I was honored to be on the jury for IDFA DocLab this month in Amsterdam. It was a treat to be able to spend a couple of days reviewing and discussing interactive projects and no easy task to pick a winner but in the end we went with Insitu, a cinematic and delightful exploration of public space and how we interface with it through art, philosophy, city planning and design.

This is what we said about it:

Cinematic, poetic and subtly interactive, Insitu explores the
way architects, artists, city planners, philosophers and artists intervene
in public space.

Both linear and non-linear, Insitu is a city poem that you can move through
and explore, interrogating efforts to breath life back into our cities and
shared public spaces.

The interactivity is surprising, playful and doesn’t distract from the
narrative experience and the production values are excellent across the
board, from the clear navigation and experience design to the video and
sound quality.

Insitu delivers both technically and creatively with a clear artistic vision
and demonstrates how new technologies in the hands of a filmmaker can be a
truly cinematic experience.

The other nominations went to Barcode.tv and Beyond 9/11. You can explore all the projects on the Doclab site which is a real treat and it’s well worth spending some time investigating everything from interactive infographics (Sexperience), an innovative iPad platform (Condition One), an ambitious and groundbreaking immersive web experience (One Millionth Tower) and a project that started when a bunch of old friends reconnected on Facebook (Goa Hippy Tribe).

If you’d like to read more about the emerging field of web and interactive documentaries have a look at the first few chapters from Mattieu Lietaert’s book on Web Docs

When it was announced that David Cronenberg was to direct the screen adaptation of Christopher Hampton’s play The Talking Cure, there was a palpable buzz in the air. Given Cronenberg’s history of producing idiosyncratic and rigorously intellectual films with a taste for the psychoanalytic, the idea that he was to venture forth into the combative relationship between Freud and Jung was a tantalisingly sexy prospect. Set in turn of the century Vienna, A Dangerous Method details the relationship between psychoanalysists Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and a disturbed young woman named Sabina, who will later become the renowned female psychoanalysist Sabina Speilrein. When Jung begins an affair with the girl, the fallout ruptures the relationship between the two men and sets them both on different ideological paths; Freud in favour of a treatment rooted in scientific method whilst Jung drifts towards a counsel of hypothetical mysticism.

Given all we know about the film there was hope of this giving rise to a jamboree of sexual peccadilloes, strained Germanic accents, death and an air of haughty perversion.  The question that must be asked then, is, what in Christ’s name went wrong? The fact that I was unable to determine whether this was in fact a comedy or not seems as good a place to start as any. Admittedly I laughed: lots in fact, but the stoic, hardened faces of its cast whilst delivering its diluted crib-notes on psychoanalysis and shamanism seemed at odds with the bountiful laughter occurring around me.  That said, Cronenberg has always garnished even his most disturbing work with a perverse sense of humour, however if that same fact applies to A Dangerous Method it would appear that Cronenberg’s idea of comedy has regressed to that of a child learning about the birds and the bees.  The other fairly major stumbling block is that for a film so concerned with the concept of sex, is how unbelievably impotent the whole affair feels. Apart from Sabina getting herself royally spanked by an over eager Jung, the film barely visualises the topic that get Freud and Jung all hot and heavy in the first place, instead restricting it to the world of musty drawing rooms where the smell of sex is nowhere near as potent as the smoke emanating from Freud’s phallic cigar.

Despite the initial guffaws that surrounded the casting of Nordic cave-dweller Viggo Mortensen as the elderly, bearded Freud, he’s actually one of the only actors to leave the film with their dignity intact, instead he seemingly has a blast subverting everyone’s expectations by delivering every line with a cock of the head and an ironic twinkle in his eye. Keira Knightley as Sabina fares much worse, when we first see her; screaming and contorting her body with such vigorous abandon she seems in fear of wrenching the whole film from its sprockets and cart-wheeling off down the road with it. Strangely though it’s Michael Fassbinder as the central figure Jung who comes off worst. Although not as violently grating as Knightley, at least the screen is somewhat illuminated by her schizophrenic energy, with Fassbinder the film comes to a stop; not so much a performance but a black hole of inertia that threatens to entropy everything in its path. After his charismatic turn in Shame it really is profoundly stunning that the man has managed to produce a performance of such claustrophobic tedium.  Finally, there is Vincent Cassel whose only purpose seems to be to demonstrate the compulsive, hedonistic pleasure principle (perfect casting) of Freud’s most famous concept. We know this because he uses cocaine and talks about his many, many mistresses; he couldn’t be more obvious if he had ‘id’ branded across his forehead. At least he has the decency to disappear within the first half an hour.

It really is incredibly perplexing how awful this film is at times, Cronenberg has definitely had his misfires over the years, but it’s certainly rare for a director of such regard to sink to such amateurish depths within only a short space of time, although History of Violence was serviceable; displaying moments of wit and genuine danger, Eastern Promises heralded a dramatic downturn in his talents and with A Dangerous Method now in tow the future looks less than promising. With his next film also on the horizon; an adaptation of Don Delilo’s Cosmopolis, we can only hope that the safety net of familiar postmodernist territory can shield him from the looming sense of castration that effectively killed off the careers of Brian de Palma and Paul Verehoven.

