• Hopes for Google Glass

  • Posted on 4th Mar
  • Category:

  I don’t want to check email, see who is calling me or take a photo. These are the things I can’t wait to do with Google Glass:

  

  1. Remove all advertising from the world and replace it with art. No more billboards messing up my view, I will just turn them off and see only what I want to see.

  2. See people’s names when I run into them at a party. I know, it’s boring, but hey, how many times do you forget someone you know you should know?

  3. See calorie counts for items on the menu. Crowd-Sourced, I hope. Or even other augmented info, such as recommendations on each menu item from friends I trust.

  4. Watch a movie anywhere. Yeah, this one’s easy, but man would it beat those airplane screens, or trying to watch a film on my laptop when the seat in front of me goes back. Or heck, watching “Idiocracy” would be better than listening to the idiots at any meeting I’ve been to lately.

  5. Replace people’s faces with those of people I like better. Don’t like someone? Turn them into your favorite celebrity and that conversation gets much better.

  6. Jog past a stream while running down Broadway. Or generally change the world around me into a different view, whenever I want. Make Broadway look like a forest, and all the people are (moving) trees. Much more relaxing to walk behind a slow tree than a bumbling tourist.

  7. Record the cops behaving badly. How many times do I see a cop in NYC almost run over a pedestrian while speeding into HQ downtown? How many false arrests could be captured? This would be great.

  8. Record a movie with actors in a “no-cameras” location. This will be done within the first year of Glass, I promise. A movie with actors shot somewhere they shouldn’t be, like in the Louvre or the White House.

  9. See my pilot’s view while flying. I get nervous on planes, and it might help to see that my pilot sees nothing but clear skies.

  10. Mimic synesthesia. Music can only get better.

  Yes, I’ve patented all of these.

• Shored Up in the NYT

  • Posted on 5th Feb
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  A film I’m executive producer on, Shored Up by Ben Kalina, was featured in this great article in the NYT on Sunday about documentaries being made in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. 

  The opening sentence:

  For three and a half years Ben Kalina struggled to find just the right elements and imagery that would make his documentary “Shored Up,” a convincing statement about rising seas, beach erosion, the fragility of barrier islands and the wisdom of replenishing oceanfront property.

  “Then” he said, “Sandy hit.”

  Check out the full article to read more, and watch our trailer at the website for the film. 

• Five Great Things this Week

  • Posted on 17th Dec
  • Category:

  In the spirit of O’Reilly Radar’s “Four Short Links” and in response to being accused of being too negative all the time, here’s a new and possibly ongoing feature of the blog – five great things I’ve stumbled upon online this week.

  1. The IFP’s New YouTube Channel:

  I’ve been wanting some film org to do this for sooo long, and I know how hard it actually is, having run one myself. Finally, the IFP has a digital channel, and it’s not just long boring panel talks, but short, edited content that is relevant for anyone interested in the film biz. Kudos to IFP.

  2. The Possible Future of the Apple TV

  Jeremy (founder of Brightcove) Allaire’s insightful post about the possible future look, feel and operation of the AppleTv is a pretty good read, and keeps it pretty simple. Highly recommended reading about the future of entertainment, really, and as an IOS app developer, I really enjoyed thinking about what this might mean for future apps. Hat tip to Scott Macauley at Filmmaker Mag for this link.

  3. The Web We Lost by Anil Dash

  A great article on how the web has changed. Dispiriting, but not mean spirited, and a much smarter take on these changes than my post last week. Important take-away – we’ll fix all this stuff, but we need to think hard about what we want from the web, and we need to know “what good ideas were simply ahead of their time, and what opportunities have been lost in the current generation of dominant social networks.”

  4. Ann Hamilton: The Event of a Thread at the Park Ave Armory

  This isn’t a web link, but you can check it out online, and if you are in NYC or will be here in the next month, you should go. More than once. A great art installation that is fun for adults and kids – giant swings that operate a large curtain in the middle of the armory. Two adults can ride each swing, or three (or more?) kids. So cool in so many ways, I can’t describe. Check it out (image above from the Armory’s site). The exhibit is up til January 5th, and lines are sure to only get longer, but weren’t bad this week.

  5. Bread and Friday’s Sandy Hook Tragedy Remembrance Poem

  I’m not one to get into the whole post-traumatic experience debate. Not that I don’t have strong views on it, but nothing new to add. But I found that one of my favorite bloggers had a great idea, or rather his wife did – that each of us pick a name of one of the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy and remember it always, to remind us of what needs to change. It’s a simple, beautiful and powerful idea.

