. Because you're you're at the bottom, you're going to be getting thrown the most crap to do, everybody's going to be watching you because you have the same last name. And it wasn't a common last name as your mom, people are going to connect the dots, you have a choice, you can either rise up as the water starts to get high around your neck and rise up with it. Or you're going to sink and I will tell you, if you fail me, I will fire you. I'm not I don't have warm body syndrome on our sets. Dude, you'll get the opportunity. And you know what he was his star, he did a really good job. And but you're right, these these youngsters coming up don't realize the target that's on her back. You know, getting these opportunities. It's very tough. It's not? No, it's not.
Alex Ferrari 51:29
And can you talk a little bit of stuff? Because I know this is something that they definitely don't teach in film school. How about the politics of a film production?
Shane Stanley 51:38
politics?
Alex Ferrari 51:40
Exactly. Just Okay, so I sit in the director's chair, no, no like that. So like the politics of, of the other set, okay. And then each department has their own hierarchy of politics. So the DP with the firt, the kid assistant camera, and then, and then there's the light, the gaffer and the lighting department and, and then the key grips, and the dolly grip, and all these kind of things. But the thing that people don't understand, at least from my experience is that there is a lot of politics going on. A lot of a lot of times, people have different end games involved. So I've always told people, like whoever you hire as your dp, make sure that they're there for the story and not for their real, because they will, they will bust their balls to get that crane to get this nice, long 22nd crane shot that will never make the Edit, you're going to use two seconds of it, but they want it for their real so and you're and you've burned for hours because they're lighting it like it's a Scorsese film,
Shane Stanley 52:38
and 20 grand to get the crane and all the permits to and all
Alex Ferrari 52:42
that so. But as a young filmmaker, you don't know any better. So you really need to understand. So that's one set of politics, then there's the power struggle, where if you have a young director on set, which I've been the young director on set, not as much anymore, but but I was a young director on set where then the script soup was sent in by the producer to test me and push me to see if I had the metal to actually hold the production together. Right and because they didn't know who I was, or what I had done prior and a redonk commercials and music videos and other things like that before I got on a narrative film set. And and does this before IMDb this before the internet so that other people didn't know they could check up your work they just heard so that they needed the test. So that's the kind of politics you have. And then sometimes there's like spies, from the production that come in to see if you're directing, right? Or they're spies from your head of your department. They're like, hey, hear the cat, you're the head head camera guy. Keep an eye on on Joe there, see how Joe's doing? And you never know that you're being watched? So there's all these kinds of things can you can touch a little bit of I've touched on a bunch of it. Can you touch a little bit or add to that?
Shane Stanley 53:56
Well, you know, that I can take up to hours doing that. I mean, that's an interesting, that's an interesting, the politics and the dynamics on a set are unbelievable. I mean, I kind of I mean I work with a lot of the same people now I try to have a loyal crew that I enjoy working with but yeah, there's times where I'm a work for hire, I got up bringing on other people and you try to keep those things. You know the one thing I always do with the DP if I'm hiring one is I say look, this isn't about your reel. It's about the overall when I look at a new dp I don't want to see as real I call directors and editors he's worked with and say send me raw dailies I don't want to see is real because you know all ask a director or an ad that this dp where you guys ever held up because he was slow setting up? Did you guys need 10 1520 tapes because the camera or do you do five or six takes and everything was great and it was more a director's choice. I like to find those things out. I always let people know this isn't about you. It's about us. That way. They don't feel alienated, but it's more a team effort. And I was telling them upfront you're not getting anything for your real until the movies out and that can be anywhere between a year happened three years. So suck it up. You're here to make a movie. But there are dynamics. I, you know, I was taught very young Alex, that anybody who's a camera man wants to be a cinematographer or cinematographer, they want to be a director there are this they want
Alex Ferrari 55:15
your first they do a lot of times they want to be the director,
Shane Stanley 55:17
they want to be a director too. So I remember that going in. And to me again, I always found that's probably why don't hire a DS when I'm with these. But yeah, there is a, there's politics, there's dynamics. On a set, I feel, you know, I learned from Jeff McGuire, who is the tremendous writer, he wrote gridiron gang, he got an Oscar nomination for in the line of fire with Clint Eastwood. Jeff taught me something 30 years ago, he said, just remember something in this business, no matter what, no matter how kind somebody is being or how accommodating they may seem to you, they are doing it for their own gain. Don't ever forget that he was you'll make a lot of great friends in this industry. But he said, Just remember, everybody's got a purpose for what they do. And is it true or not? I think it's more true than untrue. But I just think it's, it's about working with people that you can trust and making sure everybody's on the same page. And I think if people feel comfortable, like we talked about earlier, that they feel from the top down, it's like we look at what's going on in our country. And people can say, why is things happening the way they're happening? When you look at the top and how people are behaving coming down? Oh, well, it's happening up there. It must be okay to treat somebody this way. I think if you can, I think you can, you know, leave with a soft voice and a big stick or whatever the term is, I think people the respect, and the backbiting and the conniving on a cetera did become a lot more minimal.
Alex Ferrari 56:48
I agree. That's what I, from my experience, too, if you cast the crew, appropriately, it's casting the crew, you cast those personalities to see if it's all in because if you have one toxic person, especially if they're a department head, it's tough because I mean, I've had a boom guy who was toxic, and it just brings the whole set down until I have to have to go over my get another guy here tomorrow, cuz I'm not going to work with this guy. He's just, he's just toxic. His attitude, his energy was heavy, everything was just rough. And it's just too damn stressful. making a movie is a stressful scenario.
Shane Stanley 57:23
It's hard enough. We don't need that Apple's to use a generic term. And you know, it's funny when you said that it reminded me of something. I was on a film a couple of films ago. And it was weird. I always do a SAG AFTRA film with a non IAA crew. That's just how I work. Some of my guys are a guys, they want to come work for me. That's fine. That's the right. I love having them. But we don't have union rules. So what are those rules? Well, we don't pay the union rates we still have the days are the same length. We still pay overtime. We're still feeding them feeding them
Alex Ferrari 57:51
breaks. Yeah,
Shane Stanley 57:52
very well, we overfeed. And they're just some things like hey, you know what, guys, I need grace, we need to get two more taxes. So we all good, everybody good. You know, ask for grace. And then you get that one guy who's part of the union that shows up one day that just angry, bitter. Trying to tell everybody let's turn the show and all our budgets 400 grand, you really want to turn the show.
Alex Ferrari 58:15
I've been I've been involved with productions who had their shows turned in for everybody listening, if you if you don't know what turning a show is, or flipping a show, is when a when you're in a non union shooting, you've got union guys working on it. And the film I was working on, I was doing post on, they actually were 50 were outside the circle, they were outside the 50 mile circle. So they were they were they were quote unquote, okay, they had some union guys, but there was this one guy, one assistant camera, who wanted to be part of the Union. And he made a phone call. And the next day the union was there, and they and they shut down the production. And they had to flip the production. And because of that one dude, that film sat in my hard drives for a year, because it had to, they had to raise another, like, you know, another few $100,000 to finish the film. And it was all because this guy flipped the film. So that's,
Shane Stanley 59:13
it's just one of your productions.
Alex Ferrari 59:15
No I, was I was I was just working post, just a dude in it for themselves. So it what I
Shane Stanley 59:22
what I do is I have an understanding of where budgets need to be to not get flipped. I mean, if your budget is a certain amount, they're gonna leave you alone. If you start treading in areas that you risk,
Alex Ferrari 59:35
go ahead. One of the thing was that our project, that project that was working on was a low budget project, but it had two high profile stars.
Shane Stanley 59:43
Ah, well, yeah, I mean, something I guess anything's possible. It's just, you know what? I always I always try, I don't, I don't subscribe to the theory. Permission or forgiveness is easier to get them from When it comes to filmmaking, I always try to knit the budget. Like what I set up to do my independent stuff with visual arts entertainment, I called the head of the CIA. I just I call them got to the head of the I introduced myself, this is what I'm doing. I've got three films I'm doing. These are the budgets, I need to know that I'm not going to have a problem. He goes, You called me. You're telling me your budget, your budget, I believe you. I told him where we were shooting, we're way out of the T zone. And he said, Dude, I will keep a note of all of this stuff, you will not hear from us. And guess what, in a four and a half year period making those films we did have one guy not a problem,
Alex Ferrari 1:00:37
or is it all is relative to the production because I was on another project. That was a million dollar production. A Million Dollar production had Austin in Florida had Oscar winning ask Oscar nominated actors in it, like big actors. I otzi showed up. They didn't know what the budget was. Now they I otzi showed up and they were shooting on a Panasonic dv x 100. A a million dollar production. Don't ask me why. On that camera, they were shooting this is this is back in the 90s. This is actually early 2000s
Shane Stanley 1:01:13
vs 2000. Remember,
Alex Ferrari 1:01:14
it's amazing. It's amazing camera. And they said, Oh, sorry, we didn't die. They just walked away because they said there's no money here. Okay, great. But what if you haven't had that conversation, and they see a big star, they're gonna flip they're gonna they're gonna, you're gonna have problems. I agree with you 100%. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. Now, can we can we talk about the film deception, I mean, distribution. As you know, I don't know if you know or not, but I've become a kind of like a warrior for film distribution. I want to help filmmakers navigate this ridiculous system that is film distributors. I love to hear your thoughts on the system. What's wrong with it? How can it be fixed? Your horror stories, all that stuff?
Shane Stanley 1:02:12
Well, you know, that's the chapter in my book, film deception. I mean, distribution. Exactly. Right. And it's, you know, I've been involved with some some big indies that were like million $2 million entities that had deals and nobody's made any money, nobody's seen money, and they go in and they audit and they find out the film's made $3 million. And Oops, sorry, I missed that. You know, um, I think you have to realize that it's hard because you as a filmmaker, you got you create a product, you raise the money for it, as you say, you cast the crew, and then you cast the film, you know, the actors, you go through the brutal process of making you go to war, let's be honest, making a movie is a war. And then you kill yourself in post, and then you get it done. And then you and trust it, you entrust it to somebody to sell. And I you know, unfortunately, you will never know the true numbers that a movie makes or doesn't make. And I think you have, as I say, in my book, what I always try to say is try to find a group that will capture the vision early on it, you know, everybody has that envision, oh, well, I'm gonna just throw it up and let the bidding wars begin. It doesn't work that way anymore. Night,
Alex Ferrari 1:03:25
it's not the 90s. And we're not at Sundance that
Shane Stanley 1:03:28
not, it's not you know, who dreams it's, you know, come on. So what I always suggest is really try to develop relationships with distributors that have got longevity, you don't want somebody who just fell off the turnip truck or a guy's running a company who was part of a company for two years and part of the company six months before that, you know, there's some good companies out there that are tried and true. Just no going in there. They're all going to have their creative accounting, and butts up
Alex Ferrari 1:03:55
right there. So stop there for a sec. I just want to I want to touch on that. And this is what I've been yelling about from the top of the house there. And is it's a systemic problem in that side of our business. It has been going around since the days of Chaplin, which is called creative accounting. I feel that it is as prevalent as the casting couch was prior to the me to movement, like the casting couch was a it was just like, you all heard it like oh, yeah, you have to go on the casting couch if you want to get the part or you heard of this, of this casting couch. And when I was in film school, you heard about that, and it was even joked about in movies and stuff. It was just part of the way movies were made until finally, that that horrible cycle was broken. I feel that the same thing is happening on a financial standpoint, in the distribution side, where Oh, there's and I love the way you just said like, oh, there's gonna be creative accounting. Why? There's no other industry that I know of like the cookie business. If you see if you make a cookie, you sell a cookie, you send it over to the supermarket to supermarkets, like there's no creative accounting and the Cookie business. Why is it right? So why is there creative accounting in our business? And why is that still acceptable in today's world?
Shane Stanley 1:05:08
It's well the reason sadly it's acceptable is because you know, you got 33,000 movies a year Alex being made through sag with at least what somebody deems a bankable actor. Okay, that's a whole nother discussion. But, but people are beholden to investors or their wife if they wrote the check themselves. And they got to get a film out, and distributors know how desperate us filmmakers can be. And they also know there's 54 territories on the globe 174 buying countries. So Alex, if I'm a distributor, and I take your film, and I know I'm a hip pocket dealing, Guam, the chances of you going to Guam on vacation with your wife and staying at the Radisson and seeing it at two o'clock in the morning on Guam vision or whatever, you're probably not going to see it and you're not going to know if I got five grand for 2500 for it. So what happens is there's 54 territories, they're going to hopefully sell the biggies. You know, you may get somebody come in and buy up 20 territories, you may sell them Germany, Southeast Asia, Vietnam, China, but most of us filmmakers don't realize and it's in my book, there's 54 territories, all those territories equally need content, what is what I believe keeps a lot of the smaller distributors awake and alive is those hip pocket deals they make at AFM Toronto, MIPCOM Berlin, where they're like, Look, I'll tell you what, you can have these 10 movies for 10 grand, you would I will never know about. We just don't know about. I mean, I've traveled the world and seen my films on TV. years later. Like, I never made a deal here. And like, you know, like, seriously, I mean, it's happened. And that's, I think, and then there's also the charges, the market charges, you know, they'll charge you up to $25,000 then there could be a market overhead charge for another 25 plus anything that you don't have the money to do you need to surround 5.1 surround fully filled m&e, well, we didn't do that I only had a few grand that makes the film in stereo, they'll gladly do it for you. So you have to be sure they're not charging you more than it should cost. Will you mean like, what
Alex Ferrari 1:07:17
do you mean like $10 per minute for closed captioning?
Shane Stanley 1:07:22
Yeah, we're doing 90 minute movies that can cost you more $212 I mean, remember, I remember doing a music video for VH one for an artist. I won't say who? And VH one demanded. We did closed captions for their video and I found a place that was for a music video three and a half minutes. You've done a lot of closed captions for
Alex Ferrari 1:07:45
what year was this?
Shane Stanley 1:07:47
year? 2004.
Alex Ferrari 1:07:50
Okay, sure. Okay.
Shane Stanley 1:07:51
Not a long time ago. They was $582 I'm freaking out because I never like closed captioning three days I called a friend of mine, Todd Gilbert. Robbie Lerner's post production. I love Todd I called him I said, Hey, buddy, I got a question. He's like, what are you out of your mind call this place in San Francisco, it's gonna be like, it's gonna be like no money. So the music video did cost me like $38. And right, this money for my 90 minute movies, it's $112 for 90 minutes, all in.
Alex Ferrari 1:08:21
Exactly. And there's so many other options now as well. But so I love I love the term hip pocket deal, because not many people understand what that is. And what you've basically explained is like, they have your movie, they have worldwide rights, what they're going to do is they're going to call up South Africa, or even a smaller market, and you have a relationship with Guam, let's say Guam, and you're like, Look, I'm going to give you 2000 give me 2000 bucks for this film. And, and you'll never hear about it, because you unless you audit them. And even if you audit them, good luck. And so that you have no power,
Shane Stanley 1:08:54
you will get away from it, not to have to wait to get away with it as they do the block deals. So there is no paperwork for that
Alex Ferrari 1:09:02
film. Although they do talk about packaging don't get
Shane Stanley 1:09:05
it will do 10 to 20 films for 20. It's 1000 to $2,000 per title, take all these titles, a lot of people. I had a guy who came to me to help sell this film. And I befriended a former scorn distribution guy. And he said, and I said to him, this guy's got insomnia. He's up at 230 in the morning watching Cinemax. He can't figure out how some of the worst movies in the world are on there and why his movie can't get on. Here he goes, Oh, I can get it on there tomorrow. We'll just have to package it with 10 to 20 others we'll get two grand and Ruby on Cinemax and four months. He goes because those deals are packaged. They don't show up. They just hurry but that's it. None of that though Cinemax, under the bus Cinemax isn't doing anything wrong. It's the people peddling these package deals to these foreign networks and countries and ancillaries just
Alex Ferrari 1:09:53
what happens and there's also don't forget the fire sales and there's fire sales as well that like oh yeah, here. Yeah, I'll give you this movie for 500 bucks. Just you know. Here we go. And, and those deals are done at AFM. They're done at a con. They're done at Berlin.
Shane Stanley 1:10:06
Yep, they're done online now. Yeah, but you're right. And when where that comes from is a sales agent takes on a film, they can't give it away. It's a stinker. And they may have put together some artwork or a trailer and be out a few grand of liquid cash to their vendors to get it done. They need to start recouping. So what I always tell filmmakers is please, please, please, please read the fine print, read my book because I actually copy and paste a lot of contract misleading language. in that chapter of my book, I the way the book came about, I get a lot of calls from independent filmmakers for advice. I even get some calls from very well known filmmakers for advice when they need to save a buck or two. And what what happened was as I started writing a blog, and they said, Hey, do you want to write a book? And then my wife was like, you know, you're getting a lot of time to people? Why don't you just you keep She goes, I've been listening to you do this for 20 years, you keep telling them the same thing? Why don't you just write your thoughts down, and it's all in one place. And that's how the book became. And while I was writing the book, I had a really respected indie filmmaker, who for the first time in her life was stuck, he raised over a million and a half dollars of his own, you know, of liquid cash, made a movie got a couple of big stars attached, and it was on his ass to sell his movie to get distribution, he had no idea how to do it, he was a very good filmmaker would know business and distribution. So he starts sending me all these contracts, and his investor wants him to sign this with this company. And I that is when the light bulb went on. For me, Alex, I went, Oh my god, I got to write about this, I have to take these documents and copy and paste them and put them in a book. Because these are so duplicitous, and so misleading. People don't realize when they have a $20,000 market charge, and then $20,000 service charge, it's 40 grand that the movies gonna make before you see a dime plus a percentage, plus marketing costs of a trailer. The trailer probably cost 1000 to make they're gonna charge you five grand, the posters cost them a few 100 they're gonna charge you 1500 how it gets back charged, do and then they're gonna take 20% on top of that
Alex Ferrari 1:12:14
as a commission. Oh, yeah. But they'll take no forget, they take that 20% before all of those expenses, they make sure that yeah, oh, yeah. So if you're, say, 100,000, that 20 grand goes right off the top, then they start pulling out all the it's you it is, it's such a scam. And I think that I mean, my second book, Rise of the film entrepreneur, it's about giving the filmmaker the power to take control of their own thing. And, and which leads us to the next question I want to talk to you about because you worked a bit in the music industry as well. And I've been yelling from the top of the lungs from top of the hill as well. And in my book, that if you want to see where the film industry is going to be in the next five years, all you got to do is just look at the music industry, it's the exact same pattern that is happening. Whereas the actual art, the actual content is, for lack of a better word worthless, it means it has no value to it, where a song used to cost $18 to get the album so you can get the song. Now, Beyonce is getting paid a 20th of a cent for a play of one of her songs, what do you think an independent artist is going to have? What chance do they have? So I want you to talk a little bit about where you think. Because if if you think that's not happening, look at Amazon Prime, and you're getting a penny. And I'm sure they're going to go to fractions of pennies soon, I promise you they will. Or they not already. If and if they're not already, you're right. So that, you know, a penny for an hour of viewing is what Amazon's paying. So essentially, the movie is almost worthless. It's essentially free.
Shane Stanley 1:13:52
I you know what, let me let me answer that by starting going backwards on what we just talked about. I knew the sales agent, not a distributor, an agent that got so frustrated not being able to sell somebody movie that was actually pretty good. He made a couple of foreign deals like in South Africa, in Germany, and like, you know, the same areas, the movie was starting to make a little money back. And he got frustrated. And before his contract, his three year or five year deal was over. He uploaded it without the filmmakers permission on amazon prime. So then it became worthless. He couldn't give it away after that. And he got his first royalty check after a year and I think he saw $7.38 and you're talking about a six figure movie. I mean, I think the guy paid six 700 grand for his movie, it wasn't cheap. So that is happening. You know, I'll tell a story and this is directly from artists that I've worked with over the years, Alex and you and I were talking about this before we started today. The music industry used to be something that you know those artists for the writing. They're performing recorded material had value. Like he said, in the 90s and early 2000s. We would go to the CD store on paid and spend $19 plus tax on a CD for that one or two songs. There was no you know, downloading on Napster, which really changed it. Yeah. And it really did, sadly. And I learned from some artists that I'm very close with one day about 10 years ago, they said, Well, you know musics free now. As soon as our CD comes out, somebody puts it on YouTube or music video on YouTube, you go to YouTube to mp3 convert, you download it, it goes on your iPhone, your iPod, your iPad, your iPhone, whatever people have, there are music everywhere. We can only make music in the touring and merchandise. So the question now becomes, I know there are titles I have that we have to go on YouTube every single day and 510 times a day, there are titles of mine that are being purged on YouTube that I have to go in take 20 minutes of my day, and fill out a copyright request thing. And it's the movie was out and sold that people are watching it for free. It's basically useless and worthless. We don't have live performance touring and merchandise, really, I mean, unless you got Yoda like you do in the back, there are some of the cool things you've done here. You're a pretty smart dude, you've got things that you're moving I figure, I don't know what the hell yeah, it's this industry is this sustainable independent is going to be tougher and tougher. Because the deals are going to get smaller and smaller. The content is not slowing down, everybody's making something I don't know where we're gonna go. And then you still have the demands from the unions on the royalties and
Alex Ferrari 1:16:47
backup, but they're, but they're also building that out off of a model from the 80s. In the 90s. When money was five, which money was flowing, like I was working in Miami, where they did a music video and I saw it was a $500,000 budget on a second tier artist. Not even deficit, the top tier artists there was the there was the 90s there was money flowing like there was no tomorrow, all those deals, all those residuals just like there are there's not going to be any more fro any more friends deals, or Seinfeld deals where those actors are pulling in 20 million a year off of residuals, those days are gone. Gone. And it's going to be rough. It's not only refer musicians, but on ours, outside actors are it's getting tougher and tougher for any residuals on actors. Before you could do one or two national spots a year. And now and that could keep you afloat comfortably. You could pull in 60 to 120. If it's a Superbowl ad or even a big national ad that gets played about you will get residuals. Hold on a second.
Shane Stanley 1:17:49
One of my best friends did a Bud Light ad for a Super Bowl three years ago.
Alex Ferrari 1:17:54
And how much it was brand, man, how much was it? five grand, right? So now that's what that's the only so now. So before you used to be able to do that.
Shane Stanley 1:18:05
Yeah. Now. Whoa, are the guys the shell guy
Alex Ferrari 1:18:10
or mayhem mayhem mayhem is making.
Shane Stanley 1:18:12
Those are the guys that you know flow. Brent Bailey, who's the shell guy and mayhem are the guys that are making good quality because they are owned for two years. They signed two year contracts with these companies that their first refusal they may get paid. But you're right. And I remember growing up as a kid I you know, I grew up in the industry. I had a neighbor who was a gator raid girl or a Coca Cola girl she I remember when she was in high school. She went to her mailbox one day we got off the school bus. I heard this screaming we all go over there. She opened up a check for her Geeta read worldwide residuals, it was $74,000. And this was in 1986.
Alex Ferrari 1:18:48
I had in full and full sail. One of my teachers was the associate producer of parenthood. Huh, okay of that movie parenthood by Ron Howard. He was he was a happy days guy and all that stuff. So he was telling the stories like he played the part of the opposing, literally coach for Steve Martin. And he had two lines.
Shane Stanley 1:19:10
He's under five, right?
Alex Ferrari 1:19:11
Yeah. He said two lines. And he said, Come on, Jimmy, you could do it. Come on. And that was that's all he did two days. They held them for the first day. They didn't get to him. They said he paid he got paid like whatever it was at the time, like five or $600 a day it was like 89 or something like that when it came out. Then first residual $50,000 Yeah, $50,000 was a really good buddy of mine was the unit production manager of seven movies. So the movie seven with Brad Pitt, David Fincher movie. Sure. First residual check 50 $70,000 as the as the UPM because he's a DJ. So UPM first ad and director all get residuals. All of that's going away because Netflix changed the game. And they said no, no. Why are we going to pay residuals? No, don't worry. We're going to do buyouts and as you as you saw the Disney Disney is actually saying, Yeah, we're going to give you two seasons of residuals, two years of residuals. And that's it, is it. And so the whole game has changed. So they're literally the corporations are trying to squeeze now, even all of those kind of like placeholder things to help the artists to survive. As an actor, as a writer, as a director, as a filmmaker. The lot of things that we grew up with or were taught with are no longer going to be around or are around period.
Shane Stanley 1:20:29
And I'll be honest with you sag afters made it difficult because they basically make you sign your life away to get your film cleared. So you can make it with a SAG actor. And then they want to know why the result. There's our name, well, I got a streaming deal. Somebody's paying me $3 to stream the movie. You got a $600,000 movie here, it's made back $18,000. What like, you've got investors, you've got costs, you got overhead, you've got commissions for nutrition. It's such an in, you're right, it's like everybody is still going everybody who's squeezing the filmmakers working off of boiler plates from the 80s and 90s when there was tons of money, and there was DVD markets, they won't be honest with you.
I had a film a couple of years ago air on a cable network. And the buyout from the cable network was five grand five grand. So the union saw that was like oh, why didn't it up, buddy. We're backing up the Brinks truck. Oh, it was it was fun to show them that oh, I lied. It was actually $4,000. They expected this huge six figure and it was a big and it was a big network. It was huge network they bought it out for they had a six month run on it for like one of the big paid pay networks. Now they give us four grand, but the whole the whole, like six months or a year for four. And don't forget the sales agent took 20%. So we really obviously,
Alex Ferrari 1:21:52
obviously, obviously, this agent took 20% where's the residuals for what they're that's and that's the point. So and as and what COVID is showing us is the pressure now it's showing us how flawed the system is, and so on and so flawed. So I am saying Rome is burning. I've been saying this for a little while now. Rome is burning, and Rome is Hollywood. And the systems that are around Hollywood that be in film distribution, whether it be the unions, whether all of it has to burn down because it's not that I want it to it's just has to burn down now. And then out of the New World. This new system is going to come up I hope this new system can help filmmakers and artists. I'm not sure it will, I hope there is more potential for the artists to get more control of their art and of their finances. But it's going to be a battle and what it was before like when you and I were coming up. You could make a living as an actor, as a as a writer doing small projects as a filmmaker doing small things. Remember music videos like I was just saying you can make a living to music videos, your kids music videos as a living nownow unless you're at the very level
Shane Stanley 1:23:08
When I was doing 80s rock band music videos talking about the half million dollar budget Oh, motley and poison and Guns and Roses because we're getting seven figures to do videos.
Alex Ferrari 1:23:18
Oh, yeah. Well,
Shane Stanley 1:23:20
I still work with a lot of those bands when we do videos now is hey, you know, can you grab a camera and a couple buddies will give you five grand Can we make a video? Yep. And it's not that they're poor. These guys were smart with their money that it's just they're not dumb. They're not getting the record label support they did back in the day. They're not having 100 grand go to catering and limos and blow. It's now coming out of their pocket and they know what things cost. And they're like, hey, Shane,
Alex Ferrari 1:23:44
can you get a couple buddies? together? five grand for you? Can you do a video for us? Oh no, I was doing videos. I was doing videos with Snoop Dogg and ludicrous. And I saw ibw $2,000 because they knew the artists knew a lot of times mshs Luna and Snoop specifically, they were guest starring and some other people's stuff. But they knew that as a director, you're like, well, if I have Luda and snoop on my reel, I'm gonna be able to get some work. And they know that. So they're leveraging that to get you work. I mean, it's I you know, I wanted this episode to be kind of like a little bit of a box that opens up and exposes the truth about our industry in a small way, especially things that they don't teach in film school. So this is really geared towards people who have not been on sets who've not been in the business for a long time to really understand the reality. And this is a pretty raw and brutal conversation. You and I were just two old, old old war dogs who have got a lot of shrapnel because we've been in the business for a while. But I'm sure a lot of people listening right now are horrified.
Shane Stanley 1:24:49
And I don't want it to discourage anybody. No sessions with you until the frickin cows come home. I enjoy it. Yeah, it's the fact and point is is are we going to be real Are we going to sugarcoat It's like, right you know, you want to tell a woman who's thinking about having a baby. It feels really good giving birth, especially make sure you don't get the epidural. You'll love it. Yeah, have to be honest, creative. Because I, I mean, I hate breaking hearts I hate. I would never want to crush your dream. If it was easy, everybody would do it. I still want to encourage people to do it, but know what you're going to up against. And you know, you've opened my eyes to some stuff here. And it's like, yeah, you
Alex Ferrari 1:25:26
know what? That's the problem. I never heard it voice like that, Alex, it's brilliant. There's so working off of the 80s and 90s contracts to turn things into date. That's sure me. But the system is built on those boiler plates. The system is built. The sag contracts are built on that the DGA contracts the wg a contracts are built on with the assumption that there's money that there's money flowing, that everyone's making money. And yes, there are, but that about people who are actually making money, it's extremely small, and they're all the way at the top. Okay, I always I always use the example of like Blade Runner. I'm not where the owl is at the top of that building. I'm at the bottom where the really good food is. That's where I live. I live on the street level where Harrison is where Harrison's game picked up by James any almost Okay, that's, yeah, that's where I live. And that's where most filmmakers live. We live down at the bottom level of Blade Runner. But most of us want to be up where the owl is up where Sean young is introduced. That's where we all want to be. And I've been in that room a couple times. You've been in that room a few times, we get to visit it, but we never get to stay.
Shane Stanley 1:26:38
Yeah. For a little while, have you over for a drink?
Alex Ferrari 1:26:42
Right? You know, you might even stick around for a little bit. But sooner or later security finds you and kicks you out. That's still a way I always look at it. But but that's the game. And that is that is our industry. And that's why I've been yelling and film distribution is the worst out of all of it. Because all of their systems are built on shit from the 90s, early 2000s they're still talking about DVD sales. Like it's a thing. Don't get me wrong, there is still money in DVD but nothing like it wasn't
Shane Stanley 1:27:12
a 30% comeback during COVID. Let's hope it sticks.
Alex Ferrari 1:27:15
Right. But the point is that that's not that's not the growth industry. DVD is not the growth. It's not vinyl. It's not vinyl, it's there's no
Shane Stanley 1:27:24
Best Buy and Walmart to find them or the 99 cent
Alex Ferrari 1:27:28
store. Right? And all of them are enclosed areas that generally people don't want to go into now because
Shane Stanley 1:27:35
people don't realize this DVD deals are done where they say hey, we'll give you $2 a disc or four for 4000 of them. We're going to sprinkle them around Walmart.
Alex Ferrari 1:27:43
Yeah, but they don't talk about the the returns. Oh, no, no, no, no, you
Shane Stanley 1:27:47
don't get that you get the $3 per disc less, you're 20% but they're gonna sell them for nine or 12 or $15.
Alex Ferrari 1:27:54
But a lot of it but a lot of those Walmart deals because it's Walmart, they'll go Yeah, we didn't sell about 500 of these. So we're going to ship those right back to you. So you're gonna eat those costs. And I always tell people do you think that you think the film distributor is gonna eat that? Don't you worry. You will you won't you won't ever don't you'll ever even know what happened. And that's
Shane Stanley 1:28:15
you wouldn't be better off getting a credit card that you may get a five or $10,000 limit on and just buying up every desk. Yes, so that doesn't cost you back I know that sounds crazy.
Alex Ferrari 1:28:29
Oh no but buying them all out because at that point then at least you could go out and sell them yourself if
Shane Stanley 1:28:34
you want like you did I mean you're you've been very smart selling your neurons I gotta learn from I want to get your next your last book about that because it there's so much to learn from guys like you that have figured it out. No, it's it's just one thing. One reason I was really excited for us to talk besides your platform being something that was excited to be a part of it in researching you and what you've done Alex it's brilliant because first that's all like I hate to keep bringing him up that's one reason I think we hit it off. I mean the guy's been poisoned back in the 80s they could not get a record deal. And they find every record label passed on them. They literally got a deal it was them to smithereens and one other band I can't writing was great white got a deal from a nygma they went to a warehouse in wersi Airport that area then no no van de la excellent What is that?
Alex Ferrari 1:29:24
I know what you're talking about. I know you're talking about yeah the
Shane Stanley 1:29:27
house there that the guys were literally shrink wrapping and packaging and putting the sticker on there for the label labels like that will give you a record of you got to come here and help us package it and ship like literally Brent and Bobby and CC and Ricky were shrink wrapping their own records and helping get them out to the stores. And then what happened was is Capitol Records ended up buying a nygma and then exploded at the right time and everything worked out but that's how we have to remember it really is and how it was and how it very well could be again unfortunately, we have to So we can sell
Alex Ferrari 1:30:02
it, the game, the game has changed so much. The rules are so different and I just want filmmakers listening to understand that the industry is still still built around those old models. And that's why the industry is having that's why took Disney 10 years to launch a streaming service 10 years 10 years before before they launched a real streaming service that compete with Netflix because when Netflix showed up, everyone was like, I don't know. And Hollywood is definitely not no for innovation. It takes for it takes someone with some major weight like a George Lucas, like a Steve Jobs, like someone to ship come in, and go or James Cameron and come in and just go You know what, guys? This is the new way. Follow me. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
Shane Stanley 1:31:01
I will tell you how Right you are. I did gridiron 1212 years ago with Sony, I stayed on the good graces and in regular touch with the regime for another two or three years, you know, developing other things. Hey, you want to have lunch? You know? And I remember talking I think it was Amy Pascal. She was still there. And I think I remember her saying she had this really bizarre meeting with all the heads of the other studios it was paramount. Universal Warner Brothers Sony Disney, Disney and Fox It was like it was like a you know, a big gathering
Alex Ferrari 1:31:33
was like all the all the all the mob. You were just like all the mob bosses were getting together in an undisclosed location. Got it?
Shane Stanley 1:31:41
What was the person and she said, Netflix is going to be a major problem for us. And we all need to have a meeting of the minds and we're gonna start pumping the brakes with these with these guys. And we are we need to all create our own streaming service.
Alex Ferrari 1:31:52
What What year was this? What year was this
Shane Stanley 1:31:55
was 10 910 years ago, probably nine or 10 years ago. And I said so wait a minute, you guys, you're gonna start pumping the brakes on what you're giving these issues. They don't pay much. And they're owning it right now. Why? We have Sony streaming impairments streaming and universal streaming or Disney and it wasn't called Pandit she wanted we I don't remember this conversation was like eight years 10 years ago.
Alex Ferrari 1:32:21
And you're right. Have you commit your right to Disney 10 years, 10 years. And Disney's and Disney is killing it. And Disney is killing it right now. But peacocks having peacocks having a rough time right now. I know HBO Max is doing okay. And they're I think they're fine. But they also had they were leveraging HBO Go already.
Shane Stanley 1:32:42
Yeah. And I think Maverick is going to end up being paramount. Paramount network's big push at the end of the year. I think they're gonna end up just screaming that well, I don't know theaters are starting to open up but I still think they're gonna use Maverick for something.
Alex Ferrari 1:32:54
Yeah, and but and I've been saying this and then because this is we can keep talking for another four or five hours I'm sure. But um, but I've said this before, a ton of times I'll say it again. Within the next 12 to 18 months, Paramount Sony, or Lionsgate or MGM is going to be absolutely absorbed by either Google, Amazon, apple, or Facebook. Those four guys has so much cash that Facebook wanted to really come in to this game. For real. They're playing in the streaming they they do a couple little shows on their Facebook watch thing. But if they really want to come in, they buy MGM catalog, they buy Sony's catalog, they buy Paramount's catalog, and all of a sudden, you got content and lots of it. Oh, yeah. And they're all and all of them are prime their prime targets because they're not doing well.
Shane Stanley 1:33:52
I am a firm believer that, um, I think Apple's gonna end up buying Netflix in the next three years.
Alex Ferrari 1:33:59
I that's that's been the rumors for a while. It's gonna take a lot because I think also Apple has the cash to buy anything they want. I mean, there was talks of them by Disney. I know. That's like, like, just wrap your head around cash. By the way. It was cash. It's like they have enough cash to buy Disney.
Shane Stanley 1:34:18
slush.
Alex Ferrari 1:34:18
That's a slush account in Ireland somewhere. But um, but I don't I think Netflix itself and then we'll and then we'll start we'll start winding this down guys unless you guys if you're still listening fantastic. I think that Netflix itself as a company is not diversified. So they are they are very vulnerable. Because if they get hit if this this plus goes away tomorrow, Disney's fine. If HBO goes away tomorrow h Warner's is fine, don't make it. If Netflix is numbers drop. That's going to hurt and they're going to they're going to drop go out there in debt up to their eyeballs. Yeah, it's taking forever for them. To pay their filmmakers not that they're not paying them, they are paying them. But it's taking delayed responses and things like that you can start seeing the writing on the wall on what's going on. And now Netflix is having a pump so much more money in to compete with the Disney pluses to compete with HBO backs that compete with Hulu, and all of these other platforms. So right now I don't think Disney would buy them because they're just too big for what as a compared is comparatively to the deals in the marketplace. The deals in the marketplace because they have the they have the distribution. They have the membership. They have emails from millions and millions of people have all their other accounts and stuff like that. So but if you buy Sony, which has all Columbia and TriStar and all of Sony's content and all their television and all that stuff, that is a bargain. Paramount's a bargain. MGM is a bargain. Lionsgate is a bargain, comparatively to buying Netflix, in my, in my opinion, if I was if I was Apple, or if I was Google, or only these guys, I'm like, Okay, we've got the tech now the Apple, Google Facebook figure out that if they don't figure it out, now they already have the technology, technology is not a problem with them. infrastructure is not a problem for them. Content is a problem for them. And Netflix also comes along with a lot of debt. A lot of it so anyway, okay, let's let's finish off this, this amazing conversation. I'm gonna ask you a few questions. I asked all of my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?
Shane Stanley 1:36:33
The advice I would give a filmmaker trying to break into the industry today is where a crash helmet. Just be prepared to hit a lot of brick walls. be tenacious, don't give up. Don't give up. Because if you do, it could have been that one next try that could have done it for you. And I just see if it's in your heart and you're passionate about it. Just Just keep going. You hit the door enough times for the bad it's eventually going to come off the hinges.
Alex Ferrari 1:36:59
Amen, amen. No question. Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?
Shane Stanley 1:37:07
Um, you can't change people
Alex Ferrari 1:37:10
was a good answer. A real good answer,
Shane Stanley 1:37:12
I think I think a leopard shows their spots. And that could be me, it could be somebody I'm working with, or a partner, I think I think people show you who they are. And if you think you're going to change people and mold them into who you want them to be, you're gonna waste a lot of time and energy in that and you either can accept who they are and work with that or move on from that if it's toxic or unhealthy.
Alex Ferrari 1:37:34
And three of your favorite films of all time.
Shane Stanley 1:37:36
Three of my favorite films of all time, they're not what you would think they are. I would have to say sideways. Yep. I'm Jerry Maguire, Notting Hill. I will stop everything and watch every time they're on.
Alex Ferrari 1:37:50
Yeah, there's just there's that that's a that's a group of films that make sense together.
Shane Stanley 1:37:55
I think the greatest movies of all time, absolutely not. But I can I can spin past anything. But when those are on I gotta stop. Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 1:38:03
exactly. Now, where can people find you what you do and get access to your book? Well, thank
Shane Stanley 1:38:09
you. Um, what you don't learn in film school is you can go to what you don't learn in film school.com it will guide you to the different places you can buy it. It's available on Amazon. A whole bunch of different retailers, Barnes and Noble all online or you can get the hard the hard cover books as well. So what you don't learn in film school comm you can go to my website, Shane's family info.net lm sorry, Shane Stanley. dotnet. I think God, yeah, the email is info chain, Stanley dotnet. If you want to get something to me, I'm pretty open and accessible in that respect. So yeah, so those are the places you can find me.
Alex Ferrari 1:38:49
Shane, it has been an absolute joy talking to you and having you on the show is it's always nice talking to to an old battle hardened dog, as yourself and myself together. I always love I don't like to use the word old, I think seasoned, seasoned battle dog, man.
Shane Stanley 1:39:07
Seasoned indie rad
Alex Ferrari 1:39:08
ops. Absolutely. And we're still here. And we're still we're still here. We're still fighting the good fight. And and you and I both know many filmmakers who are not still here. They've left the business they've gone to do other things because the business got the best of them. So if you're able to just be persistent, a lot of times the people who make it are not generally the best. Not the most talented. Not the most experienced. It's the people who just nice and not the most nice it's just the guys who the guys and the gals who just just keep showing up,
Shane Stanley 1:39:41
keep showing up they figured it out. You know, I learned a long time ago it's balls and passion that makes it happen and you know, films get made you know a lot of people will watch a movie it's against worst thing I've ever seen how they get made. Well back up and look, how did it get made. Somebody was passionate about it. Somebody had tenacity, they had balls and capital. They had something because they were able to get it on. The screen, so it's doable. You got to snap it on and figure it out and d | |||||
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] | 2020-10-15T09:24:18+01:00 | Omens, exorcists and unholy doings... Saint Maud joins a hallowed tradition of horror films tackling the dark side of faith and spirituality. | en | BFI | https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-religious-horror-films | Not to be dramatic, but Saint Maud might be the closest thing to a cinematic religious experience this writer has had all year. Among the most hyped titles at last year’s BFI London Film Festival, the debut feature by writer-director Rose Glass has since received almost universal critical acclaim. There’s an abundance of headlines naming it the ‘saviour of British cinema’, which is a lot of pressure to put on a single film.
At the heart of it, Saint Maud is about the relationship between one young woman and God. It just happens to be an extremely troubled young woman who has sublimated her overpowering sense of guilt and masochistic tendencies into an obsessive, quasi-physical relationship with God. Maud doesn’t see or hear God, but she feels him. This simple conceit, combined with the high intensity of the film’s unfurling horrors and the ultra-committed performance by lead actor Morfydd Clark, makes for a visceral cinematic experience.
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Although it’s more than one thing, Saint Maud is just the latest example of the hallowed tradition of religious horror on screen. Organised religion, cults and the clergy have long been fodder for horror filmmakers. The pomp, ceremony, rites and rules of any religion can create terrifying tableaux but also offer a clear path to safety and salvation. There’s something terrifying about the extremities of belief, of what can come from the intensity of someone’s faith.
Like Saint Maud, which is in cinemas now, each of the films below provides an unholy thrill-ride.
The Devils (1971)
Director: Ken Russell
One of the most controversial films ever made, Ken Russell’s The Devils remains a must see. Subversive, grotesque and erotic, it’s about the witch-hunt against the 17th-century priest Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), who is accused of witchcraft because, well, too many people fancy him.
Based on the Aldous Huxley book The Devils of Loudun, Russell’s film is more a historical drama about hysteria and the abuse of power than a straight-up horror film. And yet, Russell’s trademark excess makes The Devils a provocative, difficult watch even now. Film critic Mark Kermode has been a years-long advocate of the film, and uncovered previously lost footage that made for an extended version of the film released by the BFI in 2012.
The Exorcist (1973)
Director: William Friedkin
There couldn’t be a list, nay a conversation, about religious horror without mentioning The Exorcist. William Friedkin’s masterpiece is a classic of cinema, horror and otherwise. An actress (Ellen Burstyn) notices that her 12-year-old daughter, Reagan (Linda Blair), has started exhibiting odd behaviour and suffering unexplained bruises. She exhausts all avenues trying to find help, and at the end of her wits ends up connecting with Father Karras (Jason Miller), a young priest who is struggling with his own faith. It’s he who recognises that Reagan is being possessed by a demonic force.
Friedkin’s film is responsible for giving several generations plenty of nightmares with its singular imagery, and its fascinating production history has been explored through books, documentaries and podcasts. Although it remains horrifying to this day, The Exorcist is also a thoughtful exploration of faith, grief and parenthood. It’s always worth revisiting on Halloween.
The Omen (1976)
Director: Richard Donner
When the rich, powerful Thorns (Gregory Peck and Lee Remick) adopted baby Damien, they didn’t know they were adopting the child of Satan. Strange things start happening around the child when he turns 5. He refuses to go into a church. Animals can’t stand him. His nanny commits suicide at his birthday party. It quickly becomes clear that Damien is not only not human, but the Antichrist himself, whose coming is being orchestrated by a group of Satanists.
Much like The Exorcist, The Omen spawned a franchise of sequels, TV movies, a 2006 remake and a TV series (Damien). But aside from the third instalment, which features Sam Neill as a grown-up Damien moving into political power, nothing quite reaches the heights of the original. Peck is fantastically stoic as the diplomat who is faced with the ordeal of deciding if he would be able to murder a child in order to save the world.
Carrie (1976)
Director: Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of the Stephen King novel is an indisputable horror classic. But aside from the psychic powers of its bullied protagonist, the truly terrifying part of the film is Carrie’s religiously fanatical, abusive mother.
Played by Piper Laurie, Margaret White is an all-consuming dark force who dominates her daughter and injects her with doubt, self-hate and guilt. Her faith is riddled with misogynistic undertones that she uses to justify abusing her daughter. While Carrie is the one with psychic powers that turn deadly, it’s Margaret who locks Carrie in a closet of mirrors and subjects her to endless speeches demonising her body. This horrifically toxic mother-daughter dynamic turns into a supernatural tug-of-war that provides the real horror of the story.
The Exorcist III (1990)
Director: William Peter Blatty
It must be borderline impossible to make a worthy sequel to one of the greatest horror films ever made, and none of the films in The Exorcist series really live up to the genius of the first one. That is, except The Exorcist III. Adapted and directed by William Peter Blatty (the author of the original novel), the film stands as a solidly frightening horror in its own right.
Set 17 years after the events of the first film, it follows Lieutenant Kinderman (George C. Scott) as he investigates a series of murders that have all the trademarks of the Gemini Killer, but for the slight issue that he was executed long ago. Blatty had to battle with the studio over creative control of the film, but despite their interference, he was proud of the finished product, even remarking that “it’s a more frightening film than The Exorcist”.
The Prophecy (1995)
Director: Gregory Widen
In The Prophecy, angels are real and they’re at war with each other. The Archangel Gabriel (Christopher Walken) descends onto the human plane in a long black duster to rage war against God, usher in a second hell and block all souls from entering heaven.
With an extremely fun (and very 90s) supporting cast including Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer, Eric Stoltz as the Angel Simon and Elias Koteas as a detective who’s lost his faith, this is a daring, if occasionally convoluted entry into the religious horror canon, which spawned 4 sequels of declining quality. It’s Walken’s chilling performance as Gabriel that makes the original. Frankly, any franchise that stars Walken as a murderous angel deserves to be better known.
Stigmata (1999)
Director: Rupert Wainwright
This millennial mystery wades enjoyably into the realms of Catholic conspiracy. When Frankie, an atheist hairdresser in Pittsburgh starts exhibiting stigmata (wounds that correspond to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ), Father Andrew Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne) is sent to investigate. The film shoots graphic gore and possessions through a very late-90s, MTV-influenced horror lens, with Patricia Arquette dialling up the dramatics as the unwilling woman at the centre of a murky conspiracy that has nothing to do with her.
Nothing in this film should be taken seriously, but Stigmata elevates the concept of Catholic conspiracy to ridiculous levels, including corrupt clergy, high-level theological secrets and a beyond-the-grave possession. This is not by any stretch a great film. But it’s a helluva ride.
Constantine (2005)
Director: Francis Lawrence
There was a time, before the Keanu renaissance that came with the John Wick franchise, when people didn’t take a film starring Keanu Reeves and based on a cult graphic novel seriously. But Constantine deserves a second look, for its stylish visuals, excellent world-building and an icy cool performance by the man himself.
He stars as John Constantine, a sort of paranormal detective who is trying to bribe his way into heaven by killing off as many demons as possible before he succumbs to lung cancer. Things get a bit complicated when he stumbles on a plot to bring forth the Antichrist. Tilda Swinton supports as the Angel Gabriel, with Shia LaBeouf as Constantine’s assistant and Peter Stormare as the most underrated Satan the screen has ever seen.
Red State (2011)
Director: Kevin Smith
Red State is an outlier in the filmography of Kevin Smith, a director better known for stoner pop culture comedies and extensive one-man Q&As. A group of teenagers are tricked into thinking they’re going to meet a woman for a sexual encounter. Instead, they fall into a trap set by the Five Points Trinity Church, an extremist, homophobic, hate-filled group who sacrifice people they deem promiscuous to assuage the wrath of God. The church is led by Pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), whose pure devotion to this idea of sin and the end of times rings terrifyingly close to real-life cult leaders.
As the teens try to escape, the church becomes surrounded by the authorities as they try to avoid a bloodbath. Loosely inspired by the Westboro Baptist Church and the Waco siege, Red State is surprisingly nihilistic stuff.
The Sacrament (2013)
Director: Ti West
Based on the real-life events of the Jonestown massacre, when more than 900 people took their own lives in a mass suicide led by cult leader Jim Jones, The Sacrament is a nasty, unflinching look at paranoia and herd mentality. In this found footage horror, 2 Vice journalists (AJ Bowen and Joe Swanberg, both figureheads of the mumblecore movement) head into a reclusive religious community led by The Father (Gene Jones) to try and rescue the sister of a photographer colleague. Once immersed in the community’s isolated lifestyle, they face the intoxicating and dangerous hold that The Father has on his followers.
Although the found footage conceit might be played out for many viewers, Ti West gives the sub-genre a fresh spin here, and the format makes The Sacrament’s last 30 minutes feel especially unrelenting and horrific. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 33 | https://www.documentary.org/feature/ill-take-manhattan-new-york-city-doc-central-distributors-you-gotta-problem | en | I'll Take Manhattan: New York City is Doc Central for Distributors--You Gotta Problem with That? | https://www.documentary.org/themes/custom/ida_bootstrap_sass/images/favicon.ico | https://www.documentary.org/themes/custom/ida_bootstrap_sass/images/favicon.ico | [
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] | null | [] | 2024-07-24T08:34:28-07:00 | Is New York City really the center of independent documentary filmmaking, or does it just seem that way?Short answer: it is. Sorry, to those of you (myself included) who are Angelenos. | en | /themes/custom/ida_bootstrap_sass/images/favicon.ico | International Documentary Association | https://www.documentary.org/feature/ill-take-manhattan-new-york-city-doc-central-distributors-you-gotta-problem | Is New York City really the center of independent documentary filmmaking, or does it just seem that way?
Short answer: it is. Sorry, to those of you (myself included) who are Angelenos.
If you're interested in co-producing, financing and distributing independent documentary films, most independent film distribution companies, big and small, studio-financed or actually independent, are based in New York City. And unlike the studios, where heads of distribution can change over a weekend, many of these companies, like New Yorker Films, Sony Pictures Classics and First Run Features, have had remarkably stable management for years. "Any independent film company that has lasted has been minimally bicoastal, if not completely headquartered in New York," says Mark Urman, vice president of THINKFilm.
So what is it about New York?" New York is where the most prestigious theaters in the country are," says Dan Talbot, founder of New Yorker Films, a company that has called New York its home since 1965. "These meaningful theaters generally are the platforms for films that are opening, and exhibitors around the country watch what happens here and make decisions based on that." Talbot also owns Lincoln Plaza Theaters, one of those cinemas that exhibitors and critics watch. "Many films were very successful as a result of their launch at the Lincoln Plaza ," says Talbot. "One of those was My Architect, which New Yorker Films distributed."
It's no secret that successful theatrical independent films depend on critics and good reviews. Since New York is arguably the media center of the country, that's where many of the important critics are based. New York also has a long history of being much more supportive of art house films than Los Angeles, with prestigious venues such as Film Forum, Angelika Film Center, MoMA and the New York Film Festival. And, after all, New York (well, nearby New Jersey, actually) is where the film industry began in this country.
"New York is the cultural capital of the country, if not the continent, if not the world," says Urman. "It's just more fertile for ideas, creativity and creating a sense of community. Since film is a collaborative medium, those people who want to make film independently can form a bond and, in that Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland way, get together and put on a show." Vanessa Arteaga, senior programming and production executive at Wellspring, believes that the concentration of theater in New York has played a major role. "In New York , we have inherently a theater culture," she says. "My sense is that the independent film culture has thrived more in New York than LA as a result of immediate access to the theater world."
There's also another major difference: Los Angeles is dominated by one industry--or two, if you count the music industry--while New York most definitely is not. "In Los Angeles , there's so many people who want to connect," explains Urman. "There's a lot of pruning that takes place the further east you goby the time you get to New York, all of that filmmaking kudzu is hacked away, and you only have the strong and productive branches left."
But if you are now packing your bags to move to the big city in order to do documentaries, hold on. "Our filmmakers are spread out all over the country and the world," says Marc Mauceri, vice president of First Run Features. "New York might have the biggest number of filmmakers that we represent, but Los Angeles is actually pretty close--also the Bay Area, Boston and other cities." Urman has had filmmakers based in Paris, Brazil, Budapest and Los Angeles. Besides filmmakers, there are many distributors in other cities. "With all the new means of communications, you can be anywhere," says Talbot. "You can distribute films from Alaska."
Thanks to films like Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me and March of the Penguins, theatrical documentaries are hotter than ever--and big money is now being made. How is the business changing, and is focus shifting away from New York as the decision-making center? "To watch a studio get involved in a film like Fahrenheit 9/11, and actually have the juice to get it to gross over $100 million was amazing," says Mauceri. "That has forever changed the landscape of documentary film distribution." The success of documentaries and nonfiction film during the summer of 2005, usually the studio blockbuster season, has not gone unnoticed. "Now there are fiction films that fold after a week or so," says Talbot. "That's a big difference. Documentaries have become very popular with audiences."
It's a change that's happening all over the world. "We've found that we've been able to do significant business, big money, on international sales for both Murderball and Aristocrats," says Urman. "France now has a very viable theatrical market with big box-office hits, and there's more and more in the UK . I think people are surprised at how the audience overseas for documentaries is expanding." The rise of the DVD has also helped. "There's a much bigger market for DVD sales, and there are also many more options for documentaries to be sold to television," says Mauceri.
The fact that there is money to be made in documentaries has significantly impacted the independent distributors. First and foremost, there's much more competition. "It seems like every time you turn around, there's a new distribution company announcing a slate of films," says Mauceri. "Smaller, specialty films like documentaries get a good buzz at Sundance and then you read in the trades that they sold for millions of dollars; that wasn't happening too much ten years ago." The rise of studio specialty divisions, and independent film companies that grow into studios, has been controversial in the community. "There are now different tiers of independent filmmaking, and it's like, which one is more authentic?" says Arteaga. The interaction between distributor and filmmaker has also changed. "Filmmakers now have sales agents," says Talbot. "They prowl around all the festivals, they use auction techniques, and they try to stick their fingers into the distributor's pocket. However, this allows filmmakers to make more money, which they need to make more films."
But big money does not necessarily translate into big success. "Every week, there's some film, acquired for a lot of money and with a ton of hype, that fails, while smaller films just do sensationally," says Mauceri. "I love that. There's still room for skillful intuition, good guessing and applied wisdom." Urman firmly believes that the interest in independent film and documentaries is just making films better. "When filmmakers know that their films can exist in the culture over the course of six months or a year, and that there can be many lives for the movie, including broadcast and DVD, they're going to speak with more subtlety," says Urman. "They bite off more from the onset, they get more ambitious, in part because they have more money at their disposal."
But will all of this change the historical emphasis on New York City ? Not a chance. Everyone agrees that most serious art house distributors will remain based in New York, because certain things are not changing--the deep entrenchment of independent filmmaking in New York, the location of the critics, the theaters and a huge audience that supports and adores independent documentaries.
Another thing that will not change is a passionate interest by independent film distributors in documentaries that reflect on the human experience. THINKFilm is releasing Protocols of Zion, made by award-winning filmmaker Marc Levin, about anti-Semitism. "But instead of being a cool, detached, researched, informational, old-style documentary, it's Mr. Marc Levin on camera, schlepping around New York, asking people if they've heard of this anti-Semitic book and why they hate Jews," says Urman. "The film is alarming, and important, and completely personal."
New this fall from First Run Features is One Bright Shining Moment, from writer/director/producer Stephen Vittoria, about George McGovern's bold and grassroots 1972 presidential campaign. New Yorker Films is releasing After Innocence, directed by Jessica Sanders, which follows wrongfully convicted men freed by DNA evidence after decades in prison, as they struggle to transition back into society. "I don't know of any other film that deals with this subject yet," says Talbot. "These men deal with the variety of feelings of having been incarcerated for years." Talbot is also contributing to a book for the 20th anniversary of Shoah, the landmark documentary released in 1985 about the Holocaust. "Over 10 million people saw that film on PBS," says Talbot. "It's one of the achievements of my career."
The next Wellspring release is Unknown White Male in February 2006, directed by Rupert Murray. This documentary is the true story of Doug Bruce, who woke up on Coney Island with no memory of any day of his entire life.
Andrea Van Hook is a freelance writer who has worked in the film and television industry for over 15 years, at independent production companies and cable networks.
More Players in the Neighborhood
In addition to the aforementioned theatrical distributors, a host of others, large and small, abound in The Big Apple.
Sony Pictures Classics (www.sonyclassics.com), cited above, was founded in 1992 as an autonomous entity of LA-based Sony Pictures Entertainment. Its presidents, Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom, have worked together since the early 1980s, previously at Orion Classics and United Artists Classics. Among the documentaries in the Sony catalogue include Errol Morris' The Fog of War and Fast, Cheap and Out of Control; Stacy Peralta's Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants; Jacques Perrin's Winged Migration; Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's The Celluloid Closet; and Terry Zwigoff's Crumb. Coming out in 2006 are two award-winning films from the '05 Sundance Film Festival: Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight (January) and Jeff Feuerzeig's The Devil and Daniel Johnston (March).
Magnolia Pictures (www.magpictures.com) is a subsidiary of 2929 Entertainment, a conglomerate founded by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner that includes Landmark Theatres, Rysher Entertainment, 2929 Productions and HDNet Films. Magnolia was launched in 2001 by Eamonn Bowles and Bill Banowsky and has distributed such docs as Capturing the Friedmans (Eugene Jarecki, dir./prod.; Marc Smerling, prod.), Control Room (Jehane Noujaim, dir.; Rosadel Varela, Hani Salama, prods.), Bukowski: Born into This (John Dullaghan, dir./prod.), Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (Robert Stone, dir./prod.), and most recently, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Alex Gibney, dir./prod., Jason Kliot, Susan Motamed, prods.).
Zeitgeist Films (www.zeitgeistfilms.com), founded in 1988 by Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo, is a relatively small company, but a feisty one. Its biggest box office success to date has been The Corporation (Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, dirs.; Joel Bakan, wtr.), while other noteworthy docs in its collection include Kirby Dick's Chain Camera and, with Amy Ziering Kofman, Derrida; Agnès Varda's The Gleaners and I; Ulrike Koch's The Saltmen of Tibet; Nettie Wild's A Place Called Chiapas and Jim Shedden's Brakhage. Coming this fall are Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine's Ballets Russes and Astra Taylor's iek!
Palm Pictures (www.palmpictures.com) distinguishes itself as a hybrid of film and music divisions and is also the parent company of RES Media Group, which publishes RES magazine and produces RESfest. Chris Blackwell, the legendary music impresario whose Island Records label nurtured the careers of such artists as Bob Marley and the Wailers, Tom Waits and The Cranberries, founded Palm Pictures in 1998. Among its more celebrated docs include Doug Pray's Scratch, Ondi Timoner's DIG!, Mark Moormann's Tom Dowd & the Language of Music and Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's Gunner Palace. Coming up in December: Be Here to Love Me: A Film about Townes Van Zandt, from Margaret Brown.
--Thomas White | ||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 66 | http://interamerica.de/current-issue/martinez-zalce/ | en | White Pines, the CBC and Toronto as a border town | http://interamerica.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-fiarlogo-1-32x32.png | http://interamerica.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-fiarlogo-1-32x32.png | [
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"Wilfried Raussert"
] | 2010-11-03T20:21:54+01:00 | en | http://interamerica.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-fiarlogo-1-32x32.png | http://interamerica.de/current-issue/martinez-zalce/ | Graciela Martínez-Zalce,[1]
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
The border as a television topic
This article analyses how the topic of North American borders has garnered such great interest that television production companies started developing shows that deal with issues which for decades had only been raised in film. Borders are depicted as strategic regions for bilateral relations, be it Mexico-USA or Canada-USA.
One very interesting case is the material produced by the Canadian company White Pines Pictures –headed by renowned documentarian Peter Raymont–, in two different genres: documentary and fiction series. The Border, belonging to the latter kind, is their attempt to present an intelligent, non-conventional alternative for Canadian prime-time viewers, where the aim is to portray border issues from a “Canadian” point of view, i.e., from a seemingly non-judgmental, antiracist perspective.
Unfortunately, it seems that the ideology of the producers is not solid enough to avoid border genre conventions, which emerge in the development of plot topics (terrorism, drug and weapon trafficking, illegal immigration), in the depiction of space via specific landmarks such as border checkpoints or airports, and in stereotyped characters. This leads the narrative into moral solutions that turn out to be both problematic and ambiguous.
Documenting the Mexico-US border: a true-crime perspective on cultural TV
Border wars, a series by NatGeo TV,[2] was launched on January 10, 2010 drawing the highest ratings for a series debut. The very title is enough to get the gist of how this weekly one-hour documentary depicts North American frontiers, mostly the US-Mexico one; moreover, the images on its web page further imply who the enemy is and how this war should be fought: clear blue skies, hills covered with irregular settlements, a fluttering Mexican flag.
The show documents US Customs and Border Protection agents, mainly in the South, waging war against drug trafficking, illegal immigration and, on occasion, terrorism. So, as a spectator, it would seem that these are the most threatening situations for the US. The enemy needs to be destroyed, so patrol cars are equipped with top-of-the-line cameras and monitoring systems controlled by highly qualified teams. They monitor all entries by water and air, but mostly by land, which is the busiest route and, as such, extensively filmed. From the comfort of their living rooms, spectators watch officers patrolling the zone or walking through the Altar desert with devices that detect body heat, looking for illegal aliens, sustaining armed encounters, dismantling vans in search of drugs, detaining suspects at airports, inspecting mail and opening envelopes seeking for pills.
Titles are blunt and forceful and they deal with the main topic of each episode, which is constructed with short action scenes where the agents are the heroes and the villains are dealt with in the same tone –that of criminalization– whether they are smuggling drugs or they are poor peasants looking for a better job. So, there are episodes where the main issue is the hunt (Blackhawk Cruise, Night-shift Preview, Desert Sweep); others where migrants are the focus (The Human Stash, Midnight Runners, Lost in the Desert, Human Assets); others where the most important activity is investigation (Fake Documents, Big Money Bust); a few ones dealing with terrorism (Explosive Search); many more related to narcotics (Drugs Bust); and all of them from the point of view of the very much needed defense (The Big Fence, Road Sweep).
One might wonder: is this cultural TV? Is this scientific research on the subject? At least for Mexican viewers, it is haunting to see how our fellow countrymen and women are being hunted like animals, charged with all kinds of felonies, while the filming crew witnesses brutality in the name of security making us onlookers too.
Julian Gorodischer states, from a Latin American point of view:
[…] la TV antropológica acompaña el rediseño planetario deviniendo menos en testigo de los sucesos naturales del amplio mundo que en un militante a favor de una causa nacional: órgano de política exterior que, independiente de una administración puntual –en la demócrata época de Obama–, cierra filas con otros grupos noticiosos, como la CNN y la Fox News, para encarar una construcción centrípeta y paranoica del relato. (Web)
It is also disturbing to read the cheering comments on the series content, where viewers favour not only the defense that the CBP makes of the US Southern border, but also, of course, the building of the fence (or “el muro de la vergüenza”, as it has been called in Mexico).
The other North American border, changes in the 49th parallel
The border between Canada and the United States can perhaps still be called the longest undefended one in the world, but things have certainly changed. As of January 2008, Canadian citizens need to carry a passport when crossing into the US, for instance. As Konrad and Nichols state, since 9/11, this region has changed more than it did during the entire 20th century, but because of the very intense and important economic interaction between both nations, border security has to “make it possible for our two countries not only to coexist, but also to prosper constantly.” (7)
For decades, the US-Mexico border has given rise to a body of films large enough to be considered a genre[3] . But not many have portrayed what happens along the US-Canada border. Aside from Norma Bailey’s Bordertown Cafe, or Bruce MacDonald’s Highway 61, a road movie with an important border content, it is mostly US films –like Canadian Bacon or South Park, Bigger, Longer and Uncut– that could be included in the genre.[4] All of them share some characteristics, like irony and black humour.
Somehow, television turned out to be the medium that reflected, for the first time, the evident contextual transformation. But this has not taken place, as would seem obvious, on newscasts, documentaries, or products like the National Geographic show.
In January 2008, making the most of the writers’ strike, while US channels were only programming reruns, the CBC at last decided to premiere the police drama series called The Border. Back then it was only broadcast in Canada, but with the first and second seasons already on DVD, and the third one about to appear in that format, it has now been sold abroad.
Because of its large budget, its fast thriller rhythm, and its international aims, The Border has been considered Canadian public television’s big league debut, “but with a conscience” as executive producer Peter Raymont has stated. And I would like to focus on the issue of what this conscience means in terms of the narrative.
Creative sources: White Pines Productions and Canadian public television. A different approach to border matters?
The production source: White Pines documentaries
Two sources can be detected in the show’s design which, in my opinion, are fundamental for the nuances of conscience or morality imbued in the narrative of The Border.
The first one is the documentary work of Raymont and Lindalee Tracey.
This team started exploring the subject with their noteworthy Invisible Nation (1997), where they closely follow immigration officers, trying to answer questions about migration and illegality: a very complex topic involving not only legal matters, but also challenging life experiences. The portrayal of such complexity relies on showing earnest attitudes and actions taken from both sides, migrants and officers. Why do I consider this one hour video produced by White Pines for Canadian TV so remarkable? The reason is it exposes the case for illegal aliens in Toronto while approaching the subject from a very critical perspective.
We listen to a telephone conversation while looking at a blue screen: Ring tone. Ring tone. Immigration. Then, a voice reports illegal aliens. A shot from the shore of frozen Lake Ontario opens and the iconic CN Tower comes into view, locating the characters in Toronto. A female narrator ends this prologue talking about the invisible nation. Afterwards, all the input from the narrator will be poetic and will give voice to a collective “us”, which as constructed by the narrative, should be interpreted as “the Canadians”. She will also be our guide throughout our discovery of the system that prevents unwanted individuals from staying in Canada. The construction of this “us” is meant to engage the spectator looking for a response to the situations lived by the real-life characters.
We will immediately be presented with the film’s plot line; from inside a patrol car, a conversation between two migration officers is documented; they have to arrest a Russian family with three girls and a boy. The narrator states: “They don’t make policy, they simply enforce it”. As we will learn, the protagonists are part of a group of 36 migration investigators from the Toronto area: a white officer who is new to migration, but used to be part of the RCMP, and his partner, a migrant from Guyana and former teacher who has been an officer for ten years. In order to enforce their warrant, the police help them by using violent means: they break windows and doors in order to irrupt inside people’s homes. The mother and children will finally be deported, because as the officer states: “criminals hide better than mothers and children”. The spectator now witnesses the underlying ambiguity in the officers’ duty: they have to treat illegal aliens as criminals, but as the narrator has informed us, they are just following orders.
While panning through rows of file cabinets, we gain knowledge of how the law turns people into statistics, guided by the voice-off: “Here’s the bureaucracy, enforcement headquarters, where illegal lives are stuck into files, where the trials of conscience begin”. Once more, the visual metaphor underscores the dehumanization of the bureaucratic processes while the spoken text stresses the fact that “justice” is not a synonym of fairness.
We will learn that approximately 300 telephonic tips were received each week. Although the white officer thinks tips are useful, the one from Guyana feels “it’s like people ask us to get rid of garbage” and he is quite sure that “man is a perpetual immigrant… if it weren’t for that immigrant, the world wouldn’t be what it is today”.
With a dolly over the railroad, the voice-off narrates the history of migration in Canada, superimposing antique sepia or black and white photographs of migrants constructing that same railway, but also working the fields and attending schools. The nostalgia built by the photographs is interrupted by the situation lived by migrants in the nineties, when the narrator brings us back to contemporary realities: “Now they’re weeded out […] a more cautious welcome, but still they come, the unwanted ones”. A chain of still images of men and women posing in the same garden in the city, men and women from very diverse origins, classes, trades or professions, is an overt statement made by the documentary in favour of multiplicity as a vital component of Toronto.
“Living, hiding, looking like us, perhaps they are us, our own immigrant ancestors […] continuing their journey home, perhaps they are not us at all”, the nostalgic, critical, poetic voice-off states.
There are other collages of contemporary moving images like shots of people of different ethnic origins or ages walking down the streets, while the narrator says “borders can’t withstand the force of hope”. Sometimes, the effect is achieved through old photos complemented by a text that reminds us of the origin of multiplicity: “we came here as dreamers and imagined a nation”. These collages symbolize the Canadian mosaic, illustrated with real human beings that the spectator can identify with.
The documentary also describes the re-bordering processes in the shadow of the security needs of the US. The voice-off explains that “America’s war on crime sends criminals across the border; Canada is at the mercy of geography”, such that it becomes a good place to hide because of the open border. To illustrate this argument, the documentary also shows another team of officers who chase real criminals such as drug dealers, child molesters or men who have committed fraud or armed robbery. (“We are a very compassionate country and that is something we should be proud of […]. They should scrutinize everyone who comes into the country so no one falls through the cracks”). These offenders have crossed the border illegally, abusing Canadian hospitality. We witness not only the chase, but also searches for papers inside these people’s homes.
“The law”, states the voice-off, “must be served with detachment”, because, as the video allows us to see, there is a huge difference between arresting criminals and rounding up families that migrate for economic reasons and who are willing to work and live according to Canadian laws.
Factory raids are presented by the narrator as another necessary evil given the rise in the employment of illegal immigrants. “They are spreading fast in our economy, working long, cheap hours, like we did when we first came here”, the voice-off states in discomfort, as we watch migration officers question themselves about the fairness of the situation. It seems detachment is not always that easy. In these scenes, migrants are the obvious victims being taken advantage of by their employers because they cannot demand their lawful rights or complain. “We pocket their dreams, indulge our own greed, what protects them from us?” asks the narrator once more.
So, at this point, the documentary has reached its goal: letting us know that illegal migrants are not criminals and that officers with a conscience have a very difficult task to perform.
The story of José and Lucy embodies these cases as we listen to their account in Spanish. Once more, the lack of English subtitles is purposeful in order to make a statement. We meet José, his back to the camera, mopping an aisle. José cannot show his face because he has no papers, the visual metaphor says. They belong to those who arrive at Canada either because they are poor or “they are afraid, they wait quietly for miracles”. This Uruguayan couple has three children and is expecting their fourth. They had to flee their home country because José was a policeman and someone was looking to kill him. Lucy was a medical intern. In Canada, both of them hold cleaning jobs. Their underemployment is classified by the narrator as part of the “crimes of hope in open faces”. When José is arrested and taken to the detention centre, Lucy’s opinion is that maybe there is some undeserved discrimination towards immigrants since they have worked for every little thing they have. Visually, the film emphasizes the lack of hope for these impoverished immigrants with clear metaphors: the aisle José was mopping darkens and he disappears from our sight.
The story goes on in its hopelessness. Bails are expensive, but they make it; still, José can be deported. Then, the scene becomes hurtfully ironic. A POV shot from a swing, in a beautiful green park, while a girl’s voice sings “O Canada”. José is talking about the future of his Canadian-raised but not born, and thus illegal, children. In the next shot, the whole family walks away from the still camera, while the narrator reflects “to live invisibly, imagine the weight of silence” as they vanish from our sight once more. The next we know is that Lucy, who is not eligible for health care, has delivered: “Here’s hope, a child who is Canadian”.
But the end is uncertain and I would dare say, not optimistic, since the cold has returned and we are again, coming full circle, on the other shore of the frozen lake. The narrator concludes that the invisible nation is gray, like winter: “dividing our hearts, do we push them out or leave them, in the shadows?” Can immigrants gain visibility at some point without it being dangerous for their status? The documentary does not provide an answer.
The Undefended Border (2002) is closer to the spirit of the fiction series that will follow, and less critical than its predecessor, because of its less personal, more “objective” tone. Written by Tracey and directed by Raymont, their production is a more conventional series of three, one-hour episodes. The focus is on Canadian Immigration officers and RCMP special task force members and their work after 9/11 in response to US criticism regarding the porousness of the Canadian side of the border.
The structure of every episode is the same: they focus on one specific part of the immigration officers’ work and the action scenes are supplemented with an insight into the characters’ lives ranging from their opinions about cross-cultural training and multiplicity, to their day-to-day official activities and polite professional attitudes. During these scenes subtitles sometimes provide explanations about procedures as well as statistical information about illegal migrants, refugee claims, raids and other related topics. These subtitles are a way of avoiding the nuance of authority that a voiceover would provide. The prologue of each episode, however, does have a male narrator talking about the current intensity of migration and asking: “Who do we want?” “Who do we want to keep out?”
Contrary to the overall content of the episodes, the way in which the presentation is edited gives an impression of violence and thrill, which of course immediately makes us think of police dramas.
It seems important to stress that in every episode, at least one of the immigration officers in the force mentions belonging to a family that migrated legally to Canada. This is undeniably meant to propound the idea of a task force where there is no possible racism, of a country that welcomes migration so warmly that migrants are proud to be migration officers. And there is another set of characters: those who are either welcomed or detained at the border. Subtitles are also used in these cases, letting the viewer know the fate of each one of them.
The series begins with Toughening the Border, where the protagonists are those who check the documentation upon the arrival of foreigners and who think that, in the sake of safety and security in their country, the “wrong” people need to be kept from coming in. Therefore, toughening up Canada’s undefended border is necessary. As we hear them express themselves, it seems that alert becomes synonymous with suspicious and lacking trust. The story tells that training is important, but so are gut feelings. And it is impossible for the spectator not to notice some kind of bias amongst officers: they mistrust people who come from certain geographical areas; they associate class with innocence or “guilt”.[5] These officers make the point that after 9/11 they have to keep their eyes open to distinguish between good guys and bad guys. The dividing line in their lives is not only the physical border they defend, but the distinction between those who live by the law and those who do not. Their aim is to keep Canada safe, the terrorists out, and the border open.
The second episode, Immigration Task Force, documents the activities of a group of migration and RCMP officers created in 1994 to find and catch criminals who are in Canada illegally. This group responds to anonymous phone reports made by Canadian citizens based, we are left to conclude, on suspicion deriving from race and nationality (“A lot of people making assumptions”, states one of the officers). Now that this former “gate” has been transposed, as many as 100,000 illegal migrants have settled in the Toronto area and they have to be caught.
The last one, End of the Line deals with the final part of the process: deportation. The officers here work in factory raids detaining illegal workers who, paradoxically, as one of them states, are doing jobs that no one else would want to do. They also look for war criminals suspected to have links with terrorists because, as they say, one is the means and the other is the end. But as the episode goes on, we learn that many of these men and women are among the 25 thousand so-called failed refugees: people who claimed for refugee status but had it denied and decided to stay in Canada. Given that people who claim that being sent back home would put their lives in danger cannot be deported, some of them stay. One of the court officers interviewed maintains that the Immigration Act should be changed because it grants too many rights to all residents, some of whom have committed crimes. So, we witness people being wrongfully or rightfully detained. Some accept their situation with resignation, but explain why they would rather stay: most want to have a better life. This last episode shows how the “fortunate” removal from Canada is sought and ends with an eloquent epilogue by a female officer, a migrant from Scotland herself: what they want is not to stop people from coming, but having more control on who is coming.[6]
The ideological source: CBC, its mandate and quality programming
The second source in the series design is linked with the CBC’s mandate that defines the corporation as “a content company”. Its vision is defined as: “Connecting Canadians through compelling Canadian content”; its mission: “To create audacious, distinctive programming”, that is meant “to inform, enlighten and entertain”; and among its values: “Serving the Canadian public”.
The CBC’s participation in the very expensive production and broadcast of The Border is important because it gives credibility to the social contribution of the series. In its website, for example, we can find serious articles related to topics like migration or problems with the US.[7] And even though the main objective of the series is thrill and entertainment, the aim exists to create awareness around the issues of immigration policy and national security, from a “Canadian”, as we had already stated, non-judgmental, antiracist point of view.
Toronto, the border town
All the characteristics above are discernible in the plot, characterization, leit-motifs and organization of the episodes of The Border. And protagonist James McGowan says: “The couple’s strong beliefs about human rights issues significantly shaped every aspect of The Border”.[8]
When stories about terrorism, drug dealing, money laundering, human slavery or human organ sales are being told, irony and black humour (traits that have been quite relevant in Canada-US border movies) have to be left behind, it seems. The tone of the series is quite solemn. If the producers had kept human rights in mind at all times, easy answers or black and white solutions to the characters’ dilemmas would not be readily found. However, this sometimes happens and, as the series develops over time, we find stereotyping, judgmental attitudes towards US politics and a trait we had already seen in Toughening the Border: equating alertness with suspicion.
The plot revolves around border problems which an elite group of agents from the Immigration and Customs Security (ICS) Bureau at Toronto have to resolve. Their leader, Major Mike Kessler, “the moral center of the show”,[9] is the protagonist, and almost the only character with a private life in the plot. He has a lawyer ex-wife, who works with NGOs that help people with immigration problems. They share custody of a rebellious ingénue, a well-meaning daughter with a leftist liberal perspective and political inclinations that get her into trouble, always compromising her father’s work.
Kessler also has two antagonists. One is Andrew Mannering, from CSIS, a true villain because he is a Canadian that works to protect US interests. He will reappear in the second season, only now working for a mysterious and infamous private consultant for the Canadian government with obscure connections to US enterprises. The other is Bianca LaGarda (Sofia Milos), US Homeland Security Agent, who will disappear at the end of the first season because of health issues that will redeem her and make her believe in the Canadian health system.
There is a recognizable pattern in the organization of the series. One program deals with domestic issues, the following with trans-border problems. The American (sic)[10] star appears only in the latter ones and judgment becomes part of the content. The geopolitical line is not the only thing that confronts the characters, there is an ideological frontier, too, which is just as important for the development of the narrative.
The presence of the American (sic) agent interferes with the work of the Canadian officers because of the inflexible and incessant requirements of US borderland security regarding how to treat suspects and investigate incidents. In the case of LaGarda, she ridicules the way Canadians focus on problems as she thinks it is naïve, or even stupid. Meanwhile, the Canadian protagonists turn political, social and environmental dilemmas into moral ones, because solving some problems can unleash consequences which are, sometimes, even worse than the original situation, and a fundamental feature of the plot is focusing on doing what is right.
Let us examine, for example, the first episode, called “Pockets of vulnerability”. The edition of the initial scene has a quick tempo, with short shots of landing strips, airplanes arriving, traffic signs, vans parking, officers showing their badges, document checking points, close-ups of passengers, face recognition software. While the suspects are being followed and detained, short shots from different angles are edited and then the scene continues with an on-shoulder camera, both techniques highlighting the thriller/action atmosphere.
The interest of the producers in human rights has been mentioned before; this is an issue without easy answers and it does not lend itself to black-and-white solutions to the characters’ dilemmas. In the episode we are discussing, a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent falls victim to racial profiling. While traveling on an airplane, he sits beside a real terrorist and, because a surveillance camera catches him receiving a note from the criminal, he is taken aside for interrogation. The man is a respectable high school teacher and a family man. But once he has been flagged, he is perceived as a menace to Homeland Security and CSIS. As a consequence, the ICS cannot refrain from investigating the man. At this point the man has been removed from Canada and deported to Syria (the country he had fled from for political reasons), violating his human and citizen rights. Even though it is not a certainty, some hints let the spectator believe the man is not guilty.
Was he signalled out just because he was talking to the wrong person (a suspected terrorist) at the wrong time, or did the misunderstanding take hold because of his looks, origin and religious beliefs?
The plot leads the spectator to ask questions concerning immigration policies post 9/11. Are Canadian immigration officers being forced, because of US paranoia, to do race profiling and act under racial prejudice?
Although the general impression says so, every detail the ICS team finds out about the professor, simple everyday things like teaching chemistry, attending a mosque, taking care of a brilliant student, buying a car, makes him seem more like a suspect. His actions, his relationships, as long as he moves within his religious or cultural community, do not clear him. In the end, right prevails and with pressure from the media and good work from the team, the man is brought back home.
But paradoxically, for a series with an interest in human rights, in respecting differences and condemning Homeland Security policy, Muslims appear as suspects in many episodes.
Guns, explosions, car chases and much running all are part of the action. GPS tracking, cybernetic investigation, hacking, phone calls involving orders from the top, autopsies, these are all part of the procedures followed by the team. It is police drama at its best with a touch of heterosexual tension between some of the characters. The locations are airports, border entrances, hotels, ports, as well as the wilderness that is still a prevailing setting along the US-Canada borderline.
So in its depiction of space, in the topics chosen for the plot and in the construction of characters, the series falls within the characteristics of the border genre: the locations are the expected emblematic places where there are migration and customs officials, flags from both countries, signals of delimitation. There is also stereotyping: Canadian characters act and think one way, Americans (sic) in another, often not good, one.
And that is why I find it interesting to analyze the finale of season 3, which aired on January 14, 2010, just six months after the Canadian government announced that Mexican citizens would need a visa in order to visit Canada, making Mexicans suitable characters for the series’ plot.
It is titled “No Refuge”. Hugo Fuentes, aka “El Carnívoro”, “The Carnivore”, (“That can be no good”, states the computer geek), capo of Los Zetas cartel, arrives at Toronto from Mexico City. Apparently, he is there to close a drug distribution deal in Canadian territory with members of the Mara Salvatrucha.
Ramón Esteban is a Mexican journalist who has sought refuge because his life has been threatened as a result of articles he has written about drug cartels. Killing Esteban is the real reason why Fuentes is in Canada. Esteban is also Major Kessler’s ex-wife’s boyfriend, a coincidence that weakens a plot that was already undermined by stereotyped Mexicans.
Within this framework, obsessions that have been characteristic of the narrative definition of the US-Mexican border are now transferred to Canada. Drugs had never been important as a topic in the show, but when they appear, they are related to Mexico and Mexicans. This is reinforced through the images popping on the screen: the presence of Mexican illegal workers, depictions of maps of Mexico and criminal folklore, like images of “la santa muerte”.
This series purports itself as a production with an antiracist spirit and a focus on human rights. However, two clear examples that challenge this notion can be found in this episode that unravels through long sequences inside interrogation rooms. The first time agents interrogate a Mexican, the character is Carmelita Sánchez, a drug mule. The fact that the diminutive form of the name Carmen appears in an official document such as a passport is quite far-fetched. Carmelita is used an affectionate nickname. The character is built upon the features that US media have given to the stereotype of the Latina gang members.
In another scene, two young men, linked to the Maras and whose family is staying illegally in the country, are also interrogated. At this point, I think it is important to insist that the show had been designed to emphasize the importance of human rights in the immigration process, the difference between Canadian and US investigation tactics, the moral conscience of Major Kessler. On other occasions, Major Kessler bends the rules in the name of the greater good and to achieve justice. So the audience might feel rightfully confused when they witness ICS agents using tactics like intimidation and extortion to obtain information; when Canadian officials threaten teenagers with deporting their whole family, jail in Mexico, and letting the Maras know they have betrayed them. To top things off, when Fuentes is arrested, the fury of his gunmen showers the streets of Toronto with a storm of bullets.
The problem with using contextual references in a fictional narrative is that they make the spectator read them as “documental”. In a series that has claimed to instil a moral substrate in the creation of its characters, the producers should be more careful, for example, with their casting. For a viewer who can distinguish accents in spoken Spanish, it is clear that maybe only one of the characters is convincingly Mexican: some of them are American Latinos, some others are not fluent in the language or do not even seem to be able to speak it, and the only “good” Mexican, the journalist (the only tall, white one), sounds anything but Mexican when, to add a touch of credibility, he speaks Spanish. The conclusion might be that for people in charge of casting, all Latinos look and sound the same.
Poor results and poor reception
Thus, the border zone is depicted not only as conflict ridden, but also as blurry. The constant presence of US forces in Canadian soil, in the name of international cooperation, which, according to the show, is unequal, poses the question of US impositions on security matters as one of the series most important thematic lines.
That is why some reviewers were very critical about the series; and maybe that is why domestic audiences never favoured the show, which was aired in prime time.
Robert Fulford wrote: “There we have the difference between Americans and Canadians, as defined by CBC television. […] The Border […] is the kind of show that makes you proud to be a Canadian –especially if […] you’re also really, really boring. The script expresses […] the ‘sanctimonious, opportunistic anti-Americanism’ that crops up so often among Canadians”.
Justin Podur stated: “The propaganda of ‘bad guys’ and ‘evildoers’ is itself a tool of war, and the CBC’s new show is such a tool. […] Casting immigration agents as action heroes fighting fictional threats covers up what they really do. […] They are bureaucrats who deport people. […] For all it seeming moral complexity, “The Border” thinks it knows who the bad guys are and thinks it knows that they aren’t us”.
So, to reviewers, the first fault of the show is that (as does the entire border genre) it tends to stereotype. And it does it, first, in a way that has been related to the now canonical works that define Canadian identity:[11] Canadians are different than US citizens; but it goes one step further, meaning that different might be read as better. Indeed, sometimes the feeling after the episode is that Americans are bad when compared to Canadians.
Clearly, the fact that the show has roots in documentaries and that it also feeds on its context is something that should be kept in mind and must not be set aside. In 2005, for example, the Canadian Council for Refugees published a review of the Anti-Terrorist Act, displaying their concern about “discrimination in both law and practice, in the area of anti-terrorism measures”, because, as they state, in Canada:
[…] there has been a widening gap between the rights of citizens and non-citizens, as the security agenda is pursued. The preference for applying immigration rather than criminal law measures to suspected terrorists in itself points to a double standard, since immigration measures by definition cannot be used against citizens. Furthermore, Canada’s immigration security provisions impose serious penalties, including deportation potentially to torture, on non-citizens for actions or associations that are completely legal for citizens. (2)
Why do the politics behind the series seem blurry? Because, even as it criticizes US Homeland Security measures and the Canadian Government’s alignment with some of them, it still portrays certain ethnic groups as suspicious, as the immigration officers in the documentaries explained to the audience. Reem Bahdi explains that in Canada the debates “in the context of the War against Terrorism focus on whether Canadian society can morally, legally, or politically condone racial profiling” and illustrates the context:
Within weeks of 9/11, then Premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, announced the formation of a special police unit designed to track down and deport illegal immigrants. While Premier Harris did not explicitly indicate that Arabs or Muslims would be targeted, he did report that the unit’s focus would be to prevent terrorism through deportation, thus leaving little doubt in anyone’s mind as to the ethnic or religious identity of those who would receive special scrutiny. Around the same time, 48 per cent of Canadians reported that they approved of racial profiling. (295-296)
These contextual issues appear as an important part of the show, but it still begs the question: Isn’t all this against the spirit of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which expresses that everyone (not just citizens) has the right of freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression (including the press and media), of peaceful assembly and association?
Some episodes and some more general plot threads that run through the show seem contradictory because, while focusing on the obvious possibility of making “honest” mistakes in the pursuit of safety while also defending a fair Canadianness versus US totalitarianism, the writers construct characters based on, I would dare to say, some sort of racial profiling that singles out the appearance of Muslims, Eastern Europeans, and towards the end Mexicans, as either suspicious or guilty.
The leading characters are neither convincingly heroic nor highly moral. In order to achieve their lawful goals, they abuse suspects, many of them who are not citizens, and sometimes they use methods that are clearly against their human rights.
Maybe the influence of the corporation’s mandate was too heavy a burden for the script writers of a police drama which should have heroes instead of moral guides. If the Canadian content seems too biased, and the characters are not only interested in serving the Canadian public, but also in making political statements, the agenda of enlightening and informing is more obvious than the entertaining one (which probably to critics should be the most important).
Maybe the development of what McAllister (2008) calls the new genre of the geopolitical complicity drama, to which I believe The Border belongs to,[12] creates confusion in the spectators and does not fulfill their action expectations. In any case, it does not seem to have successfully worked, since on March 22, 2010 the cancellation of The Border was announced before the bad Mexicans were caught.
Endnotes
[1] The author wants to thank the anonymous reviewers for their sensible suggestions in terms of content and form and to translator Carolina Alvarado for her expertise in rewriting this essay.back to text
[2] In Mexico, it aired on February 3, 2010, with the Spanish name Frontera: zona de peligro.back to text
[3] Regarding the border film genre, the most important works are those by Norma Iglesias and David Maciel.back to text
[4] For a filmography on North American border films, see Graciela Martínez-Zalce, “Borders North of the Americas: Transcultural Spaces of Changing Identities”, International Journal of Canadian Studies/ Revue internationals d’études canadiennes, 27 (2003): 229-253.back to text
[5] In one scene, a female migration officer, after interrogating a woman with a Russian passport states she will have no problem because she comes from money, she knew how to present her papers and she was prepared.back to text
[6] The agenda in the documentary might be that of the necessary evil; in some cases, toughening might seem contrary to a humanitarian view of migration, but it is necessary due to people using fake documents, lying, committing criminal offences, or abusing refugee claims.back to text
[7] McAllister studies similar issues related to the mini-series called Human Cargo (2004).back to text
[8] “The Border eagerly anticipated series premieres as American shows are in reruns”, Note from The Western Star, 05/01/08.back to text
[9] Idem.back to text
[10] In the second and third seasons it will be actress Grace Park.back to text
[11] Works like the ones published in the seventies by important authors such as Margaret Atwood and Northrop Frye.back to text
[12] This is more widely explored in my forthcoming book Instrucciones para vivir en el limbo.back to text
Bibliography:
“The Border”. Summary. tvrage.com. Web. 31 March 2008.
“Fireworks International Takes The Border Stateside”. contentfilm.com. Web. 27 February 2009.
“ION Has Their Eye On Canada with Border Sale”. tvfeedsmyfamily.blogspot.com. Web. 25February 2009.
“More security, no more safety”. The Leader-Post (Regina). Web. 25 Feb. 2008.
“No Refuge”, The Border, episode 12, season 3. sidereel.com. Web. 12 Feb. 2010.
“Raymont makes leap into drama with The Border”. cbc.ca.Web. 7 Jan. 2008.
“The Border eagerly anticipated series premieres as American shows are in reruns”.
The Western Star. Web. 1 May 2008.
“The Border has found its place in TV land”. The Calgary Herald. Web. 31 March 2008.
“The border”, cbc.ca. Web. Feb. 2009.
Adelman, Howard. “Canadian Borders and Immigration post 9/11”. University of Wollongong. Web. 27 July 2010.
Andreas, Peter, Thomas J. Biersteker. The Rebordering of North America, Integration and Exclusion in a New Security Context. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Bahdi, Reem. “No exit: Racial Profiling and Canada’s War Against Terrorism.” Osgood Hall Law Journal 41.2.3 (2003): 294-317. Web. 27 July 2010.
Border, The, seasons 1 and 2. Peter Raymont y Lindalee Tracy, creators, Prod. White Pine Pictures & Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2007, 2008. DVD.
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Part I of the Constitution Act 1982. Web. 27 February 2010.
Canadian Council for Refugees. Closing the Front Door on Refugees. Report on the Fist Year of the Safe Third Country Agreement, December 2005. Web. 27 July 2010.
Canadian Council for Refugees. Non-Citizens in Canada: Equally Human, Equally Entitled to Rights. Web. 27 July 2010.
Crawford, James. “Media, Stereotypes and the Perpetuation of Racism in Canada”. Educational Communications and Technology, University of Saskatchewan. Web. 27 July 2010.
Demara, Bruce, “Episode of The Border turns actors into activists. Two guest stars in show spread awareness of child soldiers’ plight”. thestar.com. Web. February 18, 2008.
Fulford, Robert, “Different show, same message; The Border retreads the CBC’s favourite theme:We’re better than Americans”. The National Post. Web. 12 January 2008.
Gorman, Bill, “Border Wars draws 2.9 million; natgeo’s highest ratings for a series”. TVbythenumber.com. Web. 12 Jan. 2010.
Gorodischer, Julian, “El mundo visto por Natgeo. Frontera: zona de peligro”. hipercritico.com. Web. 12 January 2010.
Invisible Nation, Policing the Underground, dir. & script Lindalee Tracey, prod. Peter Raymont, 1997. DVD.
Konrad, Victor, Heather N. Nicol. Beyond Walls: Re-inventing the Canada-United States Borderlands. U.K.: Ashgate, Border Regions Series, 2008.
McAllister, Kirsten. “Bridging the Geopolitical Divide at Home in Canada”, Programming Reality: Perspectives on English Canadian Television. Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 2008: 325-342.
Minister of Justice. Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Web. 27 July 2010.
Podur, Justin, “Defend the Border: Why CBC’s new show can only help “the bad guys””. killingtrain.com. Web. 5 May 2008.
Portal of North America. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
Pratt, Anna, Sara K. Thompson, “Chivalry, ‘Race’ and Discretion at the Canadian Border.” British Journal of Criminology 48 (2008): 620-640.
Sadowski-Smith, Claudia. Border Fictions. Globalization, Empire and Writing at the Boundaries of the United States. USA: University of Virgina Press, 2008.