The Descendants is the latest film from indie kingpin Alexander Payne. Whereas directors such as Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach have snared the market for disenfranchised New York youth, Payne has been slowly chipping away at securing the thirty to forty demographic with his brand of ever so slightly acerbic elegies to Middle America.  However, with his latest film, also his first in seven years, the bile seems to have evaporated and instead been replaced by a mawkish, touchy-feely sensibility that feels worlds away from the razor sharp satire of Citizen Ruth and Election. Payne has been in danger of this for years with About Schmidt and Sideways both heralding a slow decline into tug-at-your-heartstrings poignancy. However, here he’s made the full slippery body plunge into sickly sweet tedium.

As always with Payne, the story is very rarely the point; his films generally contrive to get depressed sad-sacks journeying on a voyage of self discovery, whilst enduring a series of slightly embarrassing faux-pas’.  His last three have followed this formula to a tee. This time George Clooney stars as Matt King a land baron in Hawaii who is negotiating the selling off of ancestral land. When his wife is killed in a freak boating accident, his life is thrown into disarray by the revelation that his wife had been having a long term affair. Sinking into his own ‘slough of despond’ Matt sets off with his daughters in tow in order to confront his wife’s lover.

To condemn The Descendents as a bad film would admittedly be unfair. The performances are uniformly strong, especially Clooney who it seems is now impossible of turning in an anything less than charismatic performance and he’s sturdily supported by Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer and tween star Shailene Woodley in a variety of heartfelt turns.  The other admirable strength of the film is in its depiction of Hawaiian suburbia and its decision to not focus too heavily on its postcard bothering beaches and tourist traps. The problems arise however whenever the film dares to express an element of cynicism or wit; all is glossed over with some twangy Hawaiian guitar and a tear-duct popping voiceover that leans heavily on cliché.  The film’s cruellest and best laugh comes early on when Matt intentionally upsets his dead wife’s friend by reminding her of the makeover she gave her whilst in hospital ‘you were putting lipstick on a corpse!’ Other than that though, the film is relatively dry, instead, offering up a ‘Cameron Crowe’ style view of family life, where the youngsters are cute, sassy and irritatingly precocious.

The most irritating problem though is that the whole smug affair is smothered in a Teflon-coated layer of professionalism that disarms you until long after the credits have rolled. On a technical level the film is competently inoffensive but Payne has never been one for a fragrant aesthetic anyway. The characters act in the way we expect them to act; where even its moments of subversion have been bought wholesale from his earlier better films. In an About Schmidt recap, Matt’s eldest daughter Alexandra is involved with a dumb yet happy-go-lucky lunkhead whose only purpose is to spout stoner wisdom and later on reveal his inevitable hidden depths (His mum’s dead and he likes chess).What this amounts to though is a transitory feeling of nourishment; where beat for beat the emotional cues are satisfyingly predictable and we leave the cinema as sedate as Hindu cows.  Whereas Payne once picked at America’s rot he’s now become the purveyor of status-quo morals and ideals, where the sanctity of the family is unimpeachable and as long as you can forgive and love one another everything will turn out hunky-dory.

And the Oscar for best film goes to..?

Carnage might be the most efficient film Roman Polanski has ever made. Sprinting in at a nimble eighty-one minutes, it contains only four main speaking roles (minus a few phone conversations) and apart from the opening and closing shots is contained entirely within the fussy confines of an upper-middle class New York apartment.  Based on Yasmina Reza’s award-winning comedy The God of Carnage , the film concerns itself with two couples who have come together to sort out an altercation that has occurred between their children.  One child has hit another in the face with a stick and now the victims’ parents, played by Jodie Foster and John. C. Reilly, have requested a meeting with the parents of the aggressor, played by Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz. However what begins as an attempt to calmly resolve the situation quickly descends into a firestorm of frayed nerves and accusations; new allegiances are formed and broken, tempers are lost and vomit is spewed.

It’s easy to see why Polanski was attracted to the project. In his films the apartment is often a symbol of security and assurance, which explains the hysteria that occurs when those spaces are violently compromised. Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant all deal with the horrors of urban-life and form a loose ‘Apartment Trilogy.’ Whilst The Pianist is basically about a man who moves house a lot. However, despite working with his regular team of technical collaborators, the film bares little of his authorial stamp and admittedly is all the better for it.  His most recent film, The Ghost; liked by many, felt like a by numbers attempt to recreate the ghoulish paranoia of his heyday. By paring down and focusing on the verbal pyrotechnics, he’s discarded the visual excess that has occasionally plagued him since the 1980s.

Where Carnage really excels though is in its performances, with Winslet, Waltz, Foster and Reilly all relishing the opportunity to scream, pout, berate, sulk, snipe and generally be on their most outrageous behaviour. What start off as minor blips in their failure to see eye to eye escalates into full blown ideological warfare, with topics as innocuous as mobile phones and pear cobbler suddenly taking on sinister properties under the weight of dogmatic tension. It’s both Waltz and Foster though who are most diametrically opposed. Foster perfectly embodies the holier than thou, bleeding heart liberal whose interest in Darfur provides her with a self-serving moral superiority. Whilst Waltz’s smug mobile-phone bothering lawyer couldn’t give a cobblers as to the outcome of what he perceives as a pointless endeavour. He even gives name, ‘The God of Carnage’ to what he perceives as the true order of things; that conflict and aggression will always win out in the end. What Carnage does well is to not appeal to any specific ideology, at no point is any character seen to have gained the upper hand; they’re all too ridiculous for that. Instead Polanski allows the camera to act as a passive observer filming predominantly in medium/long shot, allowing its characters to dig their own graves.

