March 9, 2022
Well, that was fast. I mean it took two full years of a pandemic, but we went quickly from Omicron outbreaks to taking the masks off around the world. Not that there’s any science behind that move, other than polling. If anything, the one thing we’ve gotten wrong about the last two years is the importance of masks. From day one, we should have been wearing them, and we’d arguably have less Covid infections and deaths to this day if we had just focused on getting everyone to wear N95’s whenever they’re indoors. But people are tired of being careful, so we’re done.
But I’m not writing today about our mask removals in a literal sense, but the figurative one. Because now that they’re off, we can see who is grinning vs. grimacing. We get to see the real faces of a lot of folks, and many businesses, and boy what a crazy couple of weeks that has been.
I mean, look at Ukraine alone. We’ve seen who is a hero (Zelensky), who Putin really is, what brands care more about business than what’s right, who can really turn down Putin’s oil and who can’t and that American’s care more about the price of gas (over $4 a gallon) than overpriced, burnt coffee (Starbucks, $16.80/gallon).
Looking into the film world, the masks came off at the Academy, as they let it be known whom they care about and whom they don’t when it comes to the awards. Or Sundance, who have barely acknowledged the ongoing #JihadRehab debate, even with a new open letter from the community this past week (see below). Or we could look at Disney, whose mask-removal revealed a leader in Chapek who doesn’t care to stand up to Floridian politicians on the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation (but is swiftly changing his mind due to the backlash), and who is also caving on the whole family content and ad-free experience strategies (all in one week). Or we could look to Bob Bakish, who let it be not so subtly known that not having a clue what to do with Paramount, they are looking for a buyer. Or we can look to the many mergers/acquisitions and investments in the film space, showing who is ready to cash out before things hit the fan. This list could go on, but I think you get the point.
I suspect we’ll see more of the truth about what is and isn’t working coming from the film community as the masks continue to come off. In fact, I imagine these literal and figurative masks will be dropping left and right during a little event taking place in Austin that starts this week. But for now, the world has enough reality to face geopolitically, so I’m gonna just keep my mask on indoors with crowds and suggest you go and read the real news, not mine, for a bit because it may not matter what other masks drop in the film world if we don't solve bigger problems first.
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Film
Open Letter to the Sundance Institute: On Mar 3, a group of Muslim, Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian (MENASA) filmmakers addressed the Sundance Institute Leadership in a public letter regarding the recent programming of Jihad Rehab, a documentary that is considered ethically flawed and lacking critical context (which has been covered here a few times). The letter demands that Sundance evaluate the following questions: What is the curatorial vision of the Sundance Film Festival? Who does the Sundance Film Festival serve? What are the guiding values of the Sundance Institute? And to whom is the Institute accountable? I urge you to read the letter in full, as my summary below cannot fully capture the statement’s impact or nuance. The letter also provides readers an opportunity for learning about ethical filmmaking and more.
- By platforming Jihab Rehab, Sundance “(a) may have jeopardized the safety and security of the people in the film; (b) provided a platform for subpar journalistic ethics and standards; and (c) reproduced bias against Muslims”
- Over the last 20 years, Sundance programmed 76 films about Muslim people, only 25% of which were directed by Muslim or MENA filmmakers. Over the last 2 decades, Sundance’s documentary competition only featured 4 films about the Muslim experience in the U.S. Of those, 2 are about the War on Terror.
- Sundance has stayed silent and has not taken steps toward accountability and transparency. The authors of this letter are calling for Sundance Film Festival to publicly take accountability, re-define the festival curatorial process, institute mandatory anti-racist and anti-islamophobia training, share the demographics of all Festival screeners, reviewers and programmers annually, and publish data on all films programmed at Sundance about people that are Muslim, and/or people from the Middle East and North Africa (see letter for full list of demands and more context). (GSH)
A Streaming Plea: Stop Making TV Shows That Shouldn’t Be Full Shows: Richard Trenholm for C|Net is of the opinion that too many current TV shows are outstaying their welcome. They’re spun out of not enough story and shouldn’t last 8-10 episodes. “Stretching these stories into extended episodic form isn't driven by storytelling concerns but by the content-churning commercial needs of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus and all the other streaming services” you haven’t heard of, he explains. What’s more, in this age of entertainment “classic movies are increasingly seen as fodder to fill the streaming era’s insatiable desire for content.” His takeaway: “In our media-saturated culture, brevity is a virtue.” My opinion: bad storytelling is bad storytelling, and brevity may very well be a virtue in some cases. But I’m tired (and bored, paradoxically) of this fast-media culture. People my age (twenty-three) and younger can’t even sit still during a movie without pulling out their phones to check their socials or better yet, simultaneously play a mobile game. My attention span for entertainment has dramatically decreased these past few years which is sad.... But I guess that’s where we are. (GSH)
A24 Lands $225MM equity Investment: Deadline reports that A24 has taken a $225MM investment from Stripes (plural, not the tech company) for less than 10% of the company. Which gives it a crazy big evaluation, but is good for the founders and staff who retain a lot of ownership and control - more than they would have gotten from buyers. I expected a merger here, but this may be better for us film-goers.
