A CALL TO PRODUCERS: INNOVATE OR DIE | Filmmaker Magazine

By Mynette Louie in News on Monday, June 18th, 2012

Excerpt

"I’m very fortunate to be friends with many accomplished independent film producers–people whose films have screened at the best festivals, won significant awards, gotten picked up by major distributors, earned healthy gross receipts, and received accolades in the mainstream press. We hang out sometimes, one-on-one or in groups, to catch each other up on our projects, share recent experiences, exchange opinions on companies and people we’ve worked with, etc. But essentially, we get together for emotional support against an industry and an economy hostile to our work. At any given time, half of us will have one foot out the door, ready to escape an occupation in which the appreciation and financial rewards we get have zero correlation with the insanely hard work we do and intense emotional stress we endure.

I was recently struck by three things I read that echoed some of these sentiments: Ted Hope’s forlorn blog post in which he catches up an old friend to where he is now, Brian Newman’s post about how YouTube stars are disrupting the old indie film model, and the Huffington Post article on Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen. I deduced a common theme running through all three: innovate or die...."

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Really insightful post on Brian Newman's Blog SpringBoardMedia: Egypt, Tunisia, Social Media and Change

Egypt, Tunisia, Social Media and Change

164297_501518534290_511364290_5849813_4735509_nphoto © 2011 Al Jazeera English | more info (via: Wylio)The events in Tunisia and Egypt (and now popping up elsewhere) have been nothing short of extraordinary. It is too soon to say what will ultimately happen there, but what has been most fascinating to me, and what I am only slightly more qualified to comment upon, has been what it has revealed about the United States government, and its complete and utter failure to understand what was going on, and is going to continue to take place, globally.

Read the full insightful post on Brian Newman's blog:

http://springboardmedia.blogspot.com/2011/01/egypt-tunisia-social-media-and-c...

Brian Newman tells it like is it now: SpringBoardMedia: Stop making docs

Friday, November 19, 2010

Stop making docs

Yo, you. Shut up, listen. I don’t want your (feature) doc anymore.

I know, you are offended. So what?

Make me a really interesting website, that happens to have maybe 20 minutes total of video. In 3 minute segments. Let me trade it, use it, share it, on my phone. Let it actually have an impact instead of just stroking your and your funder’s egos. Let it be interesting and aware of today’s realities. Let it be useful. Let it never play a film festival. Ever.

Do this, and I will love you. And so will everyone else.

I’m not saying everyone should do this, but you should. Yes, you. Thanks.

Brian Newman's Insights: 'Can We Make Discovery A More Integral Part Of Process?' | Truly Free Film

 

"The volume & density of NOISE seem to have been the dominant parts of the discovery process for some time now. We choose what we choose generally based on how often we hear ourselves being told to make that specific choice.

Everything becomes about level of spend and placement when it is all about how much noise you can generate.. And when it is about noise, everything really stops being about choice, but something much closer to just impulse.  But what would happen if we started valuing certain voices over others?  What would happen, if we committed ourselves to choices, and worked to reduce our impulses? 

There once was a time when film audiences listened to critics, where what someone said about your film, or any film, actually mattered.   It would be hard to imagine a scene in a modern movie about a filmmaker (if such a film could actually get made) when every character waited for the reviews to hit — yet don’t we all remember that scene quite well from past films about filmmaking or any tale about any creative act.  It used to be that other than the audience’s applause, the critic’s review mattered most.

Word of mouth has always been something to cultivate, but the science behind it has always been lacking.  What is the strategy that one can employ to heighten desire among sympathetic ears?  When does interest spread for the core group and then spread like a virus in ever-expanding circles?  If we value the opinions of the people closest to us, what can we build, what do we need, to help share their opinions so that word of mouth can truly bloom?

Do the new group of social network recommendation tools that have been rolling out over the past year+ help build word of mouth or do they just contribute to the volume of all the static?  Back in the days when everyone read the same newspaper — and thus heard the same voice — were we better off, or were we really in a hell, albeit in an ignorant  one, because we were stuck with stuff that had to appeal to the widest audience?"

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