You Stilll Can Support Open Indie on Kickstarter
Open Indie raised their $10,000 but they are still raising money. There are still 10 Filmmaker slots open for filmmakers who want to have their films available through the Open Indie system and receive 1 hour of free consultation from Arin Crumley.
Jon Reiss on IIFF Panel Thurs Oct 29th and Think Outside the Box Office Book Signing
For those LA area residents dying to get one of the preview copies of the book, I’m doing a book signing after my appearance on an IIFF Financing Town Hall meeting at Bergamont Station in Santa Monica. You can sign up by clicking here. Here are the details:
Dear Friends,
The Los Angeles chapter of the Institute for Int’l Film Financing (IIFF) continues its acclaimed gatherings at the junction of film & finance with a highly topical FILM FINANCING TOWNHALL in Santa Monica. Don’t miss this powerful learning & networking opportunity. Join us on Thursday (10/29) evening at Bergamot Station!
For complete event details, please visit –
http://gla.filmfinancing.org/102909w
This uniquely valuable meeting features a WORLD-CLASS LINEUP of authoritative speakers, including:
1) RANDY MENDELSOHN, ESQ., President/CEO at financing boutique Atomic Finance & Capital; Founder/Principal at law firm with emphasis on movie & TV finance, production, distribution & talent agreements; clients incl. financiers, distributors, sales agents, management co’s & filmmakers; arranges financing for movie & TV production, acquisition, distribution & marketing; represented banks/funds/investors providing funding for 100+ movies; etc.
2) JOHN CONES, ESQ., leading securities/entertainment attorney & author of “43 Ways to Finance Your Feature Film”; advises film, video, TV & theater producers about investor financing of entertainment projects & business start-ups; helped prepare business plans or required securities documents for 250+ such offerings for feature film development deals, production & completion funds, along with documentaries, music projects & TV pilots; etc.
3) BRUCE BARTLETT, veteran literary agent with 15+ years of experience, MBA from UCLA & extensive relationships with studios, producers & financiers; VP at Beverly Hills-based literary boutique Above The Line Agency; reps film & TV writers, directors & producers; sells feature film scripts & clients’ services to all industry levels; fmr. Sales Director at Independent Advantage Financial, serving as investment advisor & leading sales team of 20; etc.
4) ELSA RAMO, ESQ., successful indie producer & entertainment attorney representing corporate clients as well as filmmakers, agents & managers; Founder/Attorney at own Beverly Hills-based law firm focusing on legal services to financiers, producers & other creatives (e.g., “Loaded”, “Alone in the Dark II”, “Gene Generation”); Producer of “In NorthWood”, “A Woman Called Job”, “Heckler”, “Hack!”, “The Last Sentinel”, “Cult”, “Ghost Game”; etc.
5) JEREMY JUUSO, Harvard-educated film finance consultant; specializes in creating film business plans & advising both filmmakers & movie investors; author of new book “Getting the Money: A Step-by-Step Guide for Writing Business Plans for Film” & “The A.K.A. Report” (quarterly analysis of theatrical market for indies); financial advisor to Fly High Films; previously performed investor-database construction & treasury analysis for MGM; etc.
+ 2 MORE TOPICAL EXPERTS!
A comprehensive list of all speakers (plus bios), their topics, as well as AFFORDABLE TICKETS are available at –
http://gla.filmfinancing.org/102909w
Our friends at the Writers Boot Camp are hosting us in their state-of-the-art facilities:
IIFF/LA Film Financing Townhall Meeting
Thursday, October 29, 2009
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Writers Boot Camp (WBC)
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Ave, Bldg I
Santa Monica, CA 90404
LIMITED CAPACITY. Act now to SECURE YOUR SEATS at –
http://gla.filmfinancing.org/102909w
We would be delighted to count you among our guests on the 29th. Please bring your colleagues & associates!
Best regards,
Your Friends at IIFF
http://www.filmfinancing.org
Remember the neighborhood video store?
Every technological change in film distribution calls for an evolutionary step in how we get films to audiences. Broadcast television, VCR, Cable, DVD, VoD, DVR, and now internet streaming: what do these changes point to in relationship to our audience? Simple: audiences want the power to choose how, when, and where they engage content.
From The Buffalo News:
Home movie future fuzzy
By Stephen T. Watson
Updated: October 28, 2009
On a recent episode of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” the host offered a “New Rule” for home entertainment.
“Blockbuster cannot announce it’s closing 960 stores. Where will I go to rent a movie in 1988? And how do they still have 960 stores?” Maher quipped, to laughter from the audience.
It’s been a hard fall for Blockbuster — from world-beater to butt of late-night jokes — but this is a sign of the state of flux that the home-entertainment industry finds itself in today.
Competition from Netflix, the online rental powerhouse, and Redbox DVD-rental kiosks — not to mention the channels available on digital cable — has walloped Blockbuster.
“Blockbuster is like the Spanish Armada. It’s out there, and the wind isn’t blowing, and everybody is taking shots at them,” Read more
The distribution marketplace is changing and so are marketing strategies
Not every film will have the same marketing strategy because not every film will have the same core audience. What works best for you depends on who you expect will be your most devoted fans and how you expect to connect with them.
Traditional marketing methods are changing along with the surge in digital distribution. How will you adapt your strategy to recent trends? Keep a step ahead! Tweet, Blog, and Connect!
From BrandingStrategyInsider:
October 27, 2009
Top Ten Integrated Marketing Trends for 2010
1. Less will get done: until we learn to do more with less.
While the year 2009 was marked as the ‘great recession’, we won’t feel its full effects until 2010. Both marketers and their marketing services agency partners are dealing with reduced resources in terms of head-count and budgets. We won’t likely see enough breakthroughs in the marketplace, simply because marketers and agencies alike have to remain focused on ‘getting the work out the door’. The only way to ‘do more with less’ is to align resources toward a single and powerful integrated marketing solution. Individual marketing tactics will simply become marginalized and highly tactical with ‘less’.
2. Marketers will mistakenly ‘whack’ a medium of the marketing mix. Read more
NetFlix is just the beginning
Does Netflix’s profitability hurt the studios? How will the profitability gap encourage Hollywood to invest into digital distribution strategies? Are DVDs and Blu-Ray becoming formats of the past?
What counts is that Netflix is causing a stir. If Disney’s Keychest program is a success, then that means consumers have more choices in how they access our films. The more companies compete over digital distirbution, the more options Indie filmmakers have to engage their audience.
From CNet:
October 26, 2009 4:00 AM PDT
Hollywood wants share of Netflix’s windfall
by Greg Sandoval
At this point, who could begrudge Reed Hastings and his Netflix management team from celebrating, from performing the corporate equivalent of an end-zone dance?
Wall Street and Netflix subscribers appear overjoyed with the direction that Netflix’s CEO has the Web’s top video-rental store pointed in. The only people who don’t seem pleased with Netflix’s success work in Hollywood.
Just days before Netflix reported third-quarter earnings that jumped 48 percent from a year ago and subscriber growth of 28 percent during the same period, two executives from different studios told me they aren’t getting their fair share.
“The thing with Netflix is that people are taking notice that they keep reporting these big quarters,” said one studio exec. “We aren’t participating in that and that’s going to change.” Read more