Cool Job(S) Alert - Storyline - Storyline is seeking a program manager with a passion for stories, storytelling, and education. Storyline is a collaborative, artist-led organization. Our work is guided by a deep love and responsibility to values of equity and justice, and accountability to the communities in which we work. We’re looking for a leader to help create, run, and evaluate programming around Storyline’s projects, creative practice, community engagement, and related field building initiatives. In the first year, a large part of the role is helping to co-design, launch, and support day-to-day operation of Storyline’s apprenticeship program. Check out this link for complete details, plus salary info, and instructions on how to apply. Check out that same website for more info on that, and an apprenticeship program they're launching.
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Branded Content
Platforms are fighting for creators with cash. But it’s brands that are funding the content: How do creators find funding today? YouTube set aside $100 million for its YouTube Shorts Fund. Pinterest launched a Creators Rewards program and Snap rewards creators for top-performing videos. Meta put aside $1Billion and TikTok launched a $200 million creator fund mid 2020. The list goes on. But do these sources provide reliable sources of funding? The answer is no for the bulk of creators (give Sarah Roach’s article for Protocol a read for anecdotal evidence). It’s Branded Content/Partnerships that creators are turning to, though it’s not a perfect relationship: Often, creators don’t know how much to ask for/ don't know how much they’re worth, so end up getting underpaid. The consensus among creators: “Platforms should play a bigger role in helping creators make money, regardless of where the money’s coming from.” One creator believes that “as platforms like TikTok get more developed… there will be more solidified pricing of what brands should be paying…”. (GSH)
The metaverse: is it alive or is it dead?: The future of the metaverse is controversial for a number of reasons: the Virtual Reality (VR) hardware is expensive, the Augmented Reality (AR) is basically just selfie-filters at the moment, and the software looks like it came out of an early-2000’s video game. Meta lost 25% of its market value, there’s no “real” product yet and it’s hard to visualize or even talk about. But “most industry pros who have had some deeper experience with these immersive technologies agree that [these tools] are still very impressive opportunities for branded storytelling.” So, no, the metaverse is’t dead. It’s just in its infancy and is experiencing growing pains. The Drum’s Layne Harris believes the future of the metaverse lies in Mixed Reality (MR), and brands should pay attention: MR enables us to layer “digital content… seamlessly on top of the actual world that we physically experience [and] can enable consumers to engage with brands in ways we have never been able to do before”. The takeaway: The metaverse has “barely been born… [it’s] really just another corporate rebrand of our hyper-connected, digital life. Brands should be thinking about what ‘digital’ actually means in a world that has become almost entirely digital. Branded digital content now has the potential to be a commodity that has both value and permanence.” (GSH)
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Miscellany:
 Netflix acquires Next Games in Finland, publisher of ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Walking Dead’ games, for $72M.: Earlier last week Netflix announced it’d acquire Finland’s Next Game, the mobile game developer for the ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Walking Dead’ games for $72M. It’s no secret that Netflix is building out a portfolio of gaming content to grow (and retain) its subscriber base. Ingrid Lunden for TechCrunch explains that “when companies like Disney can continue to pull the rug from under Netflix by yanking away key video content to improve the selection on their own streaming video platforms, [pushing into gaming] is also one way for Netflix to fertilize its own walled garden.” To date, “Netflix has 14 mobile games and 18 interactive video options available now” (Anders Bylund, Motley Fool). And right now, its gaming collection looks like a mess, as Bylund puts it: Quality across games is uneven and selections are all over the place. “Apart from a few direct links to the Stranger Things phenomenon, you’ll find that most of the game titles have nothing to do with Netflix’s originals… [it’s just] not a cash-grabbing operation.” Bylund predicts that “in a couple years, we’ll probably hear that Netflix is separating the games from the video content, creating another subscription service… Netflix shares [will] fall….And then Netflix gets a second…revenue stream with its own goals and global-growth prospects, just like the video service did in 2012 and beyond.” (GSH)
GSH = Articles written by Sub-Genre's Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman, not Brian Newman (BN)
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