There are problems though. Often the motivation for keeping both couples locked together mutual hatred feels contrived and the same opposing ideologies are hammered down again and again and again. However the sprightly momentum, barrage of inventive insults and sense of impending violence does mean the film doesn’t outstay its welcome.  Also seeing actresses like Foster and Winslet, who are often cast for their sense of propriety, descend into childish name calling is in fact a perverse treat.  How often do you see Kate Winslet, drunkenly flailing across a room, whilst screaming, ‘I’M GLAD MY SON BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR SON.’?

Shame the latest film from Turner Prize winner artist turned filmmaker Steve McQueen, has slinked into town on a wave of tremendous hype and prestige.  Having gone down a dirty little treat in Toronto and been awarded the Volpi Cup at Venice for Michael Fassbinder’s all too revealing performance, Shame dares to look at the sheet stained world of sex addiction. Whilst drug dependency has often been a source of dramatic tension in cinema, sex addiction is often presented in comedic fashion. Probably on the assumption that sex addiction looks a lot more fun than the grubby world of infected needles and constipated heroin sufferers. See John Water’s A Dirty Shame, Paul Schrader’s Auto Focus and Michael Douglas for further details.

McQueen along with flavour of the month screenwriter Abi Morgan have attempted to turn this preconceived notion on its head by showing how sex addiction, like any other habit, is a mechanical, compulsive process that infects and corrupts the day to day life of its sufferer. When we first see Fassbinder’s Brandon, lying in bed strung out and corpse-like, the repetitious nature of his affliction is conveyed through an expertly crafted montage that conflates three separate mornings into a series of recurring actions and movements. When his emotionally damaged sister Cissy turns up at his door, played by a doe-eyed Carey Mulligan; Brandon’s self-serving bubble of hardcore pornography, angry sex and even angrier masturbation tumbles beyond his grasp.

Coming off the acclaim of his debut film Hunger, Shame has a lot to live up to and on many accounts surpasses his beautiful yet overwrought debut. Whereas Hunger displayed an autistic devotion to its bruised, blunt imagery that bordered on the fascistic, Shame, although imaginative in its composition, allows its subjects space to breathe and doesn’t place them at the mercy of its aesthetic.  However McQueen is still partial to the odd visual cliché, which prevents Shame from being wholly satisfying. Brandon’s apartment for example is dumbly metaphorical; a clinical white cube that points to his shallow lack of emotion.  Also the constant use of reflective surfaces are as tired as Fassbinder’s bed springs.

Shame’s standout qualities though are the film’s central performances. Fassbinder has never been better and proves he is still an imaginative and instinctual performer. What could have ended up as Bateman-lite vacuity is negated by Fassbinder’s natural charm, which contrasts nicely with the predatorial desperation of his night time activities. There is one standout sequence towards the climax (ho ho) of the film that surely won him the Volpi Cup, where Brandon engaged in a threesome, climaxes. His face contorts under golden light into a paradoxical display of conflicting emotions; pleasure, guilt and of course shame.  It’s a tremendously spine-chilling moment of mania that borders on the religious. Mulligan is impressive, yet her role is underwritten and a little too much like the free-spirited, blousy stereotype we have come to expect all damaged women of fiction to be.  Many have written about her, ‘devastating’ pared down performance of ‘New York, New York’ however I personally found it to be emotionally unjustified and a little too pointedly sentimental to truly work as the teary-eyed showstopper that many claim it is. Both though should be acclaimed on the revealing nature of their performances; the sex, which is both frequent and graphic and will undoubtedly score the dreaded NC 17 rating in the US, does actually serve to compliment and further the film’s narrative. Only one scene proves clumsy, where Brandon in the midst of a mental breakdown stumbles desperately into a gay club, which is not only offensive for its visual clichés of bearded, leather types writhing under a red light, but also in its implication that homosexual lifestyles are representative of hitting rock bottom.

Whilst Shame is undoubtedly a tough film, it’s both brave and unflinchingly honest and whilst it’s occasionally immature in its staging, especially in the scenes depicting Brandon’s vapid work life, it’s also the work of a director who is certainly on the road to success. With two unique and honest films under his belt, for Steve McQueen, just like Brandon’s libido, the only way is up.

Take Shelter is the second feature from director Jeff Nichols which has already acquired a fair amount of hype in the UK after its well received screenings at both Sundance and Cannes; where it won the Critics Week Grand Prize.  The film stars Michael Shannon, whose reptilian features and cracked southern drawl (think Buffalo Bill a la Silence of the Lambs) have secured him the role of Hollywood’s latest psychopath du jour (next seen as General Zod in the latest Superman reboot Man of Steel).

The film deals with the plight of Curtis, a local construction worker whose simple, but blessed family life is rudely interrupted by a series of increasingly nightmarish and apocalyptic visions. As Curtis begins to unravel; increasingly paranoid and estranged from his family he renovates the abandoned storm shelter in the backyard in order to prepare for the oncoming storm.

