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Challenges Facing Independent Filmmakers

Independent is the only true form of art; nobody doubts of an independent ballerina, writer, or sculptor, but when it comes to an independent film studio, the concept of independence seems to be unusual. To be independent in the film industry you need to be free from something, commonly the matrix of companies that dominate the production and distribution of film production in America. Most of the productions are made in Hollywood, a multi-million dollar business; and anyone who produces a film outside of this exclusive factory has to call itself  “independent” to be distinguished from the suit; however, as long as a film is screened in commercial theaters, or aired on pay or network TV, “independent” is a relative term.

It is not a secret for anybody that film industry is not as healthy and successful as it used to be. Hollywood is certainly thriving, and the future of the industry is bounded to the success of independent filmmaking, where the majority of personnel of Hollywood got their start. Unfortunately, independent filmmakers face several challenges, most of them have existed for decades, while others have recently appeared due to new technologies in the industry. The best way to face these challenges is by taking advantage of them, in order to use the weaknesses in our favor, though it might seem to be absurd.

Challenges Facing Independent Filmmakers:

Money and Financing

The majority of independent producers will agree that the most difficult task is raising money to pay for the production. The truth is that raising money is the key to any independent film, regardless of the position, experience, and past credits of the people involved. To choose the method that will fit better with the production is important to consider factors such as the type and subject of the film and the experience behind the cast and crew involved in the project. It is common to use crowdfunding platforms to raise money or to secure increasingly elusive government grants for short films. In fact, “the most beneficial situation for the filmmaker would be to receive 100% of the film costs from an equity sale in exchange for substantially less than 100% of the income” in a range of 25-50% according to “The Independent Filmmaker’s Law and Business Guide: Financing, Shooting, and Distributing Independent and Digital Films”. Even though filmmaking should be commercially viable without the need for public funding, is important to remember that people or organizations invest in the films to make profits out of them; therefore film budgets need to stand the scrutiny of investors seeking cost-effective production, as well as a reasonable rate of return.

 

 

Digital Revolution

Digital revolution has transformed the film industry, including production, editing, post-production, marketing, and distribution processes. These technological innovations have forced film studios, rather independent or not, to respond to the popularity of the internet and the success of new digital platforms guided by a potential for profit. In fact, the widespread use of digital media technologies has resulted in considerable cost reductions, which have helped create more product than buyers. Additionally, the affordability of making films on digital media has increased competition. Several filmmakers fear bankruptcy; however, the challenge to filmmakers is to make unique genre-specific movies using digital technology. The genre is the only way that a film buyer and the marketing manager of a distribution company can quickly visualize the movie poster, trailer, and marketing campaign.  The industry is changing into a more consumer-centric one, nowadays consumers can enjoy podcasts, web shows, and can access them by downloading or streaming the product. It is important to focus on the benefits that the digital revolution has brought such as worldwide distribution and instant access to the final product.

 

Decline of Innovative Storytelling

Nowadays is more frequent to see sequels and remakes of stories we loved instead of new stories to enjoy.  It seems like the industry has reached a point of fatigue in which lack of ideas is the common denominator, resulting in low expectations among audiences; additionally, the gaming industry, which breeds on digital technology, has been influencing storytelling in the film industry. In fact, the incorporation of gaming techniques in terms of storytelling and visualization will make movies stronger; it is mandatory for independent film studios to focus their efforts on unique storytelling, these new ideas will stand out more than they have in the past.

 

Creative Control

In Hollywood, everybody has a specific role to accomplish, and there is a budget for that, but in the independent filmmaking industry is common to have limited resources. A low budget makes people assume multiple roles in order for a film to be produced at the lowest cost possible, as director Benjamin Dickinson said: The biggest challenge that I had making the film was just that I was wearing too many hats. This de-emphasis on specialization means individuals are less likely to develop the specialized skills that Hollywood and large film agencies demand. Ultimately, it is a hit or a miss, depending on the director’s ability to wear multiple hats.

