This is a useful document for current information on the development of digital production, distribution and exhibition.
UK Film Council - Digital Innovation
Thursday 26 November 2009
Tuesday 24 November 2009
A Serious Man
Interview with the Coen Brothers - 'A Serious Man'
Why do you like to torture your characters?
Joel: As Ethan was just saying earlier today, it’s better story fodder when something bad happens as opposed to something good. Something bad leads to something else. Take the movie like Christmas in July. You win a sweepstake and something bad happens. That’s a better story dynamic. We enjoy it.
Ethan: There’s usually comedy when something bad happens to someone else! Someone’s unhappiness is humorous.
Why set it 1967?
Ethan: Generally, that era was important to us because that’s when we were kids and the same age as the kid in the movie. As to why 1967, specifically, I’m not sure what dictated that, maybe it was the Jefferson Airplane song – the album Surrealistic Pillow was the spring 1967. I’m not sure if that dictated it, but it helped. Also very early on we thought about making reference to the Six Day War, which was June of that year, although we abandoned that.
Did you ever consider placing it in a contemporary setting?
Joel: No, it was always a period piece in our minds. To be honest, I don’t know that we could get our minds and imaginations around this story in a contemporary context, because we are so far removed from that, while the other story we lived. To want to do a movie about a Jewish community in the Midwest, and we have to have lived in one.
Ethan: Had it even been a year later, in 1968 or 1969, the whole look would have been different. That look was what we were after. A year later or earlier it’d have been too different.
Joel: The period aspect of the movie helped to abstract it in a way, like with the folk tale that opens the movie.
As it’s drawn from your own childhoods, why did you focus on Larry, the adult, rather than Danny, the boy?
Ethan: That’s a good question. I think when we started we thought it would more evenly split, the point of view of the adult and the child, but during writing we kind of gravitated towards the adult more. I don’t know why. But we don’t see it as autobiographical. The setting was where we grew up, but…
Joel: When we grew up, we were the age of Danny, but we weren’t thinking of that character standing in for us, in any way. The events of the story outside of that context are made up. We went to Hebrew school, we were Bar-mitzvah’d, we lived in a community that was similar and our father was an academic, but what happened to Larry and Danny are just made up. We weren’t listening to music in class, even though we listened to the music in the film. Actually some of the music is a little later than 1967, like Hendrix.
People will say it’s your most personal film…
Ethan: I guess in some sense it is. Why deny it? It’s where and when we grew up, so while it’s not autobiographical in terms of the events that happen, the setting is a big deal, it’s the whole feeling of the story, so in that sense maybe there is a personal connection to us that the other movies don’t have.
Joel: But does it feel any different from our other films in terms of what we’re talking about, I don’t think so. It’s not just setting. What do you mean by personal? We’re Jews, that’s a big part of our identity, as it would be wherever we grew up. We grew up in Minnesota, and we’re defined by a Midwestern sensibility, that’s part of who we are. Yet it’s also true that you bring who you are as a person to the process of making any movie, whether it’s about sending a monkey to the moon. That said, we understand why people say that.
Why shoot with no big stars?
Ethan: We wanted to communicate the setting, and make it feel real, a slice of life from that period, and having a movie star would not help to ground it in reality. Larry is an everyman, although movie stars can project that quality. We wanted to immerse the audience in this exotic environment, and a movie star might take you out of this.
Joel: We’ve done movies with movie stars who haven’t taken movie star salaries. This was in no way dictated by budget. If a movie star had come up and offered to do the movie for free, that still probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. Fundamentally, though, for us, shooting a movie with Michael Stuhlbarg or Brad Pitt, it makes no difference to us, as filmmakers.
Was the film always going to be a comedy? It could play as a serious drama…
Ethan: We never really pick, the story is the story and we hope you feel free to laugh. But a man going to see three rabbis could be a set up for a folktale or a joke, it works as either. We don’t pick, it just unfolds.
Was it difficult to direct the folktale, which is in Yiddish?