Where the film excels most regularly is in the ambiguity surrounding Curtis’ visions; which range from angry, swirling, tornados on the horizon to sinister figures moving around the house. As an audience we are often in the dark as to whether Curtis’ is at the mercy of some intelligent higher power, God possibly but Curtis’ lack of conviction helps deny any specific religious reading. Or whether his psychosis is a little closer to home; as in the hereditary effects of his mothers own schizophrenia. The film also cleverly shifts its perspective whilst the hallucinations are occurring, alternating between a subjective and objective viewpoint that helps to undermine a singular reading. The highlight though is Shannon who is masterful. In a performance that could have descended into anguished histrionics is actually remarkably subtle; spending most of the film with a crumpled, hang-dog expression that ever so often erupts into Vesuvian rage. One sequence in particular, where Curtis berates his friends and family at a community dinner is compelling for its fury as much as its sadness: a man finally descending into the void.  Plaudits though should also be extended to the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain as his long-suffering wife and Kathy Baker contributes an understated cameo as Curtis’ mother.

Where the film suffers though is in its denouement, as the film attempts to have its cake and eat it by trying to offer a conclusive triumph over adversity ending, whilst also wanting to provide food for thought with an all too obvious twist. Twists only work when they show a new dimension to the preceding events, that the answer was there all along. Here the twist ultimately negates and renders the journey up until this point as strangely impotent.

This Must Be the Place, the latest release from Il Divo director Paolo Sorrentino, exists paradoxically as one of the best, most refreshing, films of the year, whilst simultaneously displaying such a perverse disregard for taste, logic and convention that it’s surprising how well its exceptionally disparate parts hold together.

Seemingly influenced by David Byrne’s directorial début True Stories ( the evidence being that both films share an idiosyncratic view of brash, primary coloured Americana, the Talking Heads title song and Byrne appearing in a cameo role as himself), This Must Be the Place tells the story of Cheyenne; played by a fright-wigged, squeaky-voiced (about an octave higher then I Am Sam)  Sean Penn. A Goth-rocker, who after the suicide of two teenage fans has undergone a twenty-year, self imposed exile in the recesses of suburban Dublin. He spends his days, staring slack-jawed at Jamie Oliver, awkwardly shunting around his manor and fretting about why his house has turned into a post-modernist nightmare. The word ‘CUISINE’ is humorously etched with neon back light on the wall of his granite grey kitchen. Paralysed with depression and unable to engage with anyone other than teenage fan Mary and his permanently good-natured, fire-fighting, wife (!?), played by an open-heartedly chipper Frances McDormand, Cheyenne attempts to give new meaning to his flaccid existence by attempting to hunt down the SS officer who had tormented his recently deceased father whilst imprisoned at Auschwitz.

Those of you anticipating a Troma styled ‘Robert Smith vs Klaus Barbe’ though will unfortunately be extremely disappointed. Indebted to the meandering, episodic narratives of Wim Wenders, Cheyenne’s odyssey is more a rogue’s gallery of small town whimsy; a through the looking glass of Midwestern life, than an exploitative exercise in dangerously near the knuckle quirkiness. In fact, the films dramatic left-turn into Nazi hunting is concluded with an even more surprising elegiac grace note, rather than the anticipated violence that slowly seeps into Cheyenne’s pursuit. Staying on the right side of indulgent and saturated with eye-popping primary colours, and rich, clear sky, Ed Ruscha terrains, it expresses a sheer, unadulterated joy in its swooping, hyperactive camera-work and off-kilter framing. One sequence in particular that features the aforementioned Mr Byrne is simultaneously one of the most heartbreaking yet rapturous scenes committed to 21 century celluloid.

The sticking point, upon which the film will undoubtedly live or die, is in Penn’s utterly bewildered (and bewildering) performance. Unlike anything he’s ever done before, Cheyenne is an absurd creation, yet, like the miracle that he is, functions perfectly on screen. Brimming with vulnerability, slyness, humour and anger, every half-croaked word, fey gesture or flick of the hair, concurrently contains all of these contradictory emotions. Supported by an excellent cast including Judd Hirsch and road-movie extraordinaire Harry Dean Stanton, These Must Be the Place is refreshingly bold film-making; passionate, achingly beautiful, idiosyncratic (yet sidestepping the ubiquitous ‘Q’ word),  that instils in me the belief that in cinema, not all stones have been left unturned.

Interview by Hélène Mitjavile, filmmaker / producer at Melocoton Films

After four marvelous days at Sheffield Doc/Fest, where I watched a number of great documentaries, attended a series of passionate masterclasses, met lovely people from all over the world and took part in a crazy hustling and break dancing sessions, I must say the highlight of this year’s festival for me was the screening of The Interrupters and to meet its director, Steve James.

The film tells the story of three members of the experimental anti-violence programme CeaseFire. Their job is to try and stop conflicts before they explode by talking the youths out of committing violent acts, and they are particularly fit for such a task since they are former gang leaders or convicts. This very powerful film won the Special Jury Award.

What inspired you to become a documentary filmmaker?

I have always been interested in journalism – I studied it in College. Later, at the State of Illinois University, I studied film. I felt that the best movies made there were docs. The documentary genre combines my interest for journalism and my passion for films and storytelling. Jean Renoir’s films influenced me a lot – they always served the stories and had an “artless” style. I also admire Barbara Kopple’s work.