• The Internet of Suck

  • Posted on 6th Dec
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  Are humans predisposed to ruin everything we touch? Give us the world, we’ll deforest and butcher it. Give us sliced bread and we’ll make Spam for it. Give us the coffee bean, we’ll burn it on every corner. Give us the fucking moon (and give us laser-beams) and Steve Koonin will propose burning a Coca Cola logo on it with a laser. Give us the power to create the internet and we’ll figure out a way to make it into television. Or basic cable.

  Me, myself and others have been warning about this for ages, but time has come to pass. We’ve created the internet of suck, and while we can still see vestiges of what it could have been, every day brings a new development taking us one step closer to jointly creating a colossal failure. Aliens will come to earth, study our history and say “wow, they almost got there, and then they created YouTube Premium Channels on XBox instead. Within months, their civilization perished.”

  No, they’ll actually say it all ended just a few years into our most magnificent creation, when we all got AOL accounts. Yes, before Facebook walled us in our gardens, Steve Case had a grand vision for the internet, and it was AOL merged with Time Warner. You’ve got mail and you’ve got movies. Yahoo, what more could I possibly want from the internet? While not a single dime of actual money was produced by all this nonsense, it did raise a lot of investment money, and advertisers came and went dropping coin as they walked by, which looked like profits and got Steve and his buddies crazy rich. Rich enough that even when their vision failed so massively that even today everyone laughs at what a bad idea it was, they could still keep funding that vision by investing in the next round of suck-making.

  Now, we’ve progressed a decade later and everyone is crazy hoping that Facebook can buy Netflix and turn the internet into a television programmed by your friends. The fact that anyone who has ever investigated what their friends really like to watch has died immediately from embarrassment (for them, from being their friends…) is lost on these folks. Nope, these folks keep seeking the holy grail – on demand programming, fed by what my friends recommend, tailored to my likes and dislikes and all served up with some advertising that is oh-so-relevant to me that I won’t even want to change the channel, or swipe the screen. From Skyfall in Scotland to Omega Watch online I go, because that’s what I and you have always wanted to do  – shop smarter. Watch smarter. Consume smarter. Suck smarter.

  Yes, I know, we have our Wikipedia and our Internet Archive, our memes and our rediscoveries of some awesome stuff. Those will likely stick around – humans like charity projects and we’re pretty good at making sure we stay amused, so there will always be room for a little quirkiness on the net. But remember, we had both Robin Byrd and Big Bird on regular old television, so that’s nothing new.

  Yes, too, we now have our connected 3D printers and the internet of things to glom on to, and they hold lots of potential. But they also bring real threats to what the internet could become. You think the piracy wars have been bad for internet innovation and freedom? Imagine what will happen when that same internet doesn’t just run your refrigerator but also a 747 capable of falling from the sky, and that 3D printer can copy and print an artificial nuclear bomb, not just the Beatles. We’ll need to save the world from ourselves, and that means more regulation, more calls for walled gardens and more suck.

  I was promised virtual reality and unfettered democracy, and all I seem to be getting is HBO Go for PS3. This is the future?

  Yes, yes it is. If I am lucky, they’ll get bought by Facebook, who will also buy Netflix and GetGlue. Before long, my fridge will be stocked with FreshDirect groceries and Seamless web takeout I never even had to order, because I drooled on my iPad while watching their food in some movie. I won’t have to worry about viruses in my NeTcafe Coffee pot, and the deep packet inspection that ensured that also makes sure I don’t’ pirate any movies from those poor Hollywood moguls. My Ikea closet will be stocked with Etsy sweaters made by seamstresses I learned about from their TedX talk and if I ever get a little sick of all this cool new future stuff, I’ll wander to the local bar, where my bartender will have my favorite drink waiting for me, sans ordering, thanks to Tappr, knowing from my Netflix history that I like shaken Martinis, not stirred.

• Less is More, or the Old Gray Lady post continued

  • Posted on 14th Nov
  • Category:

  In my last post, I argued that the New York Times has become too crowded with film reviews for it to be as helpful as it once was in discovering films. Lots of people argued against this premise, with most of the arguments boiling down to: it’s the best thing we’ve got, it remains influential, my film (or other great ones) won’t get discovered without it and if there’s too many reviews for your taste, just don’t read them, you pinhead.

