Tag Archives: film

YouTube poised to upend old film models

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Nora the piano-playing cat is no longer the main attraction as other programming comes on YouTube.

Since watching YouTube’s Entertainment Matters keynote at the Consumer
Electronics Show in January, I’ve spent more and more time pondering YouTube.
And YouTube has been giving me more and more to ponder, as the site is moving
away from Nora the Piano Cat and distraught Britney Spears fans to more ambitious
content.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that YouTube is getting ready to
burn down the filmed entertainment business as we know it. In fact, the match has
already been struck. We just haven’t felt the heat yet.

There’s been a lot of talk about targeted advertising and how that builds revenue
streams from YouTube, which reassures content producers and owners that there
will be a way to make money off Web video even as audiences splinter to
infinitessimal shards. That’s fine, but I think that talk assumes we’ll be watching the
same things, just watching them through YouTube instead of cable or broadcast.

But how people watch shapes what they watch. As people shift to watching YouTube
and other Web video services, longform video could become a niche product, just as
opera and classical music became niche products in a market dominated by pop
songs.

Continue reading YouTube poised to upend old film models →

Margin Call opens in Australia

Film, Latest News, Screenwriting, ,

The feature film Margin Call is interesting for a number of reasons. It was written over four days by writer-director J.C. Chandor, who before that had made a number of shorts films and documentaries. It was shot in 17 days, and apparently the screenplay immediately began to attract ‘name’ actors as it began circulating LA.

Craig Matheison has the details:

SOMETIMES a young filmmaker only has to look to his family and upbringing for
compelling material. For his outstanding debut feature, Margin Call, American
writer-director J. C. Chandor tellingly explores the Wall Street life that his father
spent 35 years amidst working for the investment bank Merrill Lynch.

”It feels like an honest representation of that world,” says the 37-year-old Chandor,
who has only recently returned with his young family to their home in Rhode Island
after spending the awards season in Los Angeles following his Academy Awards
nomination for best original screenplay.

He wrote the moral thriller in just four days in 2009, but with its allusive dialogue,
twisted institutional allegiance and breached ethics, Margin Call does for Tom
Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe what David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross did for
shady salesmen: it creates a self-contained milieu where the characters are
compelled to reveal their true nature.

Continue reading Margin Call opens in Australia →

John Carter tanks – bad news for Disney?

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The failure of the sci-fi movie ‘John Carter’ opens up new questions about the studio’s weak pipeline and overall movie strategy, according to Kim Masters writing in the Hollywood Reporter.

Now that John Carter has landed with a resounding thud <at the US domestic box
office> , Hollywood is trying to decipher whether Disney will conclude that it needs
to change the guard or at least tweak its strategy when it comes to homegrown live-
action films.

Since chairman Rich Ross, 50, arrived in October 2009 and set out to remake the
film studio, competitors and others have been watching to see whether the former
cable television executive could find his legs in the movie business. Some in the
industry — pointing to marketing missteps and a sputtering pipeline — had turned
thumbs down even before Carter failed, bringing an expected write-down of more than $150 million. Others believe that Ross, perceived as a favorite of Disney chief
executive Robert Iger, will escape blame and be judged instead on next year’s slate.

Continue reading John Carter tanks – bad news for Disney? →

Britain enters a golden era of the short film

Directing, Film, Latest News, Screenwriting,

According to Sarah Morrison of The Independent, Britain is entering a golden era of the short film. Apparently the medium has moved out of art houses and into the mainstream as its popularity soars.

Charlie Chaplin built a career on them, and brands are now using them to sell their
latest products. The short film, once a slightly marginal staple of art houses and film
buffs, is experiencing a golden era in Britain and is reportedly reaching wider
audiences than ever before.

Advances in film-making technology and the growth of the internet are behind the
rise, experts say, but their popularity is down to more than digital progress. The
short film, with its capacity to convey ideas concisely, is capturing the mood of an
increasingly time-pressed, information-hungry generation.

Briony Hanson, director of film at the British Council, said we are at a “watershed
moment” when it comes to the proliferation of “perfect little vessels that tell a story
in their own right”. “We are looking at a golden era in Britain,” she said. “Just over
20 per cent of shorts in the total Sundance [Film Festival] selection were UK-made in
2012, while last year, the figure was 6 per cent.”

Continue reading Britain enters a golden era of the short film →

Tropfest 2012 winners

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Wild weather can’t dampen spirits as winner adds some fizz to
Tropfest

Garry Maddox – SMH – February 20, 2012

Winners are grinners … Alethea Jones (with some other dude in the background)

IN THE race between the films and an approaching thunderstorm, the films won –
but only just – at the 20th Tropfest in the Domain last night.

In heavy rain and intermittent lightning, a judging panel that included Cate
Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Toni Colette, Asher Keddie and John
Polson gave the top prize at the country’s biggest short film festival to Alethea Jones
forLemonade Stand, a comedy about a man and his grandfather whose efforts to sell
lemonade bring a clash with an officious council officer.

She collected her prize in a near-deserted Domain, without a working microphone,
amid a few hundred hardy souls sheltering in the VIP tent.

Jones said she was ”absolutely thrilled” and ready to take the next step in her
filmmaking career. Asked whether she planned to step up from shorts to a feature
film, Jones said: ”I’ve got five ready to go.” She is the third woman to win in the past
five years, winning two weeks after signing up for the dole.

In a year in which the 700-plus entries were required to include a ”lightbulb” as the
signature item, Jones’s prizes include a trip to Los Angeles to meet film industry
executives, a $6000 camera and $10,000 cash.

Continue reading Tropfest 2012 winners →