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Things I’ve Actually Heard This Week:
We can safely shoot this film in the Spring of 2021
It’s going to be a golden era for documentaries now
There’s a huge demand for content, which will be great for indies
I’ve got more work than ever before
The film sales market is picking up, soon
You could get an operation in our movie theater and not get Covid
We’re lucky to have donors and members who won’t abandon us
Sponsors are sticking with us
We think our festival audience is now global
We’ll have a hybrid event in Q1 2021
And we have solid contingency plans
Our audience numbers actually went up, with a conservative multiplier of 1.5 viewers per film we hit a record
We’re sorry we can’t afford to pay any screening fees, but we will help build buzz for your film
Brands are spending again
We’re gonna tear down the system and just go to our audience
Who needs these SVOD platforms anyways?
The industry has woken up to these problems
Change is afoot
There will be a vaccine before long
The economy is picking up and will rebound in ‘21
It won’t be as bad as 1918
The election is over
The vote was clear and their legal cases are weak
The Republicans will accept reality soon
This is just pandering to his base
He has to leave by January 20
He’ll be in jail before the end of next year
He isn’t smart enough to manage a coup
He won’t get away with it
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Film
Producer's Sustainability Survey: Contribute 20 minutes (max) of your time to the survey. From their site: "Dear Producer is hoping to get a snapshot of what life is like for feature-length film producers working in both the fiction and documentary space. The goal is to gather data to benchmark the state of independent film producing in the United States and to use this data to advocate for better working conditions for producers. This survey is designed for fiction and documentary producers who reside in the United States and who have received the “Producer" or "Produced By:" credit on at least one feature-length film that was commercially distributed (available to rent or purchase by the general public, whether through theatrical, video-on-demand, or streaming) within the last 10 years." Click here for more info.
 VOD Clickstream Launches - Real Netflix Data - Stephen Follows launched his new project - VOD Clickstream - he and his team have aggregated data from millions of users to get independent, real data on what's being watched and by whom on Netflix. There are some limitations to the data, of course, and he explains it all at the link, but given that there's no real data out there, this is a great start, and he's already done some reports on what's being watched.
How to Shoot an Indie During a Pandemic: Dan Mirvish - a co-founder of Slamdance, producer & director, and friend - wrote a nice piece for Variety about his recent experience shooting a low-budget indie during the pandemic. There's been a few of these articles, but I like Dan's take because he shows what's possible and more difficult for the sub-$1-Million indie narrative feature, but also touches on mid-tier budgets as well. Bottom line - not easy, but not impossible, if you're careful and can add 20% to your budget.
Movie Theaters Struggle to Hold-on for a Vaccine and More Movies - a few articles hit about the troubles facing movie theaters. On the one hand, the news of a potential vaccine helped raise the stock prices of many businesses that rely on customers feeling safe indoors, and that was true for AMC and other theaters. As Variety reported, shares jumped over 50% for multiple chains. But that same article pointed out that time was running out, and the timetable for the vaccine to get to large numbers could push studios to delay films a bit longer. AMC announced it was expanding its program to let patrons rent out theaters for private group screenings (at decent prices). And Regal announced it was closing back down the many NY and CA theaters it had tried to open. They call this schizophrenic behavior, but its because we won't have real leadership on this virus until after the inauguration (or later, pending how Trump behaves). My bet is that we won't see movie theaters opening wide in the US before 2022, but I hope I'm wrong.
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Branded Content
Biden Won, Brands Should take Activism Seriously - my friend Adam Fetcher (who I worked with on some films for Patagonia) writes a great piece for FastCo on how brands can now double down on activism under a Biden administration. Where before they would always be seen in opposition to Trump, now they can stand for their values without being "too political." He argues for a much deeper engagement - walking the talk - and says "The “but politics” excuse doesn’t work anymore. Activism that’s focused and impact-driven is part of any successful business strategy. Your customers demand it. Your employees expect it. And your brand will be far stronger as a result."
What Happened at Great Big Story? I've been a big fan of the work of Great Big Story - the division of CNN - and Courageous, the CNN brand studio that makes a lot of the content on GBS. But CNN shut down Great Big Story recently, and it turns out it wasn't just the numbers, but also the confusion on those brands. Or as Digiday reports, "two very different companies" that had no leadership and a lot of behind the scenes issues.
Gucci Launches a Festival - Gucci announced GucciFest - where they will premiere episodic content based around fashion, including a series directed by Gus Van Sant (!). Pretty cool, and I'm sure we'll learn more about this soon. But I think this is the future of the fest space, not just for fashion, but as other brands become trusted curators for content, more will launch film and other cultural fests. Kudos to Gucci for being ahead of the curve. Via Deadline.
Unilever/Dove's DADS is on the Academy Qualifying List - still a long way to go in the Awards process, but kudos to Kelly Mullen and her team at Unilever, and Bryce Dallas Howard and the team at Imagine for getting this far with the great brand-sponsored doc - DADS. Link
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Miscellany:
New Research Shows Why Not to Start Strong on Crowdfunding: A new report in the WSJ (paywall), shows that contrary to conventional wisdom, it's probably not good to get a bunch of your friends and family to give early support to your crowdfunding campaign. Turns out, other people look at that and decide they don't need to give. The researchers started the study in China, but have now duplicated the findings in other countries, including the US, and a greater percentage of projects get more funding, from more people, when they don't start off too strong. So the lesson is- save your army for later in the campaign, or spread them over time.
Seriously though... I generally avoid politics here, but as you can see from above - in spite of my shared euphoria on Saturday (it was historic, and fun), my mood remains dark. That's because I equate the left's wishful thinking about our redemption with the same crazy thoughts coming from the Q-anons. If you follow one voice through this madness, let it be Sara Kenzdior, the very prescient author of Hiding in Plain Sight, and co-host of the Gaslit Nation podcast. She predicted everything we're going through back before 2016... really... and remains the smartest voice on what's happening next. I found her writing through Bob Lefsetz, who writes many posts a week, but he's also, always another great reality check.
Be safe, read up and get ready to be much more active. Maybe I'm wrong, but it never hurts to prepare for the worst and be surprised that it wasn't so bad after all. Hahaha....
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