Stuart, Leigh, “Raymont on The Border”, Playback Magazine. Web. 27 July 2007.
Undefended Border, the. Dir. & prod. Peter Raymont, prod. & script Lindalee Tracey, prod. White Pine Pictures, 2002. DVD. | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 64 | https://ew.com/article/2005/04/04/hbo-and-new-line-create-new-indie-film-distributor/ | en | HBO and New Line create a new indie film distributor | [
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] | 2005-04-04T00:00:00 | HBO and New Line create a new indie film distributor -- Newmarket's Bob Berney will head the still-nameless company | en | /favicon.ico | EW.com | https://ew.com/article/2005/04/04/hbo-and-new-line-create-new-indie-film-distributor/ | Tony Soprano loves movies; and so, it seems, does his corporate capo. Flush with subscriber fees and DVD dollars, pay-cable giant HBO has dipped its toe into cineplexes in recent years, yielding such acclaimed indie hits as American Splendor (2003) and Maria Full of Grace (2004). But on March 23, the company best known for tube sensations like Sex and the City made a commitment to the film biz, forming a new specialty distributor with New Line Cinema. (Both companies are owned by EW parent Time Warner.) The as-yet-unnamed outfit will be headed by Newmarket Films president Bob Berney, storied marketing architect of The Passion of the Christ and, while at IFC, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Hmmm. . .an autonomous New York-based distributor embedded in a large conglomerate, with declared indie motives and deep corporate pockets — sounds like the old Miramax!
Maybe — if you imagine a Miramax where the bosses play well with others. Producer Lawrence Bender (whose The Chumscrubber will be released by the new company) notes the extraordinary ”goodwill” the well-liked troika — Berney, HBO Films president Colin Callender, and New Line cochairman Michael Lynne — bring to the new company. And American Splendor director Shari Springer Berman expects HBO will give it a non-studio feel: ”They run the business like a family, not like a corporation.”
”What we’re trying to achieve hasn’t been done before,” says Callender, and he’s right: No one’s ever attempted to fuse the creative gestalts of an ambitious cable channel and a midsize movie studio into an indie film distributor. Callender once debated placing the HBO name on its 2002 theatrical release Real Women Have Curves because he was unsure if it would translate into big-screen prestige. But, he says, testing revealed that audiences connected ”HBO” with quality, regardless of medium.
”Just a few years ago, anyone would’ve been reluctant to collaborate with HBO, because if audiences saw that HBO label, they might’ve thought, ‘This isn’t theatrical — this is TV,”’ notes Mark Urman, president of distribution for rival indie THINKFilm (which distributed HBO’s Oscar-winning Born Into Brothels). ”HBO overcame that. One of the best films anyone saw last year was Angels in America. People care less and less whether they’re seeing it on TV, on DVD, or in theaters. It’s all the same.”
Thus, HBO will gain an outlet for its expanding film-production wing — though Callender notes, ”Our first duty is to our subscribers, providing them with high-quality content on HBO.” New Line will also contribute offerings. Berney is expected to bring in festival acquisitions.
But Urman wonders if corporate culture and indie cred are compatible. ”The biggest movie to go through Newmarket was a movie no studio would touch,” says Urman. ”Can Berney still do that? Can he still release Mel Gibson’s Jesus movie?”
”We’ll find out when he brings it,” says Lynne. ”I think one thing we all agree on is, this isn’t merely a prestige organization. It has to be profitable.” | ||||
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 28 | https://thoughteconomics.com/the-role-of-film-in-society/ | en | The Role of Film in Society | [
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] | null | [] | 2011-07-01T22:09:39+01:00 | In this exclusive interview we talk to Tom Sherak, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (best known for their Academy Awards, also referred to as | en | Thought Economics | https://thoughteconomics.com/the-role-of-film-in-society/ | In this exclusive interview we talk to Tom Sherak, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (best known for their Academy Awards, also referred to as “Oscars”). We look at the role of film in society and how it has grown to become such a ubiquitous art. We discuss what makes a ‘great’ movie, some history of film, the economics and future of the industry, and how the internet and other technologies such as CGI and 3D have affected the movie business.
Film has a uniquely powerful ubiquity within human culture. In 2009, across major territories, there were over 6.8 billion cinema admissions (compared against a world population of roughly the same number) creating global box office revenues of over US$30 billion. The convergent nature of film creates consumption across a number of channels. In the same year combined DVD and Blu-Ray sales in the United States, Canada and European Union alone were US$32.5 billion (amounting to over 1.1 billion units sold). When you start to then consider revenues and audience figures from those who consume digitally, via television, repeat view content they already own and view through the highly illegal but vast black-market in films, the figures become truly staggering.
The direct economic impact of film is clear, but the effect to the wider economy is also significant. The UK House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee– in a 2002 report on The British Film Industry stated, “…Of the 23 million people who visited the UK in 2001 — spending approximately £11.3billion — VisitBritain (formerly the British Tourist Authority) estimates that approximately 20% visited the UK because of the way it is portrayed in films or on television. The flow-on effect from film (i.e. the use of services and purchase of goods by the industry) is thought to be that for every £1 spent on film, there is a £1.50 benefit to the economy.”
Cinema has become a powerful vehicle for culture, education, leisure and propaganda. In a 1963 report for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization looking at Indian Cinema and Culture, the author (Baldoon Dhingra) quoted a speech by Prime Minister Nehru who stated, “…the influence in India of films is greater than newspapers and books combined.” Even at this early stage in cinema, the Indian film-market catered for over 25 million people a week- considered to be just a ‘fringe’ of the population.
Contemporary research has also revealed more profound aspects to film’s impact on society. In a 2005 paper by S C Noah Uhrig (University of Essex, UK) entitled, “‘Cinema is Good for You: The Effects of Cinema Attendance on Self-Reported Anxiety or Depression and ‘Happiness'” the author describes how, “The narrative and representational aspects of film make it a wholly unique form of art. Moreover, the collective experience of film as art renders it a wholly distinct leisure activity. The unique properties of attending the cinema can have decisively positive effects on mental health. Cinema attendance can have independent and robust effects on mental wellbeing because visual stimulation can queue a range of emotions and the collective experience of these emotions through the cinema provides a safe environment in which to experience roles and emotions we might not otherwise be free to experience. The collective nature of the narrative and visual stimulation makes the experience enjoyable and controlled, thereby offering benefits beyond mere visual stimulation. Moreover, the cinema is unique in that it is a highly accessible social art form, the participation in which generally cuts across economic lines. At the same time, attending the cinema allows for the exercise of personal preferences and the human need for distinction. In a nutshell, cinema attendance can be both a personally expressive experience, good fun, and therapeutic at the same time. In a rather groundbreaking study, Konlaan, Bygren and Johansson found that frequent cinema attendees have particularly low mortality risks –those who never attended the cinema had mortality rates nearly 4 times higher than those who visit the cinema at least occasionally (Konlaan, Bygren, and Johansson 2000). Their finding holds even when other forms of social engagement are controlled, suggesting that social engagement specifically in an artistic milieu is important for human survival.”
So how has cinema grown to become such a preeminent part of human culture?
In this exclusive interview we talk to Tom Sherak, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (best known for their Academy Awards, also referred to as “Oscars“). We look at the role of film in society and how it has grown to become such a ubiquitous art. We discuss what makes a ‘great’ movie, some history of film, the economics and future of the industry, and how the internet and other technologies such as CGI and 3D have affected the movie business.
[bios]Thomas Sherak, whose remarkable career has seen him at the pinnacle of motion picture marketing, distribution and production, is now serving as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and is also consulting for Marvel Studios and Relativity Media.
Previously, Sherak was a partner at Revolution Studios. In its seven years of operation, Revolution Studios released more than thirty films, including “America’s Sweethearts,” “Black Hawk Down,” “XXX,” “Anger Management,” “Daddy Day Care,” “Hellboy,” “13 Going On 30,” “White Chicks,” “The Forgotten,” “Christmas with the Kranks,” “Are We There Yet?,” “Rent,” “The Benchwarmers,” “Click,” “Rocky Balboa” and “Across the Universe.”
Prior to joining Revolution Studios, Sherak was Chairman of Twentieth Century Fox Domestic Film Group. In addition, Sherak served as Senior Executive Vice President of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Previously, he was Senior Executive Vice President of Twentieth Century Fox. At Twentieth Century Fox, Sherak oversaw the distribution and post-production of such films as “Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “True Lies,” “Speed,” “Independence Day,” “Broken Arrow,” “Dr. Dolittle,” “The X-Files,” and “Star Wars: Episode 1–The Phantom Menace.”
In 1990 Sherak was named Executive Vice President of Twentieth Century Fox. Previously, he was President of Domestic Distribution and Marketing for Twentieth Century Fox from May 1983 to September 1984, and again from June 1986 to July 1990. In that position, he supervised the company’s domestic distribution, advertising/publicity/promotion operations and the non-theatrical film division. He has overseen the marketing and distribution of such films as “Romancing the Stone,” “Commando,” “Aliens,” “The Fly,” “Broadcast News,” “Predator,” “Wall Street,” “Die Hard,” “Working Girl,” “Die Hard 2,” “Home Alone,” “Edward Scissorhands” and “Die Hard: With a Vengeance.” Sherak joined Fox from General Cinema, where he was Vice President and head film buyer.
He is an active board member of the Southern California Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Fulfilment Fund of Southern California. Serving as Chair for the MS Dinner of Champions gala event for the past 18 years, Sherak has helped raise just under 40 million dollars for multiple sclerosis research and programs. He is a former Chairman of the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation and formerly on the Board of Directors for the Motion Picture and Television Fund as well as the Southern California Variety – the Children’s Charity. Sherak has also previously served as Treasurer of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sherak received an honorary doctorate in the arts from the Academy of Art University in May 2010 and holds a degree in Marketing from New York City Community College. He is also on the faculty of the UCLA Producers Program.[/bios]
The Concept of Film
Q: What is the role of film in society and why has film become such a strong part of the arts?
[Tom Sherak] Film is a reflection of society, both present and past. I think the film and it’s innovations sometimes has to catch up to society but sometimes it leads society too. Movies are stories, movies are people who come out with ideas about something they want to say, something they want to tell someone. Movies are a form of communication and that communication, those stories, come from societies- not just where society is presently and what it’s doing now- but where society has been. It’s been that way for as long as movies have been around!
Movies are different things to different people, that’s what is so incredible about them. To me personally, movies are about escapism. Movies are about sitting in a theatre, watching something- watching a story unfold with people I don’t know- watching that happen and emoting an emotion knowing that for those two hours, when I walk into that theatre, I don’t have to worry about what is going on outside. I lose myself in what I’m watching. Movies can educate too. They tell us things we never could have known. They tell us things we might not know, and they give us a way to explore the past, the present and the future.
You asked why movies have become so popular, I’m going to tell you why, it’s because the images move… They’re not static. I could stare at a Van-Gogh for hours, but I sit in a theatre and the images move. As the frames move and tell a story, it is that movement which emotionally connects you. To me, this is fundamental about why movies have become global. Every country has stories to tell, about their past, their culture now, and views of what the future will look like through their eyes. What hadn’t happened for many years, and what started to happen relatively recently was a couple of things. Firstly, movie theatres began to be built all over the world- not just here in the USA. In many parts of the world, the phenomenon of movie theatres is only ten or fifteen years old. These theatres give people a place to go, to escape, to learn.
Before that, society had the stories, but they didn’t really have the places to go and enjoy them like that. India, for example, wasn’t making six hundred films a year fifteen years ago. All of a sudden, the business part of film allowed people to invest and make movies- and also have somewhere to make their money back, in theatres! Then the internet came along…
The world is changing now faster than you and I change our socks! It’s constantly changing, and that constantly changing world is going to induce more movie-making. If you go on YouTube, you can see the most talented young people all over the world who take a camera and start to film ideas they have and put them online. They’re going to be the future of the industry. The internet has connected the world together so a person in Vietnam can put a movie on the internet which can be instantly seen all around the world, you simply couldn’t have done that before. Movies have become a world-wide feature- and as it relates to what movies tell us? I don’t know that I knew as much about, for example, Cuba as I wanted to- I’m talking socially not politically. We (the Academy) sent an outreach program to Cuba, and believe me- we learnt SO much about society from their movies. I believe, personally, that movies allow people to be taken places they can’t get to on their own- be it travel, or culture, or learning.
The arts are not just one, they are all connected- and movies have become a huge part of the arts.
Q: What are the impacts of current-affairs, politics, social issues and corporate interests on film?
[Tom Sherak] This is one of the great things about movies. Some movies take sides- you can agree or disagree with the content. Some movies take sides and create a conversation, and that conversation can be in any area; be it political, social, or even within specific disciplines such as fashion. Movies can create controversy, and tell difficult stories. Movies have always either taken a side, remained central, or projected something forward.
During the Second World War movies in the USA created a feeling of valour and heroism in what we were doing and you saw this in films that came out at the time such as the Purple Heart. It was during this time also that John Wayne became a huge star, having progressed to this style from the westerns. We needed to lift our spirits basically…. There is an old movie-saying, which the distribution and marketing people love… During a recession, business gets better! It doesn’t slump! If you look at the numbers of the movie business you will wonder why that happens. It’s because people want to go and get away, and they want to be able to feel different. In this sense, it doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with the movie content. I’m going to give you an example… Many years ago, when I was at Fox, I was involved with a movie called the War of the Roses starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. It was the story of a horrible divorce between the Roses. It was a brilliant movie- Danny DeVito is a brilliant Director and Actor. Michael and Kathleen, of course, speak for themselves. That movie was previewed ten times before it opened. Audiences walked out yelling and screaming “how dare you make a movie like that?”, “that movie didn’t work!”, “that movie made us mad!”, “who made that movie?” they weren’t happy people! Now you have a movie that didn’t test very well, and you wonder what happened?. The movie came out at Christmas… The press saw what Danny what trying to put into the movie – and all of a sudden whether you liked the movie or didn’t… and believe me many people didn’t like the movie… you had to see it to talk about it! It became part of culture all of a sudden with people asking each other, “did you see the War of the Roses? did you see what happened?”, “what would you have done? would you have killed the dog? would you have killed each other?” – and that’s what so great about the movie business. You can sit down on a plane with anybody and want to start a conversation. You start by saying hello, and asking what they do- but then, if you really want to continue the conversation? “hey! did you see Avatar?”. It doesn’t matter whether you like the movie or not, but it starts a conversation. It’s one of the few things around the world which we all have in common. Can you give me something else which the world has in common? that we can have an opinion on without being right or wrong?
Movies also create debate, they create conversation, they create an atmosphere. Not all movies of course… I’m not going to sit here and tell you that ‘Never Been Kissed’ causes a debate… but movies are often made by film-makers who want to take a position on a topic, and you can debate it. One of the governors of the Academy is a gentleman by the name of Michael Moore who is to the left of the left! Michael Moore makes movies from a point of view, and whether you agree with him or not, whether you like him or not, it doesn’t matter- his movies create debate, and that is a good thing.
Q: What makes a ‘great film’ ?
[Tom Sherak] There’s a couple of caveats here. What makes a great film is that it stands the test of time… That you can look at it years later, and still enjoy it. This Friday, at the Academy, we’re going to look at a film which is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, Raiders of the Lost Ark! We’re going to see it digitally re-mastered, on a big screen. We’re going to see a movie that, when it came out, was not just a big hit… but emoted something. When you sat in the theatre it delivered adventure, suspense, fun- true escapism. Thirty years later, we are still enjoying that movie. Other great movies like this include Godfather, Rosebud, Gone With the Wind, and so many more.
To me, the ultimate prize for a great movie is whether it can stand the test of time, across generations.
If we look at what goes into that.. It always starts with a good story, a writer who puts that story down on paper, and then a collaboration between every other guild that goes into making a movie… The Director, actors, cinematographer, make-up artists, visual effects specialists, and more.
Movies are collaborative, and to make a great movie you have to begin with the story and writing, but then when the Director takes over and brings his mindset- casting the actors, and building that team? It’s that which MAKES the movie. No single person makes a movie, it’s a collaborative event. As an aside, it’s obvious that not all movies are successful. Some movies are just not that good… that happens right? Nobody goes out to make a bad movie, nobody starts that way! Who is going to invest in a movie that they don’t think will work? Everything starts out the same, and it starts to break-down at some point and maybe the result doesn’t turn out the way you wanted… It happens a lot. You can find so many people who are incredibly talented and creative who have gone on to have great careers, that started off with movies which didn’t work. Look at Jack Nicholson’s early work with Roger Corman for example, where he played a monster! All the crafts in the movie business are learned on the job, they are not ‘schooled crafts’ and often you have to fail to succeed.
Failing is not as horrible as you think, as long as you learn something from the failure- so that you can take things to the next step. Talent will always come to the top, and failure will always go to the bottom.
Q: How does film sit alongside other arts such as music, theatre and the visual arts?
[Tom Sherak] Movies inspire, they have a way of setting tones. All elements of art are interconnected, they are very similar. It used to be that you go to a museum and you see an art exhibit and it was someone who was well known- you had lines to see the exhibit. If someone wasn’t well known, it would start small and grow. Movies are like that- but the difference is that movies can both take the lead in creating other arts, and following arts (by which I mean they are able to take a piece of art, and tell the story behind it). When you paint a picture, you just paint that picture! A movie can take that picture to a whole other place… with a story. I think that capability is what separates film, to a degree- from the other arts.
The movie world is set up in a lot of different segments. You have the business world of movies, the art world, the esoteric, the metaphoric. This diversity gives movies their unique directional ability in arts.
Q: What is the role of events such as the Oscars on films, society and the industry?
[Tom Sherak] The Oscar is a major part of the Academy. Not the only part, but a major part nevertheless. The Oscar rewards excellence, that’s what it does. It’s the ultimate prize for people in this business, in all the things we just talked about. In that one year that it’s given, to the movies that are released, it rewards excellence. Why is that important? It’s important for the organisation to give out these statuettes in an area where hundreds of people are creating- to say that within that one year you, as a winner, are at the absolute top of your field, and we are rewarding you for that. Why does that affect culture? We all have movies in common. It doesn’t matter whether we like the movie or didn’t. I’ve always believed that we, as humans, would rather see people rewarded than thrown out with the wash-water. People love to see who wins!
As an organisation, we don’t think of it as ‘who won and lost’ yes, someone is going to get the award and it simply reflects the fact that in that year, in the eyes of their peers, and with the world watching, they stood out above the rest. The international market for these awards will keep growing too- which is no different to the international market for movies themselves. International box office for movies has now surpassed the domestic market, and as more people watch movies, more people want to watch together on the night those awards are given out. So here we are giving out awards for excellence that not only touch the person who gets the award, but also all the people around the world who watched the movie.
Aside from something like the Nobel Peace Prize- and please believe me I am in no way even remotely comparing the Academy awards to the Nobel- I can’t think of many accolades which become part of how you are introduced.. After you win, you are always referred to as the “Academy Award Winner…”. You have that accolade for the rest of your life, and it becomes an internationally recognised sign of excellence.
Looking at Technology:
Q: What has been the impact of technologies such as 3D, Animation and CGI on film?
[Tom Sherak] It’s important to remember that our organisation is the Academy of Arts and Sciences, not just arts. The Science part of the mix is just as important as anything else. The technology of movies, from the beginning has been important. This thing called ‘sound’ revolutionised films. Remember, we started with silent movies- and then sound came along and took movies to a place that the telephone took society, wow- we have sound!
The Academy is on the forefront, with its technology council, in creating technologies in the new digital world. Everybody thinks digital is easy- they think you make the movie, you stick it in a drawer on a little disk, and there you go- it’s done. The disk, however, doesn’t last forever. Did you know, for example, that film- as in physical film- lasts a lot longer than disks? You have to, therefore, figure out a way with digital- no different than the challenges we first faced with film- as to how we can store that forever. The Academy has dealt with these challenges in a landmark report on the ‘Digital Dilemma‘. Technology, however, changes every day- and moves further and further ahead. I will give you a quick personal example. I had to go get an MRI. Previously it took around 45minutes to do the scan. I went to do the same MRI three weeks ago in a brand new machine at UCLA, the same scan now takes twenty minutes.
When you get to our business and look at the technology of visual effects, 3D, and so forth. These are all things that help create an illusion, to help us escape. Some people, in this sense, have questioned whether 3D is a fad. When I grew up as a young man in the late fifties and early sixties, 3D was just coming out with films like ‘House of Wax’. I think at that time, it was a fad. It came, people said wow, and then it went away for a while. All of a sudden, it has come back- and has been used very effectively by people such as Jeffrey Katzenberg and his Dreamworks studio, and Jim Cameron who has created a whole new look in the format. Is it a fad now? I don’t know if that is yet answered. I know that if you look at all the televisions coming out now from Japan, everything is 3D capable- so somebody believes that this technology has a lifespan. We haven’t yet had the ‘product’ to catch up with the platform, but it’s on its way. I believe that eventually we will have 3D technologies which will not require glasses, that would have been unheard of ten years ago. Once you don’t need the glasses, does that mean more people will want to watch 3D? Time will tell…. Right now, this technology is still very much in infancy. Theatres are converting screens to 3D and Hollywood will have to continue putting out 3D movies to fill these screens. For me, one of the things that makes the movie business as exciting as it is – is the impact of innovation on our economics. When you innovate something, and it works, it has a direct affect on economics around the world – meaning that, if I created a new kind of 3D like Cameron has – or if 2D to 3D conversion takes off – and exhibitors around the world put in screens because people want to see it? that creates real economic growth. Movies, in the USA, are the number one exported product! That’s an amazing thing, and creates economics here and around the world! So if we look at the idea of technology and what technology does for the movies? technology allows movies to take stories to places where they couldn’t have gone before, and that technology helps escapism- which is why, ultimately, you go to the movies.
Q: What has been the impact of the internet, social media and allied technologies on films and the business of movie making?
[Tom Sherak] I believe that movies do well, and make money, by word of mouth. I know advertising is a big part, and of course having the right movie to start with, but word of mouth is powerful. Bad word of mouth can kill you, we all know that. Movies have the shortest marketable life of any marketable product. Did you know that you can make a movie for $65 million, spend another $20 million marketing it in the USA and another $30 million marketing internationally and that movie could be gone within two weeks? No other product that I can think of has such a short life, with that kind of investment required.
If, for example, I created a new soap- and I put the soap on the shelf in the supermarket and it doesn’t sell- I can move it to increase visibility- it still doesn’t sell, so I lower the price- I become competitive in getting people to try the product- I have the time to do that. With a movie, you have one chance. That’s why the movie business is such a dangerous game to get involved in. You have a very strong heart and constitution to know that it can go that quickly. How many times have you seen a movie open, and then looked to find where its playing, and see that it’s not playing any more- it doesn’t play because if it doesn’t work immediately! they take it off the screen. The theatres don’t own the screen, they have partners- and those partners are interested in making money- so what’s the sense in keeping movies on the screen if they aren’t making money? So the word of mouth of a movie becomes very important.
In today’s world if a movie is going to reach an audience- they have to realise that their audience, particularly younger people, spend up-to 18hrs a day connected to the internet. This means that comments about the movie get onto sites straight away. So if someone posts, “this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen..” and everybody feels the same way? that will kill the movie… instantly. This happens often. If a movie goes on, and is controversial- with fifty percent loving it, and fifty percent not liking it… that creates controversy… and it [that movie] has a chance in the marketplace.
We have become a world that communicates via the internet. It used to be that I would pick up the phone, or I would see you somewhere, we’d be outside! But now? all that word of mouth, where we communicated, and movies had the chance to grow and breathe? has gone. Now it’s a case of, “you’d better get-em, or you’re not gonna get-em”. The internet has provided the good and bad of that because once a movie review is out- it’s out…. Don’t forget that previously, you read a review in a paper, next day- you throw the paper away. Once a review goes on the net? it never goes away! That’s part of how culture is now. Studios, fifteen years ago, tried to figure out how to avoid the internet. Now they have to figure out ways of how to incorporate the internet into everything they do, because it is that powerful as a tool of both selling and killing. It’s had a direct worldwide impact- it’s a global event. People in Russia will read about what’s happening in movie world in the USA. You will have noticed that a lot of big movies are being released internationally before being released in the USA, it never used to be that way, ever! The consideration was always that for movies which translated for international audiences… if it didn’t work in the USA, it wouldn’t work internationally. Jo Lewis, the boxer, once said, when you get into the ring there is no place to hide. When you make a movie now? there is no place to hide. The world is gonna’ know about it the instant you show it now. Movies used to be worked on, developed and changed. Now? Once you show it, it’s out there.
Looking at piracy- it is the stealing of somebody’s ability to make money from something they created or were involved with. In my mind, this is a horrible illegal act. There’s a whole generation that thinks, ‘if it’s on the internet, it’s ok to have’. If something goes on the internet illegally, it’s NOT ok to have- it isn’t! So you have to try and stop piracy any way you can, to protect the rights of those people who have created the product. The internet has created this image that you can distribute things if you have them, it’s ok, it’s the internet. The fact is – it isn’t ok! The property rights of the people involved in movies, who make a living from the movies, have to be protected. It is incredibly difficult to do. Piracy is all over the place, and you have to bring people to justice who act illegally- there are laws there for a reason. You cannot become a lawless society. You have to have laws to protect people’s rights, these people created these things and they should be allowed to bear the fruit of what they created. Pirates take away from that. Many years ago, I came up with an idea. We were having a lot of problems with people selling videos the day they came out. They were not top quality, you maybe will miss a couple of scenes, but there was still a video, with your movie on- being sold cheap, like a dollar or something. And people would stop and buy the movie, because it was cheaper than the theatre! We were trying to shut them down. Law enforcement can’t just work on the movie business, they are doing a lot of other things. So how do you shut them down? I thought maybe I should go and make a deal with them, with the crooks! Maybe I should say, “look, I can’t stop you, so give me fifty cents on every video.” And then I realised that wouldn’t work, it was a bad idea… I was just kidding if I thought I could do that! The other thing you have to know, is that piracy affects many other businesses. You have to do something about that. Can you be totally effective against it? never… You are seeing it right now with the recent hack attacks. You cannot be totally protected- it’s impossible. But either way, you have to deal with it. If there was a plug on the internet, I guess you could pull it- but that’s not the case. You have to understand the environment, and have to understand that because of the internet- which has taken civilisation to a world it could simply not have reached- you have to protect yourself as best you can knowing that there’s no way to do it completely. Go look at Sony and all these companies who have, unfortunately, been hacked- the bottom line is that if someone wants to hack you, or pirate a movie, they will- but you have to deal with it the best you can.
—————————————————
Through Mr. Sherak’s experience we can see lucidly, the power of movies and how, through the synergistic impact of moving-image, sound, narrative and other elements- they can create a powerful sense of emotion and engagement. Movies can communicate concepts, ideas and stories. They allow us to be cognitively transported to a different time or a place, and experience life through different eyes- gaining new perspectives, inspiration and understanding. Mr. Anthony Minghella (1954-2008, an accomplished film director, and ex. Chairman of the bfi) states in this regard, “…fiction becomes this sort of cultural bank balance that we can draw from. We canmomentarily be a young woman, an old woman, a black person, an Asian person, a Chinese person, and look at the world and argue a position that is not our own for a while — inhabit a position that is not our own.”
McCarthy and Wright in their 2004 paper “Technology as Experience” describe the philosophy behind this suggesting four ‘threads’ of experience- sensual, emotional, compositional and spatio-temporal. These strands, they argue, operate as one during the ‘dialogue’ of a viewer with a film. Their view is supported by many others. Todd Oakley, an academic at Case Western Reserve University, in his 2004 paper “Toward a General theory of Film Spectatorship” also describes how, “Film spectatorship—or at least the most interesting aspects of it—is a conscious activity (Currie 1999): making sense of film is significantly the same as making sense of the real world (Anderson 1996); the spectator uses perceptual and conceptual systems developed for interacting with a three-dimensional world to interact with and make sense of a two dimensional world; therefore, there is no specific, encapsulated, cognitive module for experiencing the movements and gestures of fictional characters projected on a screen, nor are there specific cognitive modules for aesthetic experiences generally…”
This understanding, however, is not new. Since the emergence of man’s first cave-etchings- it has become clear that we possess the ability to communicate emotionally and cognitively through art- which, in context, functions both as and aside to language. The ancient Greeks, for example, inscribed “The Healing Place of the Soul” above the door to the library at Thebes (Riordan & Wilson, 1989), and used drama as a method of dealing with emotions. This cathartic property of storytelling allows us, through metaphor, to access areas of human experience which otherwise cannot be accessed through “rational thought “Of all of our inventions for mass communication” said Walt Disney “…pictures still speak the most universally understood language.”
Film, therefore holds a truly unique place in the story our civilisation. It is an art, a language, a medium for education, inspiration, and so much more. It provides employment for hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and enjoyment for countless billions more and provides a living record of the human condition and imagination at any given point in our story.
Against this backdrop, however, we must not forget that more than anything- film is a hugely entertaining medium, and allows us- briefly- to escape our lives and venture somewhere else. That, in essence, is the true attraction.
I will allow Mr. Sherak to conclude with his wonderful invitation…. “See you at the movies! | |||||
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] | null | [] | null | null | Alex Gibney, the director of this year’s Oscar-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side,” has filed for arbitration, asserting that its box office prospects were undermined by the financial troubles of the film’s distributor, ThinkFilm.
The demand for binding arbitration is the latest hurdle for ThinkFilm, and its owner, David Bergstein, who also owns Capitol Films. But it also comes at a critical time for an independent-film world buffeted by an overabundance of movies and financial challenges.
In a June 19 filing with the Independent Film & Television Alliance, an industry organization, Mr. Gibney’s company, X-Ray Productions, asserts that ThinkFilm defrauded him by not having the financing to distribute and promote “Taxi” properly and seeks to reclaim the film’s distribution rights. The complaint says ThinkFilm’s failure to pay vendors caused the film’s Web site to shut down, and that the company did not advertise the post-Oscar run in major magazines. Since its release in January, the movie has made less than $250,000 in theaters.
“I’m upset because the whole commercial strategy of the film was predicated on the idea of winning awards,” Mr. Gibney said. “The fact that they were fiscally unable to capitalize on the Oscar infuriated me for two reasons: They had been in financial difficulty for some time and hadn’t disclosed it to us; and we won the Oscar, and they still hadn’t disclosed it to us.”
While acknowledging ThinkFilm’s financial hardships, Mark Urman, its president, said the company had done right by “Taxi,” which told the story of an Afghan taxi driver who died while in custody at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
“From the time we acquired it, and throughout its release, no corner was cut and no expense was spared,” he added.
The feud — between Mr. Urman, a well-regarded distributor of independent films including “Spellbound” and “Half Nelson,” and Mr. Gibney, the documentarian behind “Enron: The Smartest Boys in the Room” and the coming film about Hunter S. Thompson, “Gonzo” — is the latest difficulty in the independent film world. Over the last few months Warner Brothers announced it was closing two high-profile companies created to distribute art-house films — Warner Independent and Picturehouse —while Paramount Pictures’ art-house label, Paramount Vantage, acknowledged it was laying off staff and retrenching.
Mark Gill, the president of the Film Department, another independent distribution and financing company, and the former president of Warner Independent, said the current downturn for independent film could be attributed to three things: “a glut of movies in the market, the turning off of the money spigot (due to the drying up of hedge-fund money), and a change in the way people spend their leisure time.”
“It used to be, ‘Mediocrity will be punished,’ ” Mr. Gill said by telephone from Los Angeles, where last weekend he delivered a cri de coeur about the state of independent film during the Los Angeles Film Festival. “Now it’s ‘If you’re not very good or great, you will be punished.’ ”
Bob Berney, the president of Picturehouse, which will officially cease operating in October, said, “I think the audience is still there, but that several of the business models and the way some of the truly independent companies were set up and funded are outdated.” He added, “Good films will always find a market.”
But that is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure. As private equity funds flowed into the movie world and businessmen wealthy from other endeavors decided to try their hand at film financing, movies — particularly those not made by the Hollywood studios and their boutique divisions — have proliferated. About 600 films were released in 2007; five years earlier that figure was under 450, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. And the vast majority of screens in the United States are devoted to the offerings from the big studios.
The result has been that small films, fighting for a finite number of screens, struggle for enough time to build an audience. If they don’t become a hit immediately, there’s another worthy film ready to grab the theater.
The key to longevity, say the presidents of two free-standing independents, Kino International and Zeitgeist Films, is to exercise restraint in both the amount of money allotted for purchasing completed films and in how advertising dollars are spent.
“We try to hedge our bets so we can stay in the game,” said Emily Russo, who with Nancy Gertsman runs Zeitgeist, which on Thursday night will celebrate its 20th anniversary with the opening of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Zeitgeist: The Films of Our Time.” “A lot of the companies that came and went, came and went in a bigger, splashier way than we have ever done.”
Don Krim of Kino said his company’s survival for more than three decades had been due in large part to its library of over 500 films, which provides a steady revenue through DVD and ancillary sales. “We don’t hit many home runs, but we have a lot of singles and doubles and occasionally a triple,” he said. “We can do fine with a movie that doesn’t do a million at the box office. But the studio classics divisions need to do $1 million to $2 million to be profitable.”
While never a major player in independent dramatic films, ThinkFilm has quietly made its niche a cache of smart documentaries. A reduced ThinkFilm would make it even tougher for independent documentary filmmakers to find a distributor, and a reduction seems likely.
There is a steadily increasing list of filmmakers, publicists and others who have begun to make public their complaints against ThinkFilm and its owner since 2006, Mr. Bergstein of Capitol.
Shooting on “Nailed,” the new David O. Russell film, has been shut down several times by the Screen Actors Guild and other unions because Capitol was not meeting its payroll obligations. (Mr. Bergstein and representatives for Capitol in Los Angeles did not return phone calls.) The producer Albie Hecht, for example, said he was still waiting for a six-figure advance that he said had been promised after ThinkFilm acquired “War Dance,” an Oscar-nominated documentary by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix in September 2006. Like Mr. Gibney, Mr. Hecht has filed for arbitration with ThinkFilm.
“It pains me to do this,” the publicist Nancy Willen said, referring to her lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in April against ThinkFilm and Capitol Films. “I’ve had a long, productive working relationship with Mark Urman since early in my career. However I now have my own business and simply can’t afford this.” | ||||||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 8 | https://variety.com/2020/film/global/netflix-finlands-aurora-bordertown-the-mural-murders-1234783403/ | en | Netflix, Finland's Aurora Jump Into 'Bordertown | [
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] | null | [
"Elsa Keslassy"
] | 2020-09-25T07:20:06+00:00 | Netflix has acquired the Finnish movie "Bordertown – The Mural Murders," a spinoff of the popular Nordic crime series. | en | Variety | https://variety.com/2020/film/global/netflix-finlands-aurora-bordertown-the-mural-murders-1234783403/ | Netflix has acquired the Finnish movie “Bordertown – The Mural Murders,” a spinoff of the popular Nordic crime series which is now in its third season.
Produced by Matti Halonen and Johannes Lassila at Fisher King, “Bordertown – The Mural Murders” will start shooting next month and will be released theatrically in Finland by the newly-launched distribution banner Aurora Studios. Netflix has global rights to the movie outside of Finland.
The movie brings back “Bordertown”‘s key cast, Ville Virtanen, Anu Sinisalo and Sampo Sarkola. The screenplay is written by Miikko Oikkonen and Antti Pesonen, and Juuso Syrjä will direct.
The plot of the movie follows brilliant police investigator Kari Sorjonen chasing his arch enemy Lasse Maasalo. The movie is set against the backdrop of a social media voting contest in which people have voted on without whom the country would be better off. When three of the most-voted people disappear, Sorjonen is asked to come back to work to investigate the hate crimes.
“We are extremely excited to launch to movie theaters the award-winning and critically acclaimed Bordertown, which has been one of the top Nordic noir IPs,” said Antti Toiviainen, the CEO of Aurora Studios.
Matti Halonen, the Executive Producer of the film at Fisher King, said ”Bordertown is a big audience movie, and Aurora Studios is going for a nationwide theatrical release in autumn 2021.”
“It is also truly excellent that we have signed a worldwide distribution agreement with Netflix which means that probably for the first time ever, a Finnish-language film will be shown all over the world, from US to Australia,” added Halonen.
The filming of “Bordertown – The Mural Murders” will take place in and around Helsinki, the capital of Finland, under strict sanitary guidelines.
“Bordertown – The Mural Murders” is financed by Yle, Netflix, Aurora Studios, Business Finland and the Finnish Film Foundation. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 12 | https://www.ranker.com/list/indie-films-starring-major-actors/jacob-shelton | en | The Best Independent Films Starring Huge Hollywood Actors | https://imgix.ranker.com/list_img_v2/17486/1997486/original/indie-films-starring-major-actors-u1 | https://imgix.ranker.com/list_img_v2/17486/1997486/original/indie-films-starring-major-actors-u1 | [
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] | null | [
"Jacob Shelton"
] | 2015-02-24T00:00:00 | Over 200 filmgoers have voted on the 20+ films on Best Independent Films Starring Huge Hollywood Actors. Current Top 3: John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, Jim ... | en | /img/icons/touch-icon-iphone.png | Ranker | https://www.ranker.com/list/indie-films-starring-major-actors/jacob-shelton | If you're an independent filmmaker, the best way to get people to see your film is to put a huge star in the leading role. Or to be sneaky and cast a major star in a tiny role and put them at the front of the billing. This list is all about independent films that feature major level talent. Not the films that stars appeared in when they were just starting out, but the films they had a burning desiring to make after finding success. Whether celebrity passion projects or just good indie films that made it to the top of the submissions pile, these movies were lucky enough to have a famous actor take note, and sign on.
Some stars return to the indie scene to regain a once lost credibility, some work on a "one for you, one for me" type of agreement with studios, while others just like to work - no matter what type of film they're appearing in. A lot of the independent movies on this list were made directly after the star in question appeared in a massive blockbuster film (usually involving giant robots blowing up Paris). These famous actors in indie roles took the time to make something they cared about, rather than just another superhero film, or formulaic romcom.
Which of these indie performances by Holllywood stars do you think was the best? Which other movie stars do you think should tackle an indie movie role? Let us know in the comments section! | ||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 45 | https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/local/2017/02/22/filmmaker-returns-home-mansfield/98013456/ | en | Filmmaker returns home to Mansfield | [] | [] | [] | [
""
] | null | [
"Courtney McNaull, Mansfield News Journal",
"Courtney McNaull"
] | 2017-02-22T00:00:00 | Daniel Roemer was a \ | en | Mansfield News Journal | https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/local/2017/02/22/filmmaker-returns-home-mansfield/98013456/ | MANSFIELD - If there's one thing that makes Daniel Roemer light up, it's seeing an actor perform brilliantly on screen and being part of that magical moment.
"It's kind of an explosion of the soul," the filmmaker said. "It's so intangible. You can say and do all the right things, but when a moment happens there's something intangible about it, and you caught it on film."
Growing up in Mansfield, Roemer was always making movies and casting his friends in his films, which were often spoofs of popular movies.
"Looking back now, I think I can diagnose it. I always felt a little out of control in my own life and my family life," Roemer said. "I think film making is a way to sort of control a world that isn't really controllable in the real world. And you can use that in a positive way."
Roemer fell in love with film in the 1990s, during what he calls the "New Golden Age" of film, when films like "The Shawshank Redemption," "Forrest Gump" and "The Matrix" were coming out.
After graduating from Mansfield Christian School in 1999, Roemer moved to California to pursue his passion.
He started studying at the University of Southern California, where he quickly found a mentor who took him on shoots and encouraged him to make one of his scripts into a short film.
That film, "American Wet Dream," was met with a positive reception and was screened at the Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre alongside films made by graduate students. Roemer was just a freshman.
"It's the first and only time in my life I've ever been carried out of a room like a player in baseball game," Roemer said. "It's funny because even to this day, I make other stuff and people still refer to that film I made when I was 19."
After turning down a music video contract to make a movie that ended up falling through, Roemer decided to face his fears and try something new. He began taking acting classes, an experience he said has helped him as a director and inspired the Acting For Film class he now teaches at the Mansfield Art Center.
Roemer was a top student in his acting classes and has starred in some of his own films, but at the end of the day, his passion is for directing.
"When it comes down to it, I still like the combination of being versatile visually and versatile with the actors," Roemer said. "I think that's a deadly combination, and the best directors out there possess both equally."
Roemer dropped out of school and took a job at Access Hollywood, where he did red carpet interviews with celebrities like Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan and a longer interview with Ben Stiller.
Since then, Roemer has worked with Sony Pictures and had films like "The Select Fit" distributed by Lionsgate. He has a series of short films that are screened on cell phones around the world. His films have been screened Sundance, AFI Fest and LA Shorts Fest, where he was a finalist for the "DNA Award," the festival's top honor of a million dollar feature deal with Universal Pictures.
Roemer has made USA Film's Top 10 list of emerging directors. He's a two-time best director finalist on Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's "Project Greenlight" and a top 50 director finalist for Fox's reality show "On the Lot," produced by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett.
Being a finalist time and time again has been frustrating for Roemer, but it's also been an affirmation of his talent and efforts.
"It's not been just a one-time thing," he said. "It surprised me actually that I could make the cut, consistently, out of all the tens of thousands of people that submitted things from Hollywood and all over the country."
Roemer says he resorted to editing to pay the bills, but he continues to work on his own short films and feature films on the side.
Roemer now has a job editing for internet television and digital cable network Discovery Digital. After his boss moved from California to Tennessee, Roemer said he realized there was no reason for him to stay in Los Angeles, where the cost of living is high, when he could telecommute. Meanwhile, he felt he was being drawn home.
"I wanted to invest myself in a smaller town," Roemer said. "There's been studies about happiness and one thing that makes people happy is community, and when a community is working together to make something happen."
Roemer hopes to help foster a film community in Mansfield, starting with his class at the art center.
"It's been fun since I've been back because I feel like I've been embraced and I'm a part of the arts community," Roemer said. "There's a pretty big scene here and some very talented people. There's no shortage of talented people here in comparison to Los Angeles."
cmcnaull@gannett.com
419-521-7220
Twitter: @courtneymcnaull | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 3 | https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/05/business/010613-the-children-of-thinkfilm.html | en | The Children of ThinkFilm | [
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"BORN INTO BROTHELS (MOVIE)",
"Half Nelson (Movie)",
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] | null | [
"The New York Times"
] | 2014-01-05T00:00:00 | ThinkFilm was founded in 2001 as an independent art-house distributor by several former executives at Lionsgate. The company became known for award-winning films like “Born Into Brothels” and “Half Nelson.” After the company closed in 2008, many former ThinkFilm employees went on to lead new film businesses. | en | https://static01.nyt.com/favicon.ico | https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/05/business/010613-the-children-of-thinkfilm.html | ||||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 44 | https://culture360.asef.org/insights/tequila-journey-digital-filmmaking-and-distribution/ | en | Tequila: A Journey In Digital Filmmaking And Distribution | [
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"Film",
"Singapore"
] | null | [] | null | Producer Holman Chin takes us behind the scenes of the brand new Singapore digital feature, Tequila | en | /static/img/icons/apple-touch-icon.png | ASEF culture360 | http://culture360.asef.org/insights/tequila-journey-digital-filmmaking-and-distribution/ | Insights > Tequila: A Journey In Digital Filmmaking And Distribution
By Kerrine Goh
01 Oct 2004
Tequila: A Journey In Digital Filmmaking And Distribution
So you think you have a hot script that needs to be made into a film? You're in luck. Welcome to the digital revolution. While Hollywood studios have been steadily churning out glossy blockbuster flicks that have budgets upwards of USD$200 million (the GDP of a not so small country), a growing number of independents are producing quality movies for a mere fraction. In the past, the odds were incredibly stacked against would-be filmmakers when faced with the staggering costs of shooting on film and the lengthy postproduction process. Today, with affordable digital technology and user-friendly PC editing software, a film can be produced for as little as the tape cost. Granted, digital video is still nowhere as robust as film and often retains an amateurish “home movie” feel. But, the differences can be overcome with professional lighting techniques, special filters, and heavy color saturation in post. Digital video has opened up overwhelming possibilities in an otherwise closed industry.
Our story began in late 2002 when director, Jonathan Lim, approached me with a rough script about four friends who test the “true” meaning of friendship. Ironically, it was based on a collection of personal life experiences involving his immediate friends. In fact, he hadn't even changed the names of the scripted characters and was hoping to cast them as themselves. Several re-writes later, the 20-minute short somehow grew into an 82-minute feature called Tequila . Shot exclusively, on digital video (Sony PD150) and on a shoestring budget, Tequila was an altogether different experience from the short films we had previously shot. Making a feature felt like running a marathon; it required extreme discipline, redundant pre-planning, and lots of tough love. One shouldn't take for granted the luxury of doing infinite retakes on DV; focus on getting it right the first time! Our record number of retakes for a single scene was 39. Only Jonathan's tireless passion helped guide the cast and crew through many long nights of filming and an equally long postproduction.
In the spring of 2004, Tequila was finally done and we cried. But now we had to figure out what to do with it. As a small independent production, our marketing strategy was limited by our budget. Bypassing traditional film marketing methods, we adopted a guerilla style of film marketing and distribution, using every means from international digital video/Asian film festivals to Internet chat boards to word of mouth. The traditional theatrical release just didn't make sense given that the cost of the film print and theatrical advertising exceeded the film production cost by fourfold. For independent filmmakers, there are currently many new and exciting channels of distribution to have your film to be seen. You just need to be creative, diligent, and resourceful.
Gradually, we approached a few big local distributors in Singapore. Though helpful, they were overwhelmed with the distribution of Hollywood blockbuster titles. Understandably, it didn't make economic sense for them to take on a small independent film. So we decided to do it the hard way and build our own distribution network, knocking door to door and meeting with the retail outlets individually. The process is slow and tedious but rewarding. Thus far, a number of retail outlets such as HMV have agreed to stock the DVD pending approval by the Singapore censorship board (which is another story unto itself). Internationally, we have engaged a number of foreign distributors who will be selling the film in Asian and US territories. Incredibly, a few hundred copies of Tequila have already been sold internationally via the Tequila website (www.tequilathemovie.com). Says Jonathan Lim, “We didn't know what to expect but found that if your marketing is creative and targeted, people will be interested in your product.”
Two independent US film companies, InDigEnt and Think Film have been key sources of inspiration. Following the success of Tadpole , Tape , and Personal Velocity , InDigEnt has continued to produce critically acclaimed digital cinema using well-known actors such as Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Sigourney Weaver. Similarly, Think Film has produced the celebrated documentary, Spellbound , and the period piece, Bright Young Things . As independent film producers, we believe the formula for success is simple: good story/acting, strong distribution, and creative marketing. Given the groundbreaking advances in film technology and the dynamic resolve of filmmakers, the future of filmmaking has never been so promising.
Holman Chin is a producer for Crimson Forest Films, which was created in 2002 with an objective of producing high quality films with no creative or financial restrictions. He is also a freelance writer for various publications and projects.
For more information, contact:
email: holmanchin@crimsonforestfilms.com
website: www.crimsonforestfilms.com or www.tequilathemovie.com
Similar content | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 2 | https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/thinkfilm-at-5-140576/ | en | ThinkFilm at 5 | [
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] | null | [
"Gregg Goldstein",
"The Associated Press"
] | 2006-10-24T05:00:00+00:00 | ThinkFilm has thrived for five years in the dog-eat-dog world of New York indie film distribution. | en | The Hollywood Reporter | https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/thinkfilm-at-5-140576/ | Unsimulated gay sex. Improvised dialogue. No stars, and barely any professional actors. A $2 million budget cobbled together piecemeal. What distributor in its right mind would take on a film with as many risks as John Cameron Mitchell’s “Shortbus”? And after the controversial film became a critical hit at this year’s Festival de Cannes, what distributor would Mitchell trust to roll out such a minefield to the public?
The answer to both questions is ThinkFilm, a company that has grown over the past five years by taking exactly these kinds of chances, walking a tightrope without the net of corporate affiliation and nabbing several Oscars along the way. Born when Lions Gate Films opted to shutter its New York offices and move its headquarters to Los Angeles in 2001, ThinkFilm is comprised of former executives and assistants who worked in the company’s New York and Toronto offices and decided that staying indie — and staying in their hometowns — would be their priority.
The other key mandate, of course, was to seek out daring, challenging films, which can be a very risky business. For every movie like 2004’s children-of-prostitutes docu “Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red-Light Kids,” or the current critical darling “Half Nelson,” there have been boxoffice disasters like Gus Van Sant’s 2003 film “Gerry.” But such failures have not deterred this indie’s indie: At least one sure-to-be-controversial docu about a popular and ubiquitous four-letter word, “Fuck,” is set for release Nov. 10.
“Their name is very fitting, in that they truly believe audiences want to think and want to be challenged,” Film Society of Lincoln Center program director Richard Pena says. “Their audience is people who go to films to have their minds opened up, not to be pacified.”
Having founding staff members that were already a tight-knit, assimilated group has been one secret to ThinkFilm’s success. The core group that runs ThinkFilm today still largely consists of the original Lions Gate refugees, including former president Jeff Sackman; former president creative, East Coast Mark Urman; former vp home entertainment Marc Hirshberg; and former vp acquisitions and business affairs Randy Manis. Today, ThinkFilm employs 35 staffers, many of whom have risen internally like Daniel Katz, a once titleless Lions Gate employee whom ThinkFilm promoted to vp acquisitions in 2004.
“The idea was that there was no formal hierarchy,” ThinkFilm president and CEO Sackman says. “We put together a team of qualified, capable people who work well together, have the respect of the industry, the respect of each other — and just hustle.”
“They’ve shown they can be successful with films where other companies might say, ‘I don’t think there’s a market for this,'” Pena says. “They find the market. And any company with Mark Urman is at an immediate advantage. He has great taste, a wealth of experience and a great attitude.”
What got ThinkFilm going back in 2001, however, was more than just a solid group of employees. Sackman had a friend (whom he declines to name) who armed him with a low-seven-figure loan to acquire Canadian distribution rights to more than 40 films from Blackwatch Releasing, which was going out of business. The deal, which ThinkFilm senior vp finance and operations Hirshberg describes as “miraculous,” included the 2003 release “Last Wedding” (the opening-night selection for the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival) and many stateside Sony Pictures Classics releases including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which won the foreign-language Oscar in 2001.
The loan and the TV and video rights to the films “basically gave us our fuel to get going,” says Sackman, who repaid his friend within two years.
Before the official launch, says ThinkFilm U.S. theatrical head Urman, “We were subterranean and secretive — nobody knew what any of us was doing.” The company had a bittersweet debut at the Toronto fest just four days before the Sept. 11 attacks but rebounded in 2002 with three acquisition announcements at the Sundance Film Festival: Peter Care’s “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys,” Bart Freundlich’s “World Traveler” and Laurent Cantet’s “Time Out.”
Within two months, Think-Film founded its straight-to-video genre division, Velocity Home Entertainment, headed by Sackman and overseen by vp finance and operations Hirshberg, and made its first worldwide-rights-and-prebuy deal with Thom Fitzgerald’s “The Event.”
The company enjoyed solid growth until January 2003, when issues arose over ThinkFilm’s initial financial backing, and Sackman’s longtime friend, Alliance Communications founder Robert Lantos, stepped in, buying a 50% stake in the company and taking over as chairman. ThinkFilm received another cash infusion in August 2004, thanks to private equity from Canadian investment firms Covington Capital Corp. and Dynamic Venture Opportunities Fund.
As any independent distributor knows, money is hard to come by, and Urman attributes the company’s overall longevity to its intelligent use of resources. “What we spend on (prints and advertising) on some of our big boxoffice films relative to what other people spend is just so much less,” he says, comparing ThinkFilm’s summer release “Strangers With Candy” to another film from a studio specialty division that he declines to name.
“They went out on 800 prints to make something around $4 million, and we never did more than 100-and-something prints to make more than $2 million. They must have spent $7 million-$8 million in P&A, and we spent 1?5 of that. So, who’s making more money? It’s all about the bottom line.”
And it’s about the future. That expansion financing from 2004 helped ThinkFilm start releasing its theatrical features on DVD under the new ThinkFilm Home Entertainment label (alongside its Velocity straight-to-DVD titles). The company also has launched an international sales division, which debuted at Cannes in 2005 under the direction of Alliance Atlantis Pictures International president Mark Horowitz. ThinkFilm recently promoted David Fenkel from vp marketing to vp international sales, tasking him with heading up the company’s international division.
“It occurred to us that the international theatrical exploitation of nonfiction film was a growing market,” Urman says. “We were discovering these films at Sundance nobody knew anything about, getting them a great deal of attention, and then someone else was picking up international rights and making money. Why would we want something else to do that?
“It’s an advantage going into markets if you’re in a position to make a worldwide offer,” Urman continues. “One negotiation, one delivery — and you just have more to offer any buyer.”
And considering its positioning for the future, ThinkFilm has just begun to strike multipicture deals to build its brand and its relationships with filmmakers and stars.
Whether such arrangements lead to even bigger ambitions — such as a sale of the privately held company or a rethinking of ThinkFilm’s modus operandi — remains under wraps. Sackman will say only that “this company has been for sale since it started,” adding that he’s very content with the way the business is operating. “I’ve been in this business 20 years, and I’ve seen 50 distributors come and go,” he says, “So, I’m very proud of the fact that we continue to exist. Period.” | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 13 | https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/movies/26thin.html | en | The Director Alex Gibney Faults His Film’s Distributor, ThinkFilm | [] | [] | [] | [
""
] | null | [
"Charles Lyons"
] | 2008-06-26T00:00:00 | Alex Gibney, the director of this year’s Oscar-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side,” has filed for arbitration faulting his distributor, ThinkFilm. | en | /vi-assets/static-assets/favicon-d2483f10ef688e6f89e23806b9700298.ico | https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/movies/26thin.html | Alex Gibney, the director of this year’s Oscar-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side,” has filed for arbitration, asserting that its box office prospects were undermined by the financial troubles of the film’s distributor, ThinkFilm.
The demand for binding arbitration is the latest hurdle for ThinkFilm, and its owner, David Bergstein, who also owns Capitol Films. But it also comes at a critical time for an independent-film world buffeted by an overabundance of movies and financial challenges.
In a June 19 filing with the Independent Film & Television Alliance, an industry organization, Mr. Gibney’s company, X-Ray Productions, asserts that ThinkFilm defrauded him by not having the financing to distribute and promote “Taxi” properly and seeks to reclaim the film’s distribution rights. The complaint says ThinkFilm’s failure to pay vendors caused the film’s Web site to shut down, and that the company did not advertise the post-Oscar run in major magazines. Since its release in January, the movie has made less than $250,000 in theaters.
“I’m upset because the whole commercial strategy of the film was predicated on the idea of winning awards,” Mr. Gibney said. “The fact that they were fiscally unable to capitalize on the Oscar infuriated me for two reasons: They had been in financial difficulty for some time and hadn’t disclosed it to us; and we won the Oscar, and they still hadn’t disclosed it to us.”
While acknowledging ThinkFilm’s financial hardships, Mark Urman, its president, said the company had done right by “Taxi,” which told the story of an Afghan taxi driver who died while in custody at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
“From the time we acquired it, and throughout its release, no corner was cut and no expense was spared,” he added.
The feud between Mr. Urman, a well-regarded distributor of independent films including “Spellbound” and “Half Nelson,” and Mr. Gibney, the documentarian behind “Enron: The Smartest Boys in the Room” and the coming film about Hunter S. Thompson, “Gonzo” is the latest difficulty in the independent film world. Over the last few months Warner Brothers announced it was closing two high-profile companies created to distribute art-house films Warner Independent and Picturehouse while Paramount Pictures’ art-house label, Paramount Vantage, acknowledged it was laying off staff and retrenching.
Mark Gill, the president of the Film Department, another independent distribution and financing company, and the former president of Warner Independent, said the current downturn for independent film could be attributed to three things: “a glut of movies in the market, the turning off of the money spigot (due to the drying up of hedge-fund money), and a change in the way people spend their leisure time.”
“It used to be, ‘Mediocrity will be punished,’ ” Mr. Gill said by telephone from Los Angeles, where last weekend he delivered a cri de coeur about the state of independent film during the Los Angeles Film Festival. “Now it’s ‘If you’re not very good or great, you will be punished.’ ”
Bob Berney, the president of Picturehouse, which will officially cease operating in October, said, “I think the audience is still there, but that several of the business models and the way some of the truly independent companies were set up and funded are outdated.” He added, “Good films will always find a market.”
But that is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure. As private equity funds flowed into the movie world and businessmen wealthy from other endeavors decided to try their hand at film financing, movies particularly those not made by the Hollywood studios and their boutique divisions have proliferated. About 600 films were released in 2007; five years earlier that figure was under 450, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. And the vast majority of screens in the United States are devoted to the offerings from the big studios.
The result has been that small films, fighting for a finite number of screens, struggle for enough time to build an audience. If they don’t become a hit immediately, there’s another worthy film ready to grab the theater.
The key to longevity, say the presidents of two free-standing independents, Kino International and Zeitgeist Films, is to exercise restraint in both the amount of money allotted for purchasing completed films and in how advertising dollars are spent.
“We try to hedge our bets so we can stay in the game,” said Emily Russo, who with Nancy Gertsman runs Zeitgeist, which on Thursday night will celebrate its 20th anniversary with the opening of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, “Zeitgeist: The Films of Our Time.” “A lot of the companies that came and went, came and went in a bigger, splashier way than we have ever done.”
Don Krim of Kino said his company’s survival for more than three decades had been due in large part to its library of over 500 films, which provides a steady revenue through DVD and ancillary sales. “We don’t hit many home runs, but we have a lot of singles and doubles and occasionally a triple,” he said. “We can do fine with a movie that doesn’t do a million at the box office. But the studio classics divisions need to do $1 million to $2 million to be profitable.”
While never a major player in independent dramatic films, ThinkFilm has quietly made its niche a cache of smart documentaries. A reduced ThinkFilm would make it even tougher for independent documentary filmmakers to find a distributor, and a reduction seems likely.
There is a steadily increasing list of filmmakers, publicists and others who have begun to make public their complaints against ThinkFilm and its owner since 2006, Mr. Bergstein of Capitol.
Shooting on “Nailed,” the new David O. Russell film, has been shut down several times by the Screen Actors Guild and other unions because Capitol was not meeting its payroll obligations. (Mr. Bergstein and representatives for Capitol in Los Angeles did not return phone calls.) The producer Albie Hecht, for example, said he was still waiting for a six-figure advance that he said had been promised after ThinkFilm acquired “War/Dance,” an Oscar-nominated documentary by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix in September 2006. Like Mr. Gibney, Mr. Hecht has filed for arbitration with ThinkFilm.
“It pains me to do this,” the publicist Nancy Willen said, referring to her lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in April against ThinkFilm and Capitol Films. “I’ve had a long, productive working relationship with Mark Urman since early in my career. However I now have my own business and simply can’t afford this.” | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 9 | https://www.amazon.com/Bordertown-Cate-Blanchett/dp/B0051O0NCK | en | Amazon.com | [
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4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 49 | https://sva.libguides.com/film | en | SVA Library Research Guides at School of Visual Arts | [
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"Rebecca Clark"
] | null | SVA Library resources for Film studies. Use the tabs to toggle between pages. | en | https://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/customers/3062/images/favicon.ico | https://sva.libguides.com/film/home | The SVA Library owns 10,000 film titles on DVD and Blu-ray, and the Film Library owns over 15,000 titles.
The library also has well over 1,000 unpublished shooting film scripts, which appear in various draft stages and sometimes include annotations from the writer. Our main book collection also has a large collection of commercially published scripts.
All can be searched from the Library Catalog.
The library also subscribes to many streaming film collections: | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 52 | https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/g34287899/psychological-horror-movies/ | en | 64 Psychological Horror Movies That Will Seriously Mess With Your Head | [
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"Evan Romano"
] | 2020-10-09T22:57:54.492683+00:00 | 64 psychological horror movies, from 'Nope,' to 'Midsommar,' to 'Silence of the Lambs' that will seriously scare you. | en | /_assets/design-tokens/menshealth/static/images/favicon.800c51a.ico | Men's Health | https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/g34287899/psychological-horror-movies/ | We love all kinds of horror movies. Some people might hear "horror" and think first about classic monsters of the genre—zombies, Frankenstein's monster, vampires, etc—and that's all good and dandy. Others might jump to the slasher pool—big, scary bad guys like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers picking off unsuspecting victims and scream queens one by one—those are damn awesome too. But perhaps the most unheralded but deeply-loved subgenre of the horror world are the psychological horrors; movies that don't necessarily have a supernatural monster or happening at their core (though sometimes they also do!) but mostly focus on some sort of slow, methodical unraveling of a mind.
These stories can happen just about anywhere. Sometimes, it can be in the backdrop of a criminal investigation, a hunt for a killer or suspect. Other times, it can be in a city. It can be at home, or at a ballet recital, or in the midst of aging—these stories, really can happen to any and everyone. And, really, that's the whole point; not only are our characters feeling disconnected from reality, but so, too, are we the viewers. And at the end of the day, we're the ones really getting our brains fucked.
Some of the best movies you'll ever see fall into this genre. Can you imagine a world without Stanley Kubrick's The Shining? A masterpiece that basically shaped the landscape that made way for what's been the last 40+ years of great horror movies (and included a quasi-sequel in Doctor Sleep from director Mike Flanagan). And there's more where that comes from. Blumhouse, the production company behind movies like Get Out and Happy Death Day almost exclusively makes movies that either explicitly or tangentially fit into this group.
But we digress—too much talk about the future when there's already a ton of great psychological horror films for you to watch right now. So without further ado, here's the best of the bunch. | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 30 | https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bordertown_1935 | en | Bordertown (1935) | https://resizing.flixster.com/nznhycn69LUO3TONmEl4TsV4QOo=/206x305/v2/https://resizing.flixster.com/cgClw9ZFkrlV0TsPfNM22CvAvvo=/ems.cHJkLWVtcy1hc3NldHMvbW92aWVzLzc5ZTcyYjdmLTlkMDEtNDgwMy04OWE4LTA5Y2M2NDUwZjI4NS53ZWJw | https://resizing.flixster.com/nznhycn69LUO3TONmEl4TsV4QOo=/206x305/v2/https://resizing.flixster.com/cgClw9ZFkrlV0TsPfNM22CvAvvo=/ems.cHJkLWVtcy1hc3NldHMvbW92aWVzLzc5ZTcyYjdmLTlkMDEtNDgwMy04OWE4LTA5Y2M2NDUwZjI4NS53ZWJw | [
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] | null | [] | null | After the L.A. judicial system disbars him following an angry outburst, recent law-school graduate Johnny Ramirez (Paul Muni) finds a job at a small casino south of the border. When Johnny's creative ideas help transform the failing casino into a high-class operation, the owner (Eugene Pallette) makes him the co-owner. But the owner's obsessive wife, Marie (Bette Davis), falls in love with Johnny, causing his life to spiral into a snare of jealousy, deceit and murder. | en | https://www.rottentomatoes.com/assets/pizza-pie/images/favicon.ico | Rotten Tomatoes | https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bordertown_1935 | Let's keep in touch!
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 29 | https://www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/actors-called-out-hollywood-diversity | en | 21 Actors On Lack Of Diversity In Hollywood | [
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"Morgan Sloss"
] | 2023-02-01T20:16:04+00:00 | In an interview, Lana Condor said, "The world is deeply and vastly colorful, and I’m like, well, don’t you want to watch something that accurately reflects the world as the way that it really is, and not just, like, the Kate Hudsons of the world getting to fall in love in a rom-com?" | en | /static-assets/_next/static/images/favicon-496b7cee633e6a7dca162654e1bb39c9.ico | BuzzFeed | https://www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/actors-called-out-hollywood-diversity | "I Was Like A Guinea Pig On Set": 21 Actors Who've Called Out Hollywood's Need For Increased Diversity Behind And In Front Of The Cameras
In an interview, Lana Condor said, "The world is deeply and vastly colorful, and I’m like, well, don’t you want to watch something that accurately reflects the world as the way that it really is, and not just, like, the Kate Hudsons of the world getting to fall in love in a rom-com?"
1. Lana Condor
Last year, the To All the Boys actor told NBC Asian America, "I believe my life purpose as an entertainer is to make people feel seen and make people feel less alone. I hold a lot of pride in doing that. I think film and television is like this weird little world, and if you don’t have a mission, it can sometimes feel a little superficial, like, what am I doing? And so I really, really, really want to represent the Asian community and normalize seeing us in mainstream film and television."
She continued, "Media in general influences — for good or for bad — the real world. And I don’t understand why, in film and television or particularly in this genre, why it’s been mostly reserved for women that do not look like me. I just don’t understand that, because the world is deeply and vastly colorful, and I’m like, well, don’t you want to watch something that accurately reflects the world as the way that it really is, and not just, like, the Kate Hudsons of the world getting to fall in love in a rom-com? Honestly, it just baffles me."
2. Anthony Mackie
During Variety's Actors on Actors interview with Daveed Diggs, Anthony said, "It really bothered me that I’ve done seven Marvel movies where every producer, every director, every stuntperson, every costume designer, every PA, every single person has been white. We’ve had one Black producer; his name was Nate Moore. He produced Black Panther."
He added, "But then, when you do Black Panther, you have a Black director, Black producer, a Black costume designer, a Black stunt choreographer. And I’m like, that’s more racist than anything else. Because if you only can hire the Black people for the Black movie, are you saying they’re not good enough when you have a mostly white cast?"
You can watch the full interview here (this conversation starts at 16:50):
3. Elliot Page
During a 2021 interview, the Umbrella Academy actor told Oprah that there should be more roles where "trans people [get] to be people," rather than storylines always focusing on "intense trauma, violence, or the idea that there's mental illness." He said there need to be "new narratives" that represent the full humanity of trans people.
In order for that to happen, Elliot said, trans folks need the opportunities to tell their own stories. "What's so important in terms of representation in front of the camera but equally behind the camera — for writers and directors to continue to tell more stories from the perspective of trans people."
4. Ross Butler
In a 2018 essay penned for Teen Vogue, the 13 Reasons Why actor wrote, "Thanks to years of tropes and typecasting of Asian men in entertainment, you may make assumptions about me without even knowing me. If you see me walking down the street, I don’t want you to immediately pin me as a martial artist or a nerd without getting to know me. Sure, I may know martial arts and I may have nerd tendencies, but at least buy me a coffee and find those things out before just assuming. You’ll also learn I play guitar, not violin, and I practice capoeira, not Tae Kwon Do."
Ross added, "How many times have you seen an Asian American actor play the romantic lead? A villain that isn’t one-note? What about a character whose function was more nuanced than that?"
5. Gabrielle Union
In an essay for Glamour, she shared her experience as a young actor in Hollywood, where Black hairstylists weren't often hired. "I realized very quickly that there were many people in hair and makeup trailers who were totally unqualified to do my hair. Hairstylists used Aqua Net–like hairspray with crazy amounts of alcohol, which caused chunks of my hair to literally come off on a styling tool," she said.
Now that she's come so far in her career, she has the power to choose her own stylists. However, she tweeted that it's still challenging to find good ones, for numerous reasons. "The outright refusal to hire Black & POC folks who are in the union AND the insane and unequal hurdles that are put up for these artists to join the union. When talent puts Black or POC artists in their contract, the treatment of those artists when they are working is shameful."
6. America Ferrera
"When I started out, it was not very clear that there was any room for someone like me," she recalled during a 2022 interview with MSNBC's Morning Joe. "Movies like Real Women Have Curves, TV shows like Ugly Betty, they had never existed before. I think we have a long way to go, and a lot of it has to do with decision-makers. We need to see more Latinos in executive rooms, as producers, as the folks who are making decisions about what stories get told and who gets to tell them."
She continued, "I’m a lot more aware now of what it takes to really make it in an industry where there is no representation [and] there aren’t people like you invested in your stories. If it’s gonna change, we’re the ones who have to change it."
You can watch the full interview here:
7. Simu Liu
Last year, Quentin Tarantino made some controversial comments about Marvel movies. On the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast, he said, "Part of the Marvel-ization of Hollywood is you have all these actors who have become famous playing these characters. But they’re not movie stars. Right? Captain America is the star, or Thor is the star." And in 2019, Martin Scorsese said that Marvel movies were "not cinema."
Simu responded to both directors in now-deleted tweets. "If the only gatekeepers to movie stardom came from Tarantino and Scorsese, I would never have had the opportunity to lead a $400 million plus movie. I am in awe of their filmmaking genius. They are transcendent auteurs. But they don't get to point their nose at me or anyone," he wrote.
"No movie studio is or ever will be perfect. But I'm proud to work with one that has made sustained efforts to improve diversity onscreen by creating heroes that empower and inspire people of all communities everywhere. I loved the 'Golden Age' too.. but it was white as hell."
8. Yalitza Aparicio
During a 2020 interview with IndieWire, the Roma actor said, "My objective in my career is to give visibility to all of us who have been kept in the dark for so long. The acting projects I’m working on are moving slowly because I’m putting all my efforts in not being pigeonholed because of my appearance."
Yalitza continued, "Wherever I go, I’ll always be proudly representing our Indigenous communities. I’m conscious that every step I take may open doors for someone else, and at the same time, it’s an opportunity for society to realize we are part of it and that we are here."
9. Brie Larson
After starring in Captain Marvel — the MCU's first woman-led superhero movie — Brie told Variety, "I’m happy to be on the forefront of the normalization of this type of content and to prove once again that representation matters. Diverse storytelling matters, the female experience matters, and these are markers. So it’s something I’ve always known, and I think a lot of people always knew, but this is just normalizing."
The interviewer brought up that he never thought he'd see an LGBTQ superhero, and Brie replied, "That breaks my heart to hear that, because there’s no reason. I don’t understand how you could think that a certain type of person isn’t allowed to be a superhero. So to me, it’s like, we gotta move faster. But I’m always wanting to move faster with this stuff."
10. Lucy Liu
During a 2020 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, the Elementary actor opened up about the struggle of being a young Asian actor in Hollywood. "I think I was just too naive and didn't know what was ahead of me or what I was going to be up against. I had some idea when I got to LA, because a friend of mine would have 10 auditions in a day or a week, and I would have maybe two or three in a month, so I knew it was going to be much more limited for me."
In 2019, she told Variety, "Everyone was willing to have me on their roster, but not commit to me because they didn’t know, realistically, how many auditions I could get. The challenge from the beginning was just the diversity, and 'We don’t really know what to do with you,' and 'There’s not going to be a lot of work for you.'"
11. David Oyelowo
In 2016, all of the Oscars acting nominations went to white people for the second year in a row, sparking the #OscarsSoWhite conversation and boycott. At a gala, David slammed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, saying, "For 20 opportunities to celebrate actors of color, actresses of color, to be missed last year is one thing; for that to happen again this year is unforgivable."
He added, "The reason why the Oscars are so important is because it is the zenith, it is the epitome, it is the height of celebration of artistic endeavor within the filmmaking community. We grow up aspiring, dreaming, longing to be accepted into that august establishment because it is the height of excellence. I would like to walk away and say it doesn’t matter, but it does, because that acknowledgment changes the trajectory of your life, your career, and the culture of the world we live in."
12. Amandla Stenberg
During her acceptance speech for the Human Rights Campaign’s Visibility Award, the Hunger Games actor said, "It can definitely be strange to be vulnerable in matters of personal identity when you’re navigating it in a public manner, specifically within the very straight confines of Hollywood."
She continued, "Had I had more representations of Black gay women growing up, I probably would have come to conclusions around my sexuality much earlier, because I would have had more of a conception around what is possible and okay."
You can watch her full speech here:
13. Kelly Marie Tran
During a 2022 interview with StarWars.com, the actor shared that growing up with mostly white faces in TV and movies deeply influenced what she believed was possible for herself. "I was auditioning for a lot of stuff and getting really close to [landing roles], mostly sitcoms, and at the time, I remember telling myself, Oh, Kelly, one day in a perfect world, you'll be able to be the sidekick on a sitcom," she said.
"So my big break was in 2016 when I was offered the role of Rose in Episode VIII. As I was auditioning for Star Wars, it was a six-month process. I never thought to myself that I would actually get it because, again, I keep going back to this idea, this culture of belief. But, like, I grew up watching those movies, and they are all white. So I just was like, Oh, I'm obviously not gonna get this, but one day, I’ll tell my grandchildren how lucky I was to audition for this thing, and that was a cool thing that I did."
Kelly said, "I still think that there are just things inside of me that I have to overcome ... and I would say that because of the world that I grew up in, there a lot of things, instinctually, that I do or that I think that I have to unlearn, because I was so socialized to believe that certain people belong in certain spaces and other people don't."
14. Tessa Thompson
In 2019, the Westworld actor told Remezcla, "I’m someone who talks a lot about representation. It’s important that we see more Black women onscreen. Sometimes there isn’t necessarily a conversation around the nuance of what kind of Black woman. I mean, we are not a monolith."
Tessa continued, "In Hollywood, I don’t think there’s enough real representation and nuance in that space. I see a lot of incredible Afro-Latinas working, but I’m not sure that there are enough stories told that speak to that particular experience."
15. Dev Patel
During a 2021 interview with the Guardian, the Lion actor shared that he expected big roles after the success of Slumdog Millionaire, but that didn't happen. Instead, he had to "wait for an Indian role to come by, where I could put on a thick accent because there wasn’t anything else. It was literally the clichés: goofy sidekick, taxi driver." For a while, he didn’t work.
He's also struggled in an industry where he's often viewed as not Indian enough and not British enough. "Where am I allowed to exist? How specific are we going to get with this? What does it mean to be an actor — to just be yourself? Am I only allowed to play a guy who’s 31 years old? Are you going to check my blood type?" he asked.
16. Aubrey Plaza
On an episode of the Highly Relevant podcast, the White Lotus actor said, "In my own way, I feel like I try to portray Hispanic characters that aren't the stereotypes because I think that's one thing we're really up against. Especially Latina women."
She continued, "There's such a stereotype there, and there are so many different kinds of Hispanic women and people that we just don't even see. They're not represented on film or on television. It's just the same archetypes over and over again."
You can watch the full interview here (this conversation starts at 15:50):
17. Daniel Dae Kim
Last year, the Hawaii Five-0 actor told Esquire, "When my kids are watching shows, my wife and I always did this natural thing, which was whenever there was an Asian face onscreen, to point it out to say, 'Look.' Whether it was a major motion picture or commercial, you say, 'Look.' And so just by doing that, it kind of created a dynamic where you would notice when you didn't see it."
Daniel continued, "'Thank you for thinking about that,' I would tell them. Because it's true. As much as I love that show, when it came to diversity, it was … challenged, shall we say. It’s important that we look at all of our entertainment through our lens."
18. Yara Shahidi
During a 2019 interview with Glamour UK, the Grown-ish actor recalled, "I was talking to an editor of a magazine, and this magazine was supposed to represent women in Hollywood. It was really important to me that there was diversity in who they chose to celebrate. We reached out, making sure they were considering it, and they were like, 'Of course!' I show up, and the three actresses who are there — who are wonderful people, by the way — look like triplets. But they had chosen the most homogeneous group possible."
Yara added, "I know my experience is not everyone’s experience, and it becomes reductive if I’m the only person there to represent 'the other.' I chose to opt out of the roundtable."
19. Gemma Chan
During a 2021 interview with Vogue, the Eternals actor said, "It’s only a fairly recent thing that Asian females have been able to be the protagonists of stories. Individual successes are one thing. But structurally, when you look at who can actually get projects green-lit in the UK, who are in those positions of power, those gatekeeping positions — there aren’t that many Asians. There aren’t many people of color in those positions."
20. Laverne Cox
In an essay written for ShondaLand, the Orange Is the New Black actor wrote, "I have been obsessed for a long time with how the perception of trans people has been shaped by the ways we have been represented in film and on television. I grew up in Mobile, Alabama, with media images of trans folks that exacerbated the shame I felt about who I am. As a child, I was endlessly bullied, and my teachers warned my mother about my future if I didn't change."
Laverne also wrote, "In a recent study, GLAAD found that 80% of Americans don't personally know someone who is transgender. So much of what most Americans know (or think they know) about trans people, they learn through the media. This makes the ways in which trans folks are portrayed on screen a matter of life or death for many of us."
21. And finally: Viola Davis
While discussing her recent roles in a 2019 Yahoo News interview, the How to Get Away With Murder actor said, "The most important question you can ask as a person is 'Why?' Why do I have to be lighter than a paper bag in order to be sexualized? Why do I have to have a lighter voice? Why do I have to be younger? Why can't I be exactly who I am, and be as complicated as I am?"
She continued, "I reject everything anyone ever said about me or anyone who has ever looked like me. I'm all things, everything. That's what I want to interject out there."
You can watch the full interview here (this conversation starts at 6:36):
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4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 67 | http://www.moxiecinema.com/films/a-fistful-of-dollars-1964 | en | A Fistful of Dollars (1964) | http://www.moxiecinema.com/uploads/films/_cover/dollars_poster.jpg | [
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] | null | [] | null | en | /img/favicon.png | Moxie Cinema | http://www.moxiecinema.com/films/a-fistful-of-dollars-1964 | Essential Western Films This new quarterly series showcases the “essential” films everyone should see on the big screen. For each month-long program, we’ll screen five films organized by one of the following themes: directors, actors, genres, and eras/movements. Essential tickets are $9 for Adults, $8 for Students/Seniors and Members get in Free! By the time Sergio Leone made this film, Italians had already produced about 20 films ironically labelled "spaghetti westerns." Leone approached the genre with great love and humor. Although the plot was admittedly borrowed from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), Leone managed to create a work of his own that would serve as a model for many films to come. Clint Eastwood plays a cynical gunfighter who comes to a small border town and offers his services to two rivaling gangs. Neither gang is aware of his double play, and each thinks it is using him, but the stranger will outwit them both. The picture was the first installment in a cycle commonly known as the "Dollars" trilogy. Later, United Artists, who distributed it in the U.S., coined another term for it: the "Man With No Name" trilogy. While not as impressive as its follow-ups For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), A Fistful of Dollars contains all of Leone's eventual trademarks: taciturn characters, precise framing, extreme close-ups, and the haunting music of Ennio Morricone. Not released in the U.S. until 1967 due to copyright problems, the film was decisive in both Clint Eastwood's career and the recognition of the Italian western. ~ Yuri German, Rovi Summary: A wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge.
Watch Trailer | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 32 | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/executive-decision/article1103819/ | en | Executive Decision | [
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"Grant Robertson"
] | 2006-09-16T04:08:16+00:00 | The Globe and Mail offers the most authoritative news in Canada, featuring national and international news | en | The Globe and Mail | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/executive-decision/article1103819/ | For Jeff Sackman and the other executives at ThinkFilm, revenge will be a dish served cold. Antarctic cold. Coming soon, the Toronto-based movie distributor will release Farce of the Penguins into theatres, the brainchild of comedian and former sitcom dad, Bob Saget.
The film doesn't just poke fun at 2005's massively successful March of the Penguins, it skewers the feel-good nature flick, which grossed a stunning $122-million (U.S.) at the box office and went on to claim the best documentary feature prize at the Oscars.
While March of the Penguins poetically tracks the epic lengths the species goes to each year to mate, Farce of the Penguins chronicles "one bird's search for love while on a 70-mile trek with his hedonistic buddies."
Mr. Sackman smirks. That should show them. After all, it was March of the Penguins that beat out ThinkFilm's edgy Murderball at the Academy Awards this year, even though many critics pegged it as the best documentary of 2005.
But aside from the pleasure he may get from poking fun (Mr. Sackman insists he isn't anti-penguin, as Farce was in the works long before the Oscars), the coming release is the quintessential ThinkFilm movie. It is controversial, relatively inexpensive to get the distribution rights for and will practically market itself through buzz on the street.
That, in a sentence, has become the ThinkFilm recipe. The company doesn't merely court controversy, it milks scandal for all it's worth. Five years after launching ThinkFilm, Mr. Sackman and his colleagues have carved out a niche as the distributor that goes after the kinds of movies most companies won't touch.
Browse through a list of their titles and you get a sense of ThinkFilm's strategy as a movie distributor. There is the documentary, Fuck, an exploration of the world's most famous expletive. There is The Aristocrats, a film no other distributor would touch because it involves comedians telling the same crass joke over and over. ThinkFilm bought the rights for it and parlayed the movie into $7-million at the box office, a healthy sum for a small production, despite threats of being banned from some theatres.
Then there is Shortbus, the much anticipated film at this year's Toronto International Film Festival that drew gasps from audiences at Cannes for its vivid sex scenes. ThinkFilm picked up on that reaction, saw the potential for controversy and media attention, and jumped aboard as a distributor for the film.
Shortbus is a perfect example of ThinkFilm's strategy, Mr. Sackman says. The distribution business is all about marketing. The biggest companies will spend dollars, but the smaller ones find other means to generate buzz. When a theatre chain in the United States threatened to refuse The Aristocrats, Mr. Sackman admits he loved every minute of the free advertising the film got from the media coverage.
With Shortbus, Mr. Sackman may be the only person at the Toronto film festival this week to have hired an obscenity consultant. A lawyer familiar with the content of Shortbus approached ThinkFilm recently to counsel the company if it gets into trouble in U.S. states where decency laws may come into play.
"He saw the film and said 'there's no concern there, but you should still hire me.' The idea is to protect yourself," Mr. Sackman says. "If we played in Alabama and it violates their community standards, it could be an issue, so now we've got a specialist in First Amendment rights . . . none of us really believe [the threat is real] But it cracks me up that somebody said that."
When ThinkFilm started five years ago, courting controversy was a conscious decision. The company intentionally stays out of the industry association in the United States that requires all members to have their films rated. That way, ThinkFilm can pick up risky movies that other companies would avoid because they require a rating. The company then sends them into theatres without a rating, usually drawing headlines along the way.
"We seem to have become synonymous with edgy and controversial material," Mr. Sackman says. "We don't love those films simply for salacious purposes, we love them because they are clay that we know how to mould."
That approach hasn't kept the company from garnering respect, however. ThinkFilm's picks have won several accolades, including an Oscar for the documentary Born into Brothels and the nomination for Murderball.
"Once you're at the theatre, it's an equal playing field," Mr. Sackman says. With Shortbus set to be released soon, Mr. Sackman is hoping to draw the ire of someone. It will help the film immensely.
"Please," he says in his office, mocking a fictional conversation with Canadian film raters. "Call this porn. Somebody please do it."
ThinkFilm is a private company, so its balance sheet is a guarded secret. However, it is profitable, Mr. Sackman says. It has also been at the centre of rumours that it is up for sale, which Mr. Sackman confirms by saying: "ThinkFilm has been up for sale since it started."
Once again, he is stoking publicity for the firm, which has lasted five years in a business with much bigger competitors threatening to trample people like Mr. Sackman.
"People think you can just get into this business because it looks easy in some respects," he says. "Well, if that's what they think, then come right in."
Jeff Sackman, president and CEO, ThinkFilm
Age: 46
Family: Married, with twin six-year-olds.
Career background: Began in the industry in 1985 as an executive with Cineplex Odeon. Former president of Lions Gate. Started ThinkFilm in 2001.
Education: Master of business administration degree with a specialty in film from Syracuse University. Bachelor of commerce degree from McGill University.
Management style: "It's best described as horizontal where everybody has a role where we don't follow a strict hierarchy. I look at all the roles as side to side instead of top to bottom."
Strategy for finding the next hit film: "You can have a hard and fast plan, but we find opportunism and flexibility is the best. There are always films that emerge from festivals that create a buzz, which we will then pounce upon and try to outwit the competition and gain the rights."
Savviest move: Taking the controversial film The Aristocrats to better-than-expected box office success, even though the film centres around the repeated telling of a lewd joke by a variety of comedians and no major distributor would touch it.
Biggest disappointment: When the Oscar-nominated documentary Murderball, about wheelchair rugby players, did not meet box office expectations despite almost unanimous critical acclaim. " Murderball goes down as the biggest disappointment of my career."
Favourite movies: The Godfather and Raiders of the Lost Ark. "My personal favourite is a film called The Stunt Man, which is a classic that I try to foist on all the young people in the office."
TEXT: GRANT ROBERTSON PHOTO: AARON HARRIS/THE GLOBE AND MAIL | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 71 | https://brothers-ink.com/2019/11/front-page-woman-1935-by-the-numbers/ | en | Front Page Woman (1935) By The Numbers | [
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] | null | I'm starting a new category today for a slew of upcoming blog posts where I analyze a specific movie and break it down | en | https://brothers-ink.com/2019/11/front-page-woman-1935-by-the-numbers/ | I’m starting a new category today for a slew of upcoming blog posts where I analyze a specific movie and break it down “by the numbers”. This gives us a chance to discuss the film as the sum total of all its parts.
The first movie to roll out By The Numbers, is the mystery comedy, Front Page Woman, starring Bette Davis, George Brent and Roscoe Karns, directed by Michael Curtiz, written by Laird Doyle, Lillie Hayward, and Roy Chanslor from a story by Richard Macaulay and photographed by Tony Gaudio.
I have just recently discovered this fantastic little mystery, and I was surprised at how engaging it was. Not only is it a great little comedy but a fine little who-done-it, to boot. It’s a shame that Bette Davis and George Brent didn’t do more of these types of battle of the sexes comedies more often as they are a charismatic pair, for sure. The New York Times said, “The three writers who adapted it . . . did a clever script job and Michael Curtiz directed at a brisk pace. Add to that a cast with a neat sense of comedy and you have an excellent tonic for the mid-July doldrums.” Reminds me of the glorious Tracey-Hepburn and Powell-Loy films…and it’s no wonder that George Brent and Bette Davis would go on to make 11 films together, most of them, dramas!
So Big! (1932)
The Rich Are Always with Us (1932)
Housewife (1934)
Front Page Woman (1935)
Special Agent (1935)
The Golden Arrow (1936)
Jezebel (1938)
Dark Victory (1939)
The Old Maid (1939)
The Great Lie (1941)
In This Our Life (1942)
Bette Davis signed a contract with Warner Bros in 1932 and stayed with the studio for 18 years! Warner Bros was a movie factory back then, just pumping up the box office with film after film. Warner Bros would release 53 films the year Front Page Woman was released in 1935! Bette Davis was in 5 of them in 1935, which is crazy as actors today do 1 or 2 a year on average and leading actors will do 1 every two years these days. Here’s a list of the five movies she made in 1935:
Front Page Woman (1935)
Special Agent (1935)
Border Town (1935)
Girl From 10th Avenue (1935)
Dangerous (1935)
Bette Davis, over her lifetime, would be nominated for 11 Academy Awards, winning the first of two of her Oscars in 1935 with her role in Dangerous. Her other Oscar would be for Jezebel (1938).
In contrast, George Brent would release 7 films in 1935:
The Right to Live (1935)
Living on Velvet (1935)
Stranded (1935)
Front Page Woman (1935)
Special Agent (1935)
The Goose and the Gander (1935)
In Person (1935)
Whereas Bette Davis and George Brent loved working together, Bette and director Michael Curtiz hated working together. And yet they would work together 7 times. She felt he concentrated too much on the camera and not enough with the actors, especially her. Their movies together are:
The Cabin in the Cotton (1932)
20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
Jimmy The Gent (1934)
Front Page Woman (1935)
Marked Woman (1937)
Kid Galahad (1937)
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
No one would deny that Curtiz knew his stuff as a director, although. He had an incredible track record for making the finest films and working with the finest actors. He directed 102 films and after being accused by Bette Davis as not being an actor’s director, would see 10 actors nominated for Oscars under his direction. He directed some truly classic feature films including Charge of the Light Brigade, Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, and White Christmas. He was so good that he would end up with 4 Academy Award nominations and the 1 win for Casablanca in 1944 (although, he won another Oscar for directing a short film, The Sons of Liberty, in 1939).
In 1935 alone he would direct an unfathomable (is that a word?) 6 movies! That blows my mind when you think a director takes 2-3 years on average to make 1 film. A busy director now-a-days makes 2 a year at most. Here’s a list of the films he directed in 1935:
Black Fury (1935)
The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)
Go Into Your Dance (1935)
Front Page Woman (1935)
Little Big Shot (1935)
Captain Blood (1935)
Cinematographer Tony Gaudio had a good relationship with Michael Curtiz and would photograph 3 of Michael Curtiz’s films in 1935 along with 5 more movies! These people are studio workhorses! He was also a favorite of Bette Davis and worked with her on 11 films, just like George Brent! He would end up with 6 Academy Award nominations and a win for Anthony Adverse in 1936.
His films in 1935 are:
Bordertown (1935) with Bette Davis
The White Cockapoo (1935)
Go Into Your Dance (1935) with Michael Curtiz
Oil For the Lamps of China (1935) with screenwriter Laird Doyle
Front Page Woman (1935) *Everyone in Article
Little Big Shot (1935) with Michael Curtiz
Case of the Lucky Legs (1935)
Dr. Socrates (1935)
You can start to see the numbers…it gets staggering when you think about all the connections! But we’re not done yet!
The next member of the circle, going by the numbers is screenwriter Laird Doyle, who would write 6 films produced by Warner Bros in 1935, and a total of 4 of the 5 made with Bette Davis! It goes without saying that Bette Davis loved working with his material and would go on to win the Oscar with a role in his script, Dangerous, by the end of the year. He would have done amazing things, I’m sure, but sadly shortly thereafter, died suddenly in a plane crash in 1936. The screenplays he wrote in 1935 were:
Bordertown (1935) Davis, Gaudio
Front Page Woman (1935) All
Special Agent (1935) Davis, Brent
Dangerous (1935) Davis
Oil For the Lamps of China (1935) Gaudio
Stars Over Broadway (1935)
Last but not least in the circle by the numbers is one of the finest character actors to ever grace the silver screen…Roscoe Karns. An extremely prolific actor with close to 150 movies and over 300 TV episodes to his name. Roscoe made 6 films in 1935:
Front Page Woman (1935)
Wings in the Dark (1935)
Red Hot Tires (1935)
Four Hours to Kill (1935)
Alibi Ike (1935)
Two Fisted (1935)
To me, he’s a special case because he’s in or connected to 4 of my all time favorite movies:
It Happened One Night (1934)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Woman of the Year (1942)
…and his son Todd Karns plays James Stewart’s Brother in:
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Todd Karns also plays Roscoe Karns’s Detective partner in Rocky King, Detective.
So, there we go by the numbers– it’s all about connections and how all these amazing filmmakers, actors and writers are all linked, making some of the finest films ever made. If you are not a big watcher of black and white films, but want to see what all the fuss is about– here’s a good place to start… just go to the beginning of the list and start watching…you won’t regret a single second! I wish I could go back and discover all these wonderful films and all these fabulous people for the first time all over again. | ||||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 68 | https://www.bondofficial.com/culture/bondofficial/edwindelarenta | en | British Actor, Edwin De La Renta On 'The Informer' And Social Responsibility Within Film — BOND OFFICIAL | http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b857714620b854721b8e6da/5b8d76cf758d467f377cadd9/5f74e44967fba1233b16d565/1681752636927/_MG_5749.jpg?format=1500w | http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b857714620b854721b8e6da/5b8d76cf758d467f377cadd9/5f74e44967fba1233b16d565/1681752636927/_MG_5749.jpg?format=1500w | [
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"Caleb Church"
] | 2020-10-01T14:56:10-04:00 | Ahead of the U.S. release of his latest film, The Informer, Edwin De La Renta engages in conversation across cultural events within the film industry. | en | https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b857714620b854721b8e6da/1548115015770-U5QEMQ6NG3Z3U8VDVSLO/favicon.ico?format=100w | BOND OFFICIAL | Modern Men. Modern Stories | https://www.bondofficial.com/culture/bondofficial/edwindelarenta | Real - A word that could easily used to describe Edwin De La Renta. Energetic, friendly, and wrapped in an air of warmth.
Born and raised in London, Edwin studied at the Sylvia Young Theater School, before moving on to Goldsmiths University where he earned his degree in sociology.
Naturally drawn to the license of trying as many things as possible, Edwin transitioned into acting starting fairly 7 years ago. The simple reason of cultural enlightenment through film is what brings Edwin contentment. With each role comes a whole new world to unravel when he gets into character and this reason summarizes his sustained interest in the industry. “Often you’re learning about a whole different occupation if it’s steeped in realism,” he says, “Or even if it’s not, there’s still going to be some kind of impact from new information that you’re taking on.”
Having starred next to renowned actors like Steven Berkoff, Common, and Rosamund Pike, Edwin’s pursuit for artistic excellence stays on sight - on and off camera.
I choose to use my platform to speak on things that I believe in but I'm not gonna hold everyone to my standards.
BO: In light of current times, how has the actor life changed? Are you back on set, or auditioning?
ED: I had three movies out last year. One was a film called The Informer with Common, Rosamund Pike, Joel Kinnaman, and Clive Owen. It’s a thriller set, half in the prison, and half in New York. It follows this ex-special forces soldier who gets brought in by the FBI to go on an underground mission and it all goes wrong.
That was fun because I got to work with people like Common, who’s amazing. He was very giving on set. They were all very giving on set, and that was quite a nice environment to be in.