  I don’t disagree with this generally, but as I said, this would be all fine and dandy if it was working well for everyone, but it actually isn’t working. If you think this system works, stop reading now, as we’ll never agree. If, however, we can agree there is a discovery problem, even if we disagree that there are too many reviews, might we agree that even the current Times system could be improved upon? Perhaps further, might we agree that even if you love the status quo, that it might not hurt to think about other ways to make sure your film gets discovered? Or to help people discover great films? That was the point of the post. I threw out a few thoughts on this, but let me be more specific.

  First, I still think and am willing to bet that the Times will actually change its policy soon. We’ll see if I’m right or not. What I’d rather see is a more massive change. As if I haven’t been blasphemous enough yet, I think that the Times needs to not just review less films, but actually have less reviewers. Gasp! Adding extra reviews by assigning critics to them who have no film credentials does no one a favor (yes, this is being done right now). Good review or none should be the mantra, and that doesn’t mean positive reviews, just well written ones. Yes, the Times could just hire more great critics to handle the reviews, but curation is what matters in an age of superabundance. The Times should curate its critics and they should curate their reviews (and this means not every Hollywood movie needs a review, either, especially since these films have long been critic-proof). I don’t think this will happen, so here’s some other ideas.

  Second, the Times needs to modernize, at least online, and think about the role of a newspaper today in discovery and remembrance of films. They’ve done some amazing work in other sections of the online Times, and need to put that focus to films as well (and the other arts too). While this can’t be done in print, there’s no reason the Times can’t offer smart tools to sort, select, mark for later reading and otherwise make their reviews and film articles more useful. As someone suggested in the comments to my last post, why not be able to sort by critic, sort by rating, or by genre. Heck, this would even allow you to keep all the reviews online, if done right. I could sort out everything by the hacks and just read the three good critics they have. I’d take it a step further, and add in tools that allow me to connect the review more directly to my viewing experience. I should be able to easily link to and buy the films, be reminded when they come to my town, or on VOD. I should be able to cross-reference reviews and find more data on earlier films by the same director and/or cast, and see those earlier Times reviews. Heck, if I’m reading the story on my iPad, I should be able to bring all of these titles up immediately and start watching them. This is all kinda the basic starting premise of what we were supposed to be able to do on the web by now, but the experience is still lagging.

  But the Times isn’t the only possible solution to the discovery problem. We need more discovery tools. Luckily, IndieWire recently launched its CriticWire feature, smartly aggregating the disparate critical voices into one location online. This is a great first step, and I’m anxious to see how it gets better over time (they too will have to figure out how to make the good stand out in an aggregation of plenty). We need to see more experiments and tools like these to discover films. Look at the music world, for example, I use at least a dozen different music discovery tools and services, and rarely rely on the Times to discover music anymore at all (but I still do, from time to time). There are currently very few similar options for film, but that will change soon. As they say, there’s an app for that, and I’m building one too (see Flicklist, but that’s truly not the point of this post).

  We also need to take a hard look at the entire theatrical and nontheatrical release strategy for films. This is not an anti-theater screed, but rather an acknowledgement, as Ira Deutchman pointed out in the comments to my post, that the week-long release business model doesn’t make sense for many arthouse and indie films. The festival model works better, and in time, I think curated strands and series of films will become a close second to this. No one has cracked this nut yet, however, and it’s not from lack of trying. Tribeca, Sundance and a few others have tried variations on using festival buzz to release films, and few of their efforts have succeeded. That said, a festival brings greater audiences and usually better reviews (often contextualized in relation to the other programming) to many of these films, and there remains lots of room for experimentation here.

  Most importantly, we also need more direct connections to our audience. This is nothing new, it is the mantra of the new digital age, but people forget it all the time. New tools and business models will come around, but none of these tools will be able to help each and every filmmaker connect to their audience. That’s going to remain the prerogative of smart filmmakers (and cast, and their helpers), and they need to realize what good festival programmers, theater owners, and presenters have long known – building an audience is hard work, it takes time, but once you’ve built it, it is review proof and will stick with you over a long period of time. That’s why I’m such a fan of new, often younger (and usually Asian) filmmakers like Freddie Wong. He’s built an audience of millions – more people see his shorts than watch episodes of Mad Men, with no NYT support or marketing spend. Yes, of course, not all artists make content that fits this model, but all of them can now build more direct connections to their fans, increase that fan base over time and use it to their success.

