It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
1. Perez Hilton? That’s a porn star, right?
2. I have a hard time seeing that YouTube is ‘irrelevant’ to the film industry, it might not be via this particular company or technology, but it is indeed offering interesting new ways for filmmakers to market themselves and get their stuff seen. Haven’t people been predicting this kind of viral, decentralized online distribution for quite a while now? Slowly but surely, it’s coming.
Jeffie
Lame again as usual
Youtube was 95% copyright violation. The day was coming when they were going. So they sold out. Smart fuckers.
I am Spam Dooley and I canoe!
On Movie City Indie Ray Pride posted a blog about Mark Cuban commenting on the Youtube/Goodle merger and Cuban said there’s going to be FAT lawsuits over copyright infringements that Googles lawyers are likely prepared for. Things like last night GRINDHOUSE sneak peak from the Scream Awards is a good example. Couldn’t Spike TV sue for people spreading that around? Will Google stop people from doing it now that they’re in the fray? What about Q&A’s from film festivals? Etc…
Oh no, Spam is going after me.
The original YouTube investors may be cashing out, but the idea – disseminating material quickly and easily across the internet – is here to stay, copyright-protected or not. As long as there’s an audience, they’ll swap files as much as they want.
Who is going to sue YouTube over the Grindhouse thing? The Weinsteins? Hardly.
Yes, I’m sure the Weinsteins are horrified that so many people are seeing the trailer they put on TV so people could see it. What?
It was, as I said, an example. Some company or better, some old 80’s video or TV show that people are laughing at and that gets Youtubed could easily sue.
I think movie companies are not fighting it. I mean, Bryan Singer and Peter Jackson showed so much of their progress on studio-backed websites that not much else was left to the imagination. The fact that those films didn’t do well perhaps spoke to the feelings of being manipulated. What Youtube does is give the rush of the freebie, a thrill every web junkied now thrives on.
I mean, excluding me of course…ahem.
The idea of decentralized distribution is not the same as teh free-for-all that is YouTube. No one can afford to make the content that others will pay for by throwing it on YouTube. And there is zero indication that any major talent has emerged from any of these websites, including YouTube. Andy Milonakis… and… uh… uh…
And we saw how big the Snakes on a Plane opening was.
The game the studios have learned to play with the web is making marketing content appear to be illicit. The next geenration will be YouTube-like screens that can be downloaded and sent around, but that ring up a view everytime with a connection to a home server (the material may be, like QT, fully downloadable) that is then paid for, like royalties, probably based on ad sales or a subscription model.
There will be small businesses built on this model, with “The Best” downloads… whoever gets you to watch gets a penny or a dime or a 10th of a penny or whatever.
And for the studios, it will be just another Home Ent division that will never make as much as they make selling movie tickets or DVDs.
‘Major talent’ has not emerged because YouTube is all of 21 months old. This is still an infant technology, but I expect (and hope) it will become a wedge into something bigger.
A decade of video cameras and Macs haven’t done it… why will YouTube?
Distibution is GOD. The world is too big for true democracy. Power is in the ability to narrow, not widen.
You’re not talking about distribution, DP. When you say ‘the ability to narrow’ you’re talking abot marketing. It’s my hope that in the future, marketing will be destroyed forever by the internets.
Yowch.
Gotta admit jeffmcm won the last round. The world as most of us know it is changing and David clasps onto the last log circling the bowl.
I have to agree with David. I mean, we may disagree about how much DVD viewing has cut into ticketbuying. But even now, as always, content is king. And the profit motive rules. People who just want to make movies will be glad to distribute their creations for free. But people who want to make a living at making movies will rely on more restricted venues. And Jeff, marketing will always be with us.
Say it ain’t so, Joe.
I’m not thinking in terms of anytime soon, but in my utopian dreams, technology allows artists and consumers to connect directly without the necessity of being mediated by the marketing people or the distrubution people. The advent of DVDs and Netflix is one step in this direction, not needing to rely on theatrical print distribution.
My overall point is, can’t we all agree that movies would be better without stars getting paid $20m to guarantee an opening weekend?
I agree with DP 1000%. I do TONS of reviews for Film Threat and two, maybe three times have I seen something that had no distribution to speak of that was truly great. I’m not talking about festival movies, but just the crap…err…stuff we get sent.
When people could suddenly record and mix their own albums at home on pro-tools and then post their stuff on the ‘net, what success stories came about? The music bizz still looks at how many people come to your shows and how many people buy your music. “putting it out there” for anyone to see doesn’t make anyone rich.
