MPAA

1. MPAA • In 2003 the MPAA, Motion Picture Association of America prevented VHS and DVD promo copies to the Academy, critics groups, and guilds • Indie films depend on end-of-the-year award season screeners to get critical acclaim and access to awards season

2. Transformation of entertainment business • Good movies were not being seen • Good movies were not getting released • Those that did got paid a fraction of what they received from distributors • 10% down from 30%

3. War Between Two Models • Artistic centric versus gatekeeper controlled • Capital-intensive versus low-cost • Consumers’ impulse driven transactions versus considered choices • Collaborative efforts of self-empowered creators versus the corporate monolith

4. Social Media • Can enable widespread connectivity • Help discover talent • Build a network • And get the word out about quality art • Allows artists to create without following the dictates of large markets • “Hope for Film”

5. Awareness can be created—it doesn’t have to be bought • We are getting to the point where a filmmaker can go to a studio and say, “My film has five million followers”

6. Critics • Firing of film critics • Local audiences trusted them • Critics had developed a relationship with their audience • Blogging does not have the same authority

7. Today • We have to figure out the the alternatives to critics • Who are our filters? • Who are our curators? • What can we do to sprout new ones? • Curating is a necessary responsibility of producing and participating in film culture • It is a pressing problem that will continue to worsen • We need to connect the right art with the right people

8. Community • For the first time we have the potential to establish the broad middle class of creative individuals who support themselves through their art • Aligning and collaborating with specifically defined audiences • Not having to conform to the limited dictates of the mass marketplace and its controllers • With an new focus on engagement—the audience can become a community

9. We—creators, entrepreneurs and audiences have to choose the type of culture we want and the type of art we want available to us

10. We can all become curators—we can all promote the culture we love

11. Community • Brainstorming • Proposing hypotheses, fleshing out thoughts • Collaborators do not have to be business partners • The corporate hierarchy of how we judge stature and success, most industry professionals operate on an elitist level—monologue instead of dialogue

12. Social media allowed him to get rid of that attitude • Phrased ideas as thoughts rather than answers • Changes the whole discourse

13. Hope’s Lectures • Do at least one thing to help another person and his or her work • That chain of support is the key to a sustainable diverse culture • Shed the hierarchy that we have imposed upon ourselves • Filmmakers often make the common mistake that they are all in competition with each other • It’s not a zero sum game

14. Without a business model fitted for the times we are living in—return on investment for investors—sustainable living wages for filmmakers—less and less important stories will be told

15. Sacramento Film Society: Filmmaker Grant helped get Fruitvale Station made • Artists to Entrepreneur

16. The 90’s model • 200,000 spent million dollar box office • Worked because there were more newspaper film critics, art-house theaters and foreign sales • After Pulp Fiction independent filmmaking became the business of profit margins rather than an underserved audience • Now indie movies have to be made for everyone and that costs a lot to market

17. Low Budget Indie Films for Everyone? • Only horror films fit that model

18. Tyranny of Choice • Connecting audiences with “their” films • Fandor

19. Filmmaking is not currently a sustainable occupation for any but the very rare.  It is not enough to be very good at what you do if you want to survive by doing what you love. • Presently speaking, artists & their supporters are rarely the primary financial beneficiaries of their work – if at all. Filmmakers are not sufficiently rewarded for their quality creative output under current practices. • The film industry’s economic models are not based on today’s reality.  They are predicated on and remain structured upon antiquated principals of scarcity of content, centralized control of that content, and the ability to focus the majority of consumers towards that content. • Film audience’s current consumption habits do not come close to matching the film industry’s production output.  America remains the top film consumption market in the world, and is thought to be able to handle only around 1% of the world annual supply – consuming somewhere between 500-600 titles of the annual output of approximate 50,000 feature films.  We make far more films than we currently know how to use or consume.  We drown our audiences in choices.

