Audience joins the Last Ride - illegally

Australian film Last Ride (starring Hugo Weaving) was released on DVD yesterday. Director Glendyn Ivin says it was on torrent sites as early as last night & in 16 hours had been downloaded (illegally...) 7000+ times.

Ivin's philosophical comment: "Well at least it's getting out there..." My comment: Perhaps we should add this to the box office stats. Shows there's a desire to see it.

Last Ride recently won major prizes at the Rome and Middle East (Dubai) film festivals

When it comes to political solutions, Moore = Less

Over at newmatilda I go hunting for the missing-in=action politics of Michael Moore

Please post any comments on the full article please.

Extract:

"So is Moore an anarcho-syndicalist or a communist? He talks about moving "beyond socialism" — yet what he advocates sounds quite a lot like socialism. Or is he merely thinking of the kind of democratised industrial relations system in Germany, where workers can elect representatives on to corporate boards? Alas, the film doesn't explain.

"Nor did he make matters any clearer when he was a guest on ABC TV's Lateline Business last week. Asked by host Ali Moore to explain what his system to replace capitalism would look like, Moore paused for an awkwardly long moment before uttering the words: 'I dunno'.

Film agency to shift funding to more commercial, bigger-budgeted productions

The Australian Financial Review today (Thursday) quoted Screen Australia chief Ruth Harley (pictured) signalling that the agency will fund fewer films, but at higher budgets - $15 million and above.

There will be a squeeze on films budgeted at $15 million and below - no surprise given the general collapse of the market for lower budget Australian films documented on this blog and elsewhere.

However the producer's tax offset will remain an option for films budgeted above $1 million (that figure being the seemingly arbitrary cut-off point) - so I wouldn't write off the chances of, say, the next Samson & Delilah appearing just yet.

This extract is not from the AFR article (which I can't find - it seems to be behind the newspaper's pay wall) but from a report on it from Ron Brown of Independent Content Creators Association Australia, who's quoted in the piece.

"Screen Australia's production funds have been cut by government to counter the increase in indirect funding through the offset, the result being it will fund nine films this year, down from more than 20 a few years ago.

"Harley says with it's limited funds , the organisation will focus more on films with mainstream appeal and that can be released on more than 100 screens, all with a view to raising the success of Australian films at the box office. She agrees there will be a downside to this.

"I suspect little credit card films will carry on as before, big films like Guardians (of Ga'hoole) and Happy Feet 2 will carry on as before, but there will be a squeeze on those in the $4 million to $15 million bracket, " she says.

(Image: Victoria Birkinshaw, victoriabirkinshaw.com)

The boys - and girls - are back

In The Australian today I take a look at the cinematic trend towards films about teens for adult audiences , including AN EDUCATION, SAMSON & DELILAH, YOUNG VICTORIA & GENOVA & the upcoming NOWHERE BOY, FRENCH KISSERS, PRECIOUS & THE BOYS ARE BACK (Aaron Johson as the young John Lennon pictured above)

Extract:
"...What's striking about these new titles is that they're told from an adult perspective and clearly aimed at audiences aged 20 and older. These films have broken free of the chains of genre as they find new and unexpected ways to examine adolescence. They make the 1980s hits of John Hughes (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and so on) seem not so much distant memories as beings from another planet..."

How to market your film: it's 2009, not 1999, stupid!

At newmatilda this week I muse over the recent MetroScreen forum at Sydney's Chauvel on local films' audience problem and draw together some threads. One of which is that Australian filmmakers and distributors urgently need to think outside the box/ get with the program/ smell the coffee (insert your favourite cliche here) when it comes to selling films.

Extract:
...the way you market a film in 2009 has to be very different to the way you marketed it in 1999. Not only has the world of filmmaking changed, so has the world of communication. If you expect to sell a film without a huge Hollywood-style marketing budget today, you start building its profile on the net from the day it goes into production. You keep the ball rolling through interactive websites, early free screenings that help spread the word. You Twitter and Facebook like mad — but not in a way that annoys people. You release clips that tease the audience's interest..."

Please post any comments on the newmatilda website rather than here, thanks.