I do agree with what I think jeff says in that the marketing machine as we know it is antiquated…or soon will be. That’s how I might justify illegally downloading music…if I were to do that. I don’t. But, if I did, the only person it’s hurting, at least for major label people, is the PR, marketing…annoying crap makers that get paid to put their “product” in the most visible spot.
Viva la Revolucion!
Yeah jeffmcm, you market yourself and get seen all day and you’re not ever gonna get paid. Speaking of content, got an email from IATSE to boycotted a certain webisode production. I’m on my way to The dearly Departed.
Huh? only one of those three sentences halfway made sense.
Oh, come on, jeff. She has childish opinions on almost everything and a crap grasp on the English language. She’s clearly a highly placed industry expert/artist and definitely not the luckiest receptionist ever there was.
(Just guessing, but it’s the best one so far.)
I guess I’m just on the edge of my seat wondering what the websiode is, and I have to wait at least 149 minutes to find out.
But how will artists and consumers (an odd choice of words, but never mind) manage to “connect” without the consumers somehow being made aware of the product that’s available for consuming? Sorry, but that’s where the marketing comes in. That’s where marketing will always come in.
Joe, if I knew the answer to that perfidious question, I would probably be a rich man and I would certainly be a happier one. I direct you again to my question: wouldn’t movies overall be better if they didn’t have to rely on multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and star salaries?
In an ideal world, of course we would all love to get Jim Carrey in our little indie films for scale, but it’s only daydreaming, it’s never going to happen. And big marketing campaigns are a necessary evil to getting big opening weekend numbers, which is how the studios survive in a competetive marketplace when you’re playing with big bucks and trying to make big bucks.
Youtube will be monetized very quickly with advertising that will pay by the hit, and there are already rumblings that Google will give a piece of that revenue to the “content provider” – surely a minimal piece, and only at huge hit numbers, but still…things are changing fast…
Still, it’s true that the cost of making films will continue to make it impossible for the average joe to make a Hollywood-quality film.
At the same time 29/29 is right to stress the challenge digital distirbution is to the movie industry – things will change and the movie industry should be very afraid and has to be a lot more ready for it than the music industry was.
The big problem with those guys is that they just don’t give a damn about the movies, certainly not about the movie industry, in particular the theatrical expeirence. They just want to start revolution and get rich. It’s a shame.
On star salaries, they are what they are – movies need movie stars, plain and simple. There is no other way to finance them – outside of philanthropy, or thievery – without using stars to cover your downside. Even bad movies, if they have movie stars, still have some value; bad movies with no stars have zero value.
It would be great if the agencies weren’t running HW the way they are now, but they seem to be firmly entrenched.
The best way to raise the quality of movies is to reenact the rules that disallowed the studios to own both the means of production and the means of distribution in the indusrty. This more than anything else is eating away at good movies from the inside. Same way it already has in television.
I think with the internet we’re getting user generated marketing. It’s far more democratic and far more capable of catering to a wider variety of tastes. I think if I see a studio-generated ad for something versus a blogger who writes something positive, chances are I’ll view that blog as being more genuine.
I was using U as an example jeff to make it sink in, U market and distribute your comments here all day/night long and you’re never gonna get paid for it or have an impact.
I deleted the webisode email from Outlook, but it might still be on my webmail account, will look.
The Departed was great. Dying to know who the music supervisor was. Argen, child-like, not ish.
My thinking is that if YouTube now becomes a site where you have to pay or have commercials or whatever, some other site will come up with the goods.
It’s not like they don’t have a bad “lead by example” position already.
“Wouldn’t movies overall be better if they didn’t have to rely on multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and star salaries?”
Not necessarily. Truth to tell, there are years when I see a LOT more crappy indie movies than crappy commercial movies, if only because I cover three or four film festivals.
Crappy indie movies without stars are not what I’m talking about, Joe.
TH, I certainly don’t consider myself ‘marketing or distributing my comments’ so there’s no comparison there either.
Reducing marketing wouldn’t help make movies any better. But it would certainly encourage the audience to make their own decisions regarding what movies they want to watch, and that inevitably would change what movies get made.
Jeff: Then what are you talking about? With all due respect: it sounds like you’re talking about some magical neverland in which consumers are able to find worthy products on their own, without any advertising. You seem to have some sort of prejudice against big-budget, mega-hyped movies. I’m saying that, all things being equal, the percentage of good Hollywood product (in want of a better term) is roughly equal to the percentage of good indie product. I’m not terribly interested in seeing someone make a good try. I’m interested in seeing someone make a good movie. Regardless of how much the movie cost, how much the actors were paid, or how heavily it is advertised.
