| Musings on indie film, media, branded content and related items from Sub-Genre Founder, Brian Newman. |
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Just over 25 years ago, AOL and Time Warner merged in a deal that was valued at over $180 Billion by some estimates. It’s hard to remember this now, but back then, smart people already knew the deal was doomed. Not just from the things we talk about now – the culture clash, the dot-com bubble bursting and so on, but because everyone knew that AOL’s days were numbered. The writing was on the wall; it wasn’t the cool kid anymore, and you could literally feel the internet changing (away from their walled garden) daily. It was not about a business moving into the future, but about two has-beens trying to stay relevant in a new digital world. Sure enough, that deal fell apart, with AT&T finally acquiring WarnerMedia in 2018 for $85 billion, only to get rid of it in 2022 for about $43 billion to Discovery. As everyone knows, it now looks like Paramount will take over the combined Warner/Discovery for $110 billion, including $54 billion in debt. Half of my friends – the ones in Hollywood, are aghast but somehow glad that it’s not Netflix taking over. The other half of my friends, the ones in the real world, are barely paying attention. Sure, they might be anti-mergers and anti-monopoly, but to them it looks like what I once called Big Swinging Dixxs fighting over the last of a crumbling empire. The biggest fear most of my Hollywood friends had about Netflix was that they might not honor theatrical releases. Ok… great argument (not). Their fear about Ellison seems more about his father’s right-wing politics (the son doesn’t seem smart enough to have politics), with some fearing the inevitable job cuts – they already admit they need $6 billion in savings. My guess is they need about, oh, $75+ billion – the amount of debt analysts say is actually at hand here. History tells us, this company is only getting smaller. As will their ambitions. As I argued in that piece linked above, there won’t be much room for prestige at a place that needs hits. But meanwhile, and more importantly, culture has moved on to other things. And that’s true before you factor in the upstart AI companies that will make identical “content” for pennies on the dollar, which will be about all we can spend on said content to entertain our jobless lives that are just around the bend. But we’re more likely to get that entertainment in the near future from a studio coming out of the creator-sphere right now than from the merged ParaWarnerDiscoBros, and most of the world is already watching what’s on YouTube, TikTok and so forth anyway. Sure, Warner has given us amazing films like One Battle After Another and Sinners this year, but most of the world seems happy watching something else, or just those film’s clips, on their phones instead. Part of me would be worried about their ownership of CNN and CBS and what it means for news and democracy, but then… who do you know under the age of 60 who has watched either one of those unless forced to at an airport gate? My only major concern is probably what might happen to TCM, but there again, I’m probably in a minority. Look, I get it – it is big news, and while the fight against this merger may be hopeless under this administration, I am joining it via my membership in the Future Film Coalition. The amount of value that is likely to be destroyed is almost unthinkable. That all of this is to solve someone’s daddy issues makes it harder to swallow, too. There’s a very real chance that we’ll get less great films like Sinners because a conglomerate like the new ParaWarners won’t be in the business of supporting someone like Ryan Coogler when he’s making Fruitvale Station. We do need to fight the merger, but we also need something more. Because at the same time, I am so over it already, and find myself much more interested in building the next big thing, instead of worrying about (big, fire-breathing) dinosaurs fighting past battles. We need a lot of new ideas. I’ve heard a few lately, but only a very few that feel like they might scale. I didn’t get to attend the recent Slamdance event hosted by Ted Hope. None of the ideas presented struck me as particularly ground-breaking, but The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield reported on it here, and it does appear there was an energy of a bit of a revolution going on, so perhaps that will lead to some new movements. I’m also liking the energy that’s coming from Ben Odell and team’s Open Gardens, which is regularly reporting on new business models, new creative ventures, and just generally good, new ideas. Their most recent post on RockWater has a good template for how to build a modern media company today. My hope is that all of these disparate writings and sub-movements might coalesce into some new infrastructure, built outside of the current system. It feels more like we’re all taking baby steps, when we need leaps (me included), but at least we’re getting started - about six years late (March, 2020 was a good time to start), but hey, progress is slow. |
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| Film
Attention Non-Fiction Filmmakers: Yahoo Media Group and The Nonfiction Hotlist are partnering to promote and distribute 20 short documentary films curated from open call submissions. The Nonfiction Hotlist will oversee the entire curatorial process with a goal of expanding reach, recognition, and fair compensation for documentary filmmakers, and selected films will be distributed across yahoosports.tv, Yahoo Sports Network, and Yahoo Finance FAST channels. Submissions are due March 6 (tomorrow), and be sure to check out the eligibility requirements and all other details here. (GSH) |
