| A VERY LONG COMPILATION
OF WRITING FROM HOLLYWOOD REPORTER THAT COVERS INDIE
FILM. THIS IS GOOD STUFF FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO
KNOW THE CURRENT STATE OF INDIE FILM. |
|
Independent producers
As the rules governing the film landscape continue to
shift, professionals from all corners of the industry
wonder how to define 'independent.'
By Anne Thompson
As last year's screener-ban controversy proved, the
world can change with amazing speed. In an instant,
the rift between the major studios, which manufacture
big-budget global event movies, and their specialty
subdivisions, which make modest-scale movies for adults,
became painfully apparent. What's more, a series of
events nearly unprecedented in Hollywood only served
to underscore the fact that the indie scene is no longer
in stasis:
" In February, starlet Charlize Theron wins the
best actress Oscar for playing a serial killer in "Monster,"
a $5 million title from rookie filmmaker Patty Jenkins
funded by Media 8 Entertainment and Blockbuster Inc.'s
DEJ Prods. and released by independent upstart Newmarket
Films. The movie grosses $34.5 million domestically.
" A $30 million foreign-language religious film
-- "The Passion of the Christ," directed and
financed by Mel Gibson -- becomes the highest-grossing
indie movie in Hollywood history. Gibson's Icon Entertainment
uses conservative media to flog the movie, and Newmarket
releases it Stateside on more than 3,000 screens. "Passion"
grosses more than $370 million, and Icon is forced to
sue the Regal theater chain for uncollected revenue.
Now there's talk of an Oscar campaign.
" Documentaries are the hottest ticket in the 2004
indie marketplace, from Morgan Spurlock's "Super
Size Me" and Kevin Macdonald's "Touching the
Void" to rabble-rouser Michael Moore's Palme d'Or-winning
"Fahrenheit 9/11." Harvey and Bob Weinstein
ride the media furor kicked up when the Walt Disney
Co. CEO Michael Eisner refuses to let Miramax release
the film, buying it back and jamming it onto screens
in June via Lions Gate and IFC Films. The controversial
docu swiftly outstrips "Bowling for Columbine's"
$21.2 million domestic gross, setting a benchmark for
commercial success for nonfiction movies.
From Miramax's co-production of Martin Scorsese's $100
million epic "The Aviator" at one extreme
to Jonathan Caouette's $218 "Tarnation" at
the other, the definitions of Hollywood and Indiewood
have never been more unclear. With few exceptions, the
major studios are hellbent on spending their production
bounty on well-branded tentpoles and franchises aimed
squarely at a wide, largely male, demographic. They
also will greenlight lower-budget genre films -- thrillers,
romances or comedies; left by the wayside are pictures
with controversial content that might upset parent corporations
or their shareholders.
"This is where studios fear to tread," former
United Artists chief Bingham Ray says. "The studio
divisions have a corrupted creative aesthetic. The nonaffiliated
indies have a leg up with a 'Super Size Me' or 'Fahrenheit
9/11'; the true indie world doesn't have to play by
these rules."
Also largely neglected by the studios are niche movies
and smart films for adults; considered far too risky
is any film that depends on flawless execution, unless
it has the right A-list star or director attached.
Finally, the studios have evolved a two-tiered structure:
The majors handle the big movies, while the mini-majors
(Universal's Focus Features, Fox Searchlight, Disney's
Miramax and Warner Independent) pursue films the studios
do not want to make -- at more affordable prices.
"A good number of companies are doing more of
these films with an individual voice and an indie feeling,"
Warner Independent president Mark Gill says. "That's
good news."
Canadian indie veteran Robert Lantos, a producer and
majority investor in distributor ThinkFilm, believes
that the studio subdivisions are "former indies
who haven't been indies for a long time. They're studios
owned by conglomerates; there's an instant move toward
the mainstream when a company becomes part of a conglomerate.
The other world is the ever-shrinking and ever-marginal
world of small films which depend on being discovered
at film festivals; until small companies have more muscle,
it's an uphill battle."
Some mini-majors will not take on budgets higher than
$15 million; others won't go above $20 million or $30
million -- and often, they will not touch a movie without
world rights available. The four biggest studio subdivisions
use their deep pockets and talent relationships to compete
aggressively on early prebuys, canny acquisitions and
astute marketing. Most mini-majors demand that movies
come in with partial, if not complete, funding, though
all will take an occasional flier on something risky,
usually an acquisition discovery such as Miramax's "The
Station Agent," Searchlight's "thirteen"
or Focus' "Lost in Translation."
"We're always looking for stuff that's new and
different," Fox Searchlight president Peter Rice
says. "Film festivals are filtering agents."
Increasingly, though, even the studio subdivisions
have stars in their eyes. As more actors see the benefits
of escaping from silly cartoon fare, it is tempting
for indie producers and distributors to add an element
that will protect downside risk and boost value in ancillary
markets -- especially sell-through DVD, which can make
the difference between a profit and a loss.
"More stars want to be in movies with more originality,"
Rice says. "What would be our motivation to make
a movie with no marketing elements? A lot of companies
are chasing the same product and the same moviegoer;
it's very, very competitive."
So is the media marketplace, where cutting through
the clutter is key to winning attention for one's movie.
"With no stars, there's no critical groundswell,
no good reviews, and few people will buy TV unless they
know a movie's going to open in 100 cities," Warner
Independent marketing head Laura Kim says. "It's
too easy to find celebrities to take parts that used
to go to discoveries like Lili Taylor and Parker Posey."
This is That Prods.' Anthony Bregman believes that
casting made all the difference for Focus' recent hit
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." "Jim
Carrey got the film made," Bregman said during
a Seattle International Film Festival panel, adding
that the star power of Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst and
Elijah Wood didn't exactly hurt the film's boxoffice
chances, either. "Jim wanted to change his image
and make it work; if we did a bad job with 'Eternal
Sunshine,' it would still be worth millions with those
names. Other movies are execution-dependent: If you
can't get that top-flight star, you'll make the movie
for $5 million instead of $20 million."
In order to land Alexander Payne's upcoming dramedy
"Sideways," Rice had to exceed his ironclad
$15 million budget ceiling by $3 million to beat out
Miramax, as well as Paramount's Sherry Lansing. Payne
had the clout to demand that Paul Giamatti and Thomas
Haden Church head the film's cast.
"It caused a ruckus," says producer Michael
London ("thirteen"), who recently signed a
three-year deal at Paramount, which is attempting to
shed its stodgy image. "It's hard to convince people
that there are movies made without movie stars. No one
wants to embrace what's unique about most indie films:
In the middle zone of budgets under $15 million-$20
million, there's so much opportunity to make movies
with a personal voice and yet reach a sizable audience."
But indie divisions prize directors nearly as much
as they do stars. Searchlight's upcoming helmer bets
include Payne, David O. Russell and Danny Boyle. "If
you don't have a signature director like Bernardo Bertolucci,
you're fighting an uphill battle," says producer
Dan Lupovitz (1999's "Simpatico"). "If
you don't go with the big guys, there's a big drop down
to the InDigEnts making digital movies for $250,000.
There used to be more options in between."
More and more, producers are using all of their wiles
-- and the aide of packagers including William Morris
Independent's Cassian Elwes and Rena Ronson and Cinetic
Media's John Sloss -- to assemble financing from a combination
of foreign presales, which require attractive star elements.
They also are growing keener on soft money and equity
investors like the ubiquitous Bob Yari, who backs 10-15
movies a year through his indie operations including
Stratus and BullsEye Entertainment.
Elwes and Ronson work with Yari's money to stitch together
El Camino Pictures titles like the upcoming "Haven,"
starring Orlando Bloom. "Bob Yari is keeping the
indie film community going," Ronson says. "It's
a healthy market for the indies; having soft money available
in our country -- in tax-incentive deals in Louisiana,
Florida and other states -- has made a difference."
After she left Michael Ovitz's Artists Management Group,
producer Cathy Schulman saw a gap in the market and
convinced Yari to fund BullsEye. She and Yari have greenlighted
five movies to be sold at film festivals, starring the
likes of Keanu Reeves, Don Cheadle and Vince Vaughn.
"We'd need well-articulated material that stars
would be interested in and, to keep production budgets
controlled, (would cost) under $20 million," Schulman
says. "These are movies that are maverick in spirit
that can align with the main distributors."
This is That chief Ted Hope has produced movies for
15 years, including the 2003 critical favorite "American
Splendor." "It's never been harder to get
movies made, but good ones do get made with the right
package," he says. "I've seen the presale
co-production market collapse, the growth of the international
film and the German (Neuer Markt) collapse, the sale/leasebacks
collapse and the new ascendancy of equity players that
is still going strong."
In order to get this summer's "The Door in the
Floor" made, Hope packaged and financed the $7.5
million movie (through equity investor Revere Prods.'
Michael Corrente and Roger Marino) with stars Jeff Bridges
and Kim Basinger before his old partner, Focus' James
Schamus, stepped up.
"It was a great script, so everybody said, 'Get
A-list actors,'" Hope says. "It was a performance-driven
drama, so they tried to get rid of (second-time) director
Tod Williams, (asking,) 'Can't you get Lasse Hallstrom?'
With equity investors, you can take leaps in the storytelling
that aren't permitted elsewhere."
Warner Independent is beginning to release its first
slate, a mix of in-house projects from Steven Soderbergh
and George Clooney's Section 8 ("Criminal")
and John Wells and Christine Vachon's Killer Films ("A
Home at the End of the World"), acquisitions and
other productions. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "A Very
Long Engagement" came to Gill through "big
Warners," which funded the film through Warners
France.