Then I shot a movie called Bharat that was a foreign language film in India. I’d always wanted to do a foreign language film, but I don’t really speak any other languages. I landed this role and it was great! We were shooting out in Malta, in the mediterranean for a few weeks. There’s this really really huge action sequence with Morgan Chase. My character is the lead of a band of pirates who hijack this huge freight liner. The film did really well in Asia, and it has given me a bit of a fan base out there which is nice.
Now, I’m just back. Just auditioning, but it’s been quite busy.
BO: What would you have seen yourself doing if you hadn’t ended up acting?
ED: I don’t know. I think the reason I started acting is because you can do so many different things. I was like “Yo, I can do that, and then put that down”. You can go be a lawyer and then put that down. Every role is learning. Often, you’re learning about a whole different occupation if it’s steeped in realism. Or even if it’s not, there’s still going to be some kind of impact from new information that you’re taking on. It’s a bit of a hard question to answer.
BO: Absolutely! You have to be specifically careful these days when you get into a role that reflects something sensitive too, like a mental health issue.
ED: Totally! I had a few projects out last year, and one of them was based in a prison. So, I did loads of research on the prison system in America. It was just like “wow” – really informative. There’s loads of documentaries on things like that.
BO: What role has been the hardest for you to get into character for?
ED: I did a movie last year called The Last Faust with Steven Berkoff who’s a baddie in so many movies, and he’s a classically trained theater actor. In the film, I played his robot assistant - an android essentially. I had to be super still for the entire shoot, very aware of facial muscles and moving as minimally as possible. All to replicate that robotic movement.
In terms of difficulty, I would say that was it because there was a lot of physicality to it. Like not blinking during your performance. You don’t realize how much we blink as humans. Especially when you have all those lights on you and shit like that. After every take I would be like “Damn man”.
BO: What is your take on the increased pressure for social responsibility put on actors from the public?
ED: Well, having a platform certainly means that you have the power to influence & reach a wide demographic. I definitely think it’s a useful tool to use to spread positivity, get messages and points across regarding causes that you personally believe in. However, if artists don’t want to speak on issues they shouldn't feel forced to do so, just because they have said platform. If you don't feel politically savvy enough to join a debate then, don't. Most aren't. If you feel that you’re gonna say something foolish then say nothing. Cancel culture is real and things often get lost in translation. The bottom line is be true to yourself, if you feel the need to speak up then do so and let it be organic. This year has been a testing time for everyone across the globe and everyone has something valid to say. Personally, I choose to use my platform to speak on things that I believe in and support movements that I feel the need support, but I'm not gonna hold everyone to my standards.
BO: In the current political climate of the industry, we’re increasingly aware of our media, who’s represented, and where. We’ve even gone as far as to see major actors leaving roles because they didn’t fit a role enough.
ED: I think I started seeing it as early as last year when breakdowns and scripts would come in. To be honest, last year I got so many scripts where I was like “wow, they want to see me for this?”
Just things that would have previously been seen with a predominantly white cast. These are all things that have been rebutted. I’m not going to say anything particular, but a lot of things.
There has been a shift compared to when back in the day agents or casting directors would get breakdowns from studios and they would be like “okay, lead guy is blonde/Caucasian”. Now, it’s anybody. There isn’t a focus on the casting in that way. So, that’s positive!
BO: Where do you feel like that push in the industry is coming from, internally speaking?
ED: A lot of things. Copyists go by it, the Oscars go by it. So, a lot of important people in the industry are taking notice. Having these sorts of movements supported by actors, A list actors, really helps the change. People know that if they put out something, people are going to be like “there’s not enough black people, or women, or trans people on these sets”.
We need to make sets more inclusive. People should be able to see themselves represented in all aspects of the set. My partner and I had a conversation about this the other day where we tried to think of how many casting directors of color we knew. In the U.K. here, anyway, we were able to name about 3 or 4. There’s not a lot.
BO: How do you feel the community as a whole has responded to these changes in the industry? A lot of people have the mentality that there’s only so much pie to go around. So, I imagine there must be friction.
ED: For sure, there will always be friction. We’re habitual creatures and we’re used to things. People are always going to feel threatened by changes because they’re going to say “Well, if this changes there’s going to be less for me” or they’re going to think they have less of a change because of this. There’s nothing to be worried about. The world is constantly changing. You shouldn’t be scared of change.
I saw something the other day about the academy possibly changing the way that the best picture nominees are selected, and I saw a couple of actors who were saying they didn’t think that was right. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. As long as it’s beneficial, and done correctly.
BO: What does “done correctly” mean to you?
ED: If someone is writing a story on indigenous peoples of America, of course they’re probably going to want someone who’s indigenous to tell the story. Do you know what I mean? I think production companies and studios need to look for people who can tell those stories or are more in tune with it.
That’s not to say that if you’re not from that background, you can’t tell that story. For instance, there’s a lot of black British actors who’ve said things like “Don’t you think that story would have been better if it was told by someone who was from here”. I’m like, we all experience the same struggle, wherever we are.
BO: We saw a huge controversy with that in the case of Annie. To me, there’s a line in the sand almost when it goes from reality to fiction. Tell me if you agree or disagree but, for me, if it’s fiction, I don’t put so much importance on who’s telling the story.
ED: 100%. If you want to have Kevin Jon play as Annie, who cares? It’s not real. It doesn't make any kind of a difference. I don’t get it. Why are you going to worry about POC being in fantasies? So, I think definitely there. However, if you did a biopic, and you want to keep it true to form, by all means make sure the people you’re hiring look like the people that you’re representing.
Also, we don’t want it to be so stringent to the point where we’re doing a biopic on someone from the Deep South, so you have to pick someone from the Deep South. It’s like, we’re actors, we should be allowed to transform. Within reason, you know? I’m not going to white-up and try to do a George W. Bush. I’m not a Bush impressionist.
BO: Do you see this controversy within the film industry, or more on the audience side?
ED: I think it’s more on the audience side. I think that most actors, even if they’re quiet, they will say “No, I think this should be different.” Some Actors understand it from the perspective of when you train or are in the theater, there’s a lot of cross color cast. I mean look at Hamilton. | ||
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] | null | The story in movie BORDERTOWN involved murder by carbon monoxide and had Margaret Lindsay in the cast. Thelma Todd died of carbon m... | en | http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/favicon.ico | http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2015/06/bordertown.html | A Blog For Thelma Todd Thelma Todd was a star of silent movies and later the talkies. She is remembered as much today for her mysterious death as she is for her films. In this blog, we take a look at Thelma Todd, her movies, and various commentaries. | |||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 48 | https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/08/auteur-know-better-actor-director-transition | en | Auteur know better: can the actor-to-director transition ever go smoothly? | [
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] | 2015-04-08T00:00:00 | Ahead of Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut Lost River being released in the US, we ask why can it be so hard for actors to adjust to life behind the camera | en | the Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/08/auteur-know-better-actor-director-transition | When Ryan Gosling’s Lost River is released on Friday in the US, we’ll see the latest example of an actor getting behind the camera and directing. That progression makes sense: while acting involves a very specific kind of ability and craft, directing gets to the broader scope of film-making.
It allows you to try the whole spread, and there are many ways to do so. You can be the auteur: micro-managing every aspect of your production, writing the script and storyboarding the shots and signing off on every detail. Or you can be a conductor: assembling a crack squad of pros (a screenwriter and a director of photography, assistant directors and so on), and allowing them to help you learn how to direct and figure out how best to manage that team.
With Lost River, Gosling’s chosen to write and direct without acting, which means he’s using all his untested skills and sidelining the one that made him famous. But in the scale of how an actor can transition to film-making, where does it rank in terms of degree of difficulty?
One option is to make a documentary. This is a different task entirely than making a feature film, for all of the obvious reasons: your subject isn’t fictional, reporting and journalistic duties are required, etc. I’d place it outside the spectrum of actors transitioning to directing, because of these details and also because there are many ways to shepherd a documentary to the screen; for example, both Ethan Hawke and Lena Dunham have released documentaries in the past month, but Hawke directed his (Seymour: An Introduction), whereas Dunham executive produces and features in hers (It’s Me, Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise).
The safest and most manageable way to make the switch to feature directing, then, might be to stick to what you’re good at. Kevin Costner (Dances With Wolves), Clint Eastwood (Play Misty for Me), Edward Norton (Keeping the Faith), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Jack Goes Boating), Ethan Hawke (Chelsea Walls), Tommy Lee Jones (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada), and Jodie Foster (Little Man Tate) all chose as to direct and star in another person’s script for their first directorial efforts.
That way, they could take advantage of the fame and goodwill that they’d accumulated as actors, not to mention the relative luxury of getting to direct themselves, without having to dive all the way in and write the film as well. By virtue of being on a set and interacting so closely with the film-makers and crew, acting can give you a real sense of what it takes to direct a movie, particularly if you rely on a crew you trust. But in the same way reading novels doesn’t mean you can write them, memorizing scripts for a living doesn’t guarantee you’ve got a screenplay in you.
Plenty of actors do though. Looking at the list of credits for the debuts of Steve Buscemi (Trees Lounge), Tom Hanks (That Thing You Do!), Lake Bell (In a World), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Don Jon) is to see the same three names in the first three spots. So did some guy named Orson Welles, as well as the brilliant DIY film-makers Shane Carruth and Joe Swanberg, but none of them established their reputations as actors first.
There’s an interesting safety in taking this much control over, safety not meant to be pejorative here: the substance of the movie becomes so deeply attached to your identity and vision that it shrinks the scope of the project a bit, makes it personal. It’s the closest film-making comes to being novelistic, in that the natural mechanism of making a film – a ton of people working together – shrinks around a single “auteur”. As it often is, the word auteur can be deceptive; you never know how much of what’s on-screen is attributable to the director and how much of it comes from the director of photography, the writer, or someone else. But when the film’s credentials start and end with your name, there’s a pretty good chance you had some real sway over it.
A different approach – and I’d say slightly riskier, because you’re no longer trading on your own acting reputation – is to not star in the film. In Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, George Clooney played a role, but he let Sam Rockwell take the limelight. Robert Redford directed Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore to four Oscars, including best picture, in Ordinary People. But it’s actually hard to find examples of these debuts in which the actor chose just to direct, not write or star also. More common is that the actor is involved from the top on down, even if they don’t get on screen. Ben Affleck didn’t appear in a single frame of Gone Baby Gone, instead putting his brother Casey in the lead, but he wrote screenplay with his longtime collaborator Aaron Stockard. Angeline Jolie wrote and directed In the Land of Blood and Honey without acting in it, and Sarah Polley did the same with Away from Her. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 53 | https://www.crafttruck.com/blog/mega-qa-film-distribution-mark-urman/ | en | Mega Q&A on Film Distribution with Mark Urman | [
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] | null | [] | 2014-03-05T10:01:53-04:00 | In detail film distribution Q&A with Mark Urman, former co-President of Lionsgate Releasing and co-Founder of ThinkFilm. | en | https://www.crafttruck.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/favicon.ico | Craft Truck | https://www.crafttruck.com/blog/mega-qa-film-distribution-mark-urman/ | Recently, on our Business of Film podcast we chatted with former co-President of Lionsgate Releasing and co-Founder of ThinkFILM, Mark Urman, who now runs indepedent film distribtion company, Paladin, in New York.
We felt there was so much amazing information in our time with Mark, that we’d synthesize some of the more important points of the discussion here. We’d encourage you to check out the Business of Film podcast for more awesome chats. Enjoy.
1. How has the distribution landscape changed in the last decade?
Well its become very decentralized. It used to be formulaic and rigid. Films were released by companies, big or small, they played in theatres for as long as they were in demand, which was normally over a year, then they were available through various forms of home entertainment. You saw movies and then you wouldn’t see them until a full year later on either paid TV or you go out and buy the videotape.
Now there are an almost infinite and ever changing and increasing number of ways to see movies because of the digital revolution. Movies can be made very inexpensively and it no longer takes a large infrastructure or a large amount of people or money to make a movie. So there are more feature films being made at staggeringly low cost. What we have now is an enormous increase in the amount of product and an enormous increase in the way in which films are consumed.
So instead of it being rigidly controlled by gate keepers its completely customized. People literally program their own entertainment. Films made 75 years ago are now available through digital download. So now every new film that opens isn’t only competing with other new films but its literally competing with the history of cinema.
2. How critical is publicity to get indie films recognized?
The great misconception is that publicity is free. Technically, if attention is coming from the journalistic community then that is free, you don’t pay for that attention, but of course you have to spend a lot of money to hire a publicist to create materials.
The fact is that publicity is important, it really is the best way to get information out about a film but the point is publicity like every other aspect of the business, has changed. The film critical community is eroding. Newspaper & magazines are either cutting back so that they have fewer writers on staff, many of whom are not trained in film culture, history, criticism or aesthetics.
The information has migrated to the internet. Which is an enormous bonus because one can obtain this information rapidly and from a seemingly infinite number of sources but it is also a lot of noise one has to cut threw. In general the more things change the more they stay the same.
An excellent film that gets a considerable amount of critical acclaim and that strikes the imagination of the journalistic community is probably going to have a better chance of penetrating and becoming part of the discourse, and have a better chance of becoming culturally central and enduring, than a bad or negligible film. The fact is there are a lot of bad and negligible films that do well because they are propelled by a lot of money, and there are a lot of very excellent films that do bad because they are either too specific or there’s not enough time in our rapidly moving culture for them to get traction and gain a following.
One of the reasons I remain so committed to the notion of theatrical distribution as an important and enduring component of the life of a movie is that it is really the one element that allows most films to become visible, to get written about or reviewed because they show up in theatres. They sort of impact upon the information universe. If a film is just flunked down, it used to go straight to DVD or straight to video, but now they go straight to digital. They’re one of 4,5, 600 movies that people can see at any given point – not to mention the extraordinary amount of other content that people can see.
There is so much going on and there’s so much wonderful content readily available at our finger tips that if their isn’t a really consorted publicity campaign then films are virtually invisible. It used to be you went to the movies on the weekend and went to work on Mondays and talked to people about the movie you saw, recommend it, and if you were convincing they would go see it. Its much more instantaneous now. Just by putting something up on your Facebook time line can let a thousand people know how you felt about a movie.
3. How do you feel about the movement towards self distribution?
The Tugg and Gathr thing, which is really theatrical on demand – meaning that you make a film and are then responsible for marketing and promoting the film & creating an awareness or appetite for it – if you succeed in doing that and if enough individuals subscribe to attend that screening it tips over into reality and it takes place and everybody makes money.
That model works for films that have to be in demand and have to be a movie for people to gather and get together, a minimum of 65 people, to organize as a group. So its only a very specific kind of movie this mechanism works for. There are people who are distributing films to download off of their websites. You can pay under 2,000 dollars and have your movie available for streaming off of Amazon just by converting to their digital format. But once again the burden is on you to create an awareness and appetite otherwise you’re one of tens of thousands of films available on Amazon, how would anybody find it?
There are many portals that curate films and have developed a fan base and an audience. Some of them are subscription, you pay 100 dollars a year or $X amount a month and they put together a catalogue of films to which they have attained non-exclusive streaming rights, and it can be all classic films or all Japanese films, you name it. It’s a unique approach to film distribution so the consumption is amazing.
Producers really need to know what they are doing because it’s as hard to get a film out into the public as it is to make them and it can even be harder, or take a lot longer, but if you’re in for a penny then you have to be in not for a pound but a tonne.
Every once in a while people make a movie and they go to a film festival and somebody buys that movie for millions of dollars, and then use millions of their dollars to sell it to an audience and whether it be Little Miss Sunshine, Slum Dog Millionaire or 12 Years a Slave, it seems to work out very well for everybody. But, even one tier down – or two or three tiers down – if there isn’t a bidding war, if the cheque isn’t for millions of dollars, if the amount of money and effort this company is spending isn’t sufficient you might be worse off with a distributor.
The fact is that one can do better financially if one holds on to the film and distributes it to the various mechanisms themselves then selling it all off to one rights holder. Even with Kickstart, its not money that falls from heaven. A successful Kickstarter campaign is a marketing undertaking. You have to create a mythology and folklore for your film, you have to develop friends, you have to offer premiums, its like a beauty pageant & you have to make your film the prettiest film on the block to get people to write cheques to see the best film walk the run way.
The joke of it is that do-it-yourself distribution is never done by ones self. There are filmmakers who sit in their basements and do social media and contact groups and organizations while selling DVD out of their basement. They are do-it-yourself distributors, some of them with great success; but, it is a full time job and that film has to have a very specific target.
If you look at the case studies of successful examples of DIY distribution, it really means filmmakers are retaining their rights and hiring practised professionals to do the work for them. They are not selling the film to a full service distributor, they are retaining the various components that fall onto the heading of distribution and marketing & enabling themselves, funding it themselves, but they have people working with them.
4. How much money should filmmakers be thinking about to execute a theatrical release?
First they need to think about what are their goals. Some people need their films to be seen to affect the architecture of their careers and get themselves on the map, some people need their movie to be seen to recover the investment that went into production, or it can be all of the above.
So the first question is how much money can I make back if I release the film theatrically? Its a marketing investment. Even if the theatrical isn’t going to yield much money, you are putting money into marketing the title in the hope it doesn’t become one of the 500 titles on a digital menu; but, its is one people have heard of and that has developed some sort of profile.
As for what it cost there is obviously a long range. It can be ten’s of thousands of dollars, hundred’s of thousands of dollars or even millions. We’ve done it all and each film depending on the elements, the size of the cast, project, the potential following the theatrical determines what you spend.
In general its very difficult to do for anything below six figures so you’re talking one hundred thousand dollars or more depending upon the number of markets you want to be seen in and things like talent. Films that have stars are better off sometimes then ones that don’t but working with stars and moving them around to get the publicity is expensive. If you have an actress in a movie and she can get on the David Letterman show, its a great thing because your movie will be discussed on the David Letterman show, but if she lives in Los Angeles and the show is in New York, you have to buy her airfare trip, you have to put her up in a hotel and pay for her make-up because she is a star and must look beautiful. So that one television segment can end up costing you ten’s of thousands of dollars. Talent can be the poison gift when they’re in your movie. They make it easier to publicize but they come with an enormous price tag.
5. What should filmmakers trying to get into a film festival think about to help them get their film in front of an audience?
I think one thing every filmmaker should think about long and hard is raising money for distribution. When they raise their production financing, keep some money in their back pocket in the event the distribution landscape doesn’t come together. In that way, they will be in a position, without loosing momentum, to do some distribution themselves. | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 5 | https://tv.apple.com/ie/movie/bordertown/umc.cmc.4k1zjvfqoslfnlcr5jxknssji | en | Apple TV (IE) | [
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] | null | [] | 2008-05-16T07:00:00+00:00 | Chicago reporter, Lauren Adrian, travels to Mexico to break the silence surrounding the unsolved deaths of hundreds of women near an American-owned fa⦠| en | /assets/favicon/apple-touch-icon-9a18d92f405f4cba68b503b186df5f5b.png | Apple TV | https://tv.apple.com/ie/movie/bordertown/umc.cmc.4k1zjvfqoslfnlcr5jxknssji | Studio
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4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 45 | https://deadline.com/2008/05/david-bergsteins-thinkfilm-sued-for-fraud-5892/ | en | David Bergstein/ThinkFilm Sued for Fraud | [
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] | 2008-05-29T01:21:26+00:00 | A lawsuit was filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court by Boston-based Allied Advertising Ltd alleging breach of contract, fraud and deceit, and unfair business practices against David Bergstein and his ThinkFilm movie distribution company. It seeks more than $4. | en | Deadline | https://deadline.com/2008/05/david-bergsteins-thinkfilm-sued-for-fraud-5892/ | A lawsuit was filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court by Boston-based Allied Advertising Ltd alleging breach of contract, fraud and deceit, and unfair business practices against David Bergstein and his ThinkFilm movie distribution company. It seeks more than $4.1 million in unpaid bills and contracts, plus damages, interest and a 5% penalty for all sums not paid in full within 30 days of a demand for payment. It is yet the latest twist and turn in what is obviously becoming a financial meltdown in Bergstein’s film production and distribution empire which includes ThinkFilm and Capitol Films. (See my previous, Capitol Films Cash Crunch: SAG Demands Meeting With Owner David Bergstein).
The lawsuit follows Bergstein’s reported yacht trip to the Cannes Film Festival , included in the complaint: “Between January and May 2008, while most of the ThinkFilm debt to Allied was outstanding, defendants have gone on a lavish film licensing buying spree at various film festivals around the world, including a film about director Roman Polanski scheduled for release on the Home Box Office cable channel later in 2008.”
The facts claimed in the lawsuit point to a business deal gone sour for Allied Advertising, which is in the business of placing advertising and promotion for feature motion pictures owned, licensed or distributed by client production companies or distributors. On June 21st, 2004, Allied and ThinkFilm entered into an agreement under which Allied would place P&A for movies owned and/or licensed or distributed by ThinkFilm with various media outlets around the U.S. ThinkFilm was supposed to pay Allied whenever Allied advanced payment to the media outlets on ThinkFilm’s behalf, or pay a hefty penalty. That agreement was modified on November 18, 2004.
Then, in October 2006, ThinkFilm was acquired by Los Angeles entrepreneurs David Bergstein shortly after he bought Capitol Films that January. “But between Fall 2006 (when Bergstein assumed control of ThinkFilm) and March 2008, defendants became increasingly delinquent on their obligation to pay Allied invoices when due. Through his manipulation of the business operations and employees of ThinkFilm, Bergstein repeatedly promised to honor and pay in full the debt of Thinkfi;l owed to Allied,” the lawsuit alleges. By November 2007, that sum was $1.9M. ThinkFilm promised to present a schedule to pay up. So Allied says it advanced an additional $2.2M from November 2007 through March 2008.
But, with the total now $4.1M, “defendants have failed to pay any of this arrearage,” the lawsuit claims. “On April 5th, 2008, thinkfilm executives stated in writing to Allied that a repayment schedule had been developed by certain ThinkFilm executives, but that it required the authorization of Bergstein, who dominates and controls ThinkFilm… However, Bergstein has proceeded to deplete much of the hard assets of ThinkFilm by, in March 2008, selling the ThinkFilm Canadian library to Entertainment One Ltd.” This is also when Bergstein went on his “lavish film licensing buying spree” referenced above. A final demand letter was sent to May 12, and the bill remains unpaid, resulting in the lawsuit today.
On the fraud and deceit cause of action, the lawsuit alleges, the defendants “were part of a plan or scheme to defraud and deceive Allied and other third parties. Between January 2008 and May 2008, defendants paid millions of dollars to acquire the rights to new feature motion pictures (or the right to produce or distribute such films). In order to convince film owners, producers, production companies and other third parties that it had credibility with advertising agencies such as Allied, to professionally and effectively advertise forthcoming motion pictures, defendants needed to create an impression that they were paying print and advertising obligations as they came due, which was not true. In furtherance of this scheme, defendants needed to deceive Allied into believing that a payment schedule would be presented and honored in good faith.
“Defendants knew that their representations were false when they made, or they were made recklessly and without regard for the truth… Defendants’ actions were perpetrated with fraud, malice and oppression.”
Interestingly, the lawsuit contends that after Fall 2006, there existed “a unity of interests and ownership between defendant David Bergstein and ThinkFilm LLC such that … defendants are the alter egos of each other in that at all times herein mentioned, thinkFilm was a mere shell, instrumentality and conduit of David Bergstein, through which he carried on his business, exercising complete control and dominance of ThinkFilm to such an extent that any individuality or separateness of these defendants ceased to exist.” | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 10 | https://www.banderasnews.com/0508/ent-bordertown.htm | en | Films Look at Mexican Border Town Slayings | [
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] | null | [] | null | The killings of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez Mexico have become the focus of Hollywood's camera lenses, with Jennifer Lopez, Antonio Banderas and Minnie Driver starring in movies about them. | http://www.banderasnews.com/favicon.ico | null | Olga R. Rodriguez - Associated Press
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - The killings of hundreds of women in this border city have become the focus of Hollywood's camera lenses, with Jennifer Lopez, Antonio Banderas and Minnie Driver starring in movies about them.
The slayings have been the subject of scores of books, songs, documentaries and TV series. But victims' relatives worry the films will exacerbate Juarez's already tattered image and do little to pressure authorities to solve the crimes.
"Bordertown," with Lopez and Banderas, began production in New Mexico last month. In coming weeks, production will move to the border city of Nogales, where a crew has already built a shantytown resembling Anapra, a Juarez neighborhood where many of the victims lived.
In the film, co-written and directed by Gregory Nava, Lopez plays a Chicago-based reporter sent to Mexico to investigate the killings and who meets a young factory worker who survived an attack. Banderas also plays a U.S. reporter.
"The Virgin of Juarez," stars Driver, who plays a Los Angeles-based reporter sent to investigate the killings, and Ana Claudia Talacon, who portrays a survivor of the vicious attacks. The film was completed last year but has yet to be released.
Authorities say 340 women have been slain over the last 12 years in Juarez, a city of about 1.3 million people across from El Paso, Texas. But human rights groups say the number of women killed is much higher.
At least 100 of those deaths appear to fit a pattern where a young, slender woman was sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in the desert outside Juarez. Some have speculated that they were the work of a serial killer, but investigators have denied that.
Ciudad Juarez garnered international attention after victims' relatives, backed by Mexican and international activists, started expressing outrage over the alleged corruption, ineptitude and indifference of investigators. The relatives complained that prosecutors seemed to be more interested in closing cases using fabricated evidence than unearthing the truth. A few men have been convicted in the killings, and dozens more have been arrested. But many suspects have been released after judges threw out their cases, and some have claimed to have been tortured into confessing.
Activists and victims' mothers acknowledge they don't know a lot about the films, and say they were never approached by those involved in the productions.
They fear the films will concentrate on gruesome details instead of bringing attention to the sloppy police work and the lack of results in the investigations.
"Even the title is guileful," Victoria Caraveo, a longtime Juarez activist, said of "The Virgin of Juarez." "I know that those people are artists and have a certain sensibility. But what worries me is the context of their work."
Caraveo was especially critical of the fact that both films follow U.S. journalists as they investigate the slayings.
"Where were these journalists when the killings started?" Caraveo said. "If it hadn't been for the mothers, who keep demanding justice, the situation here would still be ignored."
Josefina Lopez, a Los Angeles-based playwright and screenwriter whose credits include "Real Women Have Curves," decided to write a movie about the slayings after visiting the city.
"I went to visit the murder site in Lomas de Poleo, and when I was there I had a feeling that a lot of the spirits of those women were still there," Lopez said.
Lopez - whose film is in preproduction for HBO - said she didn't interview any of the victims' relatives and collected stories through testimony given to a documentary filmmaker and from press articles.
"If the end result is that more people hear about the killings and the killings stop, then the more films, the better," Lopez said.
Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia said he expects the films to bend the facts and further distort the city's image.
"Some people like to focus on yellow journalism, but it's not right that they only talk about this tragedy and not show the real face of Juarez," he said.
One of the most criticized projects was a drama produced by Mexico's TV Azteca titled "As Infinite as the Desert." The two-week series, which aired last year, depicted some of the most gruesome murders using real victims' names.
Activists and victims' relatives demanded that the series be pulled off the air and threatened to sue the network.
Although the mothers backed off the lawsuit against TV Azteca, they did succeed in pressuring Los Tigres del Norte, Mexico's most popular norteno band, to cancel a concert in Ciudad Juarez. Los Tigres were promoting a new album that included the hit single "The Women of Juarez," a song that denounced the killings.
"Anyone thinks they can film a movie or make a song or a soap opera about our daughters," said Rosaura Montanez, whose 19-year-old daughter was kidnapped after leaving a friend's home, raped and killed in 1995. "It seems our daughters died so these people would have material for their songs and movies. It's just not fair."
But not all the victims' relatives are critical of the attention.
Paula Flores, whose 17-year-old daughter was killed in 1998, has always talked to anyone who wants to hear about her plight in hopes that the attention will force authorities to act.
"I'm for (the films) if they are done with respect toward our daughters and they can help us with our demand for justice," she said. "What I want is for the whole world to know that we live in impunity, in a city without law." | ||||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 12 | https://www.indiewire.com/news/general/producer-bergstein-acquires-thinkfilm-75854/ | en | Producer Bergstein Acquires ThinkFilm | [
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] | 2006-10-25T09:27:59+00:00 | Producer Bergstein Acquires ThinkFilm | en | IndieWire | https://www.indiewire.com/news/general/producer-bergstein-acquires-thinkfilm-75854/ | Film financier and producer David Bergstein announced today a deal to acquire ThinkFilm, the five year old Toronto and New York based film distributor. Bergstein also recently acquired Capitol Films, the leading European production, financing, and sales company. A statement issued today said, “The combination of these two highly regarded entities creates a worldwide distribution apparatus and furthers the growth aspirations of both entities.” In a statement, company president and CEO Jeff Sackman said, “We look forward to a bright and successful future. Today’s transaction will enable THINKFilm to expand even further and faster, giving us extended resources and opportunities to pursue the films we are known for and beyond. Most importantly, we are extremely proud of our accomplishments at THINKFilm. Five years ago, we started from scratch, and with hard work, dedicated employees, and a forward-thinking vision, we built up a sizeable distribution company that continues to deliver quality independent films throughout North America.” Bergstein’s producing credits include “The Wendell Baker Story” and “Laws of Attraction”; the deal was brokered by Hollywood talent agency CAA. [Eugene Hernandez] | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 86 | https://tfip.org/sparking-film-impact-innovation-in-times-of-crisis/ | en | Sparking Film Impact Innovation in Times Of Crisis | [
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] | 2020-04-13T13:56:30 | By Amy Shepherd and Danielle Turkov COVID-19 is shaking the world. As the pandemic continues to upend our lives and economies, every global industry is taki ... | en | https://tfip.org/sparking-film-impact-innovation-in-times-of-crisis/ | By Amy Shepherd and Danielle Turkov
COVID-19 is shaking the world. As the pandemic continues to upend our lives and economies, every global industry is taking stock and re-evaluating positions – and the film industry is no exception. With cinemas closed, productions shut down and festivals barred from meeting in person, directors, producers and distributors are all having to consider afresh how to share content and engage audiences.
In this enormously challenging time, impact is more important than ever. People everywhere are searching for stories that offer meaning, hope and a connection to something important. While the grief and loss around and ahead of us is not to be underestimated, creative visual industries have a unique chance to spur the world on simply by doing what they do best – being different, innovative and inspiring.
Integrate impact into online screening opportunities
With instant online streaming, visual media are increasingly accessible from homes transformed into strange new meshes of workplaces, schools and community hubs. Captive populations from young to old, suddenly finding themselves indefinitely stuck indoors, are looking for tele-visual content to entertain, distract and learn. While this new stasis might in some cases sap energy, it could also catalyse action on important social issues.
Filmmakers leaning into digital technology can engage with audiences in fresh ways. Alternate and Virtual Reality may well continue their surge in popularity as we try to escape from unaccustomed confinements. Social platforms and tech can be used to motivate audiences to participate in impact campaigns at the prime moments of opportunity: during film screenings and immediately after, catching people while emotions run and the credits roll.
Opportunities for innovation are also beckoning us at a larger scale. The big screen might have gone small, but festivals not yet ready to turn off the lights are already successfully turning to digital tech to facilitate virtual screenings and meetings. CPH:DOX ran the first wave of what will undoubtedly be a long-lasting new trend of online panels and pitch sessions, rescuing an unprecedented crisis, extending the festival’s reach and taking it to new extraordinary realms of impact. 1,700 people around the world joined our “iHuman” discussion with NSA Whistleblower, Edward Snowden, making this the festival’s most-watched conversation.
For us at Think-Film, this is a sign of the possibility this crisis holds to try something new. If we wish to emerge from this time better and stronger, then now is the time to energise, strategise and spark change.
Achieve impact through alternative means
Film can really make a difference. Connecting the right person with the right story in the right way can spark entire movements. By curating interesting new content, by considering the different needs of virtual audiences and experimenting with ways of making remote screenings and events more vibrant, interactive and personal, by driving forward secure means for high-level figures to access film material, and by pushing for innovations in professional digital networking and business, filmmakers, sales agents and producers can pivot now to kickstart a whole new industry.
Impact methods also don’t need to be entirely new to radically change situations. A lot can already be achieved without face-to-face meetings. At Think-Film we use parliament mechanisms, petitions, public letters, social media activities, webinars with extended film clips and a whole host of other activities to give films the impact they deserve. During quarantine and beyond, impact that uses film as a tool for corporate training or political advocacy to governments and decision-makers can help build word-of-mouth interest, secure its recognition and provide a platform. These impact methods create real measurable added-value and change.
Relish the power of data
Box office figures are down but data is up. Elevated network usage is leading to an extreme demand for content. Online “events” such as watch parties and live comment broadcasts are vital for filmmakers in a separated society to connect with audiences, and, for example, learn what people think about a trailer or other promo material.
Online distribution and impact moments also provide more and more instantaneous information, insight and feedback to filmmakers than in-person events ever have or could. This is of great benefit to creators wanting to understand how their content is resonating in markets. Digital streaming and social solutions are providing filmmakers with new levels of access to direct audience feedback, including metadata analysis, which can transform the film industry’s connectivity by enabling iterative honing of marketing and targeting.
At Think-Film, we’re constantly working on new ways to measure impact and demonstrate its added value to film development, production, post-production, marketing and distribution at every stage. Data advances every part of the industry. It’s easy to see how instant content selection opportunities can show grouped demands for particular film genres, languages and forms; data that can shuffle valuable landing page slots and social promos. But take this one step further, and data can start to truly revolutionise supply by feeding backwards through the chain, informing even initial production selections and budget allocations.
Embrace film’s impactful future
Think-Film’s mission is to take film outside of its usual settings and drive socio-political impact forward by doing things differently. We’re used to taking people out of their comfort zone and proposing creative ideas that shake it all up. This pandemic hasn’t changed that, but it’s pushing even us to the edge of ingenuity and resilience. We’re being stretched and moulded, like everyone else, and welcome the opportunity that brings.
At some stage, cinemas will reopen. That hallowed projector light will shine again. But to survive until then we all need to adapt. And from top to bottom, the film industry will change, we hope for good, as a result of this time. Moves towards virtual solutions were already in the pipeline, and in many ways, the extreme restrictions we’re all now working under has simply accelerated the eventual global restructuring that would ultimately always have taken place.
We have high expectations of how the film industry can thrive both through and post-COVID-19. We also know that impact has a critical role to play in the future. We urge everyone: put impact at the heart of film and give it focus. This will create space for compelling stories, build markets for films and offer a chance for us all to thrive. | ||||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 25 | https://hbr.org/1977/03/a-film-directors-approach-to-managing-creativity | en | A Film Director’s Approach to Managing Creativity | [
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"Eileen Morley",
"Andrew Silver"
] | 2014-08-01T04:28:16+00:00 | When someone mentions a film unit, most people think of location shooting—depending on their generation it’s either Robert Shaw duelling the shark off Martha’s Vineyard or John Wayne and the U.S. cavalry charging through Death Valley! But, in fact, most major films are made in a series of predictable phases, of which shooting is only […] | /resources/images/favicon.ico | Harvard Business Review | https://hbr.org/1977/03/a-film-directors-approach-to-managing-creativity | EM
Eileen Morley is a psychologist, who since 1972 has taught at the Harvard Business School. Her main interests are the organization of work and the personal satisfaction people derive from their careers.
AS
Before completing the research described here for his doctorate degree from the Harvard Business School in 1975, Andrew Silver taught film at Brandeis University. He has made two short films, one of which, Next Door, won a Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival in 1976. He is currently planning his first full-length feature film, Sea Change.
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 72 | https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/guide-to-basic-film-genres/ | en | A Guide to the Basic Film Genres (and How to Use Them) | [
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"Jourdan Aldredge",
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] | 2022-08-29T16:27:00+00:00 | Let’s look at genre theory, what it entails, and how to utilize film genres with a bit more practicality and creativity in your own projects. | en | The Beat: A Blog by PremiumBeat | https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/guide-to-basic-film-genres/ | Let’s look at genre theory, what it entails, and how to utilize genres with a bit more practicality and creativity in your own projects.
One of the few rare things that one can actually learn in film school is the simple trick of taking a step back to view something you already know—through a new, academic lens. As filmmakers and film fans, we already know about film genres. It wasn’t until one of the first film theory classes I took that I actually learned how to view, deconstruct, and understand something as seemingly innate as genre.
Understanding “genre theory” is both very simple and very complex. In general, we all know the basics. The Hobbit is a fantasy book. Star Trek is a sci-fi television show. When Harry Met Sally is a rom-com. So, what do all those genre names actually mean? And, what exactly are the writers, filmmakers, and storytellers really doing to work within and against these modes?
Here’s a brief introduction into how filmmakers can understand and use “genre theory.”
What Are Film Genres?
Taking the word at its definition, genre is the “term for any category of literature or other forms of art or entertainment, e.g. music, whether written or spoken, audio or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria.”
The term dates back to ancient Greek literature. But, for writers, artists, and filmmakers, it’s usually the simplest, most practical way to categorize different styles of stories and content. We see genres while scrolling through Netflix, giving us a rough idea of what the stories are like.
It’s important to understand, though, that what we consider film genres today are, more often than not, hardly pure film genres, as they were in the early days of film. The majority of content produced in the last several decades often includes genre hybrids, using the rules of genre theory to produce new, unique, and different stories.
The Basic Film Genres
In the early days of cinema, genres were much more uniform and defined. Just as they were in literature and other forms of art and entertainment, people would go to the theater to watch a war film, a musical, or a comedy. The basic genres were well defined and included some of the following:
Action
Comedy
Drama
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery
Romance
Thriller
Western
From there, you could dive a bit deeper. Sub-genres gave names and classifications to certain types of films within each genre. The “thriller” genre, for example, had the following sub-genres:
Crime thriller
Disaster thriller
Psychological thriller
Techno thriller
However, before we go over how to mix and match film genres, let’s go over some of the biggest and most notable.
The Action Film Genre
One of the earliest film genres, the action genre, has close ties to classic strife and struggle narratives that you find across all manner of art and literature. With some of the earliest examples dating back to everything from historical war epics to some basic portrayals of dastardly train robberies, action films have been popular with cinema audiences since the very beginning.
It’s also one of our best examples of the evolution of our cinematic hero’s journey and the classic hero vs. villain narratives, which you’ll find across all genres.
Some of the main sub-genres include the following:
War and military action
Spy and espionage action
Martial arts action
Western shoot ‘em up action
Action hybrid genres
You can read more about the evolution of the action genre, its many sub-genres and examples, and some tips for creating modern action films in our full action genre breakdown.
The Comedy Film Genre
A favorite genre of film audiences young and old since the very beginning of cinema, the comedy genre has been a fun-loving, sophisticated, and innovative genre that’s delighted viewers. Some of the biggest names in the history of filmmaking include comedy genre pioneers—like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Lucille Ball—who made successful careers out of finding new and unique ways to make audiences laugh.
The comedy genre has also been one of the most flexible, as its roots have made their way into the very fabric of cinema and its many other genres. The art of warming a heart and bringing a smile to a viewer’s face will never get old, nor should we consider it anything but truly powerful.
Some of the main sub-genres include the following:
Slapstick comedy
Screwball comedy
Parody comedy
Black comedy
You can explore the comedy genre in-depth in our full comedy genre breakdown.
The Horror Film Genre
While the horror genre is sometimes considered a younger film genre, elements of horror have long been a bedrock of classic cinema, dating back to some of the earliest—and eeriest—days of filmmaking.
Examples like 1898’s Shinin No Sosei (Resurrection of a Corpse) come to mind, as well as several early horror iterations across the globe that captured the imagination of an audience hungry for creepy, occult fun. Taking cues from classic horror literature, big name horror franchises (of sorts) like Dracula and Frankenstein have existed within cinema for decades.
However, it’s in the rise of newer horror genres featuring zombies, slashers, found footage, and haunted dolls that horror has really found its hold, from the 1970s into modern times.
Some of the main sub-genres include:
Zombie horror
Folk horror
Body Horror
Found footage Horror
If you’d like to explore a great deal more about the origins and modern portrayals of the horror film genre, check out our full horror genre breakdown.
The Sci-Fi Film Genre
Science fiction is one of the most innovative of the cinematic super-genres. As far back as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment period, the development of what we call science today began influencing art and culture. It took it a while to fully integrate, and by the time the cinematic arts rolled around, audiences everywhere were ready to add “science fiction” to the types of genres they wanted to see.
Science fiction films are ostensibly about the future, when we’ve developed the technology to travel between stars, travel back in time, or pull off other technological marvels.
Of course, though, that notion is just an affectation. Science fiction stories take the social, cultural, political, and technological issues that we’re facing today and project them into a fictional future, where we can get a good look at them. Fear, awe, excitement, and hope are all hallmarks of the science fiction genre, which does a great job of showing its audiences what they aren’t noticing about their lives right now.
There are many sub-genres of science fiction, including the following:
Science fantasy
Cyberpunk
Space Opera
For a full write-up on the history and development of science fiction films (and how to make one of your own), see our filmmaker’s guide to science fiction.
The Western Film Genre
The Western is rich film tradition that has its roots in the American fascination with its Western frontier. These stories have their roots in the period of American expansionism, when fantasies of the “untamed” West thrilled Americans living in ever-expanding cities along the eastern seaboard. Tales of grit, honor, bravery, and “justice” turned this misunderstood territory (already fully inhabited by Native Americans) into a myth of manifest destiny and the idea that Americans should conquer it simply because it’s there.
Full of melodramatic conflicts, simplistic systems of morality, and the idea of taming the wild, the Western introduced film fans to a new type of experience—the terrain itself was a type of character. It could challenge the heroes, boggle the mind, conceal hidden dangers, and otherwise present itself as a force to be reckoned with.
Not surprisingly, the Western film had to evolve in order to keep up with developing ideas about social equity, brutality against native peoples, and the disappearance of “untamed” territory, so there are a number of Western sub-genres, including the following:
Spaghetti Westerns
Space Westerns
Singing cowboy Westerns
Comedy Westerns
Neo-westerns
Acid Westerns
Meat Pie Westerns
Charro Westerns
Dacoit Westerns
Documentary Westerns
For a full exploration of the history and development of the Western—and what you need to know to make your own—see our field guide to the Western.
The Romance Film Genre
Ah, what would the great cinema tradition be if it weren’t for the countless stories of love and courtship. Since the advent of the movie theater experience, cinema has long been a favored pastime for couples looking to escape into a world of romance.
Similar to the action and comedy genres, the romance genre has become a central force in pretty much every other film genre under the sun. (Try to think of the last mainstream blockbuster you went to that didn’t have a love story at its core.) Still, even as early cinema was filled with classic romance examples and many hybridizations like the “rom-com,” the genre has certainly shifted over the years. Nonetheless, it remains a hugely significant genre for filmmakers and film fans alike.
Some of the main sub-genres include:
Historical Romance
Romantic Drama
Romantic Comedy
Chick Flick
Paranormal Romance
For more information into how the romance film genre has shaped the history of cinema, check out our full romance genre breakdown.
The Thriller Film Genre
Once a stylized niche genre, the thriller film has gone so mainstream that it might be time to change the genre’s name to Summer Blockbuster Event.
The thriller’s rise coincides with the rise of the spy and detective pulp novels of the 1960s and 1970s. It’s been one of the best cinematic vehicles for exploring the sometimes upsetting and underrepresented truths about our governments and society at large. Owing some of its biggest successes to famous filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, and including some of our favorite characters like James Bond, the thriller has become a popular and important part of the cinema tradition.
Some of the main sub-genres include:
Conspiracy Thriller
Crime Thriller
Legal Thriller
Spy Thriller
Supernatural Thriller
If you’d like to look deeper into the thriller genre, its development, and the many ways you can subvert its sub-genres for your own projects, read our full thriller genre breakdown.
The Fantasy Film Genre
There are a number of ways to define the fantasy film genre, but perhaps the simplest is the inclusion of magic. In a fantasy film, there is usually a system for performing superhuman feats, be it by casting spells, using magic items, or some other means.
Fantasy has been a part of cinematic history since its earliest days, beginning in 1896 with Alice Guy‘s “The Cabbage Fairy.” Fantasy stories themselves go back even further than that—The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of humanity’s oldest fantasy stories, dating back roughly 4,000 years.
There are several different sub-genres we can use to classify fantasy films:
High fantasy
Urban fantasy
Sword and sorcery
Dark fantasy
Magical realism
Portal fantasy
Superhero fantasy
For a more detailed look at these sub-genres, check out our guide on all things fantasy.
The Apocalypse Film Genre
The apocalypse film is another popular genre. On the surface, these movies are simply about the end of the world. Typically, there’s a natural disaster (or several), a looming astronomical threat, a rampaging monster, or a nuclear holocaust taking center stage. Surviving the deluge of special effects is the name of the game, and the budgets for these blockbusters are usually huge.
However, there’s more nuance to this seemingly destructive genre than you might think. The apocalypse is usually a metaphor of some kind. It divides families, it rolls back social progress, it reveals the fragility of human life—there are any number of things the apocalypse can be doing that we usually attribute to something else, like broken marriages, politics, or famine.
The most popular apocalypse films use this metaphor to their advantage, and we get to watch the protagonists overcome not only the pending global threat, but the threats to their home, family, and personal lives that they had been ignoring.
There are several sub-genres of the apocalypse film:
Monster apocalypse
Zombie apocalypse
Invasion apocalypse
Natural disaster
Nuclear apocalypse
For more on this oft-misunderstood genre (and its sub-genres), check out “The Filmmaker’s Guide to the Apocalypse.”
The Martial Arts Film Genre
When you think of the martial arts film genre, you think of fights, and these films have left an indelible mark on the cinema. Many genres today rely on heavily choreographed fight scenes developed over months. We can thank the martial arts film, and Bruce’s Lee’s innovation of hiring actual martial artists, for these crowd-favorite fight scenes.
While it’s easy to think the martial arts film as simply about fighting, that would be an oversimplification. The martial arts film folds combat into its narratives, and it uses this conflict to tell stories that we don’t otherwise see in our favorite film genres. Every martial arts fight implies years of training, dedication, and work that the characters went through to prepare for exactly this moment. There is an intersection of lives and traditions that unfolds in a matter of seconds.
The martial arts film genre includes several sub-genres:
The Kung Fu film
The Wuxia film
Karate films
Action-comedy
For more on these different traditions and how they have shaped the martial arts film genre, check out “The Life and Times of the Kung Fu Film.”
The Sports Film Genre
If the martial arts film genre captures our fascination with combat, then the sports film captures our fascination with competition. We love a good underdog story, and the best sports films take us on a journey that charts a winner’s unlikely beginnings through the tremendous challenges they must overcome to become the best. Viewers will watch competitions of all kinds, from championship football matches to hot dog eating contests to how long people can stand and maintain contact with an automobile.
The stories in sports movies are often familiar—a champion prevails. But we like watching them over and over because they offer a thrill that we can’t find in any other genre.
Here are just a few of the sub-genres of sports films we all know and love—be sure to read our write-up on each one:
Boxing films
Hockey films
Golf films
Football films
Baseball films
Basketball films
How to Use Film Genres
As the art of film evolved, more and more genres developed as filmmakers moved towards finding new and creative ways to subvert and combine them. Concepts like the “rom-com” appeared, combining the traditional genre elements of romance films and comedy films. Newer, more niche genres like the “road movie” and “disaster film” popped up alongside hybrid genres like “buddy cop” and “sci-fi western.”
By examining and mashing up genre theory, filmmakers have unlocked and combined different elements from disparate genres to create legendary results—like George Lucas’s Star Wars, which combines science fiction, samurai, western, and war genres, to name a few. Some take it further—Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction glides between genres chapter by chapter.
Genre theory is still very much a part of how we view and create films. However, genres are also in the process of being completely radicalized. It’s up to you to not just consume, but also strive to understand what other movies are doing. Then, apply your own research and inclinations toward the genres you choose to work with in your projects.
For more genre theory and filmmaking tips and tricks, check out these articles:
7 Filmmaking Insights from Modern Film and Television
Filmmaking Challenge: How to Create Foley for Stock Footage
How “The Mandalorian” Got Feature Film Effects on a TV Budget
The 2010s: The Biggest Filmmaking Moments of the Decade
Roundup: Genre Filmmaking Tips and Tricks from the Filmmakers of Fantastic Fest | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 64 | https://observer.com/2017/01/behind-the-screens-oscilloscope-laboratories-underground-movie-model/ | en | Behind the Screens: Oscilloscope Laboratories’ Underground Movie Model | [
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"Jake Brandman",
"observer.com",
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] | 2017-01-13T20:55:18 | We caught up with Director of Acquisitions Aaron Katz to find out what makes Oscilloscope Laboratories one of the industry’s most vital film distributors. | en | Observer | https://observer.com/2017/01/behind-the-screens-oscilloscope-laboratories-underground-movie-model/ | Welcome to “Behind the Screens”, where we interview the people who decide what the most influential arthouse and indie theaters in New York put on their screens. Along the way, we’ll uncover some of the challenges, thrills, and secrets of the trade and, hopefully, get a sense of what gives the American cinematic landscape its unique identity.
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It’s been a little over eight years since the late Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (aka MCA) teamed up with THINKFilm executive (and eventual A24 founder) David Fenkel to create Oscilloscope Laboratories, a goofily-titled film distribution company with a serious desire to give under-the-radar films and filmmakers the love and attention they deserve. Any doubts about the “Fight For Your Right to Party” rapper’s ability to appeal to cineastes were quickly silenced with a critically-acclaimed slate of films like Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy and Oren Moverman’s The Messenger. Today, despite the loss of both founders, Oscilloscope continues to put out critical darling after critical darling, ranging from the creepily moving dance team drama, The Fits, to the John Waters-esque feminist sex comedy, The Love Witch. We caught up with Director of Acquisitions Aaron Katz to find out what makes Oscilloscope Laboratories one of the industry’s most vital film distributors.
How long have you been with Oscilloscope?
I’ve been here for six years, but in very different capacities. I started off as David Fenkel and Adam Yauch’s assistant, and after about a year or so, I was promoted and started working in our Acquisitions and Digital Sales departments. Then, David Fenkel left. Adam Yauch passed away. Things changed after that, so my role kept progressing until, about a year and a half ago, I took on the Acquisitions Department basically on my own. Everything gets run up to the President, but it’s mostly my department.
Over those six years, the whole independent film landscape has changed so much thanks to streaming and Video on Demand (VOD). How has that changed your business model?
The model has changed, but it’s constantly changing. The digital strategies we were discussing three months ago are completely different from what they are today. When I first started, digital was just one field to focus on. You’d do a digital campaign to go along with everything you’re doing. Then it became the most profitable field, so you’d have to work on that digital space as much as possible. “Day-and-Date” [simultaneous release of a movie in theaters and VOD] was starting to get really big, so companies like Magnolia, who had a digital focus, were doing very well. We tried our hand at a few titles doing “day-and-date” releases, but the way you would get a movie to be “day-and-date” in the past was a lot easier than it is now. For example, for Comcast to list you in the “New” folder, you needed to prove you were going “day-and-date” with five theaters.
If the movie doesn’t go in the “New” folder, where would it go?
It would just go to the general alphabet, where it would be lost for a very long time. So, when it was just five theaters, it wasn’t so hard. You could try to book those naturally or “four-wall” them, which is basically buying the theater. If you want to get prime placement on a VOD platform, and this is still true, you need to be in theaters. But if you want to be in theaters, you need to give those theaters exclusive rights to the film for 90 days. Clearly, those two things are going head-to-head. So, to book the theater, you need the theater to want to support the film, even though it’s “day-and-date,” or you need to buy the entire theater for a week or two. Then, the VOD companies started to ask for 10 theaters, 15 theaters, and you needed to be in the top markets, like New York, LA, San Fran. So you’re spending a bunch of money upfront to buy these theaters, and you’re not going to see any of that back theatrically; you have to see it back digitally. And what’s different from six years ago is that every Tuesday and Friday, there’s a huge update on iTunes or VOD channels that is so large that it’s very easy to get lost.
Is the “day-and-date” designation worth all that trouble?
No. We’re staying away from it. That’s another thing that’s changed. We went to the “day-and-date” platforms for specific films that it made sense for, but for the majority of our releases, we’ve pushed for more theatrical releases. What we’ve been finding from our successes the past couple years is that when we go theatrically, we’re building a real marketing campaign for these films. We’re building great press that we wouldn’t get if the film was looked at as a digitally-driven title. The New York Times doesn’t review every movie that’s being released now. They only review the ones they think deserve it, and a lot of “day-and-date” titles get lost in that. So our goal is to find good movies and build a profile for them through theatrical release followed by the rest of its releases.
Do you have any input into how your films are being presented on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.?
Um…no. (laughs) If I go to Netflix, a bunch of things are presented to me, and I feel like those things are presented for a reason. I don’t know what those reasons might be, whether it’s an algorithm or they spent a bunch of money to acquire these things and need more people to watch it to make sense. Who knows? Either way, there are plenty of things buried in there that you have to hunt out. You go on Amazon and they say, “Here are the top movies,” but who are those top movies for? We sell movies to those platforms all the time and it’s great to have our movies on there, but as a viewer, I love curation. That’s why we go to a place like the Alamo Drafthouse or the Metrograph. It’s curation that we can trust, and that’s something we’ve always been trying to build for Oscilloscope. When you see an Oscilloscope logo, you know you’re in for something unique and interesting.
Can you think of a specific movie that wound up being a big hit for you that nobody else believed in?
Yeah, Embrace of the Serpent. Black-and-white film that’s over two hours long in 13 different languages that’s about a native helping an explorer travel down the Amazon to find a rare flower. That’s a movie that doesn’t sound like it should work, but we loved it. Because we loved it, we were able to work with that movie in a unique and great way, and it went very, very, very well. We got an Oscar nomination and did over a million dollars in the box office, which made it one of the highest-grossing foreign language movies of the last year.
What is it about this Oscilloscope that allows you to have that freedom to go for it, as opposed to other companies that might worry more about their bottom line?
I think there’s two things at play. One is that, when Adam started this company, he really wanted to give a voice to filmmakers and artists. He always wanted projects that people have been working on for “x” number of years to get the proper care when they were taken out into the world. We’ve always kept true to that, and we work with filmmakers to figure out the way they want to see their films come out. Sometimes our viewpoints don’t align. That happens. The movies that we’ve worked on are the ones where they do align. The other thing that I think helps, as well, is that we’re independently financed. All the money that goes into this company is from what we’ve made. So, without having a corporate backer of sorts, we have the liberty to do whatever we want, which is great. It gives us the freedom to do movies like Embrace of the Serpent, but it also limits the resources we have available, at least financially. We have what we have, and we have to work with that. It makes us say, “Okay, so we don’t have the million dollars to acquire whatever hot movie might be playing at Sundance. But what can we find that works with what we have and the creative minds that we have here to be able to make a good campaign and build a good home for these films?”
When you go to a festival like Cannes or Sundance, do you go in with a strategy of getting a certain number of movies?
That’s another thing. A lot of companies have a slate they need to adhere to, whether it’s 15, 30, 60 films. We don’t. We need to keep the lights on, but we can kind of play it by ear. We don’t want to come into a festival saying, “We need five films.” That puts us in a position where we can’t do what we do best, which is picking films we’re extremely passionate about. So, for Sundance right now, we have our priorities, and our priorities are based on what could potentially work for us and what would make sense in our world.
What is that “priority” designation based on?
Research. We’ve watched a ton of movies. We’ve seen a lot of films these filmmakers have already made. For first-time filmmakers, we can read scripts, we can talk to sales agents, hear what the pitch is. We try to talk to filmmakers as much as we can, as well. We’ve met a lot of people through things like Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) or Sundance Institute grants. There’s a lot of filmmakers that we’re familiar with or producers we’ve worked with in the past who have new projects. It’s kind of like, “Who’s involved? What do we know? What can we find out?”
How do you decide which movies on your slate you’re going to push for awards?
We’ve had seven Oscar nominations at this company, and those kinds of things don’t really come organically. It’s more about whether we think they have the potential to perform that way and spending the money to make that happen. So, for something like a Foreign Language Oscar nomination, the money needed to make that happen is a lot less than the money needed for Best Picture or Best Actress. Just to get these movies on people’s radar, the amount of time, energy, and finances that go into doing that is very significant. A lot of companies hire out awards season people, just to push those things. That becomes a whole other division of their company. We’re not doing that. When we have Oscar nominations, it’s the staff that’s here in our office pushing Embrace of the Serpent for an Oscar.
What’s an example of something you were considering pushing for this year’s Oscars?
Royalty Highwater from The Fits saw a ton of praise out of Sundance. She gives a terrific performance, she’s won all these awards, and she’s been mentioned in the New York Times as one of the actors to keep an eye on. But if we wanted to do an Oscar campaign for her, and we do, it costs a ton of money, and we’d be competing against companies that have a lot of money to spend on Annette Bening or someone like that. So, as we’re making a decision there, we’re thinking what it’s going to cost us to do this. We need to fly her around, we need to get a ton of people to see this movie, much more than we would for a Foreign Language movie or a documentary. Going into those bigger categories is a lot harder for us to do, just because of the financial spend. It’s not that we wouldn’t do it. We’ve done it before, and we will continue to do it, but it’s just a matter of weighing the odds.
Other than the prestige of winning an Oscar, what is the actual benefit for your company?
It’s the attention. We can get industry attention, but the Oscars let us take that dialogue to a larger scale. So, for example, in the Foreign Language category last year, we had the Oscar nomination before we went to theaters. It gave us more attention because it’s part of this list of five elite films, which are supposedly better than other films. So it gives us the attention, but it’s not a sure shot. If you look at last year’s five nominated Foreign Language films, some of them just didn’t perform at the box office at the same level as Embrace of the Serpent. I can’t give you a reason why.
Even with that Oscar seal of approval?
But you could say the same thing about getting a “Critic’s Pick.” If you get a New York Times Critic’s Pick, it should do great things for the film, but if you’re not seizing the opportunity in the right kinds of ways and still working on putting in the necessary marketing and publicity, then the film may not actually benefit.
How do you go about getting a theatrical release for one of your movies?
Once we acquire a movie, we have a theatrical booker that focuses on that stuff. Basically, he has the relationships with the venues and their programmers, and he presents them with what we have going on and they see if it might make sense for their audiences. So it’s us doing some persuading sometimes, but it’s mostly us presenting movies that we think could work for them. When we’re bringing a movie out, we’ll talk to the majority, if not all, of the theaters in New York to see who might be the best fit for it. Does this movie go uptown or downtown? Does it go both? Does it go to Brooklyn to the Alamo, where there’s much more of a focus on genre? It’s about figuring out where it might make sense and who would respond to it. We do that across the country.
One thing I noticed is that you have a lot of female filmmakers on your slate. Is that something you’re actively trying to cultivate?
Nope. They’re great filmmakers. We’re looking for great filmmakers, and a lot of them happen to be women.
Are there specific traits that Adam Yauch looked for in movies that are still present in what Oscilloscope looks for today?
Yeah, definitely. Adam’s taste was really eclectic. He liked everything from comedies to arthouse cinema to documentary, and I think the fact we run the gamut in terms of what we release is very much in line with what Adam saw in film. He was the guy who had the “And-1 Mix Tape,” kung fu movies, and The Godfather all next to each other on the shelf. Things have obviously changed a lot, but his vision is still in our minds and we work towards that as much as we possibly can. When we watched The Fits, one of the things we first said was, “This is the kind of movie we were created for. This is why we exist.” | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 33 | https://www.georgia.org/industries/film-entertainment/georgia-film-tv-production | en | Georgia Department of Economic Development | [
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] | null | [] | null | The Georgia Film Office maintains a locations database of thousands of properties, and provides scouting assistance as well as certifying projects for the tax incentive for TV and movies. | en | /sites/default/files/logo-georgia-peach-notext_0.png | https://www.georgia.org/industries/film-entertainment/georgia-film-tv-production | Georgia Film and TV Production
The Georgia Film Office maintains a locations database of thousands of properties and provides scouting assistance as well as certifying projects for the tax incentive. With its temperate climate, great variety of locations, the world’s busiest airport (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport), large crew base and pro-business focus, Georgia is now a leading destination in the world for filming TV and movies. The Camera Ready Communities program is in place to connect producers with skilled county liaisons who provide resources like film studios, lodging, assistance with local permitting laws and more. Georgia’s infrastructure is perfect for filming studios as well. The state currently has 4 million square feet of stage space, and to meet growing demand, companies like Gray Television are hard at work creating new state-of-the-art facilities. Follow the resources below to learn more about the Georgia film and TV production industry.
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 38 | https://the-talks.com/interview/lily-gladstone/ | en | Lily Gladstone | [
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"Patrick Heidmann"
] | 2024-03-06T00:00:00 | “You are constantly a role model for the generation to step right behind you. I’ve always operated in this space of: ‘There’s somebody watching what I’m doing.’” “The basis of life is water. This is a great pressure, but if I allow myself to be a dam, although I feel the pressure of this water... Read more » | en | The Talks | https://the-talks.com/interview/lily-gladstone/ | Ms. Gladstone, is it true you were close to giving up acting when you got the offer for your role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon?
“Give up” is a big word! It’s more that I was giving up on the idea of basing myself in New York or LA, trying to seek out meetings. I just wanted to take a really long pause and do the things that mattered to me: at the time, I was helping take care of my immunocompromised father and my aging grandmother who has since passed away. I was just terrified of bringing Covid home. I thought about doing a little bit of Department of Agriculture data collection to fight the giant murder hornets as they were crassly called. I have a profound love of bees. So I was like, “Oh, a nice isolated job that keeps me outdoors that I can come and go from…”
It’s a far cry from the Hollywood film industry, that’s for sure.
Well, I was also waiting on a number of incredible independent filmmakers — I wondered if maybe Kelly Reichardt would call again. I knew that Erica Tremblay had been writing Fancy Dance for me, for example. I was waiting to see if Erica’s script would be greenlit. But it’s hard for a Native writer, director, queer woman to finance her films! So, you know, acting is a very difficult profession, and I guess I was just getting very real with myself about potentially doing other things, or choosing something that would be seasonal work.
“You are constantly a role model for the generation to step right behind you. I’ve always operated in this space of: ‘There’s somebody watching what I’m doing.’”
And then you got the call from Scorsese…
Marty is just one of the sweetest, funniest people to be around. I mean, meeting an icon is one thing, but meeting a really good human being is another thing. And he’s just got such a way about him. Some of our first banter was when he was mentioning Greenwich Village, he was sort of dancing around the fact that he's so intimately connected with the world of Robbie Robertson and Bob Dylan and the whole Greenwich Village music scene. I said, “Oh, I think somebody made a documentary about that, didn't they?” Of course, teasing him about it because the bands just are a whole part of Marty's life. That connection is one of the first things I ever learned about him because my dad would play a Robbie Robertson album when I was a kid constantly.
Was your dad a film buff?
I think my dad knew that I had this performance streak, so he would often put on movies and he says I really studied them hard. And he encouraged that! Some of them were for kids, some of them were a little bit more complex: The Brother from Another Planet was one that was on repeat… The Adventures of Banzai Buckaroo Across the 8th Dimension was on repeat. And then later in middle school, Kundun was my introduction to Martin Scorsese. So it gave me great faith that Killers of the Flower Moon was going to be something very epic.
And of course you were right; the film has been nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Picture and your own Best Actress nomination. You’ve become such a role model for young Indigenous actors.
Given the community that I come from and the structure of what's expected of you at every stage of your life, you are constantly a role model for the generation to step right behind you. I've always operated in this space of: “There's somebody watching what I'm doing.” You conduct yourself a certain way when you know your younger cousins are watching what you're doing! So any pressure does feel immense when we’re talking about a film like Killers of the Flower Moon. But that’s the gift of being part of a greater community, not just my family, not just my tribal nations, but all of it, everyone. We love seeing our own succeed. It doesn't feel like it's all for me, or all about me. It’s about all the kids that I've gotten to do some theater coaching with. This also felt like it was something I was sharing with them, you know?
Were you able to work with members of your extended community, people from the Osage Nation, to prepare for your monumental role as Mollie Burkhart?
Absolutely! Before I got cast in the film, I had a couple of friends from Osage Country, from two different districts. One of them had a connection with Wilson Pipestem, who is an Osage headright holder whose grandmother Rose Pipestem was from the same area as Mollie Burkhart. We were able to have some early conversations, you know, sharing stories about his grandmother. For example, there’s an iconic photo that was the only one in circulation for a while, of Mollie sitting at the dinner table with Ernest. It’s a big thing to wear a blanket at the dinner table — that's culturally out of context, it looks odd — but taking that moment to to sit in reverence of the thunderstorm that's passing over, the quiet observation and essentially prayer in that moment, that came directly from Wilson's stories about his grandmother, Rose. So, those were some of the little things I started immediately the day that I got cast.
“The basis of life is water. This is a great pressure, but if I allow myself to be a dam, although I feel the pressure of this water behind me, it’s about letting it pass through.”
What other kind of research did you do?
Oh, right away I started research in terms of the language: I downloaded the Osage language app and started to work on the orthography, so I would be able to at least write in the phonetic alphabet for the Osage language. And that was tremendously helpful by the time I got into class to learn Osage language. But mostly it was about connecting with community and making sure that if I was going to steer in the direction of Grandma Lily, because that was what was most precious and accessible to me, that I was going in the right direction.
What do you mean?
Well, I knew that I had to carry Mollie the way would expect somebody to carry my great-grandmother, Lily. She was born in 1896. Mollie was born in 1886. I was born in 1986, so it was kind of this nice little trifecta. Lily was a traditional woman and also a very devoutly Catholic woman. I was raised having been her namesake, the only girl in my very big extended family, the descendants of Lily Wagner Gladstone. I was raised to carry her name, so when I thought about that and about playing Mollie Burkhart, I knew I would be carrying her with the preciousness I would expect somebody to carry Lily with. That was paramount to me.
Partly because Mollie’s descendants would be watching the film, right?
Yes, I knew that many families, whether or not they were descendants of Mollie, would be looking to her as if she was their own great grandmother, their own grandmother, their own mother.
That seems like an incredible amount of pressure for you as an actor.
Something I’ve been thinking about is that, really, at the basis of life is water. So you could feel like, “This is a great pressure, but if I allow myself to be a dam, although I feel the pressure of all of this water behind me, it's about just letting it pass through and continue and connect through community.” That's what it's really for. So I keep that in mind. It’s kind of an abstract, intangible and tangible thing that I make sure keeps passing through me and doesn't stop me. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 23 | https://www.screendaily.com/killer-strikes-ongoing-finance-distribution-deal-with-thinkfilm/4031121.article | en | Killer strikes ongoing finance, distribution deal with THINKFilm | [
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"Jeremy Kay",
"Ben Dalton",
"Rebecca Leffler"
] | 2007-02-22T01:00:00+00:00 | THINKFilm and Killer Films have entered into an agreement granting the former the right to finance and handle worldwide distribution on films developed and produced by Killer.The deal is the first major initiative struck by THINKFilm since it was taken over last year by film financier and producer David Bergstein, ... | en | /magazine/dest/graphics/favicons/favicon-32x32.png | Screen | https://www.screendaily.com/killer-strikes-ongoing-finance-distribution-deal-with-thinkfilm/4031121.article | Subscribe to Screen International
Screen International is the essential resource for the international film industry. Subscribe now for monthly editions, awards season weeklies, access to the Screen International archive and supplements including Stars of Tomorrow and World of Locations. | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 76 | https://www.blu-ray.com/Bordertown/101221/ | en | Bordertown (2006) | [
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"Bordertown"
] | null | [] | null | https://www.blu-ray.com/favicon.ico | Blu-ray.com | https://www.blu-ray.com/Bordertown/101221/ | Movie finder Release calendar New releases Coming soon Reviews User reviews Search
Directed by Gregory Nava
Bordertown 2006
R
114 MIN
Overview Releases Reviews Cast crew Movie Codes Products News Forum
Crime
Drama
Mystery
Thriller
Studio101 DISTRIBUTION
Direct to videoYesCountry US LanguageEnglish Runtime114 minRatedRTechnical details 1.78:1
Movie plot tags
A powerful story of life on the border between the United States and Mexico, BORDERTOWN is based on the tragic account of hundreds of women working in American-owned factories who have been brutally raped and murdered in Juarez,, a city gripped by fear. The attacks have been covered up by the local authorities, and still continue today. When editor of the Chicago Sentinel George Morgan sends ambitious reporter Lauren Adrian to Juarez, Mexico to investigate the murders, what she finds is the story of a lifetime. Eva, a young woman who was raped and left for dead in the desert, is the only ...(more)
A powerful story of life on the border between the United States and Mexico, BORDERTOWN is based on the tragic account of hundreds of women working in American-owned factories who have been brutally raped and murdered in Juarez,, a city gripped by fear. The attacks have been covered up by the local authorities, and still continue today. When editor of the Chicago Sentinel George Morgan sends ambitious reporter Lauren Adrian to Juarez, Mexico to investigate the murders, what she finds is the story of a lifetime. Eva, a young woman who was raped and left for dead in the desert, is the only woman to survive an attack. Unable to go to the police for help, she turns to a local newspaper run by Diaz Alfonso, former friend and colleague of Lauren's. Hiding Eva is incredibly dangerous, but Lauren knows that publishing her story is the only way to expose the truth behind the murders. She is determined to find Eva's attackers but soon finds herself immersed in a dangerous web of corruption that extends to both sides of the border. (less)
Director: Gregory Nava
Writer: Gregory Nava
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Antonio Banderas, Maya Zapata, Martin Sheen, Randall Batinkoff, Irineo Alvarez
Producers: David Bergstein, Simon Fields, Gregory Nava, Cary Epstein, Sue Jett, Barbara Martinez Jitner
» See full cast & crew
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 79 | https://www.slashfilm.com/757709/the-top-greatest-philip-seymour-hoffman-movies-ranked/ | en | The 15 Greatest Philip Seymour Hoffman Movies Ranked | [
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"Liam Gaughan"
] | 2022-02-04T20:21:25+00:00 | The film world lost a giant with the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2014. However, his legacy lives on thanks to these great movies. | en | SlashFilm | https://www.slashfilm.com/757709/the-top-greatest-philip-seymour-hoffman-movies-ranked/ | The tragic death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2014 was a shock to both movie fans and the film industry. As one of the greatest actors of his generation, Hoffman clearly had so much more to give. Hoffman's loss is one the industry and his fellow actors will not soon forget. Years later, the unique actor's absence is still felt. However, Hoffman left behind a rich legacy of classic films and performances that will be cherished and celebrated forever.
Hoffman was unlike any of his contemporaries. He was a true chameleon who could seamlessly slip into any genre and tackle any role. Depending on what the story called for, Hoffman could be funny, charismatic, scary, or cruel. There are great movie stars, and there are great character actors — Hoffman was both.
Hoffman worked in film and on stage up until his death. Although he was best known for being a maverick thespian who appeared in arthouse and independent cinema, mainstream audiences will undoubtedly remember him as Plutarch Heavensbee in the massively popular "Hunger Games" franchise.
Here are the 15 greatest Philip Seymour Hoffman movies, ranked.
The 2003 Civil War epic "Cold Mountain" is a throwback to a classic era of cinema that combines old-fashioned storytelling with the violence and graphic content that's only possible in modern films. Taking place during the beginning of the Civil War, the story focuses on the community of Cold Mountain, North Carolina, which is galvanized into joining the Confederacy. However, W.P. Inman (Jude Law), a carpenter who has no loyalty to the rebel cause, wants to stay at home to complete his courtship to his lover Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman).
Inman is forced to fight for three long years and is eventually presumed dead in battle. Making the long journey back to find Ada, he encounters many strange and dangerous figures. Among them is the corrupt religious leader Reverend Solomon Veasey (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Inman stops Veasey from murdering an enslaved girl he's assaulted, and he grows irritated when the preacher insists on joining him in his journey.
George Clooney's 2011 political drama "The Ides of March" is an insightful examination of the behind-the-scenes mechanics of modern politics that depicts the United States presidential election as a fraught and morally challenging event. Clooney stars as the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania Mike Morris, who looks to be closing in on a tight primary victory. Morris' campaign is managed by senior strategist Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his junior assistant Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling).
The campaign grows more complex as Meyers learns secrets about Morris' past that force him to question his loyalties. After the death of Morris' intern, Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood), he considers drastic action. Zara reprimands him in a frank fashion, explaining the cynical practices that they must abide by to have their careers. Zara's rivalry with the opposing campaign manager, Paul Duffy (Paul Giamatti), is engaging. Seeing two of the greatest actors of the 21st century go head-to-head is riveting.
Aaron Sorkin is a screenwriter who builds his characters to be scene-stealers. Often a minor character in a Sorkin script can single-handedly command the audience's attention with some memorable dialogue. This is exactly what Philip Seymour Hoffman does in the 2007 biographical dramedy "Charlie Wilson's War" — the last film from the great comic director Mike Nichols. The film centers on the eccentric, womanizing U.S. congressman (Tom Hanks) who helped fund the efforts of Afghan rebels to oppose their Soviet oppressors during the 1980s.
Wilson's interests require the cooperation of the CIA, and he has to convince Afghan task force manager Gust Avrakotos (Hoffman) to join him. Gust is looking for a solution to help the rebels, but he can't seem to get funding from the government. He has a deep distrust of politicians, viewing them as corrupt and ignorant regarding the details of wartime intelligence. Gust soon realizes that Wilson isn't a typical bureaucrat — even if his flamboyant personality is an issue on its own.
In the first of their many collaborations, Philip Seymour Hoffman appears in one of the most memorable moments in Paul Thomas Anderson's directorial debut "Hard Eight." The low-budget indie thriller focuses on aging card shark Sydney (Philip Baker Hall), who finds a poor young man named John Finnegan (John C. Reilly) in a diner. Sydney offers to pay for John's mother's funeral and gives him an opportunity to become his protégé and travel to Las Vegas.
As Sydney teaches John about the gambling lifestyle, he proceeds with a calm and confident demeanor. Sydney's feathers are ruffled for the first time when he encounters a particularly obnoxious craps player (Hoffman) who unnerves John with his foul-mouthed insults and overconfidence. Hoffman kicks up the tension in the scene and forces John to question his decision for the first time: Is this what his future will like, and is Sydney the man to guide him?
Filmmaker Bennett Miller owes much of his career to Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was through Hoffman's brilliant performance in Miller's narrative feature debut "Capote" (his first film was the 1998 New York tour bus guide documentary "The Cruise") that the director was able to garner the critical acclaim that would inspire interest in his next projects. Miller can take true stories from history and transform the complex subject matter into gripping character studies. With 2011's "Moneyball," he took on the real-life story of the 2002 Oakland A's record-breaking season under the unique strategy of general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt).
Beane and his assistant, analyst Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), use mathematical calculations to find lower-ranked players and highlight their abilities to create the perfect winning team. He's considered crazy by skeptics, including Oakland A's athletic manager Art Howe (Hoffman), who doesn't understand the new approach and pushes for a more traditional recruiting process.
Philip Seymour Hoffman's characters were not always inherently likable. Still, the risk-taking actor was always able to find something genuine and understandable in their often conflicted motivations. That was a crucial asset when he was tasked with playing characters with a complex relationship with their morality. His role in the great Sidney Lumet's last masterpiece "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" was one of his most dynamic.
Hoffman stars as Andy Hanson who convinces his brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) to help stage a robbery of their parents' jewelry store. Andy has always lived in his father Charles' (Albert Finney) shadow. He convinces Hank that the crime will be quick and nonviolent. However, the attempted heist goes wrong when their mother (Rosemary Harris) is shot and dies of her injuries. Andy must live with his guilt while making sure that his brother doesn't confess.
Anthony Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley," released in 1999, is a film that could have easily descended into schlocky melodrama, but thanks to Minghella's anxiety-inducing direction and first-rate performances from the film's ensemble, it's an elevated thriller and a gripping character study. Matt Damon stars as the titular Ripley, a young man with obsessive tendencies and the uncanny ability to capture the voice and persona of people he meets. In the film, Tom focuses his attention on the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law).
After impressing Dickie with an impression of his father, Tom is invited to stay at the seaside village of Mongibello with Dickie and his girlfriend Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow). Tom's obsession with Dickie grows stronger, and he feels threatened by the appearance of socialite Freddie Miles (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Hoffman immediately kicks up the tension in the story by teasing Dickie and cruelly mocking him. Later in the film, after Dickie's murder, Freddie returns to confront Tom in one of the film's most tense sequences.
A great actor can transcend minimal screen time and deliver amazing work. Few can look back at Paul Thomas Anderson's classic 2002 romantic comedy "Punch-Drunk Love" and not instantly think of Philip Seymour Hoffman. With its philosophical musings and eccentric non sequiturs, "Punch-Drunk Love" is a unique reinvention of the rom-com. And it was the first film that proved to the world that Adam Sandler could act. Sandler stars as lonely toilet plunger salesman and bachelor Barry Egan.
Barry's life is dominated by his overbearing sisters, but he falls in love with a sensitive woman named Lena Leonard (Emily Watson) and attempts to win her affections. To build his confidence, Barry stands up to the "Mattress Man" Dean Trumbell (Hoffman) over the phone — only to be berated with an increasingly creative (and uproarious) series of insults. Hoffman's unrelenting rage is hilarious compared to Sandler's meek and sensitive performance.
Paul Thomas Anderson is renowned for taking risks. "Magnolia," released in 1999, is the most ambitious film he's made so far. A three-hour dramedy, "Magnolia" centers around a group of lonely and troubled characters in the San Fernando Valley as their lives intersect. What could have been a painfully indulgent slog is instead a moving, emotional journey that features stunning work from a great ensemble cast. It's challenging to single out just one performance as the film's best, but Philip Seymour Hoffman is a standout in his understated role.
Hoffman appears as kindly nurse Phil Parma who's tasked with caring for dying television producer Earl Partridge (Jason Robards). Partridge was the former host and developer of the cruel game show "Do Kids Know?" and now watches his estranged son Frank (Tom Cruise) work as a motivational speaker who preaches toxic masculinity. In the film, Phil must get these two to reconnect and work out the demons of their past.
The Coen Brothers' utterly original 1998 film "The Big Lebowski" is one of the funniest (and for many, one of the greatest) movies ever made. There's simply nothing like "The Big Lebowski." It's an ingenious mix of philosophical insights, winking ironies, noir movie tropes, eccentric situations, bizarre dialogue, and unique framing. Above all, Jeff Bridges created one of the greatest characters in cinematic history with "The Dude," a good-hearted stoner who just wants to go bowling with his best friends Donny Kerabatsos (Steve Buscemi) and Walter Sobchak (John Goodman).
The film also features side characters that are just as hilarious. Philip Seymour Hoffman appears in one of "The Big Lebowski's" most memorable supporting roles as Brandt, the assistant to the wealthy philanthropist Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston) (whom The Dude is constantly mistaken for). Brandt is completely helpless to the whims of his employer, but he keeps a smile on his face as he attempts to hold it together amidst the stress that The Dude's chaos brings to his workplace.
One of the reasons that Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 film "Boogie Nights" remains such a beloved classic is the empathy with which it shows all of its characters, depicting their lives with both hilarity and heartbreak. Few characters represent that dichotomy more than Philip Seymour Hoffman's lowly camera operator Scotty. Anderson treats the adult film industry with an earnestness that is rarely seen. This world is particularly hard for someone like Scotty who doesn't feel quite at home in the community.
Scotty lacks any real confidence and is isolated in his technical position. He's forced to watch the stars interact and maintain the deep friendships that he can't develop himself. Despite his isolation, Scotty yearns for the new young star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) and tries to flirt with him during their brief interactions. After finally working up the courage and confronting Dirk about his feelings, Scotty attempts to embrace his crush — only to have Dirk insult him and push him away. Hoffman's spiral into self-hatred is one of the film's most heartbreaking moments.
One of Philip Seymour Hoffman's great advantages as a film actor was his extensive experience in theatre. Despite some superficial similarities to cinema, the demands of the stage are very different. Theatre requires an actor to maintain a greater level of intimacy. Hoffman's excellence on the stage helped him prepare for one of his best roles in John Patrick Shanley's 2008 film adaptation of "Doubt."
The film centers around a small Catholic community in the Bronx of the 1960s. Hoffman portrays Father Brendan Flynn, a pillar of the tight-knit community. Flynn is popular among his congregation and pushes for a more progressive Church doctrine. However, Flynn's life is turned upside down when elder parish school principal Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep) sees him taking a young African-American boy into his office for a private meeting. She later smells alcohol on the boy's breath. When questioned, Flynn claims that the boy had been caught drinking before basketball practice. Flynn explains that he had reprimanded the boy and offered him private guidance out of fear that he'd be stigmatized by racist insensitivities to a childhood mistake. Beauvier holds on to her suspicions, and with the help of innocent teacher Sister James (Amy Adams), begins to dig deeper. "Doubt" explores the ambiguous nature of truth, faith, and certainty as it delves into the mystery of Flynn's guilt or innocence.
When thinking about the greatest actor-director pairings of all time, it's easy to recall Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's films, John Wayne in the works of John Ford, or Humphrey Bogart's collaborations with John Huston. Those are all cases in which major directors took talented, big-name stars and frequently cast them as leads. But neither Philip Seymour Hoffman nor the great Paul Thomas Anderson fits that standard mold of the mainstream. Hoffman was rarely the lead in Anderson's films, but he was an integral part of so many of them. Anderson is renowned for his incredible characters, and few are more memorable than the ones portrayed by Hoffman.
Hoffman's greatest performance in one of Anderson's films was also, sadly, his last. He gave one of his final screen performances in Anderson's modern classic "The Master," released in 2012. Based loosely on the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, the film centers on cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman) who holds private meetings in which he spreads his radical beliefs about the origins of mankind. Dodd takes an interest in troubled World War II veteran Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) and invites him to join "The Cause," with the promise that he can find relief for his war-induced post-traumatic stress disorder. Slowly, Freddie is indoctrinated into worshiping his new mentor.
It took far too long, but Philip Seymour Hoffman finally won an Academy Award for best actor for his transformation into famed novelist Truman Capote in Bennet Miller's 2005 biographical drama "Capote." In many ways, it's a role that hits all the marks of what an awards-friendly biopic should be. However, "Capote" is far from a typical Oscar-bait vehicle. Miller (who would reunite with Hoffman for 2011's "Moneyball") examines the deeper moral questions prompted by Capote's life. He explores the responsibilities of journalists and questions just how close a writer and their subject should get.
"Capote" follows the author after he comes across a gripping New York Times story about the slaying of the Clutter family in their Kansas home. Intrigued by the tragic story, he immediately calls William Shawn (Bob Balaban), editor of The New Yorker, so he can begin an in-depth investigation of the crime.
He's met with resistance from Kansas Bureau of Investigation detective Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper) but eventually scores an interview with suspects Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino). As he documents their story (which will inspire his book "In Cold Blood"), Capote becomes dangerously close to empathizing with the killers. Hoffman brilliantly embodies the author, convincingly adopting Capote's unique vocal patterns and physical appearance.
One of the elements that made Philip Seymour Hoffman such a critical figure in the film industry was his spirit of giving. He was a generous performer — one who welcomed his co-stars onto the screen and gave them room. It's only fitting that his strongest performance was playing a character who is inherently friendly and inviting. "Almost Famous" embodies everything that made Hoffman so special as an actor. As outspoken rock critic Lester Bangs, he plays a supporting yet integral role that instills Cameron Crowe's classic with an immediate tone of optimism that follows through with a gripping emotional moment later on.
The film centers around a slightly fictionalized version of a young Cameron Crowe played by William Miller (Patrick Fugit). Miller is obsessed with music thanks to a bonding experience with his sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) when he was younger. Unfortunately, William's mother Elaine (Frances McDormand) is strict about what he is exposed to (even refusing to celebrate Christmas out of fear that it's become too commercialized). As William grows up, he finds an outlet for his budding interests through Creem Magazine editor Lester Bangs (Hoffman). Impressed with the young boy's knowledge, Bangs takes William under his wing and begins filling him in on the music history lessons he was denied by his mother. William's goal is to become a music journalist, and Bangs guides him on his journey. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 62 | https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2011/02/28/tribeca-sundance-plan-growth/28999103007/ | en | Tribeca and Sundance Plan Growth | [
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"BROOKS BARNES, Sarasota Herald-Tribune"
] | 2011-02-28T00:00:00 | Using on-demand technology and Web services, the Tribeca and Sundance film festivals are aiming to gain a wider audience for independent movies. | en | Sarasota Herald-Tribune | https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2011/02/28/tribeca-sundance-plan-growth/28999103007/ | LOS ANGELES — Two big film festival operators, Tribeca Enterprises and the Sundance Institute, are about to greatly expand their efforts to use technology to bring specialty movies to a national audience.
For years, the business function of festivals was straightforward: create excitement for independent films, and hope that distributors acquire them for release.
But the rise of Web streaming and video-on-demand services freed festivals from their geographic limitations. Suddenly, the likes of Sundance, Tribeca and South by Southwest were experimenting with simultaneous film premieres at their festivals and on Web sites like YouTube or cable on-demand systems.
Now comes a new development — the end of experimentation and the start of full-fledged digital distribution efforts by festival operators.
Tribeca plans on Monday to announce a significant expansion of its fledgling movie releasing arm, Tribeca Film, which was founded last year as a test in releasing movies both digitally and in theaters. Tribeca Film plans to increase its annual output to 26 pictures, up from 11.
Among this year’s batch — set for distribution in theaters, on on-demand services in 40 million homes and on Web services like iTunes — are films starring indie favorites like Zach Braff and Vincent Gallo.
“We learned very quickly that our brand can resonate beyond New York,” said Jane Rosenthal, Tribeca’s co-founder. “There are hundreds of wonderful films that never have the chance to reach a wider audience, and we want to seize any possible opportunity to change that.”
Sundance, which has tinkered with distribution partnerships for years, is expected to announce a formal year-round strategy for helping indie filmmakers gain access to digital distribution in the coming weeks. People with knowledge of the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid conflicts with the powerful organization, said plans called for Sundance-branded channels on iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube and others.
Sundance executives declined to comment, saying efforts were incomplete. A spokeswoman emphasized, however, that the Sundance model would substantially differ from the Tribeca Films effort by allowing filmmakers to retain full ownership of their work. Sundance, unlike most other festival operators, is a nonprofit that also runs workshops for budding filmmakers and playwrights.
“There is big opportunity in this marketplace, particularly for a pocket of films that may not always have huge theatrical appeal but can take advantage of video on demand and other digital platforms,” said Rena Ronson, co-head of the Independent Film Group at United Artists Agency.
Tribeca and Sundance are reaching beyond their traditional functions for reasons of economics and technology. Hammered in recent years by the recession and soaring marketing costs, art house distributors like Paramount Vantage and Picturehouse went out of business, leaving a void in the market.
“It was kind of genius for Tribeca to jump in because almost nobody was left to buy anything,” said Julien Nitzberg, the director of “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia,” a documentary about an eccentric Appalachian family that Tribeca Films successfully distributed last year.
At the same time, Web streaming and growth of video-on-demand systems in living rooms lowered the bar for distribution. Suddenly all kinds of indie films — not just the ones that showed strong theatrical promise — could be served up to wide audiences. The problem is that as digital offerings grow, these films, which come with little or no marketing budgets, have increasing difficulty breaking through the clutter.
The likes of Tribeca and Sundance, organizations with built-in curatorial mechanisms and brands that mean something to cinephiles, see opportunity to help serve as guideposts, thus helping this corner of the industry evolve into a more vibrant business. Mr. Nitzberg credits the Tribeca banner with helping his movie attract enough attention on Amazon’s streaming service to bump “The Hurt Locker,” last year’s best picture Oscar winner, from the top slot.
Some festival executives are not on board with the distribution push. “People approach us all the time because we have a great brand, but distribution is a very different business,” said Janet Pierson, the programmer of the film portion of the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., which this year runs March 11 to 19.
Ms. Pierson has experience to back up her assertion. South by Southwest teamed with IFC Films in 2009 to make five movies available simultaneously to festival audiences in Austin and to pay-per-view television customers across the United States. She has since abandoned such efforts. “It gets very complicated very quickly,” she said. “We want to focus on being a great live event.”
But Ms. Pierson is in the minority. Other festival operators, like Film Independent, the force behind the Los Angeles Film Festival, are working to follow the path charted by Tribeca and Sundance. A group of African-American-oriented festivals — the BronzeLens Film Festival in Atlanta, the ReelBlack Film Series in Philadelphia — recently announced an alliance to back the release of their movies in commercial theaters.
Tribeca’s distribution effort is unique in part because it has a major corporation, American Express, as a promotional sponsor. It has also made arrangements for its films to be shown on LodgeNet, a video-on-demand service that reaches about 1.8 million hotel rooms.
Ms. Ronson of United Talent said Tribeca was being taken seriously as a distributor in part because of the executives it has hired. Within the last year, Nick Savva, formerly of Revolver Entertainment, has joined Tribeca as director of acquisitions; Randy Manis, a co-founder of ThinkFilm, a production and distribution company known for releases like “Half Nelson,” is a consultant.
Tribeca, which will hold its festival from April 20 to May 1 in Manhattan, is expanding its distribution business as the art house market shows signs of a rebound. Acquisitions were brisk in January at the Sundance Film Festival and a few Oscar-nominated movies like “Black Swan” have turned into unlikely box office hits. But Ms. Rosenthal is not taking anything for granted.
“With the rapidly evolving landscape,” she said, “we all have to be extremely fast on our feet.” | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 19 | https://variety.com/2007/film/news/thinkfilm-under-fire-1117957633/ | en | ThinkFilm under fire | [
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"Brendan Kelly"
] | 2007-01-18T02:16:39+00:00 | Several Canuck producers have sent letters to Toronto-based film distributor ThinkFilm demanding that the company allow them to take back rights to their pics. | en | Variety | https://variety.com/2007/film/news/thinkfilm-under-fire-1117957633/ | Several Canuck producers have sent letters to Toronto-based film distributor ThinkFilm demanding that the company allow them to take back rights to their pics.
With ThinkFilm now American-owned, the films will lose their official status as Canadian projects if released by ThinkFilm, which could force the producers to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax credits.
Previously Canadian-owned, ThinkFilm was acquired in October by Los Angeles entrepreneur David Bergstein, who also owns U.K.-based foreign sales agent Capitol Films.
Toronto lawyer David Steinberg, who reps three Canadian producers who are in dispute with ThinkFilm, said the company is refusing to negotiate with the filmmakers.
“I’ve sent letters to demand that the films be given to a Canadian distributor,” said Steinberg, a partner at Toronto law firm Heenan Blaikie, one of the main legal players in the Canuck film biz. Bergstein has not “responded to the letters. So we don’t know what his intentions are.
“We thought this would’ve been taken care of a long time ago. This seems irrational. Why would they be putting Canadian producers in this position?”
A ThinkFilm spokesman would say only that the company is in negotiations with some of the Canadian producers whose films are in limbo.
Under Canadian law, a Canadian film can access tax credits only if it is released by a Canadian-owned distributor. Producers normally obtain loans from banks based on the presumption that they will be repaid once the producers receive the tax credits after shooting wraps.
The lack of a Canadian-owned distrib also will affect the producers’ deals with TV networks, because the Canuck webs buy pics specifically to fill Canadian-content quotas. If the films are no longer officially Canadian, the nets may not want to air them.
An estimated 20 pics are affected by the dispute.
Steinberg represents Darius Films, producer of Slamdance opener “Weirdsville” and “Hank and Mike,” and Alchemist Entertainment, producer of “King of Sorrow.” All three pics were meant to be distributed in Canada by ThinkFilm. Steinberg also reps a third Canadian producer whom he would not name.
Another pic in ThinkFilm limbo is helmer Paul Fox’s comedy “Everything’s Gone Green,” penned by novelist Douglas Coupland. First Independent Pictures plans to release the film in the U.S. in late March, and the original plan was to launch the pic in Canada at the same time. That now looks unlikely to happen. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 55 | https://www.tribecafilm.com/news/josh-hamilton-take-me-to-the-river-interview | en | Josh Hamilton Talks Sundance Gem ‘Take Me To The River’ | [
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] | null | [] | null | TFF alum Josh Hamilton makes his return to Sundance. | Tribeca | https://www.tribecafilm.com/news/josh-hamilton-take-me-to-the-river-interview | Matt Sobel’s remarkably assured debut Take To Me To The River centers on Ryder (relative newcomer Logan Miller), a sensitive teenager from California who attends a family reunion in Nebraska with his mother (Robin Weigert) and father (Richard Schiff). A strange incident takes place that involves Ryder and his young niece, and Ryder is put at odds with his volatile Uncle Keith. As Uncle Keith, TFF alum (Bottled Up, TFF 2013) Josh Hamilton turns in a searing performance, filling the screen with a palpable sense of unease.
We talked to the veteran actor about his experience making Take Me To The River, festival audiences and his latest theater projects.
Tribeca: Though you’ve been to the Tribeca Film Festival recently, Take Me To The River marks your first trip to Sundance in quite some time.