Essentiality of Social Media

Social media is becoming an essential part of a film’s package, that is why it is necessary to adopt a robust social media strategy in order to evaluate what is making an impact. Nowadays, we have more access to data than ever before that can help filmmakers to understand the audience they are trying to reach,  and create not only awareness but stronger loyalty and engagement for the long term; unfortunately, filmmakers are not collecting and analyzing efficiently their data. As an example, ‘Paranormal Activity’ may have cost a mere $15,000 to make. What Paramount bought was not the film, but the social media strategy that the filmmaker Orin Pelli developed around his film.

Film Distribution

The traditional film distribution model has been working good for big budget films, but for many other mid-, small- and micro-budget films it is almost impossible to achieve the results desired. Additionally, independent filmmakers end up competing against each other for limited attention and fragmented audiences due to the fact that there are too many films being made. At a movie theater, independent films face several challenges more than a regular film. First, they need to put in the effort of distinguishing themselves from the other independent films that are opening at the same time. Secondly, they need to invest in identifying their audience efficient. And thirdly, they need to be worthy for the audience that will pay for the ticket. Independent filmmakers are beginning to explore Video On Demand  (VOD) as a distribution method. Thus it allows filmmakers to reach larger audiences with relative ease, streaming services don’t provide nearly the same return as physical sales of DVDs; therefore, many independent filmmakers fear that this technology may lead them to go bankrupt if they are not able to attract the same volume as larger Hollywood films that garner millions of viewer. To overcome this issue, independent filmmakers often develop a hybrid distribution strategy that encompasses traditional releases with online distribution in platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Conclusion

The independent film industry is full of challenges as summarized in this article. Film studios normally face issues raising money to pay for the production, making unique genre-specific movies using digital technology, incorporating gaming techniques in terms of storytelling and visualization to make
movies stronger, assuming multiple roles in a film to reduce costs as much as possible, understanding the audience they are trying to reach, and distributing the final product through different channels. Although these are challenges that can be recognized easily, the solutions seem to be far away whether for the companies themselves or those public sector agencies which support the industry. Unfortunately, the structure and economics of independent film productions are not well suited to build sustainable companies which leads to a  number of serious challenges that threaten to limit filmmakers’ creativity and push the industry even further into the shadows. It is important that the industry focuses on finding solutions to these pressing issues. As viewers, we just enjoy the final product without understanding all the challenges that filmmakers faced behind the scenes. We need to internalize that making a great movie goes above working extremely hard, and having luck; the truth is that it needs love, passion, commitment, and tons of patience, especially if we are talking about independent films.

 

Mural Madness

Create
Create

From May 21st- 23rd the Kids from Somerset Academy visited us and painted an amazing mural. We were so glad to host such talented and spirited kids and watch them create something truly spectacular. Many thanks to everyone who made this event possible.

Read more about the event and check out some awesome pictures of the finished product! :

>>>>>>>>>>>Mural!<<<<<<<<<<<

 

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Dissecting The Iron Man 3 Trailer

Does The Suit Make The Man or Does The Man Make The Suit?

 

The new Iron Man 3 Trailer has been revealed to all but the most secluded humans holed up in barren, 4g –dead zones and wifi cold spots. Speculation was already inflating among fans, as this is the first post-Avengers escapade for Marvel, and the first for Tony Stark since the less than stellar Iron Man 2, which many people took for a hundred million dollar commercial for The Avengers.  The trailer’s release has only permeated that supply of imaginative wonder as it gets dissected frame by frame for potential clues to the story’s premise and direction.

We’re fans at heart; hence, we’re no different. Read our observations below.

The Iron Man Rises?

Before we begin, we understand that there are a million, non-linear ideas taken out of context that can go into a trailer. Often, these previews isolate tones, themes, and emotions targeted at a specific audience, which may be a far cry from the final product. How many of us remember thinking In Bruges was going to be a lighthearted comedy?