The question of what Disney will or will not allow
the Weinsteins to do at Miramax has not yet been answered,
but Harvey Weinstein -- when not throwing public darts
at Eisner -- has staked his reputation on taking chances
on small stories with no marquee stars.
While Bob Weinstein's Dimension label remains highly
profitable, Miramax does not play by the usual rules
of risk-aversion, much to the consternation of its studio
parent. (Eisner has stated publicly that Miramax did
not make money during two of the past five years.) It's
hard to imagine the Weinsteins and Eisner patching up
their relationship, but it is equally difficult to imagine
the brothers abandoning their hard-earned library and
ongoing projects.
The next tier of the studio subdivisions is led by
Sony's autonomous Sony Pictures Classics unit, which
has enjoyed a strong run of late thanks to its early
$1.5 million investment in the Oscar-winning Errol Morris
docu "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life
of Robert S. McNamara" and foreign-language titles
like Wolfgang Becker's German film "Good bye, Lenin!"
"Flexibility is the key," SPC co-president
Michael Barker says. "We're guided by the filmmaker
and the marketability of the subject matter -- stars
rarely enter into it. We have the freedom to do what
we want to do."
Operating below a $10 million budget cap are United
Artists, which has yet to find its post-Ray identity
-- though there figures to be more horror titles on
its slate -- and Fine Line, which always has been more
of a prestige label for New Line than a serious moneymaker.
It remains to be seen what changes will come at Paramount
Classics now that MTV chief Tom Freston is looking over
Lansing's shoulder instead of the tight-fisted Jonathan
Dolgen. Many industry observers find it bizarre that
MTV Films partnered with Searchlight on the recent comedy
release "Napoleon Dynamite," or that Paramount's
A-list producer Scott Rudin should prefer to take his
artier films to Searchlight instead of his own studio's
specialty unit, which is too starved for acquisition
and marketing funds to handle Rudin-level projects and
does not produce films at all.
Where studios and their subdivisions will not go, opportunity
awaits. Companies such as IFC Films, Regent Entertainment
and 2929 are producing movies not only for the theatrical
market but also to build libraries and feed cable channels;
Regent and Strand Releasing are targeting niche markets
like the gay audience, and more home video companies
like DEJ and Fox are getting into movie production,
according to FilmFinders co-founder Sydney Levine.
Despite the hazards of collecting rentals on a wide
scale, Newmarket was able to get involved with "Passion"
because the distributor was not encumbered by a major
studio.
"The opportunity comes from the gap between what
the audience wants to see and the restrictions, formulas
and boundaries of what studios want to make or release,"
Newmarket president Bob Berney says. "We have exploited
that difference."
Merged with Artisan, a more robust Lions Gate is moving
into production with even greater flexibility than are
the studio-based indies, with budgets as high as $35
million. The Weinsteins turned to Lions Gate president
Tom Ortenberg and Jonathan Sehring of IFC Films (2002's
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding") to release "Fahrenheit,"
and thanks to Halle Berry's best actress Oscar win for
2001's "Monster's Ball," more stars are willing
to work for less to be in a Lions Gate film, from Robert
De Niro (the April release "Godsend") to Robin
Williams (the upcoming "The Final Cut").
Dylan McDermott was so eager to play a seedy character
that he bought himself out of several episodes of ABC's
"The Practice" to star in Lions Gate's 2003
thriller "Wonderland," which made only $1.1
million at the domestic boxoffice but is doing well
on DVD. Ortenberg also will scoop up a festival hit
like Chris Kentis' "Open Water," he says,
"but we can't do as many projects on a small scale.
The value of the slots is too great."
But the indies have more room to move than do the mini-majors
when jumping into the white-hot docu market. Roadside
Attractions' Howard Cohen patched together a complicated
distribution deal for "Super Size," an anti-McDonald's
shock-doc that the subdivisions wouldn't touch -- even
though it was one of the hottest tickets at this year's
Sundance Film Festival -- and the movie has earned more
than $10 million at the domestic boxoffice.
Sehring also moved swiftly to prebuy "Touching
the Void," a death-defying adventure featuring
two mountain climbers in Peru, on the strength of IFC's
relationship with Macdonald. In addition, ThinkFilm's
Mark Urman and Magnolia's Eamonn Bowles have made a
nice business out of such 2003 documentary releases
as "Spellbound" and "Capturing the Friedmans,"
respectively.
Nonetheless, after "Fahrenheit," all bets
are off, Urman believes.
"It's not fiction vs. nonfiction -- it's (whether
or not) a movie has value and a marketing hook,"
he says. "We've become Docs 'R' Us; we're nimble
and adjust more quickly without having to decide things
at board meetings. We can run between the raindrops."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
Campaign strategy
Innovative indie distributors are stretching their marketing
dollars in an effort to get the word out about their
films.
By Sheri Linden
It's increasingly clear that, with only a fraction
of the marketing funds, independent distributors are
giving the studios a run for their money. Two of the
year's most-talked about films, Mel Gibson's "The
Passion of the Christ" and Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit
9/11," have bypassed the studio system to the tune
of record-breaking boxoffice, and the market for indie
fare continues to widen.
But rather than try to meet the majors head-on, independent
distributors are using innovative ways to stretch their
marketing dollars and get the word out about their films.
"You're trying to compete by not competing,"
Newmarket president Bob Berney says. "You're trying
to find something -- an audience or a project -- that's
not being served by the mainstream studios. So in a
way, you're not competing; you're expanding the audience."
Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films Releasing,
agrees that the indie approach must go beyond budgets.
"While money is important, being creative and building
a better marketing mousetrap is the most important thing,"
he says. "Any good independent can go toe-to-toe
with the majors in terms of a talented marketing and
distribution staff, but if we ever try going toe-to-toe
with them in a dollar-and-cents battle, we lose."
In the case of "Fahrenheit" -- certainly
no losing proposition -- a sense of urgency helped to
fuel the campaign. Lions Gate and its distribution partners
on the film, IFC Films and Bob and Harvey Weinstein's
Fellowship Adventure Group, had a remarkably brief window
in which to devise their marketing strategy.
"We essentially had to compress about six months
of work into one month," Ortenberg says. "I
would equate the marketing of this film to white-water
rafting, where we're just flying down the river at breakneck
speed, and no matter what happens, we just keep moving
forward."
While there was no such time squeeze for Newmarket
with "Passion," like Moore's documentary,
it benefited from controversy and grass-roots support.
As Berney notes, both titles galvanized groups seeking
to ban or censor them. "Whenever that happens,
you double and triple the potential of a film,"
he says. Although he can't quantify the savings, Berney
says the publicity surrounding "Passion" helped
Newmarket spend "considerably less" on advance
advertising than it normally would to generate initial
awareness. Still, the company's marketing budget for
the film reached upward of $25 million (compared with
$40 million, the average studio P&A budget for a
commercial film in 2003). "We tried to balance
the grass-roots campaign with a really aggressive mainstream
media buy and trailer push and so forth," Berney
says.
With a marketing budget totaling approximately $10
million for "Fahrenheit," Ortenberg says that
he and his partners are "spending about the same
as we always projected that we would. But I do think
that the controversy has helped us build awareness and
interest in the film, which has allowed us to take it
out broader than we might otherwise have been able to
do on this size of a marketing budget."
Independent distributors agree that there's no rule
of thumb as to how much of an investment it takes to
move a film into the mainstream. "I think when
you get into doing it by rote, you get into trouble,"
Magnolia Pictures topper Eamonn Bowles says. And Focus
Features head of distribution Jack Foley likens the
process of distributing and marketing a film to "a
chemical equation."
Magnolia's current documentary release "Control
Room," which set boxoffice records at New York's
Film Forum in May before opening in other markets, is
among the smaller-scale independent films capitalizing
on publicity. "'Control Room' is not going to be
an advertising-driven thing," Bowles says. "It
really is a publicity-oriented campaign. So, our expenditures
are very modest."
Bowles was determined to market the film, a docu on
Middle East news agency Al Jazeera, across the political
spectrum. Director Jehane Noujaim has appeared on TV
venues ranging from Comedy Central's "The Daily
Show" to Fox. The topical film also has generated
lots of ink, including think-piece-type reviews and
a handful of New York Times articles. Bowles attributes
the film's commercial strength to "tremendous word-of-mouth."
Berney emphasizes how important that element is. "You
do your best on the marketing. You try to get the timing
right, spend the money carefully. Ultimately, it's word-of-mouth
that is going to make a film go the distance,"
he says.
With the DVD revolution helping to open audiences'
eyes to the work of independent filmmakers, the marketers
of indie titles are finding new receptivity to such
fare. They're finding, too, that the old rules don't
apply.
"Traditions are changing," Foley says. Focus
broke the mold earlier this year, releasing "Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" on more than 1,350
screens in March.
The film reaped strong reviews and became the highest-grossing
title to date penned by Charlie Kaufman.
"A lot of people said we went too wide. We didn't,"
Foley says. "We were successful because we got
more money out of the film doing what we did at the
beginning," rather than taking the platform approach.
In its campaign, Focus tapped into star Jim Carrey's
mainstream appeal and Kaufman's draw as "a brand
in a sort of subcultural or countercultural way."
Focus, which has successfully marketed such challenging
fare as 2002's "The Pianist" and 2003's "Lost
in Translation," has unconventional approaches
in store for its upcoming releases, as well. It will
open the Reese Witherspoon starrer "Vanity Fair"
on Sept. 1 in 800 theaters, hoping to loosen the slasher-film
grip on the Labor Day weekend. Earlier in the summer,
Focus platformed the Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger drama
"The Door in the Floor." "We're being
gentle with that but not sheepish," Foley says,
pointing out the fact that it opened in 18 markets,
a relatively aggressive strategy.
