March 30, 2022
I taught a class on indie producing this past weekend at a NYC based University, and a mix of about 12 grad and undergrads took the course. I asked them how many of them planned to watch the Oscars, and the answer was – none of them. While they admitted to wanting to watch any of the films they’d missed so far, none of them had any interest in the awards themselves, and the majority said this wasn’t something new – they’ve never been interested in the ceremony.
But while this may prove the irrelevance of the Awards even to young cinephiles, it doesn’t make me worry for the future of cinema. Those students are still paying a university to learn how to make films, and they’re still watching them. I don’t blame them for skipping the Awards – truth is, I’ve always hated the Oscar ceremony myself, and have never been that big of a fan of the Academy in general. For most of my life, they’ve rarely honored what I thought were the best films of the year (or what my peers thought were the best, either). Lately, they’ve honored more of the truly great films, but the ceremony has never gotten more interesting alongside the better films being nominated. It’s the most boring show on Earth, really. Over the years, I increasingly know more and more people who are nominated for the awards, or who worked on these films in some capacity, and I am proud for them to be honored, and most years, I watch just to see whether they win and to hear their speeches. But this year, I couldn't be bothered.
I’ve always been (more than) a little angry that the Academy and its producers want to shorten the only part of the show that anyone I know of cares to see – the speeches from the winners, even those who made the short films few people saw, or who had Award-winning careers in parts of the biz no one else knows about. This year, I was even angrier that they relegated a good number of these to the pre-show, especially because I knew a couple of the nominated directors of shorts (including one who won, see his argument about this below) and it made me feel terrible for them. Can you imagine this happening during the one year you are so lucky as to be able to attend and possibly win?
That all being said, the ongoing debate about whether the Oscars are dead, and whether that means something deeper about film culture seems less relevant to me than the subject being debated. Who cares if the Oscars are dead to 99% of the world, because they really only matter to those being nominated, a few hangers-on, and the trades who need the advertising. Meaning, really, that the health of the movies themselves seems utterly divorced from the awards being debated and it has been for quite some time, maybe forever. People who care about all of the Spiderman movies that are never nominated will keep buying tickets to see them, as will those who prefer Drive My Car (I know no one outside of the industry who shares this preference, but hey…taste).
I’m already convinced that movies are becoming museum and festival pieces only, but none of that worry stems from the Academy or from anything that happened or didn’t on the show itself. It comes from the industry being self-absorbed instead of audience focused, from an entire industry missing the shift to participatory culture, from only just barely starting to represent the diversity of the world around it, from obsessing over cinemas vs. streaming instead of just getting people to watch films anywhere, instead of something else entirely. From many things that have nothing to do with the Oscars.
In fact, if we could excise that entire aspect of the industry, it would be a much nicer place to work. So much of the bad part of this business comes from and is encapsulated in the awards and everything on the road to them. I’d love to see a world where all of the money spent promoting these same films to Oscar voters was spent instead on gaining new audiences. Some of these films might start making actual money instead of losing it. It would be great if the money spent on the “FYC” ads went into consumer marketing instead, and all of the trades collapsed into one tidy publication that could focus on what matters, what’s really going on in the business and didn’t have to stay nice to keep access to the execs it covers and those who delegate their marketing spin spend. Wouldn't it be better if the news was dominated right now by the films themselves instead of things that happened on a show so few people watched. Sure, we’d have to replace it with some way to honor our peers and the best films – and make them relevant to the people who want to fund the next ones - but we could pick many ways to do that better than what we’ve got.
Luckily, the Academy seems to be doing its best to remove itself from the equation, so maybe that will become our reality sooner than anyone thinks.
NOTE: I will be going on vacation for the next two weeks, and there will not be a newsletter during that time.
