Tag: Video

Gateway to Cinema – Digital Distribution Case Study

Here’s a video of a panel discussion that took place at the Cannes Film Festival this past May, at the UK Film Center. It’s a fascinating look at the various initiaves that are taking place to reinvent the theatrical experience by virtue of digital technologies. It’s a subject that, as you all know, is dear to my heart. And yes, I’m on the panel.

Gateway to Cinema-goers: A Digital Distribution Case Study from UK Film Centre on Vimeo.

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Getting Ready for your premiere at TIFF

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to be the keynote speaker at the Filmmakers Bootcamp, an annual event at the TIFF Lightbox to prepare the Canadian filmmakers for their experience at the Toronto Film Festival. Given the nature of the event, I decided to emphasize practical advice about making the most of the experience. Since the audience was limited to Canadian filmmakers, the good folks at TIFF recorded the session and have made it available on line. Here it is in its entirety, with the hope that it might be of help to others of you who might be navigating Toronto for the first time.


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A Song to Cinema

With all the bad news floating around about movie theaters going out of business, this video, courtesy of the Traverse City Film Festival, stands as a reminder of why we need to preserve the theatrical experience. Kudos to The Treefort Collective for a great job creating the video, and for putting me in a starring role alongside Wim Wenders!

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The Art House Convergence

Here is a video created by Doug Tirola and his team at 4th Row Films for the Art House Convergence. For those of you who don’t know, this is an organization of all the mission-driven art houses from around the country every year. It’s one of my favorite events because I get to hang out with other folks who are devoted to showing movies of all types on the big screen. I’m looking forward to being there again this coming January. If you are involved with a local art house, you should be there too! Oh, and extra points if you can find me in my little cameo, being my usual cynical self.


 

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Another New Breed Video

Here’s another video in the New Breed series, featuring yours truly.

NEW BREED PARK CITY – Exploring the Solutions, Part 2 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

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Filmmakers: the New Breed

Filmmaker Magazine and the Workbook Project are doing a series of reports from Sundance/Slamdance on the new breed of filmmakers–the ones that are taking distribution of their work into their own hands. Below is one segment that the Filmmaker Blog describes as follows:

Filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah of Sabi Pictures arrive at Park City with an intent to define the questions most relevant to independent distribution options. Insights from Brian Newman, Dan Mirvish, Jon Reiss and Ira Deutchman open a path toward discovering some real solutions.

Unfortunately the Workbook Project is no more.

10 (9 actually) Responses to the Issues Brought Up at the “Indie Film Summit”

momaThanks to MOMA and indieWIRE, some 60 or so representatives of the “indie” film world got together yesterday to discuss the state of the business. A tip of the cap is due to Eugene Hernandez and Anne Thompson for their valiant attempt to reign in a group of outspoken, opinionated and polarized people arranged around a conference room that was clearly designed for far fewer active participants than were attending this particular event. The very existence of such an event, and the number of notable people who showed up, is both a testament to how hungry we are for this type of discussion, and a reason to be hopeful about the future of the business. In the course of a rambling two plus hours of talking, some deep arguments were addressed, some real insights were made and some of the attendees slipped into the kind of self-serving pitches that we hear on a million panels. But by the end of the day, I felt that all the real issues facing our business had at the very least been thrown on the table. My only frustration was that each of the many topics that came up deserved further exploration. Hopefully this can happen in a series of more focused discussions some time in the future.

One personal frustration was that the format didn’t allow me to get in my two cents on a number of points that I felt needed to be made. So, I’m going to use this space to do that very thing. At the beginning of the conference, Eugene asked that the particulars of who said what should be kept off the record in order to allow people to be as open as possible. I am going to respect that and deal only in the issues that were brought up without naming names. I am also going to take a piece of advice from Ted Hope and make this a list, which he says gets more hits than straight prose. So here goes… Continue reading “10 (9 actually) Responses to the Issues Brought Up at the “Indie Film Summit””

PGA Event Video

On March 25th, I participated in an event sponsored by the Producers Guild that was called, “Independent Filmmaking in the Digital World: A Conversation with Ira Deutchman.” The PGA has kindly provided the video so I can share it. It’s divided into four parts, assuming you can last that long. Let me know your thoughts. 

UPDATE: Unfortunately this video is no longer available.

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Guadalajara rocks!

Just got back from the Guadalajara Film Festival, after gorging on undistributed Latin American films and tequila.  There was a palpable sense here that filmmakers are opening up to alternate paths of distribution, and ready to do whatever it takes to get their films out to audiences. I walked away feeling that this new realism might actually lead to something interesting.

On my final night in Guadalajara, I went to see Emir Kusturica’s new doc about the Argentinan soccer star Maradona. As an American with very little interest  in soccer, I found the film incoherent.  But after the screening, Kusturica came on stage with his band–Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra–and it became the highlight of the festival. Emir plays a mean lead guitar, and the band puts on quite a show. I heard someone describe their music as Yugoslavian Punk, but to my ears it sounded more like Weimar Republic-era cabaret, as performed by Devo. An audience of around 4000 Mexicans went wild.  It was a stunning example of cross-cultural communication—which after all is one of the missions of an international event such as this. Check out this crude video (taken on my Treo Pro) for a taste…

Honeydripper All-Star Band

I’ve always loved the summer in New York City. When others are running away to traffic-clogged resort towns, I like hanging around the city and taking in whatever surprises may be around the next corner. Among my favorite activities are margaritas at the 79th Street Boat Basin, bicycling on the path in Hudson River Park and kayaking in the Hudson itself. On days where I do all three of those things, I call it my triathalon.

My very favorite thing to do in the summer is to go to outdoor concerts, and last Tuesday night, I saw a great one. The Honeydripper All-Star band was performing at the River-to-River Festival in lower Manhattan. This is the house band from John Sayles’ new film “Honeydripper,” which Emerging will be releasing late this year. This particular night was only the second time the band had played together, but you wouldn’t have known it from watching them. They were hot! We’ve posted a clip from the concert at http://www.emergingpictures.com/hd_band.htm, so you can get a taste. This first clip features Gary Clark Jr., who in addition to being a major new music talent, is also the star of the film. We’ll post some more clips as the weeks go on, so you can see the other amazing musicians in the band. And watch for more information about the band’s upcoming performances. They may turn up in some unexpected places.

Now back to the triathalon…