(Image: stockphotopro.com)

Good radio special on Ozfilm probs

Good Triple J special here on new doco Into The Shadows & the problems of the Oz film industry, in the form of 2 x 15 min podcasts.

Studio guests include Troy Lum, head of independent distributor (and now production house) Hopscotch Films, and director David Caesar, whose latest film Prime Mover is about to be released.

I'll refrain from giving my take now as my thoughts are due for publication tomorrow online in newmatilda.com - I'll link from here, Facebook and Twitter when the piece is up.

Into the Shadows opened in major cities today. Trailer below; click on the film name in the tag box below to find other clips from the film.

AFI and Screen oz - please get thy information shit together, forsooth

What's wrong with Oz film industry Pt 329: Major agencies that seem incapable of co-ordinating a media release across different platforms.

Typical behaviour : PRs send out media release several hours ahead of their IT department's ability to post the info on the orgs' websites.

Hence media and bloggers have no way of spreading the info as it becomes available (ie doing the agency a FREE FAVOUR) using links on twitter, facebook, blogs and other websites. There's no link to link to!

Both Screen Australia and the AFI are guilty of this today. This is Soooo 20th century, folks. It's 2000 and flipping 9 , please get your information shit together.

Of course , there is a solution. I could post the information here. I hadnt wanted to clog up this blog with media releases, as they tend to be a bit long (I'd rather post a paragraph and then a link), but I think I'm going to have to do exactly this.

(Image: sweet.wy.us)

Roll over Mozart and tell your bikie the news

South Australian indie THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (not the Mozart opera) is opening in Sydney on Thurs after reportedly performing nicely on a single screen in Adelaide. Havent seen it yet.

Miller - keep the blockbusters coming down the pipeline

George Miller talks about Mad Max 4, to be filmed in NSW (as announced at the weekend) . Stay with the clip as he has some pertinent things to say about the problem we have with intermittent feature production in Australia - the tendency to fall in to a pattern of peaks and troughs. During the troughs the talent disappears to work overseas.

Miller points out that New Zealand has solved this problem with a constant stream of production in and around Wellington, where director-producer Peter Jackson is based.

Miller is trying to follow this example with plans for several big productions in the pipeline - including Happy Feet 2 - that he wants to film in Australia.

What he doesn't talk about here is the problem of the Australian dollar - when it's high, major productions find it cheaper to film overseas. This lies outside of the control of the film industry.

Thanks to Stunsail for the tip

???????

Today's list of "why" questions:

(1) How come so many indie filmmakers throw away the chance to get free publicity by screening their films to reviewers AFTER long lead deadlines have passed ! while distribs sometimes put up websites only 1 month before the film opens, as happened with Newcastle?

(2) Why dont more filmmakers use social networking and websites to build the brand from the start of production, create interest and fan base from the word go?

(3) Why dont more filmmakers make demo reels to persuade investors to come aboard - as Baz Luhrmann did for Romeo + Juliet and Serhat Caradee did for Cedar Boys?

(4) Why do Aussie films go in cycles of excess - excess of period tales, excess of quirky comedies, excess of battler comedies, and nine years of Lantana-derived naturalism complete with obligatorily dysfunctional families?

(5) Why dont...(etc)

(Image: werbiefitz.mlblogs.com)

Startling photography at Customs House

Love this image.

It's part of an exhibition dedicated to Sydney photographer Peter Solness,
NOCTURNAL Lightboxes, opening Thursday October 29, 7-9pm and running till January 31 at Level 1, Customs House, Sydney Circular Quay.

Solness website: www.solness.com.au/
Images from Oct 29: www.arthere.com.au

(Bottom image: epress.lib.uts.edu.au/.../sydney_journal)

Why do Aussie filmmakers cold shoulder intelligent science fiction?

At last night's Metro Screen debate in Sydney, "Oz Audience vs Oz film industry", we heard some pointed references to "realism' being the dominant mode for Australian filmmakers. Well timed.

