"it's all about the script" - "but you don't support development" "false virtue signaling undermines the good intent." "Love is a champion, whereas meaning (i.e. what matters) is a prioritization system invested with sincere effort." Love. Love. Love.
I find it worth mentioning that you had to "apologize for being a wee bit negative" as if true love was not dependent on the necessity of deep evaluation for the sake of necessary (and transformative) growth, especially now. I just wanted to offer you some encouragement to keep reflecting, imagining, critiquing, and dreaming. I truly believe it's all leading somewhere great, but it takes visionaries (as well as intelligent reflective criticism) to get us there. Thank you.
We Indie Filmmakers on the edges dream that there's some place closer to the center of power where things get better. But, that doesn't seem to be true. The closer I get, the more I listen to people with VAST experience inside the machine (like you) the more I feel that Hollywood is like the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz: the movies are the curtain, but instead of it just being a guy pulling levers, it's a sniper aiming at everyone!
The hope I have is that the malevolent Wizards of Hollywood define the machine, and Hollywood was founded because Edison owned the machine. It started out as a town of rebels. Now, we just need to figure out how to exploit the machine they built (like the early Hollywood pioneers) and use it to build something good, that people will love, that will be in dialogue with culture, and maybe make the world just a little bit better for more people.
That's essentially the history of Indie Film -- not independent but quite the benevolent parasite. The problem is that it was easy to build the leach on theatrical regional sales with a clearly sequenced media flow. Figuring out the kindly bloodsucker for the simulataneous global streaming strategy has been a wee bit of a puzzle. On the prior model, an entity could launch relatively inexpensively, whereas now to go into battle requires quite the financial stockpile. Perhaps the answer is to just ignore the dominance altogether and never factor it in... maybe?
How about this one, “It’s industry standard. Nothing we can do.” I tell all my clients and colleagues, there’s no such thing as an industry standard. There is just current common practice. The “standards” change whenever someone with enough power and motivation sits down at the negotiating table. If they are insisting that it’s a standard, then either you or they don’t have enough clout yet to make it different. But if you keep challenging it, it’ll move eventually. It always does.
Although I am going to place this (and credit you) in Film Business Truths, Pt. 2 (working on it). As it's not really hypocrisy, just laziness and reluctance to adapt.
I don't think any of us have to or need to take over a studio. I think that is why we started our own studio, an International Studio Without Borders or Walls. Not only do we intend to make new and different product, but we plan to eliminate the gatekeepers, the go-betweens that make this industry very hard for exciting new talent to be discovered and developed. The person who came up with this idea is no longer with us, but I and others are carrying on the mission, the movement. We specialize in a whole new type of entertainment, the solution genre. It has a basic structure, and please forgive my CAPS, but I sometimes feel like I have no mouth, but I must S.....
HOW DOES THE NEW "SOLUTION GENRE" COMPARE TO THE OTHER FILM GENRES
1) A SOLUTION FILM OFFERS POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS WE FACE EVERY DAY.
2) A SOLUTION FILM CAN OFFER A SINGLE SOLUTION TO A SINGLE PROBLEM OR MANY SOLUTIONS TO MANY PROBLEMS.
3) A SOLUTION FILM CAN TREAT A CONCRETE SOLUTION, LIKE A PRODUCT THAT SOLVES A PROBLEM BY WEARING IT OR USING IT.
4) A SOLUTION FILM CAN HAVE A MATHEMATICAL SOLUTION, A POLITICAL SOLUTION, AN ORGANIZATIONAL SOLUTION, A PSYCHOLOGICAL SOLUTION OR EVEN A PHILOSOPHICAL SOLUTION.
5) A SOLUTION FILM TAKES PLACE IN THE MODERN DAY... THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD.
6) A SOLUTION FILM IS CLOSEST TO THE DOCUMENTARY. IT IS A MELD OF THE DOCUMENTARY AND THE NARRATIVE FICTION FILM.
7) IN A WAY THE SOLUTION FILM IS ALSO LIKE THE DOC AND THE HORROR FILM IN THAT YOU DON'T NEED NAME ACTORS OR A BIG BUDGET TO MAKE A SOLUTION FILM.
8) IN A SOLUTON FILM, RECOGNIZABLE FACES AND SLICK PHOTOGRAPHY COULD MAKE IT LESS REAL AND BELIEVABLE TO AN AUDIENCE.