But there is no mistaking the new dark tones present in the third arch of the Iron Man franchise. It starts with a battered Tony Stark laying submissively in a frozen wasteland, and the rest of the trailer is a progression of ass kicking at his expense. It’s a polar shuffle from the marking strategies of the previous films, which used tracks from ACDC and Robert Downey Jr.’s one-liners to lure us into the seats with promises of fun and humor. It’s almost like they hired Christopher Nolan to direct it. Like The Dark Knight Rises, this installment will be the darkness before a dawn, though we can still expect Downy Jr. to be in full court jester mode since one of the more endearing qualities of the franchise is his tenacity to laugh at his own insane circumstances.

There are other similarities with Nolan’s Batman trilogy, the first of which being that Batman and Iron man are essentially inter-dimensional doppelgangers of each other, with both being emotionally unstable billionaires- with daddy issues- who use their fortunes to fund their vendettas.

Like TDKR, the villain is inspired from the first film, with Batman resurrecting The League of Shadows and Iron Man doing battle with his deadliest foe, The Mandarin, who was first alluded to in the first film with the inclusion of a terrorist group known as The Ten Rings. The baddies themselves are both international terrorists, with distinguishably questionable voices (Ben Kingsley sounds like he’s narrating a Charles Dickens novel), who employ methods of attrition as a strategy to slowly break down their opponents.  Bane crushed batman’s back and used his weapons and vehicles against him while the Iron Man trailer reveals that The Mandarin will blow up Stark’s home and sabotage the technology to manipulate his suit. Which brings us to our next critical observation…

War Machines

 Iron Man 3 looks to continue paving a journey to define what it is to be a hero, the seeds of which were planted by Captain America in The Avengers when he implied that Tony Stark was just an egomaniac in a suit.

“Take away the suit, and what are you?” He asks.

Of course Tony rose to the occasion by sacrificing himself for the sake of New York, and it appears that IM3 will continue developing that theme by stripping him of his toys and pushing his limits as a man.

We see shots of various suits of armors self destructing in sequence, and several (somewhat erotic) clips of the Iron Man suit attacking Tony and Pepper. There’s no doubt that director, Shane Black, knew the kind of response such imagery would generate. One can’t help but notice sci-fi elements from classics like Bladerunner and Isaac Asimov novels.

I'm Sorry. I think we're moving a little too fast

 

This game of man vs. machine will be escalated by Tony Stark’s voluntary fusion with nano technology. The inclusion of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), and a shot of Tony  commanding pieces of his armor via telekinesis, all but guarantee that portions of the “Extremis” storyline from the comics will be at play. Expect Tony to gain the ability to manipulate technology – from cellphones to satellites – through the sheer will of his mind.

With over six months to go, many of these thoughts can be accused of moving prematurely, but where’s the fun in waiting to find out?

3 Reasons to Worry About The Justice League Movie

Can DC's All- Stars Harness the Box Office Magic of The Avengers?

 

It’s been twelve years since the first X-Men film baked a cinematic pie of live action superheros, and if the financial numbers are any indication, the movie going public has yet to get sick of stuffing their faces.

The Avengers is now the third and fourth highest grossing film in the domestic and international markets respectively, while the The Amazing Spiderman – a reboot whose predecessor is less than six years old – exceeded expectations with 340 million dollars in its first six days (made more impressive by the fact that it debuted on a Tuesday). Tickets for the midnight of showing of The Dark Knight Rises have been on sale for a month, and there are still two weeks remaining before it premiers!

Clearly, we love vigilantes and spandex ( the verdict is still out on the order), and our voracious appetites are far from satisfied.

That billion dollar pie pie is still hot and fresh as it sits on the window waiting for Warner Brothers to cut a slice with their own all-star team of superheroes: The Justice League. There is already a script in the works, and the net is buzzing with speculation on everything from plot to casting.  Summer of 2014 would be the earliest logical date for release, but before we get that far, there are a few lingering issues that might prevent the movie from mimicking the colossal success of its Marvel doppelganger.

 

Rebooting the Reboots:

Ed Norton’s Hulk proved that audiences are willing to give second chances when it exonerated itself for the garbage that was Ang Lee’s version; however, with the exception of the Batman Franchise, DC has released some serious duds: The Green Lantern and that super-emo reel of castration otherwise known as Superman Returns. They’re going to have to redeem their individual failures before combining those volatile elements into a cohesive unit.