As a "delicate film" aimed primarily at art
house audiences, "Door," Foley says, "(needed)
to stand out and be recognized in a more sedate moment"
than the end-of-year crush. "At this stage of the
game, the whole year has to be considered seriously."
Newmarket is opting for the unusual as well with its
upcoming John Sayles film "Silver City," in
which Chris Cooper plays a character highly reminiscent
of President George W. Bush. "We've had the trailer
on many of the 'Fahrenheit' screenings because we feel
we are going to tap into that same audience," Berney
says. "We're working with different groups like
MoveOn, and we're doing a kind of old-fashioned, political,
Ken Kesey-like bus tour."
For "The Woodsman," Newmarket's approach
will be similar, in certain ways, to its campaign for
last year's "Monster," which reaped a best
actress Oscar for Charlize Theron. Rather than market
its potentially controversial content (the film stars
Kevin Bacon as a man struggling to overcome pedophilia),
ads for the film will highlight the direction and lead
performance.
While it might seem the independent sector is becoming
crowded, Foley perceives an upside to the competition,
with movies benefiting from a shared marketplace. Nonstudio
films, he says, "can all exist among each other
and create and maintain a momentum."
In addition, Foley notes that in seeking a broader
marketplace for high-end films, "the thing that
protects you is that it's not an all-or-nothing beginning."
In other words, the make-or-break opener does not hold
sway as it does with studio fare. "You're positioned
to play in a different way," he says. "You
work your money."
To do so involves, according to Berney, the fine science
of combining "that bolder art statement with the
fact that these things are really doing business."
Berney credits expansion in the exhibition sector as
a key part of the equation. "It's been as much
a partnership with exhibitors trying to expand the audience
as the marketing technique," he says. "There's
been a convergence of these things."
Ortenberg also sees increasing exhibition possibilities.
"When you have the goods," he says, "the
theaters will be available. The market will expand to
accommodate that product." Indeed -- a couple of
years ago, no one would have imagined a documentary
claiming more than 1,700 screens over the Fourth of
July weekend.
However diverse the work of independent filmmakers
and the tactics of their marketers, driving every successful
campaign is the distributor's belief in the movie.
"We've had the good fortune to acquire a great
film," says Ortenberg of "Fahrenheit,"
adding that "the success of the film is really
a testament to Michael Moore."
Says Foley of Focus' successful two-year track record:
"We knew that we were blessed to begin with, whether
it was (2003's) '21 Grams' or 'Lost in Translation'
or 'The Pianist' or 'Eternal Sunshine.'" Laughing,
Foley adds that the blessing also is a kind of burden.
"We had to live with the curse of (trying to realize
commercial) success," he says, "as well as
these artists realized their art, which is a really
hard way to live because it's like, 'They delivered,
what about you?'"
Published Aug. 03, 2004
Small wonders
Tiny distribution houses are finding success through
prudent spending, diversified revenue streams and a
healthy sense of proportion.
By Scott Tobias
With the launch of Warner Independent Pictures this
summer, virtually every major studio now has its own
boutique label, concluding a trend that began with the
Sundance Film Festival boom roughly a decade ago. Over
that time, the word "independent" has evolved
into more of a state of mind than a fiscal reality,
since the boutiques operate under the exceedingly generous
allowance of their studio sponsors.
Yet, even as the stakes have gotten higher and the
competition for screens and ancillaries more intense,
scores of smaller, mostly New York-based distributors
continue to play -- and, in many cases, thrive -- on
a hopelessly uneven field. In a business strewn with
casualties, the survivors must weather a competitive
marketplace with prudent spending, diversified revenue
streams and a healthy sense of proportion.
The battle between studio-backed independents and micro-indies
isn't so much David vs. Goliath as elephants vs. termites.
As bigger companies such as Miramax and Fox Searchlight
assert a forceful presence at festivals and in advertising
spaces, upstarts such as ThinkFilm and Magnolia Pictures,
as well as stalwarts such as Kino International and
Zeitgeist Films, sneak in under the radar, selling to
those small yet loyal pockets of art house mavens in
urban centers across the country. Left with mere crumbs
of the overall boxoffice pie, their triumphs usually
go uncelebrated in the press, but with eyes on the frugal
bottom line, they can win sustaining victories on a
relative scale.
"One thing profit isn't is loss," jokes Mark
Urman, head of distribution at ThinkFilm, a 2-year-old
company that scored huge success with its 2002 documentary
"Spellbound." "Very often, you'll see
films achieve a distinguished level of boxoffice, but
so much money has been put into advertising to achieve
that gross that the film is really awash in red ink;
it is a false impression of success. They routinely
have to cope with the fact that a $20 million opening
weekend is paltry, where for me, a $20 million ultimate
gross after months of release is a smash, one of the
most successful independent films of the year."
The same principles apply to Zeitgeist, which has seen
the independent world undergo a dramatic facelift since
the distributor was launched in November 1988. Although
it was Todd Haynes' 1991 Sundance winner "Poison"
that put Zeitgeist on the map, co-founders and current
co-presidents Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo have largely
ceded American independents to the mini-major, shifting
their focus almost exclusively to foreign titles. Having
recently capped their 15th anniversary with Germany's
"Nowhere in Africa," the 2003 Oscar winner
for best foreign-language film that has grossed $6 million
Stateside, Gerstman and Russo have lived up to the company's
name without abandoning their original business ethic.
"When Emily and I first came together," Gerstman
says, "we tried to establish our company as one
that would not spend excessively. We were determined
to distribute films in a way they needed to be handled
-- very carefully and with a lot of tender-loving care."
With more than 500 first-run movies released in Manhattan
alone each year, the battle for screens -- to say nothing
of the hearts and minds of potential moviegoers -- represents
a major challenge for micro-indies, which don't have
the resources or the guaranteed runs of their studio
counterparts. Many small distributors express optimism
over increasing theater space in New York and elsewhere,
but getting screens and keeping screens are two entirely
different matters.
"There are more screens than ever," says
Ryan Werner, theatrical distribution chief at Wellspring.
"But there (are) more films opening than ever before.
There's hardly any time per film to build an audience,
which means it's basically that first weekend or nothing.
So, you pray for good reviews and bad weather."
"I've always said that (lack of) access to theaters
is the most-overrated disadvantage that independents
think they have," adds Eamonn Bowles, president
of Magnolia, which now has in release the documentary
"Bukowski: Born Into This," about cult author
Charles Bukowski.
"You can be a very small distributor, and the
theaters will open up for you. Getting the attention
for your films and getting the awareness out there in
a world of finite media space -- that's much harder."
To that end, micro-indies count on positive reviews
as a key form of unpaid advertisement because the expense
of print ads quickly whittles away at their meager P&A
budgets. For these companies, anticipating strong reviews
is an essential part of the acquisitions process because
no amount of campaigning can compensate for a tepid
reception.
Kino general manager Gary Palmucci likens it to "the
old sword of Damocles phenomenon," where good reviews
are "vitally important," and "bad or
OK reviews can be deadly in a given city." It used
to be that any foreign film panned in the New York Times
would never make it west of the Hudson, but the number
of other, alternative media outlets is seen as encouraging.
"Having strong reviews in the (New York) Times
and a pre-Sunday feature is great," says John Vanco,
co-founder of the now-defunct Cowboy Pictures, which
released Catherine Breillat's "Fat Girl" (2001)
and Lynne Ramsay's "Morvern Callar" (2002),
among others. "But you couldn't count on it for
the small stuff that we were doing. We were always trying
to go after the secondary outlets. The smaller the outlet,
the more sway you could have over the coverage."
Although Werner also admits to relying on the critics
and the press, he confesses that the size of a movie
often dictates its coverage, regardless of quality.
"One of the most irritating things is the lack
of editorial space for anything beyond reviews for most
foreign films," Werner says. "It's completely
frustrating. You open the papers every week, and there's
the same article about the same movie in every newspaper."
With the high costs that come with a theatrical release,
many companies rely on ways to either limit their expenses
upfront or ensure some form of relief on the back end.
During their six-year run at Cowboy, before the rough
economics of the sector put them out of business, Vanco
and co-founder Noah Cowan used the label to support
international festival bookings and set up service deals
on its two most successful films: the documentaries
"The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic
Expedition" (2000) and "The Life and Times
of Hank Greenberg" (1998), for which the filmmakers
put up the P&A, held onto the ancillaries and paid
Cowboy a distribution fee. The duo also represented
other libraries, such as Janus Films and the D.A. Pennebaker/Chris
Hegedus library, in order to earn steady income from
colleges, repertory houses and additional film society
rentals.
However, the backbone of many micro-indies -- if not
the driving force -- is video and DVD. Opinions vary
over whether or not video/DVD sales can compensate for
lackluster boxoffice performance, but for companies
that appeal to the impassioned few, a vigorous life
after theatrical release can be a critical safety net.
"DVDs are the profit center for us," says
David Koh, head of acquisitions and production at Palm
Pictures, which has enjoyed cult success with its Director's
Label DVDs featuring music videos and commercials by
Chris Cunningham, Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze. "For
us, it's more like the record industry, in that our
DVDs are aimed more at the consumer market than the
rental market. We think they're the biggest growth market
in terms of revenue streams, and we think it's going
to get even larger."
