Once upon a time the studios financed their own movies, and gradually as production and marketing costs kept rising, began looking for partners and financing to help them reduce risk.

While Paramount spun the news yesterday that they walked away from a $450-million Deutsche Bank slate financing deal, which would have funded 25 % of each film's budget capped at $30 million per picture, the chill was felt around Hollywood.

What impact would this have on the elusive Ryan Kavanaugh of Relativity Media, who has also gotten funding from Deutsche Bank, which was withdrawing from the film business? Kavanaugh co-finances big-budget movies all over town, and also has his own deal to produce movies for MGM release.

No one should be surprised that banks are starting to demand tougher terms on these deals, which tended to favor the studios. Bigger forces are at work: money is drying up. And debt is more expensive. "At the end of the day, someone has to pay," said one company chief.

The credit crunch will only put more pressure on studios like Paramount to be more risk averse (like morphing Vantage into a more genre-oriented label). "You'll see more big budget sequels and remakes," says one observer.

Meanwhile the Weinsteins are shuffling their deck chairs to stay ahead of the financial curve: they just announced a showy Showtime pay-TV deal for which they must deliver 95 movies. The question is, did they pay upfront to get that deal? Yes, they put down some sort of guarantee that they would deliver all the pics, but nothing anywhere near the fantastic $100-million figure that has been reported. I'm hearing it was way less than half that figure. The Weinsteins needed the Showtime deal in order to seal the additional financing they need. Locking in a pay deal was essential to going forward. When they extricate themselves from MGM distribution at year's end, they might really be in business.

Source: Variety

"Please fire me," Weinstein facetiously tells Roth. "I'll split whatever I get . . . I'll meet you in St. Barts. We'll buy both halves of the island . . . If you don't fire me, then I think we should make bad movies next year. Let's make a series of [bleep]y movies."

Roth replies: "I obviously made a mistake. I made good movies." Harvey says, "Joe, you are a success, so therefore you are a failure in this town." The two then name Peter Guber, Michael Fuchs and Jon Peters as having won huge golden parachutes.

"Everybody got wealthy on failure," Weinstein says. Roth replies: "You know what the problem is with you and me? We care about the movies." Weinstein laughs: "We have character flaws that must be overcome."

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The real problem with new media that no one seems to be detecting yet is the democratic process itself. For all the complaining some do about Hollywood spoon-feeding us crap, democracy as a business model is far worse. Leaving aside the nightmare of actually finding a decent independent movie in the sea of amateur waste floating on social networking sites, consider for a moment that you’re an independent filmmaker with some real chops. Let’s also imagine that you’re stuck, like so many others, and have no possible route to selling your film after studios and distributors stop buying unknowns at festivals.

According to the Youtube model, you throw your masterpiece up there to the gaping maw of the public. If buzz never catches on, if there’s no tipping point, you’re in trouble. But it’s far worse if you actually do get a million viewers in one week. Because, congratulations, your film isn’t marketable anymore. While creating a massive audience for a film, new media simultaneously reduces the sales potential of a movie

How many of those million will head to the theaters to see a movie on the big screen that they’ve already seen? How many who felt compelled to write “Gr8 job, dood!!” on your profile page will still feel compelled to spend money for the mega-plex release a year later?

Even if the film is good enough to drive some to see it again, a significant percentage of viewers will stay at home browsing for their next free entertainment fix. Thus, having the most popular film up on Youtube also ensures its death. Plus, if a payment structure isn’t created, no one will want to spend $20,000 on a movie that’s given away for free - effectively killing the chances of anything good cropping up anway. Also plus, entire genres like Thrillers, Mysteries and other single-viewing films will have no chance of breaking away from the computer monitor and onto the big screen. Clearly, letting the people decide what’s good is not good. At least for movie makers.

Source: FilmSchoolRejects

Paul Julian Smith is one of the greatest scholars of Pedro Almodovar in the UK with many academic publications and press about his films in various magazines and generalists. Smith ignited the fuse of controversy last tuesday with an article published in The Guardian entitled The Curse of Almodovar. In the article, PJS writes that "a super name" (like Almodovar) can capture the interest of the national film industry and "monopolize international interest."

Source: El Pais

Unfortunately, most of the folks trying to make indie movies these days, as was revealed at my film financing panel Saturday (including producer Cathy Schulman, ICM's Hal Sadoff and New Bridge Capital's Danny Mandel), seem to be trying to make genre thrillers with someone on the list of not-too-costly actors between the age of 20 and 30 who foreign sales agents want to sell in territories around the world (where interest in American product seems to be drying up). Quality dramas are a no-go, said Schulman, although that's what she's trying to make at Mandalay Indie. And the surviving specialty distribs are strictly cherry-picking. You might get your movie made. But it might go straight-to-video. And it wouldn't be worth as much as it might have been a few years ago.

source: Thompson on Hollywood (Variety)

El FBI corre detrás de Hollywood, cuando este, al parecer se entromete hasta en los festivales de cine, hasta casi un millón de dólares se han llegado a desembolsar para controlar la selección de un festival... En cuanto a los rodajes, si no fuera por esa desfachatez, ¿a quién se le ocurriría salir del país para ir a rodar en Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Angola, Indonesia, Rusia, Uzbekistan o Marruecos?... A nadie. El problema es que pocos entienden la necesidad de las Film Comissions locales. Al final, por muy rabiosas que parezcan estas instituciones (controladas por el Estado), todo sale mucho más barato. Os dejo con un artículo muy interesante recogido en Portfolio.com (en inglés).