At newmatilda I look at Moon, District 9 and Richard Kelly's The Box (released next Thursday and pictured below right), place them in the context of earlier philosophical science fiction such as Solaris, Alphaville, 2001: a Space Odyssey and La Jetee (pictured top), and ask why Australian filmmakers don't turn to intelligent sf more often?

Extract:
"You may be excused if you initially assume that I have a drooling android loose in the top paddock. Following the decline of the Western and the rapid rise and fall of the buddy cop movie (Lethal Weapon et al), science fiction has become the dominant genre of spectacle-driven blockbuster filmmaking.

"You may well ask, how can independent filmmakers in Australia or indeed anywhere compete commercially with the likes of digital-FX-a-thons like Independence Day, Transformers, Deep Impact , War of the Worlds or whatever digit we've reached in the Terminator series?

"Answer: you're not paying attention. One of the success stories of the year is District 9, a film that performs a neat twist on the creature-feature formula..."

Weird scenes at the media coalface

At ABC Unleashed I take a look at the tectonic shift in the information world as old media certainties come unstuck.

My interest here is not in the grand, macro statements we heard last week in a speech by ABC chief Mark Scott. Rather I look at the way the shift in power is manifesting on an everyday level at the media coalface.

Extract:
"This would not be a good time to be working as a staff writer on a newspaper, for reporters are now squeezed at both ends: loss-making media owners and editors insist they work ever harder and faster, while information sources start to realise they no longer need their services quite so desperately.

"A sign of the unbearable pressures coming from the top came in this recent memo sent to Crikey.com purporting to represent editorial staff at News Ltd's Adelaide Advertiser and reflecting, if it is true, what must be an absolutely unbearable work environment.

"Choice quote 1: "There has been an increasing amount of abusive and bullying behaviour towards journalists. Several people have been publicly brought to tears..."

(Image: Wallpaperstock.net)

What's wrong with the film business, Part 28

There's been tonnes of stuff online this month about the crisis afflicting both Hollywood studios and the US independent sector, including a report of an excoriating recent speech by indie producer and former 20th Century Fox chief executive turned Bill Mechanic, which I will examine in more detail elsewhere.

In the meantime I was intrigued to come across the following on the screenwriting blog johnaugust.com. I suggest you read all the way through and look out for the stinger at the bottom.

Extract:

What’s Wrong With The Film Business

1. The conflict and turnover caused by the buying and selling of companies causes confusion, uncertainty, and weakens morale in the production area.

2. The “suits” who control the studios interfere too much with creative decisions; the studios should be run by creative people rather than businessmen, lawyers, etc.

3. The constant turnover of the production head of the studio is disastrous.

4. Overhead is indefensibly high.

5. Authority is not clearly defined.

6. Producers are given exorbitant contracts, and there is no relationship between what a producer receives and the box-office success of his or her films.

7. Screenplay costs are excessive and and the write-off on stories and contracts is enormous.

"While this seems like a very current assessment, the list actually comes from a 1936 report by Joseph P. Kennedy, who was hired by Paramount’s board of directors to determine what was ailing the studio."

Feed the world - sell the Vatican

Thanks to Jim Emerson's Scanners for drawing this to attention.

Paranormal - how to market a film on a low budget

Over at newmatilda.com I take a look at the selling of low-budget horror sensation Paranormal Activity, which has been taking the US by storm.

Extract:
"With top US studio executives losing their jobs, DVD sales falling, and the independent sector witnessing the collapse of its business model, Hollywood was in need of some good news this month.

"That news has been delivered with the huge public response, measured at the box office and in online buzz, to a modest little horror flick called Paranormal Activity. This ultra low budget, unconventionally marketed film was rejected by the Sundance Film Festival two years ago..."

Comments on the website, please. (If you have trouble signing in, please let me know here)

Antichrist - the opening

Above: the opening of Lars von Trier's Antichrist. Below: excerpt.

Tangled Up In Bleughh!

Yes, it is Bob Dylan, Yes, it is his forthcoming Christmas album. Yes, it is hilariously bad. And yes, it proves again that the old Hibbing wheezer is determined to be unpredictable to the last.

I wonder what Jimi Hendrix would be doing these days if he'd lived?