"I wish a video label was something that Cowboy
had done," admits Vanco, though he hastens to add
that the company's ill-timed expansion just before the
events of Sept. 11 ultimately led to its demise. "You
look at the companies that have stuck around, like New
Yorker and Kino and Zeitgeist and Strand, and they've
gotten through the lean years because they have that
home video money coming in. In retrospect, we would
have been more stable if we had done it."
For all the apparent benefits of video and DVD, however,
some warn that indies should not rely so heavily on
the ancillaries. "As a film goes theatrically is
often how it goes in the ancillary media," says
Urman, whose ThinkFilm runs a label for low-budget genre
pictures but farms out the rights to its theatrical
releases to major studios such as Miramax and Sony.
"If it ain't worth much in theaters, it ain't gonna
be worth much anywhere else, unless the films have name
stars in them. We try not to embark on something with
the understanding that we can operate at a loss theatrically
and make it up in the afterlife."
Although every independent company relies on its own
particular instincts and business philosophies to stay
afloat, the common lesson from the industry's failures
is to minimize risk. Before co-founding Magnolia, Bowles
was involved in the Shooting Gallery film series, which
was victimized by its own wild success.
"As it went under," Bowles remembers, "the
film side of it was doing better than it ever had. It
was in its glory days, yet (the company) had jumped
on the Internet train. The employee situation went from
35 when I got there to about 235 a year and a half later,
which is just this cancerous mushrooming of scale; that
really reinforces the fact that you should grow with
your needs, rather than create a framework that puts
you under an inordinate amount of pressure to perform
at a very high level to sustain yourself."
"One thing that companies of our size have no
business doing is to pick up films to establish relationships
or take them off the table to keep our competitors from
getting them," Urman says. "You can quickly
decide that a movie you like at one price is a very
dislikable movie at another. To us, it's all about the
deal."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
Tool box
Cash-strapped filmmakers must navigate a maze of technology
in search of vision-friendly bargains.
By Sheigh Crabtree
It used to be that the only constant in the independent
film community was a shortage of funds. But the new
truism is the ceaseless evolution of digital filmmaking
tools and the resulting effect on indie production,
postproduction and exhibition. From acquisition formats
and the cameras that shoot them to myriad postproduction
techniques and screening media through to video deliverables
and film archives, it is the charge of today's cash-strapped
filmmakers to navigate a maze of technology in search
of bargains that do not impinge on personal vision.
The most scrupulous explorers and the vendors that
service them have uncovered several interesting technical
developments during the past 12 months; their analog
and digital findings are surveyed below.
Shoot
When it comes to lensing, the indie filmmaker must
choose among a wealth of acquisition formats. In the
digital realm, indies most often opt for glossy HD or
Mini-DV, its penny-pinching cousin -- but technophiles
are watching closely the emergence of HDV, which, by
converging those two popular video formats through a
unique compression scheme, allows high-definition-quality
imagery to be reproduced on digital video's thrifty
terms.
On the film side, Super 16mm, 35mm and, to some extent,
Super 35mm 3-perf are still going strong, despite the
din of the democratizing powers of digital video.
"Right now, we're seeing 50% 35mm film, 30% HD
video and 20% Super 16mm film," says Tim Krubsack,
managing director at iO Film, a popular indie postproduction
haunt in North Hollywood.
But Krubsack and other insiders note that Super 16
is the format gaining the most momentum of late.
"I'm seeing a real surge of interest in 16mm,"
eFilm's David Hayes says. "I've talked to a lot
of people about HD over the years, but in the last six
months, more people are considering 16mm as opposed
to HD."
The recent return of 16 mm film from the celluloid
grave is commonly attributed to the confluence of two
technological advancements. The first is the introduction
over a year ago of Kodak Vision 2 emulsions, which significantly
reduce film grain while maintaining contrast. The second
is the increased use of digital-intermediate mastering,
which allows 16mm to be digitally blown-up to cinema
specs for exhibition as well as 16:9 specs for broadcast.
The buzzworthy postproduction treatment effectively
avoids the traditionally painful lab process known as
the optical blow-up, a prerequisite when posting 16mm.
Another significant enticement to shoot on 16 as opposed
to 35 is the cost-saving benefits of the stock and processing,
as well as the creative extension of the filmmaker's
vision in post that DI allows.
Forensic Films producer Scott Macaulay, in preproduction
on the untitled OutKast feature project, notes that
every cinematographer with whom he has worked recently
has lobbied for a DI because of "the unprecedented
control you have over the image in terms of the color
palette."
A few of the high-profile indies opting for 16mm with
a DI are Spike Lee's "She Hate Me," Rebecca
Miller's "The Ballad of Jack and Rose," John
Sayles' "Silver City," Ron Garcia's "Nine
Lives" and producer John Singleton's "Hustle
+ Flow."
"It's an economical and creatively useful way
to use the technology that is available," says
Matty Libatique, who used the hybrid film and digital
technique on "Hate" and Ernest R. Dickerson's
"Never Die Alone" (Fox Searchlight).
"Silver" cinematographer Haskell Wexler has
an intimate history with this strain of celluloid. More
than three decades ago he and Swedish cinematographer
Rune Ericson worked together to create a new film format,
lightweight cameras and lenses so independent producers
could shoot low budget "wide-screen" movies;
the result was Super 16mm. But Wexler, today a vp at
the International Cinematographers Guild, is characteristically
unsentimental about the format's renaissance.
"All technological trends in the present culture
are driven by economics," Wexler says, who notes
that on "Silver" he would have preferred to
shoot 35 mm. "But I like the fact that we were
able to work in a friendly, fast way without abusing
anybody or anything. Using small cameras is a big plus
for the morale of the crew and the actors, and the image
does not suffer much."
The resurgence of 16mm is clearly a morale booster
for Eastman Kodak. Just 18 months ago 16mm film sales
were spiraling downward, but according to Kodak exec
Brian Spruill, the company has seen a 7% increase in
16mm sales since the unveiling of Vision 2 in late 2002.
"We attribute the bump to the fact that the stock
retains its good looks when transferred to video and
HD; that video and HD filmmakers who are looking to
shoot film are giving it a whirl and that some 35 filmmakers
are opting to use 16 with a DI," he notes.
The uptick in use of cost-effective film stocks is directly
tied to the birth of DI. And the process is ultimately
format-agnostic, trending well beyond the confines of
16mm. DI is showing up in projects shooting everything
from Mini-DV to HD and 35mm.
Post
"Over a year ago, (DI) was a new technology that
people were just scratching the surface on, and the
big studios were using it because they had big dollars
to use it," says Hayes, who receives three or four
inquires a day from indie producers seeking to use a
DI in a range of formats. "I think now, people
are seeing that it's a great tool for filmmakers of
all kinds, and vendors are addressing the indie marketplace
with the DI."
It might seem unlikely that the major studios and cash-strapped
indies share a fascination, much less the means to pay
for such an emerging postproduction process -- particularly
when, in the stratosphere of Rolls-Royce filmmaking,
the majors are footing DI bills north of $1 million
on movies such as "Van Helsing" (Universal)
and "Spider-Man 2" (Sony).
How and why are indie producers suddenly able to come
up with $100,000-$300,000 to write DIs into cash-poor
budgets?
"It depends where people want to apportion their
money, but it is certainly true that something like
the high-end digital intermediate is out of the range
of the lower-budget films," Macaulay says. "But
take something like (Gaspar Noe's 2003 thriller) 'Irreversible'
-- that's a film that just did a high-definition finish."
An HD video finish on a studio feature is practically
unheard of because the majors seek to archive their
library titles on film and nothing less. For indie producers,
though, the lower-resolution HD DI pathway can prove
a sensible, cost-effective option.
"The HD DI is less expensive than the 2K or 4K
DI," says Charles Herzfeld, senior vp business
development at Technicolor Creative Services-New York.
"It uses less storage, and it doesn't have the
huge amount of data that you do when you're working
in 2K or 4K. It's a solid lower-budget alternative."
Fotokem's Mike Brodersen adds that working at a lower
resolution and using more commonly available equipment
for less time, and during "off" hours, can
help indies save money on a DI.
"The 2K DI is still a little bit above the independent
budget at this point," he says. "The high-def
telecine is more commonplace; we have a lot more machines,
and the rates are a lot better. It's a little bit of
a faster process, but it is more limited (in terms of
color reproduction), which helps make it faster."
Another major incentive for indie producers to finish
digitally is to have a master file that can be screened
at festivals, thereby sparing the cost of a film out.
"Independents, whether they like it or not, do
not always make a theatrical sale," Herzfeld says.
"So why do a film out? I think an HD DI finish
is the safest route because what you're getting is the
ultimate nonlinear flexible product."
Nonetheless, the screening of a digital master on the
festival and market circuit remains dependent on whether
the respective host organizations support digital projection.
Grading by the numbers
This service and cost breakdown for a digital intermediate
master is highly variable depending upon the film and
the vendor. It is intended to provide a jumping-off
point when negotiating a basic DI package.
Service HD 2K
Scan $12,000 $15,000
Film negative (Super 16mm, 35mm) is scanned through
a telecine and retransferred to HD or data files.
Conform $9,000 $20,000
High-resolution footage is re-linked to the offline
edit via the edit decision list. Effects and opticals
are included.
Dustbust $9,000 $18,000
Semiautomated frame-by-frame cleanup of any negative
scratches, dirt and dust.
