Snapchat: live, stock and hype

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Michael Korican

Today, to millennials, many new media celebrities are bigger than old media celebrities.

So what do you do when you have over 2.5 million Youtube subscribers?

If you’re Andrea Russett you partner with Indigenous Media and make a horror feature over five days using Snapchat, in 10 second ‘broadcasts’.

The story concerns the hunted Sickhouse, its urban legends, Russett and her friends — invoking a nod to The Blair Witch Project, one of the first word-of-mouth found footage success stories and the most successful one by box office.

Then, in true Snapchat fashion, the clips started disappearing from view 24 hours after being posted.

Don’t dispair, though. The director’s cut will be available for everyone on Vimeo on June 2. You can pre-order now.

Why is ‘Canadian films on Canadian screens’ such a radical idea?

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Michael Korican

Thirty years ago, I organized two film screening series in Toronto at the Bloor CInema called Toronto Film Now and later Film Can.

What was my motivation? My thoughts at the time were:

“In a sense, it’s a radical thing to see Canadian films on a Canadian screen. So it has to been done slowly. But ideally we would have Canadian films on Canadian screens, and the people that are making these films would be able to work with larger budgets and do films that they’re interested in doing in Canada for Canadians.”

See Steve Grant interview me on Maclean-Hunter‘s Community Link cable TV show on February 25, 1986.

Are we better off today?

The Canadian film industry has always found it difficult to exhibit films in Canada. Even Telefilm has given up on shooting for 5% of the box office, though we now have an annual National Canadian Film Day.

My take: I wonder where we’ll be in thirty more years. Will we still be going to the movies? While the majority of tickets are purchased by heavy moviegoers, one third of Canadians just don’t go to the movies at all. Cinema attendance peaked in 2002 and is down almost 20% since then. By the way, that’s the date when approximately 10% of the world got online; today it’s more than half. Coincidence? I think not.

10 Things to Never Say to a Filmmaker

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Michael Korican

It’s an old post, but I recently stumbled upon The Blue Streak‘s 10 Things to Never Say to a Filmmaker.

Gwydhar Gebien lists and discusses:

Oh, you’re an independent filmmaker.

So what’s your favorite movie?

What do you mean you’ve never heard of (name of filmmaker)?

Can you really call yourself a filmmaker when you just shoot digitally?

Everyone is a filmmaker these days.

But what’s your real job?

You should start a YouTube channel!

Why not just make a video and post it online and make it go viral?

Hey my [kid/niece/nephew/neighbor] is a filmmaker…

So when are you going to Cannes/Sundance/Tribecca/SXSW?

My favourite is Number 4: can you be a filmmaker if you shoot digital? As if you have a choice.

My take: too funny! See also, 24 Of The Worst Things You Can Say To A Writer.

Is the Internet making it easier to tell stories? Or harder?

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Michael Korican

Scott Beggs of FilmSchoolRejects recently wrote an interesting piece about storytelling in our digital age.

In it he holds:

“Going behind the scenes has become the scene. Trailers have become the true first act of any movie. Casting announcements introduce us to characters now.”

Our digital age means almost all information is at hand, which implies, “We’re now fully an anti-shock culture.”

He goes on to discuss Batman v Superman and — spoiler alert — the Man of Steel’s demise. Apparently director Christopher Nolan wanted to hold on the casket shot and then cut to the credits, without any dirt floating up, the idea being to leave the audience thinking he’s gone, bit the dirt, so to speak. (Disclosure — I have not seen this film.)

Scott then points out that actor Henry Cavill has been announced for The Justice League (2017) — thereby resurrecting the Last Son of Krypton.

My take: I think this is can only be true. The sheer amount of information and the myriad ways we have available to access it mean we can’t help but be exposed to official and fan-provided media around any project. In the past, only big companies could feed us a steady diet of advertising and PR — now we gorge non-stop at the Information Super-Highway All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. See also, Scott’s post on Every Movie is a TV Show is a Book is a Broadway Play is a Video Game. More and more, a Producer’s job is to manage IP rights and not necessarily just to produce a feature or a TV show.

Script analysis proves women are underrepresented

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Michael Korican

Hanah Anderson and Matt Daniels of Polygraph recently analyzed over 2,000 screenplays to research gender trends in Hollywood movies.