  Of course, artists aren’t always good at being marketers, and no matter how many of them succeed by connecting directly to their fans, a large number of important artists won’t ever embrace this thinking. It’s not always a fit, or sometimes is just too much work. This to me is a great opportunity for the nonprofit sector. For a long time, the sector has focused on problems like access, education, production, funding, and more recently, distribution. These are all good things, and I’m not arguing that any of them should stop doing this, but we’re solving a lot of those problems. The problem that needs to be solved today is building connections to the audience, helping with outreach and new (and old) modes of marketing to reach them.

  All of this, however, takes an entirely new way of thinking about things. It seems subtle at first, but its an important change – everything we do needs to be audience centric. Superabundance is good for audiences, good for consumers. A plethora of choice is not a bad thing. But a multitude of good content offerings makes it harder to keep track of what you care about, or to discover the gold in the shit pile. We need to help audiences find the gold. This isn’t elitist – I’m not defining what that gold is, and what it isn’t. By focusing on helping audiences to find the best stuff to watch, the best artists to support and then going on to find more great stuff, we’ll end up helping all filmmakers. But to get to that place, we need to focus not on the needs of the industry, but on the needs of the audience. That means quality, curation and weeding out, not showing more. Sorry folks, but luckily if its done right, and we get more tools, it helps the industry (and your film) as well.

  Quality matters and less is more. Duh, right? But again, we see this concept skipped left and right. In a world of superabundance, we need real curation. Thus far, the collective internet seems to think that means just throwing shit together, but curation has always been about less, not more. It impacts every part of the film world. Film festivals need to select less. Every time we trudge off to Sundance, it’s amazing to think of all the films that didn’t get in, and everyone in the business knows of lots of great films that got rejected. But we get there, and nearly ¼ of the films are crap. We need less. Theaters might make money in the short term by four-walling anyone who walks in with a wallet, but this is not a long-term strategy for the business. Grant makers need to think about giving less, but larger, rewards. Perhaps contrary to received wisdom there isn’t too little money out there, it’s just spread too thin across too much junk. The Times needs to cover less, and so do other curatorial outlets. Less can also literally mean more – with CriticWire, for example, I can quickly skim less of the critics review to make a decision, but have the option to delve in for more. So perhaps its not always less, but sometimes just smarter ways of helping people cull through the crap to find the good stuff. In the end, this will help everyone.

  But less is more doesn’t apply to the filmmakers. Like it or not, filmmakers are artists and they will create. Some less than others, but trying to get them to produce less, or trying to get less of them to produce just isn’t happening. And it shouldn’t. Artists should make great art against all the odds. Yes, they should do some things to connect directly to their audiences, build relationships with curators who will get them discovered, and what not, but they should just keep making too much stuff.

  It’s the rest of us that need to narrow our focus.

• The Old Gray Lady

  • Posted on 12th Nov
  • Category:

  This week, the New York Times ran sixteen film reviews and one film festival review (mentioning many more films) in just the Thursday and Friday print editions alone. I have no idea how many more ran online, but it’s safe to say there were a few more (there were at least two film festivals taking place this week), and this doesn’t take into account the numerous additional articles and interviews about the films and their stars, or even the little blurbs on what’s new on DVD. That’s a lot of film reading.

  This was actually a respite from the flood of film reviews the Times has run in the past few weeks, which have averaged somewhere around twenty-seven films per week. This is a lot to digest for even the most committed cinephile (you may end up committed if you read them all), and it has reached a crisis point where one may throw up their arms and ask, “how am I to sort through all these reviews and pick a few good ones to read, much less watch the films they’re about?”

  First world problems indeed, especially in light of the actual floods that hit the NY region recently, but here we find ourselves – metaphorical flood gates to keep out the rising tide of films and their reviews will likely be as difficult to successfully implement as those we need to protect our homes. 

  How do we find ourselves here? It’s pretty simple actually. Thanks to cheap production costs and everyone being a filmmaker now, we live in a world of super-abundance. Add to this the rise of digital platforms, the decline of movie-theater-going, the shift to on-demand viewing and the inability of Motorola and TimeComWarnerCast to develop a user-interface that helps people find all of this content without spending hours reciting their ABCs (and now 123’s), and you get the cluster-fuck that is the current state of film viewing in the US.

