Category: The Business of Production

Open Source Animated Movie Shows What Can Be Done Today http://tinyurl.com/2d3ajjf

For years, one of the points we’ve raised in answering the movie industry’s $200 million challenge to us (i.e., “how do you keep making $200 million movies?”) is that, in part, it’s asking the wrong question. No one asks “how do we keep making $10,000 computers?” Instead, they look for ways to make them cheaper (and better, at the same time). But in the world of Hollywood accounting, there’s little incentive to make cheaper movies (sometimes the incentive goes the other way). And, we keep showing how the world is reaching a place where it’s cheaper and cheaper to make good movies. We’ve pointed out nice examples of people making high quality movies for next to nothing. The idea is not that movies should be made for nothing, but that the technology is making it so that movies can be made for less. In fact, with two of the examples of cheap movie making we’ve highlighted, the makers later went on to score deals to do higher end movies for more reasonable budgets.

The Terence and Philip Show Ep 8 is now available. http://bit.ly/buAnvV

The movie studios are pushing to release movies to cable, on-demand much closer to theatrical release. Starting with the fact that cinemas are not in the movie business and the cinema release is promotion for DVD sales. Plus what is the effect of the aging Television audience on the Networks, along with time-shifting (and skipping commercials)? Appointment Television is dead. The one common theme is changing business models: you can only sell scarcity so what are the implications for production?Are Apps the future of viewing content and providing an experiences around the content? Is the democratization of production going to lead to the end of production as we know it? What can we learn from the outliers? Is branded entertainment the replacement for advertising support?

And finally, do we have to care less about quality and finish, if budgets drop further?

Why asking how much a movie cost to make is the wrong question. http://bit.ly/9xchrE Article also talks of $800 movie shot on Pentax DSLR.

There’s no positive benefit to spending more on a film than is going to be seen on the screen and yet the majors all talk about “$200 million movies”.

A few years back at a Cato Institute conference on copyright, a guy from NBC Universal challenged me with the question of “how will we make $200 million movies?” if content is freely shared. As I noted at the time, that’s really the wrong question. No one watching a movie cares about how much the moviecosts. They just want to see a good movie. The question for a good filmmaker or producer or a studio should be “how do I make the best movie I can that will still be profitable?” Starting out with a “cost” means that you don’t focus on ways to save money or contain costs. You focus on ways to spend up to those costs. That’s backwards, and it’s how you fail as a business.

The article goes on to talk about a new short film from Futuristic Films, which notes in the opening that the whole damn thing was shot with a Pentax K-7 DSLR, which you can find these days for around $800 or so!

Big difference from the $200 million movie, but trying to compare them is probably ridiculous.

High Quality Fan Flick Leads To $8 Million Hybrid Fan/Investor Funded Pro Film http://bit.ly/cARYs3

If you missed Star Wreck a couple of years back, you should take the time to revisit. I was privileged to interview the founders on the Digital Production BuZZ back when I was more actively involved in that show. Made in a 10×12′ room, on green screen, even the main deck is a composite shot if there are more than 2 people in it. The animation work was amazing. It was the work of a core crew of dozens and more than 300 people were involved at some point in the three year creation process.

Well, the success of that film – it’s made a lot of money despite being available for free download and is the most popular Finnish movie ever.

They’ve been working on the sequel for some time and the good news is that it’s been funded with a combination of fan funding and more traditional professional funding in a combination not tried before.

But what’s most interesting to me is how this story progressed. It went from some fans messing around and creating a rather impressive film visually speaking, to a new $8.5 million production. $8.5M is still a small amount from a movie-making perspective, but it’s not nothing. Plenty of excellent indie films have been made for a lot less. And, of course, you never know what happens next, after this film is made as well. And that was really the point. It was never that the model that created Star Wreck was the answer, but that the overall ecosystem is evolving, and its evolving to a world where the fans and the community really area a part of things, rather than looked at as evil people who just want stuff for free. Embracing your community leads to wonderful possibilities.

Seems maybe you don’t need $200m for every blockbuster!