More information here

La historia de la nueva CINEVIA profesional está fuertemente conectada con la historia de un hombre: Klose Gottfired de GK Film GmbH, Bielefeld, Alemania. Un hombre que dedica toda su energía y pensamiento para alcanzar su gran objetivo: añadir nuevas perspectivas para la cinematografía moderna en la producción de materiales de la mejor calidad posible. Todo comenzó en Waghäusel en el otoño de 2004, cuando nació la idea de mantener el formato de Super 8 vivo mediante la introducción de un segundo cartucho de Super 8 con la misma calidad que la Kodak 40 K en el mercado.

Después de probar todos los materiales de película, Klose decidió utilizar el Fuji - Velvia ASA DIN luz del día 50/18 reversible con proceso E6.
Durante las siguientes semanas y meses las conexiones, contactos y los nombramientos se hicieron. El material se procesó para la Super 8 de GK-Film con la ayuda de Frank Bruinsma's Super 8 Reversal Laboratory en Rotterdam. Ellos cargaron cartuchos y de inmediato comenzaron los ensayos, los disparos y el desarrollo. Los resultados fueron sorprendentes en relación a los límites de grano fino, la nitidez y el color de la prestación. Una maravilla a explotar!

The Film Business School is a well-established workshop for feature film producers and executives at the early stages of their career who need just that advice, those contacts, and the correct information. The list of prospering film producers from Europe who have graduated from the FBS is testament to its calibre and includes Oscar winners and many other commercially successful players.

Las fotografías panorámicas y las proyecciones multipantalla de Hannah Collins son de las más grandes que se pueden encontrar en el arte contemporáneo. En la muestra Hannah Collins. Historia en curso, el CaixaForum expone una selección de estas obras.

Entre las proyecciones multipantalla destaca el encargo para esta exposición La Mina, historia en curso, en la que la artista busca las conexiones entre los individuos y los grupos sociales. Además, la exposición, que presenta una veintena de imágenes panorámicas, preestrena Dibujante sobre la ciudad, un proyecto artístico sobre el paisaje cambiante de la Barcelona metropolitana.

El pasado día 16 de mayo, Savina Neirotti de Torino Film Lab ha presentado en el Festival de Cannes el nuevo fondo para primeras y segundas películas dotado de un million de euros. Torino Film Lab apoya a nuevos talentos de todo el mundo, asesorando en la formación, desarrollo y financiación de los proyectos. Cada año Torino Film Lab con la colaboración del programa Media y de Script&Pitch workshops seleccionan 20 proyectos. Entre ellos destaca el largometraje “Canal” del director español Sebastian Mantilla.

Los proyectos en fase avanzada de producción recibirán un premio otorgado por un jurado compuesto por Alicia Weston (Sundance/NHK), Alberto Barbera (director del Museo del Cine de Torino), Ido Abram (director de Cinemart, Rotterdam), Violeta Bava (Festival de Buenos Aires), Steve Della Casa (crítico de cine) y Mathieu Darras (Semana de la Crítica, Cannes) que será entregado en el próximo Festival de Cine de Torino

En una iniciativa pionera, los organizadores de DOCUMENTA 08 y los responsables de EGEDA Digital han decidido crear el premio Filmotech.com, a través del cual el Festival cobrará vida en la Red más allá de su página oficial.

Shot with ARRI SR3 during the summer of 2006 by Matyas Erdely with Amaia Arzua at Service Vision headquarters in Barcelona. The reversal stock was bought in New York's Film Emporium for Sebastian Mantilla's Iraq set film Next to Babilonia. High contrast, big grain, saturated colors with Ektachrome 7285 color reversal 100D daylight film. We personally want to congratulate Matyas Erdely's impressive photography in Cannes officially selected hungarian film DELTA.

Albert Serra vuelve a Cannes con su segunda película reinterpretando la figura de los Reyes Magos. Y es que en El Cant dels Ocells, que se rodó en Tenerife, Fuerteventura e Islandia, presenta el viaje de cuatro y no tres Reyes en busca del Salvador para adorarlo. En su camino estas figuras míticas mostrarán sus facetas más íntimas y cotidianas. La película está protagonizada por Lluís Serrat Batlle, Lluís Carbó y Lluís Serrat Masanellas. La producción corre a cargo de Eddie Saeta y Andergraund.

Cuando la necesidad se convierte en esto:

]]> http://nexttobabilonia.wordpress.com/?p=424 Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:56:45 +0000 nexttobabilonia http://nexttobabilonia.wordpress.com/?p=424 Supongo que James Cameron (director de "Titanic") no merece introducción, pero su apuesta por el 3D en su próxima película "Avatar" carente de cualquier efecto especial, despierta mucha curiosidad en la industria. Dejo enlace a una entrevista en Variety donde explica como el 3D debe ser una realidad práctica y no un mero instrumento efectista para el IMAX.

El día 5 de abril pasado, el jurado internacional de FILMA MADRID 08 presidido por Antonio Hernández, tomó la sabia locura de otorgar el premio a la mejor opera prima a Next to Babilonia.

En presencia de Vilmos Zsigmond, Sebastian Mantilla recogió el premio de la mano de Antonio Delgado y Maria Kannon Cle.

El premio consiste en la ayuda a la segunda obra del director. Nuestro próximo proyecto Canal, está siendo desarrollado en los laboratorios Script&Pitch del programa MEDIA.