Can you tell us about the early years of your career as a filmmaker?

I finished my studies at thirty and had to work whilst shooting my first movies – for each project, I could not find funding until I had shot a number of images. So I worked in production for television, ads etc. I was probably the best-educated production assistant in Chicago! The first years are always difficult. Today, having two kids in College, I could not do what I did earlier.

Which one comes first, the idea or the characters?

It depends on the project. With Stevie, I knew the character and planned to film him before knowing how the story was going to evolve (Stevie is a film about child abuse). For Hoop Dreams (which won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at Sundance in 1994), the idea was first. What is important is to have your synopsis from the beginning of the project, which means having a clear idea of what your film will be. When I did the series New Americans, I knew what the stories could be. We would follow different groups of immigrants leaving their respective homelands who were trying to make their lives in America. Having the concept, but no characters, I could submit a proposal.

With your films you penetrate underprivileged communities and your characters often face a complicated life, made of poverty and violence. How do you manage to gain their trust?

To let you in, people have to believe in what you do. Of course, there is always some pride in being in a movie. So when you arrive in their lives to make a film, they are often excited about it. But most importantly, my characters trust me because they feel that it is important to show their story. So, first you have to share your vision. Then if you spend enough time with the people, they will always end up being themselves. It is very difficult not to be yourself!

Did you ever fail in building this relationship?

For The Interrupters, we followed one of them for three or four months. He allowed us to interview him and to film his personal life, but he was not comfortable with being filmed while performing his “interruptions”. He did not tell us this at the start, and he would not tell us when he was going on field, so we kept waiting for it. I think it is the first time I filmed a character for so long and ended up not having him in the film – except for brief appearances. But he was not disappointed, he understood why.

How do you build a story?

While shooting, you have to tell yourself the story, to constantly be willing to change what the story is. Then at the editing stage, you actually build the structure. This is what makes me passionate about it, this is the reason why I edit my films myself; I do not do it all by myself, but I spend a great deal of time alone sitting at the editing table in front of the material. Finally spectators feel this material obviously tells this story, but with the same rushes, we could have made lots of different films.

Do you think that we are at the golden age of the documentary? And what do you think about the fashion of hybrid films that are between documentary and fiction?

There are a lot of very good things going on. More and more really good documentaries are being produced. About the hybrid films, I am not a purist. I look at them film by film. If the fiction part serves the story, if it feels organic to the film, it does not bother me. For instance in Man on wire by James Marsh, the reconstitution helped telling the story.

What about the economics?

There is a great concern that funding for documentaries is decreasing, although I think there is more money than before for documentaries. But, there are also a lot more documentaries being made, so in the end, there is less funding for each project. And the people in the business fear that it is going to become harder and harder to get funding. We do not know if it is true though, I hope it is not…

Your movies often take place in Chicago. Do you feel it is easier to film where you live?

It is of course more practical to live close to your subject’s location. If something interesting happens outside of the shooting period you can always go and film it. There are advantages in being an insider because you are more easily accepted. But I think there is also great value in going outside of your environment. While discovering a new place, you are more visually alive. The key is just to be open, to be an outsider who does not impose his ideas but wants to understand.

Your films show the positive things going on in difficult areas – the beauty in the darkness. Is it the key to your magic?

My whole approach is to understand the complexity of people. To show them without simplifying them. I do my best to connect with them. My films do not make big judgments. They offer a point of view, but one that gives room to the viewer for its own point of view.

Jon Reiss - author of Think Outside the Box Office

We’re heading to EIFF next week to run our third Short Sighted event, a half day session devoted to helping filmmakers get their short film exhibited and distributed. All the details of the event can be found in our Calendar.

We’re particularly pleased to be welcoming Jon Reiss as our Keynote Speaker. Jon is not only a successful filmmaker himself, but also has a lot to teach UK creatives about the evolving landscape of film distribution which is being shaped by the web and its revolutionary tools. Now working for the IFP to head Filmmaker Labs on the subject, Jon’s also written a whole book on this exciting are of independent cinema – Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era.

For those of you who can’t make our session at EIFF, you should check out Jon’s workshop at The London Film School on 25 and 26 June.

To give you a little taster of what Jon will be talking about at Short Sighted, have a read of the introduction and first chapter of the book.

Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era by Jon Reiss

Introduction

The independent film world is abuzz about the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. In recent years, more than 5,000 feature films have been submitted to the Sundance Film Festival annually, and only a few hundred get the golden ticket. Of those accepted, perhaps a handful at best will make a sale that might cover at least half of their production expenses. Another handful might be offered a 20-year deal for all rights to their film — with either a token advance of about $15,000 or no advance at all. No longer can filmmakers expect someone to come and take their film off their hands and guarantee them theatrical release and full recoupment. Any filmmaker who doesn’t understand the current state of affairs is going to have a rude awakening.