Josh Hamilton: It’s been a long time. I was last at Sundance when there weren’t so many movies being made and it wasn’t so hard to get in [laughs]. In the last 10 years, I feel like every small movie I make is always shooting for Sundance. I know there are thousands and thousands of submissions to any big festival, so I just wish them the best. I was so pleasantly pleased for Matt and everyone when I heard the news about Take Me To The River.
Tribeca: Why are film festivals so important for both filmmakers and actors?
JH: In a lot of ways I think film festivals are even more important than they used to be because there are so many films out there today. It’s nice to watch movies with hungry audiences who are obviously movie lovers. Indie films and filmmakers need the support of their community.
Plus, fewer and fewer people are going to the movie theater. More and more, people are watching movies at home or on their computers or on their phones. Indies that play the Festival circuit are lucky to get any form of distribution at all. When people do find them, it’s mostly likely through a streaming service like Netflix or iTunes. Film festivals are important on a practical level for audiences to see these movies on the big screen. It’s fantastic for the cast and crews as well.
Tribeca: You regularly work in theater, television, studio movies and smaller films. What’s your favorite thing about working on indies?
JH: It’s all about the people you’re working with and the material. To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a small or big film. My favorite thing about working on a small film like Take Me To The River is that the production always ends up being a big family affair by necessity. We were staying in Matt’s friends’ and family’s houses and they also ended up doing some of the catering. It felt like a real community coming together, which you don’t get on those larger film sets. We basically shot the movie in a two-block town in Nebraska.
Tribeca: That must have been wild.
JH: One of the things I love about this job is being able to travel to different places and being immersed in different ways of life. We shot the film in rural Nebraska. I grew up in New York City and that is where I spend the majority of my time. I don’t often rub shoulders with true Middle Americans who have different political and social views. They were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Tribeca: You’ve worked with established filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and Sam Mendes, but you often work with up and coming directors like Matt Sobel. Is there something that draws you to projects with first timers?
JH: It always comes down to the script. Any project is a roll of the dice, even if you are working with an established director. Just because a filmmaker has made good movies in the past doesn’t automatically equal success on their next picture. A lot of it comes down to chance, which can be exciting. For Take Me To The River, I knew I liked Matt. I knew he was smart. I watched one of his shorts, and I really dug his aesthetic sense.
Tribeca: What drew you to the character of Keith?
JH: I’m a fairly easy going guy and often, I’m asked to play “nice guy” roles which just aren’t all that exciting, to be frank. When I read the script, I thought that Keith would be a really interesting character to play. I don’t usually get offered roles like this.
Tribeca: Are you an actor who enjoys rehearsing? Were you able to rehearse with the cast on this project?
JH: Rehearsal is a relative term. I’m definitely spoiled by doing a lot of theater. No matter how much rehearsal you’re able to squeeze in on a film set, it’s usually rushed or it’s just a bunch of actors going through a scene a few times during table reads. It’s hard to compare that to month long rehearsals before a show during which you really have time to develop the through line of a character. Because I’ve been spoiled by that process, everything I do in film or television feels under-rehearsed.
Tribeca: If you had to describe Matt Sobel in one word, what would it be and why?
JH: I don’t know why, but the word “keen” springs to mind. He’s so assured and prepared, but also loose. Whenever you come to set, you have to be adaptable, and Matt took everything in stride. He’s an amazing combination of someone who knows exactly what he wants but also is completely alive to everything that happens in the moment.
Tribeca: Keith defies labeling—he is the embodiment of moral ambiguity. How do you prepare to play a character that lives in such a grey area?
JH: Like anyone who is part of a family that has a legacy of shame and abuse, I think Keith is a truly damaged guy. It’s very easy to see him as a bad guy or maybe even evil, but he’s a product of his family’s situation. There’s a rich vein of damage that runs through the family that’s previously been unexplored. It’s clearly passed on in various ways.
Tribeca: One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Keith shows his nephew Ryder how to use a handgun. It’s such a loaded scene—no pun intended! Was that sequence particularly challenging to film?
JH: It was challenging for me on a technical level because I am not a gun guy [laughs]. I grew up in the city. I had to remember what I was talking about and what buttons to push, and that was just a huge hurdle for me. I think there is a part of Keith that does feel that he’s giving Ryder good advice. Keith does see himself as a father figure in that scene, even though he’s fucking with Ryder on another level.
Film festivals are important on a practical level for audiences to see these movies on the big screen.
Tribeca: What were your first impressions of your co-star Logan Miller?
JH: There’s a simplicity to his performance that I really love. Logan isn’t 17 like Ryder. He’s in his early 20s. However, he’s completely believable as a guy on the cusp of manhood. Logan never tried to play younger than he is, which I thought was really smart. He completely captured Ryder’s journey to stake out his own identity. I think you’ll be seeing a lot more from him in the coming years.
Tribeca: I was really struck by your performance in Bottled Up, which celebrated its world premiere at TFF 2013. Can you talk about the experience of working on that film?
JH: An actor dropped out of the film at the last minute and a producer friend of mine called me and asked me if I would be interested in the project and if I was available in two days [laughs]. I really liked the script and the fact that my character was interested in fracking and water purity in New York. That’s a big issue for me. I’m always happy to play a character whose interests mirror mine. I also got to spend some time upstate, which was great and to work with Marin Ireland, who I’ve done a bunch of theater with.
Tribeca: Your two most recent theater projects were Tom Shoppard’s The Real Thing and Neil LaBute’s Reasons To Be Happy. While the playwrights are very different, did you find one of the plays more difficult to tackle?
JH: Every play is difficult for its own reason. Every playwright has his or her own style. I personally find Shoppard very challenging. First of all, it was the first time I’ve ever done an English accent.
Tribeca: Really?
JH: It’s crazy, right? Accents don’t come easily to me. I wish I had a better ear. I’ve always been scared of attempting one. It was definitely a hurdle for me, but one I was interested in tackling. Plus, Shoppard himself is challenging. His writing is so un-American in terms of his language. If you just play his wit and wordplay, it’s not interesting. If you just play it earnest and “real,” it doesn’t quite work either. I felt like our challenge on that project was finding a combination of those.
Any project is a roll of the dice, even if you are working with an established director.
Tribeca: Throughout your career, you’ve switched between film, TV and theater roles. Do you find yourself changing your creative process depending on the medium?
JH: I’m always just trying to figure it out [laughs]. Every time I think I’ve got the hang of it, something comes along that’s really well-written or different stylistically from what I’ve done. Just because you had success on your last job using a certain tool doesn’t mean that will translate to your next project. Every job feels like starting from scratch for me. | ||||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 58 | https://badgerherald.com/artsetc/2022/03/24/interview-with-think-films-founder-danielle-turkov-wilson/ | en | Interview with Think Films founder Danielle Turkov Wilson | [
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"Rohan Pemmasani"
] | 2022-03-24T00:00:00 | Founder Danielle Turkov Wilson is the executive director of the UK Impact Production company Think Film. The UK-based company has produced an array of short and feature films across European countries with an emphasis on creating content that addresses social issues. Wilson spoke to Rohan Pemmasani regarding the work at Think Film, the filmmaking process,... | en | /wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Favicon-70x70.png | The Badger Herald | https://badgerherald.com/artsetc/2022/03/24/interview-with-think-films-founder-danielle-turkov-wilson/ | Founder Danielle Turkov Wilson is the executive director of the UK Impact Production company Think Film. The UK-based company has produced an array of short and feature films across European countries with an emphasis on creating content that addresses social issues.
Wilson spoke to Rohan Pemmasani regarding the work at Think Film, the filmmaking process, the future of cinema, communal issues, film festivals as well as the Academy Awards.
This Q&A has been lightly edited for style and clarity.
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For the readers who are not familiar with Think Films and your work, could you please give us a brief introduction on what the company is and its overarching principles?
There is a new concept across the [cinema] industry, which is not so new in North America, called Impact Production. And you know, a lot of you might have already heard of it, you have some great companies in the U.S. that are involved in impact production, including companies like Participant Media and Picture Motion. And you even have some really established documentary film companies, like ones run by Julie Goldman, who are really putting impact into the essence of their film storytelling.
From protest to party: The 50-year evolution of the Mifflin Street block party
They’re not necessarily impact companies, but they have impact really in the DNA of their projects. I would say that I was deeply inspired by the way these operations and their work in the U.S. in the film industry. I felt like in Europe, there was definitely a different identity when it comes to dealing with impact, you know, language and cultures and heritage and history that’s slightly different. And therefore means that impact had to be dealt with in a very unique way in different elements of the film industry. So I just really decided that I wanted to set up a new entity in Europe, which would really focus on impact from a policy perspective.
So you know, really thinking about how social policies, political movements and geopolitical discussions could play a role in the way you develop, present, pitch, place and even eventually market and distribute your film. Think Film is really that kind of media consultancy agency, a bit like Accenture and Deloitte, rolling out strategic processes, understanding impactful thinking and political movements, knowing how that can influence a film, a documentary, a media piece and how that rolls across the film supply chain.
There are many filmmakers who prefer not to ‘make a point’ through their film, they just want to present a story through the filmmaking process. Why do you think film is a good medium to have an impact on society?
I think that’s a great question. I, first of all, believe that film in any format, whether that’s fiction or documentary, AR or VR, or immersive, whatever it might be, the art comes first. It is a subjective position that sometimes filmmakers become Ph.D. experts in an issue. They spend five or six years, sometimes even longer looking into an issue and breathing it and consuming as much data and facts they can. So even though they become experts, they’re no different to an academic. In my perspective, at that level, the amount of research that’s done, you know, the art is a personal subjective eye on an issue.
How the “day-and-date” release strategy changed the film industry
Unlike what maybe you’re used to seeing with impact campaigns on films, I truly believe it’s about impactful thinking and strategy. That means not necessarily driving a specific narrative, but promoting a democratic debate that will reach a compromise with your content. So your content is sparking that discussion and providing solutions or actions for different communities to get involved in, [eventually] giving that stepping stone from awareness to action.
So the art should always be independent, it should always spark their interest in debate. But the impact should be done strategically to bring all different voices to the table. We can really reach a strong compromise on some of the biggest questions, and we all know that there are many different perspectives and opinions on issues in our communities.
And we have to reach compromises. To deny [the compromises] and to only speak to one community with your film, to only advocate and preach to the choir, as we say, is not going to move the needle in society and get someone to empathize with your perspective. So that’s what I think impact is and what we do when we deliver impact strategies and campaigns with our films.
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I wanted to talk about the art aspect of film. Someone approaches you with their film — how are you confident that their ability to artistically approach the subject is sound? You worked with the Cannes Film Festival and a variety of producers, so for film festivals and other distributors, how do you know that the art aspect of film will be technically proficient for them?
Well, I think art is in the eye of the beholder, right, just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And beauty is a form of art, in my opinion. Therefore, when you’re looking at who and how people commission, you have to look at their history, their identity, what makes them tick, what kind of stories have really influenced them in the past?
I’m not saying them, we all have to make those same kinds of stories. But knowing what works for them allows you to disrupt a market effectively, and you can only disrupt something that you truly understand.
If you look at the actual impact here, if you look at the geopolitical identity of France, and their relationships with French-speaking Africa and the French-speaking Polynesia, and their history, they have a duty to elevate those filmmakers. So, often you’re seeing some of the stories and films that are selected are based on the need to make sure that they address those questions.
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Of course, for me, aside from what festivals decide, how do you know the art can really come out authentically in the story? I think there are two things. I think a storyteller is either was living or is living, evidence of an issue they’re dealing with. They have either been through it themselves, they have fought that fight — they have lived that, they breathe that issue or they have been deeply affected by something they’ve seen.
I still believe in today’s world, we should have filmmakers from Uganda come and make films about migration in Europe. I think that we need to empower more diverse and more authentic storytelling. But the day when the observation part of filmmaking, the art of the observation, is lost, is the day we actually lose the empathy to make powerful stories.
Because we can’t just make the stories of the lives we’ve lived. That would mean we’re not pushing the boundaries of what we could conceive and think about stories from the world. So I think yes, identity plays a huge role. So both the personal experiences, the observer, the need to observe others’ experiences as well.
The film directors or filmmakers, I would like to imagine, are the individuals that experience the ‘societal issue.’ But what is the process for selecting the cinematographer or the editor – which are more technically demanding jobs. Do the filmmakers select their team? In other words, how do you have confidence that the filmmaker will have the ability to make a film that is equivalent to their original idea?
I think creativity in this setting is just like in any other setting. A film production is really like setting up a business every time. In my opinion, when you’re setting up a business, you’re kind of looking for the right counterparts that don’t have the same skills as you but feel empowered by the same visions as you or you feel a connection to the story or the style or the approach. And every time when you’re resetting your team, you’re looking for the right pieces to elevate the success of that business.
So here, we’re talking about the success of the film. And so of course, what you’re looking for is someone who can own that part of the story in a way that they are the expert, and that you respect that deeply. So if you’re a director, you’re going to want a DOP or, that you trust their vision so much that you don’t even need to question them at all. They are going to deliver something that is within their expertise set, and that’s a tough thing to be able to do as a creative to allow someone to deliver their expertise.
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But if you do that, then often what you’re seeing is the power of everybody’s talent coming together and in a way that makes your piece elevated. If you try to micromanage every element of your production, you kind of lose the essence of what film production is, which is [for example] allowing the editor to be the magic storyteller that pieces all the bits together that sees the gaps that you never saw. It should be empowering because they are themselves storytellers in their own right, in your story. And yes, you may be the director, but everyone plays a role in a film, and everyone brings that film together, or that media piece together to create success.
So I think the protagonist, the talent, the director, the producer, the editor, the impact producer, the line producers, we all play parts in bringing the story to life.
Speaking more about craft and festivals, I’m sure you’ve heard of the news about the Academy Awards. I wasn’t originally planning on asking you about the Academy Awards, but given the news that they are planning to pre-record some aspects of the ceremony intrigued me.
They are planning on handing the following awards off-air: Editing, Sound Design, Original Score, Documentary Short and Live Action Short. What do you think are the implications, and does this change the perception of Think Film’s content or general audiences regarding the craft of a film?
Well, I would say that I don’t, you know, necessarily agree with that decision. I feel that taking certain roles out of the public eye means that you potentially diminish their value in the production, and you make people feel like those roles are not equivalent to or relevant to be recognized in public space.
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Often, these people spend hours getting traumatized. Some of the people I’ve worked with work on trauma content or documentaries and spend hours in a room, you know, almost traumatizing themselves with the content. If these are people that don’t deserve to be recognized for their work, I really don’t know why such awards exist, you know, and I believe we have a duty across film production and directors to stand together against that and protest. And so we prefer that this was done publicly.
And I also believe that, you know, there should be criteria that assess the impact value of a film as well. If you look at “Parasite,” you know, the whole underbelly of that film is social injustice and poverty. And if you look at Squid Games, it’s about debt, and what lengths people will get to when they’re in debt. That is, these are all social justice issues, the best stories are changing the way people feel — people didn’t even know the debt issues of Southeast Asia and Asia. They are one of the largest economies that are suffering from debt.
And so I just think, to not qualify awards for jobs, that you’ve just mentioned, is kind of denying the power that film can, can have to maintain justice, make people accountable, share new ideas. If we lose that, then I think we’re really heading into a dark era. | ||||
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4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 5 | https://investors.lionsgate.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2005/20-07-2005-172821833 | en | Lions Gate Home Entertainment and THINKfilm Ink United States Home Video Distribution Deal | http://investors.lionsgate.com/~/media/Images/L/LionsGate-IR-V3/logo/og-lionsgate-logo.jpg | http://investors.lionsgate.com/~/media/Images/L/LionsGate-IR-V3/logo/og-lionsgate-logo.jpg | [
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] | null | [] | null | Lions Gate Home Entertainment (LGHE), a division of Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF) Toronto, has inked a home video distribution deal with Toronto-based independent studio THINKFilm. Under the terms of the deal, LGHE will represent all of THINKFilm's theatrical releases for distribution to mass merchant accounts | en | ~/media/C7E0C1FF686B4A568F6424D60676CEB0.ico | https://investors.lionsgate.com/news-and-events/press-releases/2005/20-07-2005-172821833 | Lions Gate Home Entertainment (LGHE), a division of Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF) Toronto, has inked a home video distribution deal with Toronto-based independent studio THINKFilm. Under the terms of the deal, LGHE will represent all of THINKFilm's theatrical releases for distribution to mass merchant accounts in the U.S. home video market. THINKFilm will continue to distribute to other direct accounts. The first title in the deal is the Academy-Award® winning BORN INTO BROTHELS, winner of the 77th annual Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, set for release on September 20. In addition LGHE will distribute a number of direct-to-video titles in all of the US home video market. Lions Gate Entertainment President Steve Beeks and THINKFilm President & CEO Jeff Sackman made the announcement.
The three-year deal comes as LGHE continues to enhance its vast library in all genres. The fastest-growing studio in the industry, Lions Gate will add the THINKFilm titles to its already impressive video release schedule of theatrical motion pictures. With this deal, the Company will now be presenting up to 30 theatrical pictures to the video market each year. The deal also bodes well for THINKFilm which has acquired and successfully marketed some of the most interesting and popular independent feature film and documentaries in recent years.
In addition to BORN INTO BROTHELS, LGHE will also be releasing two critically-acclaimed, award-winning documentaries, THE ARISTOCRATS and MURDERBALL, in the fourth quarter. Featuring a who's who of the best comedians in the world, THE ARISTOCRATS was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival this past January. MURDERBALL was a standout on the Festival circuit, earning the Audience and Special Jury Prizes for Best Documentary at Sundance, the Audience and Jury Awards at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and the Golden Space Needle Award for Best Documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival.
"Partnering with a visionary company like THINKFilm gives us access to some of the highest quality movies in the independent film world. The opportunity to work with THINKFilm's Jeff Sackman, who has an incredible reputation in the independent film business, is like welcoming him home," said Beeks. "This deal reflects our continued commitment to the independent film marketplace as titles like BORN INTO BROTHELS, THE ARISTOCRATS and MURDERBALL will further enhance our reputation for delivering original, daring, quality entertainment."
"We are extremely pleased to be working in partnership with Lions Gate Home Entertainment to bring our unique and compelling award-winning films to an even wider U.S. audience," said Sackman. "We've been looking for a more efficient way to service the U.S. mass merchants and have found that in Steve Beeks and Lions Gate, one of the most powerful forces in home entertainment distribution."
ABOUT LIONS GATE ENTERTAINMENT
Lions Gate is the premier independent producer and distributor of motion pictures, television programming, home entertainment, family entertainment and video-on-demand content. Its prestigious and prolific library is one of the largest in the entertainment industry. The Lions Gate brand name is synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.
ABOUT THINKFILM:
Privately owned and based in Toronto, THINKFilm was founded in September 2001 by President/CEO Jeff Sackman. THINKFilm represents the new face of independent film, distributing high-quality, award-winning independent films to the home entertainment marketplace. THINKFilm's most recent releases GAME OVER: KASPAROV AND THE MACHINE, OVERNIGHT and MONDOVINO will soon be followed by KONTROLL, DALLAS 362 and the highly anticipated MURDERBALL. More information about THINKFilm can be found online at www.thinkfilmcompany.com.
For further information contact: FOR LIONS GATE Sarah Greenberg / Jodie Magid Lions Gate Entertainment 310.255.3856 / 212.386.6885 sgreenberg@lgecorp.com / jmagid@lgecorp.com For corporate inquiries: Peter Wilkes Lions Gate Entertainment pwilkes@lgecorp.com 310-255-3726 FOR THINKFILM Amanda Dwyer (416) 488-0037 Ext. 242 adwyer@thinkfilmcompany.com Alan Amman mPRm Public Relations 323-933-3399 aamman@mprm.com
SOURCE: Lions Gate Home Entertainment | |||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 34 | https://www.ipl.org/essay/Movie-Stars-Should-Be-Good-Role-Model-PKYMC82FC48R | en | Movie Stars Should Be Good Role Model Essay | [
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] | 2020-05-26T12:10:47+00:00 | Movie stars have a responsibility to be good role models Movie stars are the people who succeeded in playing the main roles in famous movies. They become... | en | https://www.ipl.org/essay/Movie-Stars-Should-Be-Good-Role-Model-PKYMC82FC48R | Debi Mazar is an actress who stated, “A hero is somebody who is selfless, who is generous in spirit, who just tried to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really, deeply cares.” Heroes are relevant to everyone, because at some point, everyone has had a hero. Sadly, today’s society degrades the meaning of the word “hero”. Heroes are an important aspect of life, but famous people are not always heroes.
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 0 | https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/thinkfilm-at-5-140576/ | en | ThinkFilm at 5 | [
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] | 2006-10-24T05:00:00+00:00 | ThinkFilm has thrived for five years in the dog-eat-dog world of New York indie film distribution. | en | The Hollywood Reporter | https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/thinkfilm-at-5-140576/ | Unsimulated gay sex. Improvised dialogue. No stars, and barely any professional actors. A $2 million budget cobbled together piecemeal. What distributor in its right mind would take on a film with as many risks as John Cameron Mitchell’s “Shortbus”? And after the controversial film became a critical hit at this year’s Festival de Cannes, what distributor would Mitchell trust to roll out such a minefield to the public?
The answer to both questions is ThinkFilm, a company that has grown over the past five years by taking exactly these kinds of chances, walking a tightrope without the net of corporate affiliation and nabbing several Oscars along the way. Born when Lions Gate Films opted to shutter its New York offices and move its headquarters to Los Angeles in 2001, ThinkFilm is comprised of former executives and assistants who worked in the company’s New York and Toronto offices and decided that staying indie — and staying in their hometowns — would be their priority.
The other key mandate, of course, was to seek out daring, challenging films, which can be a very risky business. For every movie like 2004’s children-of-prostitutes docu “Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red-Light Kids,” or the current critical darling “Half Nelson,” there have been boxoffice disasters like Gus Van Sant’s 2003 film “Gerry.” But such failures have not deterred this indie’s indie: At least one sure-to-be-controversial docu about a popular and ubiquitous four-letter word, “Fuck,” is set for release Nov. 10.
“Their name is very fitting, in that they truly believe audiences want to think and want to be challenged,” Film Society of Lincoln Center program director Richard Pena says. “Their audience is people who go to films to have their minds opened up, not to be pacified.”
Having founding staff members that were already a tight-knit, assimilated group has been one secret to ThinkFilm’s success. The core group that runs ThinkFilm today still largely consists of the original Lions Gate refugees, including former president Jeff Sackman; former president creative, East Coast Mark Urman; former vp home entertainment Marc Hirshberg; and former vp acquisitions and business affairs Randy Manis. Today, ThinkFilm employs 35 staffers, many of whom have risen internally like Daniel Katz, a once titleless Lions Gate employee whom ThinkFilm promoted to vp acquisitions in 2004.
“The idea was that there was no formal hierarchy,” ThinkFilm president and CEO Sackman says. “We put together a team of qualified, capable people who work well together, have the respect of the industry, the respect of each other — and just hustle.”
“They’ve shown they can be successful with films where other companies might say, ‘I don’t think there’s a market for this,'” Pena says. “They find the market. And any company with Mark Urman is at an immediate advantage. He has great taste, a wealth of experience and a great attitude.”
What got ThinkFilm going back in 2001, however, was more than just a solid group of employees. Sackman had a friend (whom he declines to name) who armed him with a low-seven-figure loan to acquire Canadian distribution rights to more than 40 films from Blackwatch Releasing, which was going out of business. The deal, which ThinkFilm senior vp finance and operations Hirshberg describes as “miraculous,” included the 2003 release “Last Wedding” (the opening-night selection for the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival) and many stateside Sony Pictures Classics releases including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which won the foreign-language Oscar in 2001.
The loan and the TV and video rights to the films “basically gave us our fuel to get going,” says Sackman, who repaid his friend within two years.
Before the official launch, says ThinkFilm U.S. theatrical head Urman, “We were subterranean and secretive — nobody knew what any of us was doing.” The company had a bittersweet debut at the Toronto fest just four days before the Sept. 11 attacks but rebounded in 2002 with three acquisition announcements at the Sundance Film Festival: Peter Care’s “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys,” Bart Freundlich’s “World Traveler” and Laurent Cantet’s “Time Out.”
Within two months, Think-Film founded its straight-to-video genre division, Velocity Home Entertainment, headed by Sackman and overseen by vp finance and operations Hirshberg, and made its first worldwide-rights-and-prebuy deal with Thom Fitzgerald’s “The Event.”
The company enjoyed solid growth until January 2003, when issues arose over ThinkFilm’s initial financial backing, and Sackman’s longtime friend, Alliance Communications founder Robert Lantos, stepped in, buying a 50% stake in the company and taking over as chairman. ThinkFilm received another cash infusion in August 2004, thanks to private equity from Canadian investment firms Covington Capital Corp. and Dynamic Venture Opportunities Fund.
As any independent distributor knows, money is hard to come by, and Urman attributes the company’s overall longevity to its intelligent use of resources. “What we spend on (prints and advertising) on some of our big boxoffice films relative to what other people spend is just so much less,” he says, comparing ThinkFilm’s summer release “Strangers With Candy” to another film from a studio specialty division that he declines to name.
“They went out on 800 prints to make something around $4 million, and we never did more than 100-and-something prints to make more than $2 million. They must have spent $7 million-$8 million in P&A, and we spent 1?5 of that. So, who’s making more money? It’s all about the bottom line.”
And it’s about the future. That expansion financing from 2004 helped ThinkFilm start releasing its theatrical features on DVD under the new ThinkFilm Home Entertainment label (alongside its Velocity straight-to-DVD titles). The company also has launched an international sales division, which debuted at Cannes in 2005 under the direction of Alliance Atlantis Pictures International president Mark Horowitz. ThinkFilm recently promoted David Fenkel from vp marketing to vp international sales, tasking him with heading up the company’s international division.
“It occurred to us that the international theatrical exploitation of nonfiction film was a growing market,” Urman says. “We were discovering these films at Sundance nobody knew anything about, getting them a great deal of attention, and then someone else was picking up international rights and making money. Why would we want something else to do that?
“It’s an advantage going into markets if you’re in a position to make a worldwide offer,” Urman continues. “One negotiation, one delivery — and you just have more to offer any buyer.”
And considering its positioning for the future, ThinkFilm has just begun to strike multipicture deals to build its brand and its relationships with filmmakers and stars.
Whether such arrangements lead to even bigger ambitions — such as a sale of the privately held company or a rethinking of ThinkFilm’s modus operandi — remains under wraps. Sackman will say only that “this company has been for sale since it started,” adding that he’s very content with the way the business is operating. “I’ve been in this business 20 years, and I’ve seen 50 distributors come and go,” he says, “So, I’m very proud of the fact that we continue to exist. Period.” | |||||
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The 5 Pervasive Issues Preventing the Emergence of New US Film Hubs
If you want to succeed as an indie filmmaker, you need to have a network and a community. Trouble is the only major film communities in the US are New York, LA, and Atlanta. What’s stopping us from fixing that? This blog identifies problems we need to solve to expand beyond the coasts.
If you’re a filmmaker, you probably already know a lot of other filmmakers in your area. If you don’t, you should. That’s one reason why film community events are absolutely vital for the independent film industry. It’s far from the only reason that communities of independent filmmakers are vital for your success as an independent filmmaker.
I’ve been involved with a few film community organizations ranging from Producer Foundry to Global Film Ventures, and even the Institute for International Film Finance. I’ve also spoken at organizations across the country. From the experience of running more than 150 events and speaking for a few dozen others, I’ve noticed some commonalities across many burgeoning independent film communities, so I thought I would share some of my observations as to why most of them aren’t growing as quickly as they should. Without further ado, here are the 5 pervasive problems preventing the growth of regional film communities.
Lack of Resources
It’s no secret that most independent films could use more money. It’s true for film communities and hubs as well. In general, most of these community organizations have little to no money unless they’re tied to a larger film society or film festival. Unfortunately being tied to such an organization often prevents the work of community building due to the time and resources involved in the day-to-day operations of running a film society or the massive commitment that comes with running a film festival.
Compounding the issues with a lack of resources is that a community organization built to empower a regional film community isn’t something that you could raise equity financing from investors. Projects like this are much better funded using pages from the non-profit playbook. There are organizations looking to write grants specifically for film organizations seeking to empower communities. You can find out more about the grant writing process in this blog below.
RELATED: Filmmakers! 5 Tips for Successful Grantwriting.
While local film commissions do provide some support to locals, their primary mandate is generally built for a different purpose that I’ll discuss in the next of my 5 points.
Most tax incentives emphasize attracting Large Scale Productions, not building local hubs
Most film tax incentives are heavily or sometimes even entirely oriented on attracting outside productions as a means to bring more revenue to the city, state, region, or territory. This is understandable, as many film commissions or offices are organized under the tourism bureau or occasionally the Chamber of Commerce. Both of those organizations have a primary focus on attracting big spenders to the local area in order to boost the economy.
RELATED: The Basics of Film Tax Incentives
This mandate isn’t necessarily antithetical to the goal of building local film communities. There is nearly always a local staffing requirement for these incentives, and you can’t build an industrial community if no one has work. Some of the best incentives I’ve seen have a certain portion of their spending that is required to go to community growth, as San Francisco’s City Film Commission had when I last checked. Given that the focus of the film industry is focused on attracting outside production, there is often a vacuum left when it comes to building the local community and infrastructure as a long-term project.
Additionally, given that film productions are highly mobile by their very nature using tax incentives to consistently attract large-scale projects is almost always a race to the bottom very quickly. If a production can simply say to Colorado that they’ll get a better deal in New Jersey, then the incentive in Colorado fails its primary purpose. Eventually, these states or regions will continue a race to the bottom that fails to bring any meaningful economic benefit to the citizens of the state. While the studies I’ve seen on this often seem reductive and significantly undervalue the soft benefits of film production on the image and economy of a state, the end result is clear. If all states over-compete, eventually the legislatures will repeal the tax incentives. After that, outside productions will dry up.
When this happens, local filmmakers are left out in the cold. The big productions that put food on the table are gone, and there’s no meaningful local infrastructure left to fill the void that the large studio productions left.
Creating a film community is a long-term project with Short Term Funding.
It takes decades of consistent building to create a new film production hub. People often have the misconception that Georgia popped up overnight, and this isn’t true. While the tax incentive grew the industry relatively quickly on a governmental timescale, I believe the tax incentive was in place for nearly a decade ahead of the release. Georgia’s growth was greatly aided by local Filmmaker Tyler Perry’s continual championing of the region as a film hub.
Most of the funding apparatuses available for the growth of film communities are primarily oriented toward short-term gains. That makes long-term growth a difficult process, but if cities and regions outside of NY, LA, and ATL are to grow it needs to be a part of the conversation.
There are some organizations out there pushing to build long-term viable film communities outside of those major hubs. Notably, the Albuquerque Film and Music Experience has a great lineup of speakers for their event in a few weeks. I’m one of those speakers, so if you’re in the area check it out, and check out this podcast I did with them yesterday.
It’s hard to bring community leaders together
As I said eat the top, I’ve been involved with and even run several community organizations. One consistent theme I’ve noticed is that most community leaders are very reticent to work with each other in a way that doesn’t benefit them more than anyone else. This means that one issue I’ve seen consistently is that while there are disparate factions of the larger film community throughout most regions it’s nearly impossible to bring them together to build something big enough to truly build a long-term community.
Most filmmakers and film community leaders are much happier being the king of their own small hill than a lord in a larger kingdom.
Filmmaking is a creative pursuit, and it requires some degree of narcissism to truly excel. This is amplified when you run a local film community. Sayer’s Law states: “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics because the stakes are so low.” If you replace the word “Academic” with “Filmmaking” can be said for the issue facing most film communities. Call it Yennie’s Law, if you like. #Sarcasm, #Kinda.
I discussed this in some detail with Lorraine Montez and Carey Rose O'Connell of the New Mexico Film Incubator in episode 2 of the Movie Moolah podcast, linked below.
The industry connections for large-scale finance and distribution generally aren’t local.
If you’ve read Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant’s book Writing Movies for Fun and Profit you’ll already know that LA is the hub of the industry, and if you want to pitch you need to be there. Given the fact I live in Philadelphia, I believe it should be fairly clear I disagree with the particulars of the notion the overall sentiment remains true. Also, if you haven’t read it click that link and get it. It’s a great read. (Affiliate link, I get a few pennies if you buy. Recommendation stands regardless of how you get it.)
If you want to make a film bigger than at most a few million dollars, you’re going to need connections to financiers and distributors with large bank accounts. You can find the distributors at film markets, but all of the institutional film industry money is in LA. While you may be able to raise a few million from local investors, it’s really hard and it is an issue facing the growth of independent film communities nationwide.
Another issue is around the knowledge of the film business and the logistics of keeping a community engaged and organized. While I can’t help too much with the latter, I can help you and your community organizers on the knowledge of the film industry with my FREE film business resource Pack! It’s got a free e-book, free macroeconomic white paper, free deck template, free festival brochure template, contact tracking template, and a while lot more. Just that is more than a 100$ value, plus you also get monthly content digests segmented by topic so you can keep growing your film industry knowledge on a viable schedule. Click the button below!
As I said earlier, I’m speaking at AFMX this year. If you like this content and you’d like to have me speak to your organization, use the button below to send me an email.
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Can Independant Filmmakers Survive the Streaming Wars?
Everyone talks about the streaming wars, and even though the dust is already settling, we should make sure to examine the lasting effects of the subscription streaming wars.
It’s no longer a controversial statement that streaming has changed the whole game for independent film distribution. It hasn’t been controversial for quite a while. However, it is becoming apparent that not only has streaming changed the game, it might as well have become the game, at least here in the US. That’s not really a good thing for Indies. Here’s why.
Streaming has made such a vast library of content available people don’t need to buy movies.
The biggest reason that Subscription Video On Demand streaming has engulfed the entire media landscape is that it’s put a giant library of films at the fingertips of anyone for only around 6-15 bucks a month for most platforms. It’s putting entire on-demand catalogs that are even more convenient than owning a film on DVD.
It wasn’t so big a threat when there were only a few companies in the space, but once HBO blew the doors open with the launch of HBO NOW the writing was on the wall for those of us paying attention. We all knew that Disney and Warner would follow. With Disney+ putting a gigantic pile of legacy content on their platform, it’s going to get harder and harder for independent films to compete.
Physical Media used to be the primary way people could watch films when they felt like it.
It used to be that licensing a film to A TV station was pretty lucrative, and didn’t really affect your physical media sales. In fact, it often increased them. People didn’t want to have to wait around for your film to screen if they liked it, so they bought the disk. Yet SVOD companies license a film, and for the term of the license their subscribers can just watch the film wherever, whenever they want.
This level of convenience has made it significantly more difficult for filmmakers and distributors to sell content for a transactional fee which has a much higher margin per unit sold. When Netflix started the game, it was still just one platform, and many people didn’t have the level of internet needed to stream without a significant amount of lag. This result often ends up that filmmakers and distributors are left with whatever the license fee for each film is, and will see little to no revenue beyond those licenses.
It basically means that not only is streaming taking up a much bigger part of a given film’s revenue mix, it’s also shrinking the pie.
With so many platforms and so much content, there must be lots of licenses and acquisitions being made though, right?
It depends on how you’re looking at it. Sure, these platforms are creating massive amounts of content, and acquiring still more. However, the price they tend to pay for acquisition is lower than you’d think, and some of the terms tend to be a bit unreasonable. For originals, it’s a long road requiring a strong package that 95% of filmmakers will never reach.
You might think that many new platforms are going to be looking to make even more original content in order to make sure subscribers keep paying for their content. There’s some truth to that, but the problem is that there are so few outlets likely to survive the streaming wars that the system of gatekeepers that the streamers were supposed to break may become even fewer than they were before.
The big problem here is that there are A LOT of these same sorts of platforms seeking the attention of an oversaturated audience and market. The impact is that there’s a lot less money to go around for indies, and much of the consumer base is just subscribing to a few services, and not buying a lot outside of that. So unless a filmmaker has a strong engaged audience, they’re not going to be able to compete.
Essentially, the SVOD wars intensify the problem creators have been facing for several years, and that’s the fact that while anyone can get their film out there, getting anyone to see it is an entirely different matter.
It all comes back to audience engagement.
This comes back to one thing. Build and engage with your audience, and create content that speaks to them on a deep level. It needs to evoke an emotion or speak to an experience that no one else can. In order to succeed, we Indies need to defragment our market and find our tiny place in it. We don’t need to be 8 people’s 6/10, we need to be 2 people’s 10/10.
Thanks for reading. This one was more of a think piece than my general practical advice. Let me know what you thought about it in the comments. If you like this and want more, please consider joining my mailing list, you’ll also get a great film business resource pack that includes templates, a free ebook, a whitepaper, and more!
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5 Things to expect from the 2019 American Film Market #AFM2019
Film markets were changing even before COVID. Here’s an analysis from 2019.
AFM this year will be interesting. Here’s the current state from someone who’s been going for 10 years, and has been a Practicing Producer’s rep for 6 years. Two quick things before we get started.
First, You should definitely go to AFM at least once. It’s eye-opening, and if I hadn’t done it I probably wouldn’t have a career.
Second: These opinions are mine alone, and have not been approved, endorsed, or otherwise condoned by the International Film and Television Alliance (IFTA) owner of the American Film Market. (AFM is also a Registered Trademark of the IFTA.)
And with that, we’re on to the less optimistic (or legal) parts of the current state of AFM and Film Markets.
Film Markets could be in trouble.
All Film markets might be in trouble. I’ve spoken with many buyers, and they’re pretty much ready to pack up shop. There’s nowhere near as much money in it as there used to be, and it’s difficult to contuse to turn a profit in this changing landscape. They’re not going away in the next year or so, but they are likely to recede over time.
AFM is Becoming much more filmmaker focused in their marketing, which means less involvement from Buyers and Sales agents.
AFM Themselves have been shifting focus to their filmmaker services and somewhat away from their buyer and exhibitor services.
That's not necessarily a bad thing in general. It's what I tend to do with content like this, but I go for a very different customer set than AFM has historically.
Buyer numbers have been on the decline for a few years, and if they continue to decline it will be difficult to attract the higher-priced exhibitors, and the culture of AFM and all markets is likely to change. The Image below should help illustrate my point.
The current system is prone to collapse in a down economy
2008 was Terrible for AFM. I’ve been expecting a recession to happen at any point since around this time last year. While the time that I was expecting it to happen seems to have passed, I’m still convinced of an impending recession, but willing to admit I might have missed the timing and the immediacy.
In any case, when the recession happened in 2008, the market dried up and it still hasn’t fully recovered. If we were to see another recession, it might spell the nail in the coffin for AFM and potentially the entire market scene. What would replace it has yet to be seen, as after Distribber’s recent collapse it will be very interesting to see how filmmakers can get their films out there.
Buyers have been on the decline for a few years.
I mentioned this above, but total buyer attendance have been on the decline for the past 2 years. It’s difficult to tell whether the size and number of deals have been increased, but given that the number of tickets sold on the top 100 box office films have remained largely stationary despite the box office revenue going up as well as a few other metrics and the general sentiment of my contacts on the sales agency side I’d be inclined to doubt it.
Again, if buyers dry up, sales agents won’t keep coming. When I’ve talked to sales agents about this over drinks, there’s a feeling of extreme pessimism bordering on depression about the current state.
AVOD and SVOD buyers likely to be the biggest players this year.
Given that many believe there’s a looking recession, SVOD and AVOD players are going to be even more sought after than they already are. AVOD is free for all, and SVOD doesn’t require extra payment on the consumer end. Given that the economy is a house of cards, many people who are struggling financially are more likely to cut services and stop buying individual rentals. They might even cancel subscriptions, which is likely to lead to a greater viewership of TubiTv, PlutoTV and other similar services.
Thanks so much for reading. If you want more on AFM, Check out Last Week’s blog, my first appearance on IndieFilm Hustle, or my book. Also, if this all seems a little dauting, consider submitting your film via the link below.
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6 Things for Filmmakers to Prepare for the 2019 American Film Market #AFM2019
If you want to get the most out of the American Film Marktet, you need to prepare. Here’s what you need.
With AFM 2019 right around the corner, it’s time for filmmakers to prepare for the market and do their best to get a traditional distribution deal. For those of you who don’t know, AFM is still the best place for American Filmmakers to get traditional, non-DIY distribution. So, with that in mind, here are the major things you need to prepare.
Also, For legal reasons, I need to say that the following: The American Film Market® AFM® are registered trademarks of the International Film and Television Alliance® (IFTA®) Any and all Opinions expressed in this video are Not Endorsed by the International Film and Television Alliance® or leadership at the American Film Market.
Just in case you'd rather watch than listen, Here's a Youtube Video on this topic!
Leads Lists
You need to know what sales agents and distributors you want to submit your film to. This starts with research and leads lists. You need to figure out which sales agents tend to work in your genre and budget level, what similar films they’ve helped sell recently, what their current market lineup is, whether they require recognizable names, and who the name of their acquisitions lead and CEO are.
To make your job easier, I put a free template in my resources packet which you can get by signing up below. Join my mailing list and get the FREE AFM Advance contact tracking template.
Trailers
You need to get their attention, and a trailer is a great way to do it. I’ve gotten limited theatrical agreements based on an excellent trailer. See that trailer here.
If you don’t have a trailer, you can submit without it. However, it will be much less likely to achieve the desired results.
Pitches
There are elements of an indie film pitch. I tackle the topic in extreme detail in my book, but here’s an overview of what needs to go into that 10-30 second pitch.
Title of Film
Stage of development
Any attachments
Genre
Sub-Genre/Audience
Budget Range
Check out my book on Amazon for the full chapter
Related: What investors need to know about your movie
Key Art
You’ll need a poster, even if it’s a temp poster that’s eye catching and will convince the sales agent they can move units. It can be a temp poster, but it needs to invoke the spirit of the film and imbue a sense of intrigue for anyone who looks at it.
Promotional materials
Once you’ve got the key art, you can use it to create promotional materials. One of those would be a quarter page flyer, another may be a tri-fold brochure. I’ve included a pages and word document for use at festivals in the resources packet, but it could be modified for AFM. If I get a few people tweeting at me or commenting the want it on my youtube videos that they’d like that, I might make it.
Screening links
If your film is done, you need screeners. The distributors will need to see it, and they’ll probably want a Vimeo screener. Youtube unlisted or private won’t due, as the compression on Youtube makes it difficult to see all the technical issues with the film.
If you can get it out in advance of the market, all the better. It normally takes a few markets to start seeing money from your film if you don’t get a minimum guarantee. Getting that started would be in the best interest of all involved.
Thanks so much for reading. If you liked this and want more, come back next week for what you should expect from AFM 2019, as well as where the market seems to be heading. OR, if you can’t wait, you could listen to me on Indie Film Hustle Talking about AFM.
You could also check out my book!
It’s the first book on Film Markets, used as a supplemental text in at least 10 film schools, and is still the highest selling book on film markets. Check it out on Amazon Prime, Kindle, Audiobook on Audible, Online at Barnes and Nobles, Your Local Library, and anywhere books are sold. Also, join my email list to get a great indiefilm resource package totally free!
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One HUGE Don't When Dealing with Film Distributors
There are many things you SHOULD do when selling your film with your distributor. There’s one BIG thing you should NEVER do.
As with nearly anything in life, there are dos and don’ts when you; ’re dealing with your independent film distributor. Also as with most things in life, there is (at least) one thing you can do that will irreparably harm your relationship with that distributor and might even result in legal action taken against you. What is it? Read on to find out.
DON’T GO AROUND YOUR DISTRIBUTOR OR SALES AGENT TO SELL YOUR FILM
Once you sign with a producer’s rep, sales agent, or Distributor for your project, they have the right to negotiate on your behalf. Many buyers won’t deal with filmmakers directly, so the point of contact will either be your producer’s rep or Sales agent.
While most buyers will appreciate the filmmakers helping to push the film, they will not be so grateful for reaching out to the buyer directly about reports, or any other form of unapproved contact.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t help promote your film in ways that it makes sense to do so. See the blogs below for reasons why.
Related: WHY you should help your distributor MARKET your MOVIE
Related: HOW to Best COLLABORATE your Distributor MARKET your Movie
The biggest takeaway for how to market your movie that you can take from the blog above is to only post approved links. If you’re smart, you’ll also include Vimeo on Demand and Vimeo OTT as a holdback for you to sell the film through your own website. Distributors tend not to utilize that right, so it’s generally something that you’ll be able to negotiate. It’s included as a holdback in my standard template contracts for the filmmaker’s country of origin. I do stipulate that it’s generally subject to advisement regarding the timing of the release.
Another thing that you should be fine “selling” is whatever you need to fulfill any crowdfunding obligations like DVDs, Blu-Rays, and TVOD Screeners. Although again, you should make sure to negotiate this into your distribution agreement. That said, it’s never been an issue, although it might be subject to the same sort of advisement on timing as the Vimeo on Demand example above.
If you distributor does not agree to either of the stipulations above, you should consider walking. Here are some tips on vetting your distributor/Sales agent, and producer’s rep.
Related: How to vet your distributor/Sales Agent
Related: How to Vet Your Producer’s Rep
The biggest thing you need to keep in mind is that no matter how much you disagree with the choices on artwork and marketing made by the distributor, you should not post any unauthorized sales links. If you do, you could be putting yourself in a pretty massive legal liability.
This one came out a little short, but thanks for reading anyway. If you like it and want to see more content like this, you should join my mailing list. You’ll get monthly blog digests segmented by topic, it’s like a short e-book in your inbox every month FOR FREE! You’ll also get access to my resources packet, which includes an actual e-book, whitepaper, several templates, and more!
Finally, if you’ve got a project you’d like a guiding hand through this process, I offer individual consultation, as well as consideration for my distribution, marketing, business planning, and financial services packets, use the submit your film button. Thanks, and see you next week.
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Why you NEED to HELP your Distributor Market your Movie (If They'll Let You.)
Distribution and Marketing aren’t the same thing. Your distributor should excel at making your film available, but you’ll still need to drive attention. Here’s why.
If you think your work is over when you finish making your film, and someone will just give you a few hundred grand more than it cost to make it so you can make your next one then you’re in for a real wake-up call. Sadly, there’s no money in making films, only in selling them, and the work of selling them is no longer solely on your distributor. Or, at least you shouldn’t count on it being that way. Here’s why.
But before we get started on that, it’s worth a few sentences analyzing the distribution and marketing are related, but NOT the same thing. So what is the difference between film marketing, film sales, and film distribution? The simplest way to put it is that Distribution is making your product available for sale, and marketing is convincing end consumers to buy it. Sales is the process of getting it to the various distributors. Now that that’s done, on to the topic at hand.
Also, before we get started it’s important to note that not all distributors will accept your help. Some control and participation in your home market should be part of your negotiation with your distributor if you’re dealing with them directly or your international sales agent if you’re not.
1.More sales and more money for everyone!
If you want to make money from your film and have the distributor keep the marketing for the film intact, you’re going to have to give them a reason WHY they should listen to you. As such, you’ll have to help push the film out there. Also, after they recoup the money they put in, you will be taking the lion’s share of future sales, so it does have a dramatic impact on not only how much you get paid, but also how soon you get paid.
Also: most distributors don’t do a lot beyond the initial publicity push. If you want to continue sales and generate awareness of your movie, you’ll need to keep talking about it.
2. Marketing your work builds your brand
In the words of Alex Ferrari of Indie Film Hustle, "if you don't think you need a brand as a filmmaker, you're wrong.
Generally, a brand is defined as every interaction you have with customers or potential customers. So the first step in building your brand is building awareness of your work. That means marketing your movies.
Do make sure not to be spammy or a jerk about it though. No one likes a jerk. Unless you’re a wholesaler to the jerk store. #DatedReferences
Related: 5 DOs and DON’Ts for selling your film online.
3. You’ll get a much deeper understanding of the process
If you want to make a career in film, you’ll need at least a cursory understanding of what it takes to sell a film, unfortunately, there’s no money in making films, only in selling them. Getting a much better idea of how this process works will make it easier for you to make a salable film in the future.
4. Helping Gives you a better idea of what’s going on with your movie
One of the biggest frustrations faced by many filmmakers is not understanding what’s going on with their films. One of the best ways to stay in the loop is to help your distributor with marketing. This can give you a lot more up-to-the-minute data that you can act on to make better marketing decisions and with luck get closer to creating a positive feedback loop of sales. Admittedly, in the current system that’s A LOT of luck.
5. If you’re putting the work in, your distributor will be more likely to take your requests.
If you’ve got more face time, and your film is performing well, your distributor is more likely to make pitches they might not otherwise make. Part of that comes down to perspicacity, and part of it just comes down to numbers.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, please share it with your filmmaking community on your social media, or drop a comment down below with your thoughts about what you’d like to know about film distribution, grab my free Indiefilm business resources packet for an e-book, a whitepaper, a bunch of templates, and more.
As you may know, I don’t just talk about distribution, I’ve run companies that do it, and still connect filmmakers to the better players in the game. If you’d like your film to be considered, use the services button below. That’s my primary business, in fact.
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How Did Film Distribution Get So Broken?
Filmmakers know the system sales agents use to exploit their content is well, exploitative. The issue runs deeper that dishonesty. Here’s an exploration.
It’s no secret that many (if not most) filmmakers think film distribution is broken. While there are many reasons for it, part of it is due to the rapid change in the amount of money flowing to distributors, and what constituted effective marketing. What works for marketing films now isn't what worked in the past, and the systems distributors built themselves around have fallen apart. Here's an elaboration.
First, some history.
Independent Film Distribution used to be primarily a game of access. By controlling the access and becoming a gatekeeper, it was easy to make buckets of cash. If you had a VHS printer and access to a warehouse facility that could help you ship to major retail outlets you could make literal millions off of a crappy horror film.
In those days it was also significantly harder and significantly more expensive to make a film, as you’d need to buy 16mm or 35mm film, get it duplicated, cut it by hand using a viola, and then reassemble it and have prints made. This was a very expensive process, so the number of independent films that were made was much smaller than it is today.
Then DVD came along, and around the same time some of the early films from the silent era that actually had followings entered the public domain. As such, a good amount of companies started printing those to acquire enough capital to buy libraries and eventually build themselves into major studios. Sure, DVD widened the gate a bit, but it also expanded the market so everyone was happy.
Around this time, Non-Linear Editors and surprisingly viable digital and tape cameras were coming into prominence. As a result, it became much more possible to make an independent film than it was before. Of course, at that time it was still beyond the reach of most people, and since the average amount of content being made went up, the demand was growing enough that there still wasn’t a massive issue with oversaturation.
A similar expansion was expected with Blu-Ray, but at around the same time, alternative services like iTunes were starting to become viable as broadband internet was becoming commonplace. As such, the demand for physical media started to dwindle, and as a result, the revenue being made dropped.
At the same time, Full HD cameras were now very affordable, and some even rivaled 35mm film. So the amount of money being made in the industry went down, and more films were being made than ever before.
Shortly after that, the ability to disintermediate and cut out the gatekeepers came to be. As such, the market became flooded with often low-quality films that the challenge was no longer getting your film out there, it was now getting your film noticed. That’s where we are now, and nobody has fully been able to solve that problem yet.
Here’s a summary of how we got there, and how the process of distribution has changed.
Access USED to be enough
It used to be that access was all you needed. Once you had that, you could make an insane amount of money selling other people’s content.
Sell it on the box art
The box art being caught was the most important thing. Stores didn’t let you return movies because you didn’t like them, and other than your own limited circle of friends consumers didn’t have a lot of power to let people know about bad movies, or bad products in general.
Sell it on the trailer
Even if it was bad, nothing would come of it. Once you had their money, that was all you needed. The idea of making your money in the first weekend before bad word of mouth got around was much more viable as people couldn’t just tweet it out or rant about it on Facebook or YouTube.
Let’s contrast that with how things work Now:
Access is easy
Anyone with a few thousand dollars can put their film up on most Transactional platforms on the internet. You can also put it on Amazon or Vimeo yourself for free. There are very few in terms of quality controls.
the Poster/keyart is still important, but reviews are more important.
Sure, people still get their eyes caught by a poster. But the reviews matter significantly more in terms of getting them to a purchase decision. The poster may catch their eye, but the meta score from users on whatever platform you’re watching the film on is important.
The trailer might still be the deciding factor
Generally, after people see the poster, they’ll read the synopsis, and then they’ll either watch the trailer or read the reviews. If they watch the trailer, they may have more leniency on reviews.
Also, if the trailer is really good, it can get a bit of viral spread.
If it’s bad, it will become known.
Thanks to social media, if the film is bad it’s not hard to let people know about it. If the film is mismarketed, people will know. As such, authentic marketing to the film is extremely important.
Thanks for reading! If you liked this blog, you’ll probably like the stuff you get on my mailing list. That includes a film marketing & distribution resource packet, as well as monthly digests of blogs just like this one. Or, if you’re researching whether or not you want to self-distribute your independent film, you might want to submit it. I have hybrid models for distribution that help filmmakers build their brands, and get the right amount of visibility for their films so they can rise above the white noise. Check out the buttons below, and see you next week!
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The Problem with the IndieFilm Distribution Payment System
If you’ve got an issue with your sales agent or distributor paying you, it’s not neccessarily on them. (although it might well be.) either way, Its important to understand how money flows in this industry before you go at them.
A lot of filmmakers I’ve worked with don’t know enough about distribution to really make a career making creative content. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as it’s something film schools tend not to teach. That being said, there’s a part of the equation most people just don’t talk about, and WHY it takes so long for filmmakers to get paid? This blog addresses that.
As an aside, this is laid out from a financial perspective in the blog below. However, we will also be tracking how much of the money goes away throughout this blog. This will admittedly be very much oversimplified, but we’re going to be tracking it as a single dollar for ease of understanding.
Related: Indiefilm Waterfalls 101
How long it takes for the platform to pay the aggregator
I talk about this in workshops quite frequently, but each different stakeholder takes a while to pay the next person in the pay chain. Most of the time, this starts with the platform and aggregator relationship. In general, this is the first section in the chain.
Normally, the platform will take 30%-35%. This should include credit card processing fees. So if the consumer gave 1 dollar, then we’re down to 65-70 cents.
While exceptions exist, the platform most often pays the aggregator on a monthly basis. After that, the aggregator will need to pay the distributor. If you’re self-distributing, that distributor is you, but not all aggregators will deal with you in the fashion you’d prefer, for more information, read the blog below.
RELATED: What platforms should I release on?
How long it takes for the aggregator to pay the distributor
Once the aggregator is paid, the money will flow to the distributor. As I stated, this may be you. Depending on what aggregator the distributor is using, payments will be either monthly or quarterly. Sometimes the aggregators that pay quarterly have lower overheads, so it might make sense to wait. That said, I think the most current data you can get is necessary to make smart marketing decisions.
If you still don’t know the difference between a sales agent and a distributor, check the link below. Most aggregators operate on more of a flat fee model, so we’ll assume that the money is passed through. If you worked with an aggregator, you end up with about .70 cents for every dollar the consumer spent, but you also probably had to put the aggregation fees in yourself, so you’ll probably need to sell around 2100 copies (assuming they sell for 2.99 each) to break even. You’ll also get insights within 2 to 4 months.
Related: What’s the difference between a sales agent and a distributor?
How long it takes for the Distributor to pay the Sales Agent
Most distributors don’t deal with filmmakers directly. They’ll either deal with a Producer’s Rep or a Sales Agent. Generally, Distributors pay quarterly to start and sometimes will move more towards bi-annually after a few years. This can be arduous, but it’s very difficult to negotiate.
Generally, the distributor will take 30-40%. (As of publishing this, I take 25% for direct US Distribution.) So of the 65-70 cents, we had after the platform. That means that after the distributor takes their cut, there are between .39 and .49 cents left to the filmmaker. (or around .52 cents if you work with me)
Also, even though I am a distributor, I work directly with filmmakers. So you’d keep .52 cents on the dollar, and be paid around 4-5 months after the initial sale is made. (I time my reports to work with my aggregator to minimize wait times. Plus, I cover aggregation and the majority of marketing and publicity fees.
Related: What does a producer’s rep do anyway?
How long it takes for the Sales agent to pay the production company
Finally, the sales agent pays the Producer’s Rep and production company. This is also generally on a quarterly or Bi-Annual basis, although there’s more room for variation here. After that, the filmmaker uses the money to pay back debts, then investors, then whoever else is left to pay back from the production.
The Sales Agent normally takes between 20% and 30%, but they sell territories across the globe. A Producer’s Rep will normally take 10% of the money paid to the filmmaker, and will normally be paid in line with the sales agent.
So, following the chain we talked about before, by the time the sales agent pays the filmmaker, we’re looking at between .27 and .39 cents on the dollar without a producer’s rep, or between .24 cents and .35 cents with one. That’s not a great representation of what a good producer’s rep will do for you though. (including the potential to get you paid immediately from the first sale) I’ve painted these deals in the most simple possible light to help you understand, but there are lots of single-line items that can screw you if you’re not careful. So, while the producer’s rep may take a small piece of the pie, (.03 to .04 cents on the total dollar) they can help you make the whole pie a fair amount bigger.
Thanks so much for reading! If you have any questions for me, you might want to check out my mailing list. I send out monthly blog digests including ones JUST LIKE THIS, plus you get lots of great resources like templates, links to money-saving resources, and a whole lot more! Or, if you’ve got a completed project and you’re looking for distribution, submit it using the link below. You can also learn more about services for early-stage projects using the other link. I’ll review it and reach out soon.
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7 Things to Prep BEFORE STARTING your Festival Run
If you want to find success at film festivals, you need to prepare. Here’s a guide.
Far too many people consider the festival circuit as the be-all and end-all of their marketing and distribution plans. While there are quite a few things wrong with that approach from a distribution standpoint. (See last week’s blog here for an outline of why) film festivals can be a great way to market your film. Although getting ready to attend a film festival is generally a bit hectic. There’s always a lot to do, and it’s easy to forget something. So with that in mind, I’ve prepared a prioritized list of the top 7 marketing assets you’ll need to prep before going to a film festival.
1. Business Card
If you bring nothing else, you should bring a business card. Well, also a set of clothes I suppose, but I digress. If you want to make lasting connections, you need a way to follow up with people. If you want people to follow up with you, they’ve got to have a way to reach you.
Simply saying that you’re easy to find online is not really an acceptable answer at networking events like this. It’s far too easy to forget that they were going to reach out at professional events like this.
2. All your social media pages Set up and active
As we discussed last week, a big part of the reason to attend film festivals is to build your brand and build awareness of your film. You want to make sure your film is easy to find online, and that there’s a way you can establish a connection with anyone who might want to buy it in the future as soon as you’ve connected with them at a film festival.
For more, check out this article I wrote on proper Facebook management.
Related: How to manage your indiefilm facebook page
3. Your Website
Its 2019. Your film needs a website. Even if it’s just a splash page going to your social media outlets. The only reason this is below social media is that if you’re going to drive people to your website when you’re not at a festival, you’re going to need something like social media to do it.
For more information on what should be on your website, check out the blog below.
Related: 13 things you NEED on your Production Company Website
4. Printed Materials to give away
Even a business card can sometimes be hard to remember, and it’s nowhere near enough to capture the attention of the overworked journalists that may attend this film festival. That’s why you need larger, harder-to-lose festival printouts. These can give all the information a time-strapped reporter would need to write a quick blurb about your film, and direct to something like an EPK for more detailed information. Learn more with the article below.
Related: Printed materials for your festival run
But speaking of EPK…
5. An EPK (Electronic Press Kit)
Every filmmaker will have assets that would be useful to a reporter, but not really something that could be easily handled by a printed brochure. That’s where an EPK comes in. The EPK is more detailed information and assets that can be used by a journalist or reviewer. It should have blurbs, links to your trailer, sizzle reels, and interviews if you have them.
For more information, click the link below.
Related: Everything you need in your Indiefilm EPK
6. An Email List Capture page
Going back to your website, if it’s anything more than a simple splash page, you need a way to capture the email address of people visiting your site. With their consent, of course. This will be much more valuable to you than almost any other social media, as it’s more static and doesn’t change its terms as often as other platforms may. Although that’s been less true as of late with Gmail’s aggressive filtering systems.
Related: 5 Steps to Grow your Indiefilm Email List
7. A Giveaway for people joining your list
Finally, if you have an email list set up, you should give something away to entice people to join. I’ve listed 5 ideas for filmmakers below, as the standard fallbacks of ebooks, and other marketing giveaways aren’t always valid. Check the article below to see what I mean.
Related: 5 Giveaways for your IndieFilm Email Marketing
Thanks so much for reading! If you want more content like this, you should join my mailing list. Just as it says in #7, I have a few giveaways for you including a monthly blog digest and a FREE Film Marketing Resource package!
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How to Get your Movie on Netflix
Everyone wants to get their film on Netflix, but it’s a lot easier said than done. Here’s an outline.
Many filmmakers and even more film consumers just want to know when work will be on Netflix. In recent years, this has become more difficult than it was previously. IT used to be that it was a relatively easy sale to get on Netflix, although the money wasn’t very good. More recently, the bar has been raised substantially, and the money you get for it hasn’t increased as much as we may have liked it too. What follows is an outline of how to get your film on Netflix, both as an original and as an acquisition.
How do I become a Netflix original?
To become a Netflix original, you must be picked up by Netflix early on in development. Generally, you’ll need to have contacts that can get you into meetings with the higher-end development executives at Netflix. You’re also going to need to have a strong script and package already in place. You might even need some money already in place, although that’s less important given the way most of their original deals are structured.
At this point, if they take the project you’ll get a Presale stating that the money will be paid to you once the film is delivered complete. After that, you’ll have to take it to a bank to liquidate the presale so you’ll be able to make the movie on the likely ambitious schedule they’ll put you on.
Generally, the pay for this is pretty good, looking very similar to other high-end presales. If it’s well managed, and you focus on financing sources like tax incentives as part of your mix, you’ll make a decent wage and everyone involved will end up much better off. Including your investors.
Make sure you don’t send them any copyrighted material without them requesting it, that’s a blacklist you don’t want to be on.
Acquisitions.
What Netflix pays for acquisitions is a different matter, as is the process for your film being acquired by Netflix. First, it’s important to note that you can’t approach Netflix yourself. You will need to go through either a localized distributor or a sales agent to get to Netflix. I do have contacts in this department, but it’s not something I’ve done a lot of business with directly. Netflix has also gotten extremely picky about this in the last few years, favoring their original content.
If I’m completely honest, I also wouldn’t pay some of the better-known aggregators to make this approach for you. Given the volume of business that goes through them, it’s generally a very low success rate. Sure, some of them will refund money if unsuccessful, but often there are hidden fees and the money is tied up for a decent amount of time. When the fees from those aggregators are in excess of 10k, that’s not really good for most filmmakers. To be clear, this is not something Netflix itself charges.
It used to be that Netflix would take almost any content that was able able to meet broadcast standards. and they thought they would get a decent amount of views for it. In recent tears, however, Netflix’s Acquisition strategy has been refocused to only accept films with a domestic theatrical, often demanding 6 figures at the box office to even consider the film. While there are ways around this, it’s inadvisable to much other than work with a reputable distributor who has deep connections to the platform.
In regards to their distribution payments, there’s a lot more that I’d love to say but really shouldn’t say publicly due to existing contractual obligations as well as other concerns regarding pending business.
DVDs Through the Mail
Most of the time when people think of Netflix, they think of their Subscription Video on Demand offering. However, there are a surprising number of people who still subscribe to their DVD offering which was rebranded to DVD.com. Generally, the way Netflix gets these DVDs is by simply buying discs at wholesale from the manufacturer. They don't tend to buy too many DVDs, so even if you're getting lots of rentals you end up not making a whole lot of sales. Most of the time, they buy fewer than 100 DVDs, which is less money than you probably think it is. You don't see any money per rental beyond the initial purchase price.
That said, since DVDs are almost always non-exclusive rights, the additional revenue does help, although it's nowhere near the amount of money you'd see from something like a Redbox deal because they don’t order as many discs. At least, that was true before RedBox's IPO and subsequent Acquisition.
Thanks so much for reading! I hope this blog was useful to you. If you’d like to learn more, I recommend joining my mailing list for regular blog digests and other resources about film distribution and marketing. Click below for more information.
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Opinions expressed in this piece are not in any way endorsed by Netflix, Its parent company, or any subsidiaries. Opinions expressed within are solely those of Guerrilla Rep Media, LLC and its founder, Ben Yennie.
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The Printed Materials you Need for Film Festivals and Markets
If you want to get the most out of a Film Festival, you’ve got to maximize it as a promotional opportunity for you and your work. Here are some things that might help.
Most filmmakers only think about festivals when they’re getting ready to market their film. There are lots of reasons that this line of thinking is flawed, however, it would take far more than a 600-800 word blog to even begin to touch on them. However, if you’re going to have ANY level of success from your festival run, you’re going to need some really snazzy printed materials. This blog outlines a couple of examples I’ve used personally and had success with.
Why you need Good Printed Materials
Just getting into a festival is no guarantee people will see your movie. Generally, you have to spend a good amount of time and energy driving people to your screening. One of the most effective ways to do that is by having them a tangible piece of paper that has all the information they’ll need on it.
Generally, the cheapest thing you can hand them is a postcard, however, for festivals, I strongly prefer a Tri-Fold Brochure. The Tri-Fold Brochure has more space for everything a reporter or reviewer may need to know about your project, all put into a piece of paper that can be easily turned and segmented to group relevant pieces of information.
The point of getting into a film festival is less about getting people to see your movie, and more about validating your film and giving it a chance to get meaningful press coverage. Both of these things are significantly more likely to happen if you can make a reporter’s job easier by giving them all the information they need in one compact piece of paper.
Postcard Outline
Generally, you’ll want the promotional art for your project to take up the front of your postcard. If you don’t want it to take up the entire front of your film, you could leave a space for screening times towards the bottom. If you want to get more use out of these cards, you could also leave a space that can be covered with a return address mailing label on the bottom where you can put the time and locations of screenings at this festival.
On the back, I’d put a synopsis, information about the director, and maybe a little bit about how the film was shot. You probably won’t have space for much else.
Brochure Outline
I’ve added a template for this in my resources section, but I’ll outline what I mean here.
On the front panel, you’ll want to put the key art, where the film is screening (The mailing address label works well here too), and maybe your social media links or where they can purchase the film.
When they open the brochure, on one of the two panels you reveal you’ll want to put some stills from the film to add visual interest. On the other panel, they’ll see when they open your brochure, you’ll want to outline your production company, including your creed/mission statement and other projects you’ve made.
Then they open the other panel, you’ll want them to see photos and bios of your key cast and crew.
On the back panel, you’ll want a bit more art, a bit about what you’re working on next, the next steps for the film, and then a press contact and a link to download your EPK. If your film is available for sale anywhere, you’ll also want to include that there.
I actually a template of this format for MSWord and Apple Pages. You can find it in my FREE Resource package alongside other templates.
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When should you Contact a Sales Agent/Producer’s Rep about your Film?
If you want to make movies more than you want to monetize them, you’ll need a sales agent or producer’s rep. Here’s when you should reach out.
Seeing as how a majority of my business still comes from representing filmmakers to sales agents and distributors, it’s unsurprising that a question I get at my events and in my inbox quite often is when is the best time to approach a producer’s rep, sales agent, or distributor. Well, as with many things I tend to blog about, there’s a short, true, and mostly unhelpful answer to that question. There’s also a longer, more nuanced, and more correct answer. This blog attempts to answer both in under 800 words.
The Short Answer: As soon as you realistically can
Marketing a film on a budget isn’t something you can do overnight. It takes a while to build a social media presence, as well as to build up a base to market your film to. It’s not something that can be done efficiently overnight, so you’ll want to get some marketing support on your project as soon as possible. That’s why you hire either a producer’s rep or a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD).
The Long(er) Answer: When you can afford them, and they’re willing to come on your project.
Most people tend to approach Producer’s Reps and PMDs only when their film is completed, or even after the initial festival run of the film. This can shut a surprising amount of doors for you. I had one client who submitted to Sundance and was rejected outright. The next year, after I connected him to US Distribution, the distributor talked to a programmer at Sundance who said that they would have accepted the film and programmed had it been brought to his attention. Unfortunately, they’d given premier status to another, smaller festival so it was too late.
PMDs and Distributors often have connections to help get you past the initial round of screening at major festivals, which can be all you need to actually get into the festival. 99 films out of every 100 submitted to Sundance don’t get in. 90 out of 100 of those are declined by extremely low-paid (or unpaid) staffers who look for any possible reason to decline so that the submission queue is more manageable for the actual festival programmers. If you have the right rep, PMD, or distributors they can help you bypass that first layer of screening, giving you a huge leg up.
How much will this cost you?
Producer’s reps tend to get a bad rap for charging up front. If all they’re doing is brokering your film to sales agents, and they’re taking a commission, then they really shouldn’t need to. I don’t. However, if I’m writing a business plan, deck, pro formas, or developing a financing, festival, marketing, or distribution strategy, I do charge upfront. We all have bills to pay, and just as you should always pay all other members of your crew, you should pay your producers too. My services are packaged based on need, more information on my services page.
Generally, it’s wise to allot some money for marketing as soon as you create the initial budget for your film. You should do this even if you plan on raising it at a later date, say after completion of principal photography. It may be wise to keep this budget separate given a distributor will most often foot some of the bill and sometimes it can bump you into a higher guild tier.
Related: The 4 Stages of Film Financing
If you’re raising money for prints and advertising, then you should allocate some of that money to a Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) or Producer’s Rep to help you execute your marketing plans efficiently.
Essentially, if you’re looking for a rep to do anything other than broker a completed film, you had best expect them to charge you some money upfront. Unless the Sales agent pays you a minimum guarantee, it’s unlikely that the film or the filmmaker will get paid anything for about a year after the initial signing. You can’t expect a Service provider to wait even longer than that to make any money, especially when there’s a significant amount of work involved in the creation and execution of the work you’re asking them to do.
If you want more resources to help you distribute your film, you should grab my free film business resource pack. It’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, a deck template, a film festival promotional brochure template, and a whole bunch of money and time-saving resources. Also, if you need a producer’s rep, check out my services page.
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5 Takeaways from AFM 2018
A legacy port of my breakdown of the 2018 American Film Market.
I’ve been going to the American Film Market® for 9 years now, and I’ve been chronicling what’s going on with the market in many ways from podcasts to blogs and even a book or two. So given that AFM® 2018 wrapped up yesterday, I thought I would do something of a post-mortem. While I’ll outline my feelings on the whole thing in this blog, the long and short of it is that the state of the American Film Market is mixed
But before I dive into it too deeply, I’d like to say this. My vantage point on this is purely my own, and subject to the flaws that one would expect from experiences of someone only attending the market for a few days this year. I went on an industry badge because I simply needed to take a few meetings to check in on things I’ve already placed with Sales Agents, as well as shop a couple of my newer projects to the people I prefer to do business with.
I considered exhibiting this year but decided against it after hearing how slow Cannes was in May, as well as the massive drop in buyers AFM Experienced last year. We’ll see how that changes next year. One last note, I wrote this blog in traffic in LA, while my wife drove. I normally don't publish first drafts, but it's time-sensitive, so apologies for any typos.
So without Further Adieu, let’s get into the post-game.
1. Buyer numbers appear to be up, and they’re buying
Word in the corridors last year was that AFM went from around 1800 buyers in 2017 to around 1200 buyers in 2017. After talking to a few sales agents who shall remain nameless, it appears that the total buyer count at this year’s AFM is somewhere in the vicinity of 1325. While walking the corridors I definitely saw a lot more green badges than last year.
Not only were there more buyers there. It appears that they’re actually buying films. I heard several sales agents remarking that they had closed multiple sales at the market, and the buyers were sticking around much longer than they have in years previous. Overall, this is good for the market, especially given that for many years almost all of the business was done in follow-up not actually during the market, especially for smaller-budget films.
2. Exhibitor numbers appeared to be down
In previous years, both the second and third floors of AFM were packed with smaller sales agencies, This year, only the third floor was booked and even then it seemed as though fewer offices were booked. Also, it appeared that many of the offices on the 8th floor seemed to be vacant.
After talking with a few exhibitors, it appears likely that this trend is going to continue next year. Several I talked to were unsure of whether or not they would continue to exhibit at AFM. Although we’ll see if new names come up to take their places.
3. The Entirety of the Loews required a badge to access
This made a lot of headlines prior to the market. I was hesitant to believe that this would be a good thing for the market, particularly for the high priced film commission exhibitors on the 5th floor. I only showed up to the market on Saturday, but apparently it was extremely quiet for the days preceding it. The market seemed somewhat slow to me, but mildly busier than I expected it to be on Saturday, and, but began steadily dropping off on Sunday and Monday, and Tuesday was VERY slow, even by the generally slow standards of what is functionally the last day of the market.
Word on the street is that many of the regular exhibitors on the 5th floor were not too happy with it, especially for the first few days. Although I’ll keep my sources on that anonymous. One notably missing 5th-floor exhibitor was Cinando. It’s possible they moved, but the spot that they normally occupied was vacant. This could be due in part to the growing prominence of MyAFM.
In some ways, it was nice, though. It was never too hard to find a seat, and once you got into the building there were no additional security checks. Not sure if that makes up for the drawbacks though.
4. The Location Expo on the 5th floor was fantastically useful, but under-attended
AFM opened one of the Loews Hotel Ballrooms for use by film commissions and specialty service providers starting on Saturday. It was really useful to be able to talk to various commissions and compare incentives. However, there very few times I saw more than a handful of people there, and I dropped by at least 8 or 9 times because of various sorts of business I had to do with some of the vendors in the rooms. (More soon)
Overall I hope to see it again, but I can’t help but think it would be more useful to all involved if it were in an area that did not require a badge to check out.
5. Early Stage Money exists there (For the Right Projects
I was surprised to see how much traction my team got for an early stage project, despite the fact it has a first time feature director. Admittedly, we came in with a good amount of money already in place, and it’s a good genre for this sort of thing but the fact that there might be a decent amount to come out and report in blogs early next year.
Thanks so much for reading! If you haven’t already, check out the first book on film markets, written by yours truly. Also, join my mailing list for free film market resources so you’re ready for future film markets.
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All opinions my own. AFM and the American Film Market are registered trademarks of the Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA) This article has not in any way beed endorsed by the IFTA, AFM, or any of its affiliates.
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How to Write an Independent Film Business Plan - 4/7 Marketing Section
If you want to raise money from investors, you’re going to need a plan. A business plan, to be exact. Here’s how you write the marketing section.
In this installment of my 7 part blog series on business planning, we’re going to take a look at the marketing section of the plan. This section is likely to be the longest section, as it encompasses an overview of the industry, as well as both marketing and distribution planning. Generally, this section will encompass 3-5 pages of the plan, all single-spaced. This is among the most important sections of the plan, as it is a real breakdown of how the money will come back to the film
Industry
In this subsection, you’ll want to define some key metrics of the film industry. You’ll want to include its size, how much revenue it brings in, and ideally an estimate of how many films are made in a year, as well s the size of the independent part of the film industry vs the overall film industry. If you want help with some of those figures, you should look at the white paper I did with ProductionNext, IndieWire, Stage32, and Fandor a few years back. To the best of my knowledge, it’s still among the most reliable data on the film industry.
The fact that the film industry is considered a mature industry that is not growing by significant margins is also something you’ll also want to mention. You’ll also want to talk about the sectors of growth within the film industry, as well as where the money tends to come from for independent producers, and a whole lot of other data you’re going to have to find and reference. As mentioned above, the State of the Film Industry book linked in the banner below has much of this information for you.
Overall, this section should be about a page long. The best sources for Metrics are the MPA THEME report and the State of The Film Industry Report. You can find links or downloads of both of those in my free resource pack.
Marketing
The marketing subsection of the plan goes into detail about both the target demographics and target market of your film, as well as how you plan on accessing them. To quote an old friend and long-time silicon valley strategist Sheridan Tatsuno, Finding your target market is like placing the target, and marketing is like shooting an arrow. For more detail on how to go about finding your target market, I encourage you to check out the blog below, as my word count restrictions will not let me go too deeply into it here
Related: How do I figure out who to sell my movie to?
Figuring out how you’re going to market the film can be a challenge for many filmmakers. Generally, I’d advise putting something more detailed than “smart social media strategy.” I tell most of my clients to focus on getting press, appearing on podcasts, and getting reviews. Marketing stunts can be great, but timing them is difficult to pull off.
All of this being said, you’ll need more to your marketing strategy than simply going to festivals to build buzz. The marketing category at the top of this blog, as well as the audience, community, and marketing, tags at the bottom of the page, are a good place to start.
Distribution
This section talks about how you intend to get your film to the end user. This section should be an actionable plan on how you intend to attract a distributor. This section should not be “We’ll get into sundance and then have distributors chasing us!” I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably not going to get into Sundance. Fewer than 1% of submissions do.
The biggest thing you need to answer is whether you plan on attaching a distributor/sales agent or whether you intend to self-distribute. if you’re not sure, this blog might help you decide. There’s lots more to it, I’d recommend checking the distribution category or the international sales tag on this site to learn more of what you need to write this section.
Related: 6 questions to ask yourself BEFORE self distributing your indiefilm
Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all the blogs on this site are devoted to distribution, so there’s lots of stuff here for you to use when developing this plan. If you want to develop more of a plan than distributing it yourself, it’s also something I’d be happy to talk to you about it. Check out my services page for more.
If that’s a bit too much for you but you still want more information about the film business, check out my film business resource package. You’ll get a free e-book, monthly digests segmented by topic, and a packet of film market resources including templates and money-saving resources.
This is part of a 7 part series. I’ll be updating the various sections as they drop. So check back and if you see a ling below, it will take you to whatever section you most want to read.
Executive Summary
The Company
The Projects
Marketing (This post)
Risk Statement/SWOT Analysis
Financials Section (Text)
Pro-forma Financial Statements.
Check the tags for more content!
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The 4 Stages of Indiefilm Finance (And Where to Find the Money)
Financing a film is hard. It might be easier if you break it up into more manageable raises. Here’s an outline on that process.
Most of the time filmmakers seek to raise their investment round in one go. A lot of people think that’s just how it’s done. As such, they ask would they try anything else. If you have a route into old film industry money you can go right ahead and raise money the old way. If you don’t, you might want to consider other options.
Just as filmmakers shouldn’t only look for equity when raising money, Filmmakers should consider the possibility of raising money in stages. Here are the 4 best stages I’ve seen, and some ideas on where you can get the money for each stage.
1. Development
If you want to raise any significant amount of money, you’re going to need a good package. But even the act of getting that package together requires some money. So one solution to getting your film made is to raise a small development round prior to raising a much larger Production round.
If you want to do this with any degree of success, you’re going to have to incentivize development round investors in some way. There are many ways you can do it, but they fall well beyond my word count restrictions for these sorts of blogs. If you’d like, you can use the link at the end of the blog to set up a strategy session so we can talk about your production, and what may or may not be appropriate.
Related: 7 Essential Elements of an IndieFilm Package
Most often, your development round will be largely friends and family, skin in the game, equity, or crowdfunding. Grants also work, but they’re HIGHLY competitive at this stage.
Books on Indiefilm Business Plans
2. Pre-Production/Production
It generally doesn’t make sense to raise solely for pre-production, so you should raise money for both pre-production and principal photography. This raise is generally far larger than the others, as it will be paying for about 70-80% of the total fundraising. It can sometimes be combined with your post-production raise, but in the event there’s a small shortfall you can do a later completion funding raise.
It’s very important to think about where you get the money for the film. You shouldn’t be looking solely at Equity for your Raise. For this round, you should be looking at Tax incentives, equity, Minor Grant funding if applicable, Soft Money, and PreSale Debt if you can get it.
Related: The 9 Ways to Finance an Independent Film
Post Production/Completion
Some say that post-production is where the film goes to die. If you don’t plan on an ancillary raise, then too often those people are right. Generally you’ll need to make sure you have around 20-25% of your total budget for post. It’s better if you can raise this round concurrently with your round for Pre-Production and Principle Photography
The best places to find completion money are grants, equity, backed debt, and gap debt
4. Distribution Funding/P&A
It’s very surprising to me how difficult it is to raise for this round, as it’s very much the least risky round for an investor, since the film is already done.
Theres a strong chance your distributor will cover most of this, but in the event that they don’t, you’ll need to allocate money for it. Generally, I say that if you’re raising the funds for distribution yourself, you should plan on at least 10% of the total budget of the film being used for distribution.
Generally you’ll find money for this in the following places. Grants, equity, backed debt, and gap debt.
If you like this article but still have questions, you should consider joining my email list. You’ll get a free e-book, monthly digests of articles just like this, segmented by topic, as well as some great discounts, special offers, and a whole section of my site with FREE Filmmaking resources ONLY open to people on my email list. Check it out!
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Distribution, Marketing Ben Yennie Distribution, Marketing Ben Yennie
6 Questions to Ask yourself BEFORE Self Distributing your Film
Whether to get a sales agent or distribute your film yourself is a hot topic on most film forums. Here are 6 questions you should consider to help you decide.
In a follow-up to last week’s blog on self-distribution platforms, I thought we would step back for a minute and try to understand what filmmakers should consider before they decide whether or not to self-distribute their movie. This blog is a list of potential parameters you might want to go by. It’s not the only things you should take into account, but they are some factors you’ll need to consider
1. Do you have money for promotion and aggregation?
While you get to keep 100% of the money you make when you use someone like Distribbr, you also have to pay them upfront to get you on those platforms. If you use traditional distribution, generally the distributor will take on that risk for you. Also, they’ll generally pay less than distribbr would charge you in aggregation fees, so they can put more money into marketing the film.
NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: If you need aggregation services, use FilmHub or IndieRights. The model is better than pay for placement even if you give up an extra 20%.
Further, with traditional distribution there tend to be some notable economies of scale. One of these factors is the fact that most good distributors and sales agents will have a publicist on retainer so your film will get better press, and further reach.
2. How your social media following.
If you don’t have a pretty decent social media following, then you really should consider traditional distribution. If the equation below works out to more than 1, then perhaps you should consider selling your film yourself, especially since this doesn’t factor for your personal press contacts, etc. If it doesn’t, then maybe you should look into traditional distribution.
I know I'm asking you to do algebra, but if I get asked in the comments I may create a calculator that runs the math for you.
((TF*0.01+FF*0.05+IF*0.05+OFX*0.03+EL*.1)*(SP-PF))/OLF+5000
TF = Number of Twitter Followers
FF = Number of Facebook Fans
IF = Number of Instagram followers
OFX=Number of other social media followings(Can repeat multiple times)
EL = Number of people on your relevant email list * 0.2)*
SP = Sales Price
PF=Platform fees
OLF=Outstanding Liabilities of the film (I.E. how much do you need to pay back investment and deferments)
The 5,000 represents money you’ll have to spend to get your film out there between marketing assets like posters and trailers, publicity, and limited social media boosts.
NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: This is a simplification of your marketing reach, and does not account for including how underserved your niche is as well as how much access you have to said niche. Given these calculations really only account for Transactional distribuion, it undercounts potential spread via AVOD and international sales if you seek them. I might remake this algotithm if I get enough requests.
3. What was the Budget of your film?
While I’m a big fan of traditional distribution (I am, after all, a distributor) I will say that in many cases it doesn’t make sense to try to sell a film made for less than 10k unless it came out REALLY well. Generally, that equation above will also look favorably on you if your budget is that low. There are, however, cases where this is not true.
4. Do you have press contacts?
Press is the most cost-effective way to market your movie. If you have a list of close contacts in the press, it can be a huge difference in your effectiveness at selling your film without help from a traditional distributor. If you don’t have them, the equation above had better result in something closer to 1.5.
5. Do you have the ability to create awesome marketing material?
Can you cut a great trailer? What about make a great poster? Your distributor will have contacts for that, but you may not, and that will make a huge difference in whether or not you should self-distribute.
6. Would you rather market this movie than make the next one?
This point is subjective. If you’d rather continue to market your film than make the next one, then by all means, self-distribute. If you’d rather put your energy into making the next one, then it probably makes more sense to work with some partners like sales agents and distributors. If you’re looking for those partners, I might be able to help. Just click the submit button below.
For more tools and information on film distribution, you should grab my free film resource package. You’ll get a FREE e-book on the business of indiefilm, digests on the film business segmented by topic, as well as free templates to streamline financing, marketing, and distribution. Plus, you’ll get all the latest on Guerrilla Rep Media releases and occasional special offers and discounts. Check it out below!
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Distribution, Marketing Ben Yennie Distribution, Marketing Ben Yennie
9 Things I Learned from my First Theatrical Release
Every filmmaker wants to see their work on the big screen, but there’s a lot more to it than you may think. Here’s what I learned the first time I played a key role in a theatrical release..
We recently came to the close of the theatrical release of Rockhaven Film’s Goodland. It played in a total of 7 cities. This was the first time I’ve been a key part of making a theatrical release work, so I wanted to share some of what I learned along the way. So here it is 9 things I learned from my first theatrical release.
1. Booking theaters is both expensive and time-consuming
I tried booking a theater here in San Francisco, but in the end, I was unsuccessful. The only theater that really got back to us would only show the film on a rental, not a revenue share. We didn’t pay any of the other theaters, and we weren’t going to start in San Francisco.
If we had paid them, it would have been a bit over 2,000 for 9 showings in a week. It is possible to get some films in there on revenue share alone, but if you do you often must give up the first 2-3,000 in sales directly to the theater, and generally, that’s about all you’ll make from a screen unless you can really pound the pavement and get press coverage.
2. Book local theaters, New York, and Los Angeles first.
This contradicts some of what I just said, but when you’re getting started, the first theaters you need to book are New York, Los Angeles, and perhaps the screen most local to the filmmakers. New York and LA get you more press coverage and give legitimacy to your theatrical run. The local screen is generally the easiest to book.
3. You don’t always need a full week’s run.
We only did 3 screenings in Buffalo, NY, but we still got a decent amount of press and a good amount of social media attention. Doing 1-3 screenings in a market makes it feel more like an event, and is a great way to build word of mouth about your film. Even if you can’t book a full week, consider booking a few one-night-only engagements to boost your presence in markets across the country.
4. Often, 1-2 shows a day is easier to sell.
We had 3-5 screenings a day in Kansas City, and it was difficult to drive traffic to any one particular screening. That includes the screenings we had with Q&As after them. If you focus on one individual showing a day, it’s easier to focus your marketing efforts, and get those butts in seats for an indie movie.
5. Fewer theaters are independently owned than you think
In attempting to book theaters in San Francisco, I found that only a few local theaters were independently owned. More theaters than you think are owned by mega chains like AMC, Cinemark, United Artists, and Landmark. If you’re dealing with these mega-chains, you’re likely going to have to deal with their buyers. Generally, those buyers will only want to deal with distributors.
6. Once a theater is booked you can still get bumped unless you paid the rental fee.
We booked a screen in New York for the same day we opened in LA. Unfortunately, we were bumped because Avengers, Infinity War outperformed expectations. If possible, don’t try to book your indie in May, June, July, August, November, or December. That’s when Hollywood will be very likely to bump you.
7. Keep Making Noise to fill seats
Once you get your theaters booked, you’re still going to have to drive local people to theaters. The most cost-effective ways to do this are via local press coverage and social media. The two work very well together. Keep your audience engaged by sharing news on your facebook page, twitter, and Instagram whenever there’s news to be had.
Related: 5 Dos and Don'ts for Marketing your Movie on Social Media
8. Press coverage is key: Local Press can be very cliquey.
Local Press coverage is among the best ways to drive traffic to your movie. However, it can be difficult to get.
It should surprise precisely no-one reading this list that some film scenes are very cliquey, and some of those people from the film scenes end up in positions of power at general press outlets. They may not cover your movie just because you’re not one of the cool kids. It sucks, but it is what it is. It would be difficult to change their mind, so just move on to other outlets if that’s what you’re running up against.
9. In the end, if you've made ANY money you've done well.
Finally, there’s not really a lot of money in theatrical runs themselves. There is a lot of additional money to be had in having had a theatrical release. If you end up getting beyond your distributor’s recoupable expenses, you’ve done VERY well. The additional money you’ve gotten from these outlets is likely to have a marked impact on your TVOD sales and your SVOD sales price. I might be making some announcements about how that worked for Goodland on our Facebook page, soon.
I hope this was helpful to building your indie film career. If you’re embarking on your own journey through distribution, you should make sure to grab my FREE indie film resource package. It’s got lots of templates to help you talk to distributors, tools to help you raise funding and even exclusive money-saving resources.
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Why Exclusivity is GOOD for Filmmakers
A lot of filmmakers are afraid to give up exclusive distritbution or sales rights out of fear of loss. Unfortunately, such a mindset all but guarantees loss of revenue. Here’s why.
In closing contracts, one question I get asked a lot is why distributors, sales agents, and producer’s reps need exclusivity when we do our jobs. Sometimes, this question even comes from the lawyers of my clients. I understand there is risk when giving someone the exclusive right to represent your project, so I thought I would write up a blog post examining exactly why we need exclusivity. Generally speaking, the goal is not to tie up your rights and make it so you can’t do anything with them. There are lots of other reasons why sales agents or producer’s reps need exclusivity.
To truly understand the need for exclusivity, one must first understand the nature of our business. We deal in the buying and selling of rights to infinitely replicate content. If something can be infinitely replicated, the only way to ensure it's value is to control who has the right to produce it, or to authorize others to replicate the content.
I can guarantee you that any sales agent you would actually want to work with will require exclusivity at least for international. If you try to negotiate their exclusivity out of a contract, I can guarantee you will not be successful. It's the nature of the business. In fact, if you try to negotiate too much to be non-exclusive, then you’ll likely just end up scaring off the sales agent.
Buyers want exclusivity, and if the sales agency doesn't have exclusivity, then they can't sell it to the buyer. Producer's reps have less necessity for this normally, but if they work directly with domestic buyers, then they will generally need exclusive rights for similar reasons to why a sales agent needs exclusivity to sell international rights.
As a more practical example, let's say that two sales agents each have the right to sell your film. There are a lot of territories for which only a few buyers come to the market. There's a good chance that the sales agents would both know these buyers. If the buyer can buy it in one of two places, then the two sales agents will just undercut each other to make the sale, and the filmmaker ends up hurt. Giving Sales Agents exclusivity actually protects the filmmaker, if the deal is done properly.
Further, almost all license fees and deals with a minimum guarantee require exclusivity. The buyer doesn't want to pay good money for a film, only to have it air on the competition's channel or platform at the same time. Of course, if you're looking at Transactional VOD, this is not really the case, but those deals generally don't pay up front. Also, that's essentially an aggregation deal.
I'll admit, a producer's rep needs exclusivity less than a sales agent. Since most of what Producer’s Reps do often involves shopping the film to sales agents, so long as there's a lit of who I'm approaching that's separate from who you would be approaching, there's room to negotiate. However, since I act as a sales agent for North America, I at least need exclusive rights domestically for exactly the same reason.
Also, to avoid issues, if you’re working with a producer’s rep non-exclusively, then you’ll need to list what companies that producer’s rep will handle. If you don’t, you could be in for a tricky legal battle down the line, in case multiple approaches are made to the same company.
So I’d like to thank you for reading and say that I hope you found it helpful. If you did, you should grab my FREE Film Business Resource Package. It’s got a free e-book called The Entrepreneurial Producer to grow your filmmaking career, templates for investment decks, film festival brochures, and other money and time-saving resources. Check it out below.
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Distribution, Marketing Ben Yennie Distribution, Marketing Ben Yennie
5 Reasons Traditional Film Distribution Still Matters to Indie Filmmakers
A lot of Indie Filmmakers are all about Self Distribtuion to keep more money themselves. While it’s an understandable notion, it’s often counter-productive, here’s why.
When you look at most of the other bloggers and podcasters talking about indie film distribution, a lot of them are very convinced that aggregators like Distribbr are the only solution that a Filmmaker needs. As a Producer’s Rep, I disagree. A good sales agent, distributor, or producer’s rep may each take a piece of the pie, but if they do their job well they’ll also make the pie significantly bigger, increasing the payout for all involved.
Here are 5 reasons why a traditional distributor or sales agent is still a necessary partner.
1. Distribution and Marketing are their own Skillsets
Unless you happen to have a background in marketing or a huge social media following, it’s not likely you’ll even make back the money you put into the aggregation fees. It’s a surprising amount of work to get the amount of money you need to pay back fees upwards of a thousand dollars to put the film on iTunes.
Distributors also help market the film. It’s all they do, so they’re generally pretty good at it. (At least, if you get the right ones) In addition to cutting the costs of aggregation and paying them out of a recoupable expense, Sales agencies and distributors will also often put money into a publicist, social media ads, and other marketing expenditures that will help your film make more money for all involved.
2. It's generally No/Less Money Up Front
If you use an aggregator or even a company like FilmHub or IndieRights, all marketing expenditures are on you. This includes posters, trailers, publicity, social media ads, and more. If it were me, I’d much rather give up a piece of the action to have someone else cover some of these costs up-front.
3. Not Every Avenue is Truly Open Without a Local Distributor
No matter what people tell you, not every avenue is completely open to self-distribution. Theatrical is rare for most indie films, but unless you want to give up 90+% of the take, or pay a few thousand dollars per screen per week. pay a large amount of money to a platform or directly to theaters, you’re not getting into theaters. If you work with the right distributor, they MIGHT be able to book you some screens.