Color Grading $22,000
($550 per hour, 40 hours) $39,000
($650 per hour, 60 hours)
Time spent in a DI session can vary widely depending
on the array of footage and the extent to which it needs
to be manipulated. A standard rule of thumb is one hour
of color grading per each minute of film. But indies
can save money by using older equipment and working
efficiently during off-hours. Room rates with the color-timer
session range from 500-600. 70-80 hours for 2K.
Digital Master --- $30,000
Graded material is transferred to tape, so film festivals
and informal screenings can unspool straight off an
HD deck tied to a digital projector, thus saving filmmakers
film-out and print costs prior to sale. Ouputting from
2K to HD is less simple since when converting from 2K
to HD some color -timing and fixing is required to make
the material them HD legal.
Film Element $45,000 $45,000
The digital master is recorded back-to-film and prints
are developed in-laboratory.
Screen
The Sundance Film Festival's Geoff Gilmore decided
to bite the bullet on digital projection four years
ago, and every screening venue in Park City is outfitted
with film and high-definition video projectors. But
Gilmore notes that the decision was made with apprehension.
"I didn't particularly like the way earlier generations
of video looked onscreen, and I wasn't going to say,
'OK, we're going to be the Sundance Film and Video Festival,"
he says. "But what I did decide was that at a certain
point, if you bumped whatever format you shot into HD
for presentation, the look of that high-definition presentation
was high-quality."
Sundance screened 11 films digitally in 2001, 27 in
'02, 41 in '03 and 58 this year, according to Gilmore.
"For us, the idea was to give filmmakers the flexibility
to shoot anything they want in video or film,"
he says. "Then, the one thing they have to do to
make a digital presentation is to bump it to HD."
In addition, a filmmaker who has saved money on raw
stock or tape and applies those savings to the first
leg of a DI can, with digital projection options, spare
themselves the cost of a 45,000-plus film print. Screening
a digital master, as opposed to a locked film print,
can be a wise move, according to veterans of the festival
circuit.
"I don't necessarily believe what we're presenting
is the final product," Gilmore says. "It's
not only not the final product because it's not technically
finished, but in many cases, we're showing what filmmakers
call 'final cuts' -- but a lot of the buyers aren't.
That's why you find so many different films where distributors
are buying a film out of Sundance with the sense that
(the filmmakers) are still going to work on it."
Screening and hopefully selling a project based on
a digital master can spare filmmakers the pain of re-creating
film elements should a distributor decide to make changes
once the movie is sold. Plainly put, both film prints
and digital masters are subject to distributor demands,
independent of whether the buyer is a scissor-hands
or a strong collaborator seeking to enhance artistic
vision.
"You're almost totally likely to have a distributor
come to you and say, 'I love your movie, but I'd like
to make some changes -- and then I'd like to distribute
it theatrically,'" Herzfeld says. "If you've
done an optical blowup, then you want to put a gun to
your head, (but) when you're working from scanned negative,
making changes is a piece a cake."
That said, there is a danger in not making a film print
if one's movie has been invited to a festival at which
only films are projected, including Cannes. Jonathan
Caouette, who made his much-touted "Tarnation"
for $218.32, was able to screen a film print of his
movie at Cannes only when Wellspring acquired worldwide
rights, thereby providing funds for a 35mm blowup.
Researching festival projection options well in advance,
even before budgeting a DI, also falls under the purview
of filmmakers who wish to get their movies seen and
sold. No matter how much research and planning one does,
though, saving money by choosing the best moviemaking
technology is an open-ended pursuit. As Wexler says,
there is no "secret instrument" amid a sea
of technical fads -- but a few key tools and techniques
used in lower-budget production can answer some questions.
"It's funny because prices always come down, like
the cost of storage," Macaulay says. "But
it seems there's always some new technical innovation
that boots the price right back up."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
Rep squad
Finding the right agent can make or break a young filmmaker's
career.
By Angela Phipps Towle
After Joshua Marston's first feature "Maria Full
of Grace" screened at the Sundance Film Festival
this year, every agency wanted a piece of him. "HBO
had financed the film, and nobody had seen it yet,"
WMA Independent head Rena Ronson says. "Everyone
felt like they were discovering this film at the same
time. People were extraordinarily moved by the voice
of the filmmaker, the direction and the incredible performance
by Catalina Sandino Moreno."
The film, about a 17-year-old Colombian girl who smuggles
heroin into the United States, secured distribution
through Fine Line within the fest's first few days and
went on to win the Sundance Audience Award. It also
kick-started a three-month wooing of Marston, which
ended when the director signed with WMA's David Lonner.
As any indie filmmaker knows, finding a good agent
can put a new career on the fast track. Stars, material
and studio executives -- which months before were beyond
reach -- suddenly become much more accessible with the
aid of a trusted insider.
But when it comes to the signing process, agents are
not the only ones with the power to make or break a
deal. A strong showing at a festival like Sundance can
put a director in the catbird seat, fielding frenzied
pitches from all the big agencies.
The variables that create such a circumstance, however,
are difficult to replicate and hard to predict. Agents
will swarm around one person partly because the top
firms -- CAA, ICM, Endeavor, UTA and WMA -- all have
similar criteria when scouting festivals. But there
also is an intangible quality that the film must have:
an ability to connect emotionally to the viewer, which
most say they just know when they see it.
"You are exhausted from the dozens of movies you've
seen, and you're looking for the one that bolts you
awake the moment it starts and has you on the edge of
your seat," describes Endeavor's Adriana Alberghetti,
who says client Kevin Macdonald's film "Touching
the Void" had that effect on her last year at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
Agents arrive at a film fest ready with their list
of titles flagged and handicapped. A film's pedigree
is determined on paper first by looking at who is attached
to the production and who provided the financing. Then,
producers' reps, attorneys and executives will make
calls to tip agents off to their hot properties. Sometimes,
agents are able to wheedle early screeners of films,
doing their best to sign the talent before the festival
even begins.
"We flag the films we want to see, and then we
try to get to the first screening," CAA's Jim Toth
says. "We also try to get to some things that are
off the beaten track. Occasionally, you can find a gem
by doing that."
When attending festivals, agents all say that, first
and foremost, they are searching for unique voices,
but they admit they also have to balance that with whether
the director's work will have appeal beyond the art
house and film-festival circuit. "You have to know
that you can take this person and turn around and sell
them to the people in Hollywood who make movies,"
Ronson says.
Adds Endeavor's John Lesher: "You want to be able
to come home and call the heads of all the major studios
and know that they are going to watch the film and love
it, too."
One way to gauge this broader appeal is whether a film
gets a distribution deal at the festival. "Napoleon
Dynamite," which Fox Searchlight picked up at Sundance
for between $3 million-$5 million, spurred a tug-of-war
for the film's 24-year-old director, Jared Hess, who
took multiple meetings before signing with UTA.
"What I love about the movie is it's completely
warm-hearted," says Shana Eddy, who was among the
team of agents who signed Hess on the strength of "Dynamite."
"The performances are spectacular, and I had a
great time watching it. I remember thinking, This guy
reminds me of the Coen brothers and Wes Anderson."
It is not uncommon for agents to compare new talent
with other clients in their rosters. This helps them
see how a director might translate in the marketplace
and becomes a selling point at pitch time, as some directors
will choose an agency based on the other careers it
has built.
In addition to storytelling ability and production
values, agents place a premium on a film's performances.
As actors are key to setting up any movie deal, good
performances mean that top onscreen talent will be drawn
to working with a particular director. Some industry
observers even argue that there are more agents scouring
film festivals these days simply because more actors
are demanding to work with new voices.
"Even the biggest actors will work with a director
who has one credit to their name," veteran producers'
rep Jeff Dowd says. "The key thing is great parts."
After a film has captivated an agent, the next step
is to meet the director and see if the two make a good
match. At a film festival, it often starts with the
post-screening Q&A. "The Q&As are great
because you can watch how the director handles questions
and responds to the room," CAA's Jay Baker says.
"It gives you a sense of who they are before you
meet with them."
Increasingly, directors are showing up to festivals
with other kinds of representation in place. "Very
often, directors have attorneys or producers' reps before
they have agents," Dowd says. "We help make
introductions and help them evaluate different agents.
It's our job to lay out a buffet of choices for the
directors, then they can decide."
Thanks to these industry liaisons, directors are often
coming to meetings far savvier than they have been in
the past, sometimes preferring to prolong the courtship
until well after the festival. Dowd advises his clients
to weigh the signing decision carefully, as it can be
one of the most important of their careers. "It
really is a marriage; it's not a date," he says.
"And it almost always comes down to an individual
-- an individual that you are going to be talking to
an awful lot, sometimes more than members of your own
family."
Marston arrived at Sundance with no representation
whatsoever, and he found the barrage of offers somewhat
overwhelming. Now with everything settled, he is glad
he did not sign on the spot. "Sundance is not the
environment where you can really get enough perspective
to make an important decision about what you hope will
be a long-term relationship," he says.
One area where agents can distinguish themselves from
one another is in the types of careers they are interested
in building. Most agree that there are two kinds of
indie directors: those who want to make films outside
of the mainstream and those who are eager to work within
the Hollywood system. Within the second group, there
is also the subcategory of those -- such as Alfonso
Cuarón, Wayne Wang and Gary Winick -- who are
happy to cross freely between the two worlds.
"We are happy to work with directors in both worlds,"
ICM's Nicole Clemens says. "But you find a lot
more directors who are willing to cross over these days
than you did even five years ago."
"It's important for us to sit down with them and
find out what their goals are," CAA's John Ptak
says.
If a director is willing to read other people's material
and also be considered for director-for-hire jobs, a
Hollywood agent can perhaps do more for them. However,
agents also can prove tremendously helpful in attaching
talent and financing for an indie feature.
