Festivals

Left pane: Under the Stars part of EIFF 2007; Top Right: Kevin Smith on the red carpet; Bottom Right: EIFF and UK Film Council logos.

Afternoon Finger Lickers! It’s a sunny Monday in March and what have I got for you today? A £1.88 million cash injection from the National Lottery! None other than the Edinburgh Film Festival, my favourite film festival, is to get a wee boost from the National Lottery. For those that don’t know the British Lotto system, it’s run by the Camelot Group, and regulated by a government body called the Lottery Commision. Because the Lotto is run under license from the government, they insist that Camelot donate a percentage of their income to charities and other worthy organisations.

Various government-affiliated organisation including the UK Film Council, whose remit is to promote British film and filmmaking, are trusted to distribute these fairly hefty chunks of change. This £1.88 million is a percentage of the £4.5 million that the UK Film Council has dedicated to bolstering UK film festivals over the next three years.

In accepting the biggest Lotto investment in any UK film festival to date, the Edinburgh International Film Festival said they hope to use the dough to make them the leading talent discovery festival in the world. A couple of years ago I attended festival and had a rip roaring time. I was lucky enough to see the inspirational Kevin Smith do a marathon Q&A and caught the UK premiere of Clerks II. The festival is actually becoming quite the place to premiere flicks, with both Little Miss Sunshine and Ratatouille getting their first public airing in Scotland’s capital city.

This booster for the Edinburgh International Film Festival is nothing short of brilliant and the news that a further £2.62 million is going to other fests around the country is outstanding. We are extremely lucky to live in a country where not only the filmmakers receive government help, but investors get tax breaks and the festivals get financial support to boot. If you’re a UK filmmaker, investor, or film festival organiser you’d do well to check out the UK Film Council’s website.

That’s it from me kids,

K

Evening finger painting Finger Lickers! So, I have some great news for all you documentary fans. Buzztastic flick My Kid Could Paint That, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, has been released on DVD in North America by Sony Pictures Classics.

The film itself follows the amazing story of four-year-old Marla Olmstead who caused a huge stir in the art world when her paintings started selling for big money. Marla, who loved to paint with her father, was suddenly thrown into the media spotlight when the New York Times got hold of the story. Inspired by what he read in the press, New York documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev sprang into action and gained the Olmstead’s permission to document Marla’s story.

At first all seems well, then shortly after Bar-Lev’s arrival USA TV show 60 Minutes runs a probing investigation into whether it is actually Marla or her father doing the painting. Bar-Lev, wondering what he has stumbled upon, begins to investigate the claims himself and ultimately ends up producing an unusually balanced picture. The film has, in fact, been praised for its ethical journalism, at no time does Bar-Lev demonize Marla’s parents or take a purely accusatory stance in his investigations, however, the overtone does seem to suggest that something shady is going on in Binghamton, N.Y.

So, what can you expect from the DVD? Well, in addition to the feature length documentary, you also get an audio commentary by director Amir Bar-Lev, and two behind-the-scenes features. All you British Finger Lickin’ documentary fans need to bear in mind that this is only available as a region 1 DVD from the USA. So, ensure you have a multi-region DVD player, and then check out the Amazon link below to get your hands on this critically acclaimed documentary.

That’s it from me,

K

Check out the My Kid Could Paint That trailer:

My Kid Could Paint That
Price: USD 17.99

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(13 customer reviews)

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Cinequest_Film_Festival_Uploads_100_films_to_Jaman]California based film festival Cinequest opens its doors today in San Jose. The festival will present an impressive 250 films before its over on March 9th. Of those 250, 100 films have been chosen for online distribution through Jaman. The festival this year will be honoring the likes of Danny Glover (The Royal Tenenbaums), Bobby Moresco (Academy-Award® winning writer, Million Dollar Baby and Crash) and Michael Arndt (Academy-Award® winner Best Original Screenplay, Little Miss Sunshine). As well as showcasing those films that don’t fit the Hollywood mould.