I’ve helped in organizing several theatrical releases of up to 50 screens per film. The way we did it avoided paying up front. Filmmakers generally don’t have the specialized knowledge or relationships to make that happen.
Further, other outlets most often won’t get you into Cable VOD, or SVOD other than Amazon rentals, even though they may claim they have the ability to.
4. Local Distributors Control Specialized Knowledge
Do you have any idea how to localize a film for South Korea? What about Germany, Italy, or Mongolia? I’m a Producer’s rep, and while I might have an idea of who would buy any given film on a territory-by-territory basis, I couldn’t tell you how best to market a film in every country across the globe. That said, I do know people who do, and I know lots of people who can get it to the territories I can’t and I also know what they tend to pay for that content. Successfully selling a film internationally involves a lot of highly specialized skills most filmmakers simply do not possess. They’re the sort of skills that take decades to perfect. So if you want your film to be truly exportable, then you should consider working with some partners to help you capture the foreign market.
5. Marketing is Much More Effective with Multiple Partners.
Multiple voices pushing your film will do a lot more than yours alone. Working with Producer’s Reps, International Sales Agents, and distributors will amplify your voice and help it rise above the white noise to really take your project to the next level. Without multiple experienced partners helping spread the word about your film, it can cost significantly more to raise awareness of your film.
I get this is a lot. If you want to learn more about it, you should check out my FREE Indiefilm Resource Package. It includes an E-book, lots of form letters, tracking templates, and other templates to help you get in touch with traditional distributors, and a monthly blog digest that will help you better understand the industry and improve your knowledge base in a sustainable way.
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4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 59 | https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/20_films_about_math_mathematicians_and_math_geniuses/s1__28630979 | en | Adding up: The best films about math, mathematicians and math geniuses | [
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"Matt Sulem"
] | 2024-07-20T21:00:18-04:00 | There are plenty of movies involving mathematical concepts and/or famous figures in the discipline — both real and fictitious. Not sure where to start? Try these 20 films about math, mathematicians and math geniuses. | en | /apple-touch-icon.png?v=2 | Yardbarker | https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/20_films_about_math_mathematicians_and_math_geniuses/s1__28630979 | Over the years, plenty of films and TV shows have had plots about teachers who inspire an underachieving class to perform beyond expectations — 1988’s “Stand and Deliver” was the archetype. Based on the experiences of real-life math teacher Jaime Escalante, “Stand and Deliver” earned an Academy Award nomination and two Golden Globe nominations, including a Best Actor nod at both events for Edward James Olmos’ portrayal of Escalante.
More than 20 years before the release of “The Theory of Everything,” the 2014 Oscar-nominated biopic about Stephen Hawking’s life (which we’ll get to later), there was “A Brief History of Time,” a different biopic about Stephen Hawking’s life. And why shouldn’t the late theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author get multiple movies made about him? He was basically a turn-of-the-millenium Einstein. Also, to differentiate, “A Brief History of Time” (named after Hawking’s most famous work) is a documentary written by Hawking himself, while “The Theory of Everything” is a semi-fictionalized drama.
The words “spy movie” and “Robert Redford” usually make one think of the 1975 classic “Three Days of the Condor,” but that’s not the only film fitting this description. In 1992, Redford starred alongside Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn in “Sneakers,” a spy caper about a group of hackers, techies and espionage experts who are tasked by the government to steal a code-breaking device, only to get tangled up in the investigation of a mathematician’s murder. For a lighthearted drama, the producers of “Sneakers” took the math aspects seriously and hired Leonard Adleman as a mathematical consultant. At the time, Adleman was mainly known for being the person who coined the term “virus.” However, he is now viewed as the father of DNA computing and was the winner of the 2002 Turing Award for his co-creation of the RSA encryption algorithm, which is now widely used in secure data transmissions.
As a theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman spent a lot of time working with mathematics, most notably in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and in the investigation of the Challenger space shuttle disaster, as well as on his major contributions to the fields of quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics (for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1965) and particle physics. Based on the semi-autobiographical books “Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!” and “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” the 1996 film “Infinity” concentrated on two aspects of Feynman’s life: his relationship with his first wife, who tragically died of tuberculosis at the age of just 25, and his work on the A-bomb. Starring Matthew Broderick as Feynman and Patricia Arquette as his wife, Arline Greenbaum, “Infinity” received mixed critical reviews.
Will Hunting (Matt Damon) was a blue-collar janitor working at MIT, but with his self-taught, borderline-genius mathematical intellect, he was better suited as a grad student or faculty member. One night, while Hunting is secretly completing a complex math problem posted on one of the school’s blackboard, Professor Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård) discovers Hunting’s capabilities and introduces him to psych professor Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) to dig deeper into Hunting’s lack of motivation and inner demons. Written by Damon and Ben Affleck (who appeared in a supporting role) when the duo were unknown 20-somethings, the drama “Good Will Hunting” ended up being purchased by Miramax, directed by Gus Van Sant, and winning Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Williams) and Best Original Screenplay in addition to seven additional nominations in most of the major categories. How do you like them apples?
Mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm was first featured in 1993’s “Jurassic Park” and more recently in 2018’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” but his most prominent role was in the franchise’s second installment, 1997’s “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” in which he was the protagonist. Interestingly, Malcolm was actually declared dead in Michael Crichton’s novel “Jurassic Park,” but after the success of the movie in which he survived, the author wrote him into the book’s sequel, and thus Jeff Goldblum was able to reprise his role in later films. Directed by Steven Spielberg, “The Lost World” also starred Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite and Arliss Howard, and it made $619 million at the box office.
“Cube” is our third entry from 1997, but it’s nothing like the other films released that year. Heck, it’s nothing like any film we’ve ever seen. Basically, it’s about five people trapped in an enormous network of cube-shaped rooms, many of which contain deadly traps. The group members attempt to figure out why they are there and where “there” actually is while also trying to simply stay alive. The weak acting and script didn’t earned “Cube” many positive reviews from critics, but the sci-fi horror flick eventually garnered a cult following thanks to its creative premise and ample gore.
Darren Aronofsky is renowned for films like “The Wrestler” (2008) and “Black Swan” (2010), but his first movie, 1998’s “Pi,” received acclaim back in its day too. Filmed in black and white with an abbreviated runtime of 84 minutes, “Pi” centers on number theorist Max Cohen (Sean Gullette), whose life is as consumed with math and finding patterns as it is with constant headaches, paranoia, hallucinations and social anxiety. Intelligent and engrossing, the cerebral thriller earned Aronofsky a Best Director award at Sundance and a Best First Screenplay honor at the Independent Spirit Awards.
John Nash (Russell Crowe), a math genius bored with his job at MIT, is excited to accept a new gig working for the Pentagon and searching for clues hidden in plain sight that supposedly point to the location of a Soviet bomb. However, Nash’s new boss and job turn out to be figments of his imagination after he’s diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. In danger of losing his family, his freedom and his sanity, Nash must find a way to use his powerful mind to control itself. Based on the true story of mathematician John Nash, the 2001 drama “A Beautiful Mind” capitalized on half of its eight Academy Award nominations, including wins for Best Picture, Director (Ron Howard), Adapted Screenplay (Akiva Goldsmith) and Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly).
After the death of her brilliant but mentally ill mathematician father Robert Llewellyn (Anthony Hopkins), Catherine (Gwyneth Paltrow) has to come to terms with his passing, her relationship with her estranged sister (Hope Davis) and her own brilliance and susceptibility to mental health issues. Jake Gyllenhaal also stars in “Proof” as Robert’s former student, who helps and eventually develops a relationship with Catherine. The 2005 drama failed to break even at the box office but nevertheless earned general acclaim and a Best Actress Golden Globe nod for Paltrow.
The MIT Blackjack Team was a real-life group comprised of both students and former students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and their goal was to beat the house at blackjack in various casinos by card counting and using various other math-based techniques. The 2003 book “Bringing Down the House” is based on the team — albeit with some alleged exaggerations and inaccuracies — and it was later turned into the 2008 film “21.” Although the critical reviews were mixed, the film starring Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne, Liza Lapira, Aaron Yoo and Jacob Pitts nevertheless won big at the box office.
Ever wonder who was the first female mathematician in recorded history? That distinction goes to Hypatia, who was also a philosopher and astronomer and lived in the Roman province of Egypt in the fourth century. At a time of religious turmoil, she both preserved and taught knowledge from the classical era, even though it eventually cost Hypatia her life. The influential figure was portrayed by Rachel Weisz in the 2009 Spanish film “Agora,” which debuted at Cannes and eventually became Spain’s highest-grossing film of the year and the recipient of 13 Goya Award nominations, even though the box office numbers only recouped a little more than half of its $70 million budget. Oscar Isaac and Max Minghella appeared in supporting roles.
Prior to the 2002 MLB season, Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) takes the advice of young Yale alumnus Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who suggests signing players based on their on-base percentages and other advanced stats called sabermetrics, in lieu of following traditional scouting techniques. Without spending money on big-name players, Oakland ends up having a historic season. This is no fiction tale; it’s what really happened some 17 years ago (other than the fact that Brand’s real name is Paul DePodesta), and sabermetrics have been reinventing the game ever since. Based on the 2003 book of the same name, “Moneyball” didn’t win any Oscars or Golden Globes, but it did earn 10 nominations between the two events.
We can’t even begin to explain the unsolved “P vs. NP problem” in computer science, but we can explain that the 2012 thriller “Travelling Salesman” centers on it, four mathematicians who solve it and the consequences they could face if the solution is released to the world. Directed and co-written by Timothy Lanzone, “Travelling Salesman” earned a warm reception from critics and an Official Selection at the New York International Film Festival.
While the film (and book) “A Brief History of Time” was written by the late Stephen Hawking, “The Theory of Everything” is based on the book “My Life with Stephen” by Jane Hawking, his wife of 30 years. In the 2014 romantic drama, Jane was played by Felicity Jones, while Stephen was portrayed by Eddie Redmayne, who won Best Actor honors at both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards. Jones, for her part, also earned nominations at both events. Directed by James Marsh, “The Theory of Everything” earned near-universal acclaim along with $124 million at the box office.
Based on the life of Alan Turing and the biography “Alan Turing: The Enigma,” “The Imitation Game” earned $234 million at the box office, near universal acclaim, an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Graham Moore) and seven additional nods. Benedict Cumberbatch portrayed Turing, a brilliant British mathematician and cryptanalyst who led a code-cracking team that aided the Allies during World War II. Although respected in retrospect and now considered the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, Turing’s brilliance wasn’t fully recognized during his lifetime, partly due to his prosecution for homosexuality in 1952. “The Imitation Game” co-starred Keira Knightley, who earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.
Nathan Ellis received an autism diagnosis at age 9, but he also received a brain capable of understanding numbers better than almost anyone else. After studying math for seven years, Ellis (Asa Butterfield) is selected to represent the U.K. at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) and is subsequently plucked out of his comfort zone and must learn to adapt to new experiences and overcome his natural distrust of people, as well as his fear of failure. Also known as “A Brilliant Young Mind,” the British drama “X+Y” is loosely based on the early life of 2006 IMO runner-up Daniel Lightwing.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was a brilliant mathematician who grew up poor in India but eventually attended Cambridge and contributed heavily to the field of mathematics in his brief life. Even though he died in 1920 at age 32, his research continued to be confirmed, and it still inspires new areas of research to this day. Ramanujan’s story was recounted in the 1991 biography “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” which was later adapted into a 2015 film starring Dev Patel as Srinivasa alongside Jeremy Irons, Devika Bhise, Toby Jones and Stephen Fry.
Nominated for three Academy Awards (including Best Picture), “Hidden Figures” is the true story of the black female mathematicians who played a crucial role in the early days of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe portrayed real-life former NASA employees Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, respectively, with Spencer receiving Best Support Actress nominations at both the Oscars and Golden Globes.
A mathematically gifted first grader named Mary (Mckenna Grace) ends up in a custody battle between her grandmother (Lindsay Duncan), who wants to send Mary to public school across the country and dedicate her life to math, and Mary’s uncle, Frank (Chris Evans), who wants to give her a normal childhood. Frank strongly believes this is what Mary’s late mother, a brilliant mathematician who took her own life, would have wanted, instead of Mary following in her footsteps. Octavia Spencer and Jenny Slate co-star in the touching 2017 drama, which made $43 million at the box office against a budget of just $7 million. | ||||
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4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 42 | https://stfdocs.com/film/distribution-advice-for-2014/ | en | DISTRIBUTION ADVICE FOR 2014 | [
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"Thom Powers"
] | 2014-01-09T03:42:01+00:00 | Before you sign a contract, read this feedback from other filmmakers and industry insiders. | en | https://stfdocs.com/wp-content/themes/pubspring-stfdocs/favicon.ico | Stranger than Fiction | https://stfdocs.com/film/distribution-advice-for-2014/ | INTRODUCTION
by Thom Powers
Over the years, I’ve seen too many filmmakers become embittered by their distribution deals. Sometimes they had unrealistic expectations, sometimes they got caught in bad deals. The filmmakers who feel disgruntled range from those with niche titles all the way to the most successful directors. I remember seeing an esteemed director at the Toronto International Film Festival being greeted warmly by the head of a distribution company. “That’s funny,” the director later told me, “I’m currently suing his company for unpaid royalties.” Behind the diplomatic smiles lie many untold stories.
As we start off 2014 and head into Sundance, I want to explore how filmmakers can make better deals for themselves in all distribution channels: theatrical, television, digital and international. Most filmmakers go into distribution negotiations for the first time, or with a gap of several years since their previous film–which might as well be their first time in this changing landscape. That puts them at a disadvantage negotiating with distributors who are regularly making deals and confident about stipulating what’s “normal.”
What filmmakers frequently lack are points of comparison. To change that I reached out to several filmmakers and other industry insiders for feedback. I’m grateful to everyone who shared their experiences. I’ve edited and condensed contributions to reduce repetition (though some points are worth repeating).
Despite the pointed criticism of distribution contracts in many of the following comments, I don’t want to disparage all distributors. Among their ranks are people who care passionately about documentary films and make a great difference in their success. But often those people are in the middle ranks. Even when a filmmaker’s main contact at a distributor is conscientious, a year later that person might be gone, or the library sold to a different company. Among active distributors in recent years who have transformed or ceased operating are THINKFilm, Palm Pictures, Wellspring, Artisan, Indomina and more.
When push comes to shove, a filmmaker’s rights come down to what’s guaranteed in the contract, and whether a filmmaker has the power to hold the distributor accountable. On the flip side, filmmakers have their own obligations to fulfill for the distributor to be effective. One key obligation is to be the chief public advocate for their film. When filmmakers can’t give the time to do press or public appearances or social media, they’re putting a great handicap on the distributor.
Happy collaborations do exist. They are usually the result of filmmakers understanding what they’re getting into. Some of the biggest debacles I’ve witnessed have occurred with upstart distribution companies with no track record (as Marshall Curry candidly describes his own experience below). If a company has never distributed a documentary before, think twice about being the first. A notable exception in 2013 is THE ACT OF KILLING released with great passion by Drafthouse Films, a company with a solid track record for exhibition.
The final section of this discussion is devoted to variations of self-releasing. Documentary film has a distinguished history of filmmakers taking charge of their theatrical release, tracing back to NANOOK OF THE NORTH in the 1920s and continuing through MONTEREY POP in the ‘60s and BROTHER’S KEEPER in the ‘90s.
In recent years, technology and independent bookers have made forms of self-releasing a more viable option. This first sunk in for me six years ago during conversations with distribution strategist Peter Broderick and WME’s Liesl Copland. I asked them to deliver speeches at the inaugural TIFF Doc Conference in 2009–when was Broderick popularized the term “hybrid distribution” in his Declaration of Independence, and Copland emphasized the rising digital potential in her address Dear Theater Owners, Fear Not… Since then, their theories gained more credence with hybrid releases such as EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and SENNA, which earned $3.3 million and $1.6 million, respectively, at theaters, according to Box Office Mojo, not counting digital or other revenue. In 2013, only six theatrical documentaries surpassed more than $1 million at the theatrical box office. One was GIRL RISING, which operated outside traditional distribution and partnered with Gathr.
Another rising trend is filmmakers touring with their films. The most prominent example I know is Gary Hustwit as I wrote about in a case study of his film OBJECTIFIED. Below Andrew Cohn describes his recent experience with the film MEDORA.
One recurring theme in the advice is the need for advance preparation (see Ana Vicente under the section International Sales; and the makers of INDIE GAME: THE MOVIE under Hybrid Distribution). As I compiled these comments, I was corresponding with several filmmakers headed to the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and still completing their edits and sound mixes only two weeks before opening night. If filmmakers want to take full advantage of the strategies below, they need to build in more time to plan. Once your festival premiere happens, the clock starts ticking on the marketplace asset of being new.
Many comments herein reference Sundance. However, the advice can certainly be applied to TIFF or other festivals. Indeed, the biggest beneficiaries of this input may be filmmakers who are still in development or production.
So read this carefully, print it out and share with your investors, discuss it with your sales agent, highlight anything you don’t understand and turn to your peers for fresh perspectives. For more, see the latest edition of Peter Broderick’s newsletter.
YOU GOT INTO A FESTIVAL, NOW WHAT?
MORGAN NEVILLE (DIRECTOR, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM): The first question I’d ask of yourself is what is your goal in distribution? Is it to make money? Is it to get accolades? Is it to get the film the widest possible audience? These things occasionally coincide, but I wouldn’t expect it. I’d also think about who your audience is. Is it easily identifiable (and reachable)? What are you looking for a distributor to bring to the table?
I would find another recent film that has done what you hope your film can do and look at how it was distributed. Who handled it? When was it released? Was it day and date with VOD? How many markets? Where did it air on TV? This might give you a template to follow.
ALEXANDRA JOHNES (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, THE SQUARE): You are tired, I know, but you need reinforcement troops to manage festival release and grassroots & educational up until deals close that cover those areas. So many opportunities are lost while filmmakers wait for the bigger deals etc. Those are important but continuing your film’s footprint while you pursue those is key. Operate as if you assume a self-release and if you are relieved of that burden on terms you like, great. If you operate that way, you will be negotiating from a position of power and ultimately get better deal terms too, not to mention having a full fledged back-up plan in place.
ALEX GIBNEY (DIRECTOR, WE STEAL SECRETS: THE STORY OF WIKILEAKS): Ask every dumb question you can think of. The dumb questions are always the best ones because they tend to provoke the clearest answers. Don’t ever pretend to know more than you do. That is the best way to get conned.
DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, IMPACT PARTNERS): Unless it is clear that the film is going to be a major theatrical success, all rights deals get increasingly less interesting to me every year. With the advent of social media, the availability of support for your own efforts via crowd-funding campaigns, the maturation of Transactional VOD, the emergence of digital self-distribution platforms like VHX and Reelhouse and the continued health of the U.S. and International TV markets, filmmakers who know their audiences and can speak directly to them have the potential to control their own distribution AND make more revenue while doing it. This is very liberating. At the same time, make sure you’re ready if you’re going to take this commitment on–it’s a at least 6 months worth of full-time work, and likely more than a year of commitment.
ROSS KAUFFMAN (DIRECTOR, BORN INTO BROTHELS): Don’t be afraid to call any filmmaker out of the blue for advice. As filmmakers, we all know how hard distribution is. It’s a constantly changing landscape, and any filmmaker worth his or her salt will take a few minutes and lend a hand to help another filmmaker make a good deal and get their film seen and sold. There are conversations that I’ve had with other filmmakers that have literally saved me tens of thousands of dollars that I never would have come close to seeing otherwise.
THE PUBLICIST
DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, IMPACT PARTNERS): Make sure your publicist and your sales agent work well together. In all likelihood, your publicist will have more of an impact on the sale of the film than the sales agent will, but they also have to work together well. They must function as a team – not as independent actors.
AMY GREY (PUBLICIST, DISH COMMUNICATIONS): YES do hire a publicist and ask them how many other films they will be representing and who at their company will actually be working on their film?
LUCY WALKER (DIRECTOR, THE CRASH REEL): In last year’s STF Sundance advice piece I dissed publicists rather but wanted to add an important coda that if you get a doc specific publicist they can be invaluable allies on all fronts. I have has supremely positive and productive collaborations with Nancy Willen and David Magdael who are doc specific and classy, awesome, pleasure to work with and have helped not just with publicity.
ADAM BENZINE (JOURNALIST, REAL SCREEN): Beyond hiring a publicist for your doc, find the names of journalists at publications you want to be featured in, and ring up the journalists; speak to them on the phone. Your email is like confetti at a wedding, but phone calls stand out, and they are harder to ignore.
PETER BRODERICK (DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIST): Make sure that your publicity team focuses on social media as well as film critics and other entertainment press.
ADAM SEGAL (PUBLICIST, THE 2050 GROUP): Over and over these past two years we have seen the power of using a successful festival premiere and festival circuit run, and later even a very limited theatrical release, to help feed into and perhaps even boost prospects for a more lucrative iTunes, VOD, DVD and private screening circuit run (including universities and organizations). Publicity can create these circumstances. Films with no broadcast deals can still earn them, and at greater revenue levels, as a result of the success of a limited theatrical release and a lengthy festival run. The key is to think two, three or even four steps ahead and not assume that one has to be locked down first, or cannot benefit from another. There are multiple paths to success.
THE SALES AGENT
MARSHALL CURRY (DIRECTOR, IF A TREE FALLS): If you are hoping to sell your film, get a good sales agent on board well before the premiere. They will make sure the right people see it, and they will negotiate deals better than most filmmakers can do themselves. But they often have an incentive to make simple all-rights deals which maximize their fees, so if you are interested in carving up rights or pursuing self-distribution, talk that over with them beforehand and make sure it’s a good fit.
ANONYMOUS FILMMAKER #1: Realize that most sales agents (not all) are basically middlemen. And as middlemen, they are not only working for you, but in essence working for the people you are selling to. The fact is that unless you are Alex Gibney and make four films a year, you only create one widget every few years to sell, which gives you very little leverage. The broadcasters and distributors that your sales agent is selling to have a much stronger relationship with your sales agent than you do. So when your sales agent says, “We should take this deal with this distributor because this is what is normally done and is the best deal you are going to get”, make sure you have done your homework and know what you are talking about when you reply, “I don’t care what’s normally done…what’s normally done is that filmmakers get screwed…so let’s try and get a better deal.”
CHRIS HORTON (SUNDANCE ARTIST SERVICES): Domestic Sales agency deals should be limited to 6 months. In this day, if you can’t sell a film within that time, filmmakers should have full ability to do what they like without involving (or having a revenue stream towards) their sales agent.
ALEXANDRA JOHNES (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, THE SQUARE): Don’t confuse legal with business – lawyers put into legalese the terms of your deal – they are not necessarily the best ones to help you with your deal points – they can be helpful but you need business advisors – and it’s good to have a seasoned producer or EP look over your deal in addition to your sales agent – your sales agent wants to close the deal as quickly as possible – they earn a % and also have their own agendas, so they won’t necessarily push as hard as you might like.
At the same time, respect your sales agent and the producers & EPs negotiating on your behalf. They have a wealth of experience you don’t; ask lots of questions but do respectfully; it gets really tiring when first-time filmmakers assume everyone is trying to screw them.
If you are going to ask for advice from seasoned professionals, be transparent with your info. You won’t get good advice if you don’t relay the full picture, so if you don’t trust the person with the full picture, don’t ask.
MARC SIMON (ENTERTAINMENT ATTORNEY; DIRECTOR, UNRAVELED): Filmmakers should have a clear understanding of both their sales team and sales strategy well in advance of their trip to Sundance. If filmmakers are interested in separating rights and self-releasing theatrically, then regardless of the quality of the film, a sales agent may not even be necessary for the domestic sale of the film (e.g. Shane Carruth’s UPSTREAM COLOR). For filmmakers interested in pursuing all rights deals and/or selling the film to the highest bidder, selecting a sales agent is far more nuanced than choosing the one who is most eager to represent the film. Filmmakers should specifically ascertain the sales agent’s strategy for selling the film (e.g. it might favor a direct sale to HBO prior to the festival’s premiere, which could compromise other platforms), speak to numerous other filmmakers about their experience with the sales agent, and negotiate the sales agency agreement itself, which is often overlooked. Filmmakers should also seek to work with their domestic sales agent to select and hone their international sales strategy. Filmmakers often do not run the numbers–taking into account sales agent fees and costs, legal fees, distribution delivery costs etc.– to clearly understand what amount of money the production must receive from its sales deals in order to pay back its financiers and to earn a profit. Filmmakers should be able to work in concert with their attorneys to navigate the foregoing issues and deals.
ALLISON BERG & FRANK KERAUDREN (DIRECTORS, THE DOG): Be a bit annoying. Even if you have the best team assembled for distribution, your film is not their only project and things can fall through the cracks. It’s up to you to advocate best for your film and speak up if you have concerns. Again, it can be very helpful to find a filmmaker who can share their experience because you will have many questions along the way. Your sales agent can answer some, your lawyer and your accountant some others, but having another filmmaker to consult with is really helpful.
INTERNATIONAL SALES
ANNIE RONEY (SALES AGENT, ro*co films): Never have one person or one agency represent your rights worldwide, unless you are only seeking a digital release. North America and the rest of the world are two different beasts. Find separate representation for each.
Listen to your gut. If you feel like you are being sold something you probably are. Optimally, your relationship with your agent, distributor, broadcaster, etc. should be collaborative.
PETER BRODERICK (DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIST): Select an international sales agent that specializes in TV sales and always attends MIP and MIPCOM. Only give them your international digital rights if they have a track record selling these rights successfully.
DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, IMPACT PARTNERS): On international sales: cut a 55-minute version of the film offline RIGHT AWAY. Give it to your international sales agent. Don’t spend the money to master it yet, but just cut it and let it sit. You will generate many more sales if you have both a feature-length and an hour-long version available. This is not the version of your film that will live forever–it’s not what will last on DVD or in digital. The legacy of your film will be the theatrical. So just hold your nose and do it. And then, if buyers want to buy it, master this version the second that revenues from the sale (after your sales agent takes their cut) exceed the cost of the mastering. You’ll be thankful you did this.
ANA VICENTE (SALES AGENT, DOGWOOF GLOBAL): Foreign distribution is complicated, there is a market for theatrical and TV docs and you need to collaborate with specialist distributors to maximize your film’s impact and audiences.
Start early. Have early discussions on your foreign distribution planning, especially if your film has theatrical potential outside North America. The most common oversight we find are producers approaching a foreign sales agent well after Sundance, maybe because their focus was in nailing the in/outs of their US deal. Even if this is only in March or April, bear in mind many foreign buyers don’t travel to Park City but do attend EFM in Berlin or Film Art in Hong Kong just a few weeks later. Both are great opportunities to market and sell your doc in Europe and Asia. Unfortunately, deadline for market screenings, advertising space or Festival submissions are all before Sundance. Your sales agent needs to book and allocate those spaces to market your film efficiently. Initiating talks on foreign distribution post-Sundance is a lost opportunity if your doc doesn’t win or does not become the most talked about film. It also means your film will have to compete with other newer docs from other Fests: SXSW, Tribeca, Hot Docs and Cannes in the next “foreign” theatrical market opportunity. Cannes is a tough one to market docs!
Trust and delegate. Another common mistake is when a producer closes a rather small foreign TV deal directly on offers received during Sundance, before having a sales agent on board. What you may not anticipate at the time of closing such deal is the license term may be detrimental to potential deals on other platforms or even sales from neighboring European countries. Allow your sales agent to negotiate all foreign deals on your behalf. It is not just the license fee they can maximize for you, but the overall sales and distribution potential. A good sales agent knows how to orchestrate the sophisticated windowing and holdbacks among different territories and platforms in Europe and to coordinate the different release dates of countries by language as well as territory. For docs with cross platform potential (Theatrical, DVD, Digital, TV) it’s often more complicated than it appears, as some European countries are still heavily regulated and some territories have laws which force distributors to respect windows after a theatrical release and before they can exploit the DVD- digital or Television rights.
Do your Research. Make sure your sales agent is a good fit for your film. Do they do theatrical sales or mainly TV distribution? What are the markets they attend? Does your sales agent have a digital strategy for the countries where digital rights weren’t sold? Does your agent work directly with main VOD platforms, iTunes or Netflix or through an aggregator? Will they handle the Festival strategy on your behalf? Will they produce marketing assets such as film website, poster or manage the film’s social media? What other documentaries do they have in their line up, and where were they sold to. If you are lucky to have two or more agents interested in handling your film and have doubts, get feedback from filmmakers/producers of docs distributed by the agents you are considering to ask a simple question: would you work with them again? why?
JUSTIN SZLASA (PRODUCER, SIDE BY SIDE): International Festivals: skip the screening fees until you get the subtitles you need. Why? You might get a festival fee of 3-500 euros (which you will likely split 50/50 with your sales agent). That’s nice but subtitles are worth far more to the production. First, at the festival the home audience (and critics) will have an easier time understanding your film when it screens–which is better for all kinds of obvious reasons. Second, you need subtitles to launch digitally on many international platforms (like iTunes Holland and Germany, for example). The cost to make these subtitles (as much as 4k) will be passed on to you–either directly by your sales agent or indirectly via your local distributor. So for international festivals waive the screening fee, insist the festival subtitles your film when it screens, and ask them to hand you the file including time code.
NEGOTIATING A DEAL
LIZ GARBUS (DIRECTOR, LOVE, MARILYN): If you’re lucky, your career in the (documentary) film business will be a long one. So in some ways, the most important thing for you right now is to forge relationships and find partners who you may work with for years and years ahead. So, if you feel a real connection with a potential buyer/partner, they really love your film, your talents, and share your vision for what the film should do in the world–that may be the better partner than the one offering a bigger MG. Likewise, if you dreamed of a theatrical release but the people who love your film the most, and strike you as the most faithful partners, are TV/Cable/Streaming buyers, consider them seriously. Theatrical documentaries that work are far and few between and what you want is your film to be SEEN and PROMOTED and LOVED by those releasing it. And guess what, you might go ahead and get started on your next film with them too.
BRENDA COUGHLIN (PRODUCER, DIRTY WARS): Early morning bidding wars and distributors texting your sales agent 7 minutes into your premiere screening are for the 1 percent of documentary films, even for ones at prestigious festivals. So, expect that not to happen.
At Sundance, the high mountain air–combined with jitters, lack of sleep, possibly a hangover–can have a deleterious effect. At 4am, I would’ve signed my life rights away to Michael Bay.
Counter this by arriving prepared, with 1) a well-thought out distribution strategy, 2) a solid plan to carry out that strategy, and 3) a team to help you. “I want as many people to see my film as possible” and “my film belongs in theaters” doesn’t mean much – there’s no strategy there. “The distributor will take care of that” is not a plan. “How hard can it be for me to do it myself” is not assembling a team.
Expect to forget your brilliant strategy and plan, so write it down. Have a cheat sheet with key deal terms and keep it with you at all times. Look at it at 4am.
Expect that any unresolved issues within your team – disunity on goals, for example – will emerge, at inopportune moments. Stave it off as best you can by trying to get everyone who needs to be on board with the plan organized and unified, in advance.
MORGAN NEVILLE (DIRECTOR, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM): Have a detailed plan going in so that if you find yourself negotiating in a condo in the middle of the night, that the most important things are agreed upon up front. Distributors often try to dominate the details of contract negotiations after the fact (since once an announcement is made, the leverage goes to them). Think about everything from ancillary rights, minimum number of screens, marketing minimums and maximums. The more of these you can get into your initial deal memo, the better.
ANONYMOUS FILMMAKER #2: Ask your potential distributor to give you a list of reps from four films (and their phone numbers) that will recommend the distributor and who have received “overages” (money that exceeds the initial advance) from the original distributor.
DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, IMPACT PARTNERS): Do business with the buyer that is most passionate about your film – the one that really gets it. With rare exceptions, there isn’t enough upside in the doc world for even the buyers to be motivated solely by $. They have to love the film. If you sense they don’t get it, or don’t really love it, don’t sell it to them. Not only will you will end up being miserable if you do, but if they don’t see the film the right way, they won’t be able to sell it well either.
ALLISON BERG & FRANK KERAUDREN (DIRECTORS, THE DOG): Everything will take longer than you will expect. Unless you’re in the middle of a bidding war and in a hotel room at 4am (congrats if you are!), then it takes a lot of time to hammer out all the details.
Try to manage expectations. If you do think your film is a good fit for theatrical, take a look at the box office numbers for other films similar to your own to try to gauge how theatrical distributors expect your film to do. Offers are based on what they project the return to be–not how much they love your film.
Work with people who get your film. Really listen to what they want to do with your film, who they think the audience is, what ideas they have for how they want to get it out into the world, how they like to work with their filmmakers, how many films do they take on.
Don’t take it personally.
PETER BRODERICK (DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIST): No deal is better than a bad deal.
SHOLA LYNCH (DIRECTOR, FREE ANGELA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS): Realize that once you sign the distribution contract, you’ve handed over your film and may not have much input from that point forward.
DEAL TERMS
PETER BRODERICK (DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIST): The most important rights to retain (whether you make a multiple rights deal or split up your rights) are:
Direct digital – the rights to sell downloads and streams directly from your website
Direct DVD – the rights to sell DVDs from your website and at screenings. This needs to be coupled with the right to buy DVDs from your DVD distributor at cost or no more than $5.00
Educational – the rights to sell educational copies to colleges and universities, high schools, libraries, nonprofits, companies, and other organizations and institutions
Semi-theatrical – the rights to rent the film for single screenings (Note: if you are making a multiple rights deal, you can share these rights non-exclusively with your distributor)
Focus on the ultimate revenue split rather than the advance. Assuming you are working with an honest company, it is often better to take a lower advance or no advance to get a better revenue split. The distributor will recoup its advance from revenues before paying you any more money. An advance gets you some money sooner, but in the end may cost you a substantial amount of money that you could have made with a better revenue split.
Request a revenue corridor so you will receive some money (e.g. 20% of revenues) while the distributor is taking its distribution fees and recouping its expenses and advance. Otherwise you may receive no share of revenues for months or years.
BRIAN NEWMAN, CO-FOUNDER, CROWD PLAY): Look at your deliverables list (from a distributor) before you make a deal, and consider which items are negotiable. There are lots of little hidden costs in there.
CHRIS HORTON (SUNDANCE ARTIST SERVICES): Filmmakers and their agents should demand faster and more transparent reporting from distributors. Distributors aren’t even obligated to let licensors know when their film gets licensed to Netflix, et al.
MARC SIMON (ENTERTAINMENT ATTORNEY; DIRECTOR, UNRAVELED): Except for the smaller percentage of banner films that clearly will receive 7 figure offers (or high six figure offers in the case of documentaries), filmmakers should consider and understand alternative split right scenarios. In today’s changing landscape, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to license all lucrative rights in exchange for an advance that doesn’t cover all the costs of making the film. In the last year I have seen numerous filmmakers (especially documentaries) hold onto their rights to pursue self or service releases for theatrical rights and separately license TV and/or VOD rights (including splitting VOD rights between more than one entity where Sundance Artist Services was involved).
Essentially, there are two landscapes in Indie Distribution and filmmakers should enter Sundance with a clear understanding of which they are pursuing or whether they can pursue both at the same time. One final footnote: For filmmakers who do license their films to one of the big boys, it is important to understand, upfront in the deal stage, the payment schedules and reporting schedules that distributors intend to follow, in an effort to ensure that payments are made as soon as possible, instead of as late as possible.
ALEXANDRA JOHNES (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, THE SQUARE): 1) It’s not about what they are paying you (to the extent that any MGs still exist); it’s what they are committing to (spend and markets etc.) so don’t get hung up on the upfront numbers. 2) Hold onto something–some territory or market–whether it’s international or one-off theatrical (rights to Gathr etc) or educational. It’s your baby and you are going to feel better having some control over something; don’t give everything away, because as a first-timer, you won’t have the leverage to influence how the distributors handle it and it can be heartbreaking to see your film fully mishandled in all territories and all media.
HEIDI EWING (DIRECTOR, DETROPIA): When you get an offer, make sure you understand the details. In how many cities are they planning to release your film? When do they think is the best time to release the film and why? How much (if any) P&A will they put up for the release? What other documentaries are they releasing along with your film? Will they pay for any type of Oscar campaign if you are shortlisted? It’s not enough to just have “a deal.” Know the business, ask questions directly and in person, advocate for yourself and your film. It’s your job.
ANONYMOUS FILMMAKER #2: Ask to see a waterfall before you sign a deal. In other words, ask your potential distributor to show exactly what happens to the revenue from your film. Use a simple number, like $100,000. Have the distributor break it down for you market by market.
Set limits on P&A spending. In theatrical deals, P&A can be a secret poison, slowing killing any chance of profitability. Here’s why: P&A can benefit grosses and help to promote films. BUT, because of the nature of the theatrical deal, it can be in the interest of the distributor to break even, rather than to return “overages” to the filmmaker. Ask the necessary questions until you understand why P&A giveth and P&A taketh away.
BRENDA COUGHLIN (PRODUCER, DIRTY WARS): Define what “theatrical” means for your film and negotiate these rights accordingly. Do you want a lot of markets? Or a targeted, limited run that basically serves as marketing for a digital release? If you’re relying on group sales (who isn’t?), what do these groups need to make it work for them? What about focusing on festivals as the backbone of theatrical?
In short, juggling rights needs to be an outcome of your particular distribution strategy, not the driver of your strategy.
So if you haven’t had a chance to think through it already, ask and answer questions for yourself. Think hard. Ask around from other filmmakers who have had films released in the last two years. What do you want for your film and what do you need – for the film, for your life, for your next film? What are your priorities and what are you willing to give up? Whose going to do the work and do they know that? Anyone got newborns or credit card debt? Factor that in. What happens if your distributor goes bankrupt or the president, who sold you on signing with them, leaves? Does your audience watch films on DVD or on Xbox? Do people in Australia actually need to see your film?
Finally, it’s not just about rights and money. That’s what people talk about at festivals. But six months or a year later, most filmmakers I know are talking about windowing, timing of the initial release, key art, group sales, paying for deliverables, support for going on tour with the film or for awards runs. Those are the deal points worth taking a stand over.
ROSS KAUFFMAN (DIRECTOR, BORN INTO BROTHELS): Bankruptcy clauses in your contracts mean nothing. Period. Even if your distribution agreement clearly and explicitly states in the contract, “In the case of bankruptcy, all rights revert to Producer”, bankruptcy courts will not consider this clause. The words, basically, mean nothing.
One nearly incomprehensible example involves hundreds of filmmakers (myself included) who currently have their films included as assets in the bankruptcy cases connected to the dissolution of THINKFilm despite the fact that just about every one of those filmmakers has some kind of ‘reversion upon bankruptcy’ clause in their contract.
MARSHALL CURRY (DIRECTOR, IF A TREE FALLS): There are a few cases where an “all rights” deal might make sense:
1) If your film has very significant mainstream crossover appeal (like say, 20 FEET FROM STARDOM). It’s hard to self-distribute on that scale, and the potential upside of having a distributor’s machinery behind your film might be worth the cost of losing some control and ancillary rights. An exception to this might be a film where you control a powerful marketing tool, like in EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP. In that case, even though the release was wide, it made sense for Banksy to forgo an “all rights” deal because he already had so much marketing muscle without a traditional distributor.
or 2) If someone offers you a lot of money up front. A famous musician told me once that he thought when he was first starting out that he should not push for big advances. He thought the record label would appreciate the team spirit of the gesture and they would have more to spend on releasing his record. But the truth is, he said, if you get a really big advance, it means that your label has more skin in the game and is going to work harder to make sure they recoup that advance. It’s a good lesson for film too, I think.
or 3) If you really don’t want to deal with the headache of self-distribution. It’s very time consuming and requires some expertise and some money, so don’t underestimate those. There are a lot of success stories, but there are also a lot of failures that you don’t hear about as often.
Do your homework about the distributor. My film RACING DREAMS was sold to a company that was new to the scene, flashed money, and made big promises. But it turned out they were not particularly interested in film distribution and were primarily playing games with their stock price on the penny stock exchange where they traded. They didn’t advertise in most markets; theater owners told me they didn’t even receive trailers or posters; they never paid the MG; and it took years of legal wrangling before we got the rights to the film back.
In contrast, Oscilloscope, which released IF A TREE FALLS, was very straightforward about their expectations for the film and their release plan, and they did what they said they would do. They don’t have the muscle of some of the larger distributors, but they are filmmaker friendly and allowed me to be a part of the DVD design, trailer edit, release, etc.
LUCY WALKER (DIRECTOR, THE CRASH REEL): For THE CRASH REEL we loved the deal offered by one distributor, Phase4 Films. However one sticking point was that I’m a design snob and I didn’t like their posters or DVD covers or artwork. So we insisted on veto rights on all art–I actually made it a deal breaking point–and I am so, so glad we pushed for it. The distributor really worked together with the film team on our art. The leverage of our added clause was imperative to getting our input and everyone wound up happy. It is really important to me how the film appears and I’m such a lover of posters and thumbnails and art and trailers that it breaks my heart if a film I’ve directed has ugly or misleading or exploitative art or inferior trailer. The cover of my first doc DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND which looks like a bad horror flick makes me cry every time I see it.
ANTHONY ARNOVE (PRODUCER, DIRTY WARS): One other small bit of advice, regardless of your distribution strategy: find a great post-production manager and set aside money for additional post-production costs. The film will likely have to be reformatted at least a few more times and you will have new delivery requirements after Sundance that you probably have not anticipated.
EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS
DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, IMPACT PARTNERS): If you think there is a very specific audience for your film that will not go to the theaters but will buy a DVD or pay to download the film, make sure you reserve educational/non-theatrical rights for yourself. All the buyers of every stripe say they exploit these rights, but very few of them actually do. If a buyer won’t carve these out for you, be damned sure that they have a plan for generating revenue and that you aren’t left just getting scraps from it.
BRENDA COUGHLIN (PRODUCER, DIRTY WARS): Longevity is crucial, especially for documentary filmmakers – a change in the life of a subject years later or the issue coming back in the news can make a film relevant and timely again long after the initial release. Think ahead: In five years, how are people going to see your film? Distributors tend to move on quickly – in some cases, after opening weekend – so pay attention to timing and not just of the initial release. Maybe there is an intrepid filmmaker out there who can work time-delimited rights around “in perpetuity.”
In the US, there’s a market around “educational rights” and this is a promising area–but only if it is right for your film. If you’ve done the research and believe there is a university or school market for your film, by all means go for it and retain those rights. It is just not a universal fit for all documentaries.
DVDs – yeah, I said it. Despite received wisdom, some audiences in the US and in this place called the rest of the planet still watch films on DVD. Even if you sell DVD rights, you can retain the right to distribute the DVD yourself directly at, say, community screenings or other events, and even get a low wholesale rate from the distributor. Civic Bakery has done it before with a smart distributor who saw this as a boon, not competition. I raise this not to make big claims about DVDs but just to emphasize the need to match rights to platforms with audiences for your film.
DIGITAL RIGHTS
DAWN PORTER (DIRECTOR, GIDEON’S ARMY): These days having an early digital release can be really valuable. Try and keep the holdback window short. The broadcasters put a lot of effort toward the premieres. Ask if they really need a long holdback if they want more than 3 months.
ANONYMOUS SALES AGENT: Filmmakers should carve out the right for “direct to consumer” rights via their social footprint or website, and by that I mean digitally. Topspin, VHX, whatever the platform. Filmmakers used to sell DVDs via their website and companies would allow this with certain restrictions in pricing. Now filmmakers can reach audiences digitally and there are many examples of success.
LUCY WALKER (DIRECTOR, THE CRASH REEL): I’d be happy to add my name to the point from the anonymous sales agent re reserving direct to consumer rights. On THE CRASH REEL we knew we had diverse demographics and audiences and fan bases–extreme sports fans, traumatic brain injury survivors and their families, moms and families, families with Down syndrome, etc and we wanted to do special things with our #loveyourbrain outreach campaign and also with selling directly with different packages suitable for those different audiences with a really great functional website that will also operate as a sales portal to view or buy the film. We reserved the right to sell direct in all territories and made great sales to theatrical distributors in all our goal territories and it’s been a real win-win. We are working with Topspin who we love to build our audience and create different fan packages (including our DVD or film streaming) to sell direct from our website. That way we hope to beat piracy / the bit torrents by giving audiences a fan experience that includes extras like deleted scenes or stickers or brain-injury-specific videos or unique snowboarding memorabilia, etc. Our inspiration for this was Stacy Peralta’s BONES BRIGADE so we worked with Andrew Herwitz as our sales agent (who pioneered the BONES BRIGADE model) and we’ve been really happy.
Another bonus of controlling your own direct-to-consumer sales is that you get to build your own email database. This is so important as we filmmakers move to thinking of ourselves as “brands” and having an email list of fans will be something that we all need to build for our careers. Imagine if John Waters had a mailing list, or owned his films or the right to sell them direct to fans? Instead he has no rights and no fan database and he’s unable to easily leverage his tremendous fan base to help him produce more fabulous work.
JAMES SWIRSKY & LISANNE PAJOT (DIRECTORS, INDIE GAME: THE MOVIE): Regardless of your planned distribution strategy (Self/All-rights/Hybrid), we’d strongly recommend negotiating for the right to sell off of your own website (both digital & physical). Aside from the obvious benefit of better margins & more control, offering your film on your film’s website allows for less obvious, but we’d argue, more important advantages:
Own The Long Tail: It allows you to own the long tail of your film and capitalize off of organic search. Your film will have a long life well beyond your initial marketing & promotional push. Once the marketing spend is done & sales chart momentum begins to wane, the vast majority of people will discover your film in much more organic, word-of-mouth ways – many of which end up with a Google search for your film. And, if you’ve done things right, you should be at the top of that results page. You want to be able to sell your film one click after that point. Roughly a third of all digital sales for Indie Game: The Movie happened on indiegamethemovie.com.
Create an Audience for this Film & the Next: In the context of a larger self-distribution strategy, but also valid within a hybrid approach, selling from your own site creates a very real connection with your audience members. Not only can you personalize & customize the experience for those people, but you will also own your own sales & customer data. I know, the thought of collecting emails is sometimes icky, but in reality, these are people who like your work enough to buy it. Chances are, they’ll likely be interested in your next project. If you are thinking long term (and you should be), building an audience–that you can actually get in touch with–will make the next project, and everyone after that, more successful. If you believe in the idea of “1,000 true fans,” owning your data is the key to making this happen.
Invaluable Flexibility: Offering your film on your website and retaining digital rights allows for maximum flexibility in terms of promotions and sales opportunity–especially within the online space. Opportunities such as bundling, bonus content offerings, coupons, sales, organizational partnerships–all require a certain nimble-ness that you won’t find with more traditional digital outlets. Especially within the doc space, where core audience groups are readily identifiable, easier to reach & partner with, the ability to bring the film to them rather than point them to Amazon, iTunes, etc. is exceptionally powerful.
PETER BRODERICK (DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIST): It is better to sell your retail digital rights and your retail DVD rights to the same company. If you sell your digital rights separately, it will be much harder to find a company willing to only distribute your film on DVD.
KEVIN IWASHINA (SALES AGENT, PREFERRED CONTENT): Filmmakers need to understand the variety of digital rights which are out there – the majority fall within three categories: TVOD, SVOD and FVOD.
TVOD or Transaction Video on Demand are those rights which are monetized by a transaction. That can be in the form of a purchase or one time rental.
SVOD or Subscription Video on Demand are those rights which are streamed through an all you can eat subscription type service (e.g. Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc)
FVOD or Free Video on Demand are those rights which are streamed for free and are monetized through advertising.
Many TV distributors are now asking for “TV Everywhere” rights or associated streaming rights. Broadcasters are wanting to stream these rights thru apps, their own branded website, etc. The key is to understand the limitations on their definitions and ensure that there are no holdbacks or other encroachments which would limit filmmakers to monetize their content on other digital platforms.
Additionally, filmmakers should ensure that the fees charged are “inclusive of sub distributor fees”. In many instances, a distributor will acquire a film, but use a subdistributor to monetize the film in an area where they may not be direct. Some examples are WB Digital handling digital for distributors who may not be direct with all platforms, a hard good distributor like Anderson handling DVD and taking it into WalMart, etc.
HYBRID DISTRIBUTION
BRENDA COUGHLIN (PRODUCER, DIRTY WARS): Let’s send this term “self-distribution” into the dustbin of history.
Most of the documentary filmmakers I know are intimately involved in distributing their work, no matter what kind of deal they make or don’t. In that sense, all distribution is self-distribution.
Similarly, no distribution is done only by you. Any way you slice it, you’ll have partners and be working with a team of people and organizations–whether aggregators or festivals, big exhibitors or small art house cinemas, digital marketers or crowd-funding supporters. A film doesn’t get seen without the help and interests of a lot of people.
Either way: it’s work. A lot of work. So much more work than you think. To repeat: You’ll work your butt off. So the question is not whether you want to do the work, it is what kind of work do you want to be doing for the next 18 months (at a minimum)? Identify the tasks and pair them with the best possible people or institutions you can find, cajole, pay or persuade to do them.
PETER BRODERICK (DISTRIBUTION CONSULTANT): “Hybrid distribution” is the alternative to giving one company total distribution control of your film for many years. The hybrid approach enables you to retain overall distribution control of your film, choose great distribution partners, and retain the rights to sell directly to North America and the rest of the world.
LUCY WALKER (DIRECTOR, THE CRASH REEL): Consider a distribution consultant like Long Shot Factory which can mastermind a self-release. We didn’t go this route, but there are great new services out there to help filmmakers navigate. Ditto Picture Motion masterminds social media campaigns.
HEIDI EWING (DIRECTOR, DETROPIA): Do I have the stomach to self release this thing? If you hate the deals coming your way but believe your film will do well on a big screen, consider the DIY model. It worked well for DETROPIA. This choice is scary and adds yet another burden, more time and endless energy to the process–time you could be spending starting a new project. On the upside, you can keep all of your rights and sell them yourself, standing to make money on the theatrical, your Netflix, DVD, VOD etc. It’s both empowering and a pain in the ass to be in charge of your film’s destiny. It’s many things, but not for the faint of heart.
JAMES SWIRSKY & LISANNE PAJOT (DIRECTORS, INDIE GAME: THE MOVIE): Sundance is not the place for you to start considering self-distribution. If you think self-distribution may be a good fit for you, your film and your audience (and it not always is), then you should have been thinking about it long before your first distribution meeting. Direct distribution is only as good as the audience you’ve cultivated around the film–work which, ideally, has started much earlier in the process.
If self-distribution is in play for your project, you should head into the festival circuit with your strategy relatively thought through. Meaning you should have put real thought into costs, revenues, timelines, effort & execution. You should then use this as a relative yardstick to compare & contrast offers. It may turn out that the deals offered make more sense than self-distribution.
Overall, if you choose self-distribution, you want it to be a choice–and an educated one at that. When self-distribution is simply viewed as a last-resort, chances are things won’t work out the way you want them to.
ANDREW COHN (DIRECTOR, MEDORA): I think the power to find alternative, filmmaker driven revenue streams though touring, speaking engagements, and “live events” is important. We just toured our film MEDORA to 30 cities in 50 days. The turnout was amazing. Audiences want more “experience” for their buck nowadays, and giving them a “night” with Q&A’s, special events/venues, after-parties, food, meet-the-directors–any way to distinguish yourself and make it an “event” more than just a screening. There are lots of awesome alternative venues and press waiting to write about your event. We may never be able to compete head-to-head with larger movies, but giving audiences a bigger, different experience is one way drive your audience out to see your film in large numbers without a huge PR & Marketing budget. This also gives local press a reason to write about your film. Having a newspaper or alt-weekly do a write up on your event will get lots of eyeballs onto your website, etc. It’s not even about the 75 people that come to the event. It’s about the 75,000 people in that city that read about it, and your film.
After all was said and done, we did make money. Most theaters were willing to do a 50/50 split (some of the larger theaters asked that we rented). Besides decent box office numbers (anywhere btwn 30-700 people, I’d say average was about 50-60 ppl), most of the profits came from DVD and t-shirt sales after the events. We also had some nominal “speaking fees” at some art centers and colleges, plus sales from the website during that period. We were driving a lot of eyes to the website through local press though. We do have a bit of a built-in audience and press/booking machine with FOUND Magazine. I’d say 20-30% of folks were fans of davy/FOUND. but most weren’t. We do have lots of local press contacts and some relationships with existing venues–but we hired a girl fresh out of college for 10 bucks an hour to reach out to local press and she did fine on her own. It was a really amazing experience; being able to see audiences connect with the film night after night (a rare thing). We also got to bring one of our subjects with us, which I would HIGHLY recommend.
HEIDI EWING (DIRECTOR, DETROPIA): Where are my peeps? Once you make the decision to self release you must assemble a crack team that includes an experienced booker, an outreach coordinator, an excellent and dogged publicist, an army of interns who love and understand social media and of course yourself, the fearless leader of distribution-dom. Go forth and find thy audience, they are out there in the world just waiting to see a film just like yours. | ||||
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] | 2023-07-21T11:00:44.736000-04:00 | Ryan Gosling has been an A-list movie star for years now, but lately he’s been inescapable. We ranked his movie roles, including his latest in ‘The Fall Guy.’ | en | Vulture | https://www.vulture.com/article/best-ryan-gosling-movies-ranked.html | This article was originally published on July 21, 2023. We’ve updated it to include Ryan Gosling’s latest movie, The Fall Guy.
For a few years there, Ryan Gosling’s status as the internet’s No. 1 boyfriend threatened to overshadow his presence as an actor. The stillness, the composure, the sly self-awareness, and the bursts of rancor that he’s used to bounce between psychological thrillers and romantic dramas, buddy comedies and big-budget sci-fi sequels, were being flattened by fans into a cute (but limiting) “Hey girl” memeification. Yes, the Canadian former Mickey Mouse Clubber is handsome and charming, and there’s nothing wrong in pointing that out. (We are not immune; we’re even going to talk about his looks in this list!) But over more than 20 years onscreen, he’s also cultivated a fascinating malleability that made him a worthy agonized heir to Harrison Ford in Blade Runner 2049, the only good white man to listen to jazz in La La Land, and a perfect foil to an eye-rolling Russell Crowe in The Nice Guys. He may just be Ken, but he’s not just Ken, you know?
Gosling’s career can be roughly chopped into phases: the tortured young men of The Believer and Stay, the singular and silent heroes of his partnership with Nicolas Winding Refn, the wounded lovers of his work with Derek Cianfrance, the cerebral and heartbroken guy in Song to Song and First Man. Across genres, his roles share a kind of idealistic yearning to be seen and to be known that Gosling conveys with those soft eyes and a tired half-smile. He’s been nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actor — although, in traditional Oscars fashion, not exactly for his best roles — but he’s also had some duds (a very kind way to describe the existential headache of The Gray Man). We discuss those extremes in this complete ranking of Gosling’s theatrically released movie roles, meaning his work in TV isn’t included. Our apologies to the legions of Frankenstein and Me fans, but here are our assessments of Gosling’s other performances, listed from worst to best.
27. The Gray Man (2022)
Oof. On paper, Gosling’s turn as a CIA operative named Six who is entrusted with protecting a tween girl from an unhinged assassin should be, if not amazing, at least watchable. There’s connective tissue between his character here and his PI Holland March, responsible for a headstrong daughter, in The Nice Guys, and to be fair, Gosling’s chemistry with Julia Butters (the scene-stealer from Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood) is solid. But outside of their relationship, Six is so glib and so slick that Gosling is almost doing a Ryan Reynolds impression, and the movie’s action — which could show off another element of Gosling’s physicality — is so choppily edited that it’s impossible to get a sense of his bodily grace. He’s not the right fit, and overall, the Russo brothers’ movie is not a good time.
26. Song to Song (2017)
Terrence Malick has made many gorgeously layered, distinctly evocative films, but Song to Song isn’t one of them. This narratively thin work almost feels like a Malick caricature, what with all the endless voice-over, shots of men kneeling apologetically before women, and romantic melodrama between characters played by Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, and Gosling. As BV, the musician in love with Mara’s Faye, who’s cheating on him with Fassbender’s record producer Cook, Gosling has barely anything to do. He gets in some little moments that seem unscripted — a giant smile watching a bird select paper slips from a box, a believably furrowed brow while working on an oil rig — but he has the least dialogue out of all four main characters, and the movie’s too abstract to make any meaningful use of him. Plus, Malick denies us a Dead Man’s Bones reunion, a majorly missed opportunity to reignite Gosling’s music career of singing silly, spooky songs like “My Body’s a Zombie for You.”
25. The Slaughter Rule (2002)
Gosling’s roles tend to organize themselves into slightly connected pairs, and this indie movie starring Gosling as a high-school football player struggling to figure out his future comes a couple years after Gosling starred in another high-school-football movie, Remember the Titans. In The Slaughter Rule, athlete Gosling faces off against coach David Morse in an overly plotted story about football as masculine expression, and that masculine expression as a stand-in for masculine desire. Morse is electric as the closeted, somewhat cruel bully Gideon to Gosling’s trying-to-please Roy, and The Slaughter Rule is beautifully shot, with directors Alex Smith and Andrew J. Smith taking full advantage of their Montana location. The pacing is uneven, though, and sometimes Gosling’s fragility is broad when it needs to be precise. It’s an acceptable early performance, but it also feels young in Gosling’s understanding of himself as an actor.
24. The United States of Leland (2003)
Gosling cycled through a few “disturbed young man capable of a shocking act” roles early in his career, with The Believer, The United States of Leland, and Stay all drawing from that well. Of those three, The United States of Leland is probably his flattest attempt. As Leland, a teen who kills his ex-girlfriend’s developmentally disabled brother, Gosling mostly stays blank and vacant; his unwavering reticence is required by Matthew Ryan Hoge’s script, which relies on a final reveal to justify its existence. It’s not entirely Gosling’s fault that the character is more irritating than compelling, and he holds his own in scenes with Don Cheadle as a teacher who considers writing about Leland. (A post–Twin Peaks Sherilyn Fenn and young Michael Peña are absolute casting coups.) But Leland is ultimately too clichéd for Gosling to do much with.
23. All Good Things (2010)
It’s impossible to tell exactly when Gosling started doing his De Niro–esque New York accent; its slow creep into his voice has been going on for a while. But All Good Things is probably when it’s felt most appropriate, since Gosling plays a Manhattan real-estate heir (and Robert Durst analog) accused of killing his wife (Kirsten Dunst). He nails the voice, and he nails the movie’s big emotional asks — a scene in therapy where he screams his guts out, a tear when confronted by his father about his poor business skills. But the movie never quite grows out from its ripped-from-the-headlines roots, and the script’s character-development gaps in how it alters Gosling’s David from a peculiar but besotted husband into a hair-triggered murderer make his performance feel a little overstretched, too.
22. Stay (2005)
David Benioff wrote 25th Hour (great), Troy (good), and then Stay, this nearly impenetrable psychological thriller that plays out like The Machinist through a David Lynch filter. Championed by Roger Ebert but ultimately a box-office flop, Stay’s plotting is far too tedious and the characters played by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts too vague for any of it to gel. But then there’s the scene in which Gosling’s character weeps in the middle of a strip club while women dance to Massive Attack’s “Angel” — it’s a real “What’s happening here, and do I care?” viewing experience. Still, Gosling is serviceable as a young man who hears voices, puts out cigarettes on his arm, and tells his psychiatrist (McGregor) that he’s going to kill himself. It’s not nearly as raw or visceral a performance as his work four years earlier as a live-wire neo-Nazi in The Believer, but that’s because the movie surrounding him isn’t as good.
21. Gangster Squad (2013)
Look, we are judging performances here, not the movies themselves, okay? Gangster Squad had the ugly uncanny-valley aesthetic of a Sin City knockoff, a too-big ensemble, and overly slow-mo-dependent action scenes. That all unfortunately overshadows the palpable affection Gosling and Emma Stone have in their second of three movie romances, and even Gosling’s playboy charisma gets dulled a bit. The actor has played men with strict moral codes and ruthless tactics many times throughout his career, and this just isn’t the best version of that. But he stands out for his dry line deliveries (“Well, you gotta die someday” is wonderfully blasé) and the genuinely fatigued affect he brings to his World War II veteran and cop, and, hey, he looks great. There’s a moment where his otherwise lacquered hair gets sweaty and falls over his forehead as he points a shotgun at a baddie, and it’s very satisfying!
20. Remember the Titans (2000)
Emotionally manipulative, arguably inaccurate, and thoroughly pleasant, Remember the Titans is one of the better entries in the “civil-rights history through sports movies” cinematic trend, and that’s because Denzel Washington is Denzel Washington–ing all over the place. He’s got gravitas, he’s giving tough love. And while Gosling isn’t in this much — he’s really just a supporting player to Ryan Hurst and Wood Harris, and Donald Faison and Ethan Suplee were both more recognizable young actors at the time — he’s goofy and open in a way that reflects his Mickey Mouse Club training and lays the groundwork for his later singing and dancing in La La Land and Barbie. The locker-room scene in which he sings along to “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” is almost cringingly earnest, but Gosling gives himself over to it completely, and that lack of artifice is a nice reminder of the looseness he’s capable of.
19. Fracture (2007)
It is a cinematic rite of passage for up-and-coming white actors to play lawyers or law students, and Gosling joined the ranks of Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon with Fracture. It’s a fairly by-the-numbers legal thriller, with Gosling’s district attorney Beachum prosecuting Anthony Hopkins’s engineer Crawford for attempted murder and getting caught up in the man’s mind games and manipulation. Gosling does well in this role, though, because he’s an engaged scene partner with Hopkins (watch how absorbed and frustrated he is when they’re in the courtroom together) and because he excels at playing obsessive figures driven by a single-minded purpose, which Beachum becomes when Crawford is acquitted. Gosling hasn’t played that many good-guy law-enforcement roles where the character he’s embodying isn’t swayed into ruthlessness or recklessness, and Fracture remains something of an outlier in his filmography. It’s familiarly plotted, sure, but efficiently acted.
18. Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)
Yes, yes, the Photoshopped abs. We’re all aware of the most memorable line from Dan Fogelman’s script. Kudos to Gosling, though, for making the skinny-suit-wearing womanizer Jacob more than just an exceptionally sculpted torso. He’s scathing in his scenes with Steve Carell as hopeless near-divorcé Cal, all exasperated sighs, mirthful giggles, and disgusted body language; his comedic timing is on point. There’s also the sense, as the years have passed, that this role is the nexus for a number of quirks that Gosling would bring to his later roles, and even his public persona. His repulsed, step-back-and-stare reaction to Cal’s velcro wallet is a precursor to his exaggerated enmity toward Simu Liu’s other Ken in Barbie; he covers a laugh with his left hand in the Crazy, Stupid, Love trailer and onstage at the Oscars. Gosling is clearly having fun, and while a solid half of this movie is a drag, he’s at least entertaining himself (and us).
17. Only God Forgives (2013)
Nicolas Winding Refn’s second collaboration with Gosling could have been goofy as hell. To be honest, it sort of is: all Freudian mommy issues, mythological meandering, and the most atmospheric bisexual lighting you’ve ever seen. But it’s also a testament to Gosling’s star power that he can anchor a film this unbelievably weird and brutal and keep us mesmerized throughout. The long sequence in which Gosling, playing American expat and Bangkok crime boss Julian, unbuttons his cuffs, pushes up his sleeves, circles around Thai police lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), and challenges him to a brawl with a direct-to-camera “Wanna fight?” might be the hardest the actor has ever looked. The fact that he then gets his ass thoroughly kicked by Chang embodies not just Refn’s grim sense of humor, but also Gosling’s willingness to get as dirty and demeaned as a role requires. And that’s even before Julian cuts open his mother’s corpse and shoves his hand inside of it to feel close to her for the first time in his life! What other actor could make that moment pitiable, even understandable?
16. The Ides of March (2011)
“You exude something. You draw people in,” Paul Giamatti’s Tom says to Gosling’s Stephen in The Ides of March, George Clooney’s political drama, and duh, he’s right. Released during Obama’s first term, this movie’s cynicism didn’t go over super-well; the film’s negative reviews were particularly hard on the idea that maybe Democrats and Republicans can both be bad. That realization, though, is key to Stephen’s curdling idealism in the film, a moral collapse that Gosling gives urgency and despondency. Gosling sells both sides of the character. First, he’s a political-operative hotshot totally sure of his own supremacy and fully confident that sleeping with a college student on the campaign trail won’t affect his career at all; how often Gosling looks at Evan Rachel Wood’s lips when she’s talking is, frankly, very hot, and he deftly conveys Stephen’s easy professional and personal confidence. His turn into villainy is trickier, yet Gosling hardens his voice and his gaze and successfully spars with the murderer’s row of Giamatti, Clooney, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The film’s bookended auditorium scenes, and how they center Gosling’s transformed character, are a thoughtful touch.
15. The Big Short (2015)
Gosling is fantastic at being irritated. His voice gets clipped, his face gets tight, and his inflections go to unpredictable places, like the staccato edge he gives to “money” as Deutsche Bank salesman Jared Vennett in Adam McKay’s film. A simplified read of this performance would be to say it’s Gosling cosplaying as Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross, and sure, he’s doing a fast-talking finance-bro thing. Gosling lightens it up with moments of dorkiness, though — a juvenile fist pump in the gym after a major sale, a stanky face when he shows off his $47 million check at the end of the film — that bring the performance closest to the point The Big Short makes about the 2007 housing-market crash and how it was created by people with too much money and privilege and too little oversight or consequence. Every member of this ensemble (Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, Christian Bale) does their part, but Gosling’s tone is most right for McKay’s specific style of satire.
14. The Fall Guy (2024)
Gosling has been an A-list movie star for many, many years, even if he’s only felt truly inescapable in the year after Barbie: releasing a music video with Mark Ronson; performing a delightfully committed, impressively elaborate version of “I’m Just Ken” at the 96th Academy Awards; driving Heidi Gardner to lose her mind during Saturday Night Live’s instantly iconic Beavis and Butt-head sketch and then reprising the role at The Fall Guy’s Los Angeles premiere. All of this is to say, the man is a good sport, and his work in The Fall Guy as stuntman Colt Seavers reflects that amiability. Colt’s just a guy who wants to do his dream job with his dream girl (Emily Blunt) by his side, and Gosling is immensely likable as someone who willingly goes on a bizarre chase to retrieve a missing A-list actor because he simply wants to go back to doing the stuntwork he loves so much. Admittedly, there’s not a lot that’s new to Gosling’s performance — he’s mixing together the high-pitched mania of The Nice Guys, the besotted adoration of Crazy, Stupid, Love, and the sarcastic edge of The Ides of March — but it’s a perfectly controlled calibration of all the stuff he does so well. And as the third time he’s playing a stuntman (after Drive and The Place Beyond the Pines), David Leitch’s film marks a new height in Gosling’s awareness of his own physicality, his ability to throw and take a punch and command attention in a scene where a million things are moving around him. He deserves a Fall Guy–appropriate thumb’s up.
13. Murder by Numbers (2002)
Remember when we used to make fun movies about little freaks? Murder by Numbers is an entertainingly nasty thriller about two high-schoolers, popular Richard (Gosling) and introverted Justin (Michael Pitt), who plan the perfect murder and frame a local drug dealer for it. When Sandra Bullock’s detective is assigned the case, she immediately suspects Richard, whose entitled attitude reminds her of an abusive man from her past. Gosling’s a proper asshole, a know-it-all brat with pique and smarm to spare; his layers of duplicity here will make you long for him to try on another fully villainous role. In his best moments with Pitt, they embody a teen-drama version of Matt Damon and Jude Law’s relationship in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and I know that’s very high praise. It’s also deserved.
12. La La Land (2016)
La La Land has its detractors, if you see Damien Chazelle’s film as one that exists solely to portray Gosling’s pianist Seb saving jazz. What La La Land is more about, though, is effort: the effort required to chase your dream and to fall in love, to further that dream and to maintain that love. Is all that effort worth it if you achieve one form of success, but not the other? Chazelle forces us to decide in the film’s devastating final moments. And because Gosling is so adept at conveying the process of trying before then, he makes Seb’s journey look more straightforward than it really is. Think of the exhaustion with which he sings “City of Stars,” a love song to a place he’s realized might never love him back. As he walks on that pier, it’s with a weary forlornness that contrasts well with how gently he duets with Emma Stone; here, maybe, is someone who would make this time fuller, more vivid, more real. The imperceptible smile he gives Stone’s Mia, years after they’ve broken up and she walks into his jazz club with her husband, is a memory of a time shared, lost, and treasured, and it’s a beautiful moment of subtlety and grace. (And it helped him get another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.)
11. The Notebook (2004)
This is the movie that made Gosling a household name, and it’s a romantic drama adapted from a Nicholas Sparks novel. It’s not quite prestigious, of course. But unlike many other Sparks adaptations, in Gosling and Rachel McAdams’s hands, this one glides by. “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird” and “It wasn’t over, it still isn’t over”; the heat and humor with which the pair of them spar and shove ice cream in each other’s faces; that rain kiss, oh my. The Notebook was Gosling introducing himself as not just a hottie, but a considerate, respectful one, a gentleman and a freak, and he’s maintained that duality in his filmography since. He’s played womanizers, but when he falls, he falls hard, and that unwavering adoration is just another facet of Gosling’s ability to play all different kinds of intensity. Plus, Gosling and McAdams gave us the best MTV Movie Awards moment ever by re-creating their iconic cinematic kiss onstage, codifying this movie as a millennial touchstone. For that generation-defining bit of romantic spectacle, we thank them for their service.
10. Barbie (2023)
Could anyone but Gosling make a near-incel so lovable? As Ken, Barbie’s besotted maybe-boyfriend who can’t ever get a kiss, a sleepover invite, or much attention from Margot Robbie’s titular character, Gosling combines the stewing dissatisfaction of The Believer and The United States of Leland with the elastic-limbed wackiness of The Nice Guys and practically steals the entire movie. Gosling looks like he’s fighting to hold in laughter the whole time, but never does his performance feel farcical or forced. Instead, he captures the contradictory sense of a character who doesn’t understand why he’s feeling what he’s feeling, but sinks into emotion anyway: the drunk-with-infatuation way he gazes at Barbie, the anxious glee in his eyes when he discovers the intoxicating pull of patriarchy, the palpable sadness as he belts out “Is it my destiny to live and die a life of blonde fragility?” during his song-and-dance number “I’m Just Ken.” In a movie that grapples with big questions about purpose, consumerism, and the meaning we give ourselves and what we love, Gosling’s careening performance is a perfect complement to Robbie’s more inquisitive one, and a thoughtful weaponization of all the ways we’ve objectified Gosling’s looks over the years. The man uses his abs as a weapon during a fight in Barbie’s climactic third act, and it’s simultaneously so dumb and so delightful. All hail Ken, our new king of the himbos.
9. The Believer (2001)
Gosling’s most difficult film, the one with the haziest themes about identity, self-loathing, and religious belief, could have been an unwatchable slog with another actor. But he is blazingly charismatic, and completely horrifying, as a young Jewish man who becomes a neo-Nazi, surrounding himself with fanatics and fascists as he grapples with his own capacity for empathy. Why Gosling’s Daniel hates so fully is never really answered, but the film doesn’t exactly need a cause when the actor’s grasp of its effects are so good. Gosling voices the film’s thought-provoking questions about victimization and villainy with full commitment, and his rigidity — that tall posture, those limitless eyes — add another layer to the work. What could have been just a mimicry of, say, Edward Norton in American History X becomes something distinctly pitiable and unnerving on its own terms, and Gosling chased the heights of this tormented-20-something performance for a long time, up until the next film on our list.
8. Half Nelson (2006)
Here’s Gosling’s first Best Actor Academy Award nomination, and it’s deserved. In some ways, 17 years on, Half Nelson shows its age: Gosling stars as Dan, a cocaine-addicted middle-school history teacher in Brooklyn who befriends one of his students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), whose brother is in prison for dealing drugs. With a setup like that, you can probably predict the ways in which Dan and Drey’s relationship will become complicated, maybe even inappropriate, as the school year progresses. Yet Gosling is riveting as a man in free fall, someone whose apologies for his bad behavior are beginning to wear thin on his co-workers, friends, and family. (I’m taking his “It’s just not cool to be a Nazi anymore, baby,” when a date comments on his controversial book collection and asks if he’d read Mein Kampf, as a nicely unintentional nod to The Believer.) The war between regret and self-destruction plays out most unforgettably in a scene where Drey walks into a motel room for a drug deal and finds Dan inside. The little nod he gives her as he holds his money out, the way he’s slumped against the doorframe, how his head rests on his hand like everything about his body is too heavy to move — Dan is broken and beat, but he doesn’t want to scare Drey with it. Underneath all of his fucked-upness, he’s still cogent enough to know that. The best Gosling movies have a moment where he shatters you, and Half Nelson just doesn’t let up.
7. Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
Here’s Gosling’s hidden talent as an actor: He’s quirkier and more willing to look foolish than many of his peers, and that flexibility gives him a tenderness in situations that might otherwise be too absurd to be taken seriously. Consider Lars and the Real Girl, in which Gosling plays a socially awkward man who struggles to connect with his brother and sister-in-law, co-workers, and fellow townspeople; he’s noncommittal during small talk and he can’t bear to be touched. Gosling makes Lars twitchy and blinky, touchy and sensitive — until he orders a lifelike, RealDoll-style mannequin online that he introduces to everyone in his life as Bianca. As they all indulge him in this fantasy world where Bianca is his girlfriend, Gosling incrementally lets Lars open up, lets him smile, lets him chat, lets him share the personality that Lars had hidden away for so long. Again, like Half Nelson, there’s something a little expected about this plot, and about how Bianca becomes a conduit for Lars’s growth. The balancing act of oddness and affability that Gosling pulls off, though, might make Lars and the Real Girl the most heartwarming film he’s ever made.
6. Blue Valentine (2010)
Let’s move from heartwarming to heartbreaking: I have only ever watched Derek Cianfrance’s first movie with Gosling once, and I will never watch it again. It’s too annihilating, too much of an evisceration of the idea of true love; this is marriage as the certain creator of despondency and despair, no matter how hard you try. Spanning five years, the film follows Gosling’s Dean and Michelle Williams’s Cindy, who fall quickly and thoroughly in love and then fall prey to the outside forces so many couples do: the difficulty of maintaining work, the difficulty of raising a child, the difficulty of finding time for themselves amid the chaos of day-to-day life. It hurts because it’s so relatable, and because Gosling and Williams are so in tune; the depth they each bring adds legitimacy and poignancy to their ever-increasing fights. Cianfrance prefers close-ups, holding long on Gosling when he’s swearing his love at the beginning of their relationship (all impassioned promises, light flirtation, and eye contact) and tries to understand what he’s doing wrong at the end (his face morphing through befuddlement and indignation); he’s right and he’s wrong at the same time, and that’s Blue Valentine’s clearest calamity. Sometimes things just don’t work out and it never makes sense why, and Gosling embodies that mystery with breathtaking care.
5. The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)
It makes sense that Gosling’s collaborations with Cianfrance should be back-to-back on this list because they are, like so much else of Gosling’s work, a themed pair. Dean in Blue Valentine and Luke in The Place Beyond the Pines are two of a kind, individualistic dreamers who step willingly into responsibility and love fully when allowed to, but can’t quite figure out the right way to provide. A motorcycle stuntman who learns that he has a son with former lover Romina (Eva Mendes), Gosling’s Luke is simultaneously tough and brooding (that bleached hair, all those tattoos, his ease on a bike) and nakedly craving something more. Gosling’s most emblematic line as Luke — “I’m still his father, I can give him stuff” — is all that ache bundled into an admission he looks almost surprised to make, and those little glimpses of wonder, when Luke looks thrown by his own confessions of loneliness, permeate this performance. Gosling’s only in the movie for a third of it, but he looms phenomenally large; it’s a sign of his potency as an actor that the entire rest of The Place Beyond the Pines arcs around the bone-deep impact of his character’s tragic end.
4. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
There are people who will tell you that Blade Runner 2049 should never have been made because the first film was so strong in its ambiguous ending, that it’s misogynistic, that replacing Sean Young with a CGI re-creation was disrespectful, that it’s all style over substance. We had this very discussion here at Vulture, and some points were made! But at the very least, in the unenviable ask of replacing Harrison Ford, Gosling is an equipped answer. His performance as replicant Officer K never feels like a re-creation of Ford’s as blade-runner-and-maybe-replicant Deckard in 1982’s Blade Runner, but an evolution of it, one that’s infused with the qualities Gosling does so well: a sense of something simmering underneath the surface, a fist-clenched level of control, and a longing to be perceived. The film hands Gosling an array of revelations and experiments, including the turmoil of his failed baseline test (“Do you feel that there’s a part of you that’s missing?”) and the delicacy of his half-virtual sex scene with Mackenzie Davis and Ana de Armas, and the little cracks of interiority he brings to them reflect the film’s musings about what makes us human, or more human than human. It’s a performance of increments, and it’s the second-finest display of how Gosling can uniquely swing between placidity and fury.
3. Drive (2011)
The best expression of that extreme oscillation is in Drive, his first collaboration with Refn that birthed cool-guy Gosling. The trick of this film is how it mutates the ferment and turbulence of Gosling’s previous work in films like The United States of Leland, Stay, and Murder by Numbers. His car, his hammer, his scorpion bomber jacket: All are accessories to the yawning hollowness Gosling’s Driver has clearly spent years protecting inside himself. When the characters played by Carey Mulligan and Kaden Leos begin to tiptoe into that void, Gosling sells the Driver’s transition into a man finally come alive, revitalized by love and purified by violence. A real human being and a real hero, indeed. (And it’s still the coolest he’s looked onscreen. Those leather driving gloves, yowza.)
2. The Nice Guys (2016)
The erasure of the R-rated comedy has been a distinct loss for movies, and The Nice Guys remains one of the best recent examples of what we’re missing out on. Gosling and Russell Crowe are perfectly at home in Shane Black’s ’70s-set neo-noir as a PI and enforcer who start trying to find a missing adult-film actress and get sucked into a larger conspiracy related to the auto industry and the environmental-protection movement; the actors chomp through Black and co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi’s pithy and dense dialogue like they can’t get enough of it. They’re agreeably matched foils, with Gosling settling into a high-pitched dandy mode that is gleefully oppositional to Crowe’s grizzled aura. Who knew Gosling was such an entertaining screamer and such a devoted physical comedian? This role is so different from all his other work that it ricochets up in esteem, proving how far Gosling can push himself when given the chance. The Nice Guys moves to the rhythm of one ludicrous Gosling moment after another — the peevishness with which he defends jumping into a pool of half-naked women because “I had to question the mermaids”; the flailing about in a bathroom stall as he smokes and brandishes a gun on the toilet — and it’s a failure of our industry that it took seven years to get this man back in the comedic vein with Barbie.
1. First Man (2018)
First Man, the Neil Armstrong biopic that is Chazelle’s second collaboration with Gosling, feels like watching Gosling act his way out of a straitjacket. The character is so constrained that every scene is charged with the energy Gosling is using to stay wound, to stay tight; it’s only through the most minuscule adjustments that we understand the cataclysmic forces fighting inside Gosling’s mind. Armstrong’s courting death every day at NASA in the name of discovery and avoiding death every day in a home consumed by grief for his passed-away daughter. It’s enough to tear a man apart, and Gosling conveys that encroaching disintegration with every silent gaze and every set of his jaw. The performance is so powerful not just because of Gosling’s self-composure, but because of how he points that severity at others — the appealing looks he gives wife Janet, played by Claire Foy, who wants more communication from the man she loves; his evident agony, but increased resolution, when he learns of yet another colleague and friend’s death as the pilots train to make it to the moon.
What can an actor convey with their body alone? Not their voice and not their face, but just their stance and the character they’ve built up until that point? First Man’s moon-set climax, when the spacesuit-clad Gosling drops Armstrong’s daughter’s bracelet into the Little West crater as a way to let go of his grief, is so cathartic because we know the weight of that choice and the tiny glimmer of resolution it provides, thanks to Gosling’s preceding thoroughness. Justin Hurwitz’s theremin-and-synth score is integral, but the scene — and the movie overall — wouldn’t be a fraction of what it is without Gosling’s extraordinary emotiveness. It’s first-rate. | |||||
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] | null | [] | null | The Last Confederate - Kampf um Blut und Ehre (2005) - Movies, TV, Celebs, and more... | en | IMDb | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339743/news/ | He's been called an unabashed Hollywood hustler. Sordid tales of unpaid vendors, lawsuits, layoffs and movie shutdowns have dogged him in the year and a half since he took over specialty distributor ThinkFilm and foreign sales agent Capitol Film.
Yet David Bergstein is unperturbed.
"There is always an adjective that precedes us: 'Beleaguered,' 'financially distressed,' " Bergstein said recently from his plush new offices in the Fox Plaza in Century City, with a hint of an accent from his native New York. "And none of these people know anything."
What is known is that after a summer in which ThinkFilm has been battered by bad press -- especially during the repeated shutdowns of the Jake Gyllenhaal political satire "Nailed," financed by a Bergstein-backed entity -- he is actively looking for cash.
Whether that will be enough to repair the executive's strained relationships with Hollywood and allow his company to stay in business remains to be seen.
But Bergstein is adamant that he is on the right track.
"Our business plan is not so much about the movie business," he said, noting that he controls about a thousand films. "It's really to build a global digital distribution business. It's based on the expectation that in the not too distant future most content will be delivered digitally and on-demand."
Bergstein began to make a mark in Hollywood just 18 months ago, when he and construction magnate Ron Tutor bought ThinkFilm and London-based Capitol.
Yet after releasing 20-odd pictures in 2006 and 2007, only nine ThinkFilm movies have opened this year. Bergstein apparently has sold off some films, canceled others and has refused to commit to release dates for the only other two films originally scheduled for 2008: January's Sundance Film Festival pickups "Phoebe in Wonderland" and "The Escapist."
At the same time, at least four separate lawsuits have been filed against ThinkFilm this year by vendors and others claiming they were short shifted.
"Some of what is out there is true," Bergstein said. "The vast majority is not true. And for the stuff that is true, my answer is, 'So what? So what if X, Y or Z might be owed money?' "
That attitude has some in the creative community fuming.
"He's the biggest disgrace in the film business," said producer Albie Hecht, formerly president of Nickelodeon, who produced the Oscar-nominated ThinkFilm documentary "War/Dance" and claims he still has not seen the small advance ThinkFilm promised. An arbitration is pending.
"This is someone who goes around making deals and looks like he has no intention of fulfilling his obligation to filmmakers and artists," Hecht added. "Not only is it disgusting, but downright immoral."
Alex Gibney, director of the Oscar-winning ThinkFilm documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side," charges in a lawsuit that ThinkFilm did not have the financial resources to properly release his film and "fraudulently concealed this fact from the film's creative team, its investors and the film's sales agent, Cinetic Media."
Bergstein said Gibney was paid everything he was owed, including a $50,000 Oscar bonus. Bergstein also downplayed lawsuits by Allied Advertising seeking $4.2 million for ads it placed and Brooklyn-based Mammoth Advertising, which said it has nearly $430,00 in unpaid bills.
Lawsuits are just part of doing business, said Bergstein, 46, whose office is stacked with boxes of files and a framed photo of John Lennon flashing a peace sign.
He made a small fortune acquiring depreciated assets, cutting costs and selling for a profit, then dived into the film business in 2003 via his acquisition of Elie Samaha's Franchise Pictures library.
"He is used to going in, buying something that's normally four cents for two cents and then saying to everyone, 'It's a distressed asset. I'm only going to pay you half of what you deserve,' " said a veteran talent manager and producer who has worked with Bergstein. "It's just a whole mindset that is antithetical to the movie business."
Bergstein acknowledged he's had problems paying such creditors as PR companies and production services, but he said those issues were caused by the move of ThinkFilm's headquarters from Canada to the U.S., which required new accounting and tracking systems.
A spokesman for Investment bank Db Zwirn & Co. says it has about $100 million in loans to ThinkFilm’s umbrella company. Zwirn was forced to liquidate a hedge fund this year but Bergstein said he has been able to find additional funds from Comerica Bank and others.
He said he has brought ThinkFilm’s debts from $30 million to $8 million and is pumping in another $25 million to market ThinkFilm releases on top of a total investment of $400 million for all his entertainment businesses, which include a postproduction facility and music publisher in London. He declined to say where that new money will come from.
Bergstein said he has image problems because nobody in Hollywood really knows him. He grew up in New York and attended Polytechnic Institute (now part of New York University), studying engineering and pre-med. In the late 1970s he became an investment banker, seeking undervalued stocks.
He moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and worked for a mortgage broker, then began buying real estate. He operated Metropolis Publishing for a time and acquired Express Inc., an online DVD seller that had gone bankrupt in 2001, losing a reported $240 million.
Bergstein and Tutor, a friend who headed two major construction companies that merged this year in a deal valued at $862 million, began investing in Los Angeles restaurants, including Le Dome. There they met Samaha, who was flying high with Franchise Pictures. When Franchise began struggling, Bergstein and Tutor loaned Samaha $14 million, secured by Franchise's film library. When Franchise went under, Bergstein ended up with most of the library.
Armed with product, Bergstein and Tutor acquired ThinkFilm in November 2006 for a reported $18 million in cash and $5 million in debt. The distributor, founded in September 2001 by veteran execs Jeff Sackman, Randy Manis and Marc Hirshberg, as well as Mark Urman from Lionsgate, fielded a string of such Oscar-worthy films as "Half Nelson," which earned Ryan Gosling a best actor nod in 2007, and "Born Into Brothels," 2005's winner for best documentary.
Bergstein said ThinkFilm was insolvent when he bought it. Sackman, who quit the company in anger in April, said it was profitable for four of its first five years but looked for a buyer two years ago when art-house attendance dipped.
"We were very cooperative at first," Sackman said of Bergstein.
At Bergstein's urging they went on a buying spree, acquiring films like "In the Shadow of the Moon," which ThinkFilm bought for $2.5 million at Sundance in 2007 but which grossed only $1.1 million in theaters that November.
Indeed, only four films out of more than 30 releases during the past two years have grossed more than $1 million, including Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," which grossed $7 million last fall, and Helen Hunt's "Then She Found Me," which grossed $3.6 million in April despite advertising money being pulled, sources said.
Many planned ThinkFilm releases are now in limbo. The dark comic drama "Momma's Man" was announced in March as a ThinkFilm acquisition and August release. But the deal never happened and it went to Kino International instead.
"Battle in Seattle," "A Stone's Throw" and "A Happy Death" have been taken off the calendar and the drama "Blue Valentine" was never made because the promised funding fell through.
ThinkFilm doesn't list "The Last Confederate: The Story of Robert Adams" as having been released but producer Julian Adams said it was released briefly last August. Since then he said he has been unable to get a financial statement from Bergstein. "I can't even describe the heartache," Adams said. "I'm beyond frustrated with it."
Bergstein's highest-profile production is the $30 million "Nailed," directed by David O. Russell, which was shut down by SAG, the DGA and Iatse four times this summer over money woes.
Bergstein said the guild problems have been resolved and that the movie only needs two days of pickup shots; others said scenes crucial to the film are missing. In any case, additional days were funded and the film will apparently arrive on schedule in early 2009.
Producer-director Taylor Hackford, who is finishing postproduction on ThinkFilm's "Love Ranch," starring his wife Helen Mirren, said funding came through "just in time."
"The fact is he stayed with us," Hackford said of Bergstein. "We never shut down for a day. Everybody got paid."
Other Bergstein-backed movies nearing completion include the road comedy "Five Dollars a Day," the romantic comedy "My Sexiest Year" and the $30 million crime drama "Black Water Transit."
It's unclear what effect, if any, ThinkFilm's apparent money woes will have on Bergstein's current productions. But his credibility, per various sources, is at an all-time low.
One agent said he feels sorry for Urman, who must field calls from angry filmmakers and skeptical reporters. "(Bergstein) over-committed," the agent said. "He didn't care about the budgets of movies. He just did them. It was like almost a three-card Monte game. Monies were moving in all different places to meet the latest fire drill, and at some point the cards stop and there is no money."
Urman declined repeated requests for an interview, but Bergstein angrily denied rumors that the company is firing employees, withholding paychecks and stiffing profit participants.
When he bought ThinkFilm, he said, he agreed with Canadian regulators to close its Toronto office, which resulted in layoffs. He also put pressure on Urman and Sackman to trim the staff, and he outsourced home video to Image Entertainment, which Bergstein was to acquire. The Image deal later fell apart, with Bergstein blaming Image for backing out and Image claiming Bergstein did not come through with funding. A separate deal to acquire Im Global as a second sales agent also unraveled, and Bergstein recently divested his majority interest in the company.
Bergstein dismissed as "complete nonsense" allegations that he has not paid DVD royalties. "We're the same as any other studio," he said. "We recoup what we're due. We get our distribution fee and the rest goes out. Sometimes reporting by ThinkFilm was in fact late, just like studios report to me late sometimes."
Bergstein said his plans for ThinkFilm are much larger than anyone realizes. Theatrical distribution and foreign sales platforms are only a means in which to gather content before the industry transitions to selling directly to consumers digitally. Then the key will be to own the most content, so despite all the naysayers, he plans to acquire even more movie and TV libraries.
In the meantime, Bergstein said ThinkFilm's finances are solid and it will continue to release films.
But Sackman said what has happened at the company he co-founded breaks his heart.
"I am very proud of what we built and accomplished at ThinkFilm," Sackman said. "And very sad to see how in the past 16 months the company and its reputation have been diminished."... | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 9 | https://www.the-numbers.com/market/distributors | en | Distributors Movie Breakdown 1995 | [
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The yearly amounts on our Theatrical Market pages are based on box office years. Each box office year starts on the first Monday of the year, so the previous year ends on the Sunday before the first Monday. For example, the "2017 box office year" started on January 2, 2017 so the "2016 box office year" ended on Sunday, January 1, 2017. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 8 | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/us-filmmaker-tapped-as-suitor-to-alliance-unit/article18176273/ | en | U.S. filmmaker tapped as suitor to Alliance unit | [
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] | 2006-11-09T05:00:00+00:00 | Bergstein said eyeing Motion Picture | en | The Globe and Mail | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/us-filmmaker-tapped-as-suitor-to-alliance-unit/article18176273/ | The U.S.-based film financier who recently bought Canadian independent movie distributor ThinkFilm is among the potential buyers kicking the tires at Motion Picture Distribution LP, sources say.
ThinkFilm, known for distributing edgy and irreverent movies, was bought by producer David Bergstein, who is building a film conglomerate under the name of Capco Group with partner and construction mogul Ron Tutor.
The holding company's two divisions now include British film financing company Capitol Films, bought in January, and Toronto-based ThinkFilm, the deal for which was announced on Oct. 24.
ThinkFilm's chief executive officer, Jeff Sackman, declined yesterday to comment on Mr. Bergstein's interest in purchasing Canada's largest movie distributor. But Mr. Bergstein recently told Daily Variety, the entertainment industry paper, that the plan is to "build a worldwide distribution company."
Mr. Bergstein's Mobius Pictures produced Bordertown, a thriller starring Jennifer Lopez that is set to be released next year. He also briefly owned Le Dome, a legendary Hollywood eatery.
Motion Picture, which has subsidiaries in Britain and Spain, is 51-per-cent owned by Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. The Toronto-based broadcaster announced last month that it would explore the sale of part or all of its stake in the distributor.
Movie Distribution Income Fund, the income trust that owns the balance of the distributor, said yesterday that its special committee has given the green light to join Alliance Atlantis in a potential sale.
Motion Picture's chief financial officer, Lloyd Wiggins, told analysts in a conference call that "a number of third parties have already expressed interest" in the distributor and the sales process should begin imminently.
"It's safe to say that there has to be a Canadian partner in any transaction," he added. "How it is structured is a little premature [to say]"
Heritage Canada rules require any foreign buyer of a cultural business to have a Canadian partner that retains control of the firm.
London-based hedge fund Marwyn Investment Management LLP has stated it is still "very interested" in purchasing Motion Picture, but would not say whether its previous conditional bid of $10 to $10.50 a unit is still on the table. Sources say New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is a potential buyer.
Units of Movie Distribution yesterday rose 24 cents to close at $8.06 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Raymond James Ltd. analyst Andy Nasr expects a deal will be done and is the most optimistic of analysts, with a target of $10 a unit for the takeover. Others see a transaction done closer to the $9 range.
While ThinkFilm could be a Canadian partner for Mr. Bergstein's pitch, Mr. Nasr said that foreigners won't have a problem because there are "many different ways to comply with Heritage Canada's stipulations, including having Alliance Atlantis retain some ownership."
The proposed sale is the latest twist in a saga that began last July when Motion Picture's founder and chairman, Victor Loewy, left the distributor after two other senior executives -- including former CEO Patrice Théroux -- were fired.
Mr. Loewy's departure triggered a plunge in the income trust's unit price to as low as $5.28 on concern that movie studio New Line Cinema Corp. might cancel its contract because of a "key man" clause.