Maybe I am, Joe, I’m certainly not imagining anything that could happen in the next ten or twenty years. Partially, I’m looking back to nostalgic past when movies weren’t frontloaded and more good titles could build word-of-mouth. I’m sure none of us (or at least very, very few) saw Poseidon or Flyboys because we heard good things about it from someone we knew, and that good movies are more likely to be made when the studios are encouraged to make more movies on smaller budgets to spread their risk around, not fewer, bigger-budgeted projects.
But what you aren’t seeing, J Mc, is that movies used to be distributed in completely different ways. It’s not like the moment where you (or I or anyone else) liked it is what is going to happen again.
I would love to be able to walk into a theater at noon and stay for 8 hours, see two features, some news reels, cartoons, and short subjects in the luxury of a palace. Ain’t gonna happen.
Studios learn from what we, as consumers, do, not from what we say we want. And what they learn, over all of our protests, is “more sequels, more franchises, more lowest common denominator.”
The indie scene got strong enough so the studios decided they should cherry pick that too… and as a result, we are in a rough indie patch as well. The price of being indie is going up to the point where the point of entry is becoming evasive again.
And the truth is, people talk principal, but in the end, they like what they like and they adjust their ideas to that. Indie crap is no better than studio crap. Quality no better than quality.
But the reason, for instance, the doc business is soft again, is that we aren’t going to see them in increasing numbers or with a wider palette. The next Michael Moore film will do a lot of business, but with $3 million as the top for all but 3 or 4 docs a year now, the financial interest in chasing them and building that business is fading.
Making movies is not a rational business model. It was started by men whose idea of fortunes were relatively modest. And now, the studios are part of a series of mega-corps on which the studios have little bottom line effect. But the movie biz gets lots of attention… some years good, other years bad.
It is, in essence, like one team in a sport league. It can be The Yankees or The Royals. That much change is possible. But the machine is bigger than any one team. And so, as when Billy Beane inspired many with Moneyball, things can shift. But The Yankees still behave like The Yankees. And we just have to take heart that the A
You are certainly right that movies have little or no chance to build word of mouth these days. But how would that change, really, if there were more movies on smaller budgets? Seems to me that, if anything, that would diminish, not increase, the amount of time a theater would stick with a movie that wasn’t making big b.o. bucks.
There was a time, of course, when movies like “Bonnie and Clyde” or “Harold and Maude” could open small, and take time to grow. But that was in an era when movies didn’t pop up on home video 3 or 4 months after they hit theaters. Theaters have a realtively short amount of time to make money with a film these days. So if one doesn’t perform RIGHT AWAY — well, there are 3 or 5 or even 10 waiting to take its place.
So what you’re saying is, abandon all hope ye who enter here. For all the passion you project, DP, in certain areas, when it comes to the state of the industry, your general ‘it is what it is’ attitude seems curious.
It’s not just “it is what it is,” but J -Mc, my friend, you need to know what it before you can change what is.
Pick up a copy of Art of War (Clavell adaptation, if they have it) and read it well.
To turn ideas into power, one must understand one’s adversary and one’s self. Do not fight battles that you cannot win, lest you weaken your ability to fight the ones you can win. Do not allow ego to overwhelm perspective. Do not charge at windmills unless there is strategic value to the effort.
I often lose perspective on these lessons… but that is my weakness, not my strength.
Or, to once again quote Lenny Bruce: There is only what is. What could be or should be is a lie.
Thanks, pops (both of you).
Yeah, baby! mcm, at least you provoke, because it’s not like people aren’t writing about the biz daily, or anything. Wish I had bet a million dollars you’d say, “I certainly don’t consider myself ‘marketing or distributing my comments’ so there’s no comparison there either.” That’s what everyone who doesn’t get discovered on YouTube says.
Here’s the strike: Sacrifice mobisode.
http://www.editorsguild.com
Consumer tip, don’t buy their magazine for Christmas, A.C.E.’s puts out a better one.
http://www.ace-filmeditors.org/newace/mag_Main.html
Yeah, every blog commenter who doesn’t get discovered on YouTube (or have a weekly iKlipz show), I’m such a cliche.
That’s OK, sonny. Now go get your father a beer.
Welcome to 2001. Stick with this interweb thing, Dave. I think it’s catching on with the kids.
“Child-like” almost sounds endearing. Almost.
I’ll stick with the original.