9) THE SOLUTIONS ARE THE STARS OF A SOLUTION FILM.
10) WHILE A COMEDY IS INTENDED TO MAKE US LAUGH AND A HORROR FILM IS INTENDED TO SCARE US, THE SOLUTION GENRE IS INTENDED TO UPLIFT, TO INSPIRE, TO MAKE US FEEL THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
11) "LEE'D THE WAY" THE FIRST SOLUTION FILM, WILL LEAD THE WAY FOR OTHER TALENTED FILMMAKERS TO WORK IN THIS NEW GENRE.
12) A SOLUTION FILM IS MORE THAN A MOVIE, IT'S A MOVEMENT, A MOVEMENT FOR POSITIVE CHANGE.
although I am not sure that's the topic here, but I support the need to share. Very much. Thanks First. Interesting approach! I guess if I wanted to keep it on topic the SOTADTO would be: "We want a solution to all the world's problems (but we aren't going to make any films that address them!)".
Yes, that is why I think we have to do what we say we will do. If we get support in doing that from others who also want to do what they say, and actually solve problems on the big screen and the small, we will be, in the process of making art that changes the world.
All truisms I agree with and have experienced. I’ll let it stand at that and take in and move forward with more critical thinking taken here….to be continued
Depressing. That's why it dawned on me that you should make this a documentary. "Notes of a Discontented Liberal", something like that. It'll be you going through your usual day, with your V.O. complaining, with scenes and incidents to back it up. Sharp, witty but heartfelt. You sipping coffee, jotting down improvements. Charts and graphs proving your point. Then, some setback: some of your most ardent supporters are full of shit. And on back up the mountain.
I realize this might offend some colleagues, but if down right, it will hit all those discontented liberals who see its demise but can only fix it with more liberalism. Plus, this could be the real kickoff to a summit and a movement.
Tom Skerritt told me that both Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Being There) and Robert Altman (M.A.S.H., McCabe & Mrs. Miller) told him the same thing in completely unrelated circumstances - "the unit makes the film, just so happens the director has more input than anyone else." This sticks with me every day I work towards completion with motion pictures. As a creative producer who specializes in script and business development as well as marketing and distribution, I have to stay open and sift lively through the niagara of opinions and methods for reaching creative breakthroughs and accessing core audiences. It is easier said than done but can be a divine experience when I turn myself over to the possibility of something greater.
Can you go back and sell the idea of a specialty division/film label to Amazon for you to run (Prime Classics? Amazon24? etc) to help with their content branding issue? If so please hire me and/or I have the perfect film to be a first release.
I think that ship sailed. I had hopes. I certainly made pitches upon pitches. Seems like streamers now all want 4 quad global appeal. So much for the greenfields of specialized niches. But then again, the only constant is change.
Was pretty sure you had made that case over and over-- "4 quad global appeal" as a business strategy seems more like tilting at windmills than a specialty division to me, but perhaps the CYA argument is stronger from a studio/exec position? But this whole post/conversation, including your writing about committing to diversity, has given me an idea!
I haven’t laugh/cried like this since the first time I saw the Player.
Which is the larger issue... so many of these Lies The Industry Sells Itself aren’t new... they’ve been around since at least the 80s when I started hanging around this silly town... but they’ve just gotten worse and weaponized with the influx of “Silicon Valley biz mindset”.
So... the real question is, since larger change in any entertainment field only happens when someone proves it is profitable to do so (or there is the PERCEPTION of money to be had, see also - streaming) what it the Disruption Event that Indie Film can do to alter focus?
Put another way, what is OUR Pulp Fiction moment in this time and place? Not necessarily starting that cycle of overhyping indie, but in making Indie a viable market seen as worth investing in.
(As a WGA member, I’m of course going to say, it all starts with actually having good stories with a uniquely authorial bent. But maybe that’s The Lie I Tell Myself)
I think it will come. You and many are working on it. Me too. I am a big believer that there will be a low budget high concept ambitiously authored film that delivers an outsized return that creates a flood of disruption.
"it's all about the script" - "but you don't support development" "false virtue signaling undermines the good intent." "Love is a champion, whereas meaning (i.e. what matters) is a prioritization system invested with sincere effort." Love. Love. Love.
