May 11, 2022
People say to buy the dip. The trouble being, no one knows when we’re near the bottom of the trough; and so far, everyone’s guess has been wrong, and the markets keep falling. While price gouging keeps rising (aka inflation). We’re in for a roller coaster ride, but it appears most of the film biz will barely notice until the end of Summer when they come down from the highs it brings – Cannes, Blockbuster season, overbooked talent/crews making bank during the most competitive market we’ve seen for each in decades, and similar items, like getting drunk on Rosé and sunburned all season long. I’m betting on a hard collective hangover come September, which often happens anyways, when people realize the party’s over.
I wrote last week about shoring up the foundations, but that was only because I was avoiding writing about the cracks. If I were to do so, where would I begin? The Netflix tumble? It’s embrace of interruptive ad models? The overvalued companies going SPAC or raising insane valuations that won’t last? The death of the equity model? The fact that sales agents are still having a hard time selling even good feature docs? The impact of inflation on film fests and nonprofits? The effect of the Sundance cuts, and how those might trickle down to others?
Or should one step back and look at the bigger picture? Crazy. Land. That’s where we are. Josh Hawley is proposing to take away Disney’s copyright protections, which they don’t deserve but he’s doing it for the wrong (and unconstitutional reasons). This coupled with Florida’s attack on the Mouse show the gloves are off when it comes to the Right attacking the cultural industries. Expect more, and this will have a much bigger impact as it spreads to the rest of us than anyone is yet acknowledging.
But wait, that’s not far enough back. From 30,000 feet, you must add the looming threat of Trump’s resurrection (yes, they’ll call it that), the attack on abortion rights, and similar domestic threats. Widen the scope, and you have the ongoing war in Ukraine, which somehow gets worse by the day and threatens to become WWIII yet falls even further down within my social feed as people switch their attention to Musk, or Netflix or some other some such. Or the elections in the Philippines, or… well, I could go on, but I’d end up somewhere with the impending doom from climate change, even if we make it through these other items. And where would that leave us, but with a set of unwatchable movies.
There’s no time for all that negative nonsense. We have movies and shows to make, SPACS to form, festivals to attend, and gravy trains to ride. The getting’s good, for a little while longer (inequality be damned, I guess). I’m enjoying it too. But come September, maybe a little later, it will be time to buy the dip, if you’ve saved any cash under the mattress.
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Film
Rotterdam Film Fest Cans Many Programmers, and Indiewire Asks Why We Don't Support Programmers More: The Rotterdam Film Fest recently fired a bunch of its senior and salaried programmers. The fest is undergoing some major budget cuts, but the move is distressing, because 1) it's a festival built on very unique curation, and 2) it brings up larger issues in the field around how programmers are and aren't valued. Eric Kohn at Indiewire has a great article on the current situation and the bigger problems. This one could be a multi-part investigation/exploration because we've seen similar problems arise at other festivals, and it's an odd development at a time when people argue that curation is one of the most important functions of festivals, and for the future of content broadly. (BN)
More on the MoviePass Re-Launch and Founder Stacy Spikes: I've written before about the re-launch of MoviePass, which has been re-acquired by the original founder, Stacy Spikes (he build the good parts, and didn't kill it). Now, Time magazine has an in-depth interview with him and many others from the past of the company, and the field, and it's a pretty good read. Spikes covers everything from his background to what he sees in the future, and if nothing else, you'll learn two things - how much he loves movies, which is actually rare among many tech oriented movie folks, and how hard it can be for Black founders to raise funds, which I knew but I didn't realize it was still only 1.7% of all VC funding in 2021! I continue to wish him well, because it might just help all of us "save the movies" as they say. (BN)
Marvel's use of QR Codes in Moon Knight: Marvel placed QR codes in somewhat naturally occurring spaces in Moon Knight, which lead to a special site where fans can access a digital copy of the original comic book upon which the series is based. It's a pretty cool use of QR codes, and while it wasn't exactly participatory in the bigger sense, it does show how you can engage super fans with extra content tied to a film or series. Variety reports (and has the links) Now if they'd only worked a bit more on the story itself... (BN)
How to Fix Netflix: Buried at the end of a decent article on the demise of Netflix's Tudum and the firing of those writers, The Verge has a great parting quote from an unnamed former writer with the best summary of the problems at Netflix that I've read yet: "One of Tudum’s former writers has their own prescription for how Netflix can stop the losses. “Stop canceling shows that people like, stop green-lighting so many ridiculous shows that nobody’s gonna watch, and stop raising the price,” they say. “That’s what’s making people get rid of their subscriptions. And they’re doing everything else but that.”" Amen. (BN)
Studios Wake up to TikTok: I've written before that not enough Studios and distributors were using TikTok appropriately for their fan engagement and marketing, so its only fair that I point out that has changed recently. Variety has a pretty good run-down on what Studios are doing, and while it's not in the article, I've seen more from A24 and the better distributors as well. It's about time (and I am behind on noting the changes). (BN)
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Miscellany:
The Black Seed, serialized fiction from Audrey Ewell: Audrey Ewell is a filmmaker, who made the films Until the Light Takes Us, 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film and the sci-fi short Memory Box with her partner Aaron Aites, who passed away in 2016. She has also been a film publicist and supporter of the indie fllm scene, but she's recently moved back into creating new, interesting work with a serialized fiction piece on Patreon called The Black Seed. Scott Macaulay had a great interview with her at Filmmaker Magazine which tipped me off to the series, which offers the first "chapter" for free, and you can subscribe for a pretty cheap price. I think the Filmmaker Mag piece sums it up better than I can, so I recommend starting there to learn more and to consider subscribing. (BN)
"Dead Painting" of Marilyn Sells for $195MM: The art market hit its peak, just before a big market correction hits us, with Gagosian (on behalf of someone) spent a record at Christie's for "Shot Blue Sage Marilyn" a 1964 Warhol. But the NYT's Blake Gopnik explains that the '64 Marilyns were remakes of much darker screen prints from 1962, made to capitalize on the new love of pop art, and Warhol and his associated called them "dead paintings". It's a fascinating story that's worth a read. (BN)
GSH = Articles written by Sub-Genre's Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman, not Brian Newman (BN)
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