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Film
 A Battle Cry For Short Docs: The Queen Of Basketball Director Ben Proudfoot Makes His Case For the Form: Ben Proudfoot, a friend of mine (BN), now an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, and brand-storyteller at Breakwater Studios, writes about the essentiality of the short documentary film after the Academy’s demotion of several Oscar categories from the live ceremony including the 3 short film awards. Note: he wrote this essay just before his short doc, The Queen of Basketball, won Best Short Documentary. He opens his essay by painting a picture and posing a question: “Imagine visiting a major art museum. You arrive at the information desk and ask for a primer on the collection. The small paintings, they explain, are available to view, for free, here in the lobby. Honestly, head upstairs. On the second floor, we have medium-sized art. And, for a premium ticket, you can view the BIG paintings in the 3rd-floor gallery – the feature presentation. Absurd, isn’t it? So why then, do we make these distinctions in cinema?” Key points he makes are as follows: (1) People assume shorts are feature docs without the budget. For him, it is his art form of choice; (2) The short doc is the most exciting corner of cinema, and it’s the future of cinema because it’s the most democratic form of cinema, with the lowest barrier of entry to finance, make, and watch. It’s also where you’ll find the highest ratio of investment to impact. (3) YouTube outpaces Netflix in hours watched by 5 times. Short docs are compatible on these free platforms. The internet and our phones will/already favor short form works. “It is a most-wise investment”, he concludes. Find the full essay on Short of the Week, and watch The Queen of Basketball FOR FREE on YouTube. (GSH)
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Branded Content
Why Epic Games is collaborating with Collective and the IPA to educate brands about Unreal Engine: Epic Games is partnering with a digital agency called Collective and the UK’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) to equip brands and agencies with the tools to work in Unreal Engine (a 3D creation tool historically used by gaming companies). Now, Unreal Engine is being used to create assets in sectors such as fashion, fitness, and more. It’s also a tool filmmakers are beginning to work with. With VR starting to dominate the scene, Brands are beginning to pay attention to Epic’s Unreal Engine. For instance, just last year, “Team Liquid promoted the launch of its LQD clothing line using a virtual space created in collaboration between Sleegers and in-house designers.” Fashion brands, too, are leading the charge — Balenciaga used Unreal to bring their design to Fortnite and Epic-sponsored virtual fashion shows are a thing now. The takeaway, as Digiday’s Alexander Lee so eloquently puts it: “Epic, Collective and the IPA’s push to educate brands about the advantages of Unreal Engine is an element of the game developer’s broader plan to create the metaverse using Unreal as a fundamental building block. As Unreal-powered virtual spaces become more common, it makes sense for companies to create their virtual products using the tool, allowing them to more easily become interoperable between different metaverse platforms.” (GSH)
How GoDaddy Turned a CSR Initiative into a Festival Film - I've been working with GoDaddy for several months, and on this particular project, so I am biased, but... I think their short film, Big Water Summer, directed by Sophie Harris, which just premiered at SXSW (in competition no less) is a great film, and this is a great initiative. The folks at BrandStorytelling interviewed Harris and GoDaddy's Director of Creative Production Ops Adam Palmer about this project, and it's worth a read, and you should check out the trailer, which is embedded in the article. It might also come to a festival near you soon. (BN)
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Miscellany:
 Peabodys Create New Awards Site with Digital and Interactive Storytelling Winners: The Peabody Awards has boldly recognized emerging forms of digital storytelling/media by adding 12 new awards for Digital and Interactive Storytelling, plus 4 more awards for pioneers in the field. The twist: This year’s winners aren’t selected from works just released this year — finalists stretch back to 2001. Winners will have worked in VR, AR, gaming, interactive documentary and more. Peabody Interactive Board chairwoman Diana Williams said that the winners will feel like a natural extension of Peabody’s history of awarding “visionaries who tell stories that illuminate the world around us and perhaps evoke societal change.” Give Eric Kohn’s IndieWire piece a read to learn about the award winners and check out their new website to learn more. (GSH)
Supreme Court Takes Up Major Warhol/Prince Fair-Use Case: This might get interesting. Fair use has always been a complicated part of copyright law- and one that many folks, especially artists, get wrong. One of the reasons it's so tough is that while there are guides to best practices in fair use (here's the best one for film), it really comes down to whether or not you get sued and what the court determines. Now, in a case that copyright folks have been watching for a while, the Supreme Court has taken up the case of whether or not Warhol infringed on the copyright of Lynn Goldsmith, a (somewhat less) famous artist who took the original photos which Warhol then transformed into his series of artworks on Prince. That word, transform, is central to the case - did Warhol transform the images, commenting on them and turning them into something new, or not? Earlier courts have disagreed, and what the Supreme's say will have big implications for how we judge fair use in the arts - including film. The NYT reports. (BN)
GSH = Articles written by Sub-Genre's Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman, not Brian Newman (BN)
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