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It's looking more and more probably that I'll be heading to Park City in a few weeks. Anybody else going?Medical posted:Is there a good place online to look for production assistant (or other entry level) jobs? Craigslist really doesn't feel all that official to me. Mandy.com
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Jan 2, 2011 06:35
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Hey guys, looks like you don't need me anymore. http://www.ehow.com/video_4395517_film-business.html You're welcome.
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Jan 3, 2011 13:01
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Be an extra, get "advisors", got it! Thanks, mr producer man
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Jan 3, 2011 13:14
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My sister got me a magazine a while ago about the film industry. On the cover was a "roadmap to success" picture. Step one was to write a script, and step two was apparently to get a meeting set up with an oscar winning producer.
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Jan 3, 2011 20:14
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TheYellowFog posted:My sister got me a magazine a while ago about the film industry. On the cover was a "roadmap to success" picture. Step one was to write a script, and step two was apparently to get a meeting set up with an oscar winning producer. So why aren't you rich yet?
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Jan 3, 2011 22:00
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The stars have aligned - I'll be at Sundance in a few days. Anybody else?
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Jan 16, 2011 22:18
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I'll be there Thursday-Monday, doing video for some celebrity news website.
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Jan 17, 2011 07:50
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I'm Friday - Tues. Doing God knows what.
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Jan 17, 2011 08:13
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Does anyone have any wacky experiences with the ratings board?
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Jan 27, 2011 01:17
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Skeesix posted:Does anyone have any wacky experiences with the ratings board? Everything's gone according to plan for us. Guys, there's almost been 30 sales at Sundance this year. Are we saved?
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Jan 27, 2011 23:07
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NeuroticErotica posted:Guys, there's almost been 30 sales at Sundance this year. Are we saved? Who bought stuff? Was it the big studios or small ones? (I have no idea how that end of the business works)
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Jan 28, 2011 01:43
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penismightier posted:Who bought stuff? Was it the big studios or small ones? (I have no idea how that end of the business works) Usually it's the smaller ones like Fox/Searchlight (Who had a number of sales) or Weinstein (who had some as well) but even Paramount bought stuff. Last year there were SEVEN sales during the entire fest. Wow.
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Jan 28, 2011 03:21
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Are there any real small, like, specialty ones picking stuff up? I'm only really aware of the big ones and the "small" ones like Rogue and Weinstein and all those guys that you see in front of lovely horror movies and documentaries about farmers, but is there anything like a sort of a first-run equivalent of Kino DVD? Real small houses buying a few new titles and putting them out on DVD or into arthouse theaters? This is basic poo poo, but the whole distribution end is really alien to me.
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Jan 28, 2011 03:36
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Well, fairly enough, distribution is a mess, so it's hard to understand it all. There's been some smaller ones picking stuff up, and for decent numbers. Motion Film Group gave low seven figures to Gun Hill Road, OWN picked up a doc or two, National Geographic has Life in a Day, some of them I'm not even familiar with, like Liddel Entertainment which picked up a one-shot horror film.
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Jan 28, 2011 03:42
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Nice to know there's hope for me yet.
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Jan 28, 2011 03:44
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penismightier posted:Nice to know there's hope for me yet. There's hope for all of us, there's money in the god drat industry again. Time to get my poo poo goinnnnggggg
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Jan 28, 2011 03:47
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There's been a veritable feeding frenzy (well, relatively) right across the spectrum, with studios, specialty divisions, established indies, and new smaller indies all participating, with a range of MGs. Some possible reasons: last year's two biggest Sundance pick-ups (Winter's Bone and The Kids Are Alright) both performed very well (relatively) at the BO. Other smaller "specialist" dramas (Black Swan, King's Speech) are also doing boffo BO. The studios have almost moved out of the small film arena entirely, although the audience hasn't entirely vanished. There's been a vacuum which is now being filled. While there have been a lot of deals, and some decent numbers,. the figures involved haven't been huge: off the top of my head the biggest advance I am aware of is around $4m (or maybe $7.5m?). However, most deals are for smaller, more reasonable numbers. The market has readjusted by making films for less and selling them for less, which allows more distributors to make a leap of faith on a film, knowing that their commitment, once P&A is added, is not as substantial as has been demanded in previous years. That's my take from someone on the outside looking to sell into the US market. Neurotica, you're more au fait with US distribution: is this a reasonable analysis?
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Jan 28, 2011 11:59
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It's pretty reasonable - although the sales are a bit higher - largest is The Details, which I just saw last night, which if handled properly could be huge, at $7.5M with a $10M P&A commitment - which is pretty dang unreal for a deal. There's a $6M, there's a lot of stuff going on. What's really odd, to me, is that there's very little movement on the doc side, which is always reliable. Narrative features are exploding and thank you Based God for making this happen. What this tells me is two things - Independent producers have started to become really smart in terms of budgets. They got punched in the face a while back when deals just stopped being made and suddenly there were a lot of $10M, $20M, $30 million dollar indies that were begging to get $2M back on their pictures. There's not the big, bloated indies - which sucks if you want to do something a bit bigger - but they're making pictures lean, mean and pretty dang good. The other thing that this is hinting at - and this is just speculation on my part - but I'm thinking that VOD is starting to come into it's own and start to make up for the missing DVD revenue. I think distros are getting good returns and are starting to see VOD make money which means that they can take a little bit more of a risk at the box office and make it up on VOD. If that's true, that means that things might get to be really good.