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The Podcast for Unrealized Films: Films Not Made is a new video podcast hosted by Avi Zev Weider and producer Amy Hobby. Each episode, filmmakers share the stories of projects that never got made — then AI tools are used to create the visual materials (posters, stills, trailers) for these unrealized films. The show features AI "executive" characters who provide live feedback during episodes. “It's earnest without being precious, funny without being flippant - and a glimpse at what happens when filmmakers stop fighting AI and start playing with it.” (GSH) BN: I’ve known Amy and Avi forever, and can’t wait to see where this show takes us - it has a lot of promise. Read more about it in this recent Deadline article as well, and Ted Hope published a post from them recently, too. This is one to follow. (BN)
We’re Living in a Verhoeven Movie, right?!: T.M. Brown writes a nice piece for the NYT on the fact that everyone - left and right - thinks we’re living in a Verhoeven movie now, even if half of them don’t seem to understand what that means. My only quibble with the article is that he implies Verhoeven was being a bit of a futurist back in the day - but he was describing our world (via film) quite accurately for the 80s and 90s, even if it feels more prescient now. (BN)
Filmmakers Need a Rent/Buy Button on YouTube: This open-letter to YouTube has been making the rounds lately, but ICYMI- Jonah Feingold has a simple proposal - let filmmakers put a transaction button on their films, all by themselves. He notes that there are 3 kinds of distribution - the big guys (A24), the middle guys (Kino Lorber) and DIY, and that even to get in the existing YouTube transactional store, you need to go through a middle-man. Remove the barriers, become the major home for indies. Not a bad idea. (BN)
The Power Of Asking In Filmmaking: A recent Stephen Follows Substack entry tries to get to the bottom of why filmmakers are so afraid to ask their audience for guidance and advice. Barriers, he notes, include: Receiving feedback can feel like judgement, asking for feedback halfway through a project can lead to unforeseen expenses, many creators/projects don’t define their core audience early enough to know who to ask, and the system over-rewards confidence (so they don’t ask anyone). Check out his piece for tips and best practices for engaging your audience in the early stages. A few that stood out to me were: (1) Invite people to watch your work in progress. Watch the audience, not the film. Where do they shift in their seats? When do they check their phones? Where does laughter ripple naturally and where does it die? (2) Your first audience isn’t the public, it’s the gatekeepers, and ignoring them doesn’t make them disappear. Asking them questions like “What films like mine have sold recently?” or “At this budget level, what cast would move the needle?” is important. (3) Ask yourself first, and honestly define your goal. “Problems arise when filmmakers say they are making an intimate, uncompromising character study, but secretly hope for wide theatrical success. Or when they claim commercial ambition but refuse to consider what audiences in that genre expect.”(GSH)
Streaming Giants To Be Regulated in U.K: The U.K gov’t announced that streaming services with more than 500,000 U.K. users (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, ITV’s ITVX and Channel 4’s services) will be regulated by U.K. media regulator Ofcom “designed to protect audiences and improve accessibility.” What this means for streamers: (1) They will need to adhere to a new VOD standards code, ensuring that news is reported accurately and impartially. (2) Audiences can complain to Ofcom if they see something concerning and “take action, where they consider there has been a breach of the code.” (3) Streamers will need to ensure that at least 80 percent of their total catalogue is subtitled, 10 percent is audio-described, and 5 percent is signed. The U.K. government called its move an attempt to “create a more level regulatory playing field and ensure that U.K. audiences – particularly children and parents – can be confident that protections from harmful material are in place, whether they tune in via traditional channels or a mainstream on-demand service.” Georg Szalai for The Hollywood Reporter has the news. (GSH)
Check out The Backlight - My friend Maida Lynn just launched a new newsletter, and she did not even ask me to publicize it, which makes her a better friend than most. But with an opening paragraph like this one, who can resist? From post one: “Those of us making and watching movies in the United States do so in a unique economic context. I think there’s a strong case to be made that our version of capitalism inhabits the extreme edge of shareholder profit maximization, monopolization, rampant resource consolidation, and financialization of just about every aspect of life. In the film world, this is manifested by tech companies treating entertainment divisions as loss-leaders, the collapse of the theatrical business, the few remaining studios milking tired IP to pump out one derivative movie after another to please their private equity overlords, an oligarchic entanglement of deep-pocketed executives with the current presidential administration – and anyone not working in those spheres scrambling to find a business model that works.” Read on for more. (BN)
