All posts by Mark

About Mark

Mark Poole is a writer and director of both drama and documentary. His most recent film Fearless about 92 year old playwright Julia Britton recently screened on ABC1. His career began when the feature film he wrote, A Single Life, won an AFI Award in 1987. Since then he has written more than 20 hours of broadcast television drama, won a directing award for the short film Basically Speaking at the St Kilda Film Festival, and was honoured with a major AWGIE, the Richard Lane Award in 2008.

How to Make a Hollywood Hit

Charting the new globe-trotting science of moviemaking

Today, movies generate 70 percent of their revenue abroad. This has Hollywood
studios playing to the tastes of viewers from São Paulo to South Korea—and
employing all sorts of savvy new rules to build global box-office sensations.

SCREENPLAY

Set the Movie in a Growing Market—or Nowhere.

Two of last year’s highest-grossing movies, Fast Five and Rio, were set in Brazil, a
rapidly expanding market. Three of the most successful Hollywood ventures of all
time—Harry Potter, Avatar, and Lord of the Rings—take place in fantasy worlds that
are home to more than one nationality.

Riff on an Established Enterprise.

In an effort to revive its tired action-figure brand, the toy giant Hasbro joined forces
with Paramount and DreamWorks to make Transformers. Result: box-office and toy
sales both soared, especially overseas.

Don’t Offend Billions of Would-Be Viewers.

MGM’s yet-to-be-released update of the Cold War thriller Red Dawn was originally
shot with Chinese villains instead of Soviets. In deference to China’s growing clout,
MGM turned the bad guys into North Koreans during editing.

CASTING

You Always Want Will Smith.

Long known as the only remaining golden ticket in Hollywood, Smith appears in
relatively few roles—the better to maintain his global winning streak.

Except When You Don’t.

For fantasy and superhero franchises, a fresh face is ideal—especially if accompanied
by a British or Australian accent, which can feel more universal than an American
one.

But the Right Co-Star Can Make Anyone Bankable.

Adam Sandler has a solid global track record largely because of his co-stars—Salma
Hayek in 2010’s Grown Ups and Eugenio Derbez, a popular Mexican comic, in last
year’s Jack and Jill ensured large audiences in Latin America.

Dub Animated Movies With Local Actors—or Hire Bilingual Superstars
From the Start.

When DreamWorks Animation added Antonio Banderes’s Puss in Boots character to
the second Shrek movie, box-office sales tripled in Spain and doubled in Mexico and
Brazil. Banderas’s Puss in Boots spin-off has so far earned 72 percent of its $500-
million-plus box-office haul abroad.

PRODUCTION

Film in 3-D and IMAX.

Less than 20 percent of 2011 U.S. box-office sales came from 3-D movies, but in
booming markets like Russia, Brazil, and China—where 40 percent of 2011 box-office
sales were from 3-D films—novelty cannot be overvalued or underdone.

Shoot in as Many Cities as Possible.

After Cars, Pixar’s 2006 paean to American auto culture, underperformed abroad,
the studio set the sequel in Paris, London, and Tokyo and on the Italian Riviera.

Take Advantage of Foreign Labor.

Since Peter Jackson launched the Lord of the Rings trilogy from New Zealand,
fantasy directors have been lured there by CGI expertise and tax breaks. At one point,
Jackson, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron were simultaneously making global
blockbusters in the 200,000-person city of Wellington.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT & LICENSING

Pepper the Film With International Brands.

When a character gulped a Shuhua low-lactose milk in the latest Transformers
movie, DreamWorks and the Chinese dairy company Yili Group both benefited—the
latter from pitching its product to Chinese viewers, who spent an astounding $146
million on tickets, and the former from charging Yili big bucks for the privilege.

The Toys Can Make the Movie.

Cars performed less well than Pixar’s other films and received middling reviews, but
it sold more than $10 billion worth of merchandise—thus guaranteeing a sequel. To
maximize licensing opportunities, Cars 2 introduced a fleet of foreign characters,
including a Citroën, a Honda, a Ferrari, and an Aston Martin.

MARKETING & RELEASE

Choose Politically Benign Titles.

When releasing Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel worried about an anti-
American reflex in Russia, Ukraine, and South Korea—so the movie was simply
called The First Avenger in those markets.