I find it worth mentioning that you had to "apologize for being a wee bit negative" as if true love was not dependent on the necessity of deep evaluation for the sake of necessary (and transformative) growth, especially now. I just wanted to offer you some encouragement to keep reflecting, imagining, critiquing, and dreaming. I truly believe it's all leading somewhere great, but it takes visionaries (as well as intelligent reflective criticism) to get us there. Thank you.
I love this post with a melancholy love.
We Indie Filmmakers on the edges dream that there's some place closer to the center of power where things get better. But, that doesn't seem to be true. The closer I get, the more I listen to people with VAST experience inside the machine (like you) the more I feel that Hollywood is like the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz: the movies are the curtain, but instead of it just being a guy pulling levers, it's a sniper aiming at everyone!
The hope I have is that the malevolent Wizards of Hollywood define the machine, and Hollywood was founded because Edison owned the machine. It started out as a town of rebels. Now, we just need to figure out how to exploit the machine they built (like the early Hollywood pioneers) and use it to build something good, that people will love, that will be in dialogue with culture, and maybe make the world just a little bit better for more people.
That's essentially the history of Indie Film -- not independent but quite the benevolent parasite. The problem is that it was easy to build the leach on theatrical regional sales with a clearly sequenced media flow. Figuring out the kindly bloodsucker for the simulataneous global streaming strategy has been a wee bit of a puzzle. On the prior model, an entity could launch relatively inexpensively, whereas now to go into battle requires quite the financial stockpile. Perhaps the answer is to just ignore the dominance altogether and never factor it in... maybe?
Thanks for your response!
I'm going to have to think about this; it's a problem I need to solve with my current project.
Approaching the great Howard Beale from Network. Bravo.
How about this one, “It’s industry standard. Nothing we can do.” I tell all my clients and colleagues, there’s no such thing as an industry standard. There is just current common practice. The “standards” change whenever someone with enough power and motivation sits down at the negotiating table. If they are insisting that it’s a standard, then either you or they don’t have enough clout yet to make it different. But if you keep challenging it, it’ll move eventually. It always does.
Although I am going to place this (and credit you) in Film Business Truths, Pt. 2 (working on it). As it's not really hypocrisy, just laziness and reluctance to adapt.
I don't think any of us have to or need to take over a studio. I think that is why we started our own studio, an International Studio Without Borders or Walls. Not only do we intend to make new and different product, but we plan to eliminate the gatekeepers, the go-betweens that make this industry very hard for exciting new talent to be discovered and developed. The person who came up with this idea is no longer with us, but I and others are carrying on the mission, the movement. We specialize in a whole new type of entertainment, the solution genre. It has a basic structure, and please forgive my CAPS, but I sometimes feel like I have no mouth, but I must S.....
HOW DOES THE NEW "SOLUTION GENRE" COMPARE TO THE OTHER FILM GENRES
1) A SOLUTION FILM OFFERS POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS WE FACE EVERY DAY.
2) A SOLUTION FILM CAN OFFER A SINGLE SOLUTION TO A SINGLE PROBLEM OR MANY SOLUTIONS TO MANY PROBLEMS.
3) A SOLUTION FILM CAN TREAT A CONCRETE SOLUTION, LIKE A PRODUCT THAT SOLVES A PROBLEM BY WEARING IT OR USING IT.
4) A SOLUTION FILM CAN HAVE A MATHEMATICAL SOLUTION, A POLITICAL SOLUTION, AN ORGANIZATIONAL SOLUTION, A PSYCHOLOGICAL SOLUTION OR EVEN A PHILOSOPHICAL SOLUTION.
5) A SOLUTION FILM TAKES PLACE IN THE MODERN DAY... THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD.
6) A SOLUTION FILM IS CLOSEST TO THE DOCUMENTARY. IT IS A MELD OF THE DOCUMENTARY AND THE NARRATIVE FICTION FILM.
7) IN A WAY THE SOLUTION FILM IS ALSO LIKE THE DOC AND THE HORROR FILM IN THAT YOU DON'T NEED NAME ACTORS OR A BIG BUDGET TO MAKE A SOLUTION FILM.
8) IN A SOLUTON FILM, RECOGNIZABLE FACES AND SLICK PHOTOGRAPHY COULD MAKE IT LESS REAL AND BELIEVABLE TO AN AUDIENCE.
9) THE SOLUTIONS ARE THE STARS OF A SOLUTION FILM.