I had my own rude awakening in 2007 when I brought my film Bomb It (a documentary about the global explosion of graffiti art and culture, and the resultant worldwide battle over public space) to the Tribeca Film Festival. We did our festival launch the old-school way:

o      We saved our world premiere for a top U.S. film festival that had a history of acquisitions.

o      We got a top-class sales agent to marshal the distribution world and get people excited about our film.

o      No advance screeners went out to potential buyers.

o      We paid a ton of money for a conventional publicist to get the film written up, so potential distributors would know that there was interest in our film.

o      We spent more money on a variety of marketing efforts to get our audience into the theaters (the festival’s theaters).

o      We held off creating DVDs for sale so as not to compete with any potential distributor.

And the results: Each of our five screenings (in 500- to 600-seat venues) was sold out. People lined up around the block; 100 to 200 people were turned away at each screening! The audiences were engaged in the film: People laughed in places that I didn’t expect; there were eruptions of applause after the screenings and mobs of adoring fans.

And nothing in terms of sales. No overall deal with an advance that made any financial sense. We were offered extremely low money deals for theatrical and DVD, tied together so that we were sure that we would never see a dime. No television or cable. No foreign. 2007 was the tipping point in the collapse of the studio-based independent distribution model. We did get interest from a few DVD companies — however, none with any significant advance. What the F? The market had changed — drastically.

A week after Tribeca, our film was available for sale on Canal Street — as a bootleg.

We could have sold copies of our film to our enraptured audiences (2,500 people in the theaters, plus the 800 turned away). Converting just 10 percent of those 3,300 would have meant $6,600 in sales.

In short, we received a good, no advance deal from New Video, who also handle our download-to-own digital rights. The DVD was scheduled to be released at the end of May 2008. I was still committed to having a theatrical release. After an unfortunate sidestep with a company who said that they would release the film theatrically, I decided to do a theatrical release on my own, knowing that I had a very small window in which to do so, as determined by my DVD release. I started in January 2008 and ended the official theatrical at the end of June 2008 (note the crossover with the DVD release).

Part of the reason I wrote this book is because I wish I had had it before I released my film. Filmmakers are hungry for information on how to distribute and market their films. Many are shooting themselves in the foot in the process (like I did many times). While there are some disparate sources of information on these new methods, no single resource exists that combines all of the knowledge and tools now available to filmmakers.

Think Outside the Box Office is the first step in filling that void. It is a nuts-and-bolts guide for filmmakers who want to take control of their own destiny and create a strategy that works for their specific film. Each section and the chapters therein address an essential aspect of distribution and marketing and give specific techniques for independent filmmakers to release their films in today’s marketplace. It is designed as a first step to develop a series of best practices for filmmakers and other visual media content creators wishing to distribute and market their work.

What I think is more important than a distribution and marketing manual, though, is that the book serves as a first step to reconceptualizing the way we think about creating and distributing visual media content throughout the world. Some of the most exciting techniques in here, such as transmedia, refer to a new way telling stories that a few forward-thinking filmmakers are already experimenting with. These new ways of storytelling will not only help filmmakers get their work out to new audiences, but will expand their creative horizons as well. This book is about connecting filmmakers with audiences and creating long-term relationships with them. It is about thinking outside the box in terms of form and content. It is about new storytelling techniques that make sense for new modes of distribution. It is about embracing the changes in our industry that are facing us all — and using them to spur new creativity.

My Hopes for the Book

My first hope is that the ideas and opinions expressed in this book will cause you to think differently about how you can connect your film to its audience.

My second hope is that you will then use this book to create a strategy to make your film (and career) a success, whatever you define that success to be.

My third hope is that the book contains the practical advice necessary to put that strategy into practice.

My fourth hope is that this book will help you see how new forms of storytelling, distribution, and marketing can expand your creative horizons.

Chapter 1: Your Film, Your Needs, Your Audience

Each film is unique and should have a unique distribution and marketing strategy (and should fit into your overall career/fan development path, if possible).

Before you can create a strategy for your film, you must take stock of:

1. What you want and/or need from the film.

2. The qualities of your film.

3. Your potential audience.

4. Your resources (I will cover this in chapter 2)

This is one of the most important steps in the process of distributing and marketing your film, and ideally should begin before you make your film, or at least during production.

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM YOUR FILM?

This consideration is different for every filmmaker and every film, and could vary from year to year. You need to take stock of where you are in your career and what you need from your film. By getting your goals straight, it will help you make decisions about your film.

You can analyze this using the following categories, each of which needs to be weighed in relationship to one another:

1. Money
You either want to pay back your investors, make some money for yourself, make money for a charity, or some combination of all three.

2. A Career Launch, Help for Your Next Project, Reviews, and/or Fame
Many directors are not so concerned about making money from their current project (to the chagrin of their investors) and will choose a path that in some way furthers their career. For a filmmaker, this is often the rationale for losing money on a theatrical release. The release itself helps the filmmaker get the reviews and recognition needed for his or her next film that other forms of release do not garner as readily.

3. The Largest Audience for the Film
If having the largest audience possible for a film is the goal, a theatrical release may not be the best path. Television reaches millions more viewers than a theatrical release. This is one reason that some filmmakers have chosen a cable premiere for their film over a theatrical premiere. Just as a cable premiere has become a way to launch a film because of the number of eyeballs it offers, the digital realm is also being seen by many as a method for maximum exposure.

4. To Have an Impact on the World
You may choose to bypass the traditional film distribution structure and give the film away to groups that will screen the film to affect some kind of change — social or otherwise. While this more commonly applies to documentaries, there are narrative films that would fall into this category as well.