Ethan: Very. When you have actors that are performing in a language you don’t understand, it’s hard.
Joel: There was a moment when we were going, ‘The actor is not saying what’s here on the page’. It was maybe too long or something. It wasn’t an accurate translation, even though I couldn’t understand it! But another actor who was in the scene, who had translated it for us, he said, ‘Yes, that’s what it says!’
Is A Serious Man based on a novel, i.e. The Book of Job?
Ethan: That’s funny, we hadn’t thought of it in that way. That does have the tornado, like we do, but we weren’t thinking of that.
Joel: Like when we were doing O Brother, we weren’t thinking that was sort of like the Odyssey story, but we did become a little self-conscious that it was about a man returning home, and we wondered whether to make it more classical. But with this film, we weren’t thinking this was like the Book of Job. We were just making our movie. We understand the reference, but it wasn’t in our minds.
Ethan: The film is also like the ultimate schmiel joke. There’s a whole tradition of those, and that’s true, too, but we weren’t thinking of that. The schmiel is the one who suffers. There’s no method to our writing. We just go back and forth in a room. It’s very loose and very back and forth.
Are you confident you would get this movie made now, in this economic climate?
Joel: It would be harder to get this movie made now than a couple of years ago when we were bringing it to the studio and asking for finance, but Focus Features and Working Title, people we’d worked with before, were totally behind us. This was written before No Country, and the finance was there before the Oscar.
Ethan: It is interesting that both No Country and this were written at the same time.
Joel: Maybe working on Cormac’s book opened us up to this…
Monday 23 November 2009
New Technologies
PRODUCTION
Discuss how new technologies have affected the production process through developments in:
Camera equipment
Editing software
Special Effects
MARKETING
Discuss how new technolgies have helped target more specific audiences through the use of:
Interactive websites
Social networking sites
Text messaging
Online shopping
Podcasts
Blogs
Youtube
DISTRIBUTION
Discuss the impact of digitial distribution:
Advantages
Disadvantages
Impact on audience
Impact on film producers/distributers
AUDIENCE
Finally, discuss how new technologies enable audiences to challenge institutions:
Who has the power the audience or the institution? Why?
Friday 20 November 2009
Edgar Wright on Hot Fuzz
Edgar Wright discusses his love of editing and filming in his home town of Wells can be viewed HERE
2012 - Viral Marketing
Disaster movie 2012 inspired panic in the States with Nasa having to reassure Americans that the world wasn't about to end. Is movie viral marketing getting too clever for its own good?
2012, and the Earth finally crumbles. Relax, it's just a movie. Photograph: Columbia Pictures
When Columbia Pictures launched a marketing campaign for 2012 – the latest disaster movie from serial Earth molester Roland Emmerich, where the planet, played by America, is set for impending doom – they didn't do it by halves.
First, there was a teaser trailer showing a tsunami crashing over the Himalayas. The Earth was going to end in 2012, it said, and the world's governments aren't doing enough to prepare us. Search "2012", it said, for "the truth" (the "truth" turned out to be over 1,000 real websites and 175 real books obsessed with 2012 as the end of time).
Then, there was a fake website – the "Institute for Human Continuity" – which consisted of a screen stating that for 25 years they'd been assessing threats to the continuation of mankind, and the results were in.
The "odds of global destruction" in 2012 had been confirmed at 94% (goodbye mortgage) and "to ensure your chance of survival, register for the lottery". In other words, it was a web campaign that seemed to say: "Look, the end of time might actually be coming, so enjoy a film about it why you still can, yeah?"
Many didn't get the joke. Tens of thousands from all over the world panicked, called Nasa, wrote letters – couldn't they do some saving of people too?
'People are really, really worried about the world coming to an end. Kids are contemplating suicide. Adults tell me they can't sleep' Photograph: Columbia Pictures
"I think people are really, really worried about the world coming to an end," said David Morrison of Nasa. "Kids are contemplating suicide. Adults tell me they can't sleep and can't stop crying."
