Saskia Wilson-Brown’s Guide to Producing: Understanding the International Market with Miriam Elchanan « New Breed

I broadsided one of these ISAs – shivering outside on a subarctic German afternoon. What follows, then, is a short interview with the very savvy Miriam Elchanan, the Senior Vice President of Sales and Acquisitions of Los Angeles-based Fabrication Films, explaining the world of the International Sales Agent in nine questions.

What do international sales agents do?

International sales agents represent feature films in the international marketplace.  We are responsible for licensing specific rights to specific territories or countries. So for example, if you have produced a film and you have a North American distributor for the United States and Canada you would license the remaining worldwide rights to us. We would then license these rights to our buyers around the world. Our company offers established relationships with distributors and broadcasters and strategic marketing and promotional strategies.

What are the territories that you cover? What are the other territories?

Fabrication Films has buyer relationships in every country in the world. Major territories include Europe (UK , France , Germany , Benelux , Italy , Spain , Greece , etc), Asia (including Japan , China , Thailand , Indonesia , India , Malaysia / Singapore ), Latin America including Brazil, Eastern Europe including Russia, Australia , the Middle East, Turkey and Israel.

At what phase of the filmmaking process would you come in?

We prefer to get involved as early as possible in the production phase so that we can assist the Producer with creative and financial suggestions that will help bolster the value of their film in the global market. In many cases we become involved while a producer is in post-production or has just recently completed their film.

Saskia Wilson-Brown’s full post is on workbookproject.com

Totally Agree: Understanding What's Scarce And What's Not... | Techdirt #infdist

from the sell-the-experience dept

A bunch of folks sent over Jeff Jarvis' recent blog post entitled stop selling scarcity, which I actually think is slightly misleading. If you read the details, he's actually saying that you should very much sell scarcities -- but that you should avoid pretending that you're selling a scarcity when you're really selling something that it infinitely available:

If you are selling a scarcity -- an inventory -- of any nonphysical goods today, stop, turn around, and start selling value -- outcomes -- instead. Or you're screwed. Apply this rule to many enterprises: advertising, media, content, information, education, consultation, and to some extent, performance.
I have to admit, while I get what he's saying, I'm not sure it's particularly useful to most people, because they've always thought they were selling "outcomes" in the first place. I think that a similar post by filmmaker Ross Pruden may actually be a lot more useful, in that he talks about selling experiences, which is something that's scarce:
You think you sell a movie--you do not.
You think you sell a book--you do not.
You think you sell a song--you do not.

You sell an experience, something communicated, something elusive and ephemeral. Something mystical and transformative and inspiring. All these abstract things simply come in the shape of a movie, a book, or a song.

Never before has it been possible to strip away these experiences from the product... until now, the Digital Age.

read the full post:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100208/1720148090.shtml#

How Game Mechanics Will Solve Global Warming - Seth Priebatsch's Keynote Kicks Off #SXSW with a Game

The last 10 years have been called the era of Web 2.0, a term used to describe a new type of online experience, wherein a user could be both author and audience. That decade, said SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch today in his opening keynote at the SXSW conference, was the decade of social. 

That decade, however, has been won, said Priebatsch. Facebook has come away as the clear leader and now, a new decade is upon us - the decade of games. These are not children's games, however. These are games that could change the world.

read the full post on readwriteweb.com

Clever: Introducing Wanderlust- Atmoshphere-based stories on your smartphone | from Six to Start

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Description from the site:

"Everyone loves location-based stuff. Ever since smartphones with GPS chips became cheap and usable, we’ve seen an explosion of apps, services, and games that seek to bring the digital world into the real world. Some have been hits, like Foursquare and SCVNGR, but others – like real-time games – are taking more time to mature.

Naturally, we’ve long wondered how best to make location-based stories....

...Imagine a book that could tell stories tailored to your location – stories that take you from cafes to libraries to museums, not just in one city or one country, but wherever you are in the world.

Wanderlust is an experimental mobile storytelling platform that works on all smartphones including iPhones, Android, and WebOS. Using a simple web-based editing interface, writers can create stories that move readers from location to location – but unlike previous location-based stories, these locations aren’t fixed. Act 1 of a story could require readers to be in any cafe in the world; and Act 2 could take place in any bar in the world.

It’s not just location-based storytelling – it’s atmosphere-based storytelling...."

Stories by multiple authors including Andrea Phllips!

read the full description on Six to Start's website:

http://sixtostart.com/onetoread/2011/introducing-wanderlust/