Jaman, an online film rental site, is showcasing the trailers for 100 of the films on their website and are generously (or not so generously) giving away three films of your choice for free. While I applaud the film festival for embracing the internet as a new form of online distribution… three films… really? I can see the business model. Get film fans onto the site by offering the festival a platform etc. But three films? Come on Jaman you can do better than that! Also I wonder what percentage of the online rental price the filmmakers are getting, I suspected 0% which is an utter crime. I may be wrong and Jaman are offering the filmmakers a cut but I suspect, like so many others, Jaman are getting the full whack and the filmmaker is just grateful that his or her work is being seen… criminal. Anywho, check out the Cinequest website and Jaman’s festival selection pages for more information and to watch the trailers - there’s some gooduns!

That’s it from me,

K

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Film_Festivals_just_ain_t_working_Find_out_why]I know bang on about this all the time - but just watch the video…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTehTbT7aho]

And click some links…

From Here to Awesome - A new way forward.

Submit a Film - And join the revolution.

Arin Crumley - Democratizing Indie Film Distribution.

YouTube - Watch more of the same.

K

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Indiepix_Film_Festival_uses_online_distribution_and_voting]US indie film festival the Cinema Eye Honors presented by Indiepix has announced that it is to add a new audience award that will utalise both online distribution and voting process. The festival have chosen the BroadRamp platform to distribute the films and is requesting that viewers cast their vote online after watching. Indiepix are said to have chosen BroadRamp’s Content Distribution System because it does not require the user to download a third party browser plugin. However, this is a claim that confuses me slightly because taking a look at BroadRamp’s site they seem to be very much utalising flash video in their player which of course uses the “third party plugin” Shockwave. Soooo… unless I’m missing a trick and I they’ve some swanky technology they’re not showing off on their website… you still need a plugin folks.

BroadRamp seem to be best known for their work in the field of interactive e-commerce video. What’s interactive e-commerce video I hear you cry. Well, the basic concept is that you’re sitting watching a video online, or wherever, and you see a t-shirt you really like. You hover your mouse over that t-shirt and a pop-up appears giving you information, price and an option to buy the shirt. An idea then that seems to be genius and utterly horrific all at the same time.S o the cynic in me is thinking, will the content from this film festival be used as a film testbed for this evil genius video creation? Or am I turning into a internet conspiracy theorist? Either way, I am delighted to see that festivals are recognising the problems in the industry and making steps to rectify it. It does however seem bizarre to me that they would not use a more well known platform, such as blip.tv, vimeo or even the big daddy YouTube. My jaded mind is still mulling over the marketing potential of the BroadRamp system in festivals to come - you’ve been warned!

Anyway, the festival selections have been made and announced, more information can be found at the Indiepix and Cinema Eye Honors websites and voting commences on March 1st.

Right, that’s enough from me. Good night Finger Lickers, I will see you in the morning.

K

[digg=http://www.digg.com/movies/Zombie_2_0]Afternoon finger lickin’ fans. So I mentioned a while ago that horror legend George A. Romero was at Sundance discussing the democratization of filmmaking in a spout.com interview. However, I didn’t really get into the reason why he was at the festival. His latest installment in the “Dead” saga premiered at Sundance and, as any good film director should be, he was whoring the hell outta it. The flick is basically a Blair Witch shakey handy cam take on his other apocalyptic tales. I am a big horror fan but not especially into the living dead stuff I’m more of a slasher man, however this really took my fancy.