  Here’s how it plays out. Let’s say you’ve just made a great little indie film. It won critical acclaim, played Sundance and your 500 Facebook friends love it. Unfortunately, some 40,000 other people did the same thing this year and got some variation of the same results. Good film distributors, unlike film students, don’t grow on trees, so you find yourself facing DIY distribution. Thankfully, there’s a consultant for that (hey, guess what, I’m making fun of myself here too, wow!). They will point out that some movie about Crips and Bloods made tons of money on cable VOD, so all you need to do is call up an aggregator, who will put your film on Comcast and iTunes, and all will be well. That aggregator then informs you, that yes, millions can be made, but you are one of 40,000 films this year, some of them by Studios who hired famous stars, and TimeComWarnerCast has figured out that one way to plug a finger in this breaking-dam is to require that you play in some theaters. This might get you some reviews and raise the profile of your film, garner some word of mouth and at minimum will keep you away from their ABC search box for awhile. 

  So you find yourself in the ironic position of trying to get your film into a place no one wants to go to see it, so that you might get it onto a platform where people will never find it.

  Luckily, there’s someone who can help you do that for a price. So, you hire a booker that gets your film into theaters. Or perhaps not, you might just shell out $15-20K to the theater owner directly, as now there are plenty of theaters that will show your film, quality and demand be-damned, and play it. Of course, you won’t be the only one doing this. If it happens to be August, the deadest theater-going month of the year (beach or movie…hmmm), you get to wrestle for space in that theater with thirty some-odd docs that have paid a nonprofit to play them all back to back, usually in empty theaters, just so they qualify for an award that they won’t get, and that is irrelevant to them anyway.

  Why is everyone doing this? 

  Enter the New York Times, who in addressing the myriad changes wrought by digital technology hasn’t thought to change one of its analogue policies, which states that the Old Gray Lady will review any film which plays in New York City for one week in a movie theater. This has been a great, egalitarian policy for years, and many would argue it remains the case, but it has contributed greatly to the deluge of film reviews we see each week. 

  You see, that policy isn’t secret, not at all. Pretty much everyone knows it, and when people know a not-so-secret, powerful rule, they tend to exploit it. As more and more films get made and find their way to iTunes and Cable, everyone has decided that the way to stand out from the crowd is to take advantage of this policy and get reviewed by the Times. Smart, affluent customers are the audience for both indie films and the Times, the thinking goes. A review there, even a bad one, is more likely to get seen than an advertisement.

  This might have been true once. We could debate whether a review by a hack in a paper read by just a few million people really helps, but this post is already long. If it was ever true, however, it isn’t any longer. When sorting the reviews in the Times starts to take longer than flicking through the alphabet on the cable box, people start to give up. Their attention wanes and fewer reviews get read. Not that it matters. Theater going isn’t going up, mind you, so all of these reviews and all of these films showing in theaters aren’t leading to any increase in audience.

  After a period of time, the smart people in the room start to notice it isn’t working anymore. Talk to any person “in the business” these days, and the talk comes around to this problem. Cable companies, distributors, aggregators, DIY experts, and heck even the NYT are all talking about how to fix the problem (Rumor has it that the NYT is considering changes to its review policy).

  Now, as I’ve argued before, bemoaning this increase in films won’t make any difference. When it comes to stopping the tide of creative content on offer, well, wish in one hand, shit in the other, see what comes first…as they say. But let’s face the facts. Fact: This ain’t working anymore. Fact: Audiences aren’t increasing, and they aren’t being served. Fact: you can make a good living as a theater owner by filling your theater with four-walled crap, but it’s a losing game long term when people realize there’s nothing worth seeing at your theater. Fact: Filmmakers are doing this for one of two bad reasons – vanity or to game the system. Fact: If the NYT is supposed to be an arbiter of taste, a trusted source for quality, curated information, then this system is undermining the little value it has left. No one is winning here.

  I can’t see a world in which the New York Times doesn’t change its policy about how they select films to review. Contrary to popular opinion, they aren’t run by dinosaurs or idiots, so they see the problem, and likely know that their value resides in becoming even more of a curator of the best content (while remaining eclectic in the decision as to what defines best). At the end of the day, the Times has to care about its customer, and the customer didn’t create this problem, it just wants a solution.