The above four goals (especially the first three) are generally what the old distribution model helped a filmmaker achieve. One of the benefits of the new approaches to distribution and marketing discussed in this book is the potential of reaching two additional goals:

5. A Long-Term, Sustainable Connection with a Fan Base
As opposed to trying for as large an audience as possible for one film, this goal is to develop deep connections with a committed fan base. These are fans who will return to your website and buy products from you or donate money to your films in order to sustain your artistic career. While the largest-audience-possible approach concentrates on breadth, this goal focuses on depth.

6. A Green/Sustainable Release.
Some filmmakers are starting to consider how the release of their films affects the environment. This is one argument for satellite/digital transmission of films to multiple theaters: it obviates the need for creating prints of your film and shipping them, both of which can have relatively high carbon footprints. In addition some filmmakers are choosing sustainable DVD packaging – or may choose not to release the film at all on DVD and instead only offer it digitally so as not to add to the flow of wasteful consumer products.

Your evaluation of the above desires will determine what a successful release will be for you and your team. Completing this evaluation will help when you have to make hard choices. This is especially true if your distribution alternatives do not allow you to receive all of these benefits without sacrifice.

YOUR FILM
When you have taken stock of your own and your team’s desires, you need to make a close examination of your film.

1. How good is your film?
Will it hold up to the rigors of the ultra-competitive distribution marketplace? Perhaps this film is right for a full release, including some form of theatrical, perhaps not.

How has the film been received so far?

What have your immediate mentors and trusted allies told you?

Perhaps the film isn’t really done and you need to take some time off and readdress it in a month or two, when you are fresh. Many filmmakers are in such a rush to get their films done that they don’t do them justice.

What has the feedback been from film festivals? (e.g., Have you gotten into any? How prestigious?) This, of course, should not be the only arbiter of value for your film. There are many films that don’t fit the festival model. But for many independent films, festivals are a system of established gatekeepers, and if your film has not gotten into any of the 300 you have applied to, the universe might be telling you something.

How have the reviews been? (Note: same caveat as the festival question above.)

The point is to match the distribution path with the film, to balance your time releasing a film with the time needed to create new work.

2. Do you have any marketing hooks for your film?
Are their stars in the film? Do they have a core following?

Is there a compelling story in the making of your film?

Incredible reviews?

Major awards from major film festivals?

Is it shocking or controversial in any way?

Another way of looking at this question: What will motivate people to see or buy your film?

YOUR AUDIENCE

1. What is the market/audience for the film?
Audience identification should be a constant process of discovery during the production (and prep, post and distribution) of your film. Enlist your producers and close advisors to brainstorm. It is difficult to market to your audience if you don’t know who that audience is.

There is rarely one audience for a film. The audience is usually comprised of a number of different groups. The more targeted you are about this the better.

Audience analysis is much easier for documentaries than for narrative films, which is one reason why some documentaries have had an easier time utilizing the new models of distribution. Usually documentaries concern a specific niche topic, such as global warming, cross word puzzles, anti-war or any medical condition which will appeal to the family and friends of people afflicted with it, etc.

Unfortunately, for many narrative filmmakers, when asked about the audience for their film they don’t get much further than “art-house audiences” or “young men from 18 to 35.” Even if you have a multi-award winner from Sundance with piles of incredible reviews from the New York Times, Boston Globe, and the New Yorker, you need to be much more specific.

A narrative film that deals with any of the above topics (or a myriad of others) can also appeal to the same organized niche communities.

In addition, narrative films have niches that exist outside of those used by documentaries. Marc Rosenbush made a surreal Buddhist noir film, Zen Noir, so he took his film to David Lynch fans, Buddhists, and New Age communities.

2. Who Are Your Core Audiences?
Your core audiences are those who are most likely to be drawn to your film and support it. Core and niche are two terms that are usually used interchangeably, but I think it is important to distinguish between them. The core audience(s) are the strongest niche audiences for the film. They are the fans who will not only purchase your film but will be the most ardent promoters of it.

For Bomb It this was pretty easy: Our initial target core audiences were people who participated in graffiti and street art or were major fans of it.

For a documentary about food production in the United States, such as the awesome King Corn, the core audiences would be those people concerned about food policy, farm sustainability, treatment of farm animals. There are people organized around topics as specific as this.

3. Secondary and Tertiary Audiences – Concentric Circles
You should identify various layers of audiences that have varying levels of interest in your film. Bomb It’s secondary layers of audiences would be fans of street culture/subversive culture (skaters, sneaker pimps), then lovers of hip-hop culture, or people interested in issues of public space. Further out are fans of modern art, lovers of documentary films about culture/subculture and finally lovers of documentary film generally.

For the food documentary mentioned above, the secondary and tertiary audiences would be people interested in treatment of all animals, public health policy, the environment, and the left wing blogosphere.

4. Reaching Your Audiences
Can you reach your various audiences? Are there active online communities for these audiences? Do groups and organizations exist that will support your film?

How do you reach the secondary and tertiary audiences?

As you expand outward from your core audience, you can see how it becomes relatively more difficult to reach the outer layers of your potential audience. That is why it is important to identify your niche’s layers and consider how you might be able to access them.