The trailer is ridiculous and there’s obviously some jolly good hammy acting going on, but of all the horror remake dirge out there it actually caught my attention. From what I’ve read Romero has always worked in a very independent fashion and his latest film is no different, he’s using web 2.0 marketing techniques with exclusive MySpace goodies as well as tapping into the wannabe-filmmaker You Tube revolution to inspire his craft. I for one wanna give it a chance!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MdqNr0gN4Y]

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Calling_all_Filmmakers]Evening all. So I’ve been banging on a lot about From Here to Awesome and the wonderful things they’re doing to encourage self distribution and discover new talent. So… Arin and his cronies have started releasing vids and here’s one of their first. Have you made a film and keep thinking what next? Looking for a festival that might actually see your work getting distribution? Check out this vid. Subscribe to their channel. Join the revolution!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHUwTkbAvn4]

[digg=http://www.digg.com/movies/Give_away_your_film_for_greater_exposure]There is something sick in the film industry. We all know this. From an average DVD-buying consumer to the indie filmmaking community to the academics in their ivory towers to the disgruntled industry insiders, we all know that the rot set in a long time ago. Whether you’re a film school grad trying to get a break or a filmmaker trying to get funding or a consumer standing in the cinema with only four choices on the menu – film is hard, way too hard. Now, I’m not here to get into a discussion about the film industry creating an impenetrable bubble for those of us who are trying to get in, what I am here to talk about is giving your film away for free.

Much of this blog is fueled by the likes of Lance Weiler and Arin Crumley who are actually doing this kinda stuff in practice. My inspiration for writing this blog was the incredibly brief treatment of the “give your art away” discussion in this months Filmmaker Magazine. Arin and Susan gave another interview about their experiences in the world of self-distribution a while ago and during the course of that interview he said something way more interesting than anything Filmmaker published. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here folks, brace yourselves, that it would have been more beneficial for them to have had their movie already up on YouTube while they were doing the festival tour. It is this issue that I believe is so much more important than anything else surrounding the self distribution debate.

We’re are being constantly bombarded by people telling us not to blow our creative and commercial load too soon, excuse the analogy, but we are. For example, in a meeting earlier this month about a web tv project I have ties with, a University lecturer made a point that completely threw me. She said that you need to hold off as long as possible, launch all your content at once and hit the students with a high impact marketing campaign to ensure that they watch. What? Now, while everything else she said was brilliant and useful and insightful this just made no sense to me. Where’s the longtail? Where’s the viral tasty morsels that all those media snacking YouTube junkies wanna stuff down their faces?!?! This is old world thinking people surely it would be better to launch the site with basic content and release regular episodes to encourage stickiness? What I’m trying to say is that giving it all away in one big dollop of flash video is surely not the way forward. Arin and Susan have the right idea, give it away for free, get a sticky following, so to speak, and release the goods themselves when you’re most high-profile to your given audience. So in the case of indie film you need the viral video episodes and the film online. You’re not losing anything by giving it away, you’re not diminishing your selling power with distributors you’re gaining more ammunition to prove that this film has an audience and if you snap it up now there’s a theatrical life for this film just as much as there’s an online life.

The industry and us as filmmakers need to stop thinking of our films as precious and start whoring. How can we get people to view this flick? How can we create a revenue stream from that viewing method? How can we get our video blogs onto every video sharing site on the Internet? And how can we get the film itself onto as may of those sites too!?! Now, I’m not saying there aren’t obstacles to this - upload limits in terms of size and film length as well as average viewer attention span etc. but seriously if you play this right folks you can get that regular viewing audience that are interested enough to watch the whole film online and you can prove to the web 2.0 industries that it is viable for them to sponsor your flick and in turn the film industry must surely pay notice.

I’ve said enough… but check out the following links for further information and some inspiration.

From Here to Awesome - A alternative discovery distribution film festival.
Arincrumley.com - Arin’s personal site, loads of blogage and self-distribution info.
Tube Mogul - Distribute your video to a plethora of online sites.