Whichever category directors inhabit, the most important
thing, say agents, is that they have a vision for their
own careers. Clemens points to client/director Angela
Robinson, who said early on that she wanted to be the
next Sam Raimi. After her first feature "D.E.B.S."
debuted at Sundance this year, Robinson signed to direct
"Herbie: Fully Loaded," Disney's $60 million-budgeted
remake of 1968's "The Love Bug."
"Studios want to bring original voices to their
work, too," Clemens says.
For Lonner, he made signing Marston a priority for
the entire company. The director met with Ronson in
the indie division, as well as agents from the book
department, the London office and the Miami office.
"I wanted him to know what he had access to with
this company," he says.
Although it took time to secure the deal, Lonner understands
why Marston had agents around town jumping through hoops
before he made his decision. "He was taking the
relationship very seriously," Lonner says. "He
put us all through the wringer, but a talent like that
only comes around once every few years."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
DVD drive
In today's competitive home entertainment climate, surviving
as an indie has become a tricky balancing act.
By Thomas K. Arnold
Bill Bromiley has spent most of his professional life
in the independent film business, driving sales in the
home video arena, where indie product long has flourished.
He's currently senior vp at First Look Home Entertainment,
part of the First Look Media family, which has released
such acclaimed titles as 1995's "The Secret of
Roan Inish" and 1996's "Antonia's Line,"
which won the Oscar for best foreign-language film.
For years, rental stores have depended on indies like
First Look to supplement their shelves with titles other
than studio fare, but with DVD triggering a sea change
in consumer habits -- from renting movies to buying
and collecting them -- independent suppliers are in
desperate need of strategy adjustment.
On the one hand, they need to continue furnishing rental
stores with niche product and genre films; on the other,
they must cater to the growing movie-buying crowd by
releasing "keepers" -- higher-quality productions
packaged with bonus materials of the same caliber as
the big theatricals.
The upshot: Surviving as an indie has become a balancing
act, in which tipping the scales too far in either direction
can be deadly.
"In the last six months, I've seen the rental
market decline much more rapidly than I thought it would,"
says Bromiley, noting that First Look's video business
is still 60% rental, much of it through revenue-sharing
arrangements. "Our DVD sales are increasing, but
the challenge we face is on the acquisition side: How
can we buy product that is both rentable and saleable?"
Dan Gurlitz also is walking the line between sell-through
and rental. As vp video at Koch Entertainment, Gurlitz
is overseeing an ambitious release slate of more than
200 titles this year -- from independent and foreign
films to performing arts and documentaries.
"The sell-through vs. rental model is very property-specific,"
Gurlitz says. "Some titles require us to focus
on independent rental stores.
Conversely, releases like (April's) 'Murda Muzik' will
likely crossover into the sell-through arena. We also
have a diverse collection of products that are truly
sell-through, including the 'Yoga Zone' series."
Still, at a time when DVD sales are soaring, rentals
are declining (rental spending took a 16% hit in the
first quarter of this year, according to research conducted
by Video Store Magazine), and rental pricing is, for
all practical purposes, extinct. "It's become very
hard to ascertain what units are moving into what arenas,"
Gurlitz says. "It's blending."
This "blending" is taking place across the
board. Some independent suppliers, such as Ground Zero
Entertainment, Maverick Entertainment and UrbanWorks
Entertainment, are finding that their largely urban
and Latino titles sell as well as they rent, chiefly
because the target audience has grown up with DVD and
sell-through pricing.
"We cater to a much younger audience -- our general
demo is 14-28 -- and this MTV generation tends to pop
stuff in and watch it again and again because of the
action," says Ground Zero president and CEO Anthony
Perez, whose 5-year-old company specializes in low-budget
urban and Latino films, mostly actioners.
"We believe a steady flow of business from rental
will always be our bread and butter. But now, sell-through
is taking on a power of its own," adds Doug Schwab,
president of Maverick and a partner in the South Florida-based
production company Breakaway Films, which specializes
in urban and Latino films. Breakaway recently scored
a fair amount of notoriety with "Carlita's Secret."
Like the big studios, Schwab says, "We need Wal-Mart,
but as an independent, we also need Blockbuster, Best
Buy, Circuit City and all the other major chains to
survive. Our product serves a niche -- the urban and
Latino phenomenon is not going away, and we want to
be the company that consistently offers this type of
product to a market that is still seeking it out on
store shelves."
UrbanWorks president Jeff Clanagan maintains his business
is now 85% sell-through, and Wal-Mart is one of the
company's leading accounts. "We anticipated the
industry moving to a sell-through model, and we built
our company on sell-through product," says Clanagan,
whose outfit is known for urban films that are a bit
more high-end than many of its low-budget competitors.
"The success of DVD sell-through has placed our
company in a great strategic position."
Not all independents are keen on sell-through, however.
Larry Brahms, president and CEO of Miami-based indie
supplier MTI Home Video, says his business is still
75% rental, with his primary customers being independent
video stores, as well as the big rental chains. This
year, he's cutting back his release schedule by 20%,
to 40 rental titles and 20 catalog titles that are new
to DVD.
"We don't feel the market can accept any more
titles than we're now giving them," says Brahms,
noting that most of his business is done under revenue-sharing.
"We anticipate that our sales are going to rise,
but I feel we should concentrate more on the titles
we have and go for deeper penetration."
That way, he adds, MTI -- which looks for sales of
40,000 units or more on its low-budget genre films,
which are released under marquees including Delta Entertainment
and Artist View Entertainment -- can focus on "stronger
independent product," a quest that puts MTI right
in line with most other indies.
Cognizant of the fact that the major studios this year
are expected to release a record number of high-profile
DVDs -- new theatricals as well as catalog special editions
-- indies are determined to do everything in their power
to make sure their product doesn't get lost in the shuffle.
"The answer, for us, is to release fewer films
but with bigger casts and bigger budgets," Bromiley
says.
And that's precisely what First Look is doing. Of the
30 titles the company plans to release this year, films
such as "Stateside," starring Rachael Leigh
Cook, Jonathan Tucker and Val Kilmer, slated for DVD
release Oct. 12, and the docu "Mayor of the Sunset
Strip," set for DVD release Aug. 17, typify the
slate.
In the case of "Mayor," First Look snagged
the film at last year's Los Angeles Film Festival and
launched a limited theatrical release in March. "'Mayor
of the Sunset Strip' is not only a great piece of filmmaking
but also high-quality entertainment," First Look
senior vp marketing Steven DeMille says.
Indies also are upping the marketing ante, mirroring
what's happening on the major-studio side, where first-week
DVD sales have become just as critical as opening-weekend
boxoffice. Bromiley says First Look is planning to spend
$4 million on promotion and advertising for "Stateside's"
release.
Ground Zero has spent as much as $350,000 to buy a
movie and typically spends $20,000-$35,000 on marketing,
"although in some cases, we've spent as much as
$135,000," Perez says.
Likewise, UrbanWorks' acquisition budgets have risen
steadily since the company's inception and are now "north
of $3 million," according to Clanagan.
Although reluctant to discuss numbers, Schwab says
Maverick has "stepped up its efforts in sales and
marketing. In addition, we are increasing our marketing
budgets to include more consumer-driven advertising,
as well as increasing our exposure on the Web."
The merger late last year of Artisan Entertainment
and Lions Gate Entertainment, probably the two biggest
suppliers of independent film product on home video
these past few years, has created a mega-indie many
now consider a mini-major, with an estimated 4.5% share
of the home entertainment marketplace, according to
Lions Gate president Steve Beeks.
With less competition at the top, the remaining indies
have a unique opportunity to be heard.
"With the consolidation of independent distributors,
(First Look is) in a position to step up and become
a much larger independent film company," Bromiley
says.
Maverick's Schwab also sees changes on the horizon
due to the Artisan-Lions Gate merger: "Where once
we relied on companies such as Artisan and Lions Gate
to distribute our higher-end product, we now have to
be more selective in titles we acquire and normally
co-distribute because there are fewer choices. On the
other hand, we also see it as a gain for us, due in
part to the fact that there are just a few companies
now that can provide (retailers) with our type of product."
Schwab speaks for many indies when he concludes, "Overall,
what has worked for us in the past continues to work
for us today. The key is to remain flexible and keep
in touch with the ebbs and flows of the marketplace."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
It's not easy being 'Green'
With a new home on Bravo and a keen business strategy
that includes promotional tie-ins, will the third time
be the charm for 'Project Greenlight'?
By Ray Richmond
Just when it looked like the neophyte filmmaker series
"Project Greenlight" was about to hit a permanent
red light, a series of factors have conspired to breathe
new life into the concept and make it more urgent --
and decidedly more commercially accessible in documenting
the movie-production process.
That's right: "Project Greenlight" has gone
Hollywood.
Indeed, when audiences see the third season of "Greenlight"
sometime in late February, it won't be on HBO but the
NBC-owned Bravo, immediately upping the show's potential
audience from fewer than 30 million to some 76 million
homes. And rather than 13 half-hour installments, the
new altered version will feature nine hour-long episodes.
But that's not even the biggest news. The most radical
change to "Greenlight's" focus is in its mind-set.
The folks behind it at Miramax and LivePlanet -- including
famously combative executive producer Chris Moore and
fellow LivePlanet principals Ben Affleck, Matt Damon
and Larry Tanz -- have decided that making movies with
first-time writers and directors is one thing, but now,
it's time to make something else, too.
Money.