Alliance Atlantis launched legal action against the executives and alleged they were plotting to sell the distributor without approval of its board. But Mr. Loewy returned to work for the distributor as a consultant on the lucrative New Line deal and all lawsuits were dropped.
Some analysts saw Mr. Loewy's return to the fold as a precursor to dressing up the firm for a sale.
Movie Distribution
SOURCE: COMPANY REPORTS | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 3 | https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/823 | en | Catalog | [
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"William B. Davidso... | null | [] | null | In Los Angeles, Johnny Ramirez, a poor Mexican, graduates from Pacific Night Law School, having worked days as a mechanic. Although Johnny is convinced that he will be a great lawyer, earning lots of money, his clients are all poor people from the neighborhood. When he loses his first court case against socialite Dale Elwell because he's poorly prepared, he angrily punches the opposing lawyer, Brook Manville, thinking he has been patronized and discriminated against. As a result, Johnny is disbarred. His dreams of being the Mexican-American Abe Lincoln shattered, Johnny leaves behind his adoring mother and hitchhikes to a border town in Mexico, determined to return as a rich man. He does very well, working his way into a partnership in a successful night club, whose owner, Charlie Roark, admires Johnny, as does his wife Marie. Thinking that her husband is all that stands between her and Johnny, Marie locks a drunken Charlie in the garage, leaving the car motor running. Johnny, i | en | /favicon.ico | https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/823 | The film's pre-release title was New Bordertown. FD notes that Miriam Hopkins was considered for the lead opposite Muni. According to DV, the studio did not intend to credit Carroll Graham because they felt the script was so different from the book. Although credited to different writers, portions of the 1940 Warner Bros. film They Drive By Night closely resemble scenes in this film. Modern sources note that the opening scenes were shot in Los Angeles' Olvera St. According to modern sources, Muni hired a Mexican chauffeur named Manuel and studied his accent and gestures as part of his preparation for the role. ...
More Less
The film's pre-release title was New Bordertown. FD notes that Miriam Hopkins was considered for the lead opposite Muni. According to DV, the studio did not intend to credit Carroll Graham because they felt the script was so different from the book. Although credited to different writers, portions of the 1940 Warner Bros. film They Drive By Night closely resemble scenes in this film. Modern sources note that the opening scenes were shot in Los Angeles' Olvera St. According to modern sources, Muni hired a Mexican chauffeur named Manuel and studied his accent and gestures as part of his preparation for the role.
Less
In Los Angeles, Johnny Ramirez, a poor Mexican, graduates from Pacific Night Law School, having worked days as a mechanic. Although Johnny is convinced that he will be a great lawyer, earning lots of money, his clients are all poor people from the neighborhood. When he loses his first court case against socialite Dale Elwell because he's poorly prepared, he angrily punches the opposing lawyer, Brook Manville, thinking he has been patronized and discriminated against. As a result, Johnny is disbarred. His dreams of being the Mexican-American Abe Lincoln shattered, Johnny leaves behind his adoring mother and hitchhikes to a border town in Mexico, determined to return as a rich man. He does very well, working his way into a partnership in a successful night club, whose owner, Charlie Roark, admires Johnny, as does his wife Marie. Thinking that her husband is all that stands between her and Johnny, Marie locks a drunken Charlie in the garage, leaving the car motor running. Johnny, in partnership with Marie, remodels the club into a stylish night club designed to attract the wealthy. One night Dale visits the club with some friends. She playfully starts a flirtation with Johnny, who, misunderstanding, falls in love with her. Sick with jealousy, Marie publicly accuses Johnny of murdering Charlie, but at his trial, she breaks down on the witness stand, having gone insane with guilt. Free at last, Johnny drives to Los Angeles to propose to Dale, who tells him their differences make any marriage impossible. To escape Johnny's anger, she runs into the street, where she is hit by a car. Once again, ...
More Less
In Los Angeles, Johnny Ramirez, a poor Mexican, graduates from Pacific Night Law School, having worked days as a mechanic. Although Johnny is convinced that he will be a great lawyer, earning lots of money, his clients are all poor people from the neighborhood. When he loses his first court case against socialite Dale Elwell because he's poorly prepared, he angrily punches the opposing lawyer, Brook Manville, thinking he has been patronized and discriminated against. As a result, Johnny is disbarred. His dreams of being the Mexican-American Abe Lincoln shattered, Johnny leaves behind his adoring mother and hitchhikes to a border town in Mexico, determined to return as a rich man. He does very well, working his way into a partnership in a successful night club, whose owner, Charlie Roark, admires Johnny, as does his wife Marie. Thinking that her husband is all that stands between her and Johnny, Marie locks a drunken Charlie in the garage, leaving the car motor running. Johnny, in partnership with Marie, remodels the club into a stylish night club designed to attract the wealthy. One night Dale visits the club with some friends. She playfully starts a flirtation with Johnny, who, misunderstanding, falls in love with her. Sick with jealousy, Marie publicly accuses Johnny of murdering Charlie, but at his trial, she breaks down on the witness stand, having gone insane with guilt. Free at last, Johnny drives to Los Angeles to propose to Dale, who tells him their differences make any marriage impossible. To escape Johnny's anger, she runs into the street, where she is hit by a car. Once again, Johnny must reassess his life. He sells his club, endows a law school with the money, and returns to Los Angeles to live with his own people.
Less | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 19 | https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/1/29/21058521/hollywood-ai-deepfake-black-mirror-gemini-irishman-cinelytic | en | Hollywood is replacing artists with AI. Its future is bleak. | [
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] | 2020-01-29T00:00:00 | How big-budget moviemaking is veering into Black Mirror territory. | en | /static-assets/icons/favicon.ico | Vox | https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/1/29/21058521/hollywood-ai-deepfake-black-mirror-gemini-irishman-cinelytic | It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the “black mirror” of the popular anthology series Black Mirror was a screen, or rather, all the screens we surround ourselves with: phones, tablets, computers, TVs, and, increasingly, futuristic devices built by massive corporations that monitor our movements and preferences and words. We buy these black mirrors, welcoming them into our homes and lives and letting them — true to their name — reflect ourselves back to us. And as we know all too well, those reflections sometimes betray our darkest impulses.
Unsettling reflections are not the black mirrors’ fault. Gadgets are merely assemblages of wires and metal and glass. Devices don’t have a point of view; they operate according to the input they receive, the algorithms and designs and patterns that power the software, written by humans and thus shaded and slanted by human biases.
What I mean is that if you or I write a bit of code, what we believe to be true about the world — how it ought to look, how I ought to interact with my device, what someone else might prefer to do or see on their phone or TV — is baked in right from the start. Users can customize and modify, but only to a point. We are restricted by what the software’s designers thought we should be allowed to do, or what they assumed we want, based on their own worldviews.
And when we use a gadget, we are inevitably affected by those worldviews. Our digital worlds alter our “real” worlds, which is how we end up with what Jia Tolentino recently described as Instagram face: a “single, cyborgian look,” mediated by filters and celebrities’ use of them, that people now seek at the plastic surgeon’s office.
“Instagram face” wasn’t developed by Instagram’s engineers. But it was enabled by them when they gave us the option to filter our photos. Other apps, like FaceTune, allow users to edit their selfies to make them more flattering. As Tolentino notes, the result of these capabilities becoming available to everyone is not a celebration of diverse beauty, but an “algorithmic tendency to flatten everything into a composite of greatest hits,” resulting in “a beauty ideal that [favors] white women capable of manufacturing a look of rootless exoticism.” It is an impossible type of beauty determined by consensus.
And while humans have always manufactured beauty standards, this one’s a little different, because it sounds as though it’s ripped directly from a Black Mirror episode or a sci-fi blockbuster — a clear example of humans being altered by the machines they created.
“Instagram face” is obviously an extreme case, as most people probably wouldn’t (or couldn’t) go so far as to physically change their face because a computer, in essence, told them to. But it’s nonetheless become clear that the long-awaited future in which computers transform our humanity has undeniably arrived. And there’s at least one very specific realm in which that future is steadily becoming more and more of a threat: the movies, and how they’re being made as Hollywood increasingly signals its willingness and even desire to cede control over its product to emerging technologies.
It seems more and more likely that decisions about stories, casting, and even genre may soon be left in the cold, steely hands of machines and algorithms. Questions of whether a movie should be greenlit, who should star in it, and whether that star should even be “real” are being analyzed — and answered — by AI.
It seems unlikely that anyone involved has contemplated what effects this approach might have in the real world down the road. Filtering our faces on Instagram makes us physically change them to match. What will happen when what we see on our screens, both big and small, isn’t driven at least in part by artists’ reflections of our anxieties and desires, but by algorithms?
An algorithm that drives movie creation is likely to shut out a crucial factor in art
One of the six biggest studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros., recently announced a deal with Cinelytic, a startup in Los Angeles that uses algorithms and data to predict a film’s success before the film is made or even greenlit. Cinelytic’s technology uses variables like genre and specific performers to predict how much money a movie could make, based on how those variables typically perform in different markets. So if you want to gauge how a movie will ostensibly perform with Michael B. Jordan instead of Oscar Isaac in the starring role, you can do that. Just plug and play.
Warner Bros. and Cinelytic have claimed the technology will be used only in marketing and distribution decisions, or maybe to help executives figure out which projects to greenlight. They won’t, they say, let an algorithm govern the decision-making process entirely; humans will still be involved. But it’s difficult to believe this costly algorithm the studio has licensed won’t ultimately exert a significant amount of influence over which projects move forward and which ones don’t, regardless of whether the company plans for it to do so.
In his 2010 book You Are Not a Gadget, programmer and virtual-reality pioneer Jaron Lanier argues that our digital technologies have baked-in biases that run against the grain of what it means to be human. “When the developers of digital technologies design a program that requires you to interact with a computer as if it were a person, they ask you to accept in some corner of your brain that you might also be conceived of as a program,” Lanier writes. “When they design an internet service that is edited by a vast anonymous crowd, they are suggesting that a crowd of humans is an organism with a legitimate point of view.”
In other words, the digital systems that we create and interact with tell us how to be human, then train us to be human in a way that aligns with their priorities. “Different media designs stimulate different potentials in human nature,” Lanier continues. “We shouldn’t seek to make the pack mentality as efficient as possible. We should instead seek to inspire the phenomenon of individual intelligence.”
The “phenomenon of individual intelligence” is as near a description of the genius of art-making as I’ve ever heard. Certainly, filmmaking is collaborative, and movies aren’t “individual” products (something even the most ardent supporter of auteur theory would admit). But they’re not the result of groupthink or a hive mind, because individual intelligences are at play in the collaboration. In a good film, creative, accomplished, and opinionated artists are able to leave their thumbprint, or a lot more, on the finished product.
In general, the more a movie seems created by consensus — as many big franchise flicks designed for maximum box-office earnings are — the less good it is. It’s designed to please many and challenge few, not for any philosophical reason but because that’s what makes a lot of money. The almighty buck rules.
Which is fine. Hollywood movies have always occupied the weird space between mass culture and rarefied art. They’re a young art form, barely over a century old, and designed to entertain as well as to interrogate, confront, and move the audience. They’re also really expensive to make, so they’ve got to bring in a lot of money to be successful.
And they’re still, on the whole, made by people who really love movies: directors and writers and actors and producers who eat and breathe and sleep cinema. Even bad or mediocre filmmakers get excited by interesting movies, films that bend their brains and make them see the world differently.
And how can a filmmaker create such movies? By being “visionary,” a quality that’s become a marketing cliché but is still meaningful. A visionary filmmaker sees something the rest of us don’t, then chases it down and puts it on screen. Visionary filmmakers are people like Martin Scorsese and Mati Diop and Bong Joon-ho and Marielle Heller and Christopher Nolan and Jordan Peele and Kelly Reichardt and Ryan Coogler and Lulu Wang and so many more. They change how we see the world by letting us see it through their eyes.
The trouble is that visionary directors sometimes make movies that don’t appeal to a wide audience or, for whatever reason, make a lot of money. And Hollywood studios want just the opposite: as big and loyal an audience as possible for every film they release. Most of the industry believes that the way to attract big, loyal audiences is to tell stories that viewers already know they’re interested in (because they liked the previous movie, or the book, or whatever), starring actors with whom they’re already familiar. Hollywood believes in the big swing — but not, in the end, in taking risks.
So the primary goal for the industry’s decision-makers is to mitigate risk as much as possible. And that’s why the partnership between Cinelytic and Warner Bros. makes sense — but it’s also why I’m worried it sets a troubling precedent for the future.
Algorithms will likely only reinforce the assumptions Hollywood already makes
Anyone who’s been alive in the last couple of decades knows that technology in general has a weird way of creeping into places where it didn’t previously exist. Twitter is a space to post random nonsense, but suddenly becomes an avenue for politicians to make official announcements and pronouncements. Your iPhone is just a thing for making calls and playing games, before suddenly it becomes the thing with which you manage your dating life (among countless other things). And what’s especially disturbing is that the data used by predictive technologies like the one Cinelytic is selling will almost certainly be skewed.
Why? Because algorithms that make predictions need data from the past on which to model those predictions. And in the case of the movies, the data they’ll be using is influenced by the biases of Hollywood executives, who have long hewn to a hopelessly outmoded set of beliefs about what people want to see (and, by extension, what they’ll pay for). These are the same groups of people who say they’re shocked when movies like Get Out and Black Panther do well in both North America and abroad, because they’ve long subscribed to the myth that “black films don’t travel.” Who are surprised when a film like Wonder Woman breaks records. Who continue to harbor bizarre ideas about women directors. And who have long made decisions based on those presumptions.
You could argue that technologies like those from Cinelytic — a handful of which have made their way into Hollywood’s decision-making process in recent years — may actually help counteract these outmoded ideas by spotting patterns that executives’ biases allow them to overlook. But the historic exclusion of people of color and women from filmmaking and lead roles, particularly in big-budget genres like action and franchise films, will make it tricky for algorithms to avoid simply reinforcing those old habits. And if it’s the computer that spits out biased, exclusionary results, nobody’s to blame, right?
But that’s not even the biggest issue. What’s most worrying to me is how these technologies are essentially designed to strip out some of the “visionary” from the filmmaking process in favor of “safe,” lucrative choices.
That’s a strategy the formerly innovative leader Disney has already shown itself more than eager to adopt of late, favoring safe nostalgia over daring creativity. And the studio has been richly rewarded for it. Seven of the 10 top-grossing movies in 2019, both domestic and worldwide, came from Disney; an eighth, Spider-Man: Far from Home, was a Disney co-production (by way of Marvel Studios).
Meanwhile, the movie industry has cautiously but increasingly edged into using machine learning and AI technologies, such as an analysis tool called ScriptBook that predicts how well a movie might perform based on its screenplay (in contrast to Cinelytic’s analysis of genre plus potential stars). Those technologies are designed to influence decision-making. And in an industry that thrives on achieving the largest possible return on its investments, the kind of results they provide drives sameness rather than experimentation and discovery.
It’s easy to imagine a world in which studio executives, panicked over flagging ticket sales and mandates from corporate higher-ups, cede increasing territory to the algorithms, opting for the “guaranteed” moneymaker over the “visionary” risk.
But it’s the visionary risk-takers — the James Camerons and Jordan Peeles and Agnès Vardas and George Lucases and Jane Campions and Ava DuVernays and, yes, the Walt Disneys of the world — who have always driven change and altered the form. It’s the unexpected new faces and voices who light the world on fire. Because movies aren’t just commercial products. They’re art. They’re meant to challenge and inspire, which Hollywood frequently congratulates itself on doing even if the congratulations aren’t earned.
The shift toward algorithms is also reflected in Hollywood’s increasing foray into faking performance, slowly pushing the actor’s craft (and, in some cases, the animator’s) out of the picture. Consider the deepfake-style Lion King of 2019, or the strange case of an animated Will Smith in Gemini Man, which drew on old footage of Smith to create a kind of “digital mask” of his younger self that could be projected onto his current face. Or the presence of Carrie Fisher in the last two installments of the latest Star Wars trilogy, both of which were filmed after her death and used previously shot footage and some fancy CGI to revive the star.
In November 2019, it was announced that James Dean, who died in 1955, will be “resurrected” via CGI to play the leading role in a live-action Vietnam War movie called Finding Jack. “We searched high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan, which has some extreme complex character arcs, and after months of research, we decided on James Dean,” the movie’s co-director told the Hollywood Reporter, adding that Dean’s family views this “as his fourth movie, a movie he never got to make,” and that they “do not intend to let his fans down.”
Let that statement sink in for a moment: The movie’s creative team insists they couldn’t find a single living actor to play the part as well as a technologically reconstituted James Dean, or rather, a holographic version of the actor designed to their specifications.
Of course they could have found another actor. “Casting” Dean is a marketing stunt. But imagine a future — one actually depicted in the 2013 film The Congress — in which beloved actors (or their estates) eagerly (or reluctantly) license their images and voices to film studios. Actors wouldn’t even need to show up on set to appear in a movie; they’d effectively become cartoon characters, endlessly and infinitely digitally generated. Now imagine that those studios could use an algorithm to make decisions about whom to cast in one film or another, with the option to choose from a stable of licensed actors based on whoever is likely to bring in the most cash.
It’s an idea that might delight some people, but one I find rather grim. If such a scenario doesn’t bring about the death of cinema, it will, once and for all, create a rift between the art of making movies and the business of making movies. At present, you still need human animators and artists to create deepfake-style films, but eventually, technology will surely make it possible to remove humans from the process entirely.
And with companies like Netflix continually trying to reverse-engineer the kinds of films and TV shows — excuse me, content — that people want to see based on what they already like to see, the ability to rapidly (and relatively cheaply) churn out that content without having to pay too many people to do it is absolutely on the horizon. One can easily imagine a streaming service, in the not-too-far-off future, that allows viewers to plop down on the couch, select a few variables, and generate a movie on the fly. Want a PG-13 72-minute action-comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Adam Sandler, set in Paris with, say, a liberal bent? Click, click, click. You got it.
So what?
But who cares, right? It’s just movies.
I’m professionally obligated to care, but even if I weren’t, I’d still find these possibilities disturbing. And I hope others will too. Because in a world where we can fully control our own experience with art, the echo chambers we often find ourselves in — what media theorist Thomas de Zengotita refers to as realities that “flatter” us because they shield us from anything that might disturb or discomfit or surprise us — are only going to get more soundproof.
For better or worse, movies and TV shows are still a place where we can find common ground. Just go listen to any conversation at a party that has inevitably turned to what people have been watching. Movies and TV shows are also where we bump into people who think and act and believe and look different from us, a key reason why more risk-taking, not less, is a great thing for both the art form of cinema and the people who watch it.
But technologies that encourage the creation of entertainment via algorithm, based on what we already prefer, are caving to the black mirror’s worst tendencies. Because let’s face it: Many of us tend to opt for comfort over challenge. Many of us tend to watch the same TV shows over and over, or stick to the same safe movies, unless someone tells us we’ve got to see this new, strange thing that’s just come out. Word of mouth (and good advertising and reviews) is what drives a movie like Get Out or Parasite or Knives Out to become a hit and keeps filmmakers engaged and studios on their toes. But a lot of people wouldn’t have gone to see those movies if others didn’t insist they step outside their comfort zone.
The great danger in letting the algorithms decide what belongs on our TV and movie screens is that we’ll only ever see ourselves reflected in them — or, even worse, only the subset of ourselves that’s always been favored by Hollywood. Which tends to result in predominantly white guys telling predominantly white guy stories, most of which have been told many times before, in a visual style that’s designed for maximum legibility and at a pace dictated by the desire to ensure that the audience never gets bored, even if it’s boredom with a purpose.
The issue isn’t that there won’t be any financial, creative, or existential incentive for filmmakers to take risks; it’s that the risk-takers will, more often than not, be crowded out by what’s already been proven to work. In an algorithm-driven world, it’ll be much, much more difficult for A Hidden Life or Roma or Moonlight or Do The Right Thing to succeed. There’ll be little incentive for audiences to try something new, to see a movie that doesn’t reinforce the biases of the majority, to be enthralled or flabbergasted by someone else’s imagination. We’ll get stuck in a feedback loop of our own creation, and we might forget what it was like to be radically affected by a movie.
I could argue we’re already seeing this feedback loop in action, though there are still studio flicks, and a host of indie and mid-budget films, out there that are full of life. But in an industry that’s shown over and over again how risk-averse it is, the future, I fear, is a dark place where the movies, like our FaceTuned faces, meld into a single, cyborgian retread lacking the guts to be art.
I have no solution, other than to repeat that if money is king at the movies, we’ve got to be brave now. We’ve got to watch films we’re not sure we’ll like and share them with others. It’s almost too simple. We’ve got to vote with our credit cards, a little at a time, and keep insisting we deserve more than warm milk designed to lull us into market-driven complacency, pre-chewed meals served on white bread. | ||||
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4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 16 | https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bordertown_1935/reviews | en | Bordertown - Movie Reviews | https://resizing.flixster.com/nznhycn69LUO3TONmEl4TsV4QOo=/206x305/v2/https://resizing.flixster.com/cgClw9ZFkrlV0TsPfNM22CvAvvo=/ems.cHJkLWVtcy1hc3NldHMvbW92aWVzLzc5ZTcyYjdmLTlkMDEtNDgwMy04OWE4LTA5Y2M2NDUwZjI4NS53ZWJw | https://resizing.flixster.com/nznhycn69LUO3TONmEl4TsV4QOo=/206x305/v2/https://resizing.flixster.com/cgClw9ZFkrlV0TsPfNM22CvAvvo=/ems.cHJkLWVtcy1hc3NldHMvbW92aWVzLzc5ZTcyYjdmLTlkMDEtNDgwMy04OWE4LTA5Y2M2NDUwZjI4NS53ZWJw | [
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] | null | [] | null | Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. The definitive site for Reviews, Trailers, Showtimes, and Tickets | en | https://www.rottentomatoes.com/assets/pizza-pie/images/favicon.ico | Rotten Tomatoes | https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bordertown_1935/reviews | [Muni's] performance, on the whole, is a typical Muni performance -- being vigorous, simple, unaffected and believable. He is one of those rare actors whose talents don't seem to be thrown pell-mell into the very teeth of the camera.
Full Review | Sep 20, 2019
If you can forget some of the details (like Soledad Jiménez being the only authentic Hispanic person in the film), you will leave this film satisfied. [Full Review in Spanish]
Full Review | Sep 20, 2019
Beautifully shot by Tony Gaudio, well acted, grippingly directed, the film makes acutely acerbic points about privilege and prejudice; but typically of Warners in its social conscience mode, settles in the end for the status quo.
Full Review | Sep 20, 2019
"Bordertown" otherwise manages to impale the spectator's attention before the picturesque and somewhat hysterical materials of the story.
Full Review | Sep 16, 2019
Finish is phoney, but it can't hurt the previous good work. Casting throughout the film, which is also well written [from a novel by Carrol Graham] and paced, is exceptionally good.
Full Review | Sep 16, 2019
The role of Johnny is one of those tense, slightly overwrought characterizations in which Paul Muni excels.
Full Review | Aug 6, 2019
Noteworthy for another of Bette Davis' portrayals of a pathological hussy. She steals the picture away from Paul Muni.
Full Review | Jun 7, 2019 | ||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 14 | https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/rtindie-can-indie-studios-survive-without-big-studio-backing/ | en | RTIndie: Can Indie Studios Survive Without Big Studio Backing? | [
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] | null | With the sale of independent-minded ThinkFilm last week, can indie film distributors survive without big studio backing? | en | https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/wp-content/themes/RottenTomatoes/static/images/icons/favicon.ico | https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/rtindie-can-indie-studios-survive-without-big-studio-backing/ | With the sale of independent-minded ThinkFilm last week, can indie film distributors survive without big studio backing?
Author: Juliana Tringali
ThinkFilm, best known for releasing 2004’s "Born Into Brothels," was recently purchased by the Capco group for $25 million. Group head David Bergstein plans to merge ThinkFilm with Capitol Films (another formerly fledgling distribution company), creating a "formidable new force in the independent marketplace."
We’re not going to tell you how the wheels on "Shortbus" go.
For five years, ThinkFilm has built a reputation for distributing daring films that many others wouldn’t touch. Its current theatrical releases include John Cameron Mitchell‘s sexually explicit "Shortbus" and "Half Nelson," the story of a drug addicted inner city teacher. Meanwhile, Capital Films has helped to sell such fare as "A Prairie Home Companion" to international markets.
Before the purchase, ThinkFilm was the one Canadian company distributing movies in the states. Their game plan was generally to acquire documentaries or daring low budget films and subsequently attempt to sell them to more mainstream audiences.
The strategy won an Oscar for "Brothels" (which scored a 96 percent on the Tomatometer), and garnered further nominations for other releases ("The Story of the Weeping Camel," "Murderball"). But despite some critical and moderate commercial successes (including "Spellbound"), none of the ThinkFilm’s offerings broke through to widespread box office popularity. Capco says the merger will allow ThinkFilm to be a bigger player in the global film market.
"Murderball": Better than "Rollerball!"
In the expensive world of film production, perhaps the acquisition of smaller companies has always been an uncomfortable but irrevocable truth. After all, when indie first went boom in 1994, its most powerful mainstays had already been snatched up.
Miramax was purchased by Walt Disney Co. in 1993 (just before releasing "Pulp Fiction," the shot that sounded out the new era in film). In 1994, Turner Broadcasting System purchased New Line Cinema, which had dared to produce movies from unknown filmmakers since 1967.
No, this isn’t a metaphor for the indies and the majors.
But 1994 was a time of optimism. Making films outside the studio system was not only possible, it was hot, and bright-eyed believers were standing up to be counted. Among them were Newmarket Films, then a new privately-owned production and distribution company (purchased by New Line/HBO in 2005), and the Independent Film Channel (IFC). Palm Pictures was started in 1998, and ThinkFilm began in 2001.
Studios had their finger on the pulse as well. In 1994, Fox Searchlight was introduced as the indie wing of 20th Century Fox and it went on to produce some of the most successful "independent" films of the 1990s. NBC Universal followed suit in 2002 with Focus Features. Not surprisingly, these smaller sectors of major studios have had more staying power than their more authentic counterparts.
Top Reviewed Limiteds
Opening last week in limited release: "Shut Up & Sing," a rockumentary about the Dixie Chicks, is at 93 percent with 30 reviews; "Exit: The Right to Die," a documentary about assisted suicide, is at 88 percent (8 reviews); "Absolute Wilson," a documentary about avant-gardist Robert Wilson, is at 82 percent (11 reviews); "Cocaine Cowboys," a documentary about drug smuggling in Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s, is at 78 percent (23 reviews); "Babel," Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s globetrotting film about despair and interconnectivity, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, is at 74 percent (61 reviews); and "The Bridge," a doc about suicides on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, is at 64 percent (28 reviews).
Dixie Chicks flick: a hit with crits!
Top Performing Limiteds
"Babel" was the biggest indie winner this week, grossing $366,000 for a big per-screen average of $52,258, despite playing in only seven theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Stephen Frears‘ "The Queen," starring Helen Mirren, continued its strong performance, grossing $1.9 million, with a $12,638 per-screen average (it’s made $6.3 million during its theatrical run). "Shut Up & Sing" made $51,000 in four theaters, for an average of $12,750. But something of a disappointment was "Death of a President" which, despite the hum of controversy, made only $167,000 with a per-screen average of $1,835. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 58 | https://en.chinaculture.org/a/202405/07/WS6639516ca31082fc043c58a0.html | en | Actor discovers his leading role | http://img2.chinadaily.com.cn/images/202405/07/6639516ca31082fc2b6d6527.jpeg | http://img2.chinadaily.com.cn/images/202405/07/6639516ca31082fc2b6d6527.jpeg | [
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] | null | [] | 2024-05-07T00:00:00 | http://en.chinaculture.org/image_e/2021/logo.jpg | http://en.chinaculture.org/a/202405/07/WS6639516ca31082fc043c58a0.html | In late April, a gentle breeze swept across the serene landscape of Yanqi Lake, nestled on the northern outskirts of Beijing. Despite the picturesque view from his hotel room window, Kris Phillips, who is better known as Fei Xiang in China, had just had a hectic week that contrasted sharply with the tranquillity outside.
As a jury member for the 14th Beijing International Film Festival's Tiantan Award, the Chinese-American singer and actor viewed the 15 shortlisted films competing for honors and attended multiple news conferences over the course of a tight 12-day schedule.
Describing himself as a movie lover who re-watched golden era Hollywood films, like those starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, to prepare for his new comedy Out of Order, the 63-year-old star says he was fascinated by the opportunity to admire movies from a variety of countries, including Argentina and Israel.
"I think film offers us a window into other people's lives. That's what we want. China has a huge amount of potential in this regard," he tells China Daily. "I feel like the Chinese film industry is now at a fascinating moment and entering a golden period of filmmaking. It's going to be like America between the 1970s and 1980s, a period when there was a huge expansion of talent, and dedication to film as an art form."
For Chinese people born in the 1970s and '80s, Phillips was the pop king of their era.
After graduating from Stanford University, the performer, who has an American father and a Chinese mother, returned to Taiwan and began his showbiz career in the TV series Eleven Women, paving his way to stardom as a heartthrob in several movies adapted from novels by Chiung Yao, a well-known romance novelist from Taiwan.
However, it was his musical talent — exemplified by the release of a series of albums and a successful tour of 60 sold-out concerts — that catapulted Phillips to fame for millions of fans in the Chinese mainland following his dynamic and charismatic performance of the song, Dongtian Lide Yibahuo (Ball of Fire), at China Central Television's 1987 Spring Festival Gala.
Reflecting on his early years, and seemingly experiencing a nostalgic moment, Phillips says that he believed he lacked the experience to excel as an actor at the time, and questioned whether he wanted to settle for being an average actor, or strive to become a top-notch pop singer.
"When I saw my (early) films, I said to myself, 'Well, I'd better just stick to singing.' That was my reaction. And that's exactly what I did. I pulled the plug on my film work. I released album after album, did concerts, and performed in theaters in America," he says.
Over the following two decades, he dedicated himself to music, establishing a presence in the United States despite the then challenging environment for Asian performers, through a series of high-profile performances, beginning with his role in the original Broadway cast of Miss Saigon, and culminating in appearing in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Music of the Night. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 80 | https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/thinkfilm-takes-on-explicit-shortbus-1.584088 | en | ThinkFilm takes on explicit "Shortbus" | [
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] | 2006-06-16T15:53:00+00:00 | Canadian distributor ThinkFilm has bought the North American rights to controversial film "Shortbus," which features real sex between actors. Written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell and starring CBC announcer Sook-Yin Lee. | en | /a/apple-touch-icon.png | CBC | https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/thinkfilm-takes-on-explicit-shortbus-1.584088 | Shortbus, a controversial film in which actors engage in actual sex, has garnered a commercial release in North America through Canadian distributor ThinkFilm.
ThinkFilm says it will launch the art-house production this fall, bringing the drama to specialty theatres across the continent.The distributor has a reputation for edgy films, includingon its roster The Aristocrats and documentaries such as Murderball and the Oscar-winning Born into Brothels.
The $2-million film, written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell and co-starring CBCradio hostSook-Yin Lee, caused ripples at its premiere at the Cannes film festival a few weeks ago, where audiences expressed enthusiastic appreciationafter screenings. The sexually explicit film is unrated.
"We were all impressed with how natural and normal and comedic the extreme sex became without being offensive," Mark Urman of ThinkFilm told the Hollywood Reporter.
Shortbus is largely improvised and explores the lives of seven straight and gay New Yorkers seeking emotional connections with each other. Mitchell made his feature directing debut in the cult smash Hedwig and the Angry Inch, about a transsexual punk rocker.
Mitchell has said that his film is a kind of "call to arms" because so many people in the U.S. feel powerless: "We couldn't get Bush out in 2004, so a lot of people put their ideas into their artistic work."
Reports from the Cannes festival said one distributor bowed out of the bidding process, citing the likelihood ofproblems releasing the film in video stores. But Mitchell remained optimistic, saying he had 11 other offers on the table.
The director says ThinkFilm offered the best deal, but Mitchell declined to divulge details of the agreement.
"We pursued Shortbus aggressively from the moment we saw it in Cannes and witnessed the audience's overwhelming response," said ThinkFilm president Jeff Sackman in a statement. | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 23 | https://topsheet.io/blog/complete-guide-to-film-distribution | en | The Complete Guide to Film Distribution | [] | [] | [] | [
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] | null | [] | null | A film distribution company is responsible for the marketing and distribution of your films to the general public. Films can be distributed through theatrical, video on demand (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.), DVD, and new media. | en | favicon.ico | https://topsheet.io/blog/complete-guide-to-film-distribution | A film distribution company is responsible for the marketing and distribution of your films to the general public. Films can be distributed through theatrical, video on demand (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.), DVD, and new media.
When looking into distribution options for your films, research the cautionary tales of filmmakers who have gone before you. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for indie filmmakers to get taken for fools and end up getting ripped off.
We're going to talk about what you need to look out for when getting ready to sign an agreement with a distribution company and how to best protect yourself and your product.
What Are Ancillary Rights?
It used to be that films would just show up in a theater, stay for a while, and then disappear. It's hard to imagine a film not advertised. No posters. No T-shirts. No billboards. No trailers. How do you even know if you want to go see it?! Is it worth the...well, pennies back then?
Ancillary rights are supplementary or subordinate rights arising from a primary reason.
In entertainment, this is a contractual agreement in which a percentage of the profits are received and derived from the sale of posters, T-shirts, action figures, books, DVDs, etc. relating to the film.
This deal is made between the distribution company and the filmmaker. GET A LAWYER- one who regularly works on cases involving the entertainment industry. Just like the film insurance agent you hire must know the industry and the specific needs filmmaking requires, so does your lawyer.
Ensure your budget for a lawyer as part of your distribution costs as ancillary rights are just one of the areas filmmakers start to lose their profits.
A quick Google search of "Entertainment Lawyers" will provide you with a list of lawyers.
Or contact other filmmakers you know or have worked with in the past to see which lawyers they have hired and get their personal recommendations.
Plan Distribution Early
If you are looking for investment for your film, chances are, you won't even get an investor until you have your distribution plan figured out.
Investors want to know how you are going to make them money. Is their money safe with you? The film industry is a very high risk for investors, so make your plan is foolproof.
Another reason why you should plan distribution early is to make sure you have it in the budget. Distribution is EXPENSIVE, especially if you are headed for theaters. Your marketing budget will, at a minimum, have to match your film's production budget up to $35M.
If your film hits theaters, at best, you will only walk away with 35% of each ticket. If you sold $100M worth of tickets, your distributor would only see $65M of that amount, at best. And if you had a $33M production budget with a $33M P&A budget, you just broke even… barley.
Different Types of Distribution
There are two types of distribution: leasing and profit-sharing.
Leasing, the distributor agrees to pay a fixed amount for the rights to distribute the film.
Profit-sharing, the distributor gets a percentage of the profits made from the film. This percentage is usually between 10-50%. (Never go for the 50/50 split. You won't make any money.)
Either option has it's pros and cons and depends mostly on how well your film does at the box office. It's the job of the distribution company and the studio to decide which option will benefit them the most.
How to Get Distribution
Several factors can lock in your likelihood of getting distribution:
Big named talent: Have you ever gone to see a movie just because an actor you like was in it? What about your favorite directors or producers? People are funny about entertainment. They want the guarantee that they'll enjoy themselves. We have all been conditioned to believe that certain actors and directors and producers will always put out exceptional content. We believe that, because this was produced by the Russo Brothers or because Chris Hemsworth is in it, it will be good. It's like each person who goes to see your film is a mini investor, "Is this film worth spending $15 and two hours of my time?" Big-name talent sells films because people trust them with their money.
Season: The time of year is a huge factor in whether or not your film will be distributed. Horror films generally do better in the autumn than they do in the spring. And Christmas movies do better in the winter than they do in the summer.
Major studio backing: People trust the quality of major studios.
Story quality: Poor story quality can really ruin your run. You may have some of the other elements to draw your audience to the theater or convince them to download your film, but if the story flops, the people who watch it, won't be telling their friends to go see- or worse, will tell their friends not to view it. Word of mouth and peer pressure are significant factors in a film's success. Don't believe me? Take a look at Napoleon Dynamite! Word of mouth drove the film's success, Fox Searchlight knew that it would be and totally leaned into it with their marketing strategy.
Target audience: What is the age range and demographic that this film targets? Where do they watch their movies? What types of films are they interested in? Is that current demographic over-saturated with cinema?
Social Media: Are people talking about the film? Do the cast members have a high number of followers on their Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. accounts? Are people searching YouTube for behind the scenes footage and interviews? Are people in forums discussing the possible plot lines? How many people are engaged or could quickly become engaged online? The level of social media presence is an indicator of the film's success.
If you can hit all of these areas, you're likely to find distribution. But if you can't get the big names involved or major studio backing, you can still find success by getting the right season, the right target audience, a high-quality story, and boosting your social media presence and involvement.
If your film is set up at a major studio, chances are, distribution is already guaranteed through their partners. But if you are making an independent film and want feature film distribution, you have several options.
Film Festivals
There's a reason why film festivals are located all around the country and world. It's not just for fun or showing people your talent. It's often for the chance that a distribution company will pick your film (or a couple companies and end up with a bidding war).
Different film festivals have different categories of film. Some focus only on short films, others are primarily horror. Search for festivals near your area that fit your film best.
What films is your film similar to? Which festivals did they find their success? What did they do well? What could they have done better? What was their marketing strategy while they were at the festival?
There is a delicate line between familiar and new that the filmmaker needs to walk to get the desired distribution.
Film Freeway is a helpful tool to get you submitted into film festivals like Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance, Miami Film Festival, The Animator Showcase, and so much more.
As you are looking into the festival circuit, you can filter by genre, entry fees, film festivals, screenwriting contests, music contests, and others. Be sure to note when the submission deadlines are so you don't miss it.
Distribution Screenings
In order to really pull off this option, you need to be well connected to film distributors and/or have a very talented sales agent who can sway the right people to appear at the private screening.
Sales Agents
The job of the sales agent is to connect your project to the right distributor… for a fee. A good sales agent should have good connections and a reputation for making sales.
Filmhub
Filmhub is an exciting option for the independent filmmaker. Simply submit your film for free, streaming channels will discover, order, and stream your work worldwide while keeping a whopping 80%. They work with many different streaming services like Fandango, Amazon Prime, Dove Channel, and dozens of others.
With Filmhub, you'll have to do a lot of the leg-work to market your film yourself or hire a separate marketing firm, but it may be worth it for you.
Self Distribute
You can put your feature film on Vimeo or YouTube. Or you can get your movie on VOD platforms like Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, and other digital platforms. Another option is to make and sell DVDs or Blu-Rays.
You could also hire a theatrical film booker and do a limited theatrical release in select theaters. Napoleon Dynamite started with a limited release in a handful of theaters and slowly grew into more and more movie theaters until it was nationwide.
If you have an excellent product, sometimes you just need to be adamant about getting it in front of people. With so much content creation and so many platforms, it's too easy to get lost in the shuffle.
Whatever you can do to get your film viewed, creating champions along the way, get it done. Film marketing can be difficult, but it can also be enjoyable.
Getting Into Theaters
Let's be honest, that's every filmmaker's dream, right? Get your film released in theaters, have your film watched by millions on the big screen, be the film that gets applauded, and win all the awards.
Ah, yes, a dream indeed. An expensive dream. And not usually very lucrative for the independent filmmaker. But it may still be worth it because of all the critical notices it can receive from newspapers, magazines, and online reviews.
Let's say you get into Sundance Film Festival and land a distribution company (Woohoo! Go you!), and they want to get your film into movie theaters.
Each theater needs its own print of your film. Each print costs between $1,500 and $2,000 to make.
There are 37,000 theaters in the United States.
The distribution company needs to decide how many theaters and which locations would be the best fit for your film.
They will need to look at the demographics and population of each area...what are the odds that they'll fill the seats enough to offset the high cost of the prints alone?
Not to mention all the "marketing" that they (may or may not) have done.
Most movie theaters use buyers to represent them when negotiating a film with the distribution companies.
Apparently, this can be very "political" in that the buyers will often accept a movie they aren't particularly interested in in order to get a film that they really want coming down the pipes.
All the while, maintaining the delicate balance of having good relationships across the board so everyone can get what they need.
Each theater competes with every other theater in their area to try to get the best movies at the best prices, and the distribution companies need to ensure all of the theaters will all continue working with them.
Once a buyer is interested in a movie, the lease terms are discussed. There are two ways for a movie theater to lease a movie:
Bidding: Bidding is when the theater pays a fixed amount for the right to show the film. For example, the theater could bid $100,000 for a four-week long commitment to a film. If the film brings in more than that $100,000, the theater makes a profit. If they bring in less, the theater has a loss. Bidding isn't commonplace with most distribution companies anymore.
Percentage: With a percentage deal, the distributor and the movie theater negotiate several aspects.
The House Allowance - the weekly box office that theoretically allows a theatre to break-even.
The percentage split for the net box office. (What the box office is left with after the deduction of the house allowance).
The percentage for the gross box office is set.
The length of engagement (usually 4-6 weeks).
The agreement gives the distributor a greater percentage between the net or gross box office, and the distributor ends up making the majority of the money. To make up for the deficit, theaters charge outrageous amounts of money for concessions.
The theaters get paid by ticket percentages and concessions. The distributors get paid by percentages of sales. How do you get paid?
Technically, you'd get a percentage as well. How much of a percentage depends on how good of a lawyer you have, really. Distribution companies are mostly looking out for their bottom line. They are not looking out for you.
From their portion of sales, film distributors will deduct all the costs associated with the film's release. It's common for them to write in a "cross-collateralization clause," which means they can offset theatrical losses against profits from other windows.
Cross-collateralization can occur when the distributor is licensing the producer's work in a package along with a number of other works.
In these situations, the costs and advances for all the works in the package are offset against the revenues from any of the works, including the producer's work.
The producer will want to include language that specifies that the revenues attributed to the producer's work will not be subject to the costs and obligations of other titles in the package (i.e., the producer's work will not be cross-collateralized with other works in a package).
Cross-collateralization is a concern where the producer's work may be sold in a package to support the sale of weaker titles.
The second way in which cross-collateralization can be applied is by crossing the expenses from one market in which the producer's work is distributed against revenues attributed to other markets.
If the producer has the bargaining power, the producer may be able to get each market and territory separately to avoid cross-collateralization among markets and territories. Filmmaker Magazine
What to Watch Out For
We've already established that a majority of independent distribution companies don't have your best interest in mind, and we have all heard the unfortunate horror stories of the filmmakers who got swindled. So, how do you protect yourself and your product and make a fat wad of cash and get the name recognition that you've always wanted?
Hire a lawyer. Seriously, your best bet is to budget in the cost of a really good entertainment lawyer.
Recommend and push for an itemized list of the ways they intend on marketing your indie film (how, when, where, cost of each thing). Make sure you get the exact numbers! Distribution companies will try to hide profits from you. When your film starts making money, and without that itemized list, your distributor might claim that they need to recoup some of their marketing expenses out of the cash that should go to you.
Negotiate a shorter term length. Right now, the average term length for most distributors is 10-15 years. That's 10-15 years where you have no rights to your film. The product that you put all of your blood, sweat, and tears into. What if the distribution company does a horrible job of getting your film out there? You have the option of negotiating a performance requirement in the contract. This provision requires the distribution company to generate specific sales levels within a certain time limit and gives you the right to terminate the contract. This can help ensure your distributor gets their butts in gear and doesn't sit on your film for years and gives you a second chance at getting your film to market within a reasonable time frame if they don't follow through.
The bigger the deal, the less control you have.
Cap film distribution expenses. If you negotiate split profits after expenses, all of your profit will disappear into their "marketing budget." Be sure to cap their expenses so they can't redistribute your money into their pockets.
Deliverables
Deliverables include things like the film, paperwork, documentation, legal documents, trailers, key art, raw film, etc. Distributors just want everything! I recommend keeping it all stored in files in the cloud where nothing bad can happen to it. Below is a detailed list of the things you should keep stored in your "Deliverables" folder, so it's easy to hand over whatever your distribution company requires.
Legal
Archival Clip Licenses
Cast and Crew Restrictions
Certificate of Authorship
Certificate of Origin
Chain of Title
Credit Items
E&O (Not all distributors ask for Errors and Omissions, but it's a good idea to include it to cover your butt- just in case).
Literary Materials
MPAA Documentation
Music
Other Agreements
Film/Audio
Feature film on HDCam or digital file
Original aspect ratio
Native frame rate
5.1 mix
Trailer
Additional versions: Clean output (without titles), DME separated
Key art/Poster art
300 dpi
separated art layers
Audio output:
Channel 1: 5.1 track: Left
Channel 2: 5.1 track: Right
Channel 3: 5.1 track: Center
Channel 4: 5.1 track: Lfe
Channel 5: 5.1 track: Left Surround
Channel 6: 5.1 track: Right Surround
Channels 7+8: Full Mix Stereo L&R
Channels 9+10: M&E Stereo L&R
Pre-Production Materials
Audition tapes, storyboards, script meetings, etc. that might make good DVD "extras" or promotional tools.
Talent agreements
Production
Behind the scenes footage
Still photography
Cast and film crew interviews
Editing
Narration
DME
Music
Outtakes/deleted scenes
Alternative Endings
Press Kit
Getting your film distributed can be a daunting task. This is why we highly, highly recommend getting a lawyer experienced in the film business world. Whether you're fresh out of film school or you're a seasoned indie filmmaker, there is always something more to learn, and it's best not to get duped in the process of creating distribution deals. | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 1 | https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/shortbus-inks-north-american-deal-with-thinkfilm-uk-rights-go-to-the-works-76557/ | en | “Shortbus” Inks North American Deal With ThinkFilm; UK Rights Go To The Works | http://i2.indiewire.com/images/uploads/iw9/biz/shortbuscastPC.jpg | http://i2.indiewire.com/images/uploads/iw9/biz/shortbuscastPC.jpg | [
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] | 2006-06-15T11:04:59+00:00 | "Shortbus" Inks North American Deal With ThinkFilm; UK Rights Go To The Works | en | IndieWire | https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/shortbus-inks-north-american-deal-with-thinkfilm-uk-rights-go-to-the-works-76557/ | ThinkFilm has acquired all North American rights to John Cameron Mitchell‘s “Shortbus,” perhaps the most talked about film at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and, in a separate pact, The Works U.K. Distribution has secured UK rights to the new movie. A sexually explicit, strikingly artistic and ultimately hopeful new film, “Shortbus” is the story of a group of New Yorkers — straight and gay, male and female — coping with life and love in the modern day big city. They come together weekly at a polysexual, bohemian Brooklyn salon that features music, art and yes, sex. The follow-up to Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “Shortbus” features an ensemble cast who workshopped the project and engage in graphic on-screen sex scenes.
A sex therapist who can’t have an orgasm, a dominatrix seeking a deep, lasting relationship, and a gay couple who talk about bringing a third guy into their relationship are among the interconnected group of New Yorkers depicted in the provocative new film. Mitchell developed the story with a cast selected through a casting call that received some 500 submissions via a website visited by more than a half million people.
Newcomers Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Jay Brannan, and Peter Stickles, co-star in the film alongside Sook-Yin Lee and well-known performer Justin Bond. A fall theatrical release in numerous North American markets is in the works with specifics yet to be announced.
Perhaps as many as a dozen U.S. companies were eyeing the film, according to insiders, with such entities as IFC Films, Magnolia Pictures, Roadside Attractions, Netflix, Criterion and many other outlets bandied about within industry circles as potential buyers or partners for the release. The buzz over the film emerged immediately after the world premiere of the film at Cannes where the movie garnered a rousing standing ovation and mostly critical raves. While the filmmakers had gone into the festival thinking that they might have to release the film themselves because of the graphic sexual content, the reaction at the festival quickly turned into a competitive bidding environment with ThinkFilm emerging victorious in a deal for North American theatrical, home video, television and Internet rights to the movie.
CAA negotiated the North American deal on behalf of the filmmakers with Executive VP of Acquisitions and Business Affairs Randy Manis on behalf of ThinkFilm.
“We pursued ‘Shortbus’ aggressively from the moment we saw it in Cannes and witnessed the audience’s overwhelming response,” said ThinkFilm president Jeff Sackman, in a statement. “Considering how many offers they received from such a wide variety of distributors, we are extremely pleased and proud that the filmmakers recognized our unique abilities as well as our company-wide enthusiasm for their film.”
Touting the movie as fun, sweet, innocent and natural, ThinkFilm head of theatrical distribution Mark Urman, in a conversation with indieWIRE Wednesday night, praised the film and added that it is poised to become a commercial title, despite its graphic sexual content. “It chooses to go someplace that a lot of movies don’t go,” Urman explained, saying that if he and his colleagues are reading the zeitgeist correctly, the film will appeal to a broad range of moviegoers who are “fed-up with pre-emptive self-censorship” and want to “let their hair down.” He added, “It really could be part of a moment, a new counter-culture.”
Howard Gertler, producer of the film with Tim Perell, told indieWIRE that negotiating a deal after Cannes took some time as the filmmakers considered a wide range of offers, but that he and the “Shortbus” team were bolstered by the reactions of buyers, exhibitors and cable networks who have all expressed a commitment to presenting the film uncut.
A Process production presented by Fortissimo Films in association with Q Television, the film was shot by Frank DeMarco (who also shot “Hedwig”) and edited by Brian A. Kates. Jody Asnes was the production designer and Kurt and Bart were costume designers, while Yo La Tengo created the original score. Michael J. Werner and Wouter Barendrecht of Fortissimo, which is handling all international sales for the film, served as executive producers of “Shortbus.”
Fortissimo’s Senior VP International Sales Nicole Mackey negotiated the UK deal with The Works UK Distribution’s Laurence Gornall and Mick Southworth. The company also sold the film to a number of territories at this year’s Marche du Film.
Talking about the film in Cannes this year, John Cameron Mitchell said that the movie is meant to be a “call to arms,” explaining that many people simply feel powerless in an era in which so much clamping down is taking place. “We couldn’t get Bush out in 2004, so a lot of people put their ideas into their artistic work.” Continuing he added, “There is a bit of a lack of hope among young people that we, my friends and I, want to do something about.” And later he quipped, “If we can’t do elections we might as well do erections.”
“John’s approach to adult intimacy,” Urman said in a statement, “is so buoyant, natural, and humorous that audiences will be too busy enjoying themselves to be shocked!” | |||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 62 | https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/how-maya-deren-became-the-symbol-and-champion-of-american-experimental-film | en | How Maya Deren Became the Symbol and Champion of American Experimental Film | [
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] | 2022-11-16T06:00:00-05:00 | Richard Brody reviews the book “Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera,” by Mark Alice Durant, about the life of the independent, experimental filmmaker Maya Deren. | en | https://www.newyorker.com/verso/static/the-new-yorker/assets/favicon.ico | The New Yorker | https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/how-maya-deren-became-the-symbol-and-champion-of-american-experimental-film | In revolutionary moments, time seems to accelerate, and changes usually marked out in decades take place in a matter of months. There’s a special, melancholy tinge to the fate of those who were themselves at the forefront of the very revolutions that left them behind. (Elvis Presley comes to mind.) That’s the story told in “Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera,” Mark Alice Durant’s new biography of the filmmaker (published by Saint Lucy Books), and it’s thrilling and terrifying. It’s the tale of an artist who, in the mid-nineteen-forties, in the span of four years, by the age of thirty, remade her artistic world—drastically and definitively. Despite, or thanks to, her youth, she nearly single-handedly put experimental cinema on the American cultural map, and also became its iconic visual presence. Then, just as quickly, she fell out of that world, never to return in her too-brief lifetime. She died in 1961, in poverty and obscurity. She fulfilled the destiny detailed by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his 1835 story “Wakefield”: “By stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.” A woman, even more so.
Deren was born Eleanora Derenkowsky in 1917 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Her parents were Jewish, prosperous, and educated. (Her father, Solomon, was a doctor; her mother, Marie, had studied piano and economics.) After the October Revolution, her father was conscripted into battle with Bolshevik forces, and Eleanora and her mother endured illness and poverty at home. The family snuck out of the country in the early nineteen-twenties and made their way to Syracuse, New York, changing their last name to Deren. In 1930, Marie, who was unhappy in the provincial city, took her daughter to Geneva, where the precocious girl was acclaimed as a poet by her classmates and also became an enthusiastic photographer. Three years later, mother and child returned to Syracuse; Deren enrolled—at sixteen—at Syracuse University, where she and another student, Gregory Bardacke, a Communist and a football player, fell in love. They married in 1935, he graduated in 1936, and they moved to Greenwich Village, where he became a labor organizer and she, in the midst of her last year of college at N.Y.U., became a Socialist activist. She left Bardacke (they soon divorced), entered Smith College for a master’s in English, and then returned to New York. In 1939, while employed as an elder writer’s secretary, Deren eventfully pursued an obsession.
As a woman in her mid-twenties, Deren was an artist without portfolio, endowed with a poet’s imaginative flamboyance and a photographer’s sense of visual composition, to which she added an activist’s revolutionary fervor, aptitude for advocacy, and organizational practicality. She became fixated on Katherine Dunham, a Black dancer (working on Broadway and in Hollywood), the founder of a dance company, and an academically trained anthropologist. Deren, as Durant notes, was already deeply devoted to the art of dance, even though she had no training, and she more or less imposed herself on Dunham as a secretary and assistant. In 1941 and 1942, Deren travelled with Dunham and her dance troupe throughout the United States. (Durant reports that, in their travels together in the Jim Crow South, the blue-eyed Deren—who had a mighty mass of curly red hair—was taken for Black or of mixed race.)
In 1942, while in Hollywood with Dunham, Deren met a filmmaker named Alexandr Hackenschmied. Born in 1907 in Linz and raised in Prague, he became, in his early twenties, a pioneer of experimental cinema in Czechoslovakia. In the late nineteen-thirties, he worked on a pair of crucial anti-Nazi documentaries, and left the country soon before the Nazi invasion, making his way to Los Angeles, where he was promised work. He was an acclaimed cameraman and still photographer; he and Deren quickly fell in love and married. (Soon after he and Deren met, he changed his name to Alexander Hammid.) Living on the margins of Hollywood, they went to movies, thought about movies, met filmmakers, and got inspired. In early 1943, Deren’s father died and left her a small sum of money, with which she bought a movie camera, a 16-mm. Bolex. That summer, she and Hammid made a fourteen-minute film, “Meshes of the Afternoon,” on a budget of two hundred and seventy-five dollars.
So far, so good—the very essence of movies is to be the art for artists who don’t have an art. Deren was not quite a dancer, untrained as an actor, but endowed with charisma and temperament, craving not so much to be seen as to be recognized, turning her tumultuous private social life into a kind of performance. “She would do almost anything for attention,” Dunham said. “She felt that she was physically irresistible. She would work like a bee to get noticed, shaking around, carrying on. She went after anybody including someone who belonged to someone else. She worked at it. I think sex was her great ace. I liked her curiosity, her vivaciousness. She was alive. I liked her bohemianism—she had no hours. Any hours were all right, just like mine.”
Deren was an avant-garde version of Lana Turner (a young non-actress who was discovered at the counter of a soda fountain), but Deren was ready not to be discovered but to discover herself, by way of a movie that she would make. Like the brightest stars of classic Hollywood, Deren was both too much and too little an actress to ever be anything onscreen but herself. She was exactly the kind of personality and performer, of limited technique but hypnotically photogenic, for whom the cinema was made. Her mere presence beamed onto the screen her vast inner worlds of emotion and intellect.
Deren, who conceived “Meshes of the Afternoon” (Hammid, who did the camera work, credited her as the film’s artistic creator), is its main actor. Though she repudiated any connection of her work to Surrealism, “Meshes” is at least a work of unrealism—of fantasy that explicitly links its action to dreams and imagination. (Regarding Deren’s academic literary studies, Durant writes that “her research on the Symbolist and Imagist poets gave her foundational language on which she would rely, at least intuitively, when she approached filmmaking in the early 1940s.”) She rejected Hollywood in toto, and allowed the dime-store macabre of B movies to infiltrate her sensibility. In “Meshes,” a woman falls asleep at home and imagines an episode involving multiples of herself, a recurring slippage of her house key out of her mouth, a flower that she finds in the street, a knife that she finds on the table, a black-shrouded figure with a mirror for a face, and Hammid himself, who comes home, sees one of the Derens in bed, and approaches her with a tentative eroticism. Then Hammid comes home again to discover the gruesome aftermath of violence.
The hectic distortions and special effects that Hammid created give the movie its mind-bending intensity, whereas Deren’s presence gives it its allure and its personality. (For the purposes of the movie’s credits, Deren took the name Maya, and kept it, onscreen and off.) She certainly didn’t invent experimental cinema, nor introduce it in the U.S., but, with this short silent film, Deren became the genre’s Orson Welles, realizing her own original ideas by a fruitful collaboration with an experienced cinematographer (as Welles did with Gregg Toland) and putting those ideas over by way of onscreen star power. She became the name of avant-garde cinema by becoming its face: a still of her, at a window in “Meshes,” is, to this day, the prime iconic image of American experimental filmmaking, the single-frame synecdoche for the entire category. Yet, unlike Welles, who made his movie fame when he was hired by a studio that then released his film, and when critics recognized his originality, Deren created “Meshes” in the absence of institutional, organizational, or even intellectual frameworks—which she took upon herself to construct, too.
In 1943, Hammid was hired by the federal Office of War Information, in New York, to make documentaries, Durant writes, that supported the war effort. The couple left California for Greenwich Village, renting a fifth-floor walkup apartment at 61 Morton Street (where Deren lived for the rest of her life). Deren was quickly introduced to high artistic circles through her work as a portrait photographer for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. She made a film with Marcel Duchamp (which she never finished), and, in the summer of 1944, she made another film of phantasmagorical imagination, “At Land.” Where “Meshes” ends with Deren as a bloody corpse, “At Land” begins with her body washing up on a beach—alive, as it turns out. Deren pulls herself up on a hefty bit of driftwood and, peering over its edge, finds herself in a banquet room, at the long table of a dinner party, where she crawls on the tablecloth between the cheerful and unfazed guests. The movie also has elements of erotic fantasy, as when she strolls with a man who turns out to be four different ones (including Hammid and the composer John Cage), she follows Hammid into a cabin and instead finds yet another man there in a bed, and—back on the beach—she stumbles upon two women playing chess and joyfully caresses one player’s head. In “At Land,” Deren more conspicuously acts, with a newly athletic, choreographic element. Her performance is full of overtones of other performers: her puckish sidelong glances evoke Katharine Hepburn; and, when she over-earnestly and campily strains in her physical tasks, she brings to mind Bette Davis. (While filming on the beach at Amagansett, Deren chanced to meet Anaïs Nin, and they quickly became friends.)
Deren, whose coterie had expanded to include many in the downtown artistic beau monde, became a major socialite in bohemian circles, turning the couple’s apartment into a center of parties and gatherings, and her connections proved galvanic. Durant quotes from Nin’s diary regarding the force exerted by Deren among the Village culturati: “We are subject to her will, her strong personality, yet at the same time we do not trust or love her wholly. We recognize her talent. We talk of rebellion, of being forced, of tyranny, but we bow to her projects, make sacrifices.” Nin cites “the power of her personality” and notes “her determined voice, the assertiveness and sensuality of her peasant body, her dancing, drumming; all haunted us. We spent a great deal of time talking about her.” In a frenzy of creation and organization, Deren seemingly ordered the world around her, at least for a crucial moment, to fit into a pattern of her own design.
With no extant theatre for the kinds of movies she was making, she held private screenings at home and, eventually, a midtown art gallery. In April, 1945, she made another film, “A Study in Choreography for Camera,” featuring the dancer Talley Beatty, also a Dunham alumnus, and it attracted attention in the world of dance. “Strangers and vague acquaintances stopped her in the street asking how they might see her films,” Durant writes. Later that year, she sought to distribute her films, contacting museums and universities, writing a sales brochure called “Cinema as an Independent Art Form,” and taking out a print ad in a sophisticated literature and art magazine named View.
The lightning bolt in this primordial soup of Deren’s avant-garde celebrity came on February 18, 1946. She had rented the Provincetown Playhouse, a West Village theatre, for a screening of her films on that evening, and, as Durant details, she promoted the hell out of it. She edited a brochure with blurbs from notables (including Nin) and a short essay of her own, papered the Village with handmade fliers, and extended personal invitations to major critics. “The evening sold out in a matter of minutes, leaving hundreds on the street milling about in frustration,” Durant writes. “Deren’s films were, for weeks, the talk of the Village, even those who were turned away had an opinion about what was seen that night.”
Among the audience at the Provincetown Playhouse was a twenty-four-year-old Austrian Jewish immigrant named Amos Vogel, who said that the event made him recognize “a new kind of talent” in filmmaking, “an individual expressing a very deep inner need.” The following year, Vogel and his wife, Marcia, founded a film society called Cinema 16, which launched its screenings at the same theatre and, in the nineteen-fifties and early sixties, was New York’s prime venue for non-Hollywood, independent, experimental, and international movies. (Vogel was also one of the founders of the New York Film Festival, which was launched in 1963.)
Deren’s accomplishments in the realm of experimental cinema were knit into the wider phenomenon of the Second World War as a peculiarly powerful real-time engine for artistic transformation in the U.S., from Abstract Expressionism conquering art galleries to bebop surging in jazz clubs. Abstraction, complexity, and vehemence came to the fore during the war and just after its end, a time when realities were so appalling as to be all but unrepresentable, when much of the worst was still unknown but loomed in forebodings, imaginings, hints, and rumors, and when, in a short and terrifying span, the Holocaust became known and nuclear war became a reality.
In 1945, Deren filmed another silent short, “Ritual in Transfigured Time,” the last of her films, as Durant notes, in which she appears. (She completed it after the first of the 1946 Provincetown Playhouse screenings; it premièred on June 1, 1946, and she showed it throughout the year, to warm acclaim.) The film is centered on the dancer Rita Christiani, a former member of Dunham’s dance company, whom Deren, in her script outline, considered, for the purposes of the film, “the same person” as herself. The film begins with Deren bearing a skein of yarn and, with forced gaiety, recruiting Christiani for its winding (as Nin looms in the background). Deren’s performance is arch, hectic, more artificial than stylized—her efforts at acting are exaggerated and flat, as if she were trying and failing to put herself over.
However, “Ritual” contains a nearly four-minute sequence of ingeniously conceived and thrillingly crafted stylization, which I consider the most fascinating scene that she ever filmed—and it’s one in which she doesn’t appear. It’s a party scene, shot in her own apartment, featuring the literati and glitterati of her circle (including Howard Moss, then the poetry editor of The New Yorker); it’s also Deren’s modern-day filmed adaptation of Antoine Watteau’s painting “The French Comedians,” from around 1720, which she’d seen at the Met. The scene, featuring about thirty people and centered on Christiani’s efforts to connect with the other guests, is filmed in slow motion; the framings emphasize the layering in depth of the revellers’ comings and goings, and Deren evokes their cold-hearted conviviality with keenly discerning and precisely imaginative direction. (She instructed them, “When you hail each other, hail with your palm up.”) As Durant observes, “In Deren’s edit, shots and gestures are rhythmically repeated, elevating casual movements into the realm of the choreographic.”
By the time Deren had put those journeys to rest and returned to Morton Street as her steady base of action, the scene of avant-garde, independent, nonnarrative filmmaking that she advocated had quickly caught on, in Greenwich Village and beyond—but in ways that she disliked. Instead of an impresario, she became an embittered rival to her successors. With her detailed written scenarios, her careful visual compositions, and her contrapuntal schemes of editing, she characterized her work as “films in the classicist tradition,” but much of the movie scene that she’d inspired was far more freewheeling in method, substance, and tone. She was openly critical of other avant-garde filmmakers, even while remaining collegial, and encouraging, in practice; in the mid-fifties, she established an organization, the Creative Film Foundation, to channel small amounts of grant money to experimental filmmakers. She became friends with a young filmmaker, Stan Brakhage, whose films she didn’t like but whose creative spirit she admired. (He knocked on her door to pay homage to her; she put him up for several months.) Another fervent advocate and practical-minded activist for experimental cinema, the critic and filmmaker Jonas Mekas, came to the fore of Village life, including at the Village Voice; she judged his work harshly, but they nonetheless collaborated in the promotion of experimental films.
Deren’s last decade was a depressing decrescendo. She’d started using Benzedrine to fuel her long days and nights of activity while travelling with Dunham, and kept with it afterward. In New York, she took frequent “vitamin” injections, which likely included amphetamines, from the infamous Dr. Feelgood, Max Jacobson (who also treated John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and many other household names before losing his license in the seventies). She had severe health issues (in 1954, she had major surgery for an abdominal hemorrhage and peritonitis) and serious money trouble; she refused to take a regular job. “Because of her sometimes-difficult nature,” Durant writes, Deren’s social life and her artistic activities, which were so closely connected, narrowed. “There were few left in her New York circle who were willing to subject themselves to her demands.”
Deren and her partner, the composer Teiji Ito, who became her third husband in 1960, were threatened with eviction and faced real hunger. Her dispute by mail with her landlord was epic and obsessive. Meanwhile, she turned to her mother to pay her utility bill, and she literally asked friends for food. Her last completed film, “The Very Eye of Night,” which transformed live-action footage of the choreographer Antony Tudor’s student dancers into animation, was shot in 1952 and finished only in 1956. Owing to legal issues after its producer’s death, the film didn’t show in New York until 1959, at which time it made hardly a ripple. Deren died on October 13, 1961, of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Durant’s book itself, twenty years in the making, bears the illumination of fanatical research and passionate empathy for—practically an inhabiting of—Deren’s inner world. The book’s one crucial lack is notes: footnotes or endnotes. Durant offers fictionalized sequences, the biographical equivalent of reënactments in documentaries, but doesn’t identify them as such, and leaves the sourcing of events and descriptions unclear. For instance, extended narrations and detailed descriptions of crucial scenes in Deren’s life, such as the Hollywood party where she and Hammid met and the Morton Street party at which he decided to leave her, have the feel of literary compositions—persuasive and moving ones—but I found myself wondering which details were Durant’s inventions and which were nuggets emerging in correspondence, notebooks, interviews, or elsewhere.
Paradoxically, the most exciting and absorbing drama that emerges from Durant’s book isn’t, as one might expect from the life story of a crucially significant filmmaker, the behind-the-scenes efforts that went into the making of Deren’s movies. Rather, it’s Deren’s miraculous transformation from a private do-it-yourself artist to a public figure, and then a historic one—from an outsider, working at home, to the spokesperson and the heroine not only of her own cinematic venture but of the entire form of cinema in which she worked, for which she advocated, and that she established as a prime art form of her time.
By achieving worldwide recognition for films that she made on her own, with family and friends, on trivial budgets, she spurred generations of experimental filmmakers to follow in her footsteps; their films then found a home in institutions that she’d helped bring to life. As for the specific influence of Deren’s artistry, it radiated outward in many directions and inspired a wide range of avant-garde filmmakers, such as Shirley Clarke (who began her career with highly aestheticized dance films), Yvonne Rainer (who filmed personal psychodramas), Mekas (who built his first feature around disjointed, B-movie-like fantasies), and Barbara Hammer (who derived from Deren’s work a radical feminist cinema). The most conspicuous, and perhaps the most significant, adaptation of Deren’s far-rangingly associative yet meticulously composed fantasies may well be in the movies of David Lynch.
Deren’s completed films are home movies, made mainly where she lived; that fact stands at odds with their nonrealistic pursuit of what she called “inner realities” and “the laws of the invisible powers.” In throwing out the bathwater of Hollywood commercialism, she also threw out the baby of narrative. “I could move directly from my imagination into film,” she wrote—and so she did, with hardly a trace of her lived experience. Her imagination was fertile, but her wide-ranging life was a veritable engine of stories that seemed ready-made to be put on film, with a first-person imaginative inventiveness of a sort that would hardly be found in Hollywood. Deren’s relentless quest for what was extraordinary about her inner life came at the expense of what was already extraordinary in her outer one. The first craving aroused by her silent films is to hear the literal sound of her voice.
But Deren’s prime achievement reaches even beyond her artistry, her personality, the filmmakers she inspired, and the institutions she fostered. Above all, she both championed and embodied the idea that movies were art and, indeed, the art of the time. The high-art audience that she galvanized for her films—the audience that then filled the seats at Cinema 16 and devoured Mekas’s column in the Voice—would soon be ready to see the high art of movies in places where Deren didn’t, in Hollywood films. It took another batch of independent filmmakers—the young French critics who then became the filmmakers of the French New Wave—to export Hollywood successfully from Paris to Greenwich Village (and another Voice critic, Andrew Sarris, to broker the import). But the downtown ground had been prepared by Deren. The careers of the American independent filmmakers who rode that new wave—whether the ones who made it to Hollywood, such as Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma, or the ones who didn’t, such as Juleen Compton and Peter Emanuel Goldman—would be unthinkable without hers. ♦ | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 96 | https://observer.com/2017/01/behind-the-screens-oscilloscope-laboratories-underground-movie-model/ | en | Behind the Screens: Oscilloscope Laboratories’ Underground Movie Model | [
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] | 2017-01-13T20:55:18 | We caught up with Director of Acquisitions Aaron Katz to find out what makes Oscilloscope Laboratories one of the industry’s most vital film distributors. | en | Observer | https://observer.com/2017/01/behind-the-screens-oscilloscope-laboratories-underground-movie-model/ | Welcome to “Behind the Screens”, where we interview the people who decide what the most influential arthouse and indie theaters in New York put on their screens. Along the way, we’ll uncover some of the challenges, thrills, and secrets of the trade and, hopefully, get a sense of what gives the American cinematic landscape its unique identity.
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It’s been a little over eight years since the late Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (aka MCA) teamed up with THINKFilm executive (and eventual A24 founder) David Fenkel to create Oscilloscope Laboratories, a goofily-titled film distribution company with a serious desire to give under-the-radar films and filmmakers the love and attention they deserve. Any doubts about the “Fight For Your Right to Party” rapper’s ability to appeal to cineastes were quickly silenced with a critically-acclaimed slate of films like Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy and Oren Moverman’s The Messenger. Today, despite the loss of both founders, Oscilloscope continues to put out critical darling after critical darling, ranging from the creepily moving dance team drama, The Fits, to the John Waters-esque feminist sex comedy, The Love Witch. We caught up with Director of Acquisitions Aaron Katz to find out what makes Oscilloscope Laboratories one of the industry’s most vital film distributors.
How long have you been with Oscilloscope?
I’ve been here for six years, but in very different capacities. I started off as David Fenkel and Adam Yauch’s assistant, and after about a year or so, I was promoted and started working in our Acquisitions and Digital Sales departments. Then, David Fenkel left. Adam Yauch passed away. Things changed after that, so my role kept progressing until, about a year and a half ago, I took on the Acquisitions Department basically on my own. Everything gets run up to the President, but it’s mostly my department.
Over those six years, the whole independent film landscape has changed so much thanks to streaming and Video on Demand (VOD). How has that changed your business model?
The model has changed, but it’s constantly changing. The digital strategies we were discussing three months ago are completely different from what they are today. When I first started, digital was just one field to focus on. You’d do a digital campaign to go along with everything you’re doing. Then it became the most profitable field, so you’d have to work on that digital space as much as possible. “Day-and-Date” [simultaneous release of a movie in theaters and VOD] was starting to get really big, so companies like Magnolia, who had a digital focus, were doing very well. We tried our hand at a few titles doing “day-and-date” releases, but the way you would get a movie to be “day-and-date” in the past was a lot easier than it is now. For example, for Comcast to list you in the “New” folder, you needed to prove you were going “day-and-date” with five theaters.
If the movie doesn’t go in the “New” folder, where would it go?
It would just go to the general alphabet, where it would be lost for a very long time. So, when it was just five theaters, it wasn’t so hard. You could try to book those naturally or “four-wall” them, which is basically buying the theater. If you want to get prime placement on a VOD platform, and this is still true, you need to be in theaters. But if you want to be in theaters, you need to give those theaters exclusive rights to the film for 90 days. Clearly, those two things are going head-to-head. So, to book the theater, you need the theater to want to support the film, even though it’s “day-and-date,” or you need to buy the entire theater for a week or two. Then, the VOD companies started to ask for 10 theaters, 15 theaters, and you needed to be in the top markets, like New York, LA, San Fran. So you’re spending a bunch of money upfront to buy these theaters, and you’re not going to see any of that back theatrically; you have to see it back digitally. And what’s different from six years ago is that every Tuesday and Friday, there’s a huge update on iTunes or VOD channels that is so large that it’s very easy to get lost.
Is the “day-and-date” designation worth all that trouble?
No. We’re staying away from it. That’s another thing that’s changed. We went to the “day-and-date” platforms for specific films that it made sense for, but for the majority of our releases, we’ve pushed for more theatrical releases. What we’ve been finding from our successes the past couple years is that when we go theatrically, we’re building a real marketing campaign for these films. We’re building great press that we wouldn’t get if the film was looked at as a digitally-driven title. The New York Times doesn’t review every movie that’s being released now. They only review the ones they think deserve it, and a lot of “day-and-date” titles get lost in that. So our goal is to find good movies and build a profile for them through theatrical release followed by the rest of its releases.
Do you have any input into how your films are being presented on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.?
Um…no. (laughs) If I go to Netflix, a bunch of things are presented to me, and I feel like those things are presented for a reason. I don’t know what those reasons might be, whether it’s an algorithm or they spent a bunch of money to acquire these things and need more people to watch it to make sense. Who knows? Either way, there are plenty of things buried in there that you have to hunt out. You go on Amazon and they say, “Here are the top movies,” but who are those top movies for? We sell movies to those platforms all the time and it’s great to have our movies on there, but as a viewer, I love curation. That’s why we go to a place like the Alamo Drafthouse or the Metrograph. It’s curation that we can trust, and that’s something we’ve always been trying to build for Oscilloscope. When you see an Oscilloscope logo, you know you’re in for something unique and interesting.
Can you think of a specific movie that wound up being a big hit for you that nobody else believed in?
Yeah, Embrace of the Serpent. Black-and-white film that’s over two hours long in 13 different languages that’s about a native helping an explorer travel down the Amazon to find a rare flower. That’s a movie that doesn’t sound like it should work, but we loved it. Because we loved it, we were able to work with that movie in a unique and great way, and it went very, very, very well. We got an Oscar nomination and did over a million dollars in the box office, which made it one of the highest-grossing foreign language movies of the last year.
What is it about this Oscilloscope that allows you to have that freedom to go for it, as opposed to other companies that might worry more about their bottom line?
I think there’s two things at play. One is that, when Adam started this company, he really wanted to give a voice to filmmakers and artists. He always wanted projects that people have been working on for “x” number of years to get the proper care when they were taken out into the world. We’ve always kept true to that, and we work with filmmakers to figure out the way they want to see their films come out. Sometimes our viewpoints don’t align. That happens. The movies that we’ve worked on are the ones where they do align. The other thing that I think helps, as well, is that we’re independently financed. All the money that goes into this company is from what we’ve made. So, without having a corporate backer of sorts, we have the liberty to do whatever we want, which is great. It gives us the freedom to do movies like Embrace of the Serpent, but it also limits the resources we have available, at least financially. We have what we have, and we have to work with that. It makes us say, “Okay, so we don’t have the million dollars to acquire whatever hot movie might be playing at Sundance. But what can we find that works with what we have and the creative minds that we have here to be able to make a good campaign and build a good home for these films?”
When you go to a festival like Cannes or Sundance, do you go in with a strategy of getting a certain number of movies?
That’s another thing. A lot of companies have a slate they need to adhere to, whether it’s 15, 30, 60 films. We don’t. We need to keep the lights on, but we can kind of play it by ear. We don’t want to come into a festival saying, “We need five films.” That puts us in a position where we can’t do what we do best, which is picking films we’re extremely passionate about. So, for Sundance right now, we have our priorities, and our priorities are based on what could potentially work for us and what would make sense in our world.
What is that “priority” designation based on?
Research. We’ve watched a ton of movies. We’ve seen a lot of films these filmmakers have already made. For first-time filmmakers, we can read scripts, we can talk to sales agents, hear what the pitch is. We try to talk to filmmakers as much as we can, as well. We’ve met a lot of people through things like Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) or Sundance Institute grants. There’s a lot of filmmakers that we’re familiar with or producers we’ve worked with in the past who have new projects. It’s kind of like, “Who’s involved? What do we know? What can we find out?”
How do you decide which movies on your slate you’re going to push for awards?
We’ve had seven Oscar nominations at this company, and those kinds of things don’t really come organically. It’s more about whether we think they have the potential to perform that way and spending the money to make that happen. So, for something like a Foreign Language Oscar nomination, the money needed to make that happen is a lot less than the money needed for Best Picture or Best Actress. Just to get these movies on people’s radar, the amount of time, energy, and finances that go into doing that is very significant. A lot of companies hire out awards season people, just to push those things. That becomes a whole other division of their company. We’re not doing that. When we have Oscar nominations, it’s the staff that’s here in our office pushing Embrace of the Serpent for an Oscar.
What’s an example of something you were considering pushing for this year’s Oscars?
Royalty Highwater from The Fits saw a ton of praise out of Sundance. She gives a terrific performance, she’s won all these awards, and she’s been mentioned in the New York Times as one of the actors to keep an eye on. But if we wanted to do an Oscar campaign for her, and we do, it costs a ton of money, and we’d be competing against companies that have a lot of money to spend on Annette Bening or someone like that. So, as we’re making a decision there, we’re thinking what it’s going to cost us to do this. We need to fly her around, we need to get a ton of people to see this movie, much more than we would for a Foreign Language movie or a documentary. Going into those bigger categories is a lot harder for us to do, just because of the financial spend. It’s not that we wouldn’t do it. We’ve done it before, and we will continue to do it, but it’s just a matter of weighing the odds.
Other than the prestige of winning an Oscar, what is the actual benefit for your company?
It’s the attention. We can get industry attention, but the Oscars let us take that dialogue to a larger scale. So, for example, in the Foreign Language category last year, we had the Oscar nomination before we went to theaters. It gave us more attention because it’s part of this list of five elite films, which are supposedly better than other films. So it gives us the attention, but it’s not a sure shot. If you look at last year’s five nominated Foreign Language films, some of them just didn’t perform at the box office at the same level as Embrace of the Serpent. I can’t give you a reason why.
Even with that Oscar seal of approval?
But you could say the same thing about getting a “Critic’s Pick.” If you get a New York Times Critic’s Pick, it should do great things for the film, but if you’re not seizing the opportunity in the right kinds of ways and still working on putting in the necessary marketing and publicity, then the film may not actually benefit.
How do you go about getting a theatrical release for one of your movies?
Once we acquire a movie, we have a theatrical booker that focuses on that stuff. Basically, he has the relationships with the venues and their programmers, and he presents them with what we have going on and they see if it might make sense for their audiences. So it’s us doing some persuading sometimes, but it’s mostly us presenting movies that we think could work for them. When we’re bringing a movie out, we’ll talk to the majority, if not all, of the theaters in New York to see who might be the best fit for it. Does this movie go uptown or downtown? Does it go both? Does it go to Brooklyn to the Alamo, where there’s much more of a focus on genre? It’s about figuring out where it might make sense and who would respond to it. We do that across the country.
One thing I noticed is that you have a lot of female filmmakers on your slate. Is that something you’re actively trying to cultivate?
Nope. They’re great filmmakers. We’re looking for great filmmakers, and a lot of them happen to be women.
Are there specific traits that Adam Yauch looked for in movies that are still present in what Oscilloscope looks for today?
Yeah, definitely. Adam’s taste was really eclectic. He liked everything from comedies to arthouse cinema to documentary, and I think the fact we run the gamut in terms of what we release is very much in line with what Adam saw in film. He was the guy who had the “And-1 Mix Tape,” kung fu movies, and The Godfather all next to each other on the shelf. Things have obviously changed a lot, but his vision is still in our minds and we work towards that as much as we possibly can. When we watched The Fits, one of the things we first said was, “This is the kind of movie we were created for. This is why we exist.” | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 35 | https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/film-and-tv-drama/technical/digital-imaging-technician-film-and-tv-drama/ | en | Digital imaging technician (also known as DIT) in the film and TV drama industries | [
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] | null | [] | null | How to become a digital imaging technician. | en | /favicon.ico?v=3 | ScreenSkills | https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/film-and-tv-drama/technical/digital-imaging-technician-film-and-tv-drama/ | How do I become a digital imaging technician?
Typically, digital imaging technicians work their way up through the camera department. A good route into this is through becoming a camera trainee. ScreenSkills and the Guild of British Camera Technicians both run trainee schemes. Follow these steps for your best chance of being successful in an application.
At school or college:
If you want to go to university take A-levels or Highers in a combination that includes art, art and design or graphic communication with maths and physics. Or you might want to take one of the following Level 3 vocational qualifications:
BTEC National Diploma/Extended Diploma in Art and Design
BTEC National Extended Diploma in Creative Digital Media Production
NCFE Applied General Certificate in Art and Design
UAL Applied General Diploma/Extended Diploma in Art and Design
If you want to go straight into a job or apprenticeship, the following qualifications Level 3 vocational qualifications are relevant:
BTEC National Diploma in Film and Television Production
BTEC National Diploma in Photography OCR Technical Diploma in Digital Media (Moving Image and Audio Production)
UAL Diploma/Extended Diploma in Art and Design
UAL Diploma/Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production and Technology
Get an apprenticeship:
An apprenticeship is a job with training, so it’s a great opportunity to earn while you learn. However, it can be challenging to find jobs as an apprentice with production companies as many are not able to take on people for a whole year, which is an apprenticeship requirement at the moment. But in England, there’s a Level 3 apprenticeship as a photographic assistant. You might be able to find a job through that standard with an employer in another sector, such as a government department or digital media company. Think about taking that job, learning the core skills of photography and transferring those skills into film and TV drama at a later point.
Check out What’s an apprenticeship? to learn more about apprenticeships and find an apprenticeship to learn how to find one in your region, or approach companies directly. Go to ScreenSkills information on apprenticeships for the main apprenticeship schemes in film and television.
Make a portfolio:
Learn about digital photography, both still and moving images. Make some films showing your ability to shoot and grade. Look at our advice on how to build a portfolio. A portfolio is essential for impressing admissions tutors and people in the film and TV drama industries.
Work for an equipment company:
Get your hands on as much gear as you can and learn how it works. Contact an equipment rental company like Panavision, Provision or ARRI Rentals. Ask if you can become a kit runner or driver for them. That way you will get to learn more about the kit and build up contacts. See our advice on approaching employers to learn how to do this.
Get a degree:
It’s not essential by any means, but if you want a degree, have a look at ScreenSkills’ list of recommended courses in film and TV. We recognise courses with our ScreenSkills Select award where they offer training in the relevant software, dedicated time to building a portfolio and have strong links with the film and TV industries.
Network:
Go to ScreenSkills’ events, such as Open Doors, where you can meet people who work in the industry. Give people in the camera department your details and ask if you can do work experience. Look at our page that explains how to network well.
Network online:
Create a LinkedIn profile. See if there’s a Facebook page or other social media group for people making films or videos in your area. Join it. Create a ScreenSkills profile.
Become a trainee:
Apply to be a camera trainee or floor runner with ScreenSkills’ Trainee Finder scheme. There are also schemes offered by the Guild of British Camera Technicians.
You might also be interested in…
Being a digital imaging technician in the unscripted TV industry.
Further resources | ||||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_distributors_by_country | en | List of film distributors by country | https://en.wikipedia.org/static/favicon/wikipedia.ico | https://en.wikipedia.org/static/favicon/wikipedia.ico | [
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This is a list of motion picture distributors, past and present, sorted alphabetically by country.
Albania
Constantin Film
United International Pictures
Argentina
Star Distribution
Warner Bros.
Sony Pictures[1]
Fox Distribution Company
United International Pictures
Argentina Sono Film
Artistas Unidos
Cinema International Corporation
Columbia Pictures of Argentina
Lumiton
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Paramount Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures de Argentina
Universal Films Argentina
Warner-Columbia Films
Australia
20th Century Studios/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Antidote Films
Film Australia
Hoyts Distribution/Sony Pictures Releasing
Leap Frog Films
Lionsgate Australia
Madman Entertainment
Palace Films and Cinemas
Paramount Pictures/Universal Pictures
Titan View
Transmission Films
Roadshow Films
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Brazil
Star Distribution
Warner Bros.
Sony
Fox Distribution Company
Columbia Pictures
United International Pictures
Canada
Alliance Films
Astral Films
Brightlight Pictures
Cinexus/Famous Players (C/FP)
Elevation Pictures
Entertainment One
Malofilm
Mongrel Media
Multiple Media Entertainment
National Film Board of Canada
Phase 4 Films (owned by Entertainment One)
Les Films Séville (owned by Entertainment One)
Teletoon
Warner Bros.
VVS Films
China
Alibaba Pictures
August First Film Studio
Beijing Enlight Pictures
Bona Film Group
China Film Co., Ltd.
China Film Group
DMG Entertainment
Fantasy Pictures
Huaxia Film Distribution
Huayi Brothers
Lian Ray Pictures
Le Vision Pictures
New Classics Pictures
Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Culture Media
Wanda Pictures
Denmark
Nordisk Film
Buena Vista International Denmark
Finland
Finnkino
SF Film Finland
France
AMLF
BAC Films
Gaumont
Metropolitan Filmexport
Pan-Européenne
Pathé
SND Films
StudioCanal
UGC
UGC Fox Distribution
United International Pictures
Germany and Austria
20th Century Studios
Constantin Film
Sony Pictures Releasing
Filmdelights[2]
Filmverlag der Autoren
Kinowelt
Tobis
Sascha-Film
Senator Film
Stadtkino
Paramount Pictures Germany/Universal Pictures Germany
Universum Film
The Walt Disney Company Austria GmbH
RKO Radio Pictures GmbH
Warner Bros.
Wild Bunch
Hong Kong
Cinema City International
Golden Harvest
JCE Movies Limited
Media Asia
Mei Ah Entertainment
Shaw Brothers Pictures
Universe Entertainment
India
A For Apple Productions
AA Films
Aascar Film Pvt. Ltd
AVM Productions
Black Ticket Company
Dharma Productions
Eros International
Excel Entertainment
Grass Root Film Company
Kalasangham Films
Maxlab Cinemas and Entertainments
Neelam Productions
PVR Pictures
Rajshri Productions
Red Chillies Entertainment
Red Giant Movies
Reliance Entertainment
Sahara Movie Studios
Shemaroo Entertainment
Star Studios
Tips Music Films
Ultra Media & Entertainment
UTV Motion Pictures
Viacom18 Studios
Yash Raj Films
YM Movies
YSR Films
Zee Studios
Action Reaction Jenish
Red Giant Movies
Italy
Artex Film
Artisti Associati
Cineriz
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Filmauro
Lux Film
Metacinema
Penta
Sony Pictures
Titanus
Warner Bros.
01 Distribution
Rai Cinema
Japan
Bandai Visual
Toho
Toei
Shochiku
Kadokawa Shoten
Korea, South
CJ Entertainment
Lotte Entertainment
Next Entertainment World
Showbox
Malaysia
Golden Screen Cinemas
Tanjong Golden Village
MBO Cinemas
Mexico
Filmex
Videocine
Netherlands
20th Century Studios
BBI Films
Benelux Film Distributors
Buena Vista International (Germany)
Fortissimo Films
Lionsgate International
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Paramount Pictures
Sony Pictures
Universal Pictures International
Warner Bros. (Holland)
Nigeria
Silverbird Film Distribution
Pakistan
A-Plus Films
ARY Films
Geo Films
Hum Films
Summit Entertainment Pakistan
Eveready Pictures
TVOne Films
Urdu 1 Pictures
Philippines
ABS-CBN Film Productions Inc. (d/b/a Star Cinema)
Crystal Sky Multimedia
OctoArts Films/Axinite Digicinema
Paramount Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment
Pioneer Films/Lionsgate Films
Rafella Films International
Regal Entertainment/Reality Entertainment
Solar Pictures
Viva International Pictures/MVP Entertainment
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Warner Bros./Universal Studios
Portugal
Castello Lopes
Lusomundo
NOS Audiovisuais
Russia
Soyuzmultfilm
Bazelevs Distribution
Universal Pictures Russia
Walt Disney Studios/Sony Pictures Releasing
20th Century Studios
Caro Premiere/Warner Bros.
Lenfilm
Central Partnership/Paramount Pictures
Mosfilm
Singapore
Cathay Organisation
Golden Village
Shaw Organisation
Sri Lanka
Lyca Production
Manons cine combine
Aiswariya Films
Sweden
Buena Vista International
Lionsgate Sweden
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Sandrew Metronome
Sonet Film
Sony Pictures
Svensk Filmindustri
Svenska Filminstitutet
20th Century Studios
United International Pictures
Warner Bros.
Thailand
GDH 559/GMM Tai Hub
M Pictures
Sahamongkol Film International
United International Pictures
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/20th Century Studios/Sony Pictures Releasing
Warner Bros.
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Vietnam
CJ CGV
West Asia/North Africa
General Organization for Cinema (Syria)
Gulf Film
Rotana | ||||
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] | 2024-07-12T14:06:28+00:00 | 10 Items or Less is a 2006 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Brad Silberling and starring Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega. Shot in fifteen days, 10 Items or Less made its release as a digital download – the first such release via the Internet – while it was still in theaters... | en | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/filmguide/images/4/4a/Site-favicon.ico/revision/latest?cb=20230313154015 | Moviepedia | https://movies.fandom.com/wiki/10_Items_or_Less | 10 Items or Less is a 2006 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Brad Silberling and starring Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega. Shot in fifteen days, 10 Items or Less made its release as a digital download – the first such release via the Internet – while it was still in theaters.
ClickStar, founded by Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary, made the film available digitally on December 15, 2006, fourteen days after its theatrical debut. This event was highlighted by the American Film Institute in their AFI Awards 2006 "Moments of Significance".
Premise[]
Through circumstance, two strangers, an actor (Freeman) preparing for an upcoming role and a cashier (Vega), drive around Los Angeles together, having a number of conversations about life and exploring the differences and similarities between their worlds.
Cast[]
Morgan Freeman as Him
Paz Vega as Scarlet
Kumar Pallana as Lee
Jonah Hill as Packy
Anne Dudek as Lorraine
Bobby Cannavale as Bobby
Jim Parsons as Receptionist at Construction Company
Production[]
Revelation Entertainment produced the film, and Morgan Freeman served as executive producer. The film was shot in fifteen days, entirely in Carson and Brentwood.
Reception[]
Box office[]
The film was released in only fifteen theaters, taking in $35,929 in its first weekend. The total domestic box-office take was $83,291. The film was more successful internationally, grossing $1,315,931 at the international box office, with $486,895 grossed in Vega's home country of Spain.
Critical response[]
Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader, called the film "A friendly demonstration of how two actors with charisma and a relaxed writer-director (Brad Silberling) can make a nice movie for practically nothing." In contrast, Desson Thomson, of The Washington Post, believes that the film is "a natural but failed experiment about a pleasant encounter in the style of independent films". Robert Koehler of Variety wrote: " Interplay between a jaunty Freeman as an unemployed movie star and the magnetic Paz Vega as a no-nonsense grocery store checker gives pic humanity and lift."
Critical reaction to the film was mixed, with general praise for the work of the two main actors. On Rotten Tomatoes the film had a 63% approval rating based on 60 reviews. On Metacritic it has a score of 54% based on reviews from 20 critics.
Accolades[]
The film was named one of the "Top Independent Films of 2006" by the National Board of Review.
Home media[]
The DVD was released in the U.S. on April 24, 2007. It includes commentary by Silberling, a featurette on 'the making of', 6 deleted scenes, and 3 promotional shorts.
Soundtrack[]
Although a soundtrack was not officially released, the following songs were included in the film: | ||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 59 | https://www.documentary.org/feature/guide-documentary-distributors | en | A Guide to Documentary Distributors | https://www.documentary.org/themes/custom/ida_bootstrap_sass/images/favicon.ico | https://www.documentary.org/themes/custom/ida_bootstrap_sass/images/favicon.ico | [
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] | null | [] | 2020-03-06T18:16:35-08:00 | Glossary of TermsAgents: Represent works for a fee to distributors or to broadcast/cable/satellite outlets.Broadcasters/Cable-Satellite Programming Distributors: These entities buy and produce documentaries for transmission over the air (broadcasters such as ABC, NBC, PBS, etc.), via cable (cable programming companies such as A&E, HBO), satellite distributors (such as Canal+, DirectTV). They sometimes also distribute to the home video (and educational) markets. | en | /themes/custom/ida_bootstrap_sass/images/favicon.ico | International Documentary Association | https://www.documentary.org/feature/guide-documentary-distributors | Glossary of Terms
Agents: Represent works for a fee to distributors or to broadcast/cable/satellite outlets.
Broadcasters/Cable-Satellite Programming Distributors: These entities buy and produce documentaries for transmission over the air (broadcasters such as ABC, NBC, PBS, etc.), via cable (cable programming companies such as A&E, HBO), satellite distributors (such as Canal+, DirectTV). They sometimes also distribute to the home video (and educational) markets.