Spiderman is one of the more popular heroes on the planet, so it’s no surprise that we were willing to go for another round before we had enough time to digest the Sam Raimi installments. Could the same be said for a figure with less mainstream clout like Green Lantern? We’ll have to wait and see if a more beloved hero, Superman, can recapture some of that momentum next year with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel first.

Christian Bale’s run as the  Dark Knight has become canon as far as many fans are concerned. How is Warner Bros going to negate the inevitable distraction of having the public second guess whomever becomes the new Batman? They’re going to have to restructure the character, AGAIN, to fit their vision because  Chris Nolan’s is completely self centered and grounded in reality; it won’t translate into the more fantasy focused world the Justice League demands.

Additionally, while no one knows for sure what the final roster will look like for the film, it’s safe to say that The JLA would benefit from several stand alone flicks for their other members, which leads to the next predicament.

The Shared Universe Conundrum:

The Avengers owes much of its success to a plethora of reasons, chief among them being the concept of a shared universe. All of the movies were interconnected and often referenced each other with cameos and Easter Eggs.

How can DC weave a smooth narrative if it spends a good chunk of  screen time visiting the origins of its characters? However, if they choose to ignore it, they risk releasing one-dimensional characterizations that won’t appeal to the large demographic of the audience that doesn’t digest comics. Marvel completely dodged this hurdle by giving each of its heroes the chance to shine individually before forcing them to share the screen. They created an extended narrative that invited the fans to participate in all the films, hence when it came time for the Avengers to assemble, they jumped right into the action without wasting a second on exposition. This strategy also helped balance the distribution of minutes as each of the respective origins, personalities, and idiosyncrasies of the their heroes had already been covered. Notice that the only character who had no previous development, Hawkeye, was the one who suffered most in terms of screen time and a stale performance.

DC is going to need more than two years to properly establish its characters before uniting them in a bedlam of glory.

Another problem revolves around matching the tones, colors, and overall feel of each individual film. The Marvel films legitimately felt like they existed in the same universe. The Batman universe is an after hours exercise in grime and decay where human morality is on life support and people bruise before they die. How will that balance with the well-lit, clean cut landscape of Superman’s Metropolis?

It’s a Popularity Contest:

With the exception, once again, of Nolan’s Batman Franchise, the one common denominator among the winners and losers of the superhero movies has been one name: Marvel. Their characters are  flawed, introspective, morally impressionable and easier to relate to. DC characters come from a wholesome era advocating for “truth, justice, and the American way.” We live in economically unstable, spiritually divided times where children are desensitize to violence  and pessimism is the new soda pop. It’s no surprise that the “anti-heroes” (which Marvel has more of) are more appealing to people.

People don’t want campy, overtly fantastical beyond belief, fairy tales. They want grit and personal conflicts of integrity, elements lacking from Marvel’s other outhouse, The Fantastic Four.

For DC, there is no strength in numbers. The Justice is league is a revolving door of members, many of whom are ambiguous to all but the biggest nerds. Elongated Man? The Wonder Twins? Blue Beatle? Even the more popular second banana members like Green Lantern, The Flash, and Wonder Woman don’t have the universal fan base of Marvel’s heroes.

The Villains aren’t excused either. The Flash’s main nemesis is Gorilla Grod. What is this, Planet of the Apes? You’d have to be crazy to cast anyone else as the Joker, and Lex Luthor has been hacked to death by Brian Singer (They’d have to create a new, more menacing and evil version). Those two are the most compelling villains DC has to offer, and neither of them pose much of a physical threat. Even Loki can hold his own against Captain America. They could insert Darkseid, who is one evil badass, but the after credits scene in The Avengers already hinted at Thanos being the villain for the next round, and they’re pretty similar. Additionally all he could offer is another “alien invasion” and that plot device, like the ensemble cast of spandex itself can be summed up in the following words: The Avengers Did it!