The first two films resulting from the earlier editions
of "Greenlight" -- 2002's "Stolen Summer"
and 2003's "The Battle of Shaker Heights,"
both released by Miramax -- seemed to revel in their
underdog, "we're-sacrificing-for-our-craft"
status. They were nice, little art house coming-of-age
films accessible to nearly no one and seen by just as
few. "Summer," from writer-director Pete Jones,
was budgeted at about $1.6 million and earned a mere
$150,000 at the domestic boxoffice in extremely limited
distribution; "Shaker Heights," from writer
Erica Beeney and the directing tandem of Kyle Rankin
and Efram Potelle, upped the budget to about $1.9 million
and earned roughly $300,000 domestically in theaters.
In other words, by almost any business measure, the
first pair of flicks whose making was documented by
"Greenlight" were flops.
But because they were so sparsely released into but
a few cities, their tanking was practically preordained
and seemed almost to be built into the program's educational
dynamic. This is how it is in show business, folks.
You work your butt off, get screamed at a lot -- and
then your film dies. Get used to it.
But for the new season, bleeding cash is officially
out, as the show's backers have decided that there is
no crime in earning back one's investment. They've partnered
with Dimension Films, hired horror maven Wes Craven
to produce new titles and launched production on a genre
film: the horror flick "Feast" from fledgling
screenwriters Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunston. If
all goes according to plan, "Feast" will be
released into theaters in April.
With the film's production budget expected to creep
north of $2 million, the goal now is to see if "Greenlight"
can illustrate the making of a movie that finds its
way onto more than 1,000 screens and opens with a real
number, as opposed to being dead on arrival. It's a
radical concept, but one that those involved claim to
be infinitely doable.
The newest season of "Greenlight" began production
just after the July 13 announcement of this year's contest
winner. Those who have been a part of the show since
its inception in 2000 are expressing particular excitement
at this idea that dressing a film for success should
maybe be part of the equation.
Not that they weren't all proud of "Summer"
and "Shaker Heights." It's just that maybe
they could be, you know, a little prouder this time
with "Feast" -- the horrific tale of bar patrons
trying to survive a snowy evening while dodging the
attack of a hungry family of flying beasts.
"The first two films didn't do as well as we would
have liked," admits Eli Holzman, vp television
at Miramax and co-developer of "Greenlight"
in tandem with Moore, Affleck, Damon and Alex Keledjian.
"But from the beginning, this has always been an
experiment. We've learned a lot of lessons along the
way."
One of those lessons was that it made more sense to
have the screenwriter and director be separate entities.
So for Season 2, the contest was split, which meant
working with two new, inexperienced, untested commodities
(or, in this case, three).
"We had issues with Kyle and Efram in Year 2,"
admits Moore, who is taking something of a reduced role
in the making of the film this year, turning over production
duties to Craven while continuing to work as a producer
on "Greenlight." "'The Battle of Shaker
Heights' could have been very different. We were hoping
they'd make a comedy, but it ended up being much more
of a drama than we expected."
To guard against any more surprises, Moore and company
have instituted a longer prep period for the film in
"Greenlight 3," as well as allowed for more
tweaking of the script.
"We're going to make smarter use of our time and
money," he says. "One of the things we found
doing 'Greenlight' the past couple of years is that
watching a TV show about a movie you can't really understand
wasn't very helpful in marketing the movie itself. Consequently,
we averaged having 7 (million)-10 million people watching
the show and had a movie seen by fewer than 100,000
people.
"That's why we decided to do a genre picture,"
Moore continues. "The hope is that the audience
will understand in a much clearer way what it is we're
doing and, hopefully, get psyched to come see it.
By definition, with a genre picture, you get less confusion,
but that also means there are certain things we've got
to deliver on. If you have vampires, you better make
damn sure they look like vampires."
This time, the marketing of the movie will be a central
part of the "Greenlight" process. It was more
of a problem when the show ran on HBO, which has no
commercial advertising and strict rules about what can
and cannot be included in the framework of the shows
aired, as far as sponsorship goes. But on the ad-supported
Bravo, the show now will be rife with sponsorship packages,
product placement and integrated marketing.
Even so, the total budget for the show is under $5
million, according to Holzman. Adds Tanz: "One
of our goals is simply to make 'Greenlight' as a whole
commercially successful. Now, we've taken steps to make
that happen. We've upped the number of homes we're in
with Bravo and may even get a shot on NBC like Bravo
did with 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.' We're also
working with advertisers to promote the show."
But Tanz denies any charge that "Greenlight"
has sold out.
"No, it's about the show evolving to being one
that shows how to succeed in filmmaking, as opposed
to just making the movie," Tanz says. "Giving
unknowns a chance to make their movie is a great thing.
But if the movie isn't successful commercially, then
maybe we're not giving them as much of a chance as we
thought we were."
And if by chance this latest film still doesn't justify
a major release, then Moore says it might not be released
at all. "Unlike with the past 'Greenlights,' we
have no guaranteed theatrical release this time,"
he says. "The film has to test a certain score,
or it goes straight to video. The Miramax and Dimension
guys don't want to be forced to spend marketing money
if the film doesn't warrant it. And if we get a bad
test, that may kill the release."
Test marketing on "Greenlight"? "Oh,
yeah, we're planning test screenings," Moore says.
"It should be a fun process to have our winners
go through. I mean, now they can be even more stressed
out. I'm really looking forward to that."
The fact that "Greenlight" has a hot new
home in Bravo is what makes all of the tweaking possible.
HBO declined comment, but there is word that the pay
cable network might have gone forward with another season
after the show had built buzz and ratings in its second
season (and built antagonist Moore into a cult star).
Still, some say the show fell victim to cutbacks in
the wake of the increased expense to produce such bread-and-butter
series as "The Sopranos" and "Six Feet
Under."
Observes Moore: "HBO probably would have done
it again. But I think they might have changed the budget
a little bit. And given the struggling filmmaker spirit
of 'Project Greenlight,' the target audience probably
doesn't have the money to subscribe to HBO, anyway."
Enter WMA vp Adam Sher, the agent representing the
production company Magical Elves and its principals,
Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, who served as co-showrunners
on Season 2; this time, Elves is back, with Cutforth
set to run the newest edition. Sher shepherded the show
to Bravo, whose executives "really got it,"
he says. "We'd seen how they marketed 'Queer Eye'
and were impressed. We're very excited to be with them."
Says Bravo senior vp programming and production Frances
Berwick: "The thing that sold 'Greenlight' to us
was the fact that they wanted to make a movie this time
that was commercially successful and made money. That,
in our mind, made it a significantly different spin
from the first two and a good fit for us."
The commitment to produce nine hours -- up from six
and a half for the first two "Greenlights"
-- doesn't faze Lipsitz. "We shot almost 3,000
hours of footage to get 13 half-hours last time, so
I'm not too worried about being able to fill the time,"
she says. "There were story lines I'd have loved
to include last time that we didn't have time for. Now,
we will."
The focus this year changes in Lipsitz's mind to "being
really about the process of making a movie, as opposed
to last year, when it was about the writer and director
coming together and their whole relationship."
While its mission and goal might have changed, however,
"Greenlight" remains at its core a dream factory
-- at least in the grandest sense of the term. Believes
Sher: "In a town where everyone has the dream of
being a star or a writer or director, it's the perfect
wish-fulfillment program."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
The wild bunch
A handful of enterprising producers continue to make
a go of it in the challenging TV movie arena.
By Christy Grosz
The notion of corporate consolidation doesn't usually
go hand in hand with increased creative expression,
but for the few remaining independent TV movie producers
working in the business, that's been precisely the uncommon
result.
Sure, considering the deep cuts the broadcast networks
made in their budgets about three years ago, there's
a lot less work to go around. Although niche-oriented
cable networks provide a few more outlets for longform
fare, they aren't ordering enough to replicate previous
decades' abundant event programming. Most outlets want
to retain ownership of the content they air, which makes
building a library next to impossible. And, yes, the
formerly lucrative overseas market is shrinking.
But it's not all bad news, particularly in regard to
the quality of movies and miniseries making their way
to the small screen these days.
"Before, we had the networks doing an enormous
amount of movies, yet the movies had a certain patina
to them," says Orly Adelson, who has produced a
number of projects for ESPN, including the upcoming
"Hustle," about gamblin' man Pete Rose. "Now,
if you're (looking at) ESPN to Court TV to the WB to
VH1, the variety (of outlets) is much greater than what
we had."
More networks means more freedom for producers to explore
uncharted TV territory in a way that the feature business
rarely enjoys.
"The subject matter that gets covered in the feature
film business is so narrow," says Stan Brooks,
whose Once Upon a Time Prods. has 40 TV productions
under its belt, including the recent USA Network telefilm
"Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss."
"I made a movie about Suzanne Somers and John Ritter
fighting behind the scenes on 'Three's Company.' Who's
making that (feature film)? Each (of my movies are)
really good, really fun, completely original. But they'd
never get made as features because they're not based
on a comic book, and they don't appeal to 15-year-old
boys."
Contributing to the wide spectrum of topics being dramatized
for the small screen is each network's desire to attract
a very specific demographic. "Each network is constantly
revising what they're looking for, so it's very valuable
to keep an open mind and find an outlet for a piece
of material that you believe in," says Avenue Pictures'
Cary Brokaw, whose HBO miniseries "Angels in America"
swept this year's Golden Globes and earned 21 Primetime
Emmy nominations.
Producers say that the difficult business climate is
made tolerable by finding the right project and feeling
compelled to bring it to the screen. "Every network
has a different need, so I can do whatever I want as
a filmmaker in the TV movie business," Brooks explains.