Indeed, Nasa got so many queries, they set up a specific site to deal with them. Yet perhaps even more worryingly, 2012 is not alone. Following the success of Blair Witch, nearly every film worth its celluloid now has its own teaser campaign, web mystery, and viral marketing push, and even the simplest promotional campaign can have unexpected consequences.
For the independently made 2008 animated fantasy Delgo – featuring the voices of Freddie Prinze Jr and Jennifer Love Hewitt – they hit upon the idea of launching "Digital Dailies", where a crack team of animators would whet the public appetite by posting their handiwork as they went. It seemed to work: the videos were getting up to half a million hits a month. Yet, sadly, it seemed most of those were in the industry; they liked what they saw, and began poaching the film's best talent. The director, Marc F Adler, was forced to resort to hiding their identities with aliases.
"It was brilliant as viral marketing," says Adler, "but terrible for making a film."
The "brilliance" of the viral marketing also proved questionable. On a reported budget of $40m, the film's box-office taking was one the worst ever for widely released film (it opened on 2,160 screens), taking just $694,782. According to Yahoo Movies, that works out as roughly two viewers for every screening.
To be fair, their teaser trailer – "From a Studio Nowhere Near Hollywood … From People You've Never Heard of … Comes a Myth for the New Millennium … Delgo" – probably didn't help either.
Yet if that was unexpected, some campaigns just cry out for trouble. Take the case of 2008 indie horror film A Beautiful Day. Set for its debut at an independent film festival in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the makers posted a teaser on YouTube, which featured a sinister synthesized voice saying: "People of Muskogee. Open your eyes. April 25th is a day you'll come to remember", including the message "the end is coming". But 25 April was also the prom night for the local high school. The scared students called the Muskogee police, who assumed it was a terrorist threat, and called in the FBI. Outcome: their film was swiftly booted out of the festival.
And in the world of suspect virals and dodgy publicity stunts, it seems terror threats can come from anywhere. The Cartoon Network's guerilla marketing for cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force saw them install LED displays depicting the show's "Moonieites" – 2D aliens from the moon – in 10 major cities across America. In Boston, however, they didn't get the gimmick. Authorities considered the Moonieites suspect devices, which sparked a major bomb scare, caused the closure of roads and posed the question: would al-Qaida really plant bombs that glowed in the dark?
"It had a very sinister appearance," said Attorney General Martha Coakley, adding "It had a battery behind it and wires."
'There are always going to be problems with unbranded campaigns; people may not get the connection to the film, and people fear the unknown' Photograph: Joe Lederer
Of course, ill-judged glowing figurines are one thing.
But even ill-thought-out poster campaigns can wreak havok. To promote Forgetting Sarah Marshall, unbranded posters were put up all over the US, saying things like "You suck, Sarah Marshall", and "My mother always hated you, Sarah Marshall". Which sounds like great fun – unless your name is Sarah Marshall of course, many of whom assumed they were the victim of a hate campaign.
As student Sarah Marshall, of Fort Worth, Texas, told the LA Times: "I got a lot of emails and phone calls asking if my boyfriend and I were OK." Some Sarah Marshalls even struck back with posters of their own: "You suck, Judd Apatow," they responded, citing the film's producer.
Even the obviously fanciful bus-station posters for recent sci-fi hit District 9 – featuring a crossed-out alien, text saying "Bench for humans only", and a request for alien sightings – saw the marketing team get more that they bargained for. Tens of thousands called the hotline with sightings, assuming it was a real request.
"There are always going to be problems with unbranded campaigns," says Dan Koelsch, managing editor of MovieViral.com, "because people may not get the connection to the film, and people fear the unknown."
Yet with studios looking at ever more innovative ways to market films, it inevitably leads to more innovative ways to cock up.
"Sometimes studios try too hard, to the point where people can smell the desperation," says Sean Dwyer, editor of filmjunk.com. "That's when it doesn't really work."