AI Film Fest To Keep Utah Relevant: Lance Soffe, director of targeted industries for the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development states that “Utah is at an important crossroads in our creative economy…. With the Sundance Film Festival departing, the governor and state leadership worked to identify a meaningful solution that keeps Utah relevant in the film space. That’s why a $2 million grant for a new company, Nuovo Film Festival, was approved during a Jan. 8 meeting of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development in Utah. Nuovo is described as a “film ecosystem” that will include a filmmaking lab designed to use “technology and AI” including the creation of an AI soundstage. The board will be comprised of former MGM Television chief Mark Burnett; advertising mogul Gordon Bowen, the founder of McGarryBowen and CCO of Dentsu Aegis Network; Geralyn Dreyfous, co-founder of documentary funding group Impact Partners; and Jim Swartz, the founder of Accel Venture Capital. Nuovo Film Fest has five key “pillars.” Here’re 3 that stood out: (1) “Create and establish a filmmaking lab to be held in Utah to teach new filmmakers how to tell their story using technology and AI.” (2) “Enhance the state’s incentive programs to bring filmmakers to Utah. (3) Democratize filmmaking and give the power back to the filmmakers rather than to the studios. (4) allow filmmakers to come here and use the local workforce instead of bringing them here.” William Earl for Variety brings us the news. (GSH) And anyone who knows Sundance, knows that the team behind this includes some serious folks - who can make things happen. This should be exciting to watch. (BN) |
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| Brand Funded Entertainment
Dentsu X Iconic Arts Expand Into Branded Entertainment: Per their news release Dentsu Entertainment has partnered with entertainment and technology company Iconic Arts to create original IP for brand clients, with a focus on anime and serialized entertainment. “The partnership is rooted in a shared view that brands are increasingly moving beyond short-term, campaign-based marketing toward long-term entertainment IP and transmedia franchise development,” Dentsu writes. The deal follows Dentsu’s previous partnerships with GeekOut and Kodansha Creators’ Lab to create new IP, content and media opportunities around Roblox. Dentsu’s positioning indicates that it “understands both brand objectives and the cultural expectations of modern audiences (Steven Haddadian, founder and CEO of Iconic Arts).” Aaron Baar for Marketing Dive has the news. (GSH)
A&E Launches StoryGround: Another outlet has launched a brand division, this time A&E, who will work with brands, sponsors/advertisers and creators. While A&E is no longer known for high-end content (IMHO), it is making things that connect to a ton of audiences, and they’ve built out a strong presence off-TV, with over half their viewing on non-linear platforms (according to the article), and a big presence on FAST (they don’t have their own SVOD). Truth be told, I’ve met with the folks there, and the opportunities for brands are pretty stellar. Read all about it in Deadline. (BN) |
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| Misc.The Narrative Prison of the Hero’s Journey: I spend way too much of my time explaining to people that most of the major streamers are looking for one thing - the hero’s journey. And that’s because they believe that’s what audiences want, too. But Eliane Glaser argues in Aeon that all of Hollywood has become a bit of a narrative prison, in complete service of the three act structure and the hero’s journey to society’s overall detriment. As Glaser states, “You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that the lack of agency we feel in a world dominated by autocrats and digital capitalism is connected to the rise of story as a form.” Glaser goes on to investigate alternatives (mainly Ursula k Le Guin), and asks whether an alternative is even possible. There’s a whole history of completely non-narrative films that the author overlooked (see Brakhage, Et al.), but even they (ok, esp. he) could be seen as falling into the hero camp. Anyway, definitely a good long-read. (BN)
What the National Parks Service Has Been Removing: This is pretty terrifying. Someone found a giant database of everything the Parks Service has been told to remove as part of Trump’s executive order to sanitize history. This blog post from Wes Siler has the bigger details, and a link to the database. A lot of crazy here, including things like removing a portrait of Emmett Till and his mother from The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. (!) (BN)
The Fitbit for Farts: That’s right, folks. a researcher at UMD was trying to make a sensor that would measure our gut bacteria and it wasn’t working, so he said: ““I bet if I fart on it, it will work.” He took the expensive, bulky sensor home and gave it a try. “The signal was enormous, and the rest is history,” he says. Couple that one with quotes like this: “We desperately need to understand what the baseline of human flatulence patterns are,” says Brantley Hall…“It’s 2026 and we don’t know how many times the average American is farting every day.” and Christopher Mims of the WSJ might have written the best non-A-head article of the year (and that’s a gifted link). (BN)
(GSH) = articles written by Sub-Genre’s Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman, not (BN) Brian Newman. |
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