Broadcast/Cable-Satellite Distributors: These distributors sell television/cable/satellite rights to broadcast, cable and satellite outlets. Many theatrical, home video and educational distributors also do this. Rights are broken up in the following manner: “Worldwide,” “English Language,” “US and Canada Only,” etc. These distributors sell to the broadcast, cable and satellite programming distributors at trade shows such as NAB, MIPCOM, MIPDOC, Cannes, etc.
Educational Distributors: Also know as non-theatrical distributors. They manufacture copies of works on video, DVD and film and sell to educational institutions such as churches, schools, businesses, etc. They sell works with a “Public Performance” license. They may promote to these markets using catalogues, websites, etc. Some educational distributors have thousands of titles, and others handle just a few. Many specialize in specific market areas such as College and Library or LGBT, or specialize by subject areas such as Environmental, etc.
Home Video Distributors: These distributors manufacture copies of works and sell them directly to consumers or to consumers via retailers and cataloguers. They also sell to wholesalers who work with stores.
Independent Theatrical Distributors: These are specialized divisions of large companies and smaller companies that release independent films to theaters and usually home video.
Producers Representatives: (also known as “Reps”) see “Agents”
Studios: Multi-national entertainment conglomerates such as Warner Bros., Disney, Paramount, MGM/UA, Universal and Twentieth Century-Fox. They generally can handle distribution on a global basis for all rights.
Syndicators: Distributors that make rights available to broadcast/cable/satellite outlets
Theatrical Distributors: Make works available in film and video formats to theaters, which are open to the public, advertise and charge admission.
Major Studios/Theatrical Distributors (Revenues over $100 Million) and Subsidiaries:
Alliance Atlantis
(see also Lions Gate)
121 Bloor St. East, Ste. 1400
Toronto, Ontario M4W 3M5
Canada
Tel: 416.967.1174
www.allianceatlantis.com
Studio. Distributes documentaries from time to time
Artisan Entertainment
157 Chambers St.
New York, NY 10007
Tel: 212.386.6879
Office also in Los Angeles
Tel: 310.449.9200
www.artisanent.com/
Studio. High-profile documentaries
Columbia Tristar
(see also Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Tel: 310.280.8000
www.sonypictures.com/start.html
Studio
Fine Line Features
(see also New Line [a division of AOL/TimeWarner])
116 N. Robertson. Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Tel: 310.967.6420
www.flf.com/
Studio
Focus Features
Studio part of USA/Universal
100 N. Crescent Dr.
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Tel: 310.385.4488
65 Bleecker St.
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212.539.4000
www.focusfeatures.com/
Fox Searchlight Pictures
(see also Twentieth Century Fox [a division of News Corporation])
www.foxsearchlight.com/
HBO
Division of AOL/Time Warner
1100 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Offices in Los Angeles, CA
Tel: 212.512.7400; 800.648.7650
www.hbo.com/
Home video (in some cases, when it does the cable release)
Cable Network
Independent Film Channel Films (IFC)
11 Penn Plaza, 15th fl.
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 646.273.7205
www.ifctv.com/
Cable network, Distributor
Lions Gate Entertainment
(see also Atlantis Alliance)
4553 Glencoe Avenue #200
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
Tel: 310.314.2000
www.lionsgatefilms.com
Independent features, TV, animation
Studio (division of Atlantis Alliance)
MCA/Universal Home Video
(see also FOCUS; was USA)
Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
Tel: 818.777.4300; 818.733.0226;
www.mca.com/
Studio
MGM/UA
MGM Home Entertainment, Inc.
MGM Plaza, 2500 Broadway
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Tel: 310.449.3000
New York Address:
1350 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10019
Tel: 212.408.0500
Studio
www.mgmua.com/index.html
Miramax
(also Dimension Films)
55 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 212.941.3800
Additional Office in LA
Home video (distributed by Buena Vista Home Entertainment)
Tel: 323.822.4100
www.miramax.com/
www.dimensionfilms.com
Studio (division of Disney)
New Line Home Video
(division of AOL Time Warner)
Tel: 310.967.6670
www.flf.com/index.html
Studio
(distributes via Warner Bros.)
Paramount Pictures
(also Paramount Classics)
5555 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Tel: 323.956.5000
www.paramount.com/
Studio (owned by Viacom)
Sony Pictures Classics
550 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Tel: 212.833.8833
www.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyMovies/index.html
Sony Pictures Entertainment
(also Tristar Productions, Sony Pictures Classics)
10202 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232
Tel: 310.244.4000
www.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyMovies/index.html
Turner Home Entertainment Company
(also Turner Classic Movies [TCM])
1888 Century Park East
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Tel: 310.788.6767
Tel: 404.827.3066; 800.523.0823
www.tcm.turner.com/
Broadcaster division of AOL/Time Warner (not theatrical)
Home video folded into Warner Home Video; sells clips to studios.
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
(see also Fox Searchlight)
10201 W Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035
Tel: 310.369.1000
www.fox.com/
Division of News Corporation
Universal Studios
(see also FOCUS and Universal Home Video)
100 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
Tel: 818.777.1000
www.universalstudios.com/homepage/flash/
Studio division of Vivendi
Walt Disney Studios (Buena Vista)
(also Disney Pictures, Disney Home Video, Disney Publishing)
500 S Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521
Tel: 818.560.1000
www.disney.com/
Studio
Warner Brothers
(also PBS Home Video, Warner Home Video)
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91505
Tel: 818.954.5000
www.warnerbros.com/
Division of AOL Time Warner
Documentary Theatrical, Broadcast Television, Cable, Home Video and Educational Distributors and Agents (Except as noted, all are based in the US)
A&E Home Video
(with History, Biography and A&E Channels)
Tel: 888.423.1212
www.aande.com
Broadcaster of documentaries, literary classics (not theatrical)
Anchor Bay Entertainment
A division of the Handleman Company
Tel: 248.816.0909
www.anchorbayentertainment.com
Feature films, kids videos, fitness, special interest home video
Acorn Media
7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 350
Bethesda, MD 20814
Tel: 800.999.0212
www.acornmedia.com
British, documentaries, special interest home video
Adler Media, Inc.
6849 Old Dominion Drive, Ste. 360
McLean, VA 22101
Tel: 703.556.8880
www.adlermediatv.com/index.html
Home video, broadcast agents
African American Videos
755 O'Farrell St. #309
San Francisco, CA 94115
Tel: 877.467.1735
www.amvideos.com:80/index.html
Educational video catalog service catalog with a selection of videos exploring the Black experience
Aims Multimedia
(formerly the Media Guild)
9710 DeSoto Ave.
Chatsworth, CA 91311-4409
Tel: 800.367-2467; 818.773.4300
www.aimsmultimedia.com
Educational distributor
Altschul Group Corporation
1560 Sherman Ave., Suite 100
Evanston, IL 60201-9971
Tel: 800.323.9084; 708.328.6700
www.agcmedia.com/
Parent company of multiple educational distributors
Ambrose Video Publishing Inc.
1290 Avenue of the Americas, Ste. 2245
New York, NY 10104
Tel: 800.526.4663
www.ambrosevideo.com/
Educational and home video distributor. Documentaries and educational videos for schools, libraries and other institutions. Sciences, social studies, health, BBC Shakespeare series
Aquarius Health Care Videos
266 Main St., Ste. 3313
Medfield , MA 02052
Tel: 888.440.2963
www.aquariusproductions.com
Educational distributor
Arthur Cantor Video Collection
1501 Broadway, Ste. 403
New York, NY 10036
Tel: 800.237.3801
www.arthurcantor.com/film.htm
Educational and limited theatrical distributor. Film classics, Jewish heritage, art, music, world cultures
ArtsAmerica, Inc.
9 Benedict Pl.
Greenwich, CT 06830-5321
Tel: 800.553.5278; 203.869.4694
www.artsAmerica.com
Educational distributor of over 500 titles on art, artists and art history
Artistic License
250 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10107
Tel: 212.265.9119
www.artlic.com
Theatrical and home video doc features, sales.
BMG Entertainment
LA- and NY-based
Tel: 212.930.4000
www.bmg.com
Home video music, some docs (not theatrical)
Baxley Media Group
110 West Main St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Tel: 800.421.6999
www.baxleymedia.com/
Educational distributor. Over 100 programs in psychological and ethical issues in health care, programs for schools and businesses
Benchmark Media
569 No. State Rd.
Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510
Tel: 800.438.5564; 914.762.3838
benchmedia@aol.com
No website
Educational distributor
Brentwood Communications
www.brentwoodvideo.com
Tel: 845 267-2459
Home video distributo. martial arts, urban, special interest
Bridgestone Multimedia Group
Excalibur Films
3621 W. Commonwealth
Fullerton, CA 92833
Tel: 800.BUY.MOVIES
800-buy-movies.com/studios/dvd-BMG.htm800.523.0988
Home video distributor. Family, inspirational, adult titles
Bullfrog Films, Inc.
PO Box 149
Oley, PA 19547
Tel: 800.543.3764; 610.779.8226
www.bullfrogfilms.com
Traditional educational distributor. Strong collection on environment, ecology, sustainable development and indigenous people
California Newsreel
500 3rd St., Ste. 505
San Francisco, CA 94107
Tel: 415.284.7800
www.newsreel.org
Nonprofit, educational video distributor. African-American video, African video, video on the workplace, and media and society
Cambridge Documentary Films, Inc.
PO Box 390385
Cambridge, MA 02139-0004
Tel: 617.484.3993
www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org/
Specialized educational distributor
Carousel Film & Video
250 Fifth Ave., Suite 204
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 800.683.1660
www.carouselfilms.com/
Specialized educational distributor
Chip Taylor Communications
2 East View Dr.
Derry, NH 03038
Tel: 603.434.9262; 800.876.2447
www.chiptaylor.com
Educational distributor. 1,500 titles in all subject areas
Clearvue/eav
formerly Center Productions, Inc. & Churchill Films, Inc.
6465 North Avondale Ave.
Chicago, IL 60631-1996
Tel: 800CLEARVU (253.2788)
www.clearvue.com/
Educational distributor
Cowboy Pictures
13 Laight St., 6th Flr.
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 212.925.7800
www.cowboybi.com
Theatrical and home distribution of doc features
The Criterion Collection
Tel: 773.878.2600
www.criterionco.com
Special edition DVDs
CRM Films
2215 Faraday Ave.
Carlsbad, CA 92008
Tel: 800.421.0833; 619.431.9800
www.crmfilms.com/
Educational distributor. Over 400 video titles with topics focusing on business training works
CS Associates
22 Weston Rd.
Lincoln, MA 01773
Tel: 781.259.9988
www.csassociates.com/
Broadcast cable distributor. Represents works to broadcasters worldwide
Devillier Donegan Enterprises
4401 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: 202.686.3980
www.ddegroup.com
Finances documentaries and markets rights to these works
DSR, Inc.
9111 Guilford Rd.
Columbia, MD 21046
Tel: 301.490.3500
www.dsr-inc.com/DSR2/AFRICAN/FILM/film.htm
Educational distributor. African social message films and videos.
Direct Cinema Ltd.
PO Box 10003
Santa Monica, CA 90410
Tel: 800.525.0000; 310.636.8200
www.directcinemalimited.com (educational)
www.directcinema.com (home video)
Limited theatrical, home video and educational distribution of documentary shorts, series, features
Documentary Educational Resources (DER)
101 Morse St.
Watertown, MA 02172
Tel: 800.569.6621; 617.926.0491
www.der.org
Educational distributor of films and videos in broadly defined areas of anthropology, ethnography, sociology
Electronic Arts Intermix
535 West 22nd St., 5th floor
New York, NY 10011
Tel: 212.337.0680
www.eai.org
Educational distributor. Avant-garde and experimental film and video, performance works, video art
Emerging Pictures
245 W. 55th St., 4th Flr.
New York, NY 10019
Tel: 212.245.6767
www.emergingpictures.com
Acquires and distributes documentaries, theatrical and home video
Ergo Media, Inc.
668 American Legion Dr, PO Box 2037
Teaneck, NJ 07666-1437
Tel: 800.695.ERGO (3746)
www.jewishvideo.com
Educational and home video distributor. Judaism and Jewish culture, Jewish Diaspora, Israel
Facets Video
1517 W. Fullerton Ave.
Chicago, IL 60614
Tel: 800.888.0775
www.facets.org
Educational (limited) and home video distributor. Foreign, independent, documentaries
Fanlight Productions
4196 Washington St., Ste. 2
Boston, MA 02131
Tel: 617.469.4999
www.fanlight.com
Educational distributor. Health care, mental health, disabilities, gerontology, the workplace, family issues and sex roles
Filmakers Library, Inc.
124 East 40th St.
New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212.808.4980
www.filmakers.com/index.html
Educational distributor. Collection of award-winning documentary films and videos primarily for educational use
Film Ideas
3710 Commercial Ave.
Northbrook, IL 60062
Tel: 800.475.3456; 847.480.5760
www.filmideas.com
Educational distributor
The Film-Makers' Cooperative
108 Leonard St., 13th Flr.
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 212. 267.5665
www.film-makerscoop.com/
Educational and limited home video. Largest distributor of experimental and avant-garde films
Films Transit International
402 East Notre Dame #100
Montreal H2Y 1C8 Canada
Tel: 514.844.3358
www.filmstransit.com
Canadian-based sales agent for television, cable and other rights
Films for the Humanities & Sciences
PO Box 2053
Princeton, NJ 08543-2053
Tel: 800.257.5126; 609.275.1400
www.films.com
Educational and home video distributor One of the largest educational distributor with thousands of titles. Handles selected educational docs
First Light Video Publishing
2321 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
Tel: 310.577.8581
www.firstlightvideo.com
Educational and home video distributor specializing in videos that deal with media arts
First Run Features
153 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10014
Tel: 800.229.8575
www.firstrunfeatures.com
Educational, home video distributor. Also limited theatrical documentaries, gay/lesbian
Fox Lorber Home Video
(see Windstar)
Frameline
346 9th St.
San Francisco, Ca 94103
Tel: 415.703.8650
www.frameline.org/
Educational and home video distributor. Exhibition, distribution, promotion and funding of lesbian and gay film and video
Goldhil Video
137 East Thousand Oaks Bl.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360
Tel: 800.250.8760
www.goldhil.com/
Specialized mass market home video distributor
Home Vision Entertainment
Home Vision Entertainment
4423 North Ravenswood Ave.
Chicago, IL 60640-5802
Tel: 773.878.2600
www.homevision.com
Home video distributor. Foreign, arthouse, independents, documentaries, Criterion Collection
Icarus Films (and First Run Features)
32 Court St., 21st Flr.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tel: 800.876.1710; 718.488.8900
www.frif.com/
Large educational/theatrical(First Run Features) distributor of both curricular and non-curricular docs
Image Entertainment
9333 Oso Avenue
Chatsworth, CA 91311
Tel: 818.407.9100
www.image-entertainment.com/
Largest licensee and distributor of laserdiscs in North America, Also does DVD home video.
Insight Media
2162 Broadway
New York, NY 10024
Tel: 800.233.9910; 212.721.6316
insight-media.com/IMHome.htm
Educational distributor of videos
Instructional Video
25958 Genesee Trail Rd., Unit K-332
Golden, CO 80401-5742
Tel: 303.526.4240
www.insvideo.com/
Educational distributor. Large collection of educational videos
Janson Associates, Inc.
88 Semmens Rd.
Harrington Park, NJ 07640
Tel: 201.784.8488
www.janson.com
Education and home video distributor and broadcast sales. Small collection of special interest docs
Kino International Corp.
333 W. 39th St., Ste. 503
New York, NY 10018
Tel: 800.562.3330
www.kino.com
Education, home video and theatrical distribution. Foreign, independent, documentary films
Kultur Video
(also White Star Video)
195 Highway 36
West Long Beach, NJ 07764
Tel: 800.458.5887
www.kulturvideo.com
Home video performing arts programs, with emphasis on music, dance, art, ballet and opera
L & S Video, Inc.
45 Stornowaye
Chappaqua, NY
Tel: 914.238.9366
www.landsvideo.com/
Educational and home video distribution. African-American artists’ documentaries on both art history contemporary arts
Landmark Media
3450 Slade Run Dr.
Falls Church, VA 22042
Tel: 703.241.2030; 800.342.4336
www.landmarkmedia.com/
Educational distributor of K-12, library and college film.
Live Wire Media
3450 Sacramento St.
San Francisco, CA 94118
Tel: 415.564.9500; 800.359.KIDS
www.livewiremedia.com/
Educational distributor for grades K-12
Lucerne Media
37 Ground Pine Rd.
Morris Plains, NJ 07950
Tel: 800.341.2293
www.lucernemedia.com/
Specialized educational distributor
Media for the Arts
360 Thames St.
Newport, RI 02840
Tel: 800.554.6008
www.art-history.com
Educational distributor. Focus on films dealing with the arts
Milestone Film & Video
PO Box 128
Harrington Park, NJ 07640-0128
Tel: 800.603.1104
www.milestonefilms.com
Home video distributor. Independent, art house, silent films, limited theatrical
Monterey Media Inc.
566 Saint Charles Dr.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360
Tel: 800.934.4336
www.montereymedia.com
Home video distributor. Grateful Dead, American Playhouse
MPI Media Group
16101 South 108th Ave.
Orland Park, IL 60462
Tel: 800.777.2223; 708.460.0555
www.mpimedia.com
Specialized distributor of documentary and other works. Mass market collection
MPI Home Video
16101 South 108th Ave.
Orland Park, IL 60462
Tel: 708.460.0555
www.mpihomevideo.com
Home video distributor—Kids video, TV, music, movies, educational.
Mypheduh Film, Inc.
PO Box 10035
Washington, DC 20018-0035
Tel: 800.524.3895; 202.234.4755
www.melanet.com/Sankofa/
Educational and home video distributor. African-American cinema and documentary films
Mystic Fire Video
PO Box 422
New York, NY 10012-0008
Tel: 800.292.9001
www.mysticfire.com/
Home video distributor. New age documentaries
National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA)
Formerly: CrossCurrent Media
346 Ninth St., 2nd Fl.
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel: 415.552.9550
www.naatanet.org/distrib/index.html
Educational distributor. Largest provider of Asian-American audio/visual materials in the world, with over 70 film, video and audio cassette titles
National Geographic
1145 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202.857.7000
Contact: Educational Video Department
Acquires rights to appropriate works for educational and/or home video distribution.
New Day Films
22-D Hollywood Ave.
Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ 07423
Tel: 888.367.9154; 201.652.6590
www.newday.com
Educational and some home video distribution. Long surviving self-distribution/co-op; outstanding documentaries and other works
New Video
126 Fifth Ave 15th Flr,
New York, NY 10011
Tel: 800.314.8822
www.newvideo.com
Home video distribution lines include A&E, MTM, NBC News
New Yorker Video
16 W. 61st St., 11th flr.
New York, NY 10023
Tel: 212.247.6110
www.newyorkerfilms.com
Home video distributor. Foreign, US independent films
Polygram Video (PV)
825 8th Ave.
New York, NY 10019
Tel: 212.333.8000; 800.825.7781
www.reellife.com/polygram/
not a theatrical distributor
Pyramid Media
PO Box 1048
Santa Monica, CA 90406-1048
Tel: 310.828.7577; 800.421.2304
www.pyramidmedia.com
High-end traditional educational distributor
Questar Video, Inc.
(also owns New Dimension Media)
PO Box 11345
680 N. Lake Shore Dr., Ste. 900
Chicago, IL 60611-0345
Tel: 800.544.8422; 312.266.9400
www.questar1.com/
Broad collection of historical and other docs. Mass market home video
Home video distributor
RKO Pictures and RKO Home Video
1875 Century Park East, Suite 2140
Los Angeles, CA 90067-2522
Tel: 310.277.3133; 800.321.1526 (orders only)
www.rko.com/noflash_movies.html
Not theatrical
Rainbow Educational Media
4540 Preslyn Dr.
Raleigh, NC 27604-3177
Tel: 800.331.4047
www.rainbowedumedia.com/
Educational distributor. School and library works
Rhapsody Films
46-2 Becket Hill Road
Lyme, CT 06371
Tel: 860.434.3610
www.cinemaweb.com/rhapsody/
Specialized home video distributor of music (specializes in jazz)
Rhino Home Video
10635 Santa Monica Blvd., 2nd Fl.
Los Angeles, CA 90025-4900
Tel: 310.474.4778; 800.843.3670
www.rhino.com
Home video distributor, division of AOL Time Warner. Strong music and specialized mass market works
Roland Collection
22-D Hollywood Ave.
Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ 07423
Tel: 800.597.6526; 201.251.8200
www.roland-collection.com
Home and educational video distributor. International collection of films.
Roxie Cinema Releasing
3125 16th St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tel: 415.863.1087
www.roxie.com
Theatrical and home video distributor. Specialized distributor of doc and fiction features
Seventh Art Releasing
7551 Sunset Blvd., Ste. 104
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Tel: 323.845.1455
www.7thart.com
Broadcast and limited home video and theatrical distributor. Releases small number of docs in theaters and on home video annually
Shanachie Entertainment
37 E. Clinton St.
Newton, NJ 07860
Tel: 973.579.7763
www.shanachie.com/
Home video distributor. Focus on music
Showtime Entertainment
Tel: 310.234.5416
www.sho.com/shoshop2002
Showtime Network, home video distributor. Original films and series
SISU Home Entertainment Inc.
Tel: 800.223.SISU
www.sisuent.com
Home and educational distributor. Jewish, Israeli, music
Solid Entertainment
610 Santa Monica Blvd., Ste. 204
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Tel: 310.319.3440
www.solidentertainment.com/
International broadcast distributor of documentary programs
Strand Releasing Home Video
1460 Fourth St., Ste. 302
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Tel: 310.395.5002
www.strandreleasing.com
Independent, foreign features, theatrical and home video
SFM Entertainment
1180 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Tel: 212.398.4496
Television syndication and sales
Terra Nova Films
9848 South Winchester Ave.
Chicago, IL 60643
Tel: 800.779.8491; 773.881.8491
www.terranova.org
Educational distributor. Strong collection of films on health
The Cinema Guild
130 Madison Ave., 2nd flr.
New York, NY 10016-7038
Tel: 800.723.5522; 212.685.6242
www.cinemaguild.com
Educational and home video distributor. Limited theatrical. Over 500 titles on health science, social studies, world cultures, arts and humanities, children's and young adult films, short fiction, how-to videos
THINKFilm
651 Greenwich Street, 7th Fl
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 646.214.7908
www.thinkfilmcompany.com
Theatrical and home video distributor
Third World Newsreel/Camera News, Inc.
545 Eighth Ave., 10th flr.
New York, NY 10018
Tel: 212.947.9277
www.twn.org/
One of the oldest nonprofit distributors of documentaries and other works
University of California Extension Center for Media & Independent Learning (CMIL)
(UC Extension Media)
2000 Center St., 4th flr.
Berkeley, CA 94704
Tel: 510.642.0460
ucmedia1.ucxonline.berkeley.edu/
Nonprofit distributor at University of California, Berkeley, with 600 documentaries and educational media titles for use in universities, schools, public libraries
United Learning
1560 Sherman Ave., Ste. 100
Evanston, IL 60201
Tel: 800.323.9084; 847.328.6700
www.unitedlearning.com/
Large educational distributor, all subject areas
Video Project
PO Box 77188
San Francisco, CA 94107
Tel: 800.4.Planet; 415.2840600
www.videoproject.net/ or www.actnowproductions.com/
Home video and educational distributor. Nonprofit social issue documentaries and educational films
Vision Video
PO Box 540
Worcester, PA 19490
Tel: 800.523.0226; 610.584.3500
www.gatewayfilms.com
Home video distributor. Christian films
Video Learning Library
15838 North 62nd St.
Scottsdale, AZ 85254-1988
Tel: 800.383.8811
www.videolearning.com
Educational and home video. How-to, special interest. Sub-distributes many titles in catalogue
Visual Learning Company
25 Union St.
Brandon, VT 05733
Tel: 800.453.8481
visuallearningco.com/index.html
Home video distributor. Small specialized video distributor
Wellspring
419 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212.686.6777
www.wellspringhomevideo.com
Home video and theatrical distributor. Special interest, documentaries
Wolfe Video
PO Box 64
New Almaden, CA 95042
Tel: 800.GET.WOLFE
www.wolfevideo.com
Home video distributor. Gay and lesbian-themed films
Women Make Movies
462 Broadway
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 212.925.0606
http://www.wmm.com/
Educational and limited theatrical distributor. Long-established nonprofit with outstanding documentary collection
Xenon Entertainment
1440 9th St.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Tel: 310.451.5510
www.xenon.com/
Home video distributor. Independent features, urban
Zeitgeist Films Ltd.
247 Centre St., 2nd flr.
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 800.509.0448|
www.zeitgeistvideo.com
Broadcast, theatrical and home video distributor. Arthouse, documentaries, foreign
Some theatrical.
Acknowledgements
The theatrical listing of studios and major home video companies is based on a number of different sources, including The Hollywood Reporter, Daily Variety, Video Business, the Film Forum and the UC Extension Media listings. The educational/home video section of the list is based on the list of distributors who participate in the National Media Market and the UC Extension Media listings. All listings have been verified from data on company websites. We regret any errors or omissions.
© 2002 All Rights Reserved Mitchell W. Block-This compilation may not be duplicated or reproduced without the consent of the author. | ||
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] | 2018-05-15T21:47:42.184000+00:00 | Representation in Hollywood is an issue by itself, but Asian representation in Hollywood is near non-existent. With the state of Hollywood being that black equates to “diversity” (despite there being… | en | https://miro.medium.com/v2/5d8de952517e8160e40ef9841c781cdc14a5db313057fa3c3de41c6f5b494b19 | Medium | https://medium.com/@moniqueblognet/being-asian-in-hollywood-actors-directors-and-creators-talk-representation-f69a89bfab15 | Whiteness as the default
Historically, Hollywood has used Asian locales and people as props, while white characters are given layered characteristics. In short, white characters have been treated as humans, while everyone and everything else are only developed in stereotypes.
The most recent examples of this include The Birth of the Dragon, in which a white character is used to frame Bruce Lee’s biopic, Doctor Strange, which sees Tilda Swinton playing an Asian role and Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, which is a white character used to exploit a stereotypical Asian mysticism, Ghost in the Shell, which uses Japanese culture to frame Scarlett Johansson as The Major and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel series, which features India as a backdrop for white characters and Dev Patel playing a stereotypical Indian character.
“What’s particularly silly about The Birth of the Dragon is that they invented a fictional white character thinking that that would be what North American audience would want,” wrote Quentin Lee, The Unbidden director and founder of Margin Films in an email interview. “The filmmakers obviously fell flat on their faces. Not only it wasn’t historically accurate for the story, the film ended up insulting Bruce Lee and the audience who would support it. It was a creative misfire.”
Chris Tashima, an Academy-winning director for the 1998 short film Visas and Virtue and co-founder of Cedar Grove Productions, wrote that while he hasn’t seen The Birth of the Dragon yet, he found the basis of the film “ridiculous.”
“It’s understandable, why this has been the practice — being that traditionally, decision makers have been white males, and like anyone else, will want to see stories about themselves, and that audiences have traditionally been thought of as young, white males,” he wrote. “However, all of that is changing. It has been changing for a while, and it’s easy to see where it’s going: towards a diverse world. That’s an old practice and you’d think Hollywood would want to project, and put themselves on the cutting edge, and be more inclusive. It’s old, and tired, and more and more, I think audiences will want to see something different, something more truthful.”
“I think the overarching theme that runs through how Hollywood/the West represents POCs has to do with the ease with which they are able to strip POCs of agency over their own stories,” wrote Kesav Wable, Brooklyn-based actor, writer, 2011 HBO American Black Film Festival finalist for his short film, For Flow and Sundance lab short-listed screenwriter for a script about a Pakistani boxer wrongfully accused of planning a terror attack.
“This may come across as a bit exaggerated or radical, but I do believe that there is a link between white imperialist concepts such as ‘manifest destiny’ and ‘white man’s burden,’ which validated a lot of the literal takings from POCs that happened throughout earlier periods in civilized history, and now, in a media-hungry world where information, content, and stories are the most valuable currencies, there is an analogous “taking” of the narratives that POCs have lived through. By depicting POC characters through the lens of a white character, it enables white audiences to keep POCs’ stories at arm’s length, and to not completely empathize with those characters because they are not given the complete human dignity and complexity that is afforded the white character.”
“Perhaps, this, in a way, damps down the guilt that white audiences may feel if the POCs stories/circumstances have to do with the literal takings that were exacted by their ancestors. Or it’s just good for a cheap laugh. The truly insidious effect of POCs being usurped from their own narratives is that, even many of us POCs begin to start viewing things through a white lens and stop questioning whether these stories truly represent who we are because of how pervasive white-controlled media is.”
Wable used the upcoming film Happy End, which is about a bourgeois European family living amid the current refugee crisis. “Granted, I haven’t seen the film, so it’d be presumptive of me to conclude that refugees are not conferred with dignity/complexity as characters, but the very thought that French filmmakers think that shining a light on a bourgeois family with the refugee crisis as a ‘backdrop’ can be instructive about their world, speaks volumes about what it is white people are most interested in; themselves,” he wrote. “In this case, apparently, the context is a rueful rumination on their own blindness to the refugees’ plight. Somehow the irony of the very film’s existence as a manifestation of that blindness seems to be lost on them.”
Mandeep Sethi, filmmaker and emcee, also discussed about Hollywood’s tendencies to erase non-white people from their own stories. “I think centralizing POC stories around white characters is Hollywood’s way of taking a black or brown story and making it about white people,” he said. “Our culture is full of amazing stories and histories and Hollywood loves to cherry pick what they like but leave out the real nitty gritty including the people who created, interacted, and setup that story.”
Sinakhone Keodara, founder CEO of Asian Entertainment Television and host of Asian Entertainment Tonight, wrote that Hollywood’s penchant for using whiteness as a default is “a heinous tradition that is long overdue for a change.”
“Rather than trying to normalize Asian presence on screen to a wide American audience, Hollywood often goes the tired, well-worn and ‘safe’ route of using a white character in an attempt to more easily relate the character to a majority white American audience. It’s cheap and unnecessary, because the proper and more effective way of relating a character to an audience is writing a character with emotional depth,” he said. “Ethnicity informs and colors our individual and community experiences, but emotion transcends ethnic boundaries. With political correctness aside, Hollywood needs to stop engaging in a form of neo-emotional and neo-psychological colonialism against people of color, especially Asians by injecting whiteness into our stories.”
“I think that centralizing PoC stories around white characters is always going to happen as long as the people telling these stories are white,” wrote Asia Jackson, an actress, model and content creator. “What Hollywood needs is not only diversity on-camera, but to also make greater efforts to allow filmmakers of color to tell their own stories.”
Jodi Long, an actress who was a castmember of the first Asian American TV sitcom All-American Girl and member of the actors branch of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, wrote that while whiteness as the default is the reality in Hollywood, a study shows a much needed change in film. “I just saw a new study The Inclusion Quotient done by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media where the reality in terms of box office is changing, where women and diverse actors in lead roles are now performing extremely well,” she wrote. “Money talks in Hollywood but we still have to get beyond the implicit (unconscious) bias that factors into which projects get greenlit based on outmoded ways of thinking.”
Kunjue Li, Ripper Street actress and founder of China Dolls Productions Ltd., also addressed how money rules Hollywood, despite Hollywood not making the audience demand actually work for them financially. “I don’t think [whitewashing] is the right thing to do, and second of all, I don’t think it’s very commercial,” she said. “…[I]f they want to sell to Chinese audiences, which is the second biggest film market, then they need to tell a Chinese story…I think you have to tell a Chinese story [with] a Chinese cast.”
“If the film [was] an an American-Chinese co-production, [it would] actually help with the film itself because then it doesn’t have to go through the quota system…which means that only 30 percent of foreign films are allowed to show in China markets every year. If they do it as a co-production, then they get 1/3 of Chinese funding, but they have to have 1/3 of a Chinese [cast]. They’ll have one-third of Chinese funding, they’ll have domestic showings, they don’t have to go through the quota system, it’s much more feasible. Commercially, [whitewashing] doesn’t even work. I don’t understand why people keep doing that.”
The pain of exoticism
From Fu Manchu to the Dragon Lady, from the mystic to the terrorist, Hollywood has embraced stereotypical, damaging stereotypes of Asian characters based in the xenophobic propaganda of the past.
“It’s a long, deep-rooted, embedded tradition, that has fed on itself, perpetuated itself, and has never had (until recently), any opposition, or motivation for change. It goes back before ‘Hollywood,’ to preceding forms of media or entertainment (literature, theatre, etc.),” wrote Tashima. “This country has been dominated by Eurocentric values throughout its history, so any truthful Asian voice or perspective has never had a chance to oppose, or offer any balance.”
Wable wrote that using these stereotypes isn’t just racist; it’s also lazy.
“The use of stereotypes to represent Asian characters is another manifestation of how POCs narratives are stripped of agency and dignity. It’s representative of an intellectual sloth on the part of white storytellers to deem any deeper examination of their Asian characters unwarranted because, most likely, the story isn’t about them in the first place,” he said.
“If the Asians serve as plot devices to further the white character’s narrative, the storyteller can treat them as an afterthought and revert to the stereotype as shorthand to achieve the desired effect. This tendency is very much tied up with the colonial structures that functioned as the mediums through which the white world interacted with Asians,” he said. “In most cases, it’s only been a hundred years or so that these structures gave way, at least formally, to independent nation states that went on to forge their own identities. But the structures have endured psychologically, both in the minds of the colonizer and the colonized (for e.g., the widespread use of fairness cream among brown Asians and Africans, as evidence of internalized racism). The consequence that this gaze brings with it w/ respect to brown Asian characters is that we are often represented as obsequious, bookish, goofy, creepy, emasculated (in the case of males), or exotic, helpless, prudish, jealous and naive (in the case of females).”
Sethi wrote about how today’s xenophobia has directly affected him.
“Brown Asian characters have historically been erased from the narratives, as well as dumbed down as if they do not play a significant role due to their brown skin. That is shameful,” he wrote. “Being a brown, turban wearing bearded man, I see the direct impact of that type of casting in my everyday life. I think that casting directors are controlled by those above them and no one is being creative. Obviously it’s easy to pin a brown man with a turban and a beard in that type of role. A real casting agent with real creativity will think outside the box and work to destroy that narrative that most people know is not true!”
Keodara wrote that the state of Asian representation in entertainment is something the industry has to reckon with. “Unconscious bias and ‘tradition,’ meaning some of our well-meaning ‘friends’ grew up in the same racist America and some of that bias is entrenched in [Hollywood’s] thinking, and secondly, it’s what they’ve done for a very long time and feel comfortable in continuing to do because as movie budgets grow bigger Hollywood feels the pressure to make ‘safer and safer’ choices and because status quo equals ‘safe,” he wrote. “If the American public is accustomed to seeing Asians in one way, then it’s cheap and easy to just let the continue to see what they’re used to. To be frank, I mean this as a condemnation of the American public. This is 2016, if you’re shelling out your hard-earned money to see movies that whitewashes Asian characters and turn the other cheek, then you’re just as guilty.”
With so much going wrong, how can change be made? First, it starts with recognizing that Asian America includes more than just descendants of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
“… ‘Asian” in Hollywood really means “East Asian”. South & Southeast Asians are nearly erased from American media. A lot of the stereotypes associated with Asians in media come from ignorance that, well, stem from racism,” wrote Jackson. “Most Americans don’t understand just how large and diverse “Asia really is. They don’t understand that China and Japan are separate countries with different cultures. They think everything is the same, every country has the same culture and philosophies. And that ignorance comes from lack of representation in the media! It’s a cycle that keeps going ’round & ’round and will never break until accurate representations of Asia are shown & our stories, told.”
Second, as many have written, it takes people speaking out about the lack of opportunities for Asian actors.
Some have welcomed actors like Lewis Tan, Constance Wu, and George Takei for using their platforms to raise awareness about the lack of Asian representation.
“Actors using platform for change is important and the first revolutionary step towards equity within television and on the big screen,” wrote Sethi. “Equity amongst roles.”
“I think they’re doing a really good job,” said Li. “…I think we need people like that to keep voicing [their sentiments] because it’s not about bankable stars; you make a star, and you make a good enough production to have people supporting it. It’s going to make money anyway.”
“What they said about Ghost in the Shell and that there are no bankable Asian stars, that doesn’t really stand,” she said. “With The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t a bankable star yet. It’s about the best person suited for the role. I think that the stars speaking out, who are doing their part, I think that’s amazing. I wish I can do my part as well in the future when I get big.”
“I think the main factor that’s contributed to such a noticeable spike in Asian American actors/creatives speaking out about whitewashing is social media and its ability to show the industry’s gatekeepers that POC audiences are ‘woke’ and finally able to commensurate over the frustrations of rarely seeing fully realized representations of our lives on television,” wrote Wable. “The few Asian Americans who have reached a level of visibility and do use their platforms to advocate for that change, whether it be through confronting the issues head on, or simply, shining a light on fellow lesser-known Asian American creatives, realize that their most loyal fan bases are largely made up of people who have been waiting to see their lives reflected in mainstream culture. And the gatekeepers are realizing that this level of engagement by POCs actually helps their bottom line so it’s not ‘career suicide’ for an Asian American celebrity to speak frankly on these issues anymore since the numbers make the argument for inclusive storytelling even stronger.”
Jackson, Tashima, and Keodara also contribute the rise of awareness about Asian Americans in Hollywood to social media.
“I think most of the change comes from social media. Before social media, there was no outlet that allowed people to voice their opinions or experiences to a mass audience. If you wanted to reach a mass audience, you needed to appear in a magazine, newspaper, television, etc. Now, with social media, you’re able to do that instantly,” wrote Jackson. “I think that more actors and actresses are using their platforms for change simply because they can. They can call for change and have thousands of people around the world support them. I think we feel more comfortable speaking out now because there are thousands of people, whom we can interact with, that can agree with and push for our call for change.”
“Beyond just the fact that we (POC) are tired of it, I think there are two factors that are contributing. One is social media. That has leveled the playing field in terms of expression, and publicity. It’s no longer limited to coverage in ‘The Press,’ or costly publicist or PR budgets. Anyone with something interesting or relevant can reach millions of people, with at tweet or post,” wrote Tashima. “Second is that we have more prominent artists. We’ve never had a George Takei, with his 1.8M followers, and name recognition that comes with it, or a Constance Wu, who is the star if a successful TV network sitcom. Through them, we’re finally being heard.”
“Insofar as Asian American actors are concerned, first is their establishment as incredible actors and pillars of the acting and filmmaking community. They have achieved the reputation and legacy that gives their words weight that wasn’t there forty or even twenty years ago,” wrote Keodara. “Second is accessibility. Celebrities can connect to their fans more swiftly and directly than ever before through social media, and those fans can then propagate their messages at an exponential rate. In print media, you’d have to convince the papers and magazines that you’re worth reporting on; the only barrier to entry now is how effectively you can utilize 140 characters to convey your message. Third is a social awareness. People, especially young people, care more now about seeing proper representation of POC. There is not only a desire but a demand to see better representations. These three things combined give Asian American actors and actresses means and motivation to fight for change.”
Lee is less concerned about what actors say on social media and more about what is “creatively and commercially what’s best for the movie” in terms of driving Asian careers in Hollywood.
“Look at a film like [Bernardo] Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor that has spawned a generation of Asian American stars such as John Lone, Joan Chen, Dennis Dun, Vivian Wu, Victor Wong and Lisa Lu that we still love,” he wrote. “Mind you, that was made in 1987. That’s the level of creative feat that culture creators and Hollywood should aspire toward.”
Also, despite the amount of voices out there spreading awareness, there’s still a wall in place for many Asian actors when it comes to landing meaningful roles.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that it’s everyone’s bottom line that will ultimately carry the day,” wrote Wable. “[W]hen I still hear from my friend who tried to refer me to a talent agency, that it passed on me because ‘they already have a brown Asian male’ who plays my age on their roster, it’s clear to me that the change will most certainly be slow and incremental no matter who is on that soapbox at the top.”
Whether people believe the actors who are speaking out are doing so from a genuine place or from a more politically correct stance, what they are writing and saying in interviews taps into something that many Asian Americans feel every day; that they are constantly the Other.
How much is Hollywood to blame for this feeling?
“Let’s not give Hollywood that much credit or blame Hollywood that much,” wrote Lee. “For generations people blame Hollywood for inspiring violence in the society. Well, sadly, violence, like racism and stereotyping, in America is real. The question is can Hollywood and independent filmmakers rise above the societal banality and inspire otherwise.”
Others, though, believe that Hollywood is, in fact, at least partly to blame for generations of people feeling ostracized in their own skin.
“[Asian people] on TV is not proportional. So a lot of kids growing up, they don’t see their own people on TV,” said Li. “…They feel like outsiders. I don’t think that’s good socially.”
Wable addressed how Hollywood’s reinforcement of stereotypes become internalized, not just with Americans in general, but with Asian Americans as well.
” I find myself struggling with this internalized racism every time I sit down to write a brown Asian character. The use of stereotypes to represent Asian characters is another manifestation of how POCs narratives are stripped of agency and dignity,” he wrote. “It’s representative of an intellectual sloth on the part of white storytellers to deem any deeper examination of their Asian characters unwarranted because, most likely, the story isn’t about them in the first place. If the Asians serve as plot devices to further the white character’s narrative, the storyteller can treat them as an afterthought and revert to the stereotype as shorthand to achieve the desired effect. This tendency is very much tied up with the colonial structures that functioned as the mediums through which the white world interacted with Asians.”
Wable wrote that much of the stereotypes stem from colonization. Even though the times of colonization might be over, he wrote, “…the structures have endured psychologically, both in the minds of the colonizer and the colonized (for e.g., the widespread use of fairness cream among brown Asians and Africans, as evidence of internalized racism). The consequence that this gaze brings with it w/ respect to brown Asian characters is that we are often represented as obsequious, bookish, goofy, creepy, emasculated (in the case of males), or exotic, helpless, prudish, jealous and naive (in the case of females).”
Long, Tashima and Keodara shared the similar sentiments.
“It just perpetuates stereotypes which continually keeps us in the place of ‘the other’ never taking into account that we are human beings that have the same goals, issues, dreams like everyone else,” wrote Long.
“Race representation is important to our youth. They must see themselves in order to hope for a better tomorrow. I think we are stuck where we are because there has been too much repeated generation after generation,” wrote Tashima. “This cry for diversity is not new. Also, it limits our expression, and growth through art. It is untruthful. It is short-changing the audience. There is so much more to tell, for us to learn, for all to appreciate–other than just the white male hero or romantic interest.”
“Just [recently] Fox News sent correspondent Jesse Watters as part of the O’Reilly Factor program to interview Asian Americans in New York City’s Chinatown about the [then] upcoming presidential election and it had some of the worst racist stereotyping of Asians I’ve seen in recent memory. Worse still was Bill O’Reilly brushing it off as ‘gentle fun.’ Watters said, ‘it’s all in good fun,’ but that would only be true if the subjects of your fun were in the joke,” wrote Keodara. “The harm of Hollywood’s whitewashing and stereotyping comes in pushing off Asian frustration and resentment with stereotypical treatment as any form of ‘fun.’ This was one of those opportunities for listening to Asian Americans. I swear if an Asian person was given the opportunity to review the tape before airtifme, that segment would never have seen the light of day. But, you have a couple of privileged white boys bullying Asians for a few laughs and for ratings purposes. It’s despicable!”
Jackson also added that the limitations of Asian representation in Hollywood limits how she’s seen as a biracial black/Asian woman.
“In Hollywood, I’m only really allowed to play African-American. There are some exceptions, however with such a lack of representation for other races, 99% of the time I am auditioning as a Black girl. I’m not allowed to audition as an Asian girl, ever, even though that is literally half of my identity,” wrote Jackson. “I have half white/half Asian actor friends that tell me that they’re ‘too Asian to play white’ or ‘too white to play Asian.’ In addition, interracial relationships in television and film almost always include a white person. Most interracial couples in media are white/black, white/Asian, etc. There is so little representation for interracial couples of color. In general, I feel that there needs to be more stories told about biracial or mixed identities because we have very different experiences from our ‘full-blooded’ peers.”
Wable agrees.
“I’ll lead with a disclaimer that I’m not biracial, but I have noticed that biracial identities are almost non-existent in mainstream media and I wonder whether that’s because biracial coupling is still very taboo in this country, and perhaps, globally with a few exceptions,” he wrote. “To acknowledge a character’s biracial identity, one would imagine you’d have to acknowledge their lineage and I think Hollywood is so risk averse, they’d rather steer completely clear of that topic if they can avoid it.”
Wable believes that the lack of biracial characters in Hollywood is part of society trying to keep a racial status quo. “Staying with my theme of tracing this phenomenon back to its roots, I think it’s linked to the constructed white fear of miscegenation which introduces too dangerous a possibility that closes the gap between whites and POCs, that brings POCs into the fold as humans on equal footing with whites. It’s much easier to have a clear distinction between the races even though we all know that’s not how normal society operates,” he wrote. “This explains why biracial actors undergo a sort of erasure/scrubbing that makes them belong to one race, and if they are fortunate enough to ‘pass’ as both white and ‘ethnic’ all the better for their careers. I think what needs to change is just creators being bold enough to tell stories about biracial couples.”
Wable named two films that are already doing this, Loving, staring Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in the real life story of the Lovings, who fought for their right to marry, and the comedy-horror Get Out by Jordan Peele which features a black man visiting his white girlfriend’s spooky family in a part of town where several black men have already gone missing.
Combating internalized racism and a lack of representation can be reduced down to one simple thing: giving Asian writers, actors, producers and directors more opportunities to create the narratives they want to see.
One of the current major examples of an Asian narrative being written from a non-Asian perspective is the upcoming live-action Mulan adaptation.
“What needs to change is Hollywood studios need to stop hiring white screenwriters to write POC stories such as the recent controversy with Disney studios hiring two white ladies who rewrote Mulan’s story placing a white dude at the center of Mulan’s legend. That’s a tired trop that needs to be laid to rest,” wrote Keodara. “Disney has since revealed that they’ve hired two new writers but they are still white. Hollywood needs to start hiring Asian American writers to write Asian stories. And, in the alternative, at the very least hire some Asian American consultants to maintain cultural sensitivity to the material.”
The changing demographics are also begging for their wants to be heard by Hollywood.
“[D]emographics are changing, and audiences will dictate a different idea, and also, creative forces are changing, and will be expressing different viewpoints. So, my belief is that it is inevitable that it will change,” wrote Tashima. “The question may be, how can we speed things up? My answer to that is, keep speaking up. Keep creating. Keep supporting our own artists.”
Hollywood is just now only beginning to address the changing demographics thanks to April Reign’s #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, which became extremely popular after films like Straight Outta Comptonand Beasts of No Nation failed to garner any Oscars, despite their critical and financial success.
“I think this past year #Oscarssowhite coupled with the casting of Scarlet Johansson, Emma Stone, Tilda Swinton became the tipping point that saw a flood of outcries and outrage everywhere,” wrote Long. “It was a galvanizing confluence of events and it is important that our high profiles and we as a community keep ‘squeaking the wheel.’ The longer the conversation continues it will educate, enlighten and ultimately effect the change that has been too long in coming.”
“We owe some of this progress to April Reign for starting the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag. The success of that movement has emboldened Asian Americans that we too deserve our day in the sun,” wrote Keodara, who also thanked the Asian American members of the Academy (including Long) for demanding an apology from host Chris Rock, who made some discriminatory jokes at the expense of Asian American kid actors, and other actors for using their platforms to advance change.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t [also] mention Ming-na Wen and Constance [Wu] for risking their careers to lend their voices and spoke up to demand change which culminated in the #whitewashedOUT movement,” he wrote. “…Hollywood has an aversion to risk, which is understandable, but is precisely the thing that needs to change. But there have been study after study after study that should have laid those fears to rest because each of those studies showed that diversity is good for business.”
As Long succinctly put it, “It’s really about raising the consciousness one mind at a time.”
The #OscarsSoWhite effect and the Academy
The #OscarsSoWhite movement led to the Academy opening their doors to many more people of color in the ranks. However, it was still later that the Academy invited more Asian industry members into the organization; this only came after several in the industry demanded that the oversight be corrected.
“I think the initial exclusion of Asians from the Academy is, again, a symptom of the importance that Hollywood attributes to the Asian experience, which is to say, it’s not considered very important. An institution’s membership is indicative of the values it espouses. And until very recently, the Academy’s values were almost interchangeable with the values of old white males,” wrote Wable. “Of course, the counter to that could be, ‘well it’s not like POCs weren’t honored by the Academy with nominations and awards when meritorious enough to warrant such recognition.’ But putting the meager percentage of those nominations and awards aside, the very privilege of being arbiters in the decision to lift certain voices and narratives over others is a political power that is imbued with the prejudices of those making the decisions.”
“I think adding Asian members to the Academy is a great start but I don’t think it’s as simple as just putting names and faces that look and sound Asian on the board. I think, to truly make a change, it has to be a deeper consideration of the values that the individual who is invited on the Board wants to bring to the role, and the tenacity with which they are willing to be a voice for those values and excluded narratives,” he wrote. “I would even go so far as to say that it’s this question, not the racial/ethnic identity that should inform whether someone gets tapped to be a member of the Academy. The white experience, like any label that attempts to describe a group of people, is not monolithic. If a white Academy member has lived a life that’s made them sensitive to a marginalized group’s narrative, for e.g. women, the physically disabled, LGBTQ, mentally challenged, etc., and they want to bring this experience to the table and let it guide their decisions on which stories to shine a light on, then their voice is as urgently in need of being represented as that of any other racial minority. It’ll only help the movie industry to reach this level of inclusiveness.”
“I don’t think The Academy was even thinking about it because we have been invisible, the silent minority for a very long time,” wrote Long. “A more diverse demographic at the the Academy is a good thing. Like in the 1960’s when desegregation took place and black students were bussed into white schools. It might be odd at first but then it becomes and accepted part of life. And that’s what it is really about, acceptance.”
“Adding more Asian members to their board is basically what I suggested Fox News could have done to prevent the airing of their stereotyping segment. Like most anything, the Academy responds to the perception of demand — if enough people say something is a problem, then it becomes prudent to do something to address the problem, at least as a PR move,” wrote Keodara. “Until that imaginary threshold of demand is reached, there is insufficient momentum to justify any dramatic change to the status quo. There is a feeling of safety in tradition, after all. Asians were seen as a safe bet. We supposedly don’t speak up or yell or scream. Apparently, they haven’t met Constance Wu or Ming-na Wen or Margaret Cho.”
The addition of Asian voices to the table can only help Hollywood become a more perfect industry.
“For me, the biggest benefit of the Academy’s diversity initiatives is that the industry sees they are taking action, and that this action is important, real, and not just talk. This has influence. Other organizations must follow,” wrote Tashima. “Too many industry execs and other decision makers have viewed these issues as being “PC” or otherwise just a trend. They need to understand that it’s the future of movies. It’s real and if they don’t get onboard, their movies will no longer be relevant to audiences.”
“More Asian voices in the Academy means more value being put to films that portray Asian characters in a more versatile and meaningful range,”wrote Keodara. “But Academy members do not dictate what films end up actually made nor who ends up in major roles. It’s an important step, but just one among many.”
Li said that more Asian members in the Academy can only mean more exposure in Hollywood, which can lead to more films and more opportunities for Asian actors.
“The people who are in the Academy, they have more access to the right talent, the right projects. …If there are more Asian writers and directors doing Asian roles and producing Asian films, telling these stories, then there will be more shown on TV and cinema,” she said. “I think we need to be more practical on that, rather than saying, ‘Oh, there are not enough roles.’ We need to start doing things, making those films.”
Many groups are fighting for equal representation in Hollywood. However, Hollywood regularly assumes that “diversity” and “representation” only equals “black.” Of course, the fight for African American visibility has been a much longer, and much more intense fight, resulting in much ground being made over the years and much more content made by African Americans for African American (and general) audiences. Those interviewed in this project understand that the Asian American fight for visibility is still in its adolescence.
“The African American community in this country and in this Industry have been vocal much longer and louder than we or any other underrepresented group has been,” wrote Long. “And because of that they have made deeper inroads. In addition to talent, that’s what it takes.”
Tashima and Wable agree.
“It’s happening, but on a smaller scale, which is to be expected, in the sense that African-Americans are a larger population (and larger force) than Asian Americans. So there are more numbers, more stars, etc. And, I think it’s important to differentiate from Asian (China, S. Korea, etc.) and Asian American,” wrote Tashima. “There’s a lot of talk about China, and all the dollars there, for ticket sales, production, etc. And we see stars from Asia placed in Hollywood movies, to pursue those dollars. What Asian American actors and filmmakers face is a different facet of the industry, more along the lines of indie filmmakers. It’s hard to convince anyone of anything until there is an Asian American box office success, be it an actor, or film. We just have to keep producing, and I think the growth (in returns) will come.”
“I think the same is happening for Asians but at a markedly slower pace. Part of the reason is the sheer numbers in play. Asian Americans that have endured and succeeded in this industry are few and far between on both the creative, and business side of things,” wrote Wable. “The business aspect is really the driving factor that makes any production company viable so it’s interesting that, for example, thriving film industries in our home regions such as Bollywood for India, and the Chinese film market., haven’t translated to a similar emergence of bigger production companies here that produce stories relevant to the Asian American demographic.”
“As an actor, I’ve noticed that Bollywood often comes out to the States to shoot their films, but the way distribution works and the politics of actors ‘crossing over’ to Hollywood has made it a very segregated business where a global pop star like Priyanka Chopra is absurdly ‘discovered’ by an American audience through [ABC’s] Quantico. Creators like Mindy Kaling, Aziz Ansari, and Eddie Huang have trail-blazed for us in terms of making space for our stories to be heard by mainstream American media so that’s the initial, and necessary, foundation that needed to be laid for established Asian American names on par with an Ava DuVernay to successfully cultivate their production companies.”
In contrast, Both Keodara and Sethi both think that the fight for Asian representation has barely even begun.
Keodara said that despite his belief that the battle for Asian American visibility hasn’t gotten to a rolling start, “momentum is building.”
“Asian American actors have not yet been given the chance to achieve similar levels of box office draws based on name recognition alone and still seldom if ever given lead roles in budget busting Hollywood productions besides Lucy Liu,” he wrote. “The strides black actors and actresses have made in achieving name recognition and a legacy of a broad, nuanced range of characters have yet to be achieved by to the same degree by their Asian counterparts — Asian actors continue to be cast for either marital-arts-centric roles or comedic roles that frequently rely on Asian stereotypes for most of their jokes.”
“In order for change to occur, these safe stereotypes need to be replaced with risky unconventional portrayals that still meet the American demand for quality entertainment. But, if Hollywood isn’t willing, then we’ll have to take charge, which is why I started my company, Asian Entertainment Television, to be the vanguard.”
Sethi also wrote how content creation is the next step in Asian representation in Hollywood.
“I think we are still far from this happening within the Asian community, but we do need to start our own production houses and fund our own productions. This is definitely happening on an international level, but not quite in Hollywood just yet,” he wrote. “I think change will come from young filmmakers using their cameras and voices to bring about change through independent production.”
Jackson wrote about a space in which content creation is already happening at an exponential pace: the internet.
“Though the Asian acting community is relatively a lot smaller, I do see similar changes being attempted especially in the digital space. You have digital content creators like Anna Akana, Ryan Higa, and Wong Fu Productions producing their own content and telling their own stories which I think is great,” she wrote. “Justin Chon just wrote & directed his own feature film Gook, about two Korean-American brothers living amidst the 1992 LA riots. I think it’s so important for creators to tell their own stories. It’s accurate and authentic representation.”
What audiences need to know
Ghost in the Shell and Doctor Strange act as microcosms for everything discussed in this interview. Both films address two sides to the Asian representation issue; whitewashing and erasure. But while many have joined with Asian Americans in protesting these films, there are still many others who either don’t understand the issues or feel like the outrage is a threat. For too many, the controversy surrounding these films is just “Social Justice Warrior” meddling.
The controversies are far from meddling; it’s a call to action from a marginalized group to be represented accurately and with respect. For too long, that cry has gone unheard, but finally, and slowly, more and more ears are picking up on it. However, instead of a non-Asian voice summing up what the fight means to Asian Americans, here they are in their own words.
Lee: “The passion of fans come from the purest place. Listen to the fans. The fans bash Hollywood for whitewashing The Last Air Bender and Ghost in the Shell. Why doesn’t Hollywood listen?”
Jackson: “I think some entertainment fans need to understand that not everyone is equally, accurately, and positively represented in media. Marginalized groups are always portrayed in stereotypical roles while white characters are allowed to be multi-dimensional protagonists. All we want is equal representation.”
Long: “I can’t speak for what any one takes away from a discussion. I only say just keep having the discussion!”
Tashima: “It’s about race representation, and employment opportunity. Fairness, justice, and why racism and oppression onscreen is bad. If you understand that, you’ll see what should happen and what shouldn’t. When you understand the issues, it’s easier to see right from wrong. Balance is crucial. Stay away from thinking issues relate to artistic interpretation, artistic freedom, and those arguments which are a different topic. We all want those things. But, what else is going on? What is the history of oppression? What needs to be done to make change?”
Wable: “I think folks who have trouble understanding why (well-informed) representation of minority voices in entertainment matters, don’t fully understand why entertainment and media generally matters. For most people, regardless of race/gender/sexual orientation, it wasn’t until relatively recently that minority representation in media began to be talked about as an important socio-political issue that needed to be addressed. Of course, there have always been activists of all walks of life who have recognized the issue and fought for fair representation, but I think for many people entertainment still remains just that- an idle pass-time that they assume, has no effect on how they perceive the world, when in fact, every image that flickers past their eyes and word that’s uttered by someone on screen, is coloring the lens through which they view their fellow humans. So I think the real take away for entertainment fans is a question to reflect on- “How has/does entertainment inform my opinions about a given issue or group of people? “
“…I will leave it on a positive note by saying that I am optimistic. I think we live in such an exciting time given all the avenues for creators to find their audiences and I think it’s a critical time for us to keep discussing these issues and, it’s critical for creators and gatekeepers alike to be tuned in to these discussions because they are not only essential to the corporate interests that are interested in making money off of cutting-edge content, but the cutting edge content itself is how we will ultimately evolve into a more inclusive and humane society where our entertainment reflects the reality we live in and not the fears that produced it.”
Sethi: “They need to understand that these are our stories, our culture and our community. We must protect these things because this is all we have.”
“I truly feel that even the representation we have right now for Indian American actors on the big screen and TV is minimal and weird. It doesn’t reflect my parents, me or my community. But seeing brown faces on the screen is definetely the first step. and there are a few actors out there that refuse to do the Indian accent and really are pushing the limits of how far we have seen brown faces succeed in this industry.”
Keodara: “Misrepresentation and underrepresentation is a form of emotional and psychological violence against Asians. It’s degrading and demeaning to be told that we’re not Asian enough or good enough to portray ourselves in our own stories. What they need to understand is that characters can be made compelling to the American audience without relying on the actor’s ethnicity. Even if you don’t understand why we feel hurt by these portrayals, do try to understand that on a basic human level, our hurt is genuine and that we should all care for one another’s pains and frustrations. We are all Americans, and more importantly we are all human beings. Whatever our backgrounds, our ethnicities, our finances, our politics, we all feel fear, frustration, anxiety, worry, pain and isolation. No matter how were are colored, we all deserve the support and consideration of one another.” ♦
The Blasian Project and WGA comedy writer M. Hasna Maznavi were also reached for comment for this article. | ||||
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ThinkFilm (stylized as TH!NKFilm) was a U.S. film distribution company founded in September 2001. It had been a division of David Bergstein’s Capitol Films since 2006.
On October 5, 2010, five of Bergstein's companies in the film industry, Capitol Films, ThinkFilm, R2D2, CT-1 and Capco were forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy by a group of creditors led by the Aramid Entertainment film investment fund seeking payment for outstanding debts of $16 million. It's assets were later acquired by Tartan Entertainment.
This led to a Hollywood legal battle involving Bergstein, his financial partner, Ronald Tudor, the creditors and various lawyers and companies in the industry. | ||
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4384 | dbpedia | 1 | 61 | https://scienceandfilm.org/articles/3575/director-interview-christopher-zalla-on-radical | en | Sloan Science & Film | [
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] | null | Sloan Science and Film is a website devoted to exploring the intersection of science and film, and enhancing the public understanding of science and technology. | en | /favicon.ico?v= | null | Director Interview: Christopher Zalla on RADICAL
Winner of the Festival Favorite Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and the Sloan Distribution Grant through Film Independent, RADICAL is inspired by the true story of a teacher in a Mexican border town with few resources who tries a new teaching method. The film stars Eugenio Derbez, who is also one of the film’s producers. It is written and directed by Christopher Zalla, and will be released nationwide in the U.S. starting November 3. We spoke with Zalla about the story that inspired the film, his directorial approach, and why this teaching method is still radical.
Science & Film: My understanding is that your interest in this story was sparked by a Wired article from 2013. What struck you most about the story?
Christopher Zalla: The Wired magazine article was acquired by Ben Odell, the producer, and Eugenio [Derbez] the producer, they're partners at 3Pas Studios. We had actually all worked together on my first movie, which was my thesis film for grad film school, and it ended up going on to win Sundance, which almost felt like an accident. But, at that moment, Eugenio was already looking to break into the US market, and I remember he told me on the red carpet at Sundance: someday, I'm going to find a drama, and I'm gonna call you. The big joke is it just took him 15 years.
They ended up sending me the article at the end of 2018. It’s an incredible story in the article, it's almost hard to believe. As I'm reading it, I'm almost stealing myself against it, and I cried like three times—there were just these magical moments in it that I really connected to. It's about a guy who had a crisis in the middle of his life and decided to start over, which was like a situation that I was finding myself in at the time. I got the script when I was living on a mountain-side lake in Guatemala, my house is only reachable by footpath or boat because I completely checked out to kind of restart. And so, I did very much identify with this character, who was trying something else, trying to restart. But then also in that process, I had become a father. There's something that's both so magical and inspiring, but also, to me, so heartbreaking, because on some level, you know, life is waiting in front of them and as aspirational as we can be, life is this constant corrective force.
I really wanted to focus [the film] on how [this method] worked. What did he do? What if, unlike these other teacher movies, I tell it from the from the kids' eyes? We literally enter the world with them, we are them, the camera never goes higher than their height.
Still from RADICAL
S&F: Can you talk more about your approach in terms of craft and direction?
CZ: We were always trying to create tension with oppositional forces, and so when we see the kids out in their world, there are these wider, static, kind of tableau shots. There was literally a fetid canal right next to the school that just didn’t move, and it's full of trash. To me, that was a metaphor for where we start the world, which is stasis and status quo. There's no movement, there's no possibility. And then, the contrast is when we meet Sergio. It's frenetic and there's jump cutting. Every time we cut to Sergio, I would jump several frames further than I should have so that he just had this little pop, like, where is he? It creates this energy that can combat the status quo and start to open it up. From a framing standpoint, we cut off all the adults at the chest level.
There is a history of a kind of a teacher movie, which, by the way, we have not seen nearly enough of—the real superhero movie. But these films always cut to the kids when they didn't know calculus, and now they do—cut, cut, cut. And I thought, wouldn't it be amazing if we could just be in a room and watch the light get turned on from the teacher's standpoint, and how do the kids have that happen for them? Tell that from both perspectives.
One big takeaway from this process has been that those of us who had a teacher like that get it. But on the other hand, there are people who've never had that kind of teacher and my heart breaks for them—what a horrible thing not to have experienced. But on the other hand, that's the reason we're telling this story.
S&F: Since the Wired article came out, and since you've been in production with this film, to what extent is the approach you depict in your film still radical?
CZ: It's still absolutely radical. It shouldn't be, but it is. What it was really all about, I've come to see through the filmmaking, was a hypothesis. I ended up having Sergio on set next to me, and I saw something that confirmed the hypothesis. For me, it was the simple change of instead of being the authority who looks down at you and says: do this, do that sit in the chair, only raise your hand when you're spoken to, memorize these things. Education is this prescriptive path that you have to follow, do not deviate from the plan… Versus somebody saying: Hey, what are you interested in? What do you what do you want to learn about? And then showing them that their curiosity gets rewarded with discovery, which becomes its own self-fulfilling motor. It's that joy of discovery that to me is the essence of youth. Ironically, although we filmed these kids at this [chest] level, I saw them very much as kids who weren't able to be kids. When I think about adults who are still so alive, those are the ones who are still learning. That’s the energy that I think Sergio brings. But most profoundly, it's valuing them. It's saying, what you think is actually valuable. Being genuinely interested in their ability to think, that's the skill that we're going to teach you in life: to be a thinker, to be curious, to ask questions, and by the way, don't worry about failure, that's part of it. This is what I wanted to get into in the nitty gritty of in the movie and the storytelling. And when I had Sergio next to me on set, he was there for several weeks, he's the real deal, the guy's just a saint, there's no other way to put it. But his phone was like blowing up all the time. I asked, what's going on? All his students over the last 15-20 years are in constant contact with him. And it's like, that's what he did.
Still from RADICAL
S&F: As the field of technology is changing, and as artificial intelligence is being introduced into the classroom, do you have thoughts on how those kind of methods intersect with the subjects you're dealing with in RADICAL?
CZ: The guy who inspired Sergio, Sugata Mitra, he says, a teacher that can be replaced, should be replaced. We allude to it in the movie when Sergio says: they don't even need me, they just need computers. Of course, they have no computers, so it's a bit of a problem. I'm just inherently wary of artificial intelligence. I do think there's this extraordinary opportunity in places with very low resources, especially rural communities. If they have phone signals, then that does become a pathway through which they can access the internet. If you set a kid on that path to curiosity, investigation, discovery, even through that phone, it can be extremely, extremely rewarding. The irony is, Mitra started this thing called The Granny Cloud and it's thousands of women in England who are Zooming with kids in India, and their entire job is to say, Wow, that's amazing. How did you do that? The great irony is that Sergio thinks the kids don't need him and in fact, they very much do, because it's still that human thing; having someone believe in you is really, really helpful.
♦
More from Sloan Science and Film: | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 78 | https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/14-actors-received-shockingly-low-221502214.html | en | "I Had An Academy Award, No Health Insurance": 14 Actors Who Received Shockingly Low Pay For Early Roles | https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/sCn6itQ4qBqAP.lizqddag--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD03OTc-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/99066d3124454a3aa11e7807d33b354e | https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/sCn6itQ4qBqAP.lizqddag--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD03OTc-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/buzzfeed_articles_778/99066d3124454a3aa11e7807d33b354e | [
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] | 2024-04-11T22:15:02+00:00 | "The makeup artists were laughing at me because I was getting paid less than any of them." | en | https://s.yimg.com/rz/l/favicon.ico | Yahoo Entertainment | https://www.buzzfeed.com/morgansloss1/actors-low-pay-early-roles | 1.In her new memoir titled Rebel Rising, Rebel Wilson revealed that she was only paid $3,500 for her role in Bridesmaids — just enough to pay the fees for joining the SAG-AFTRA union. The actor said the low pay "didn't matter" to her. She wrote, "The experience was everything!"
2.During an interview with GQ, Christian Bale said he was paid "the absolute minimum they were legally allowed" for starring in American Psycho. "And I had a house that I was sharing with my dad and my sister, and that was getting repossessed."
He continued, "So the first thing was: 'Holy crap. I’ve got to get a bit of money,' because I’ve got American Psycho done, but I remember one time sitting in the makeup trailer, and the makeup artists were laughing at me because I was getting paid less than any of them. And so that was my motivation after that. It was just: 'I got to get enough that the house doesn’t get repossessed.'"
3.Kimiko Glenn has been very outspoken about the poor compensation she and many fellow actors received from Orange Is the New Black. During last year's SAG-AFTRA strike, she posted a TikTok, saying, "People were bartenders still. People had their second jobs still."
She continued, "They were internationally famous, couldn't go outside, but had to keep their second jobs because they couldn't afford to not. We couldn't afford cabs to set!" On Instagram, she explained that she earned $900 per day of shooting — netting her just $1,800 per month.
4.During an appearance on the Live at 9 show, Terrence Howard revealed that he was not fairly compensated for his early roles. "I made $12,000 for doing Hustle & Flow," he said. "What Paramount did, instead of putting my name as Terrence Howard performing the songs, they put 'performed by DJay.' Well, they owned DJay, so guess what? The performance royalties went to Paramount."
He also shared that he was only paid $6,000 for Crash, the 2004 film that won the Oscar for Best Picture. "The business don't pay actors anything," Terrence continued. "Actors are struggling."
5.Ryan Gosling reportedly made $1,000 per week for his role in Half Nelson, which earned him his first Oscar nomination. Shooting took 23 days, and his compensation for the film was around $3,200.
6.Sharon Stone revealed that she wasn't paid fairly for starring in Basic Instinct. "I didn't get paid to do Basic Instinct," she told CBC. "I made a little bit of money. Michael made $14 million and has points. I made not enough money to buy my dress to go to the Oscars the next year. I was in this weird limbo where I was suddenly famous, but didn't have any money."
7.On Chelsea Handler's Netflix talk show, Chelsea, Hilary Swank revealed that she was only paid $3,000 for starring in Boys Don't Cry. Her performance won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Actress.
"I made $3,000. In order to have health insurance, you have to make $5,000," she shared. "So I didn't even know that I didn't have health insurance until I went and tried to get a prescription filled. They said, 'That's $160.' I went, 'Um, did you try my insurance?' They said, 'Mmm-hmm.' I had an Academy Award, no health insurance."
8.According to the New Yorker, Barkhad Abdi was paid $65,000 for his role in Captain Phillips, which earned him Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, as well as a BAFTA win. After production ended, he returned to selling cellphones in a Minneapolis mall.
"How I thought about it was, like, 'When the movie came out, reviews either gonna be good or bad. Either way, I cannot be working here,'" he recalled. Barkhad quit that job on the day of the premiere. While promoting the movie in LA, he lived in the hotel the studio put him up in and wore loaner clothes.
9.Jamie Lee Curtis was paid $8,000 to star in the original Halloween movie. During an interview with People, she recalled behind-the-scenes moments of the low-budget film, including shopping for her character's clothing herself. "All the sudden, I was going to JCPenney and buying Laurie’s wardrobe with $200."
10.According to Insider, Oprah was paid $35,000 for playing Sofia in The Color Purple. Her performance was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
11.Jeff Daniels was paid $50,000 for his work in the '90s comedy Dumb and Dumber. In comparison, costar Jim Carrey made $7 million. Bobby Farrelly, one of the film's writers, told the Hollywood Reporter, "The studio didn’t want [Jeff], they said, 'Please, anyone but him. Get a comedic actor.' ... They offered him 50 figuring he’ll say, 'No, I’m not taking that,' but he took it."
12.Priyanka Chopra told Insider that she once costarred in a Bollywood movie where she was paid significantly less than her male counterpart. "A producer-director said to me, 'Well, you know how it is in these big tentpole movies with the big boys. This is the budget for the girl, and we can't move beyond that,' which was a measly 5% of what [the male lead] was getting."
13.James Earl Jones was paid $7,000 to voice Darth Vader in Star Wars: A New Hope. The actor told the American Film Institute, "George [Lucas] wanted, pardon the expression, a dark voice. So he hires a guy born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, who stutters. And that’s the voice. That’s me. And I lucked out."
14.And finally, Amanda Seyfried told the Sunday Times about the gender pay gap she experienced earlier in her career. "On one of my big-budget films, I found I was being paid 10% of what my male costar was getting, and we were pretty even in status."
She continued, "I think people think that just because I’m easy-going and game to do things, I’ll just take as little as they offer. … It’s not about how much you get, it’s about how fair it is." She also said that female actors "have to decide if you’re willing to walk away from something."
Any other actors who received surprisingly low paychecks at the beginning of their careers? LMK in the comments below! | ||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 81 | https://www.echolakeentertainment.com/company | en | Company — ELE Company | https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/default-favicon.ico | https://assets.squarespace.com/universal/default-favicon.ico | [
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Originally from New Jersey, Riback started his career in the mailroom at ICM before becoming a Manager/Producer at Management 360, where he spent five years. For the past eight years Riback has been at Echo Lake Entertainment managing a client base which spans across all mediums and includes an eclectic and diverse list of creators.
Riback recently Executive Produced the sci-fi thriller feature film ASH, starring Aaron Paul, Eiza Gonzalez and Iko Uwais. He Executive Produced OXYGEN for Netflix, starring Melanie Laurent and directed by Alex Aja and he Produced THE SECRETS WE KEEP with di Bonaventura Pictures, which was released theatrically by Bleecker Street and stars Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman and Chris Messina.
Previously he Executive Produced the film INTERNET FAMOUS for Lakeshore Entertainment and Maker Studios.
Partner / Head of IP Department
Amy Schiffman has been a literary agent and manager in the film and television fields for over twenty-five years.
After graduating from Hamilton College, she worked in New York, first at the CBS News Broadcast Center, and then in magazines, including the award-winning American Photographer Magazine, where she eventually became an editor and columnist, and later at GQ and Diversion magazines.
Her Hollywood career began in the Literary Properties division of the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills, where she was Vice President. There she sold the books “Friday Night Lights,” “Apollo 13,” “Sleepers,” “Permanent Midnight” and “Primal Fear,” all of which were produced as feature films during her tenure at the agency.
Schiffman ran the literary properties division at The Gersh Agency, and later became a partner in the literary management firm Intellectual Property Group. She represents Dennis Lehane, (“Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “Shutter Island,” “The Drop,” “Mr. Mercedes”) Don DeLillo (“Cosmopolis” “White Noise,” “Underworld”), and Daniel Woodrell (“Winter’s Bone”), among many others. She joined Echo Lake in 2018. Recently she sold the bestseller “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,” by Mary Anne Shaeffer and Annie Barrows. The film, starring Lilly James and directed by Mike Newell, is streaming on Netflix, as is the film “Nappily Ever After,” based on the novel by Trisha R. Thomas.
Schiffman has been a guest speaker at The University of Southern California’s prestigious Peter Stark program, as well as at the Master of Professional Writing program. She has also guest lectured at American Film Institute and California State University at Northridge. She is a member of the board of Arts for LA and a mentor with Women in Film. Her own writing has appeared in Lost Orchard, (SUNY Press), and My City, My Los Angeles (Globe Pequot).
President ELE
Andrew Spaulding is a film producer and the President and Chief Operating Officer of Echo Lake Entertainment. He has produced or executive produced more than a dozen feature films, most recently ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES starring Elle Fanning and Justice Smith. Other credits include TRUTH, James Vanderbilt’s directorial debut, starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford and THE GREAT, a television series for Hulu which was just picked for a second season.
A native of Virginia, Andrew began his career in politics, and served for two years on the personal staff of Virginia Governor Charles Robb. He later served as the Virginia Film Commissioner. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia.
Manager
Chris Davis recently extended his role to literary manager and producer at Echo Lake Entertainment after being the Head of Television for the company. Chris was among the original team responsible for setting up the company’s first series, Van Helsing, which is currently shooting season five and has gone on to become one of SyFy’s highest rated shows. Their success continued with The Great, written by Tony McNamara and starring Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, which premiered on Hulu in May and received a season two pickup. Along with overseeing Echo Lake’s current on-air shows, Chris shepherded more than 40 projects in development. In his current position, Chris works with a variety of incredible writers and directors, and is the point manger on the team representing Forbes Entertainment and their 103+ years of archived articles and IP.
Prior to joining Echo Lake, Chris worked at A&E for over a decade, first in the publicity department and then in movies and mini-series. From there he moved into scripted series development, helping to launch A&E’s first two scripted drama series, The Cleaner, as well as The Beast. As Manager of Development and Current programming for A&E scripted series, he also oversaw shows such as Breakout Kings, Longmire, Bates Motel, Those Who Kill, and The Returned. He holds a degree from University of Hartford and lives in Los Angeles.
Manager
Dana Jackson has moved over to Echo Lake Entertainment where she will continue to represent a roster of directors and writers. A graduate of NYU Film School and Playwrights Horizon Theater School, Jackson worked at the William Morris Agency before landing at Castle Rock Entertainment, where she rose to Director of Development. During her five years there, she worked on dozens of major releases and was instrumental in securing distribution rights to THE SPITFIRE GRILL and PALMETTO. In 1997, Jackson was named Senior V.P. of Hunt/Tavel Productions, the Sony-based production company of Academy Award winning actor-producer Helen Hunt and producer/manager Connie Tavel. While there she developed and was a Co-Producer of Helen Hunt’s directorial debut THEN SHE FOUND ME, starring Bette Midler, Colin Firth and Helen Hunt. Jackson went on to become Senior Vice President for Freestyle Pictures where she developed and packaged THE ACCIDENTAL VIRGIN with Heather Graham to star. In 2004, Jackson became a manager, launching and guiding the careers of several up and coming writers including Bert V. Royal, the award-winning playwright of DOG SEES GOD and screenwriter of the critically acclaimed hit film EASY A, and Karen DiConcetto who, along with Royal, created the critically acclaimed television series RECOVERY ROAD for Freeform. Jackson also produced PARK, directed by Kurt Voelker which starred William Baldwin, Ricki Lake and Cheri Oteri. The film won the Audience Award at the CineVegas Film Festival, the film’s World Premiere. PARK also won numerous awards around the world in over 25 festivals. Jackson self-distributed the film theatrically in the U.S. and PARK aired on Showtime, Starz The Movie Channel and Netflix. In 2016, Jackson joined FINEMAN ENTERTAINMENT where she quickly helped to double the company’s client base managing over 30 filmmakers and television creators.
Partner
Dave Brown graduated with honors from Brown University. Starting in an agency mailroom he was promoted to agent where he discovered and brokered the initial deal for James Wan and Leigh Whannell to direct and star in the billion dollar SAW franchise. After transitioning to management, Dave facilitated the deal for the award winning Showtime series DEXTER. In 2013, Brown and his business partner Zadoc Angell moved their management team to Echo Lake Entertainment. Brown’s client list boasts some of the most sought after TV showrunners and filmmakers in the industry, many of which he discovered and helped break into the business. Brown has also been a trailblazer in the packaging of straight to series, including international co-productions.
CEO ELE
Doug Mankoff is a film and television producer and the Chief Executive Officer of Echo Lake Entertainment, a production, management and finance company which he founded in 1997. Doug has produced and arranged financing for over thirty films, including three Pedro Almodovar films and Alexander Payne's NEBRASKA (nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture). Currently, Doug is an executive producer on Hulu’s THE GREAT which is shooting its second season in the UK.
Doug received a B.A. in History from Duke University, attended the graduate film program at NYU, and received his MBA from Harvard. Doug is a member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America.
Executive Director, Human Resources
Ilana Pulvers is an experienced Human Resources and Talent Acquisitions executive with over twenty-three years of experience. Spending twelve of these years within the entertainment industry, she has worked at ICM Partners, MGM Studios and now with Echo Lake Entertainment. Ilana specializes in creating inclusive cultures and cultivating communities where everyone feels they can thrive.
Ilana is proud to see so many of her hires grow into roles such as executives at studios, writers, and showrunners on hit series. Fostering that growth and finding candidates with unmatched potential are ways in which Ilana excels. Ilana grew up in Woodcliff Lake, NJ and graduated from the University of Southern California.
Partner
Beginning her career as an assistant at the talent agency ICM, Iris Grossman quickly climbed the ranks and was upped to talent agent. After several years with the agency, she was given the opportunity to become the Senior Vice President of Talent and Casting for Turner Network Television (TNT). In that capacity, Grossman oversaw all talent and casting issues related to TNT Original films and series. Grossman was instrumental in bringing TNT such top-name stars such as Diane Keaton (Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight); Robert Duvall (The Man Who Captured Eichmann); Mandy Patinkin (The Hunchback of Notre Dame); Brian Cox (NUREMBERG); Gary Sinise and Angelina Jolie (George Wallace) and Tommy Lee Jones (The Good Old Boys). She also cast Alec Baldwin (Nuremberg); Julianna Margulies, Angelica Huston and Joan Allen (The Mists of Avalon); and Chazz Palminteri (Boss of Bosses); William H. Macy (Door to Door); John Turturro (Monday Night Mayhem); Danny Glover (Buffalo Soldiers) and Jimmy Smits (The Cisco Kid). She spent nine years at TNT, and in October 2001, returned to ICMPartners as a talent agent. In 2013, Grossman joined Paradigm’s Talent Department for three years before moving to Echo Lake Entertainment as a talent manager in 2016.
Grossman is a former two-term President of Women In Film and is WIF’s President-Emerita. She is currently the President of GreenLight Women. She has won a CSA award for casting George Wallace, also receiving an Emmy nomination for the same. She has also received awards from Big Sisters, Hadassah and NOW.
President of Production
Mary Jane Skalski began her career at Good Machine where she worked on the early films of Ang Lee, Ed Burns and Nicole Holofcener. As a producer, her credits include Bart Layton’s BIFA awarded American Animals, four films with director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor, Win Win and The Cobbler); Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin which premiered at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, the Fox Searchlight film Wilson, directed by Craig Johnson and starring Woody Harrelson, Todd Louiso's Hello I Must Be Going which opened the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Adam Salky’s Dare, Peter Callahan’s Against the Current, Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying, Jem Cohen’s Chain and Naomi Foner’s Very Good Girls. Mary Jane was an executive producer on Pariah, Trick, Putzel, Before you Know It and Philippe Falardeau’s My Salinger Year which was the opening night film at the 2020 Berlinale.
Mary Jane’s films have screened at the Toronto, Venice, Berlin, Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals and have received numerous awards and nominations, including several appearances on the National Board of Review ‘best of’ list, a BAFTA best screenplay win for The Station Agent and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for Richard Jenkins in The Visitor. Mary Jane received the Independent Spirit Award for Producing in 2004 and was selected as one of Variety’s Producers to Watch in 2003. She is a member of the Producing branch of the Academy.
Mary Jane has served as an adjunct at Columbia University and New York University and regular acts as an advisor at the Sundance Creative Producing and Catalyst Labs. In 2016 she served as the Allesee Chair at Wayne State University. From 2013-2018 Mary Jane was the Senior Advisor to Gamechanger, a financing entity focused exclusively on films directed by women. Gamechanger’s inaugural slate of films included The Tale, The Invitation, Busters Mal Heart, Love Song, Land Ho and The Strange Ones. Mary Jane continues in the role of Senior Advisor for The Population.
Mary Jane Skalski is currently the President of Production for Echo Lake Entertainment, a production, management and financing company where, in addition to overseeing the company’s slate, she is also producing a number of projects in film and tv and has a small number of clients.
Manager
Matt Horwitz got his start at Sleeping Giant Entertainment before joining Echo Lake in 2013 focusing on writers and directors in all aspects of TV and film. His clients have worked on such hit shows as AMERICAN DAD, CALL YOUR MOTHER, TACOMA FD, MAGNUM PI, THE YOUNG ROCK, ARROW, THE FLASH, STRANGER THINGS, and THE CONNERS just to name a few. He has set up client projects at just about every network or streamer that you can think of, (and several that you probably didn’t even know existed). Originally from the Washington DC area, he attended Indiana University and has had a passion for TV and Film since a young age when he discovered that people actually made the things he was watching every day, and that passion has helped him guide and build the careers of creative people from the lowest levels all the way to the top!
Chairman ELM
Mike Marcus joined Echo Lake in December 2005 to start and helm their management division.
Mike brings over fifty years of experience in the entertainment industry to Echo Lake. He started in the mailroom at a forerunner of the current ICM in 1968, and was quickly promoted to agent by the end of that year. Four years later, he joined the Bart/Levy Agency in 1972, which became the Kohner/Levy Agency in 1977. He became a full partner of the renamed Kohner/Levy/Marcus Agency in 1980.
In 1981, he accepted the position of Senior Agent at the CAA, where he had among his clients Tom Cruise, Sydney Pollack, Robin Williams, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, John Landis, David Cronenberg, Michael Apted, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker. Mike also packaged such movies as Terry Gilliam’s Academy Award® winning THE FISHER KING, John Landis’ comedy blockbuster TRADING PLACES, and his AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and David Cronenberg’s DEAD RINGERS.
In 1993, Mike Marcus was named President and Chief Operating Officer of MGM Pictures, where he oversaw the release of such films as the smash hit comedy GET SHORTY, the thriller SPECIES, which at that time had the biggest opening weekend of any MGM film in history, KINGPIN, which landed on Gene Siskel’s 10 Best List, the critically acclaimed 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY, and the sci-fi action hit, STARGATE.
In October 1999, Mike formed Cornice Entertainment, a motion picture and television production and management company. In 2000, he also formed the feature film distribution company MAC Releasing, which in the summer of 2004 merged with ThinkFilm (a Canadian based distribution company) and became the head of its west coast office, in addition to his production and management activities.
Mike Marcus serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University as well as, serves as the Chairman of the board for the Oversight Committee of the College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University - LA Campus. He has also served on the board of the Wellness Community, the Environmental Media Association and the Will Vinton Studios.
Manager
A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Norris Brooks began her career in entertainment interning for Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video. In 2017, she started at CAA in New York as an assistant in the publishing department and eventually made her way back to Los Angeles, where she became an agent in TV Scripted and Book Rights. As an agent, Brooks has worked with comedy writers, directors, and producers, specializing in female talent and underrepresented voices. Her clients worked on SHRINKING, TED LASSO, ARCHER, PHYSICAL, THE AFTERPARTY and many more. She orchestrated the sale of Daniel Ricciardo’s scripted Formula 1 series at Hulu and sold numerous book adaptions to various networks. Norris has transitioned to management at Echo Lake and will continue to represent comedians, writers, directors, producers and book properties.
Partner/Co-President of ELM
Zadoc Angell began his career as a Literary Agent at Paradigm, where he worked for seven years. Transitioning to Literary Management in 2010, Zadoc joined forces with manager Dave Brown and grew a team of literary managers which they brought with them to Echo Lake in 2013. Angell's journey to Hollywood is not a conventional one. Growing up on a 400-acre dairy farm in rural upstate New York, Zadoc and his sister Amy were integral to their parents' family-run business. The son of a minister and a local politician, Angell pursued his academic and creative endeavors at Harvard University, where he graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Visual( linked here & Environmental Studies: Film. In addition to being a full-time manager, Angell has taught classes in pilot writing at UCLA. In 2019, Zadoc was honored as one of Variety's New Leaders—and the only literary manager—in the Agents, Managers & Lawyers category (linked here). | |||
4384 | dbpedia | 2 | 22 | https://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/blog/tag/amci/ | en | TFC Blog | [
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"Orly Ravid"
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We all struggle with this, filmmakers, distributors alike. I remember giving a presentation to distributors about digital distribution and theatrical came up. I talked about the weirdness of showing a film 5 or 6 times a day to an almost always-empty house save a couple showings. This makes no sense for most films. When I released Baise Moi in 2000, we broke the boxoffice records at the time, and the “raincoat crowd” did show up at the oddest morning hours, but that is the exception, not the rule. Not every film has an 8-minute rape scene that just must be seen by post-punk-feminists and pornography-lovers alike. It’s an odd set-up for smaller films and it’s not the only means to the end we are looking for.
Recently, The Film Collaborative released Eyes Wide Open in NYC, LA, Palm Beach and Palm Springs. We have a little over $10,000 (all in it will be about $12,000 tops). We have made our money back and the great reviews and extra marketing / visibility will drive ancillary sales but we also did not invest or risk too much as you can see. That is a great formula (one that small, disciplined and seasoned distributors such as First Run Features, Strand, Zeitgeist, employ) but it is not viable for all films. First of all we have an “A” list festival film (Cannes & TIFF & LAFF) and second it caters to two or three niches (gay and Jewish/Israeli) though one can argue that the niches also slightly cancel each other out to some extent, the film did well so obviously the campaign worked.
But there are many films for which that strategy would not work. Either theaters could not be booked, or reviews would not always be great, and / or the film would simply not galvanize a theatrical audience. Plus, once you start adding up 4-Wall fees, the bottom line leans more likely to be shades of red. The Quad Cinema sent an E-blast promoting its 4-Wall program. It was a good sales pitch and I am not going into it all here, but the take home is that you’re more likely to get a broader theatrical, and/or a distribution deal, and/or picked up by Netflix and other digital platforms if you open theatrically in New York. I would argue that is true to some extent but also VERY MUCH dependent on the FILM itself and there should still be a cost-analysis and overall strategy consideration before one pays the Quad for their services and hopes for the best. Here is a link to the info and we are happy to email the blast to any who request it www.quadcinema4wall.com . It should also be noted that generally speaking, The New York Times does not consider your film among “All the News That is Fit to Print” unless it’s opening wider than just New York.
So how to decide? Companies such as Oscilloscope are all about theatrical, but they pick their films carefully and my guess is Adam Yauch can afford to lose money too if it comes to that. Home Video companies such as New Video, and Phase4 are doing some theatrical, but on an as-needed basis and yes, to service the ancillary rights, but that’s a very experienced analysis on their part. When we posted on Twitter about the Cable Operators warning they will start requiring a ten (10) city theatrical, all at once, believe me, if everyone blindly follows suit, the bar will get raised even higher right until we all go broke. The point is to mitigate the glut and distinguish films in the marketplace not get us all to be lemmings and empty our bank accounts. There is math to be done and I know it’s hard without all the back-end numbers at your disposal, but they are coming. We will publish case studies of all our films and we encourage you to get down to the detailed back-end numbers analysis before spending more on the front end and often gratuitously.
We have experienced and heard about the impact a filmmaker can have in his or her city when working the film and then really impacting the gross and that is inspiring, but usually not long-lasting because it takes a lot to get people to pay to see your film in a theater when there are so many other films and so many more marketing dollars behind them. And what’s in it for you? The only reviews that matter are the big ones and we all know what they are… and remember what we said above about The New York Times.
The general perception of indie film releases is interesting. Most don’t take into account the money that is spent to get the “gross”. More of the time the distributor (or whomever booked the film) gets less than half of the box office revenues. Sometimes as little as 25% – 30% though of course sometimes more. And there are the expenses. The Kids Are Alright may not even be in the black right now, but you’d never know that reading certain coverage. I love Exit Through A Gift Shop and actually flagged that release as a stellar release and then I learned that the marketing spend was actually a lot more than I realized such that the spend may be up to a million dollars. I don’t actually know, and not sure anyone will tell me. I do know that the bottom line for many of The Weinstein releases was reported to be in the red because of spending. If you have a film that can sell a lot of units and especially in an evergreen manner, and if you can trigger a great TV sale and if you have foreign sales legs, then there’s a real upside. If you don’t, then be clear what you’re goals are. Sometimes it’s just a career move and that makes sense. Canadian filmmakers need a theatrical release to get their next projects funded (say that like this: ‘pro-jects’). Sometimes people just want the awards qualification and that’s another ballgame.
We have written some of our TFC Distribution Tid Bits about Hybrid Theatrical and Marketing options, but here is a bit more on the topic:
If creating buzz is what you want, you don’t need a traditional theatrical and you definitely don’t need to overpay for the privilege.
Some OPTIONS – try HYBRID THEATRICAL – do FILM FESTIVAL, CREATE EVENTS, HOLD A SCREENING WITH ORGANIZATIONS, show in MUSEUMS (in some cases), other ALTERNATIVE VENUES depending on the film, and also there are all sorts of ways to book a few days here and a few days there at theaters (we cover that below). Theaters are and will continue to do this more and more. AMCi announced their intentions and they are still in the marinating phase, but we know you’ll all be ready when they are.
We’re interested in these companies and services:
Cinedigm: They have a program in the works that is meant to be similar to ScreenVision and Fathom (which is no longer handling indie films generally speaking, as far as we know) but aimed at independent cinema, and working with all the big theatre chains (Regal, AMC, Cinemark). I asked them to write a few words for me about themselves and their plans: Cinedigm Entertainment, a theatrical distributor, has built several “channels” of content for movie theatres. This is niche content that plays at what is traditionally slower times for the theatres. Examples are; Kidtoons a monthly matinee program; Live 3D sports, like the World Cup and NCAA Final Four basketball; and 3D and 2D concert films with artists from Dave Mathews to Beyonce. For each “channel,” the most appropriate theatres are chosen and theatres sign on to play the content as a series, thereby creating the expectation in the marketplace for the next installment. In the company’s newest “channel,” it looks to apply the concept to indie-films which will provide filmmakers with the theatrical element for distribution.
Emerging Pictures: Owned by Ira Deutchman (now also a Film Prof. at Columbia University). I spoke with Joshua Green, whom I have known for a while and booked with, though no real revenues were made in the past, their latest network of theatres sounds potent. They connect up to 75 theatres and they do very well with Opera, Ballet and Shakespeare, but also indie films. They work with all the usual indie film distributors either taking on 2nd run of films in major markets or handing the first run in secondary markets. On screen now for example is Mother & Child, My Name is Love, and Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. 30% of the Gross is paid to the distributor or filmmaker. They charge usually a 1-time encoding fee to get the files needed for the theatres. The fee is $1,000. If that’s an issue that can sometimes in advance to make sure the bookings will happen to make the fee worthwhile. They create a Hi Rez file 720p VC1 file which is a professional HD version of MS Windows. They work with the Laemmle theatres in LA and Sympany Space in NY and lots of others across the country. What does well on the Art House circuit will do well with them I was told. Makes sense.