K

[digg=http://www.digg.com/movies/More_High_School_Noir]If nothing else, it has to be said, that this noir comedy flick has an eye catching and provocative title. I haven’t seen anything of this yet, I would love to see a trailer but all YouTube and Google seem to be throwing up are clips of Mischa Barton talking more about her recent DUI arrest than her role in this film which premiered at Sundance. Cinematical reviewed the flick during Sundance and gives a pretty good idea of what to expect. Set in a Catholic High School popular girl, Barton (no suprise there then), teams up with school newspaper reporter (Reece Thompson) to try and uncover who stole missing SAT exam papers. However, as expected from this kind of High School comedy, not everything goes to plan and they end up uncovering a far larger conspiracy.

My reason for initially taking an interest in this film was mainly because of some quite obvious comparisons between Rian Johnson’s début masterpiece Brick and the noir style dialogue that writers Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski gave to the characters from Assassination of a High School President. Is this just a direct lift of Johnsons genre mix, High School Noir? Is this the beginning of quite an interesting cycle? Or as Cinematical implies is this simply a film that does whan’t quite get the balance right? Johnson himself, on his web forum, expresses an interest in the flick so I guess he’s as interested as all of us to find out some of answers to those questions. I really hope this film gets a national release here and in the USA for no other reason that to see if Johnson’s formula has been carried across successfully.

That’s it from me,

Kieran

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Arin_Crumley_Talks_about_From_Here_to_Awesome]I’ve cut together a condensed version of an interview that NewTeeVee.com conducted with Arin Crumley about his new venture From Here to Awesome.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLlBSeiibk]

Here’s some links that might be of interest…

My blog about From Here to Awesome

The entire interview on Arin’s YouTube channel.

From Here to Awesome

K

[digg=http://www.digg.com/movies/Sundance_Distribution_Issues_George_A_Romero]With reference to my last post about the lack of distribution deals going around at Sundance, this seems to be a problem that even veteran filmmakers are noticing. George A. Romero, horror legend and creator of the infamous Dawn of the Dead (1978) is attending the festival for the first time to screen his latest film Diary of the Dead. Interviewed on video, Romero speaks to Spout.com about his work and the festival. Right at the end of his interview he touches on the issues I’ve been talking about. While greater accessibility to cheaper equipment is meaning lots more great independent films are being made, there still seems to be no solid distribution model for this type of work.

Check out their video interview at MySpace.

[digg=http://www.digg.com/movies/Sundance_Deals_and_Distribution]Spout.com blogger, Karina Longworth, who’s currently at Sundance 2008 has written an interesting piece about the lack of deals being made so far at this year’s festival. Karina, speculates about a number of reasons for the relatively low number of distribution deals. Firstly, she references the mainstream press who are apparently suggesting that the buyers haven’t found that magic they have in previous years. Which is of course suitably vague and journalist speak for “we haven’t got a damn clue”.

Next, she discusses a comment by Sony’s Tom Bernard where he states that, we, the bloggers are to blame for taking the mystique out of the film buying and distribution process. According to Bernard the immediacy of blogging means that the press coverage of a film is happening too quickly and therefore they lose control of the media machine.

Finally, Karina suggests that possible the solution could be as simple as the fiftieth anniversary of Sundance has a pretty weak offering of dramatic feature-length flicks. Whether this is the case, is not for me to judge, I haven’t seen any of the films in question. Maybe next year, with a shiny Finger Lickin’ press pass around my neck. But, what these sluggish sales do make me wonder about is the value of a festival like Sundance to the filmmaker. Sure, it gets you some first rate press and sure it gets a very select audience into a cinema for 120minutes to watch your film. But where’s the real benefit? Where’s that golden ticket, the distribution deal that everyone is looking for? Has the time come where festivals like Sundance aren’t delivering the goods? It’s all well and good being able to put “Official Selection Sundance Film Festival” at the opening of your trailer but if only those three hundred ticket holders attending the festival get to see the film… where’s the real benefit to you, the filmmaker?

Distribution is key. The more I learn about alternative, exciting and innovative methods of getting your film seen and turning those views into earnings the more I believe that while there’s a place for the festival route, you need to think bigger.

Read Karina’s blog post here.