With DVD revenues declining, the Blu-ray model struggling, and theatrical release windows shrinking, filmed content distributors and media investors are undoubtedly scrambling to determine what comes next in the video content distribution space. A wide array of contenders, covering a variety of content categories are striving to create a silver bullet business model; however it doesn’t appear to be developing. In turn, the Emerging Video realm continues to rapidly evolve, with game changing announcements from major players seemingly occurring every week. Read More
If you are like most independent filmmakers, you will be raising the money for your film almost exclusively from investors. Perhaps you may be able to cash flow some government incentives or secure a postproduction deal, but even in these cases, investors will be carrying the bulk of the budget load. Read More
As discussed earlier in the article entitled “Women Can’t Create and White Men Can’t Jump” posted on February 4, 2010 at http://www.blssresearch.com, this has been a dreadful year for women’s participation in the pilot production season. Read More
At first I thought this blog entry would be an examination of some of the smaller festivals out there and which ones might help a specialty film more than others (click here for a refresher on “specialty films”). So I looked at all the specialty films released last year and whittled it down to those that debuted at festivals other than Sundance, Toronto, Cannes, Berlin, Tribeca, Venice, or SXSW prior to their domestic theatrical release. Read More
Despite a number of the studio's specialty divisions essentially being shut down in the last year, despite coming off several festivals in a row where a dearth of big deals existed, Sundance 2010, after a careful start on the part of the distributors, is showing a great deal of life. Read More
The across the board DVD pricing scheme, along with WalMart and RedBox are devaluing the movie proposition overall, and are creating expectations in the mind of the consumer that all products are alike, when they are not all alike. Great foreign films, great independent American films should be marketed and sold like the fine wine and artisan foods they are. Read More
I received several emails this past week pointing out the scarcity of women writers on the recent pilot pickups. At a cursory glance it is easy to jump on the bandwagon decrying the lack of diversity among the “creator” ranks, not to mention showrunners and writing staffs, but this was a subject worth pursuing in a bit more depth. Nikki Finke sent a missile to the broadside of various network heads about what was being called “the worst year in a decade for female writers and showrunners.” Read More
Before Sundance 2010 started, new director John Cooper (and longtime programmer under former director Geoff Gilmore) said that in taking the festival back to its roots, they would be picking good films. “We will not be thinking about the industry much.” The slogan “rebelle” was everywhere including on an outfit that I bought for my friend’s two-month old baby. Yet that message seemed to be lost on the filmmakers, whose works they chose for the festival. Read More
Overall, some 420+ specialty films were first released in 2009, with an average of about eight new ones per weekend. Here’s a breakdown: Read More
All those small indie films do make a difference! The final total is $3.6 billion for the indie share of the North American box office rather than the $3.5 billion I had estimated based on the totals for the ten highest grossing indie films that were available on Dec. 31. Defying the expectations of most analysts, the rest of the independent films helped to bring the final total to $3.588 billion. Read More