10) WHILE A COMEDY IS INTENDED TO MAKE US LAUGH AND A HORROR FILM IS INTENDED TO SCARE US, THE SOLUTION GENRE IS INTENDED TO UPLIFT, TO INSPIRE, TO MAKE US FEEL THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
11) "LEE'D THE WAY" THE FIRST SOLUTION FILM, WILL LEAD THE WAY FOR OTHER TALENTED FILMMAKERS TO WORK IN THIS NEW GENRE.
12) A SOLUTION FILM IS MORE THAN A MOVIE, IT'S A MOVEMENT, A MOVEMENT FOR POSITIVE CHANGE.
although I am not sure that's the topic here, but I support the need to share. Very much. Thanks First. Interesting approach! I guess if I wanted to keep it on topic the SOTADTO would be: "We want a solution to all the world's problems (but we aren't going to make any films that address them!)".
Yes, that is why I think we have to do what we say we will do. If we get support in doing that from others who also want to do what they say, and actually solve problems on the big screen and the small, we will be, in the process of making art that changes the world.
All truisms I agree with and have experienced. I’ll let it stand at that and take in and move forward with more critical thinking taken here….to be continued
Depressing. That's why it dawned on me that you should make this a documentary. "Notes of a Discontented Liberal", something like that. It'll be you going through your usual day, with your V.O. complaining, with scenes and incidents to back it up. Sharp, witty but heartfelt. You sipping coffee, jotting down improvements. Charts and graphs proving your point. Then, some setback: some of your most ardent supporters are full of shit. And on back up the mountain.
I realize this might offend some colleagues, but if down right, it will hit all those discontented liberals who see its demise but can only fix it with more liberalism. Plus, this could be the real kickoff to a summit and a movement.
Tom Skerritt told me that both Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Being There) and Robert Altman (M.A.S.H., McCabe & Mrs. Miller) told him the same thing in completely unrelated circumstances - "the unit makes the film, just so happens the director has more input than anyone else." This sticks with me every day I work towards completion with motion pictures. As a creative producer who specializes in script and business development as well as marketing and distribution, I have to stay open and sift lively through the niagara of opinions and methods for reaching creative breakthroughs and accessing core audiences. It is easier said than done but can be a divine experience when I turn myself over to the possibility of something greater.
Can you go back and sell the idea of a specialty division/film label to Amazon for you to run (Prime Classics? Amazon24? etc) to help with their content branding issue? If so please hire me and/or I have the perfect film to be a first release.
And thank you for continuing to care about the film industry and development ❤️ https://youtu.be/Sroa6sFO50Y
I think that ship sailed. I had hopes. I certainly made pitches upon pitches. Seems like streamers now all want 4 quad global appeal. So much for the greenfields of specialized niches. But then again, the only constant is change.
Was pretty sure you had made that case over and over-- "4 quad global appeal" as a business strategy seems more like tilting at windmills than a specialty division to me, but perhaps the CYA argument is stronger from a studio/exec position? But this whole post/conversation, including your writing about committing to diversity, has given me an idea!
Glad to hear it. Good luck with it. And rest assured, 4QGA will never be my interest. Never was.
I haven’t laugh/cried like this since the first time I saw the Player.
Which is the larger issue... so many of these Lies The Industry Sells Itself aren’t new... they’ve been around since at least the 80s when I started hanging around this silly town... but they’ve just gotten worse and weaponized with the influx of “Silicon Valley biz mindset”.
So... the real question is, since larger change in any entertainment field only happens when someone proves it is profitable to do so (or there is the PERCEPTION of money to be had, see also - streaming) what it the Disruption Event that Indie Film can do to alter focus?
Put another way, what is OUR Pulp Fiction moment in this time and place? Not necessarily starting that cycle of overhyping indie, but in making Indie a viable market seen as worth investing in.
(As a WGA member, I’m of course going to say, it all starts with actually having good stories with a uniquely authorial bent. But maybe that’s The Lie I Tell Myself)
I think it will come. You and many are working on it. Me too. I am a big believer that there will be a low budget high concept ambitiously authored film that delivers an outsized return that creates a flood of disruption.
One of your best posts Ted, keep them coming please! Or take over a studio. We need more people like you running the business!
Hahahaha. Thanks Michael. Do you think they'd let me play Bob Dylan all the time in the waiting areas? Only then could I consider such a hell!
I think you need to make the sacrifice. But I can help you with the playlist.
Have been hearing this a lot, “We love original content but we’re only funding movies with proven IP.” Cool cool 🤨