Parade Your Stars Around the World.

In 2005, long before Brazil became the box-office behemouth it is today, Will Smith
flew to Rio to promote Hitch during Carnival. Today, promotional stops in Rio—and
in Mexico and Russia—are nearly mandatory for actors.

Use Release Schedules and Premieres to Send a Message.

The U.S. release of Steven Spielberg’s Tintin, based on a comic beloved in Europe but
largely unknown in the States, was almost an afterthought, scheduled two months
after the movie’s European premiere.

Studios now choose premiere locales by box-office power: Fast Five and Rio opened
in (of course) Rio; Mission Impossible—Ghost Protocol in Dubai; and Transformers:
Dark of the Moon in Moscow.

Nicole Allan is an Atlantic senior editor – 25 April 2012.

INPUT SYDNEY presents: Is the Web the Future of Documentaries?

Input Sydney –  May 7 – 11 at Hoyts Cinemas, The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park.

What does it take to make a successful web documentary and how can online
technologies contribute to the art of storytelling? As Internet connectivity and speeds
improve, audiences are spending more time online and patterns and behaviours of
narrative consumption are evolving.

Documentaries are evolving as well with more and more documentaries being
commissioned exclusively for the online platform – tapping the traditional power of
narrative video but augmenting this with audio, photos, textual content, data
visualisation, user generated content and other interactivity.

In this session (Thursday May 10 from 2pm to 5pm)we hear from some of the world’s
leaders in this space about successful projects and what might happen next.

Projects to be presented and discussed are:

Afghanistan (France – Broadcaster: ARTE)
Letting Afghanis have their say and intersecting points of view: these are the two
underlying principles of the web-documentary Afghanistan, devoted to Afghanistan
a decade after the outbreak of the war following the attack on the world Trade Centre
towers in New York.
www.arte.tv/afghanistan

In Situ (France – Broadcaster: ARTE)
In Situ is a poetic essay and interactive documentary about the urban space in
Europe seen through very diverse artistic experiences and inventions. Antoine
Viviani (Author, filmmaker, producer) will be at INPUT to present In Situ.
www.arte.tv/insitu

The arab world in revolution(s) (France – Broadcaster: ARTE)
With the Arab world is undergoing unpredictable, revolutionary change. ARTE
followed the issue from different perspectives, not only on television, but also online,
staying close to the people and events, especially when they were no longer topical or
eventful enough for other media to cover.
ww.arte.tv/arabworld

The Block (Australia – Broadcaster: SBS)
A sneak preview of this major SBS production, to be launched in July 2012, which is
described as a time capsule about the indigenous-owned neighbourhood in Redfern,
NSW, told by residents past and present. (URL not available)

Bear 71 (Canada – Broadcaster: National Film Board of Canada)
Bear 71 is about a grizzly bear in Banff National Park, who was collared at the age of
three and was watched her whole life via trail cameras in the park. Following Bear 71,
the web documentary explores the connections between the human and animal
world, and the far-ranging effects that human settlements, roads and railways have
on wildlife. The documentary features a map of Banff National Park that allows
users to follow Bear 71’s movements by scrolling over the cameras, and look at other
users by activating the computer’s webcam. Bear 71 went live on the NFB website on
January 19, 2012. It was also the subject of an installation at the 2012 Sundance Film
Festival’s New Frontier program beginning January 20, followed by the Utah
Museum of Contemporary Art. One of two producers, Jeremy Von Mendes, will be at
INPUT.
(http://bear71.nfb.ca)

“This session brings together high calibre digital pioneers – program makers and
broadcasters at the forefront of on-line documentary from around the world to
present these ground-breaking web documentaries,” says session moderator
Marshall Heald, Director of Online & Emerging Platforms at SBS.

“These projects provide an exciting peak into the future evolution of digital content
in a post NBN world and how content makers can exploit technology to tell engaging
stories in new and interesting ways whether through explorations of form, function,
interactivity or method of audience engagement”

Participants in this session are:

Marshall Heald, SBS
Sabine Lange, ARTE
Jeremy Von Mendes, NFB
Antonie Viviani, Filmmaker

INPUT SYDNEY will feature a multi-platform/on-line session each afternoon of the
conference.
Marshall Heald will also moderate Comedy Rules the World – How to make a Hit
Comedy Series on the Internet (Tuesday May 8). Unconditional Love and Touch
Screens, on Wednesday May 9, will interrogate the world cross media for children.
The session on Friday May 11 is 10 Ways to involve your Audience and use Social
Media.