"I've lived out my personal creative dreams because
I'm in longform. I worked for Jon Peters and Peter Guber,
who were as prolific as anyone, but they sure couldn't
make any movie they wanted."
"The license fee has shrunk; the distribution
numbers have gone down, too. So from both ends, we are
feeling the pressure," Adelson adds. "But
I don't think what drove us was the money; what drove
us was the quality. So if we make (fewer movies), but
we make things we love, then we feel we got what we
needed."
To feed that love of making movies, however, indie
TV producers have to be able to survive economically,
often striking financial deals as creative as their
scripts. "You have to use both sides of your brain
all of the time," says Jaffe/Braunstein's Howard
Braunstein, whose recent miniseries "10.5"
delivered an earth-shattering 20 million viewers for
NBC, making it the No. 1-ranked longform program of
the year. "You have to make sure it works financially,
while you're still trying to produce the best movie
you can."
The way that the indies have been able to weather the
changing TV business and keep their doors open is a
combination of wheeling and dealing. A producer will
receive a license fee from the network, which is generally
two-thirds of the movie's budget. In order to make up
the difference between the fee and the cost of the film,
the producer usually gets an advance on the foreign
rights from an international distributor. Tax incentives
from wherever the film is shot also help offset expenses.
"That income combined better be higher than the
actual cost of production, or I'm in trouble. It's that
simple," Braunstein explains.
Complicating the financing process is a discernible
downturn in the international appetite for American
TV movies, as well as an overall decrease in the value
of the dollar overseas and consolidation in foreign
distribution. Producers who used to rely on the advance
from foreign rights have to get a little more innovative
when crafting deals.
"Every situation is different," Braunstein
says. "As an independent, you've got to be flexible
from a business point of view, from a production point
of view, from a practical point of view. Those that
are flexible and willing to change and willing to look
at each deal in its own way and each production on its
own merit (are) more likely to keep working."
Brooks sees the financial creativity as a major part
of the job. "It's a specific skill set to make
a movie for under $3 million," he says. "You
have to solve problems in a very different way -- your
checkbook is not the way to solve them. I love that."
The bottom line is, no one working independently in
the TV movie business these days has any romantic notions
of making a killing. "The profit margin on a TV
movie is extremely nominal, if at all," says Craig
Anderson, whose FX movie "Meltdown" aired
in June. "I've made sometimes four, five, six movies
a year, and I lose money on two, I make money on two
and I break even on two. My wife says to me at the end
of the year -- because I'm never home -- 'You've just
made six movies, and you broke even?'"
However, as Anderson points out, there's a certain
personality type that binds indie TV movie producers
and keeps them in the business. "We're a fairly
entrepreneurial, renegade group of people who like to
work for ourselves," he says. "I've worked
for studios, (but) I much prefer scraping by on my own
because I don't have anybody telling me what to develop."
Even considering the formidable challenges facing producers,
there remain more opportunities for those who work independently.
"There's potential to make more on these things
as an independent than as a producer-for-hire,"
says Larry Sanitsky, whose "Riding the Bus With
My Sister," starring Rosie O'Donnell, will air
on CBS this fall. "While they're harder and harder
to finance, the combination of worldwide revenue against
your deficit will be higher than doing it on a fee basis.
It's not like there's a pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow, but in the short term, if things go well, it's
potentially more profitable."
In the interest of profits, many indie producers have
been struggling to maintain ownership of their films
in an effort to build income-generating libraries. "Who
knows whether or not, after a movie's run for 15 or
20 years all over Europe and Asia, it has any value?"
Brooks questions. "You hope that even if each individual
title doesn't have value as a collective unit, they
will; that's my bet, and that's how I'm planning on
paying for my kids' college and my retirement."
But Sanitsky isn't so sure. "There is a timeliness
to TV movies," he says, "and I suspect that
by the time the first, second and third cycles of distribution
are up, there's probably not much of a market for it."
For now, producers are dealing with the future one
step at a time. "I've lived out every childhood
dream I ever had," Brooks says. "For me, as
Orson Welles said, 'Making movies is the finest set
of electric trains a kid could ever have.' And even
though there's no money left in it, I still get a thrill."
That thrill could be what keeps all of the indies going.
"Are TV movies a viable form? Yes, I think they
are," Sanitsky concludes. "Will they ultimately
be a viable business for independents? I don't know.
If I were 20 years younger, would I go into it today?
Probably not."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
Buzz fare
Any number of high-profile independent films are poised
to compete in the awards-season fray.
By Gina McIntyre
If controversy were the sole factor deciding whether
or not a film earned attention during awards season,
the passion projects of Mel Gibson and Michael Moore
would be shoo-ins. Although their two films probably
couldn't be more different, Newmarket's "The Passion
of the Christ" and Lions Gate's "Fahrenheit
9/11" kept independent film front and center throughout
the first half of 2004, minting money at the boxoffice
and providing plenty of fodder for the talk show circuit.
But as the second half of the year rapidly begins its
approach, a giant crop of potential awards-worthy films
from across the independent spectrum just might stand
to steal the spotlight from their more controversial
siblings -- and could ride a wave of critical acclaim
all the way through to the Oscar derby. In other words,
a repeat of last year's indie love fest -- when small,
offbeat films such as Sofia Coppola's "Lost in
Translation" (Focus Features) and Patty Jenkins'
"Monster" (Newmarket) held their own against
powerhouses like New Line's epic "The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King" -- is anything but
out of the question.
"2004 is truly shaping up as the Year of the Indie
like no other," Lions Gate Films Releasing president
Tom Ortenberg says. "Between the boxoffice sensations
of 'The Passion of the Christ' and 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
and certainly with what appears to be an ambitious awards
season, I think this will truly go down as a year that
shows beyond any question that the boxoffice is not
the sole domain of the major studios."
Indeed. From Focus to Fox Searchlight and Lions Gate
to Newmarket, nearly every indie, heartened by the events
of last year, is ready to campaign for their best and
brightest titles. Miramax, in particular, looks to make
a comeback after taking some hard knocks during last
year's season.
Mr. Ultimate Oscar Campaigner himself, Harvey Weinstein,
is breaking out the big guns with "The Aviator,"
Martin Scorsese's latest opus, starring Leonardo DiCaprio,
and the tear-jerker period costume drama "Finding
Neverland," featuring Johnny Depp as "Peter
Pan" author J.M. Barrie and Kate Winslet as his
ailing muse. (Now that he's traded his pirate rouge
for a Scottish brogue, perhaps this is the year Depp
will win his best actor Oscar.) Both films are likely
to garner attention if they make it to release this
year.
But DiCaprio, Depp and Winslet are hardly alone when
it comes to big-name actors who are proud to plant their
flag in indie territory. Reese Witherspoon, who vaulted
to prominence with a diabolically perky performance
in Alexander Payne's biting 1999 release "Election,"
sheds her cheeky mainstream persona for dramatic period
garb in Mira Nair's "Vanity Fair" (Focus);
Liam Neeson brings to life sex researcher Alfred Kinsey
in "Kinsey" (Searchlight) for director Bill
Condon; and Jude Law and Naomi Watts team up for David
O'Russell's "I § Huckabee's" (Searchlight).
Not to be outdone, Lions Gate has a couple of its own
A-listers in starring turns. After what seems like years
away from the awards-season competition, Oscar winner
Kevin Spacey returns with his Bobby Darin biopic "Beyond
the Sea," in which he stars and directs, and Griffin
Dunne's gritty family drama "Fierce People"
features what is said to be a stunning turn from Diane
Lane.
"I think all the great actors are always looking
to be challenged," Ortenberg says. "The motion
picture with the biggest payday is not necessarily the
opportunity for the most creative challenge. I think
it's a tribute to people like Kevin Spacey and Diane
Lane and others to seek out these projects -- in Kevin's
case, to develop them himself -- so that they can practice
the craft that they love and prove that it's not just
about paydays."
One can also expect to see a full-out Oscar campaign
for Moore's incendiary docu -- which observers agree
will be pushed in categories beyond the obvious documentary
race in which Moore prevailed in 2003with "Bowling
for Columbine." (Read: best picture).
Meanwhile, the studio subsidiaries are going for gold
with an interesting, eclectic mix of films from around
the globe. Foreign films such as Pedro Almodovar's "Bad
Education" (Sony Pictures Classics) and Walter
Salles' "The Motorcycle Diaries" (Focus) are
riding high on critical acclaim from the festival-circuit
crowd -- and critics are expected to greet Jean-Pierre
Jeunet's "Amelie" follow-up "A Very Long
Engagement" (Warner Independent Pictures) just
as warmly when it opens stateside in November.
Closer to home, indie darlings such as Payne and Charlie
Kaufman look like strong contenders in the industry's
writing contests with screenplays for their respective
"Sideways" (Searchlight) and "Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (Focus).
But is it fair to say that 2004 will finally truly
earn the all-too-bandied about title of the Year of
the Indie? Well, maybe not.
"We're coming up on the Decade of the Indie,"
WIP president Mark Gill offers with a laugh. "I
know it's not fashionable to say that it will be the
same this year as every other year, but I'm going to
say it anyway: It's going to be the same this year as
it's been since about 1996, which was the original Year
of the Indie -- four of the five nominees for best picture
were indies.
"But what's consistently happening and has been
happening for the past 10 years and is very encouraging
-- every year, indie films are a factor, as are studio
films," Gill concludes. "Academy voters, critics
and all the rest will look for a good film irrespective
of whether it comes from the major studios or the indie
world."
Published Aug. 03, 2004
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