Often it takes more resources to reach the secondary and tertiary layers of your audience. The more specific you can be, the more effectively you can utilize your resources.

5. What is the best delivery system for your audience?
Your film might be more naturally suited to one market than another. (e.g., It might have its best success in the educational market and may not be suited to theatrical release.)

How do your audiences consume media?

Do they go out to the movies, or watch television?

Your audience might live online and as a result you should be focused on getting your film out simultaneously to as many on-line outlets as possible at the beginning of the release.

By knowing what markets your audience uses to consume media it will make it easier for you to provide them to access to your content which hopefully will result in greater success toward your goals, whatever those may be.

The Next Step

Once you have taken stock of the film that you have made, the audiences for that film and what you want/need from the film, it is time to evaluate your resources which is the subject of the next chapter.

We are into the fifth day of the Visions du Réel festival here in Nyon. On the whole there have been good turnouts from those prepared to sit and watch films inside, despite the tempting sun and hot temperatures outside.

“First Steps” for young film makers

After many of these film screenings, there have been debates which have taken place straight after the film. These have added an interesting dimension to the festival. This has been particularly true in the case of the “First Steps” category of films. Here, young filmmakers still in film school (or self taught), get to discuss their work in front of the audience, while professional film tutors give their feedback.  An experience I imagine that many filmmakers would find quite nerve racking, but for the audience, it’s fascinating.

However, what is also fascinating is to observe the skill of the “chairs“ who monitor these debates. They switch between German, Italian, French and English with aplomb according to whom they are interviewing.  On the one hand this shouldn’t be so surprising; this is a country that boasts four official languages. Lots of Swiss speak at least two of these plus English. Yet there are many others who speak four, five, even six languages. It’s impressive.

Multilingual masters of the spoken word

The men and women who lead the debates usually fall into this polyglot category and can switch from “found footage” in French, “flashback” in Italian, “film fragment” in German or “filmography” in Russian, with ease.  These multilingual masters of the spoken word also have an excellent in-depth knowledge on documentary films. Diplomatic skills come in handy too.  Particularly in cases when a member of the audience raises their hand ostensibly to ask a question, but in reality just wants to opine endlessly.

Acronymed organisations everywhere

With the European Quarters of  the United Nations just a few miles up the road from the festival, the W. H. O. (The World Health Organisation),  the I. C. R. C  (The International Committee of the Red Cross) and pretty much every other acronymed organisation in the same radius, the area abounds with different nationalities so awareness of cultural sensitivities is crucial.

In the short film “They Called Them Shared Names” by Dominique Fleury, there is a heated exchange in a butcher’s shop between a Muslim shop assistant and a regular customer; an Armenian Coptic Christian. This butcher’s shop in Alexandria in Egypt is one of the few that trades in pork.  The quarrel on screen was in danger of developing into an off screen argument amongst certain members of the audience, but the monitor’s skill meant that this was averted and the discussion cleverly brought back to filming technique and editing choices.



Photo above: “They Called them Shared Names” – courtesy Visions du Réel

Amongst the selection of short films at the “First Steps” screenings, two that I have seen and which have shone out amongst the others, are “Pêle-Mêle” by Maelle Grand Bossi and ” A Father’s Prayer” by Andre Hörmann.

A Brussels bookshop with very loyal customers

Pêle Mêle is a second hand book store in Brussels and the film of the same name gives us a delightful portrayals of its patrons, one of them a loyal regular customer for over forty years, “I bought my first school books from here”.  We first see him rooting around for books in the shop and then haggling over the price with the assistants. Then again later, back in his own elegant but crammed apartment, every single surface covered with books, barely an inch to move. Then there is the young man who scours the streets of Brussels for rubbish bags containing books and magazines. He sifts through them to take them to the store to sell on for a few euros. I want to visit this book store myself, not only to purchase books, but just to see these characters. A charming and well executed film.



Photo above: “Pêle-Mêle” – courtesy Visions du Réel

A powerful and moving portrait of a one parent family

“A Father’s Prayer” by Andre Hörmann, is my second choice of the strong “First Steps” films although in the feedback, one of the tutors said he felt the subject matter was rather clichéd.  A father training his teenage son to become a boxer to keep him on the straight and narrow, in a crime ridden area of the Chicago, maybe a familiar story, but it didn’t matter.

From the opening deep rich timbre of the father’s voice; “As a coach I want to bring the mean side out of him, as a father I want to see him smile”, this intro led into a powerful and superbly moving portrait of a one parent family. This film is a wonderful mastery of sound and images. The father himself poetic in his statements; “What happens when one lobster climbs to the top of the pan? There are always other lobsters waiting to pull him down” referring to the crack houses and dens on their street tempting his son on every corner.  The applause for this film was long and well deserved.



Photo above: “A Father’s prayer”  - courtesy Visions du Réel

Perhaps the monitors of these debates should also be applauded for their own performance throughout the festival. Not only due to their debating and multilingual skills but also to muddle through on those rare occasions when the mike hasn’t worked. The fickleness of technology is a universal language that all of us recognise and needs no translation.

Visions du Réel runs from 7-13 April in Nyon and is one of Switzerland’s most important documentary film festivals. Catherine Nelson-Pollard is a British freelance writer and lives in the town. There are reviews of other films by her and other writers on her own site Living in Nyon