Great article on Indie film Capitalism
Zeke Zelker describes how he conjured a plan to show his film InSearchOf on Youtube. That hit a snag when Youtube said they couldn't show it due to the nudity in the film. Zeke came up with a clever solutiuon...Indie film Capitalism
Another great example of how each film needs to have it's own marketing plan/approach...and once ou have that plan you must be ready to evolve, adapt and turn on a day to keep the momentum.
Posted at 08:08 AM in Current Affairs, Film, hollywood, show business, Television, web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 08:40 AM in Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A few links from around the web...
Posted at 03:12 PM in Film, Games, hollywood, show business, web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Here are a few links to interesting filmmaking-related stories I've stumbled on in the last week or so...
Posted at 10:44 AM in Film, hollywood, show business, web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Lots of interesting stuff coming out of the Los Angeles Film Festival panels. One item, that I think qualifies as big news, is the headline above....cinetic launching a global vod system.
This comes via twitter, on a solitary tweet by @zakforsman
No other details yet (not even sure who said it...I assume it's from a panel run by @ScottKirsner).
But this is the kind of applecart-turning that will have to happen for any project to survive that isn't a major studio tentpole.
This is bigger news than John Lesher getting the boot, but I wonder how much mainstream media (even the trades) will make of it.
UPDATE: doing a little research I find this LA Times article from CANNES that I somehow missed:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/12/entertainment/et-cannesvod12
Excellent overview of the state and current thinking of/on VOD.
Posted at 05:45 PM in Film, hollywood, show business, web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Here's a few of the interesting links I came across this week related to Hollywood, filmmaking, and/or the web.
CinemaTech: All Your Questions, Answered
Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily » Indie Filmmaking: 35 Tips From Experts
50 Best Websites for Moviemakers 2009 | MovieMaker Magazine
Cisco Says The Web of The Future Is All About Video
Truly Free Film: 52 Reasons Why American Indie Film Will Flourish
This Is The Right Time To Make Movies « The 401st Blow :: Thoughts On Media
Posted at 05:34 PM in Film, hollywood, show business | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
So, Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost has opened to very poor Box Office, bad reviews, and lots and lots of twittering about how awful it is.
In the world of Social Media/Social Web, this would be a crisis that required/demanded action. If this were a web services release, or a software release, or even a physical product, there would be, very likely, a Community Manager springing into action. The Social Web is on fire with BAD NEWS for the future of Relativity Media and Universal's new product, Land of the Lost!
What is their strategy to turn this lemon into lemonade? My guess is there is absolutely no plan. Marketing, in Hollywood, is what happens before a product release, you hope it goes well, and then you move onto the next "product release".
Like everything else digital or web related, Hollywood is so woefully behind the curve it is alarming, but not surprising.
Does it make sense for the companies that have invested in these projects to try treat them more like a software release? to maybe try to establish relationships with the customers who actually LOVED the movie? to reach out to those that didn't?
According to Twendz, and checking search.twitter.com periodically, the sentiment about the film is running equally between negative and positive. However, the only thing you'll see in MSM is the negative. Guaranteed.
A Community Manager is, as Dave Allen @pampelmoose points out, not a "salary", but an insurance policy. If Relativity/Universal had a CM working on this, what would they do? Is post-release too late?
I would say the world of media has evolved to a point where post-release CAN'T be too late. You have to adapt, or...uh, die?
A CM would reach out to both supporters and detractors, to try to get supporters to evangelize a bit, or simply to thank them, and detractors, to see if they had feedback that would be helpful, or to try to start a conversation that could be helpful in the future...or to start a relationship that could evolve over time.
In this specific case...a typical tweet today was "Forget what critics are saying; Land of the Lost was fun!"...that's a gift....so doing a quick search on twitter, finding 100 people who really loved the movie, and sending them a tweet, saying...hey, thanks so much for the positive tweet, here's 2 free tix to send to a couple of friends to see it too...
That's quick work. Easily done.
It's also potentially a MSM story...hey, look, a movie is doing post-release follow-up...
And how about those that didn't like it? Could you follow up with them and say, " we are sorry you didn't find it funny...but you know, we think it's funny, of course...what would you think about sending a couple of tix to friends to see it, and by the way, here's lunch on us at Subway?". (Subway is doing a tie-in with Land of the Lost.) Or...sorry you didn't like it...here's two tix to The Ugly Truth, it opens in July, we think you'll like it.