INPUT is based on the principal of television in the public interest – a meeting place
where broadcasters, commissioners, programmers, producers and directors from 50
countries and five continents come together to share programs, ideas and
aspirations.

The Conference runs in a different country each year, screening and debating around
70 hours of international programming. It is a unique ‘whole of television’ event,
encompassing Drama, Documentary and Factual, TV Specific programming and
Transmedia. Discussions follow all screenings in which delegates talk directly with
the commissioner, producer or director of the program about the craft, the politics,
and the broadcast issues. The discussions are frank, open, often challenging, and
very refreshing.

Register NOW! Full registration is just 100 Euros. Program runs May 7 – 11 at
Hoyts Cinemas, The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park. Full program is available
at: www.inputsydney.com

Media enquiries
Tracey Mair, TM Publicity
For INPUT SYDNEY
Ph: + 61 (0) 419 221 493

Netflix Rewrites Rules of TV

How the Return of Netflix’s Arrested Development Will
Rewrite the New Rules of TV Watching

The landscape of television is changing, and for proof, you have to look no further
than the revival of Arrested Development on Netflix, where creator Mitch Hurwitz
has reunited the original cast to produce a parcel of new episodes coming next year.

Suddenly, a show that was incredibly low-rated on Fox is being touted as a game-
changer for an upstart streaming-video company. It’s a move that will surely have a
ripple effect on TV development, but the audience at home is going to find their
viewing habits tested, too, since Netflix head Ted Sarandos announced yesterday that
the ten new episodes of Arrested Development will all premiere on a single day. How

will recap culture cope? Here are four of the open questions raised by the
announcement.

Should you watch all the episodes in one sitting?

Arrested Development’s most avid superfans have been waiting for this day since the
show was canceled in 2006, but now they’ll be consuming an entire new season of
Arrested Development the way a johnny-come-lately would: all at once, like a person
stumbling upon the DVDs years after the show went off the air. Still, while a newbie
might take his time with Arrested Development, many longtime fans of the series will
feel pressure to rip through all the episodes in a single day, and is the show best
served by watching it that way? And what if the new Arrested episodes bow on a
weekday, God forbid? Would an entire demographic leave work for lunch and never
return?

How do you talk about it on Twitter?

The rise in DVRs and time-shifting have changed the way people watch TV, but savvy
fans know to avoid Twitter if they haven’t yet caught, say, the new episode of Mad
Men: The social-networking service explodes every Sunday night with viewers live-
tweeting, quoting, and discussing Don Draper or Fat Betty in depth. (Pity viewers on
the West Coast and abroad, who are in constant danger of being spoiled until they
can catch up.) If the new episodes of Arrested Development were debuting in weekly
installments on a network, Twitter users could assume some base level of communal
viewing and tweet freely, but with the new episodes bowing at the same time, how
can you be sure who’s watched what? Can you already start discussing episode ten
when your friends may be on episode seven, or even episode one?

Will this nip buzz in the bud?

We won’t shed many tears over Twitter users unable to spoil their favorite shows in
real time, but it’s worth noting that the plugged-in Twitter audience comprises
Arrested Development’s main demographic. To be sure, those fans will be hyping the
new AD episodes for weeks and months before the premiere (in fact, they already
are), but we wonder whether the thwarted tweeting may take a toll when the episodes
all debut at once. Which would Netflix prefer: ten weeks of fans obsessively
dissecting each episode and speculating about the next, or a jumbled few days when

the most ardent viewers speed-watch the whole season, then quickly move on to
discussing the week’s shocking new episode of Breaking Bad?

How will it affect the recapping craze?