 

 

Aaron Sorkin and a Generation of Digital Multitaskers

Aaron Sorkin has made a career writing on behalf of idealism. His films and shows – including “A Few Good Men,” “The West Wing,” “Moneyball,” and “The Social Network” – often feature heroes or anti-heroes on quixotic journeys to dismantle and remake the status quo. At the tenth annual Wall Street Journal: All Things Digital Conference, he discussed his own quixotic battle with a modern audience of distracted multitaskers who want their news in 140 characters or less while engaging with multiple screens (Laptops, tablets, televisions smartphones) at the same time. He also offered insights into his writing process while discussing two upcoming projects: “Newsroom,” a new HBO drama chronicling the behind the scenes conflicts of a cable news channel, and a Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson’s biography on the late cultural icon.


For a plethora of reasons, television is replacing Hollywood for a lot of the quality cinema being released these days. This change can be viewed through the migration to smaller screens by Hollywood regulars like Dustin Hoffman and Michael Mann (Luck), William H Macy (Shameless), Thomas Jane (Hung), Claire Danes (Homeland), and Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire).

Our appetite for condensed media and instant results has shrunk has evaporated our attention spans from a whopping twelve minutes, to a paltry five, according to this study http://socialtimes.com/attention-spans-have-dropped-from-12-minutes-to-5-seconds-how-social-media-is-ruining-our-minds-infographic_b86479. At one point, it was a whole twenty minutes. This gaping hole in our intellect has created a wide chasm that comprehensive writers like Sorkin must learn to cross. The way his audience watches his work has undergone a facelift. He’d be the first to admit that his material doesn’t make for good “background” music. It requires active participation and concentration, but the medium of television gives home court advantage to other distractions. The living room has become the wild west of digital ADD.

We don’t just watch TV, the way we do when we go to the movies, where we’ve invested (by purchasing a ticket) in the content and where social rules (for the time being) still frown upon using a cell phone in the theater. At home, we sit in front of the screen, check email, order stuff from Amazon, talk on the phone, get NBA, NHL, and MLB updates, while delegating our remaining brain capacity to absorb whatever content is playing on TV.

With millions of potential distractions competing for our attention, how does an old school craftsman like Sorkin change his approach? He doesn’t. He writes the “same way as the guys who wrote I Love Lucy” because “Storytelling is a very old art form, and the important parts of it don’t change at all…I still worship at the altar of intention and obstacle.”

The conversation also covers the accessibility that the digital age offers to aspiring filmmakers, where Sorkin comments on the fact major studios are no longer needed to finance start ups. Anybody can make a movie. But at the end of the day, you still have to “distinguish between what’s good and what’s bad. He also marvels at the intuitive trend of modern technology and cites how many toddlers can pick up a tablet and instinctively know what to do with it. If he could ask Steve Jobs a question, it would be “What’s that magic trick?”

Check out the full interview below for more insights into the mind of one of Hollywood’s smartest screenwriters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0yzItFWhU&feature=plcp

 

Coming In 2012: Can DiCaprio and Lurhman Strike Gold with New Gatsby Movie?

Baz Luhrmann has never been accused of being subtle. His films (Romeo and Juliette, Moulin Rouge) are camp extravaganzas filled with anachronistic music and visual overdoses of color, so it’s no surprise that the trailer for his adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” an American masterpiece with a reserved, grimy tone and a passive narrator, created a buzz as mercurial as the mysterious Jay Gatsby himself. Like a shot of prohibition era bathtub whiskey, reception is divided between those who are happy to have another serving of the classic, and those who are turned off by the unconventional flavor of the new direction. The title character isn’t introduced until the third chapter in the book, so his characterization up to that point is revealed by the gossip of clueless speculators.  Likewise the Internet is crawling with trolls ripping into the guts of an unfinished movie – that won’t be released until Christmas – based on a two minute put together by a marketing team with no emotional or creative input into the finished product.

This isn’t the first time F. Scott Fitzgerald’s bacchanalian portrait of the “roaring twenties “ has made an appearance on the screen. Its predecessors aren’t exactly memorable, except perhaps for the lack of chemistry between Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Luhrmann’s version, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire, offers a refreshing perspective on the themes of greed, obsession, and opulence that defined the tale of a man, ashamed of his modest upbringing, who turns to bootlegging and other illicit activities to raise a fortune and regain the woman he lost.