They state:

“We compiled the number of words spoken by male and female characters across roughly 2,000 films, arguably the largest undertaking of script analysis, ever.”

Their conclusion:

“Across thousands of films in our dataset, it was hard to find a subset that didn’t over-index male. Even romantic comedies have dialogue that is, on average, 58% male.”

Other takeaways:

Only 22% of the films featured female leads.
38% of dialogue spoken by women is by women 22-31 years old.
39% of dialogue spoken by men is by men 42-65 years old.

My take: kudos to the team for doing this analysis — it confirms what we already knew. I particularly like their interactive charts! For more data on Hollywood, see this.

Avi Delivers!

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Michael Korican

Within the next week, Avi Federgreen and IndieCan will unspool five new Canadian feature films in theatres in Toronto, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Regina, Halifax and Moncton.

The films are:

They are some of the results of Federgreen’s IndieCan10K project. Along with executive producers in each province, Avi mentored emerging filmmakers as they created their first features — as long as they kept the budgets under $10,000.

As quoted on First Weekend Club, Federgreen says:

“I believe initiatives like INDIECAN10K are imperative to the success and survival of the Canadian film industry, which is facing increasingly difficult parameters for young filmmakers. We need to encourage emerging filmmakers in Canada to get out there and make their first feature, and we need to show them they can make a great film for a very low budget. The filmmakers that participated in the INDIECAN10K initiative are all amazing, passionate and creative people who deserved a chance to make their first feature and I think they all deserve all the success in the world not only for their INDIECAN10K films but their next films moving forward. I am super proud of all of them!”

My take: Telefilm take note! I love your microbudget initiative, but I firmly believe $100K is too much for first-time feature filmmakers. Ingrid Veninger ($1K) and Avi Federgreen ($10K) prove it. My modest suggestion: reserve the $100K money for second-time feature filmmakers. I guarantee the results will warrant it — let emerging filmmakers scrape up just enough cash to make their first features and, more importantly, make all their mistakes making their first features. Their second features (if they survive to do it again) are where you want to invest.

Get a job and then give your films away

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Michael Korican

Following up on job strategies to support your independent filmmaking habit from last week, Christian Stella writes in Filmmaker Magazine:

“I feel it is best to branch out. Hedge your bets with the stability of a career that may not be glitzy but is less cutthroat than film.”

For instance, he’s a successful food photographer and cookbook author.

This freelance career allows him the freedom to invest time into his craft. Plus, he’s able to free up his schedule for future productions.

“A flexible career outside of film may be the best foundation to assure that your films can ever get made. Most people can scrape together enough time, money, and favors to make their first film, but you’ll need stability to make the second, third, and so on.”

Stella is one half of a filmmaking duo. He and Jeremy Gardner have made two films: The Battery and Tex Montana Will Survive!. Profiting only a pittance on their first movie, they decided to try something different with their latest project.

Rather than stretch the economic life of the movie out over many years, they decided to sell it only once. On Kickstarter. For $50,000. The plan was to raise the money and then release the film for free, to the world, under Creative Commons.

“This campaign is in part an effort to address the countless messages we received from amazing film fans across the globe, who were understandably frustrated with how long it took for our previous film, The Battery, to be made available in their countries. It is also a reaction, to a very sobering—and demoralizing—reality we were made painfully aware of by the end of The Battery’s incredible journey: It is incredibly difficult to make a living as an independent filmmaker. A dramatic influx of films on the market—coupled with the rise of peer-to-peer sharing through torrent sites—has resulted in a drastic decrease in compensation for filmmakers across the board. Minimum Guarantees (MGs) are small and residuals trickle in over the course of years.”

Did they make it?

Yes! 759 backers pledged $53,889 — around $60 each (disregarding the top half dozen backers.) Watch the comedy here.

My take: I love this strategy! You make a film. You give it a realistic price. Your fans support you. You give the film to the world. This totally cuts out the friction between the creator and the audience. Gone are the middlemen and the market. (But remember to reserve the intellectual rights so you can protect your brand and do the remake. Just ask George Romero.)

Swanberg at SXSW

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Michael Korican

At his recent SXSW Keynote, mumblecore alumnus Joe Swanberg related his approach to making money making independent movies. Summarized in forty words:

Share information.
Be prolific.
Capitalize on festival buzz with day and date VOD releases.
Own as much of your films as possible.
Invest in your own projects.
Sometimes no budget is better than some budget.
Happiness is money too.

