Below is an interview that I did with Lance Weiler for the Workbook Project about what we are doing at Emerging Pictures, and how I think we could potentially be part of the solution for theatrical distribution of independent films. If you don’t know about the Workbook Project, and all the transmedia work being done by Lance, you should check it out at www.workbookproject.com.
UPDATE: Unfortunately the Workbook Project website is no longer with us.
You can comment after the break… Continue reading “Interview for the Workbook Project”
Yesterday, I tweeted my frustration about the synopses I’ve been finding in the web for indie films. I decided to use more than the 160 characters of Twitter to vent a little further. The context is that we play a lot of independent films at Emerging Cinemas, and once a month we collect info on those films to use on our web site, on physical calendars that we have printed and on web blasts that are sent out to our affiliated venues. Month after month, we check the official web sites for the individual films, the web sites of the distributors, the IMDB, the web sites of various theater chains and on-line ticketing sites. In almost every case, the same synopsis is used in every location, indicating that it came from some official source (typically either the distributor or the filmmakers). The other thing they have in common is that they all suck. Invariably I find myself re-writing them, trying to make the films sound like something people might actually want to see. Don’t you folks realize that the synopsis is a very important marketing tool? Why do you make all these very compelling, stimulating films sound like work? They are either too academic sounding (particularly the docs), or focus on the disease of the main character or have convoluted point-by-point scene descriptions (this happens then this happens etc.) They include cast names (in parenths) that no one has heard of, which interrupt the flow of whatever plot they are trying to get across. They leave out background info that would be important selling points such as festival awards, prior work by the director, etc. For all of you folks out there who are embracing the idea of DIY distribution, let’s try practicing writing a single paragraph about your film that makes audiences want to buy a ticket. OK. I got that off my chest.
Thanks 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.
Ever since I joined forces with my partners Barry Rebo and Giovanni Cozzi to form Emerging Pictures, one of our goals was to use the new digital technologies to revive the idea of the neighborhood repertory cinema. At first, there was a lot of resistance…from filmmakers and from theater owners, both of whom were still married to the 35mm format. Over time, that resistance has worn down, as both filmmakers and theater owners began to realize the economic benefits of leaving 35mm behind. But perhaps more importantly, as they began to experience it in a theater, they realized that the compromise in picture quality was very minimal, and was compensated for by not having the degradation that goes along with running 35mm through a projector. The image was the same in week 3 as it was in week 1. It was the same in Oklahoma City as at the Zeigfeld. 