The Wire creator David Simon recently groused about the explosive trend of online
episode recapping, suggesting that critics should evaluate the series as a whole and
not in weekly installments. Looks like he got his wish! It’s not going to be easy to
provide overnight reviews of each new Arrested Development episode when all ten
premiere on the same day, and TV viewers who’ve gotten used to watching an
episode and then reading a variety of online reactions to it will have to adjust: They’ll
now be able to burn through an entire season without weekly consultations of an
online echo chamber. When Fox canceled Arrested Development, they gave it what
was considered an ignominious end: burning through the last four episodes on a
single night (opposite the Olympics, no less) instead of letting fans savor the last few
weeks. Years later, that all-at-once strategy will be the show’s new normal. As GOB
might ponder: Are they making a huge mistake?

By Kyle Buchanan – 18 April 2012 – nymag.com

Virtual buccaneers escape to plunder another day

The pirates themselves are too hard to catch individually, and suing customers is
not a good look for film studios.

THE High Court has decided that an internet service provider (ISP) is not liable for
any copyright piracy by its customers.

Even though the Hollywood movie studios and television networks had notified the
ISP of the bad conduct of several customers, that was not sufficient to make the ISP
liable. The decision is not a surprise. Australia Post is not liable for copyright
infringement if it delivers a pirated DVD. The court has confirmed that the same
rules apply to ISPs.

Copyright owners prefer to bring legal actions against intermediates, rather than end
users. It is not a good look to sue customers, even if they are engaged in infringing
activities. Also, it is harder work to find and sue each person who downloads a
pirated movie. Bringing legal proceedings against ISPs, which are the gatekeepers to
the internet, seemed like a more efficient approach to stopping infringement. But the
High Court has taken away that weapon for copyright owners in this instance.

Continue reading Virtual buccaneers escape to plunder another day

10terrorists to screen at the LA Comedy Festival

The shock & awe(some) parody on reality television and terrorism has successfully
shot a missile directly into the heart of the movie capital. The small Melbourne
movie, 10TERRORISTS!, that launched at the Greater Union as part of the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival on the 29th of March is getting its West
Coast Premiere in Los Feliz in late April. As an official selection of the 11th Los
Angeles Comedy Festival (the largest comedy festival in the United States), it has two
screening and is one of only six feature films chosen.

“Making the decision to go with the Comedy Festivals seems a good fit”. says
producer, Andrea Buck. “Although the film is screening as part of the Buffalo Niagara
Film Festival on the 18th April. There is also one final screening here in Melbourne
on the 20th April at The Greater Union at 9.00pm”

In this high-octane comedy, a Los Angeles producer steals from popular Reality TV
formats, hiring three ex-military judges to seek out the ultimate “amateur master-
terrorist. “We are parodying the producers and the very city of Los Angeles – with
footage having being shot there” says producer/ director Dee McLachlan. “But I’m
sure Hollywood can laugh at itself”.

This film is a big departure from their previous feature, THE JAMMED, the
acclaimed 2007 sex trafficking thriller, that burst onto the Australian film scene in
2007. Mclachlan used some of the cast (Veronica Sywak, Masa Yamaguchi) and crew
from THE JAMMED (Cinematographer Peter Falk, Costume designer Jill Johanson,
Sound recordist Rob Hornbuckle) to shoot principal photography in only 8 days. “We
could only do this because we had a great crew and very talented actors” says
McLachlan.

10terrorists media release – Friday 20 April 2012

Hulu Announces New Shows

The video website reports $420 million in revenue last year, but it is spending even
more to develop new shows, including series from Adrian Grenier and Michael
Wendschuh.

At a presentation to ad buyers Thursday, Hulu touted its growth, saying its more
than 2 million paid subscribers have made its $8-per-month video subscription
service the fastest growing in U.S. history. The company also reported $420 million
in revenue last year and expressed a commitment to original programming with new
series including The Awesomes, fromSaturday Night Live star Seth Meyers.

Hulu was the first of many online giants scheduled to roll out their content and meet
with advertisers in TV industry style upfront presentations during the next two
weeks. In a room that included Meyers,Smash star Megan Hilty, Morgan Spurlock
and Adrian Grenier, the company touted that Americans watched 2.5 billion videos
on Hulu in February — about 1,000 videos a second. Hulu also said it held 20 percent
of the online video market and 40 percent of the premium video market.