  Second, smart filmmakers and their distributors need to face the facts, whether the Times forces their hand or not. In a world of superabundance, it becomes increasingly difficult to get reviewed, much less get seen (and both have always been hard). I always say that digital technology’s greatest impact lies in how it demolishes many canards that have held sway over the business. Perhaps the one saying that a NYT review is gold becomes less true when said reviews are less precious. Perhaps we need to envision a world, which perhaps already exists, where the NYT review isn’t even necessary. Look, I read the Times (in print) daily, I don’t think it isn’t valuable, but it has always only been one small piece of the puzzle I put together in my head when making a movie-going decision. We have lots of tools to influence this process and should focus more on those.

• Stop Making Docs

  • Posted on 26th Sep
  • Category:

  In light of the panel I’m speaking on at Camden/Points North, I thought I’d link back to two posts I made on docs awhile back. In the first, I begged for people to stop making feature docs. Yes, really.

  To summarize, this is what I said people should do instead: “Make me a really interesting website, that happens to have maybe 20 minutes total of video. In 3 minute segments. Let me trade it, use it, share it, on my phone. Let it actually have an impact instead of just stroking your and your funder’s egos. Let it be interesting and aware of today’s realities. Let it be useful. Let it never play a film festival. Ever.”

  Obviously, I was going a bit overboard, but hey, it would be an interesting new route, and no one is doing it yet. Second, and more to the point of our panel on short docs, here’s what I had to say on Etsy back in 2010: “It’s a crime that none of the major documentary festivals have bothered to show the Etsy short docs.”…and I continued:

  “Guess what? There’s a few changes afoot in the world: Shorter content; the web; commercially supported films (this is a huge phenomenon barely acknowledged in the fest panel world); an interest in the DIY/Maker community; a slowly changing of forms due to technology…and a few other things. All of them are perfectly encapsulated in the Etsy docs. They raise ethical and other issues for the field – no more so than some other practices, but a good conversation could be had, for example, on the ethics of selling the products of the artisan you are documenting – and this alone makes it worthy of inclusion in a doc line-up. Plus, they work. Short, sweet…and money making. They may fail with this experiment, but mark my words, some version of this is the future of the doc, and we should be part of the conversation – instead of excluding them from the party, they should be welcomed.”

  I agree with myself. Glad to see we can have this conversation with Etsy and others this weekend. I’m looking forward to the dialogue.

• Camden IFF/Points North Panels and Pitch

  • Posted on 24th Sep
  • Category:

  i’m headed this coming weekend to the Camden International Film Fest and Points North Documentary Film Forum. I’ve been hearing great things about both events, but haven’t been able to attend. If you’ll be around for either, look me up at one of the events. I’m moderating one panel, speaking on another and attending the Pitch Session. I’ll be wearing my “Something to Talk About” Brainstorm Media/DirecTV hat, looking for doc projects, while at the festival. Here’s more on the events I’m involved with:

  Short Docs on the Web: Fri Sept 28: Representatives from New York Times, Vimeo and Etsy.com explore how documentary filmmakers are using web platforms to discover new creative opportunities and build new audiences outside of traditional distribution channels. Participants: Blake Whitman (Vimeo), Jason Spingarn-Kopf (NY Times Op-Docs), Tara Young (Etsy.com) and me as moderator.

  Broadcast/Forecast: Fri Sept 28: Commissioning editors and programmers from major networks engage in a discussion about the shifting landscape of documentary broadcast, including how networks are transitioning into a multiplatform world of VOD, online streaming and other forms of distribution, and what it all means for independent filmmakers who want to show their work on television. Participants: Simon Kilmurry (POV), Winona Meringolo (Discovery ID) and Andrea Meditch (Back Allie Films) and me, representing Brainstorm/DirecTV and Something to Talk About.

  The Points North Pitch: Sat, Sept 29: Six filmmakers pitch their works-in-progress to an international panel of nine funders, broadcasters and producers. Each pitch lasts 7 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of critical feedback. This is an invaluable chance to see first-hand how these industry representatives evaluate projects. One filmmaker will be given the “Best Pitch” award, including a $1000 cash prize from Documentary Educational Resources and a $3000 tuition scholarship to the Maine Media Workshops.  

  I hope to see/meet some of you there.

• Eye on the Arts and Muse

  • Posted on 17th Sep
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  Later this week, Muse Film & Television presents a 30th Anniversary tribute to FIFA: The Montreal International Festival of Films on Art. Muse has been presenting this festival in NYC for many years, and I’m happy to say that after bouncing around to multiple venues, they are now at the Film Society of Lincoln Center from Sept 19-23rd. 