And hey, here's lunch at Subway. Yum.
Or...a lot of the complaints on twitter have to do with the fact that it seems to be marketed as a family friendly movie, so people took their kids, and then were pretty pissed about the level of inappropriate humor.
That doesn't bode well for a DVD release I would think. Maybe they should find some of those tweeters and find out...well, what were those parts that offended? Maybe those are obvious, maybe they are not. But isn't that good info? And wouldn't those people be pretty stoked that they were being listened to? Maybe the DVD release should be re-edited to make it more family friendly. And maybe they should let everyone know that. Maybe that Mom that complained, would love to rent/buy that DVD if some of the inappropriateness was trimmed. It was funny, EXCEPT for the inappropriate parts.
Maybe week 2 of the marketing plan should lean more heavily on the raunchier aspects of the movie...is there a red-band trailer lurking waiting for a release? Or should there be?
Can the twitter/facebook data be parsed to determine who it's playing best with? Nothing wrong with marketing your product to the people who you think might like it best....pre-release of a movie like this is marketing to everyone...
When all releases are digital, we might be seeing a different version in the theaters the week following a soft opening. That will be interesting.
What else would a Community Manager do at this point?
Posted at 05:02 PM in Film, hollywood, show business | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Chevy Chase and Bill Murray - both huge stars...both crushed it on SNL...both left to pursue movies...
Chevy left after one short season, and did in fact become a huge star.
Foul Play (not as fondly remembered as some of his others, but grossed 46 million domestic...which is 107 million in today's dollars...I asked Wolfram Alpha...)
and then of course Vacation (145 million domestic, inflation adjusted.)
Fletch (106 million...etc.)
European Vacation (100 million)
Spies Like Us (142 million)
Three Amigos (80 million)
Christmas Vacation (121 million)...That's an enviable winning streak there!
then,
Nothing but Trouble (14 million), and....
Memoirs of the Invisible Man (21 million)....
Cops and Robbersons (what? anyway...15 million)....
slight reprieve with Vegas Vacation (47 million)....
Not only did he never get back to stardom, he pretty much dropped off the cultural radar. Why?
Murray stepped away from SNL, and immediately had a giant hit...
Meatballs 143 million
followed by
Caddyshack (with Chevy Chase of course) 100 million
Stripes 200 million
and then, the megahit:
Ghostbusters 470 million
to be sure, Bill Murray then had a long string of mis-fires after that...but one thing he did, that Chevy Chase did not, and I believe opened the door to the kind of career he has vs. the one Chevy Chase...
After Meatballs, Caddyshack, and Stripes...an incredible trifecta of comedy that pretty much created the entire smart/juvenile comedy genre...and just before the monster hit of Ghostbusters...he took a supporting part in Tootsie.
Playing against one of the all-time comedic greats, in one of the all-time great comedies, Bill Murray was perfect. He was his funny smart deadpan wiseass self...but it was within the context of a much different type of movie than he'd been in yet. A comedy built on character, directed by a master.
While Chevy kept going back to the same well, or making movies like Dirty Work (directed by Bob Saget?)...Murray had Tootsie under his belt, Murray had a Harold Ramis in his corner - cranking up Groundhog Day.
It wouldn't be for another 15 years that he was cast in Rushmore, leading to the next phase of his career...the elder statesman of comedy (not that he's old)...all that sublety and nuance that was overlayed with the smirk, is still there, but the smirk is mostly gone, replaced by a world weary ennui that resonates with contemporary audiences.
And so Bill Murray keeps getting cast in some wonderful movies.
Chevy Chase struggles for a relevant career.
So, which path is Will on?
I think he is at that point in his career. He's had his hits, a few mis-fires, but, essentially, everybody knows the act now. Smart of him to go to Broadway, smart of him to try things like Stranger than Fiction...but he hasn't found that layer, or that project, like Tootsie was for Bill Murray. Taking the best of his persona, and presenting it in an entirely different context, laying the groundwork for evolution.