Regarding budgets, Joe explains:

“If you have ‘some money’, everybody is going to want some of that ‘some money.’ If you have ‘no money’, everybody knows it — and then they’re just there to work. In a best case scenario — you sell a movie and then you’re able to pay people afterwards better than you could’ve paid them if you had ‘some money.'”

Here’s what he says about taking that industry job that kills your soul:

“It’s often just not worth the money to take a shitty job on something you hate. Nobody likes a bad movie. I don’t know any scenario where a filmmaker hates the film they’re making and have that movie turn out any good. You may think that you’re taking a paycheck or making some money, but in fact you’re making the next person who wants to invest in your work less likely to do it.”

More coverage at Indiewire, No Film School and The Guardian.

By the way, Netflix has just placed an order with Swanberg for an 8-episode comedy series called Easy.

My take: I wholeheartedly agree with Joe’s thoughts on budgets. As soon as you have some real money, it’s never enough. Shoestring budgets force you to be creative and pay for critical items only (and food).

The disconnect between Hollywood prizes and profits

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Michael Korican

There seems to be a disconnect between Hollywood’s fascination with comic book superheroes, their international box office performance, and the Oscars.

Over two dozen superhero movies will be released between now and 2020. (See the list at the end of this post.)

At the Oscars, although dystopian sci-fi ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ scooped six statues, almost all the awards went to ‘smaller’ films: ‘Spotlight’ won Best Picture and ‘The Revenant’ scored Best Director, Actor and Cinematography.

Consulting Box Office Mojo‘s 2015 international rankings, we see ‘The Revenant’ is in 16th position and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ is in 20th. Superhero flicks ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ in 6th place and ‘Ant-Man’ in 13th have made more money.

For 2016, ‘Deadpool‘ tops this year’s take so far. It’s currently the 10th most successful comic book adaptation, and still climbing!

See how lucrative franchises and brands are. The 65 Marvel and DC Comics movies have made over $11 billion at the international box office to date.

My take: I don’t quite understand the fascination with fantasy films. Is it simply that reality is too depressing and people want escape? Or, is it just age at work — so many more young viewers go to the movies and they prefer action pictures? Or, is the advanced average age of the Academy voters revealing their preference for dramas?

The coming comic book movies and their release dates:

‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ March 25, 2016
‘Captain America: Civil War’ May 6, 2016
‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ May 27, 2016
‘Suicide Squad’ August 5, 2016
‘Doctor Strange’ November 4, 2016
‘Untitled LEGO Batman Movie’ February 20, 2017
‘Untitled Wolverine Movie’ March 3, 2017
‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ May 5, 2017
‘Wonder Woman’ June 23, 2017
‘Untitled Spider-Man Reboot’ July 7, 2017
‘Untitled Fox/Marvel Film’ October 6, 2017
‘Thor: Ragnarok’ November 3, 2017
‘Untitled Fox/Marvel Film’ January 12, 2018
‘Justice League Part One’ November 17, 2017
‘Black Panther’ February 16, 2018
‘The Flash’ March 16, 2018
‘Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1’ May 4, 2018
‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ July 6, 2018
‘Untitled Fox/Marvel Film’ July 13, 2018
‘Animated Spider-Man Film’ July 20, 2018
‘Aquaman’ July 27, 2018
‘Captain Marvel’ March 8, 2019
‘Shazam’ April 5, 2019
‘Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2’ May 3, 2019
‘Justice League Part Two’ June 14, 2019
‘Inhumans’ July 12, 2019
‘Cyborg’ April 3, 2020
‘Green Lantern Corps.’ June 19, 2020
‘Gambit’ TBD

Seth Godin’s metric for work that matters

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Michael Korican

Contently‘s Editor in Chief Joe Lazauskas recently interviewed Seth Godin for The Content Strategist.

Seth writes about change. In the interview, he talks about trust and content that you actually want to read, among other things. For me the best section, the one that resonates most with me, is this one:

“Q: What metrics do you think best measures the fact that you’re doing work that matters?

A: I think the only one that I care about is: Will people miss you if you are gone?”

My take: I think this is a great approach to almost anything: Do work that leaves a lasting impression.

Michael Korican Thinks

Thoughts on Independent Filmmaking and the Emerging Economic System

Category Archives: The Mediascape