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Jan 28, 2011 22:53
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This is awesome news as somebody who is realistically a couple years away from attempting to break into filmmaking. I had been looking around wondering if I was making a huge mistake trying to cling to a dying art form, but hell. It might bounce back! I like the move toward smaller budgets, actually. I feel like there's been a lot of bloat in movies for a while... like people would try to gussy up a lovely script by throwing money at the production end. A shift toward quality would be nice, huh?
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Jan 28, 2011 23:15
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Speaking of breaking in to the field. I just discovered this today http://studios.amazon.com/ Huh. How did this take so long to find?
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Jan 28, 2011 23:21
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BonoMan posted:Speaking of breaking in to the field. I just discovered this today The winners: quote:(Comedy, Science Fiction and Fantasy) An adventure comedy told from the villain's perspective. When the world's greatest super spy goes missing, all fingers point to his arch-nemesis: Professor Mortimer Savage. To clear his name, Savage joins forces with The Agency to learn the truth and save the world. quote:(Action and Adventure) A thrill-seeking nautical archeologist discovers a cloaked U-boat and sparks an international pursuit when he embarks on a treasure hunt across Europe to discover the secret to alchemy with a beautiful professor who has a secret agenda of her own. Those are some stunningly original ideas that I'm sure Hollywood producers are salivating over.
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Jan 28, 2011 23:24
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morestuff posted:The winners: Hahah I thought the same thing. HOWEVER. It is a new service and those are monthly winners not the annual winners.
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Jan 28, 2011 23:30
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quote:(Comedy, Science Fiction and Fantasy) An adventure comedy told from the villain's perspective. When the world's greatest super spy goes missing, all fingers point to his arch-nemesis: Professor Mortimer Savage. To clear his name, Savage joins forces with The Agency to learn the truth and save the world. This comedy/sci-fi/fantasy has potential. All it needs is the comedy, sci-fi and fantasy.
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Jan 28, 2011 23:49
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Schweinhund posted:This comedy/sci-fi/fantasy has potential. All it needs is the comedy, sci-fi and fantasy. I hope the lifting of Doc Savage's name is an "homage" rather than ignorance.
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Jan 28, 2011 23:55
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NeuroticErotica posted:There's hope for all of us, there's money in the god drat industry again. Time to get my poo poo goinnnnggggg I'd venture a guess and say it's getting better everywhere. Here in Germany I hear from some of the well connected veterans who are already booked for the first half of the year, and I had enough gigs to get me through January. Normally it doesn't get this busy before March/April. It was bound to get better after the desastrous lows, let's hope this is the year it actually does.
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Jan 29, 2011 00:42
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shits still terrible in canada *checks Canadian dollar 
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Jan 29, 2011 01:57
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BonoMan posted:Speaking of breaking in to the field. I just discovered this today It's a terrible deal, that will not yield anything worthwhile. Until they finance a normal indie and claim that it's part of the promotion a la Insurge
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Jan 29, 2011 02:08
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NeuroticErotica posted:It's a terrible deal, that will not yield anything worthwhile. Huh? Anyway yeah so I read the terms. If you upload a script they have an automatic 18 month option on it. That excludes any prize money. If it gets made into a movie you get $200 grand. If that movie makes over $60m you get an additional $400,000. If, at the end of 18 months, they haven't made it into a movie, they have first rights to reoption one time for a period of 18 months at a cost of 10 grand. So they can get long options, but otherwise it's not like you get totally hosed. Unless you have one single property in your portfolio. It's basically for using some other property you feel comfortable on not using, to fund something else. In other words "how the industry works." BonoMan fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jan 29, 2011 |
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Jan 29, 2011 02:19
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BonoMan posted:Huh? Anyone can edit your script without your permission and receive equal credit for it. No matter how little the change is, you will have to split any prize money you win 50/50.
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Jan 30, 2011 08:47
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Yeah I was excited about Amazon Studios when I first heard about it but after being shown the fine print I was pretty floored at what a stupid idea it is. I also feel like Amazon could scam some people with this. Someone submits a script that Amazon Studios likes, hires somebody to edit it, divide the prize winnings between their editor and them so that some of it goes back to Amazon. Really really really cheap script, and if it becomes succesful they reap even more profit from the prize winnings. Similar to what Jack Abramof did actually. I highly doubt they are doing this though.