Those who criticize Luhrmann for failing to replicate the serious tone of the book should keep in mind that Mr. Gatsby is ultimately brought down by his futile attempts to recreate the past. Adaptations that aren’t given the space to roam from the source material are seldom met with critical praise.

Though the film takes place in 1920s, elements of the trailer are unmistakably modern, perhaps as an attempt by Lurhmann to apply the story’s theme to a contemporary audience. It was shot in 3D with a budget that was well over a hundred million dollars, which is unusual for a film not featuring talking robots, nuclear explosions, and masked vigilantes.

Much of the criticism also comes from the trailer’s score, which features music from Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Jack White’s cover of U2’s “Love is Blindness” instead of tunes native to the time period. It’s not known yet whether Luhrmann will use modern music for the film itself, but based on his previous work, it would not be a surprise. It may not be a bad thing if he does. The book was written over fifty years ago, and chances are, much of the movie going public has not read it. Fans of the novel do not need to be persuaded to buy the ticket, but if the film hopes to turn a profit, it better attract those who aren’t familiar with it.

In any case, any press is good press, and the current uproar incited by the trailer has to be good news for the film’s producers.

Checkout the trailer below and give us your take.

Movie Monday Review: The Avengers

If you went to the movies this weekend, the odds are nine to one that you saw The Avengers. Marvel’s latest hymn of adrenaline serenaded the hearts of nerds and casual fans alike, smashing opening weekend records along the way, as if the Incredible Hulk himself spiked the box office during a touchdown dance.

It became the fastest film in history to gross 200 million domestically (twelve days), set single day records for Saturday (69 million) and Sunday (50 million), and cashed a combined international check of 640 million dollars. To put it in perspective, only eleven films in history have joined the billionaire’s club. The Avengers will likely be the twelfth by month’s end. It will enter the one percent of cinema royalty where it will mingle with such monumental films as Avatar, The Dark Knight, and The Return of the King.

There were an insurmountable number of variables that went into the film’s production. A few of the more intriguing components are as follows:

The Set Pieces

The “Helicarrier” is a giant aircraft carrier with flight capabilities and a half-mile waistline. It’s iconic to the comics; so it was important to memorably highlight it on film. S.H.I.E.L.D’s floating fortress filled two of Albuquerque Studios’ soundstages (the whole production took six of eight), was as wide as half a football field, and took five months to build.

The Cameras

The film was shot using cameras on two ends of the financial spectrum. It was Seamus McGarvey’s (cinematographer) first venture into the world of digital video and he chose the Alexa by Arri. With its tonal range, clarity, and resolution, the Alexa is praised for bridging the gap between the film and digital shooting formats. It has been featured in a plethora of feature projects since its release in 2010. McGarvey used a 1.85:1 aspect ratio to account for the varying heights of the characters and the Manhattan Skyline.

With its 220 million dollar budget, splurging on elaborate set pieces, an all-star cast, and top end equipment is to be expected, but some of the film’s more intimate shots were filmed using Canon’s EOS 5D Mark 3 DSLR. With an ISO range as low as 50(L) and as high as 102400(H2), compact portability, and pristine HD quality, the Mark 3 proves that quality doesn’t require Tony Stark’s credit limit. It has also been featured in Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The First Avenger.

The Marketing

Marvel’s financial success blossomed from one of the more fertile  product placement seeds in recent memory. Who among us didn’t gasp at the sight of Mjolnir (Thor’s hammer) as it crashed into the Earth after Iron Man 2? Tony Stark may have nonchalantly used  Captain America’s iconic shield as a prop, but it enchanted the audience because it foreshadowed the origins of Steve Rogers. The Avengers has already grossed more revenue than Thor, Captain America, and the two Hulk films did throughout their theatrical runs. Its presence radiated throughout the public subconscious years before its debut, and every Easter egg, and post credits scene left the audience foaming at the mouth like Pavlov’s dogs.

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