Variance Films: Dylan Marchetti (former exec at Imaginasian and Think Film) is a firm believer in Theatrical and it’s his business. He may promote its necessities a bit more than I will and its not his money to spend and he was honest about the range of success (meaning not all films work theatrically and sometimes money is lost, and we know of at least one example, but it happens). We spoke for the first time and I was comforted by his grassroots approach (they do that work themselves) and his commitment to alternative low cost venues: event screenings, niche-specific / lifestyle specific venues, as well as traditional theatres (all the usual chains and small theatres etc). He noted that generally speaking, they do not charge more than $50,000 and that they get paid via back-end fees only. He said a release in NY and LA for $20,000 can be done. Variance is not a believer in print advertising; they have to believe in the film to take it on; and Dylan said that there is no correlation between P&A spending and a film’s success. Amen. They don’t do PR but rather refer out to outside agencies, as does The Film Collaborative. NB: Dylan Marchetti of Variance makes a correction to this. “Fees vary wildly depending on the film and release”. So sometimes they can do backend tied fees only, but not always.
The Film Collaborative is theatrically releasing UNDERTOW (which won the World Cinema Audience Award at Sundance). Stay tuned.
Orly Ravid July 28th, 2010
Posted In: Film Festivals, Marketing, Theatrical, Uncategorized | |||||
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] | null | [] | 2007-09-12T04:44:00+00:00 | lol.. why would i do that? if i could choose a bb'er to watch it with it would be loranloran, from memory that boy is fine | en | https://groups.tapatalk-cdn.com/static/image/favicon.ico | BBJLo | https://forum.beyond-beautiful.com/bordertown-reviews-and-sales-t5101-s75.html | |||||
4384 | dbpedia | 3 | 39 | https://www.facebook.com/TIFF/videos/paul-dano-x-carey-mulligan/1499589306808565/ | en | Paul Dano and Carey Mulligan stopped by TIFF’s Studio 9 to interview each other about their influences, dream roles and almost-roles (GRAVITY), and their... | [] | [] | [] | [
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] | null | [] | null | Paul Dano and Carey Mulligan stopped by TIFF’s Studio 9 to interview each other about their influences, dream roles and almost-roles (GRAVITY), and their... | de | https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/yT/r/aGT3gskzWBf.ico | https://www.facebook.com/TIFF/videos/paul-dano-x-carey-mulligan/1499589306808565/ | ||||||
5256 | dbpedia | 3 | 16 | https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/mob-land-review-john-travolta-nicholas-maggio/ | en | 'Mob Land' Review: Keepin' It Uncool | [
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"Ross McIndoe"
] | 2023-08-02T04:00:00+00:00 | In 'Mob Land,' John Travolta’s scenes are islands of tranquility in a jittery sea of rote crime-movie pyrotechnics. | en | Slant Magazine | https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/mob-land-review-john-travolta-nicholas-maggio/ | Nicholas Maggio’s feature directorial debut, Mob Land, is a crime thriller in which two men rashly decide to pull off a robbery, frantically blunder their way through the job, and then face the devastating consequences of their actions. Sadly, the film itself is made with the same sort of overexcited energy, and the end result is similarly messy.
Shelby (Shiloh Fernandez) is a simple family man trying to make an honest living in a dying Dixie town. Here, drug overdoses are so common that the locals share the news of someone’s death like they would the results of a bad football game: worthy of quick commiseration but not interrupting your day over. When Shelby finds himself in dire financial straits, his brother-in-law, Trey (Kevin Dillon), suggests that they turn their town’s curse into a blessing by robbing a nearby pill mill. Shelby reluctantly agrees and, after the plan quickly goes awry, they end up fleeing a bloody crime scene with a bag full of mob money and a deadly enforcer on their trail.
Stephen Dorff plays mafia hitman Clayton Minor with a menacing intensity, but he’s mostly reduced to re-enacting villainous scenes from other, better movies. He distractingly channels No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh as Clayton calmly barrages a shopkeeper with probing questions and forces a waitress into a coin toss-esque game. He drives Shelby around at gunpoint, and makes him an unwilling participant in his crimes while espousing a stream of nihilistic philosophies, much like Tom Cruise’s character from Michael Mann’s Collateral.
Mob Land seems thoroughly enamored of the killer with a code, enthusiastically aping these past versions of the archetype and eventually even tilting him into almost the story’s antihero. But beneath this well-worn façade, there’s no real moral complexity or psychological intrigue to Clayton, as he’s just a guy who looks good smoking and likes to kill people.
A more successful piece of character creation comes with the man on the other side of the law, Sheriff Bodie Davis (John Travolta). The bald-headed, heavy-set Bodie is a true bodhi—a world-weary truth-seeker who tries to riddle out the universe’s mysteries through quiet contemplation. He moves heavily, speaks slowly, and likes to observe his crime scenes from a comfortable chair, ruminating quietly on the evidence before him. Travolta brings an air of stillness to Bodie while still retaining enough of that movie-star charisma to make the man’s occasional punchlines sing. “I’ll slap you asleep and then slap you for sleeping,” he chides another officer at one point.
Travolta’s scenes are islands of tranquility in a jittery sea of rote crime-movie pyrotechnics. From the word go, Mob Land abounds in quick cuts and swaying shaky-cam sequences, so that by the time that we actually do get to the more action-oriented scenes, this stylistic approach has long exhausted itself. And the sound is no less anxious to impress. During one emotional phone call between Shelby and his wife (Ashley Benson), Mob Land jumps rapidly between showing us the conversation itself and Shelby’s anguished reaction to it moments later. It’s just plain disconcerting, without adding anything to the emotional impact of the scene.
This hyperactive tendency is unfortunate because Maggio clearly has an eye for a shot. A hunting sequence near the beginning of the film ends with Bodie kneeling over the body of a deer, green forestry filling the frame with his crimson-colored hunting jacket at the center like a splash of blood. In a later scene, Clayton is shown walking away from a shadow-drenched porch where a horrifying act of violence has occurred, wandering out into the darkness like an envoy of death. Aesthetically pleasing, these images also feel like they’re getting close to what Mob Land wants to say about death and violence in this harsh but beautiful part of the world.
At one point, Ellis (Robert Miano), an elder member of Clayton’s crime family, chews him out for lighting a cigarette inside the car: “This Steve McQueen, Johnny Cash bullshit,” the old man says wearily, “it’s tired.” Turns out, what Mob Land really needed most was a wise old voice of its own to warn the filmmakers against such try-hard affectations. | |||||
5256 | dbpedia | 0 | 5 | https://mobverse.fandom.com/wiki/Eobard_Thawne_(Earth-Prime) | en | Eobard Thawne (Earth-Prime) | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ucp-internal-test-starter-commons/images/a/aa/FandomFireLogo.png/revision/latest?cb=20210713142711 | https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ucp-internal-test-starter-commons/images/a/aa/FandomFireLogo.png/revision/latest?cb=20210713142711 | [
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"Contributors to Mobverse Wiki"
] | 2024-07-29T22:27:06+00:00 | For other uses of "Eobard Thawne", see Eobard Thawne (disambiguation). Professor Eobard Thawne (c. 2151[1] - 2022),[2] also known as the Reverse-Flash and nicknamed the Mysterious Yellow Flash by onlookers[3] was a meta-human speedster from the twenty-second century, a descendant of the late... | en | /skins-ucp/mw139/common/favicon.ico | Mobverse Wiki | https://mobverse.fandom.com/wiki/Eobard_Thawne_(Earth-Prime) | For other uses of "Eobard Thawne", see Eobard Thawne (disambiguation).
Professor Eobard Thawne (c. 2151[1] - 2022),[2] also known as the Reverse-Flash and nicknamed the Mysterious Yellow Flash by onlookers[3] was a meta-human speedster from the twenty-second century, a descendant of the late Eddie Thawne, a time criminal and the archenemy of Barry Allen/The Flash. A massive fan obsessed with the twenty-first century's Flash all his life, Eobard recreated the accident that was behind the Flash's powers, becoming a speedster himself. Almost two centuries from the 21st century, Thawne met Flash and learned various ways to become faster than anything. However, when Thawne was about to make his grand entrance and be hailed as a hero, the Flash beat him to it and stole his greatest moment from him, therefore humiliating him. That coupled with his discovery that he was destined to become the Flash's greatest enemy, the Reverse-Flash, Thawne lost his mind and took his rage out on his idol out of envy of not being who he is and spite for humiliated him. Therefore, he decided to embrace his inescapable destiny and become the greatest arch-nemesis he ever had, prove his superiority as Reverse-Flash and becoming the opposite of his former idol and defeat him. This included creating his own negative version of the Speed Force using negative energy and exercising his raw emotions, which he used to travel through time without the Flash I being able to detect him. Since then, the two speedsters battled each other for many years, but neither of them was strong or fast enough to defeat the other.
After learning the Flash's secret identity, Eobard traveled back in time to kill Barry as a child to erase his foe from existence but was thwarted by the Flash of 2024 who brought the younger Barry to safety. The enraged Eobard then killed Nora Allen and framed Henry Allen for the crime instead, being known as the Man in Yellow after the incident. However, Eobard's connection to the Speed Force began fluctuating, trapping him in the early twenty-first century. Realizing that Barry was the only way to return to his time, Eobard killed a man in order to assume the identity of Harrison Wells as the director of S.T.A.R. Labs, and to push through for the creation of a particle accelerator to ensure that Barry would become the Flash. Posing as Wells, Eobard mentored the Flash and became the leader of a team that he assembled to stop the meta-human threats, to increase his protégé's speed so that Eobard could use the hero's connection to the Speed Force to return to his own time. During this time, he also developed a bond with Cisco Ramon as another protégé. After his plan was exposed and subsequently foiled, Eobard was erased from existence after his ancestor Eddie killed himself to stop him.
One year after Eobard was erased from existence, Barry prevented Eobard from murdering Nora, creating the Flashpoint timeline and holding him captive for months. After realizing this mistake, Barry released Eobard, allowing him to kill Nora again; as a result of being pulled out of the timeline Eobard was spared from his fate and continued to exist as a time remnant, while his original actions remained intact. Due to his own nullified state of existence; he was hunted by the Black Flash, forcing him to seek out the Spear of Destiny in order to restore his natural existence. Unable to find the object and outrun the enforcer at the same time, Eobard formed a supervillain alliance. Eobard and his co-conspirators eventually retrieved the Spear of Destiny, which they used to rewrite reality to their whims. Despite its initial success, Eobard's plan was foiled by the Legends' de-powering the object, and Eobard was vaporized by the Black Flash.
Later, Eobard mysteriously resurfaced as an ally of the New Reich of Earth-X. He originally tried to carry out the Fuhrer's request to perform heart surgery on Overgirl. However, when the Reich's defeat eventually became inevitable, he abandoned his allies to their deaths at the hands of Team Flash, Team Arrow, the Legends, and Supergirl.
In 2034, Eobard was incarcerated in the meta-human wing of Iron Heights, where his powers were negated by Cicada's dagger. In 2049, he began mentoring Nora West-Allen, claiming to be working towards a less villainous legacy, as he was scheduled for execution. However, the real reason why he mentored Nora in traveling to the past was to destroy the dagger and free him. After the dagger was destroyed, Eobard was freed, moments before his execution. He briefly fought Nora and Barry before Nora began to be erased from existence. After the two ran away to enter the Negative Speed Force at Eobard's fervent suggestion, Eobard made his escape.
Following the Anti-Monitor Crisis and the creation of the new multiverse, Eobard's spirit joined the other versions of Wells of the old multiverse in being fused to the brainwaves of Harrison Nash Wells. As Eobard's body was a copy of Earth-1 Wells, it gave him an easier access to possessing Nash. His specter was composed of negative particles and emotions, with a hatred for everyone as he wanted to brutally kill Barry and Team Flash. However, Nash was freed as Eobard's consciousness was expelled from Nash's body as negative tachyons. Months later, the Speed Force reconstituted Eobard to help against August Heart who he defeated. After seeing Barry's speed was too great for him, Eobard retreated to fight for another day.
Eobard later created and became the host of the Negative Still Force, which allowed him to travel in time wherever he pleased and alter/manipulate time to his desires. This kickstarted Armageddon as part for his masterplan to defeat his arch-nemesis once-and-for all. He started by manipulating time to cause the death of Joe West and erasing Barry's memories of the event. Eobard then started manipulating time to drive Barry insane, such as framing him for being Black Hole's mole, which got Barry suspended from the CCPD.
Eobard's machinations caused his nemesis to supposedly go rogue and cause the destruction of the Earth in 2031, by Armageddon, which led to Despero to travel back in time to 2021 in an attempt to stop Barry. After escaping Despero, Barry traveled to 2031 to try to stop himself from destroying the Earth and much to his horror, he found out that Eobard used the Negative Still Force to become a successful businessman and get engaged to Iris West-Allen. However, with Damien Darhk's help, Barry ultimately prevented the alternate timeline that Eobard created from ever happening.
After the timeline was changed back to normal, Eobard was being erased from existence by the timeline itself, even his connection to the Negative Speed Force was not able to prevent this from happening. As a result, Eobard asked Team Flash to help save his life. The group as a whole was initially reluctant to do so, but Barry ultimately saved Eobard's life by severing the latter's connection to the Negative Speed Force. Eobard was then sent to an A.R.G.U.S. prison.
The time displaced version of Eobard was made into the protector of a fixed point in time, having been brought back to life and stripped of his powers by the Time Wraiths after his death by the Black Flash. Placed in 1914 to ensure the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and, thus, the resulting world war, Eobard came to agree that the timeline could not and should not be changed. However, Eobard agreed to help the Legends attract the Waverider by changing the circumstances of Ferdinand's death. When the Legends' plan went awry, Eobard was killed by Sara Lance's robot clone and was ultimately replaced as the protector of the fixed point by Nate Heywood's robot clone. This version was later resurrected a second time by the Time Wraiths to give him a chance for redemption as he never gave up his post as the protector of the fixed point and eventually meet Meena Dhawan, helping her and falling in love with her. However, after the Negative Still Force killed the bad Eobard, the good Eobard was unwillingly sacrificed as part of a resurrection plan that the Negative Forces developed to bring the bad version back.
After ripping through his good self and regaining his powers, Thawne vowed to destroy Barry for good this time; also taunting him about Iris was used for his rebirth. Traveling back to the Negative Speed Force, he absorbed the powers of the Negative Forces. However, Thawne would eventually be destroyed by his nemesis in battle, with his entire body being disintegrated by his own negative energies.
Biography[]
Original multiverse[]
Early life[]
Eobard Thawne was born in the year 2151[1] into the distant future, a modern time where technology has vastly advanced to the maximum extent but cows were unfortunately extinct.[1] When he was a child, he was taught astro-navigation in grade school,[4] and grew up as a diehard fan who passionately idolized the Flash, the 21st century superhero speedster whom inspired him all of his life to the point of being like the man for as long as he can remember.[5] A scion of the Thawne family consisting of notable generations of scientists, politicians, and industrialists, he is a well-respected member within his own beloved family and his first name "Eobard" is apparently distinguished.[6] Eobard is also very aware and knowledgeable of his ancestor Eddie Thawne despite history having virtually no record of Eddie's existence, however, Eobard doesn't hold Eddie in high regard as he himself scornfully considers his distant ancestor to be a failure of within their family by his standards due to having an uneventful life.[6]
Ambitions to be a hero and save the world[]
Growing up, Eobard had altruistic dreams, desires, ambitions, and visions to achieve greatness, reach higher feats, advance science and improve the world of its greatest problems. Therefore he became a scientist and a physicist, eventually joining the academia as a student, researcher and professor and dedicated his life to learning, unlocking and discovering the Speed Force's secrets with the hopes to fulfill that wish.[4][7]
Becoming a speedster[]
Having spent years trying to discover the Speed Force's secrets, Eobard became so fascinated and obsessed with the Flash to the point that between the 2170s or 2190s he learned of his lifelong idol's origins and how these super-powers were obtained. All years of research, investigation and studies eventually culminated in where he duplicated the transformation that was originally behind said powers of superhuman speed, thus Eobard became a meta-human speedster with the power of time travel via a connection to the Speed Force, and presumably created or obtained a suit with the opposite colors.[5] At some point, he also designed an anti-speedster rifle that is now in possession of the legends.[8][4]
The feud's start[]
Using his superpowers, Thawne somehow learned many ways to channel and his speeds, becoming faster than anything alive and also learned to use this to travel through time. Thawne then traveled to the future, approximately two centuries from the 21st century and finally met the Flash for the very first time. In his own words, he was about to present himself to the world and start his heroics, but the Flash intervened to save a random crowd from an unknown disaster, attracting the attention and praise that Thawne was meant to earn, stealing his greatest opportunity and shattering his most memorable moment and therefore putting his longtime diehard fan to shame in the process. In that very moment, Thawne grew resentful of the Flash because for all the praise he has admired his idol, he gets paid back with betrayal and indignation and vowed to become faster than the Flash to prove himself as the fastest man alive.[9]
Eobard presumably then navigated back to an unknown point in the 21st century and some time during his travel but unfortunately he discovered from his ability to travel through time that he was tragically doomed to become mortal enemies with the Flash and the reverse of everything that his idol was and stood for, instead of a successor and the hero he desperately strived to become.[5]
Devastated to his very core by this realization, Thawne was left horrified, shocked, confused, and disillusioned. He could not believe the revelation himself after everything he wanted to do to save the world. To make matters even worse, Thawne was driven insane and lost his mind, which incited him to take his anger out on his former idol and cause a rampage against the man's life.[10] Thawne then became consumed with an insatiable and everlasting hatred for the Flash who he began to see as the villain from his point of view. In desperation, he adopted the supervillain moniker of the "Reverse-Flash" and fulfilled his inescapable destiny as his fallen idol's greatest archenemy while descending into madness on path to the abyss.[5][10]
Becoming his opposite adversary[]
In both his obsession to be the Flash's exact opposite to surpass and defeat as well as to time travel undetected, Eobard obtained this with an energy that first tapped into him by feeding off of his hatred for his former idol therefore becoming the avatar of the the Negative Speed Force.[11] This also gave him the idea to exploit this energy source for his own uses and therefore he built a biometric lightning oscillation chamber to increase his connection to it and use it to its full potential, thinking that he created this energy all by himself with the actual case however being that it has always existed.[2] From this point forward, Eobard underwent massive changes in his personality, behavior and mental health due to his exposure to the negative tachyons that it made him more dangerous and unstable every time he abused it, to the point he rendered himself nearly invulnerable to timeline changes.[11][7] Out of revenge for being shamed and envy for being a foil, he vowed destroy the Flash's life, career, and dream, so much that for everyone saved Thawne would kill more. Thawne then made it his life's work to surpass the Flash as a speedster, to defeat by whatever means necessary (including killing loved ones and worthy successors), and usurp his nemesis.[5]
Pursuit of his former idol[]
Eobard is implied to have met Rip Hunter, the designer of the first Time Sphere, whom he considers an "interesting man", which could be how he also obtained possession of Gideon, an artificial intelligence program created by the Flash, and began searching various moments throughout history to learn when the Flash was active. He began traveling back in time to find when the Flash was active and after several searches proved fruitless, he eventually traveled back to the year of the Flash's origins, starting their war across time.[5]
Reverse-Flash arrived in January 2016, Central City.[12] After Gideon confirmed his whereabouts, he began searching for the Flash. Eobard rigged a truck to drive at high speeds and collide with a building to lure the Flash out, and was successful. Pleased to have located the exact time era the Flash was active, Eobard planned his return home to properly plan his next attack and broke into one of Mercury Labs' offsite facilities, and prepared equipment designed to act as a time machine to send him back to his own time. However, Eobard was unable to replicate the tachyon power source and sought out Dr. Tina McGee.
Storming Mercury Labs and striking four guards, he confronted Tina but was interrupted by the Flash's arrival. However, Reverse-Flash was surprised when the Flash addressed him by his real name, revealing the Flash already met him at some point in the future and that the Flash had seen him die. However, Reverse-Flash simply thanked the Flash for telling him of his impending fate and told the Flash he now knew what time period the Flash was from and that his nemesis would soon die instead, and he knocked the Flash out before taking Tina to the offsite facility.
When Eobard showed his device, Tina recalled a "man in a yellow suit" tried to steal another tachyon device the previous year. Upon hearing this, Eobard realized that he must have gotten stuck in the past at some point in his future, having been unable to access enough energy of the Speed Force. Eobard ordered Tina to accelerate the energetic properties within the tachyon device. But when Tina expressed doubts, Eobard vibrated his hand and calmly told Tina to learn or be killed.
War with the Flash[]
Vibed timeline[]
After Tina finished the work at 9:52pm, Eobard killed his hostage anyway and used the tachyon device to return to his timeline. Because Cisco vibed this event 3 hours and 52 minutes in advance the Flash was given enough time to locate them.[5]
Changed timeline[]
After Tina finished the work at 9:52 pm, Eobard prepared to kill Tina anyway but the Flash arrived, subdued him, and destroyed the machine. Angered but soon unwavered by his nemesis's sabotage to his trip home, Eobard said he would find another way to travel to the future and boasted his superiority to the Flash before issuing a challenge to catch him. Both Reverse-Flash and the Flash began racing throughout the streets of Central City, but the Flash managed to anticipate his path and intercepted him, culminating with the Flash catching Reverse-Flash. The Flash proceeded to severely beat Reverse-Flash almost to death in a fit of rage for his future actions. Only reluctantly stopping himself from delivering a death blow, the Flash instead knocked him out and placed him in S.T.A.R. Labs' pipeline prison.
During his imprisonment, Eobard was visited by Cisco Ramon/Vibe, asking how his ring worked. Confused yet curious, Eobard talked to Cisco and deduced he must have a history with him in the future, but was confused as to why the engineer only wanted to know how his ring worked. However, Cisco told Eobard of being the one that found him because of the young engineer's metahuman powers given by his future self. Cisco also revealed that Eobard would help build the very prison he was incarcerated in, leaving Eobard puzzled to learn of his future actions and developed an almost instant fascination with Cisco.
Eobard was later approached by the Flash (unmasked but concealed in the shadows), asking for his hatred's source. Eobard explained his obsession with his desire to be like his idol himself, so much that he spent years learning how his idol gained these powers and succeeded in replicating the reaction. Then he traveled through time and learned that he was going to become his own idol's greatest enemy, rather than be like the Flash. He opted to become the reverse of everything the Flash was, vowing to kill as many people as the Flash saved. As his former idol was disgusted to learn what was behind Eobard's motivations, even revealing that someone had been killed by Eobard's future self, Eobard angrily stated that he had become better than the Flash and was the one thing the Flash could never stop, and he promised that one day he would learn his nemesis's real name.
Shortly after, Eobard was approached by an intelligent individual and realized that his imprisonment has ruptured the timeline. However, Eobard doubted the individual knew how to send him back without Tina's tachyon device, but the man said he had instead developed an alternate method to send him home. Fascinated with his warden, Eobard asked the man's name, but the man refused to identify himself, claiming to be no one of consequence, yet Eobard was unconvinced and was instantly fascinated by the individual.
Eobard was released from his cell and informed of Team Flash's alternate method of sending him back to the future, to have both him and the Flash run at high enough speeds to create a wormhole through which Eobard can return to his own time. Eobard also gloated of winning again, mockingly speaking in the past tense for all his future actions. As they prepared, Eobard vowed the two would meet again and the Flash agreed but also vowed to stop him every time, and both the Flash and Reverse-Flash sped around the particle accelerator's ring. After gaining enough speed, the wormhole was created and the Flash hurled Reverse-Flash through the portal and Reverse-Flash successfully returned to his own time and plan his next attack.[5]
War in the past[]
After his first showdown, Eobard would subsequently go on to travel through time again and again to the early 21st century to fight the Flash. The two speedsters would then fight each other in various different times, with neither one managing to defeat the other,[1] eventually to a point where they had "been at this a long time" as their fights as spanning over the course of centuries to which Eobard ended up confident of being one step ahead.[13] Whatever transpired, Eobard would sometimes ponder of "which of us is right" to hate the other and seemed to have some respect for his nemesis, acknowledging his former idol as a veteran hero and an intelligent individual who wouldn't use time travel for selfish or foolish reasons, unlike himself.[14]
During his time-travels, Thawne learned about Cisco's "great and honorable" destiny as the superhero Vibe, as well as Dr. Caitlin Snow's alternate split personality Killer Frost.[15][16] In addition, Thawne became quite knowledgeable about his nemesis' other major enemies, including Clifford DeVoe/The Thinker, Savitar and David Hersch/Cicada; he considered himself a "big fan" of the Thinker's work and viewed Cicada as the "one who got away."[17][18] Thawne learned about numerous other 21st century individuals and events, such as history books on the Starling City vigilante Oliver Queen/Green Arrow and hacker Felicity Smoak/Overwatch with the latter's recorded death at age 86 and lack of information on the former as well as the various women that have been known as the Black Canary.[19][20]
Like most speedsters, Eobard had at least one encounter with the Time Wraiths, which he came to fear, trying his best to avoid as no speedster knew how to kill these creatures. Because of the Time Wraiths' dangers, Eobard became more strategic about his timeline alterations, only making necessary alterations to achieve his primary goal, and not recklessly upsetting history and risk being found by the Speed Force's enforcers.[21] He also became familiar with other speedsters, having been aware of Jesse Quick, Libby Lawrence, and Danica Williams.[21][18]
At some point in his personal timeline, Eobard learned how to travel through the multiverse. He may learned of Hunter Zolomon/Zoom of Earth-2 and Jay Garrick/The Flash of Earth-3; this can be attributed to his acknowledgement of a certain helmet.[1][4][18] Eobard also learned of the various doppelgangers of Harrison Wells, such as the version from Earth-1 who was the supposed reason that several meta-humans (including Flash) appeared thanks to the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator which was successfully launched in 2020, Harry Wells and Harrison Sherloque Wells.[22][23][24] For unknown reasons, he fought Superman where the Man of Steel was fast while Eobard was faster, but their confrontation's details are unknown, only that Eobard told this to Supergirl of Earth-38.[20]
At some point, Eobard eventually learned his archenemy's real name: Barry Allen. He began studying the Allen family, learning of Henry Allen and Nora Allen[1], as well as Iris West-Allen[6][14] and Barry's and Iris's daughter (who was named Dawn in this timeline). He also somehow learned that Savitar was ironically a version of his nemesis from an alternate future who had an amusing "pizza face."[18] Eobard began to develop a plan to finally defeat the Flash, which was to erase his former idol from existence by murdering Barry as a child.[1] But before that happened, Eobard wanted one more match against his enemy.
Crisis of 2024[]
Reverse-Flash traveled to the midnight of April 25, 2024, and fought The Flash, Green Arrow, Atom and Hawkgirl in the streets of Central City, causing the most destruction the city had ever seen. The fight also somehow caused the sky to turn a deep crimson color. Their fight caused several trucks to start leaking their contents onto the streets, and caused power outages spread over 20 blocks throughout the city. The speedsters then started battling over two overturned tanker trucks, and the lightning emitted from them caused the oil from one of them to ignite. While sounded by smoke, the two speedsters had a very heated conversation on an unknown matter before speeding off, leaving Green Arrow, Atom, and Hawkgirl behind. The two then continued their fight up and down an unknown avenue before Flash and him vanished without a trace in an explosion of light.[25] According to Iris in 2049, some sources describing the battle claimed that Reverse-Flash controlled an army of shadow demons and that Flash was instead or also aided by Batwoman, Elongated Man and Supergirl.[26]
Traveling to 2000[]
During the explosion of light, Reverse-Flash traveled back in time to the night of March 18, 2000,[27] aiming to murder the 11-year-old Barry and erase his nemesis from existence as he had planned before, but he was pursued by the Flash from 2024, hindering his plans. The two fought inside the Allen house around Nora, each landing solid hits on each other but their skills were fairly equal. When the 11-year-old Barry entered the room, Reverse-Flash moved in for the kill, but Flash intervened and transported the younger Barry to safety 20 blocks away, much to Reverse-Flash's outrage. However, Reverse-Flash quickly theorized another way to achieve his goal: kill Nora and frame Henry for the crime in the hopes that such a tragedy would traumatize Barry enough to derail from his nemesis's destiny, and he'd be free to return to a future without Flash.[1]
Life as Harrison Wells[]
Stranded in the past[]
Reverse-Flash grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed Nora in the heart leaving Nora to die, and fled the scene to return to his own time which he hoped would now be one without the Flash, but he was stopped by a sudden loss of connection to the Speed Force. After Gideon confirmed that his powers fluctuated somewhat due to his latest time jump, Reverse-Flash realized that he was now stranded in the 21st century with no way back to his time, and he screamed in frustration.
Eobard soon realized that the reason for his unstable connection to the Speed Force was because his own status as a speedster was dependent upon Barry's. Therefore, if Barry never was Flash in the past, then Eobard never would have been Reverse-Flash in the future. With this revelation, Eobard realized he needed Barry to be a speedster in order to return to his own time.[22]
Identity theft[]
A month after killing Nora,[28] Eobard traveled to Starling City to stalk Dr. Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan, knowing that the couple would create a particle accelerator in 2020 behind Barry's powers. Eobard spied on the couple while on a date where Harrison proposed S.T.A.R. Labs' concept to Tess downtown in Starling City. Eobard plotted to use Harrison's reputation and his own futuristic knowledge to recreate the particle accelerator himself as quickly as possible. Later that night, Eobard rigged the road with a spike strip and caused Harrison's car to crash, killing Tess and injuring Harrison. He dragged Harrison out of the car, and identified himself to Harrison as well as the terrified scientist's supposed role in 2020. Eobard then took out his appearance-stealing device, and attached one end to Harrison and to the other to himself, acclimating Harrison's DNA which literally made himself an identical duplicate on a genetic level while his victim died in the process. Afterwards, he buried Harrison's body in a grove near the bridge,[29] and took his victim's place in the car. When the police found him, he introduced himself under his stolen identity at that point.[22]
Thawne told the police the car crashed due to a tire blowout, thereby keeping Harrison's murder a secret. Thawne then moved to Central City to carry out his plan and build S.T.A.R. Labs there instead to ensure success, giving the cover story that he moved away from Starling City because of too many reminders of Tess.[30][29] Now officially as "Harrison Wells" to the public, Thawne devoted his life to S.T.A.R. Labs' creation and its particle accelerator, using past knowledge but taking precautions to ensure his plan would work, keeping close observation throughout Barry's whole life by setting up cameras all over Central City, and even in the West household, where Barry lived following Nora's death.[25] To avoid the Time Wraiths' attention, Thawne took precautions to avoid unnecessary timeline alterations.[21] Thawne also came to like Big Belly Burger as one the few reasons to stay in the 21st century since cows were extinct in his own time; however, he ultimately despised living in the 21st century, a situation he deemed "barbaric" and compared to "living amongst the dead."[1]
Along with S.T.A.R. Labs' creation, Thawne built the Time Vault, a secret room accessible only via hand-print where he kept his belongings, including the Gideon program which was still able to stay informed of future events, including a newspaper article written by Iris on the crisis of 2024[31][32] which acted as a deadline as to Thawne's remaining time to harness Barry's speed and Thawne further used it to keep tabs on the timeline, and if any changes occurred, take the necessary steps to get the timeline back on track for his own sake.[31][33] Thawne kept his Reverse-Flash suit on a display case and stored a second suit away in the room.[13][34] He also set himself up in a mansion but he never kept any future belongings in his house itself for security reasons,[35] and also built what was later known as the speed lab.[36]
Shortly after, he began the particle accelerator's constructions but made some alterations first to ensure the dark matter released would spread throughout Central City, with the aim of creating a lightning bolt that would strike Barry with a connection to the Speed Force, though did not care that other people would either become meta-humans themselves or be killed.[35] To ensure Barry's cooperation when the time came, he built the particle accelerator to act as a time machine of sorts that Barry could use to go back and prevent Nora's death while Thawne could return to his time in the wormhole left behind as a result of this time venture. To account for the possibility of Barry's increasing speed against him, Thawne planed to exploit Barry's speed only when Barry was fast enough to time travel not one second later, thereby giving him enough opportunity to kill Barry if necessary.[1] To motivate Barry further when the time came, Thawne began working on a way to restore his own connection to the Speed Force via various tachyon technologies, thus giving him significantly faster speed than as compared to Barry's novice abilities. But because of his own unstable connection to the Speed Force, these fixes of tachyon energies would only be temporary and would unexpectedly vanish from time to time, leaving him powerless.[13][35]
Thawne observed Barry's personal life as an unseen influence, initially looking upon his future enemy with nothing but hate but soon growing fond of the youth (as he hated but the Flash's future version).[25] Thawne's actions had profound impacts on Barry's life both as the so-called "man in yellow" (an alternate name before his true alter ego was revealed) and as Wells. As the former, he became Barry's greatest fear and driving force to be a C.S.I. with the Central City Police Department, with Barry hoping to one day find some evidence of Henry's innocence and uncover the true killer's identity. As the latter, Barry would grow to idolize him and was described as being obsessed with him without knowing who he really was (an ironic reverse of events as Thawne had once been obsessed without knowing his former idol's identity either), not learning much about him despite reading his 600-page biography twice.[22][33] Thawne also kept just as close observation of Eddie and took whatever precautions were needed to ensure Eddie would continue their bloodline, thus ensuring his own existence.[6]
As Wells, Thawne met various CEOs, such as Simon Stagg and Robert Queen.[37][38] He knew Stagg wasn't really a philanthropist but a greedy and corrupt man famous for others' scientific achievements.[37] He once met Queen at a charity event, with one of the subjects of discussion being Oliver.[38] Thawne also thought of Felicity in his search for promising young minds to help with his work as he foresaw Felicity's "great things"[39] and became an acquaintance with a younger version of Tina because of Harrison, though Tina always sensed something was different after Tess's death.[40] At some point after Thomas Snow's faked death, Thomas kept in touch with several scientists (including Thawne) who created a secret video feed from S.T.A.R. Labs to the site that Thomas was hiding in the North Pole.[41]
In 2004, Thawne was approached by General Wade Eiling to work on a military project together to create soldiers with physic abilities, presenting new opportunities financially and scientifically and Thawne agreed. While working at S.T.A.R. Labs, Eobard adopted Grodd, a pet gorilla that he kept at S.T.A.R. Labs who he became close, with Grodd later viewing Thawne as a "father." In 2009, Thawne learned that Eiling had been using Grodd as a test subject and was torturing the gorilla in the process. When Thawne discovered this, he berated Eiling in a furious argument with the general and cancelled the project, but still had "big plans" for Grodd.[42]
Sometime prior to 2011, Thawne hired Caitlin, Ronnie Raymond, and Hartley Rathaway as employees of S.T.A.R. Labs.[35] On Caitlin's first day, Thawne said "A scientist's work is never finished."[43] Thawne grew especially close to Hartley during the particle accelerator's construction, often bonding through activities such as games of chess and the fact that Hartley was the only other person who knew how to speak Latin.[35] Thawne also hired Arthur Light, a man who developed a lethal high powered shockwave rifle. However, Eobard fired Arthur for apparent insanity around 2012.[44]
In 2013, Thawne hired an earlier version of Cisco, knowing of Cisco's engineering talents based on his first interaction with Cisco's future self in 2016. Thawne started growing close with Cisco, much to Hartley's dismay, though Thawne assured Hartley that Cisco wouldn't get in the way of their friendship.[35] At one point during the particle accelerator's construction, Thawne gave S.T.A.R. Labs' team a strict deadline to work on the synchrotron, causing the team to struggle.[45] Eventually, Hartley realized that the particle accelerator was faulty and could explode, threatening Thawne's plans. Thawne subsequently had Hartley fired and threatened to ruin Hartley's career if anyone was ever told.[35] After Hartley's termination, Thawne grew closer to Cisco and came to view Cisco as a surrogate son.[46]
At some point before the particle accelerator's launch, Channel 52 visited S.T.A.R. Labs, and Thawne spoke on how the particle accelerator's activation would revolutionize several fields of science overnight.[17]
The particle accelerator's explosion[]
On December 11, 2013,[47] Thawne held an event at which he planned to switch on S.T.A.R. Labs' particle accelerator. He began speaking on stage, claiming that the particle accelerator would create a brighter future, bringing advancements in power and medicine, as well as physics as they knew it.[31][48][18] After opening up to questions, Marlize DeVoe asked Thawne if he had indeed planned for every event and outcome after the particle accelerator's activation. Thawne recognized the DeVoe name and realized that Clifford was also there. He told Clifford of being a big fan, subtly hinting at the man's future as one of the Flash's greatest enemies, and wished Clifford luck.[17]
Back in the cortex after the press conference, Cisco alerted Thawne of an oncoming storm, but Thawne assured Cisco that it would not effect the particle accelerator's activation.[48] As Thawne was about to turn the particle accelerator on, he got the sensation that something was amiss; Thawne's suspicion was indeed rightful as a version of Barry from 2018 and another speedster had time-traveled to 2013 and had just then entered S.T.A.R. Labs. Thawne left the room and walked towards the Time Vault, with the two speedsters having just phased inside. Before he could investigate, he was stopped by Cisco and Caitlin. Thawne asked Caitlin to have Ronnie run the particle accelerator's numbers one more time and to bring the bottle of Dom Pérignon out to celebrate. After Caitlin left, Thawne told Cisco of his belief that the youth would go on to do great things, subtly hinting at Cisco's future that he once witnessed. The two then attempted a handshake before heading back to the lab.[18] The particle accelerator was then switched on. As the team celebrated, however, particles began to behave abnormally, such as liquids floating in the air, followed by a loud bang from the particle accelerator. Thawne sent Ronnie and Cisco down to manually shut the particle accelerator down before anything bad happened.
After Ronnie had vented the system to assure S.T.A.R. Labs' safety but was seemingly killed in the process, Cisco called Thawne down to the chamber. Thawne made his way down but before doing so, went into the Time Vault to see Barry struck by lightning, pleased to see that his plan worked.[48] The wave of energy from his resulting explosion also resulted in countless meta-humans and led to at least 16 people dying.[33] Additionally, Grodd was also affected by the particle accelerator, and the dark matter (combined with Eiling's drugs which had been injected years earlier) activated and mutated Grodd into a hyper-intelligent gorilla and escaped the cage; Thawne allowed Grodd to roam free in the sewers, continuing to grow in intelligence and size.[6] Thawne also suspected that Cisco was affected by the dark matter but could never confirm his suspicions as Cisco showed no signs of having powers.[1]
Following the particle accelerator's explosion, Thawne was brought to Central City Hospital just as the comatose Barry was. He was recognized by Dr. Ambres who reported that he had no feeling below his waist. As the doctors examined him, Thawne watched Barry's comatose body being taken in.[18] Thawne began pretending to be paralyzed from the waist down, not just to keep suspicion of his future activities as Reverse-Flash away from himself, but also rigging his personal wheelchair with a machine to feed him a connection via tachyons and make him faster than even Barry and maintain his already ruptured connection to the Speed Force.[19] He also used the wheelchair to store a flash drive in which he kept his personal notes.[49]
After Barry was put into a coma due to the lightning strike caused by the shock-wave, Barry's condition eventually went critical and Thawne convinced Joe West (Barry's foster father) to allow him to move Barry to S.T.A.R. Labs. However, Joe never fully trusted Thawne and knew something wasn't right but was so desperate to see Barry awake and ignored those feelings. While Barry was at S.T.A.R. Labs, Thawne remarked how amusing it was to see how helpless Barry was, and how easy it would've been to just kill then and there. He also remarked the irony of him going back to kill and now needing to ensure Barry's existence to return to his own time, and though remarking how interesting it's been watching Barry grow up. However, Thawne firmly stated "nothing is forgiven" and that one day Barry will die.[25]
At some point, Thawne cracked the multiverse's source code and discovered the time language which allows the user to retain knowledge of previous timelines due to its immunity to timeline changes, recording this presumably for personal usage.[49] Due to S.T.A.R. Labs' reputation being tarnished following the particle accelerator failure, Thawne ordered their Starling City branch to be shut down and the supplies moved back to Central City. Thawne sent Caitlin and Cisco to inventory supplies where the two unexpectedly encountered Deathstroke's army.[44]
Working with the Flash[]
After Barry woke from the coma, Thawne was called down to the lab to talk to Barry. He took Barry around S.T.A.R. Labs, explaining what had actually happened on the night of the particle accelerator explosion and how they'd moved Barry. Before they could run more tests, Barry left. After having realized Barry had the ability to run at superhuman speed, Thawne and the team went to an airfield where they sought to test Barry's speed. Thawne cautioned restraint, although Barry instead ran at full pelt, accidentally running into barrels of water. Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Barry told Thawne the story of Nora's murder and suspected belief that perhaps there were more powerful humans, perhaps like the man who murdered Nora, oblivious to the fact of talking to the very man responsible. Keeping this secret safe, Thawne told Barry of being most definitely unique.
Following a later run-in with Clyde Mardon's weather manipulation, however, Barry returned, angry that Thawne had seemingly lied. He admitted fault, explaining that the explosion had released various forms of seemingly theoretical energy across the city, including anti-matter, dark energy, and x-elements. Barry mentioned planning to stop Clyde, though Thawne attempted to stop Barry from taking the risk, as Barry was incredibly important in terms of scientific advancement. Despite Thawne's claims that Barry was not a hero but only simply a boy who was struck by lightning, Barry furiously stormed out of S.T.A.R. Labs, determined to subduing Clyde.
Though seemingly for scientific reasons, Thawne's words were clearly an attempt to sway Barry away from a heroic destiny and exploit Barry's powers without worrying about an impending death by other metahumans' hands. Following Barry's departure, Thawne eventually realized the only way to make Barry faster was to allow the youth to fight the other meta-humans, to push himself to his limits. As Barry struggled to unravel a tornado Clyde had made, Thawne intervened over the communication, apologizing, reassuring Barry that he did, in fact, believe, that Barry was a hero and could right Thawne's wrongs. Barry, encouraged by his mentor's words, then managed to unravel the tornado and stop Clyde. Thawne later went into his secret room and checked up on the future and was relieved to see the future was intact.[31]
After having acted as a hero, Barry returned to S.T.A.R. Labs, where Thawne again cautioned restraint to Barry, telling his protégé to make sure to know limits. When Barry later tried to act the hero again and passed out, Barry was taken to S.T.A.R. Labs and despite being scolded, they decided to try some tests. Barry began running on a modified treadmill and the youth to eventually pass out, Thawne identified that it had to do with Barry's glucose levels due to an extremely fast metabolism processing it too fast. They hooked Barry up to 40 IV bags before the youth finally awoke. As they began discussing a new diet for Barry, Joe entered the room; Thawne was surprised to see Joe. He reassured Joe that they were looking out for what was best for Barry, though Joe disagreed that what they were doing was the way to do it, leading to an argument between Barry and Joe. After Barry returned to S.T.A.R. Labs after been beaten up by another meta-human identified by blood samples as Danton Black, Barry decided against trying to take Black down despite Thawne's support and was adamant that what they were doing was a mistake.
Following that, Thawne went to talk to Joe. After briefly talking with Stagg, he claimed to Joe that next time Barry suited up, the youth would doubt himself. Thawne headed back to S.T.A.R. Labs, where Caitlin was able to grow a clone of Black from a replicating cell, so they called Barry in and explained this. The clone promptly awakened, presumably due to Black's prime self activating some clones, and Joe hurried in through the doors, shooting the clone and reassuring Barry that only a meta-human could stop meta-humans, realizing Thawne was potentially right. They talked to Barry when the youth reached Stagg Industries and Thawne noted that his protégé had to find Multiplex's prime self. After Barry gained the upper hand and attempted to save Multiplex from falling to death but Multiplex actually wished to die before forcibly letting go of Barry's hand and killing himself, the team watched a news report of it on the TV afterwards. Barry mentioned having tried to prevent Black's death, but Thawne reflected that sometimes people break and can't be put back together. Following that, Thawne visited Stagg with Stagg making claims to exploit the so-called Streak. Seeing Stagg's greed as an obstacle to his own plans for Barry, Thawne stood up from his wheelchair and fatally stabbed Stagg, claiming that the Flash (as his protégé would come to be known as) had to be kept safe.[37]
After the Darbinyan crime family were gassed to death by a presumed meta-human, S.T.A.R. Labs' team began researching what they could, all of them excited by the potential prospects. Joe noted that they would have to find somewhere to hold a meta-human as Iron Heights was less than ideal and Cisco suggested the particle accelerator, Cisco and Thawne went down to the particle accelerator's core chamber. Thawne had to go do some modifications while Cisco waited (using the information he acquired from his own imprisonment in 2016). The two later assisted Barry in going after a mist-controlling meta-human inside the Central City Shopping Mall. However, Barry discovered that the man could turn himself into gas, and inhaled some of the toxic gasses, before racing back to S.T.A.R. Labs where the team painfully extracted the poisonous gas. The team was soon able to identify the makeup of the gas: hydrogen cyanide with traces of a sedative to which Barry figured that the two would be mixed in a death row execution and they identified the meta-human as Kyle Nimbus (proudly nicknamed The Mist by Cisco). Barry went to protect Joe (the next target) and the team supported this. Unable to outrun The Mist, they suggested Barry make The Mist tired, and would have to revert to physical, human form eventually; Barry succeeded and The Mist is taken back to S.T.A.R. Labs, where Nimbus was locked up in the prison.[48]
Thawne defeated Barry in a game of chess while Barry also played a game of table tennis with Cisco and a game of Operation with Caitlin. When Felicity visits S.T.A.R. Labs, Thawne greeted Felicity and was more than pleased to meet Felicity, noting he's aware of all the woman's accolades and that he always keeps an eye out for such talent. When Felicity questioned about the possible dangers of what Barry does, Thawne reassured Felicity that everything they do is to ensure Barry's safety and that Barry is in good hands. Thawne was later furious at Cisco for building a cold gun powerful enough to overcome Barry's speed abilities and kill without any consent by Thawne, though Cisco built it prior to Barry waking from the coma and was stolen by master thief Leonard Snart. After telling Cisco that weapons don't belong in S.T.A.R. Labs, Thawne ordered Cisco to track down where the cold gun is and to do so immediately. After Felicity left, Thawne noted Felicity was a remarkable young woman. Thawne told Cisco to never do anything as to build such a weapon again, though he was unaware of another weapon that Cisco had built which was also stolen.[39]
When the metahuman Bette Sans Souci seemingly begun destroying facilities around the city, Barry revealed that Bette is being pursued by General Eiling to which Thawne revealed his history with Eiling. After Barry met with and convinced Bette not to kill a scientist Bette had a grudge against, Thawne and Caitlin tended to Bette at S.T.A.R. Labs. The team learned that Bette was affected by thermite when the particle accelerator went off and everything Bette touches explodes, thus why Bette was captured by Eiling and experimented on. However, Eiling personally tracked Bette but Thawne distracted the general long enough for Barry to get Bette out of the facility. When the team later learned that Bette's condition couldn't be reversed, Thawne met with Plastique, and manipulated Plastique into killing Eiling. Plastique is stopped by Barry then killed by Eiling but Bette's body began building up to an explosion, forcing Thawne to coach Barry on running on water to drop Bette's body in the water to explode safely. Thawne is later visited at S.T.A.R. Labs by Eiling to propose an alliance again but he refused and threatened the general's life if he is ever blackmailed again.[42]
After Barry failed to stop Tony Woodward, Thawne told Barry they'd find a way to stop Tony, but told Barry to rest and heal for the time being. A day later, Thawne is visited by Joe, asking for help on Nora's murder case (as Joe did not know that Thawne was the murderer). When Joe asked if his particle accelerator was possibly involved, Thawne reminded Joe that the murder occurred 14 years ago long before his contraption was even thought of. After a few other suggestions from Joe, Thawne told the detective that the theories were all highly unlikely. After Barry tries to stop Tony alone, Thawne is furious as they had yet to find a way to stop Girder. Although Barry could just heal, Thawne said Barry can't heal after possibly being killed. Thawne then told Barry could stop Girder if only moving fast enough as any material can be struck at a high enough velocity.
The following day, Thawne had a drink with Joe, where Joe subtly suggested that Thawne was involved as he arrived in Central City shortly after Nora's murder. Thawne told Joe to look up Tess before leaving. Joe looked up Tess, later visiting Thawne at S.T.A.R. Labs and apologized for accusing him of murder. Thawne then told Joe about his "past" and why he moved to Central City as there were too many painful memories to endure (presumably acting on Harrison's memories). Later that night as Joe was reviewing the evidence of Nora's murder, Reverse-Flash reappeared and encircled Joe to frighten the detective, briefly allowing his suited face to be seen and stealing the evidence shortly afterward. Before leaving, Reverse-Flash left a death threat towards Iris by pinning a photograph of Iris to the wall with a knife, and the words "stop or else" to scare Joe away.[30]
In an entry in his personal log, Thawne noted that Barry was driven to use these powers to help people, but stated that this was keeping Barry from realizing full potential. He later told Barry to "kick it up a notch" in the training: Farooq Gibran attacked a transformer station, and Barry confronted Farooq but lost the speed abilities. When Thawne went to check on the future, he learned, to his shock and rage, that the timeline had altered; instead of the crisis in 2024, the future now told of the post office's permanent shutdown and there was no record of Flash. While Thawne desperately searched for a solution, Farooq attacked S.T.A.R. Labs seeking vengeance for his friends' deaths caused in the particle accelerator explosion, and caused a blackout that rendered the lab completely exposed to attack.
To stop Farooq, Thawne theorized that Barry's cells were still altered. If they could redirect dark matter directly into Barry, they could recharge his protégé's cells. As Cisco worked on using the treadmill as a conduit to achieve this, Thawne released Tony and offered freedom in exchange for killing Blackout to buy them enough time to achieve their plan though this came at the cost of Tony's life. Later, he had a brief argument with Barry about sacrificing Tony to stall Blackout, angrily insisting that he had merely done what was necessary, though Barry was disgusted that Thawne would so willingly sacrifice someone's life, unaware of the man's future reputation of doing just that.
When Blackout cornered the team, Thawne confronted Blackout, reciting from memory the names of everyone who died in the particle accelerator disaster, and demanding that Blackout leave the others alone, saying that he was the only one who deserved to be punished. Blackout agreed and blasted him out of his wheelchair. He was seemingly helpless to move (though faking in reality), however, Barry finally regained his own speed and allowed Blackout to drain once more but the amount of power overloaded and killed Blackout, while the resulting energy fed back on the Flash and charged up his protégé's speed further. After the Flash defeated Blackout, Thawne made another log entry, stating that he had previously been mistaken and that Barry's desire to help others was the key to developing the Flash's potential, not an obstacle as he had thought. Thawne later took a blood sample from Farooq's corpse, while signaling The Mist to stay quiet, saying that he was interested in finding out how the Flash's powers were drained.[33]
After Rainbow Raider robbed a bank by forcing everyone inside to go angry and attempt to murder each other, Thawne aided the team in figuring out how the man did. However, they were distracted by the appearance of The Arrow of Starling City who both Thawne and Joe distrusted, due to the vigilante's previous body count and the terrorist attacks committed by Malcolm Merlyn/Dark Archer and Deathstroke since Arrow was active. Barry, however, defend Arrow saying the vigilante is a hero and insisted the two were wrong but Thawne and Joe told Barry to see that Arrow is out of Central City by tonight. Thawne was already aware of Arrow's true identity (presumably because of his future knowledge). Later when the Flash suffered the effects of Rainbow Raider's powers and went crazy and tried to murder Eddie, Thawne insisted Felicity call Arrow for help, deliberately revealing Oliver's identity to Team Flash. Preparing a device to make Barry regain his own senses by correcting emotions via the colors of the emotional spectrum, Thawne and Joe arrived just as the Flash and Arrow fought and used the device to restore Barry's stability. After capturing Roy Bivolo, Oliver addressed Team Flash and Thawne also thanked Oliver for the help. Oliver left, felling that something was off about Thawne.[38]
As a thank you for their help, Barry gave Thawne, Cisco and Caitlin a Christmas present each, but Thawne declined Barry's offer of eggnog. To motivate his protégé further, Thawne planned to attack as Reverse-Flash. A few hours later, Reverse-Flash stormed Mercury Labs looking for a tachyon prototype device, killing the guards yet was unable to reach the device due to the doctor sealing it away and he stormed off. Thawne "helped" Joe and Barry track down Reverse-Flash by building a trap as Joe and Barry secured the bait. Reverse-Flash later spied on Barry as the youth talked to Iris. Barry then noticed him and ran after him, demanding to know why he killed Nora, but Reverse-Flash instead challenged Barry to a fight in a stadium. Reverse-Flash proved to be the better speedster, severely beating Barry down using several coordinated attacks. He told Barry already that they'd fought for a long time. He also told Barry it would be destiny to die at his hands as it was Nora's, leaving the young speedster very confused.
Later S.T.A.R. Labs orchestrated the trap using the tachyon prototype and lured Reverse-Flash in, aided by Eddie's taskforce. Unknown to anyone, Thawne rigged a hologram of himself as Reverse-Flash that would answer only to Wells. Once the hologram was active, Thawne, Joe, Eddie and the taskforce went down stairs to confront Reverse-Flash. As Thawne addressed his hologram, the force-field appeared to fail to stabilize (but actually nobody was inside for it), and Thawne rushed into the force-field so fast to make it look like Reverse-Flash pulled him into the field to trap himself inside. In the force-field, Thawne created a life-like speed mirage of himself then suiting up as Reverse-Flash in his hologram's place and repeatedly punched his after image, making it appear to everyone else that Reverse-Flash was trying to kill him.[46] After the force-field disappeared when Joe sabotaged the machine, Reverse-Flash grabs the device to take to his secret room then reappears in the basement, and while still bouncing back and forth to maintain the speed-mirage of Wells. Reverse-Flash kills Eddie's taskforce in seconds without any effort but hesitates when he approaches Eddie, shoving the detective to the side rather than killing (since this would risk his own existence), and attacks Joe.
Reverse-Flash reminds Joe of being warned. But before he can kill Joe, the Flash intercepts and drags him outside. However, Reverse-Flash again proved superior to the Flash. But as he was timely stopped by a pyrokinetic meta-human, Reverse-Flash vowed their fight wasn't over and ran off. Arriving back in time to take his speed mirage's place, Thawne gets tended to by Caitlin and Cisco who profusely apologizes for the force-field failing. Though he assured Cisco it wasn't anyone's fault, Thawne expressed annoyance towards them for not informing him of Ronnie's survival, but assures Caitlin that they'll find Ronnie. As his wounds healed, Thawne later places the tachyon prototype on his Reverse-Flash suit. While watching his device harness its power, he says "Merry Christmas" with his distorted voice.[13]
Thawne, Cisco, and Caitlin continue to train to improve Barry's speed using a drone to fire at. After Cisco dubbed the man in yellow as the "Reverse-Flash" instead, Thawne approved of the name unlike Caitlin. After Leonard returned, Barry decided to pursue Leonard, though Thawne warned Barry that Reverse-Flash is a greater threat. Due to Leonard's threat, Thawne and Cisco presented the CCPD with a shield that could withstand Leonard's cold gun. During Barry's battle with Leonard and Mick Rory, Thawne realized the best way to let Leonard's and Mick's guns cross streams is to move slower.[50]
Thawne guided the Flash to detour the Royal Flush Gang. After a suggestion from Cisco, Barry, Cisco, Caitlin and Thawne all took a group picture together. Later that night, Thawne is in his mansion to get off his wheelchair. He received a phone call then gets attacked. After Barry, Cisco and Caitlin arrive, Thawne told them he won't require help with the case. Barry realized it couldn't have been a teenage prank and Thawne told Barry he knew who it was.
Original timeline: After the Flash stopped Hartley from attacking Rathaway Industries, Hartley told the Flash of knowing of Thawne's secret. After Hartley is locked up in the meta-human prison, Thawne asked how Hartley figured out that the Flash worked with S.T.A.R. Labs and Thawne is told Hartley figured out through triangulation. Thawne leaves Hartley and taunted him by claiming to know his "deep, dark secret" which prompted a level of worry from Thawne. Thawne returned to his team and admitted he knew there was a chance of the particle accelerator explosion, yet choose to proceed because of the reward it could offer. After Hartley escaped the prison, Thawne ran out of his secret room but collapsed to the ground after losing his speed. Hartley approached Eobard and asked him if Hartley was still "his guy."
Thawne later decided to regain his team's trust by publicly admitting he was aware of the chance of the particle accelerator exploding. He was then asked by Mason Bridge if he had any plans in the future of turning the particle accelerator on. When Pied Piper attacked the Keystone Cleveland Dam, the Flash is quickly stopped with sound waves though Thawne transmitted waves through the cars at the damn, stopping Pied Piper. Thawne then told he wished to one day regain the trust of the team but Barry told him he already had. Thawne later returned to the Time Vault, reporting to Gideon that his speed comes and goes. Gideon reports being unsure how longer the tachyon device is viable and Thawne told Gideon that it was only meant to be a temporary fix and the real end game was coming.[35]
Due to a timeline change caused when Barry time-traveled from different places in time, most of these events have been erased and replaced by the following.
Current timeline: As Pied Piper attacked Rathaway Industries but was stopped by the Flash from 2015, the Flash's 2016 version time-traveled to intervene and incapacitate the Flash's 2015 self before switching emblems to avoid confusion, causing an interference with the team's communication devices in the process. The Flash's 2016 self then proceeded to capture Pied Piper just like in the original timeline, taking the embittered protégé to S.T.A.R. Labs but confusing Thawne slightly. Hartley was subsequently locked up in the Pipeline prison before Barry remembered that Hartley escaped captivity in the original timeline by using EMTs within hearing aids, causing Barry to ask Cisco to test for explosives within Hartley's hearing aids much to Thawne's shock. Barry was correct, and Hartley was ordered to take out these hearing aids with Thawne offering to replace Hartley's with non-destructive ones. Thawne was then approached by Barry to present a new equation to getting faster, surprising Thawne to see that Barry had devised such a complex equation with Barry's knowledge in such a short time. As Barry returned after facing a ghost-like creature (which Cisco dubbed a "Dementor" from the Harry Potter books) that had attacked the C.C.P.D. and seeing the creature while running to stop Hartley, Thawne realized the answers to his recent confusion: The youth with them hailed from the future and the so-called "Dementor" was a Time Wraith from the Speed Force who'd followed its target back. Thawne invited Barry into his quarters to discuss the speed equation. With Barry's back was turned, Eobard stood up and knocked Barry out, claiming that he "figured it out."
Later while waiting for Barry's 2016 version to wake up, Thawne was visited by another future version of Barry from 2018 with Nora West-Allen. Thawne mistook Nora's name for Dawn, and mocked Barry on the idea of having at least one woman with Nora's name as well as questioning a transmitter device he was convinced to fix so that his master plan to get back to his time can apparently continue. But when the two get into an argument, Nora tells Thawne the device is for Cicada, and Thawne laughed at the idea of Cicada being stopped. Knowing that Barry's 2016 self would be waking up soon, Thawne reluctantly agreed to help while offering Nora water.
In the lab, Thawne gave Nora water, and questioned how Barry would get Cicada's dagger to which Nora answered by showing him a piece of Savitar's suit. Thawne was stunned and mocked how Barry hated him with a passion, yet Savitar from an erased future was a way "bigger jerk" then he ever was. Thawne, however, praised Barry's idea to use a piece of Savitar's suit to defeat Cicada, but complimented the "clever girl" after learning it was Nora's idea. After repairing the tool, Thawne bid farewell to the two speedsters and quickly ran to the Time Vault, preparing to talk to Barry's 2016 version. Knowing Nora was still watching him from the lab, Thawne waved at the camera before Nora left.[18]
After Barry's 2018 version and Nora went to 2013, Thawne interrogated Barry's 2016 version but the youth played dumb. Thawne sped in plain view and saw Barry didn't even flinch. Barry then attempted to phase out of the cuffs but failed, further proving the fact that the youth hailed from the future as Thawne had yet to teach his protégé how to phase. Finally Barry referred to him by real name, thus confirming Thawne's theory. Barry told Thawne of needing him to teach how to get faster. However, Thawne quickly realized that Barry being alive in the future could only mean his own plan failed and tries to kill Barry in a rage. However, Barry quickly claimed that Thawne did win, and that he'll be successful into using Barry's speed to get back to his own time. Unfortunately, a singularity had formed and that's why Barry is in the past, to get faster in order to stop it but needed Thawne's help. Thawne saw this as an opportunity to curb his bloodlust, but Barry claimed that there's a letter left for his protégé if something happened, detailing Thawne's plan worked and how to stop him. Thawne reluctantly listened to Barry.
At the same time, the Time Wraith found a way to S.T.A.R. Labs and attacked Cisco, Caitlin and Hartley but they were able to fend it off just as both Thawne and Barry arrive via speed. When Cisco and Caitlin leave for solutions, Barry asked Thawne how to kill a Time Wraith but Thawne revealed there is no known way to kill these creatures hence why speedsters try to avoid them. As Barry searched the police department for any clues, Thawne searched S.T.A.R. Labs, but Cisco and Caitlin were unable to replicate the frequency Hartley used to stop the Time Wraith. As they debated how to stop the Time Wraith, Barry of the present day showed up just as Barry of the future returned. To shut up Barry of the future accidentally revealing future knowledge trying to convince the team of being from the future, Thawne played dumb and pretended that he'd just met Barry of the future, and told the team to prepare the particle accelerator, telling Barry of the future to travel through time to outrun the Time Wraith, while they build a sonic weapon to stop the Time Wraith for good when returning with Barry to 2016. Before sending Barry back, Thawne gave Barry a drive with on tachyon enhancement information, and Flash successfully made it back to the future with Thawne's speed increasing information.[21]
After Shawna Baez broke Clay Parker out of Iron Heights, Joe deduced Clay was a meta-human, however, Thawne corrected Joe, stating there was a woman's DNA matched with Clay's. Using the DNA, they learn the DNA belonged to Shawna. After learning Shawna's powers, Thawne told Barry they should focus on learning Shawna's limits. The following day, Thawne learned from Cisco that Hartley was let out of the meta-human prison by Cisco, much to his disappointment. Thawne later learned Peek-a-Boo can't teleport in dark space, as Peek-a-Boo can only teleport to what Peek-a-Boo can see. When the Flash went after Peek-a-Boo, he reminded the Flash that Peek-a-Boo can't teleport if the woman couldn't see, leading to the Flash busting out all the lights in the tunnel.[51]
After Firestorm attacked Quentin Quale, Thawne tells the team letting Ronnie roam free was no longer an option. Thawne and Caitlin decide to have a stakeout outside of Clarissa Stein's home, assuming Firestorm would be nearby to watch over Clarissa. While waiting for Firestorm, Thawne swore to Caitlin that his work won't be finished until he brings Firestorm back to normal. Shortly after, Firestorm came by and the two quickly contacted Barry who fights Firestorm until Caitlin interrupted. After learning Firestorm's two halves could be separated, Thawne said it was possible, but only theoretically as splitting a human and an atom were different concepts.
Thawne learned that Firestorm's form was in rejection, causing an exothermic reaction and a possible nuclear explosion. Due to the two only have hours before Firestorm's body detonates, Thawne suggested they may have to kill Firestorm. While the team were outraged of the concept, Thawne told them that Firestorm would likely sacrifice themselves. In the Time Vault, Thawne pulled a hand gun and Gideon said it was a crude weapon. Thawne then decided to make a quantum splicer using the tachyon device, though Thawne is told it would delay his timeline. Thawne told Gideon there would be no timeline if Central City gets blown up. Cisco and Thawne built the tachyon device which is given to Barry and Caitlin to take to Firestorm. After the splicer was placed on Firestorm, Thawne tells the two to get away from Firestorm.[43]
Thawne greeted Ronnie, thanking Ronnie for sacrificing himself to protect those around and is introduced to Professor Martin Stein. Thawne then did medical work on Martin, checking if the professor still had the ability to harness nuclear energy. Thawne learned Martin's unable to and reported this to the team. When Eiling attacks Ronnie, Thawne pays a visit to the general. Eiling asked Thawne to surrender Firestorm, Thawne refused but the general brought up the Flash's identity. While conversing with Martin, Thawne spiked the professor's drink. With Martin passed out, Thawne contacted Eiling, and Eiling took Martin away. Thawne claimed to the team he was left helpless when Eiling came by to take Martin. Barry was determined go after Eiling, but Thawne reminded Barry what Eiling could do.
In search for Martin, the team used Ronnie as the two are still connected and Eobard convinced them both to use the quantum splicer to merge again, but this time accept the balance they successfully became more stable as Firestorm. Fixing another obstacle, Reverse-Flash later abducts Eiling from a military office to Grodd's "home" in the sewers. Unmasking himself, Thawne told Eiling that he protects metahumans (his own kind) and unleashed Grodd both to silence Eiling, and for vengeance for what the general did to Grodd years before.[52]
Identity revealed[]
Thawne and Cisco pass the time at S.T.A.R. Labs watching old Buster Keaton movies. Cisco was shocked of never seen this before, while Thawne sarcastically remarked "must have been before my time" and approved Cisco's request to make a list of movies to see. However, Thawne also reminded Cisco of Dante Ramon's birthday party but Cisco decided the best thing was to not go at all, remarking how things had been much better since Cisco stopped seeing Dante. Though Thawne is saddened to learn Cisco was still on bad terms with the Ramon family, they were distracted by an alert of a break in at the Central City Morgue, though Thawne gets confused as to why anyone would rob a morgue.
Original timeline: When Barry returns, they all find out that Mark Mardon is the killer and on a vendetta to avenge Clyde; Thawne deduced Mark was affected by the particle accelerator the same way Clyde was. Thawne is later told by Barry that his protégé saw himself while running toward the morgue. Thawne says it could've been a speed mirage or an illusion. Thawne then told he would further investigate this after Mark is taken in, though Thawne seemed to be aware that Barry saw a future version of himself. A couple days later, Caitlin took Thawne to Jitters for a coffee. When Caitlin insisted they enjoy their drinks at Jitters, Thawne reluctantly agreed yet noticed Caitlin acting nervous around him. While talking, Thawne realized that Caitlin was trying to keep him distracted and away from S.T.A.R. Labs. Thawne suggested they could adjust the satellite to possibly pick up a storm to help catch Mark. When Thawne told Caitlin that they should go to S.T.A.R. Labs to alert Cisco, Caitlin turned around to get their coffee in to go cups but Thawne (now sure Caitlin was distracting him) takes off, leaving behind his wheelchair and revealing his deception to Caitlin.
When Cisco had discovered a hologram was used that night, Thawne reveals his true identity to Cisco. Thawne revealed to Cisco that his original intent was to kill Barry as a child and not Nora, and revealed that he'd only been training Barry as a means to an end, as his protégé's speed was the key to returning to his time. Thawne said nothing would stop him from returning to his home, though Cisco offered help. Thawne noted Cisco to be smart, but not smart enough to bring him back to his time. Thawne phased his arm through Cisco's chest, killing the protégé who showed him what it was like to have a son, and left the building.[46] Because Barry time-traveled by accident for the first time, these events never occurred and instead are replaced by the following.
Current timeline: Barry stopped after running, confusing Thawne and Cisco and reminded Barry to get to the morgue but Barry claimed to have been there yesterday, confusing them both. When Barry returned, they're all told that Weather Wizard is the killer and on a vendetta to avenge Clyde and Thawne deduced Mark was affected by the particle accelerator the same way Clyde was. However, Barry finished Thawne's sentence and correctly guessed almost every word Cisco and Caitlin were about to say to each other before the two did. With this, Thawne realized that Barry had in fact time traveled. After learning Barry had traveled back one day, Thawne stressed the importance to his protégé of keeping history intact which meant repeating the events of the day again without and to not tell anyone or alter anything. Thawne checked in with Gideon but is assured the future remained intact.
Barry, however, ignored Thawne's advice and went and captured Mark anyway before Mark could commit these crimes. Angered that Barry had altered time, Thawne reminded his protégé that whatever tragedies time had averted would somehow replaced with even worse ones. Thawne had Barry run on the treadmill in an attempt to re-create the conditions that allowed Barry to time travel in the first place, but even Barry's highest speeds couldn't achieve it. After learning that Leonard had returned with Lisa Snart and kidnapped Cisco, Thawne begun trying to track Cisco down but Barry begged Eobard to talk about the previous yesterday and Thawne reluctantly agreed. Barry states that Weather Wizard was about to destroy the city and Iris admitted to have feelings for Barry. Thawne reminded Barry the feelings were buried deep in Iris's consciousness and remained unrealized without Mark's actions, Barry's powers could furthermore cause serious havoc upon the world.
Cisco returns to S.T.A.R. Labs tearfully quitting the team in shame, having been released by Leonard and Lisa after revealing the Flash's secret identity or Dante would've been killed, however, Thawne reminded Cisco that choosing between loved ones is an impossible choice and Cisco regardless is still family and stays. Reverse-Flash later went to Central City Picture News and attacks Mason for writing an article implicating Wells (Thawne) to Stagg's murder and Eiling's disappearance. Learning from Bridge that everything about him was on a drive, Reverse-Flash killed Mason. To cover his tracks, Reverse-Flash then noted that the reporter was really was onto something. He destroyed all the evidence, fixed the office, and moved Mason's body. Later at S.T.A.R. Labs, Thawne consulted Barry's decision to let Leonard go. Barry was about to ask Thawne something but halted, and Thawne asked what Barry's question was. Barry simply said it was nothing wished him goodnight, to which Thawne returned.[53]
When a terrorist known as the Trickster attacked the park by dropping bombs disguised as presents, Thawne assisted the team in searching for a means to locate this new individual identified as the Trickster. However, Thawne noticed Barry seemed cranky but Joe assured him that Barry was just having a bad morning. Later when the Trickster made another broadcast, Barry showed further signs of angst towards Thawne but he surmised it must be because of Barry's previous visit with James Jesse in prison brought back memories of Henry's incarceration. When the Trickster uploaded a broadcast informing the public of a bomb in the city and left it's rough location, the Flash failed to find it but Thawne realized it was a trick but the Flash refused to listen to him much to everyone else's confusion. Thawne's proven right as there was no bomb and it was a diversion so the Trickster, now identified as Axel Walker, could break Jesse out of prison and take Henry hostage.
When the two Tricksters made their move to poison everyone at a fund raiser held by Mayor Bellows, Iris called Joe on the cellphone to clue in and Thawne begun working on the antidote to the poison. However, the Flash had a bomb placed on by Axel which would explode if the Flash didn't run faster than 600 miles an hour or try to remove it, so Thawne taught the Flash how to phase through a truck which separated the Flash from the bomb. After succeeding in foiling the Trickster's plot, Barry brought Henry to S.T.A.R. Labs to meet everyone where Henry thanked all of them for their efforts, especially Thawne. When Thawne remarked how remarkable Henry was and how lucky Barry is, Barry said the same about Thawne. However, Thawne knew that Barry's beginning to suspect who he really was.[22]
Thawne helped Barry investigate Lindsay Kang's strange death at the hands of numerous honey bees, but where interrupted when Felicity arrived with aspiring superhero Ray Palmer seeking help on Ray's suit. After the bees took Bill Carlisle as a second victim, one of the bees followed Barry back to S.T.A.R. Labs while Barry, Felicity and Ray were out to dinner with Iris and Eddie leaving only Caitlin, Cisco and Thawne to fend off the bees. When the bee came for him, Thawne almost broke his own cover to evade it but Barry arrived in time to stop it. They shockingly discovered it wasn't a bee at all but a robot and learned the previous victims worked at Mercury Labs and paid a visit to Tina. His "old friend" confirmed the bees were Brie Larvan's work but the bees went after Tina while Brie herself was sheltered some miles away, so Barry and Ray teamed up to stop Brie and the bees while Thawne and Felicity assisted over communications.[40]
After the Flash failed to catch up to a thief who could change into any person of any age, Thawne was worried that this meta-human could copy Barry's likeness and speed and told his protégé to stay away from the criminal, which is eventually confirmed to be Hannibal Bates. After Bates goes on a killing spree while posing as Eddie, and infiltrated S.T.A.R. Labs while posing as Barry then came close to killing Iris and Caitlin, Thawne figured out Everyman's deception, as the imposter's left-handed whereas Barry's right-handed, and used a taser to force Everyman into unconsciousness. After Joe and Cisco returned from Starling City, Thawne gave his regards to Eddie and talked to Joe about the visit, but Joe questioned why he never went back. Thawne again lied and claimed it was because of Tess but reflected that they had one trait in common of being widowers, regarding Iris's mother who Joe never talked about and Thawne presumed dead as a result, and Thawne offered to have another drink with Joe sometime which Joe agreed to.[29]
Thawne later returned to the Time Vault to ask for an update from Gideon but he's assured that everything was fine, unaware that Barry, Cisco and Caitlin were in his secret room just seconds before. He later helped Cisco and Caitlin work on a device to induce lucid dreaming, which they claimed was for physiologists dealing with people traumatized by meta-human incidents. Thawne later called and informed Barry of a fire in a building nearby. The Flash was unable to retrieve all the civilians before the fire burnt out of control to which Thawne told the Flash to rotate his own arms at high velocities which extinguished the flames. After Thawne returned from a conference, Caitlin informed him that Cisco finally figured out how Reverse-Flash "escaped" and Thawne realized his cover was blown. Thawne sent Everyman to pose as Wells and spring the trap the team had set for Thawne as a means to get a confession to Nora's murder. After Joe killed Bates, Thawne finally dropped his façade and addressed the team via the intercom, admitting to using Bates as a distraction by promising freedom. As Barry and Caitlin expressed their anger for ruining everyone's lives, Thawne actually claimed that his actions have actually improved their lives, even admitting that he had grown to love working with the team. Barry angrily told Eobard in having a confrontation, and Thawne assured his former protégé that they would fight again, very soon. Thawne then quickly returned to S.T.A.R. Labs to retrieve his Reverse-Flash suit from the Time Vault before leaving once again.
To secure leverage, Reverse-Flash ambushed Eddie and Iris, just as Eddie was proposing and knocked out Eddie before moving in on Iris. Before Reverse-Flash could kill Iris, the Flash arrived and Reverse-Flash abducted Eddie instead, taking Eddie to his secondary lair underneath S.T.A.R. Labs.[6] Upon hearing that Eddie was already aware he wasn't Wells, Reverse-Flash decided to reveal his true identity and relation to Eddie, answering Eddie's questions as to why he didn't kill Eddie at Christmas, and referring to Eddie as his "insurance."[25]
To distract Team Flash, Thawne ordered Grodd to be a distraction using whatever means Grodd saw fit while he constructed a device to re-power the particle accelerator, while keeping Eddie tied to a chair. Eddie continued questioning his claims but Thawne stood by his pride, considering Eddie to be the one failure in the Thawne family (consisting of Eddie's father, mother, grandmother and descendants which are also Eobard's ancestors). He then showed his ancestor the newspaper from 2024 shows that Iris is destined to marry Barry. Thawne later finished his device and activated the particle accelerator.[6] Before leaving, Thawne tried to justify himself to Eddie by asking to reflect on Eddie's own life and think of all the things that define it and what would to do if having lost everything, if to simply accept this new life or get back everything lost.
After the particle accelerator's reactivation, Reverse-Flash escaped the facility with Barry in pursuit but released Peek-a-Boo as a distraction for the rest of the team. Despite Barry's efforts, his former protégé was unable to keep up, and Reverse-Flash escaped. Thawne returned 36 hours later when the particle accelerator was ready for reactivation, but Barry stopped him outside. Thawne commended Barry's failed but brave attempt to transport the meta-human prisoners to safety, having been foiled by Captain Cold earlier after being forced to reluctantly work with, but justified his own actions as necessary and only doing what he needed to. As Barry asked about his plan, Thawne invited his former protégé inside to show but Barry didn't fall for his deception. Thawne questioned Barry's plan to face him again since Barry failed every time before, but suddenly Firestorm and Al Sah-him arrived. Despite being outnumbered, Thawne was unfazed and confident he could fight the three, and he engaged them all at once.
Reverse-Flash and the Flash fought but Reverse-Flash managed to subdue the Flash and sent Firestorm flying miles away, forcing the Flash to save Firestorm. Al Sah-him was able to hit him with an arrow laced with nanites (courtesy of Atom) which delivered a high-frequency pulse that disabled Reverse-Flash's speed, keeping him from running for "quite a while" and forcing him to fight Al Sah-him in hand to hand. When his speed recovered, he pinned Al Sah-him to the ground, taunting Oliver's apparent original future death at age 86, and prepared for the kill only for the Flash to save Al Sah-him. The speedsters then fought all over S.T.A.R. Labs. As both the Flash and Reverse-Flash reached the edge of S.T.A.R. Labs' roof, Firestorm intervened and blasted Reverse-Flash off before Al Sah-him finished him off with another arrow of nanites, emitting a high frequency pulse that disabled his speed and kept him from recovering temporarily.[19]
Ceasing to exist[]
Thawne was placed inside the pipeline. Sometime afterward, Barry visited him to get answers, addressing him by his real name, and asked why he killed Nora. Thawne explained their feud, the circumstances and reasoning for Nora's murder, and that he needed Barry to be a speedster in order to generate enough energy from the Speed Force to create a wormhole though which he could return home, and Barry could simultaneously return to the night of Nora's murder thus undo Henry's imprisonment and Thawne's actions. Barry didn't believe him but eventually opened up to his plan. While enjoying a Big Belly Burger, Thawne explained that his plan required using the particle accelerator, explaining that Barry would have to run at Mach-2 speed through the particle accelerator and collide with a single hydrogen particle. Doing so would send Barry back to any time desired and create a wormhole behind which could be used by Thawne to return to his own time. But what Thawne neglected to tell Team Flash is that doing so would result in a singularity's creation. When he gets chastised by Team Flash, he assured them they would have enough time for both to achieve their goals, 1 minute and 52 seconds, and once accomplished they would be able to close the portal.
While building a potential time machine for Thawne, Cisco visited him for advise on materials. Cisco also asked how his Reverse-Flash ring worked (reminiscent of Eobard's first meeting with Cisco in 2016). After he tells Cisco what's required, Thawne gets infuriated and confused that Cisco didn't have as much sympathy, comparing his predicament stuck in a different time to Cisco's own family estrangement. Cisco then revealed to Thawne that he killed his surrogate son in an erased timeline. Thawne apologized, not for killing Cisco and justifying that he had a good reason, but to learn that Cisco is indeed a meta-human as he'd suspected for sometime and informed Cisco what awaited his son-esque protégé. The Flash eventually prepared for the jump and ran at the speed required and Thawne tutored on how to access the time the Flash wanted, and successfully time jumped to that night to prevent the Allen family from suffering Eobard's actions.
After the singularity opened, Thawne admired Cisco's Time Sphere, admitting that its original creator would be impressed. After a strange helmet arrived, Thawne knew this it was time to leave and bid farewell to Cisco and Joe. As he's to take off, the Flash returns and destroys Thawne's pod. Enraged, he asked why the Flash didn't save Nora and would have had "everything [Barry] ever wanted" but the Flash simply told him of already having it. The Reverse-Flash spitefully charged at the Flash and the two speedsters fought. As Team Flash worked to close the portal, Reverse-Flash beat the Flash into submission and prepared to kill the Flash, vowing to kill everyone else his former protégé loved, including Henry. As he declared his victory and dived in for the kill, Eddie shot himself in the heart, causing Reverse-Flash's body to flux uncontrollably as his existence began to fade. As Eddie's heart failed, Thawne started fading out of existence as his face reverted from Wells's likeness back into his original form since Eddie just erased the Thawne family after Eddie and before Eobard.
After Eddie died of the self-inflicted injury, Eobard's body begun to crack apart as he arrogantly joked that he had controlled Barry's life for so long and asked how to get along without him, right before his body was incinerated and his existence erased from the timeline. However, his actions remained intact, which caused a paradox that reopened the singularity. The singularity engulfed Eddie's body,[1] caused Ronnie's death when Firestorm helped the Flash to close the singularity,[27] and later served as a doorway to Earth-2.[54]
Video will[]
In the event of his demise and his plan to return to his own time were to fail, Thawne made a video confession to Nora's murder for Henry's freedom. Initially, Thawne stood his ground in saying that Barry will never truly be happy, and believed he himself was never really the enemy but the real enemy was in fact Barry himself. Thawne then confesses to Nora's murder, much to his former protégé's and Caitlin's shock and delight.[27]
Return[]
Traveling to Earth-X[]
Thawne was able to preserve himself in the timeline, returning to life once again using the Negative Speed Force,[15] and retained his memories from his years with Wells's likeness.[55][20] He traveled to Earth-X and encountered the New Reich, meeting der Führer/Dark Arrow (Oliver's Earth-X counterpart), along with the Schutzstaffel generals Overgirl and Prometheus. Thawne joined the elite SS forces, modifying his Reverse-Flash suit to add a complex mask and the SS double lightning runic symbol, being one of the high-ranked SS generals by leading the research regarding invasions of other universes and being the designer of the Wellenreiter.[20] While the Führer's agenda was related to Overgirl's overwhelming sun radiation poisoning resulting in an incurable health condition, Thawne wished to use the New Reich to conquer Earth-1 and remake the world by his own rule.[55]
Earth-1's invasion[]
In late 2017, the Führer captured dimensional transporter technology from rebels led by a vigilante, and the New Reich made plans to invade and take over Earth-1. Reverse-Flash later reunited with Dark Arrow and Overgirl at Earth-X without Prometheus after attacking Barry's and Iris's wedding, calling out the couple's strike as foolish, as his co-conspirators hadn't been fully prepared yet. The Führer said that there was an opportunity to be seized to which Thawne said the opportunity had cost Prometheus being captured. Overgirl quickly stepped in to stop the arguing between the two and to save it for their enemies.[56]
After Prometheus's suicide, the three New Reich Generals ventured back to Earth-1, managing to steal a device needed to give the Wellenreiter a "doomsday device" capability similar to a neutron bomb. Confronted by Kara Danvers/Supergirl, Green Arrow and the Flash, the SS Generals revealed their identities, with Thawne especially reveling in still using Wells's likeness "for old times sake" and in how he was still alive despite all of his initial erasure from existence, taunting the Flash with this. After a brief fight with the superheroes, the SS Generals escaped with the device, allowing Thawne to work closer on the Wellenreiter. As he worked, he was once again approached by Overgirl, and he asked to make sure that the Führer remembers the mission of conquering Earth-1, instead of only focusing on Overgirl's survival. Thawne brought how everything fell apart for the original Führer, to which Overgirl replied that their leader is ten times what Earth-X's original leader was, and wouldn't allow passions to cloud a sense of duty. Thawne would later assist the Schutzstaffel troops in capturing the Earth-1 superheroes, Alex Danvers and Supergirl.[55]
Thawne was put in charge of managing Overgirl's heart transplant operation at S.T.A.R. Labs, intending to weaken Kara with a simulated red sun, cut out Kara's heart and transplant to Overgirl's body. Reveling at his old workplace by taking a drive in his wheelchair once again, Thawne mentioned how he hated this life for fifteen years and wished to escape. Toying with Kara, he gets ready to begin his operation, but the electricity was cut off by Felicity and Iris, stopping the New Reich's plans even as the Wellenreiter entered Earth-1. Capturing Felicity, Thawne threatened to kill Felicity if the code needed to remove the computer virus isn't revealed, which the hacker eventually did after Kara pleaded not to throw their lives away.[20]
Nevertheless, the pause allowed the Legends to reach S.T.A.R. Labs in time, with Atom shrinking to microscopic level, forcing Thawne's scalpel away from Kara, before enlarging himself and blasting the SS Generals away (including Thawne). Informing the Führer that Overgirl could no longer be held safe in S.T.A.R. Labs, Thawne was ordered by the two to rejoin the New Reich forces on the Wellenreiter, despite his protests. During the chaos of escaping, Eobard encounters Harry. Thawne intended to vibrate his hand through Harry's chest, but Harry's body was filled with nano-robots that would reject any speedster contact, causing Thawne to flee.[57] Reverse-Flash would assist the New Reich's assault on Central City, primarily tasked with fighting the Flash. During the two speedsters' long fight, Thawne was overwhelmed by the Flash trying to perform Reverse-Flash's own vibrating hand trick on him. Thawne screamed at Flash, urging his nemesis to finish him; whether out of genuine desire to fall at the Flash's hand or as part of some reverse-psychology scheme. One way or another, the Flash refused to kill Thawne, telling him to just get away from the battlefield. Thawne agreed and taunted Flash by wondering what face he'd wear the next time they'd meet. Grinning smugly, Reverse-Flash raced away, abandoning his Earth-X allies to eventually die.[23]
Imprisonment in Iron Heights[]
At some point after this in his personal timeline,[58] Thawne traveled to the future for unknown reasons and somehow ended up as a prisoner at Iron Heights' meta-human wing, circa 2034; it's implied that the CCPD was responsible for his imprisonment.[59] He was forced to wear a jumpsuit containing Cicada's lightning dagger that would negate his powers along with the power dampeners in his cell.[60] Despite keeping Wells's face and voice, Thawne's hair partially reverted to its natural color and showed his natural age due to the dagger negating his powers.[15] His guard Trevor Shinick would come in from time to time to inflict a painful shock to Thawne, saying it was "time to repent." Thawne would spend the next fifteen years imprisoned in Iron Heights with appearently customized set-up similiar to the Time Vault until he was scheduled for execution in 2049 with a clock counting down to his execution installed, and only had one visitor during his imprisonment.[59] Thawne knew that Cicada is the one villain the Flash wasn't able to stop, which is why Cicada's dagger was never destroyed, thus he wanted to use that information to his advantage. Thawne remembered the encounter he had with Barry in 2015 when Nora pointed out Cicada is involved, giving him the idea to earn Nora's trust and use as a tool to manipulate the timeline so he patiently bided his time until when Nora approached him.[15]
In 2049, with days to go before his execution, Thawne is visited by Nora. Now that his plan is finally able to come into motion, he convinced Nora that he was not a threat by listing off the ways his cell was speedster-proof with a backup in case of failure. He was bemused when all the CSI wanted to know about was about a robbery from a chemical lab. Thawne rebuffed Nora's questions about how to stop a speedster, but quickly deduced that Nora was a speedster by physical clues. As Nora begged him to help, Nora got led out of the cell while Shinick came in. Thawne knelt, and Trevor delivered a painful shock complete with red lightning, as Nora watched this with horror.
After Godspeed had killed Nora's best friend, Thawne is begged by Nora on how to defeat a speedster, while Thawne did not want to. Nora pleaded and eventually Thawne gave in. He guided Nora via comms from his cell to the stabilizing agent that Godspeed needed to keep Velocity 9 in Godspeed's system, and listened as Nora ran from the Velocity-enhanced speedster. Knowing Nora could not outrun Godspeed, Thawne gave Nora the same speech he gave Barry on how to phase. Unlike Barry, Nora could not try to phase, so Thawne suggested that Nora hit Godspeed with electromagnetic pulses from Central City Citizen Media's satellite dishes. Thawne's plan worked, and Godspeed was arrested.
Nora visited again as Thawne enjoyed a Big Belly Burger, claiming that Nora could learn a lot from him. Thawne quietly admitted that he could not teach Nora due to his time running out, as he noted the clock in his cell, which read a little over an hour left. Nora realized that the clock was actually a countdown to his execution, and the Big Belly Burger was Eobard's last meal. Thawne asked what Nora knew of the Flash, and guided the young speedster to the Time Vault inside the Flash Museum, where Nora discovered from Gideon that Barry was the Flash and uncovered Barry's final video message to Nora that was recorded during the Crisis of 2024.[59]
While keeping the truth about tormenting and harassing Nora's various family members, Thawne mentored Nora on time travel.[10] He urged Nora to travel back in time to the Thinker's Enlightenment and assist in destroying S.T.A.R. Labs' satellites, and thus Orlin Dwyer is now an easier-to-stop version of Cicada.[61] They kept in contact while Nora was in the past through a journal, with Nora sending information to Thawne's cell through Gideon's limited time travel capabilities in regards to information, using the "time text" to remain consistent through timeline changes.[18]
After Nora returned from a joint mission with Barry where an earlier version of himself combined a piece of Savitar's suit with a device used on Zoom to ultimately disable Cicada's dagger, Nora sent the latest journal entry to Thawne's cell. As Thawne read Nora's entry, the young speedster had arrived in person to confront him about his past actions. He exited Nora's entry and agreed they needed to talk.[18] He commented on how Nora had been gone for a long time. Nora was infuriated with how heartless he was by killing Nora's namesake. Although Thawne expressed remorse for his actions, he also told Nora that his actions indirectly served the greater good, changing not only Barry's destiny, but Nora's as well. He also offered to help Nora in order to pay for his crimes and repair his tarnished legacy, but Nora simply stated that he only cared about himself and bid him farewell before running off. Nora later reappeared again, telling Thawne of wanting to believe there is a good side within Thawne and wants his help. Thawne agreed to help Nora, after which he looks at the countdown, reminding them both that he has little time left.[10]
Nora later returns to inform Thawne that Sherloque suspected Nora to be working with someone. Thawne assured Nora that Sherloque had yet to discern the mystery partner's identity, otherwise Barry would travel to 2049 and threaten to phase a hand through Thawne's heart. Nora was more scared of being hated by Barry if the truth came out, so Thawne suggested to distract Sherloque by helping the detective fall in love.[24] After resetting the timeline 52 times to stop Dwyer from killing Team Flash's members, Nora visited Thawne to ask if he was certain that they weren't making things worse. Thawne angrily insisted that he was the only speedster who knew best. Calming himself, he encouraged Nora to stick to their plan, promising they would see Dwyer defeated, Cicada's dagger destroyed and apparently save Barry.[62]
When Nora visited once again to inform Thawne that the Meta-human cure is finished and ready to use on Dwyer, in turn, he informed Nora of a newspaper article depicting the last public confrontation between the Flash and Cicada is slowly changing, hinting that something or someone is going to set into motion a new timeline.[63] Thawne's 'fears' were soon proven true as Nora returned to inform him that Team Flash successfully cured Dwyer, but another equivalent of Cicada showed up and took both Dwyer and the dagger. Thawne stated he already knew as evidenced by the unchanged article. He sadly admitted that there was nothing he could do to help and strongly advised Nora to tell the truth to Barry.[49]
After Nora' | ||
5256 | dbpedia | 2 | 37 | https://dove.org/review/12255-i-believe/ | en | I Believe | [
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] | null | [] | 2021-06-18T00:00:00+00:00 | 9-year-old Brian (Rowen Smyth) has a supernatural encounter with God, an experience that sends him on an adventurous quest to “find out more about what Christians believe”. He faces heavy opposition from the world around him especially his own father Simon (Matt Lindquist), an atheist TV newscaster. Brian finds allies in the pastor of a local church (Wilford Brimley) and a wounded U.S. Marine (Jeremy London). Brian’s pure and innocent faith brings about manifestations of God’s extraordinary power that quickly become breaking news. Don't miss out on this miracle packed adventure! | en | Dove.org | https://dove.org/review/12255-i-believe/ | I Believe is a story about using childlike faith, which can result in great blessings—sometimes even miracles. Brian is a little boy, very intelligent, who grew up in a non-Christian home, but as he writes a paper in school about the pilgrims, he learns of their faith. His parents discourage him from pursuing the Christian faith, but Brian is very interested in learning more. His father even tells him not to read the Bible, but he persists in seeking God.
Brian believes in God’s word, and prays for a veteran who is missing one leg. In addition, Brian sends a woman home to pray for her blind baby. A news reporter attempts to make a mockery out of Brian’s faith; subsequently, Brian’s family faces severe tests and trials. Brian is kidnapped by the mob, but this leads to one of the greatest miracles of all, especially for Brian’s family. This wonderful film focuses on faith and making a stand for God’s word. We are pleased to award our Faith-Friendly Seal for All ages this inspiring movie, however this film is not intended for very young children. This movie proves that childlike faith brings about great results! | |||||
5256 | dbpedia | 3 | 82 | https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/index.html | en | Treatment and Intervention for Lyme Disease | [
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] | null | [] | 2024-08-16T18:16:05-04:00 | Information on antibiotic treatment and interventions for Lyme disease. | en | /TemplatePackage/5.0/img/favicon/apple-touch-icon.png | Lyme Disease | https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/treatment/index.html | Treatments and interventions
People treated with appropriate antibiotics in the early stages of Lyme disease usually recover rapidly and completely. The antibiotics most commonly used to treat Lyme disease include doxycycline, amoxicillin, or cefuroxime axetil. Early diagnosis and proper antibiotic treatment of Lyme disease can help prevent more severe disease.
The antibiotic used and the length of treatment depends on many factors, including:
Patient symptoms
Age
Allergies
Pregnancy
Post-exposure antibiotics
In general, CDC does not recommend antibiotics after tick bites to prevent tickborne diseases. However, in certain circumstances, a single dose of doxycycline after a tick bite in an area where Lyme disease is common may lower risk of Lyme disease. Ask your healthcare provider if antibiotics after a tick bite are appropriate for you. |