  Muse is one of the very few organizations that produces and distributes films about art and artists. Full disclosure – I am on the board of directors. They do a great job, and this is one of their signature programs. They have about ten great new documentaries on artists, many of which are playing in NYC for the first time. Check out the line-up here.

  This is a great little festival, and I hope to see you there.

• Something to Talk About and Toronto

  • Posted on 7th Sep
  • Category:

  I’m headed to the Toronto Film Festival, where I’ll be busy working as a consultant to Brainstorm Media doing acquisitions for a new series they are launching with the Audience Network on DirecTV, called Something to Talk About. As some of you know, I’ve been consulting on this project for many months, scouting films and helping with the entire series. We’re paying (yes, dollars) to acquire social issue documentaries that help spark discussion on important topics. The films get a tv broadcast, theatrical release and DVD and digital sales. I’m involved because I feel that the terms are very filmmaker friendly, and I’m hoping this new model will help bring some important docs to a broader audience. 

  Our first two films are Battle for Brooklyn by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley and Big Boys Gone Bananas by Fredrik Gertten. Both will be premiering this Fall after successful festival runs. We’ll be announcing more films soon.

  If you’ve got a film that’s premiering at Toronto, or perhaps one that isn’t ready to premiere yet, but you think it might fit – contact me, I’m easy to get hold of.

  Here’s the press release on this new series:

  DIRECTV’s Audience Network, known for its daring entertainment programming, will take viewers a step further into the realm of the deeply provocative with the premiere ofSomething to Talk About, a series of socially and culturally relevant documentaries presented in association with Brainstorm Media, beginning in October exclusively on DIRECTV. In certain cities, the films will be screened in theaters starting in late September and, in select locations, will include live discussions following the screenings.

  The twelve-part series will kick-off with the broadcast premiere of BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN, on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT which will be followed by BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS on Saturday, Dec. 1 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. From award-winning and acclaimed writers and directors, each documentary will include a special, hosted introduction and will conclude with a filmmaker interview that provides an update on the current state of the documentary issue. The films will also be available on DIRECTV on Demand, DIRECTV Everywhere, on home video and via electronic sell-thru.

  “At Audience Network, we have had success in providing our customers with critically acclaimed, award-winning dramas and comedies,” said Patty Ishimoto, VP Entertainment, G.M. of Audience Network & n3D. “With Something to Talk About, we are going even further with diverse and thought-provoking documentaries that will generate a spark among our viewers and engage them in a dialogue about the relevant, impactful events and topics these films address.”

  Meyer Shwarzstein, president of Brainstorm Media stated, “Our team has been perfecting this idea for the past few years and we are thrilled that DIRECTV has come on board. With their commitment to documentaries, their sophisticated audience and their willingness to support the filmmakers and movies, we couldn’t be happier.”

  BATTLE for BROOKLYN is an intensely intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by owners and residents facing condemnation of their property to make way for the controversial Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build sixteen skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets in the heart of Brooklyn. Shot over seven years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, BATTLE for BROOKLYN is an epic tale of how far people will go to fight for what they believe in. The film is a character-driven verite that also addresses the broader social, economic, and political ramifications of condemnation and urban planning through interactions with individuals from all sides of the issue. The film is set to open theatrically on September 25th just before the arena, Barclay’s Center, opens on September 28th. The film, which highlights speeches by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, architect Frank Gehry, Jay Z, Bruce Ratner, Steve Buscemi and others, is a primer on grassroots activism that will inspire people to look deeper into the stories that affect their lives.

  In 2009, Swedish documentary filmmaker Fredrik Gertten’s film BANANAS*! – recounting the lawsuit that twelve Nicaraguan plantation workers successfully brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company – was selected for competition by the Los Angeles Film Festival. Just before the world premiere of the film, Gertten received word that the festival had decided to remove BANANAS!* from competition. The resultant legal and public relations battle with Dole Food Company is the focus of BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!*, a classic David vs Goliath story – but it is more about freedom of speech and what happens to a documentary filmmaker when he goes up against a large corporation such as Dole Foods and how far Dole will go to shift the focus off of them and onto the filmmaker. Media spin, PR scare tactics, dirty tricks, lawsuits, and corporate bullying come into play to try and destroy the filmmaker. But, it is the people who ultimately prevail, thus creating a cautionary tale and a real life-lesson learning experience.

  For more information on the live screenings, please consult http://somethingtotalkabout.us/.

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