Continue reading Hulu Announces New Shows

Cannes film festival 2012 lineup: the competition’s still a man’s world

Once again, the Cannes film festival has unveiled a gorgeous list. The only
disappointments, for some, will be the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master
and Terrence Malick’s new project were not included, reportedly because they were
not ready in time – although the idea of Malick actually having a new film completed
just one year after the last head-spinning epic is fantastically improbable: as if he had
moved up to a Roger Corman level of productivity. Some observers will be
disappointed that Stoker, by the South Korean director Park Chan-wook has not been
selected, likewise Wong Kar-wai’s The Grand Master – although the festival could
sneak in a late entry here and there.

The relative absence of women in the list of directors is, however, pretty dismal: the
competition is an all-male affair, and there are just two women film-makers in Un
Certain Regard: Sylvie Verheyde, with Confession of a Child of the Century, and
Catherine Corsini, with Three Worlds.

Continue reading Cannes film festival 2012 lineup: the competition’s still a man’s world

Cannes film festival list dominated by European arthouse auteurs

A selection of heavyweight titles from top-drawer auteurs has been unveiled for this
year’s Cannes film festival, with previous winners of the Palme d’Or, Jacques
Audiard, Michael Haneke and Ken Loach, all back in contention.

A competition lineup strong on European arthouse is leavened by the anticipated
presence on the Croisette of teenybop pinups Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson.
Pattinson, the British star of Twilight, tops the bill inDavid Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis,
tipped as one of the key titles to screen, while Efron takes the lead in Paperboy, the
new film from Lee Daniels, whose social drama Precious was a sleeper hit two years
ago.

Daniels is one of the few US directors on this year’s slate; he joins Wes Anderson,
whose 60s-set summer camp romance Moonrise Kingdom opens the festival on 16
May, and Jeff Nichols, whose Mud builds on the success of last year’s Take Shelter.

Brad Pitt stars in Killing Them Softly, a crime drama directed by New Zealander
Andrew Dominik, and another America-set title is On the Road, Walter Salles’s long-
awaited adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel.

Continue reading Cannes film festival list dominated by European arthouse auteurs

Australian directors get Cannes invites

Two Australian directors with American films will feature in a competition line-up
full of leading art-house names at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

Andrew Dominik, who emerged in this country with Chopper before shooting The
Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford in the US, has been

selected with the American mobster story Killing Them Softly, which stars Brad
Pitt , Ray Liotta and Ben Mendelsohn.

The drama, set in New Orleans, follows a professional enforcer (Pitt) who
investigates a heist during a mob-protected poker game. The impressive cast also
includes Sam Rockwell, Richard Jenkins, Sam Shepard and Australian Bella
Heathcote.

John Hillcoat, who left Australia after The Proposition to makeThe Road, will also
feature in the prestigous competition with Lawless, a Prohibition-era drama that
stars Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Guy Pearce.

Fellow Australian actors Mia Wasikowska and Jason Clarke also feature in the story
of two bootlegging brothers who take their moonshine operation into the big leagues.

Their films will premiere alongside new work from such well-known art-
house directors as David Cronenberg (Cosmopolis), Ken Loach (The Angels’ Share),
Michael Haneke (Love), Abbas Kairostami (Like Someone In Love), Walter Salles
(On The Road), Jacques Audiard (Rust and Bone) and Lee Daniels (The Paperboy).

French veteran Alain Resnais who is approaching 90, will also be part of the
competition with You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet.

Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom will open the 65th festival, which runs on the
French Riviera from May 16 to 27.

Festival president Gilles Jacob and artistic director Thierry Fremaux announced the
official selection at a press conference in Paris.

An Australian short film, director Michael Spiccia’s Yardbird, about a young girl who
takes on the local bullies who torment her father, has already been announced as
the country’s first selection in competition.

The festival will also pay homage to the late French director Claude Miller, who died
earlier this month, with a special screening of his last film, Therese Desqueyroux, on
closing night.

Screening out of competition will be another film from a filmmaking veteran,
Bernardo Bertolucci’s Me And You.

The Un Certain Regard section of the festival includes films from David Cronenberg’s
son Brandon (Antiviral) and former Sydney Film Festival competition winner Xavier
Dolan (Laurence Anyways).

The Cannes selection committee saw 1779 films from 26 countries this year.
Selections for Critics Week are still to be announced.

Garry Maddox – SMH – April 19, 2012