The desperation ponged when 20th Century Fox, looking for a way to market this year's rom-com I Love You, Beth Cooper, paid a high school student, Kenya Mejia, $1,800 to profess a secret passion for a classmate during her graduation address (which she did, bellowing: "I cannot let this opportunity just pass by. I love you, Jake Minor!").
The idea was that Fox would video the moment – which recreates a key scene in the film – post it on YouTube, and create viral buzz that the movie was inspiring copycats. It didn't work due to a) Mejia blabbing to the Wall Street Journal, b) Her already having a boyfriend, who wasn't Jake Minor, and c) The film hadn't even been released when she was supposed to have copied it. The film bombed, and a month after the video was posted, it had attracted less than 2,000 views.
If that was treading on suspect moral ground, it didn't come close to New Line's marketing push for 2006 adult crime drama Running Scared starring Paul Walker – a tale of the Russian mafia, bent cops, paedophiles, hookers and men being chased around with really big machetes. What did they do? Made a promotional online game from it, of course, in which players re-enacted not just the film's main action scenes ("A man points a .38 revolver at another man's crotch and fires it, blowing his crotch apart," notes the Parent's Guide section of IMDb of said action, in a list that goes on for six pages) but the more intimate moments too, including Walker's character performing oral sex.
Needless to say, conservative America wasn't too happy when they realised little Timmy was performing online cunnilingus, and pressure from the National Institute on Media and the Family saw the site swiftly shut down.
Still, a really good teaser campaign, well judged, and executed, should work wonders, right? Not always. The campaign behind Mike Myers comedy The Love Guru was brilliant, spot-on, did everything right.
"It was a fully fledged effort to position Myers's character as a real guy, or at least flesh out his backstory," explains Chris Thilk, editor of MovieMarketingMadness.com. "But it wound up being funnier than the movie".Stuart McGurkThe Guardian Saturday 14 November 2009
Paranormal profit for scary movie
The film was shot in the director's home in San Diego in 2006
By Tim Masters
Entertainment correspondent, BBC News
The director of Paranormal Activity has said he is "overwhelmed" by the movie's success in passing the $100m (£60m) mark at the US box office.
Oren Peli's ghost story, filmed on a video camera in his own house for just $15,000 (£9,000), has become one of the most profitable movies of all time.
"I'm pleased and overwhelmed and a bit shocked," Peli told BBC News on Friday.
"The whole thing has been kind of crazy, so this is just one more crazy thing that's going on."
Paranormal Activity first opened in the US in September with midnight-only screenings in 12 college towns, but quickly developed a nationwide buzz via word of mouth and an online marketing campaign.
'Primal fear'
The fictional movie, shot like a homemade documentary, follows a young couple coping with supernatural phenomena in their home.
Budget horror film is US smash
The film took $22m (£13.5m) in its first weekend on nationwide release at the end of October, trouncing the sixth instalment of the horror franchise Saw.
The film is released in the UK on 25 November.
First-time director Peli said: "People say it's the first movie that's really scared them in a long time. What happens at night while you are asleep, that's a primal fear that everyone has in common."
But he remained tight-lipped about talk of a Paranormal Activity sequel.
"I'm not discussing the possibility of any future projects. I'm not going to comment on anything until it's done," he said.
He also refused to discuss his previously-announced follow-up thriller Area 51, filming in Utah this autumn.
Fan commitment
Paramount Pictures said the film would cross the $100m (£60m) mark at the North American box office on Friday after only five weekends of national release.
In so doing, Paranormal Activity has become the top grossing R-rated thriller of the past decade, Paramount said.
It is a success story to rival that of the Blair Witch Project, which set box offices alight in 1999.
Made for less than $100,000 (£60,000) and shot in a documentary style, the low-budget horror went on to make $250m (£150m) worldwide.
Paramount chairman Brad Grey said: "What is truly amazing about Paranormal Activity is the depth of commitment from fans who demanded to see it.
"Adam Goodman, our head of production, believed in the film and championed it from the very first screening."
Paranormal Activity
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