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Jan 30, 2011 09:33
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That DOES suck that they can split the prize money. However they do explicitly say that rights money (the $200k or $400k from a movie being actually made) does not get split at all. It goes to the originator of the script/movie. Anyway it was just something I stumbled upon and thought it was kind of cool. I mean if you are thinking of it as your sole channel into the industry and hedging all your bets on it then you're gonna get burned. It is a kind of way to at least try to win some money for future project development. time goblin posted:Anyone can edit your script without your permission and receive equal credit for it. No matter how little the change is, you will have to split any prize money you win 50/50. This actually isn't true either. quote:If you revise a script or a test movie, and your revised version wins a contest award, you could win up to 50% of the prize money, depending on how substantial your contribution was (as determined by the judging committee). BonoMan fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jan 30, 2011 |
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Jan 30, 2011 21:41
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time goblin posted:Anyone can edit your script without your permission They actually just changed this a few days ago by giving the uploader the option to have their screenplay locked, invite-only, or open for edits. System is still total poo poo, though.
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Jan 30, 2011 22:24
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The biggest problem with the Amazon Studios thing is that anytime you enter a script into competition they get an exclusive hold on it for 18 months. This is lovely already, but they AUTOMATICALLY enter your script into contests which it might be eligible. So essentially they hold your script for as long as they want, for nothing. It's a noble effort, for sure, but here's the deal. This is a hard business to get into. On any level. It's going to be hard for new distributors to come into play. It's going to be hard for new exhibitors to get in the game. It's hard for seasoned veterans to make new companies. Any time somebody new comes in and says "The system is broken, I'm coming in and we're doing it my way" they get laughed at. It's a very old business and it doesn't like to change. I get poo poo because I'm under 30. You see a lot of aol.com and hotmail email addresses because that's as far as some people have gotten into tech and stuff. Granted, things are changing faster than they ever have, but it's still slow and there's a lot of reasons why things are the way they are that outsiders just don't see.
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Jan 30, 2011 23:09
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NeuroticErotica posted:The biggest problem with the Amazon Studios thing is that anytime you enter a script into competition they get an exclusive hold on it for 18 months. This is lovely already, but they AUTOMATICALLY enter your script into contests which it might be eligible. So essentially they hold your script for as long as they want, for nothing. Which is why I mentioned that it's not (nor is anything really) something you want to put all your chips on. And it's not something you want to give your killer script to.
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Jan 31, 2011 00:00
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BonoMan posted:Which is why I mentioned that it's not (nor is anything really) something you want to put all your chips on. And if it's not something you want to give your killer script to how are they going to make a killer movie? poo poo only rolls downhill. Guys ask more questions, I dig telling you this stuff.
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Jan 31, 2011 00:12
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NeuroticErotica posted:And if it's not something you want to give your killer script to how are they going to make a killer movie? Because it's not your killer script doesn't have to make it bad? I don't know you seem to be operating in total extremes here. I'm not unfamiliar with the business and how it works.
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Jan 31, 2011 00:45
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BonoMan posted:Because it's not your killer script doesn't have to make it bad? I don't know you seem to be operating in total extremes here. I'm not unfamiliar with the business and how it works. Everybody who talks about doing this talks about throwing in a script "they don't care about". If you don't care about it why should anybody else? Good scripts can become bad movies. Bad scripts never make good movies.
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Jan 31, 2011 01:13
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Can you go over the roles of Producer and Executive Producer for me?
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Jan 31, 2011 01:26
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God this is so loving true its sad, the end kills me. Editors are like the drummers of film making. http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6861167/ BonoMan posted:Because it's not your killer script doesn't have to make it bad? I don't know you seem to be operating in total extremes here. I'm not unfamiliar with the business and how it works. Im going to have to agree. Especially because this is basically a way for Hollywood to continue churning out the same crap they have been for decades, except for cheaper. Screenwriters are hired to write poo poo they dont care about every day for producers who had a dumb idea for a movie. This essentially just makes the screenwriter the stupid producer and the hired screenwriter while taking a gamble of if they are going to get paid or not. Its a gamble, but a lot of screenwriters have scripts on their computer that have been there longer than it will ever get optioned on Amazon Studios. But just to play devils advocate to myself, Kings Speech was written in the 80's and the screenwriter pulled it out of a drawer and now look where its at. NeuroticErotica posted:Everybody who talks about doing this talks about throwing in a script "they don't care about". If you don't care about it why should anybody else? Bad scripts still get made into movies and the writers still get paid. This is not about making good movies and anybody who thinks its anything other than a way to make money on a gamble is retarded. Think of it as casinos for producers. The house always wins, but sometimes the gambler walks away with $20,000.
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Jan 31, 2011 01:34
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^^Yes you put it into words better than I could.NeuroticErotica posted:Everybody who talks about doing this talks about throwing in a script "they don't care about". If you don't care about it why should anybody else? I see what you're saying, but what I'm saying is that you should have a diversified portfolio of properties. We have lots of properties and several of those that we can afford to put up for 36 months of Amazon optioning "just in case." It doesn't mean that those scripts are bad or lovely, but that we've prioritized our properties and spread out our assets over several "opportunities." Again I'm not saying it's some savior of the writer, but if you can afford to lose (as the gamblers like to say), then you can afford to play.
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Jan 31, 2011 01:43
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