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?

Coon Cheese to sponsor Hey Hey?

One of the best reader comments I've come across on "Hey Hey! It's Minstrel-gate!", reproduced from Amanda Meade's Media Diary in The Australian:

"Sorry to all you indignant people ranting about ‘political correctness gone mad’, but unfortunately the acceptance of this sketch is representative of some very disappointing views I have found across Australia.

"I have been here for well over a year and love the country and most of the people I have met - and I have travelled to almost all Australian states. However, the one depressing common denominator I have found is how acceptable racism is to the ‘average’ Australian in pretty large numbers.

"I am not easily offended at ALL, but have lost count of the number of times that I have been told an extremely racist joke (that are always v offensive), or heard a very racist view expressed etc - in all parts of the country. One charming Sydney-sider’s defensive remark when he saw my shocked expression was simply “wait till you get to Queensland mate, if you think that’s bad, they’re raving racists up there”.

"I am white, so I think other white people just assume I will find these things funny and not be shocked, but very often the jokes are not ‘harmless’ but extremely barbed and cruel.

"I simply wish that I had not experienced so much of this as so many Australians are not like this - but there IS a much more lax attitude generally to what is acceptable, which reminds me of the mindset of 85 year olds in Britain (as they come from a time when this WAS deemed acceptable).

"This just shows that many of these racist Australians are behind the times - nothing to do with being ‘PC’ - what is acceptable about singling out others for cruel abuse masquerading as ‘fun’? An old fashioned attitude to race prevails here.

"This country has so much to offer so many people, which is why this is so sad. Australians would do better to stop getting indignant and denying such attitudes and simply work together to educate people and find a way out of this acceptance. I know everyone here isn’t like this, but there is a certainly a much larger majority than other 1st world countries."

Dr Ozfilm's Prescription: Take More of the Corn Tablets

Over at newmatilda.com this week I look at the disconnect between the mediocrity of Mao's Last Dancer and its impressive local box office, along with a few other big Aussie hits, and draw some sticky conclusions.

Extract:

"We're quick to recognise Hollywood hits don't always equate to strong filmmaking — so why not with Australian films? Baz's recent camp adventure may have been an artistic failure but it entertained many ordinary Australians. Why? I'd suggest any big budgeter that wallows in Australiana seems to hit an automatic chord. Look at The Man From Snowy River (critics sniffed, the public flocked). Or Crocodile Dundee I and II — the first had charm, the second was lame but that didn't stop it earning a motzah."

Comments on the newmatilda site please. Cheers.

Belgium's masters of the visual gag

My review of the French black comedy Louise-Michel, directed by Belgians Gustave de Kervern and Benoit Delepine, is up at the SBS film website.

Extract:
"The film works via an accumulation of sketches that – at their best – could be viewed in isolation as miniatures of comic genius.

"These scenes prove de Kervern and Delepine (who have their own TV comedy show) are masters of the visual gag in which the joke plays out in the far background of the shot. Think of a cow accidentally shot on a field adjoining a shooting range, or Louise walking out of her apartment block which only seconds afterwards is detonated by explosives."

Please log any comments on the SBS website rather than here, cheers.

Uh oh - there's a pianiste in the house...

The October edition of Limelight is now in newsagents, featuring my cover story on films about classical composers and musicians. (It's not online, hence the absence of a link).

My major theme is the tendency for filmmakers to concentrate on illness, madness and personal dysfunction when making films about the serious music world, with The Soloist providing a vivid recent example.

Extract:
"...the musically gifted in the movies tend to have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock, or at the very least to be troubled, physically ailing or strange. On film they are variously depicted as psychiatrically ill (viz. David Helfgott in Shine); irascible and deeply eccentric (Ludwig van in last year’s Copying Beethoven), or suffering a disabling illness (the MS-afflicted Jacqueline du Pre in Hilary and Jackie). And who could forget Amadeus, with its pathologically jealous Salieri fixated on murder and a Mozart who is a giggling child inhabiting an adult’s body?

"If the men are worrisome, according to the movies if you see a woman seated at a piano, you’d be advised to turn on your heels and run. Witness Isabelle Huppert’s sexually repressed-to-the-point-of-psychosis lead role in The Piano Teacher; the revenge-fixated ex-piano student in last year’s French drama The Page Turner; or Holly Hunter’s wilfully mute axe-wielder in The Piano.

"What is it that compels filmmakers to regard musicians and composers as such dysfunctional creatures? "

(Top image: Catherine Frot (left) and Deborah Francois in The Page Turner

Hopetoun campaign - next step, get political

Save the Hopetoun Campaign:

The energy around this Facebook group - which accrued an extraordinary 10,000 members in just a few days - should ideally now be harnessed in a constructive way, ie. to form a political lobby over live venues in Sydney.

If it's only about the now-defunct Hopetoun (being sold by its private owner) and the indie rock scene then it's a lost cause. But the fact it's reached 10,000 signatures so fast indicates that many people are more interested in this closure as a symbol than the pub itself (I bet most of those 10,000 don't go there any more - and that some never have).

And that's understandable. The live situation in Sydney is shit compared to Melbourne - and I suspect Sydney mayor Clover Moore would be very sympathetic if she were approached with a well- organised campaign.

(Image of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Metro: Euthemize. com)

My take on the Polanski case

(NOTE the request at the bottom of the page. I won't be posting any readers comments here, the appropriate place is newmatilda.com, link below.)

My views on the Polanski arrest and the protest campaign against it by high profile filmmakers are at newmatilda.com under the headline, Yes He's Talented AND he's a Rapist.

Extract:
"Polanski could easily have prevented the (Zurich film) festival from finding itself in such a quandary had he at some point faced up to his past in an honourable fashion. It's been 28 years since he fled from the US while on bail to live in France (which does not have a close extradition agreement with the US). At any point he could have voluntarily returned to face the American justice system. He could have paid his moral debt, wiped the slate clean and opened up the eventual way to free international travel and film festival invitations galore.

"He chose not to follow that path. His decision."

Please comment at the bottom of the full article.

(Image: Newsday)