Land of the Lost opened to what are being called disappointing numbers. The reviews have been pretty brutal. And he puts out a lot of movies! In the last 6 years, he has appeared in 18 movies, 15 of which he was the featured star. Those are like John Wayne, studio-system numbers. So who is making the kind of movie these days that could capture the essence of Will Ferrell, but put a spin on it, make it seem like...hey, here's a guy that is going to be around for-EVER. Because he is getting close to having a career that is running on auto-churn.
Also...twitter sentiment seems to be running, I'm guessing...60% liking Land of the Lost, 40%, not so much. Which is a much higher pct of "liking" than the critics (rottentomatoes.com = 26%).
Which brings me to my next post, for tomorrow...what should the studio do to follow up the soft opening of Land of the Lost? Generally speaking, they usually do nothing. It opens big, has legs, everyone's happy or opens big, doesn't have legs, less happy, but whatever, or opens soft...everybody steps away. Those are the usual possible scenarios. However! I have ideas. Next post, what should Relativity/Universal do to get the movie the legs it needs?
#landofthelost
Posted at 05:37 PM in Film, hollywood, show business | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Went to see Star Trek last night. I am not a trekkie and was not a fan of the previous movies, although I did enjoy watching the original TV series. I went because of the incredible reviews it's been getting, and several friends had seen it and were surprised by how much they liked it.
Well...I am rarely blown away by a movie, and with a very few exceptions, by a sci-fi one.
I am going to have to see it again to see if I can decipher why I thought the movie "looked" so very different. There was a kind of "wash" that happened especially in intense action scenes...sort of a new little piece of visual language employed. DP Dan MIndel and JJ Abrams have really taken the look of an action movie and raised the bar.
The imagination employed through-out on the mechanics of scenes...what would it look like and feel like to be shot through space down to a planet? You could feel it, and when there was pain on-screen...someone crashing to the ground after said shot through space...you felt it. The editing team of Mary Joe Markey and Maryann Brandon (as well as Mindel) worked with Abrams on Mission Impossible 3, and the combination was really inspiring and inspired. I thought Mission Impossible 3 was terrible on every level...I barely remember it, frankly, but I know I found just about everything in it to be barely passable. But Star Trek...wow.
I don't want to give too much away...there is an abundance of little moments where you will find yourself going "ah HA!" even if (like me) you are only passingly familiar with the Star Trek story history.
And the acting...what a well cast movie. Zachary Quinto as Spock and and Karl Urban channel their predecessors so well it is frankly scary. ESPECIALLY Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy. You will laugh out loud at him, guaranteed. At the same time, they bring a necessary distance between their characters and what they are to become...ESPECIALLY Zachary Quinto. The thing that will be blowing our minds for awhile now, is how JJ Abrams has given us a new way to watch those old shows and movies. Now, when we rewatch an episode, will we watch Spock differently? Will we watch Uhuru differently? Yes. This movie is the most subtle post-modern film yet made. Abrams has effortlessly reshaped the way we will watch not only Star Treks to come, but all the previous work. Name a prequel that has done it so completely and effortlessly. And don't say "Star Wars prequels" or you'll just make me mad. Or laugh.
JJ Abrams may or may not be the next Speilberg, but this movie really makes you think...maybe...all he has to do is crank out 30 more years of sometimes astonishing, always accomplished movies, and there you go.
I've had several friends say "It's this year's Iron Man". The level of craft that went into Star Trek surpasses Iron Man by....a LOT. I really enjoyed Iron Man...but take Robert Downey out of that movie...it's fairly pedestrian. Really. I mean, somewhat clever, nice balancing act on tone, but really...
Star Trek succeeds as big cinema. Oh, one more thing....if you are into sound design....(there are many credits for the sound design, so not sure who to tip my hat to...) this movie had astonishing sound design. Moments of silence when you expect explosions...beautiful uses of sound cues and music...really masterful.
And the ending....which takes us to the beginning (you'll see what I mean)....just right.
I read somewhere (maybe Robert McKee) that the perfect ending to a movie is one that is both inevitable and a surprise. This has THAT.
And just so you know where I'm coming from in terms of what I like in a movie, the last three I have watched were Repulsion by Polanski (ooh la la) , Barton Fink (for about the 30th time) and Wolverine (hated it.)
Posted at 08:23 AM in Current Affairs, Film | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