20. The film industry has not found a way to match audiences with the content they will most likely to respond to.  It doesn’t even look like this is a priority for the business.  • In order to reach the people who might respond to a film, the film industry remains dependent on telling everyone (including those who could care less) about each new film.  It is a poorly allocated dedication of resources.  We spend more money telling those who will never be interested, than focusing on those who have already demonstrated support.  There is no audience aggregation platform exclusively for those who love movies, no place where all people who love movies engage deeply about films – if there was, marketing costs could shrink. • Digital distribution is an emerging market and will continue to evolve over the next decade.  The value for titles for the long term has not been specified for digital distribution; currently only short term value is derived – and as a result films are licensed without full understanding of future worth.  We are doing a business of ignorance. • Predictive value of films is primarily currently determined by an incredibly imprecise method: “star value”, a concept that grows less predictive by the day.  Ask anyone and they will tell you that people do not go to movies anymore to see specific stars but interesting subjects.  Granted, that is not a scientific method, but we know it to be true. • The “fair market value” of a feature film’s distribution rights in the US that multiple buyers want has dropped astronomically: from 50% of negative costs 25 years ago, to 30% 15 years ago, to 25% 10 years ago, to 10% today.

21. International territorial licensing of American independent feature films has dropped by approximately 60% over the last decade.  Major territories no longer buy product.  Most have given up on “American Indies”. • Everything that has ever been made, has also been copied. The logic of a business based on exclusive ownership or limited access to something can not sustain.  In the digital era the duplication of data is inevitable.  The unauthorized copy will never go away.  People can choose to try to avoid unauthorized versions but they will be made or shared.  This does not have to always be a bad thing either. •  Competing options for film viewing have diminished the comparative value of theatrical exhibition. A consumer can not justify the cost of a movie ticket when that ticket costs more than the cost of a month of unlimited streaming.  Home theaters’ quality surpasses many theaters, and the seats are always better.  Soon 4K Televisions will be the norm while movie theaters are stuck in 2K. • The film business lacks a long range economic model for exhibition.  What is the business of movie going? Exhibition gathers people together to sell them a 15 cent bag of popcorn for six dollars.   We can profit from a large group’s interest in more and more meaningful ways, but the infrastructure is not yet designed to expolit this.

22. The film industry foolishly rewards quantity over quality.  Producers are incentivized to forever take on more and the films’ quality suffers as a result.  The best work is not rewarded.  Once upon a time, filmmakers got overhead deals and that made some difference, but those days are long gone. • Movies have a unique capacity to create empathy for people and actions we don’t know or have not experienced.Science has shown that the imagined releases a similar chemical response to the actual experience.  If this empathic experience is virtually unique to film, can it be utilized more?  I think so, tremendously so in fact. • Movies create a shared emotional response amongst all those that view it simultaneously.What other product can claim that?  As a unique attribute, how can you emphasize that more?  Shouldn’t that be the takeaway that your audience remembers and shares? • There has never been a better time for most creative individuals to be both a truly independent filmmaker and/or a collaborative creative person.  The barriers to entry are lower, the cost & labor time of creation & distribution are lower than ever, and there are more opportunities and methods that ever.  We just need to abandon the old ways and unearth the new ways.

23. Ryan Coogler • youth guidance counselor at a juvenile hall in San Francisco • Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga, CA • Took a creative writing class at Saint Mary’s College and wrote about personal experience • The professor suggested that he go into screenwriting • Sacramento State • USC School of Cinematic Arts where he lived out of his car for his first semester

24. Fruitvale Station • First feature • Developed at the Sundance Screenwriter’s lab • Last 24 hour of the life of Oscar Grant who was shot to death at Oakland’s Fruitvale Bart station on January 1, 2009 • Produced by Forest Whitaker • Grand Jury Prize at Sundance • Best first film at Cannes • Time named Ryan Coogler one of the 30 people under 30 who were changing the world

25. “I saw the riots and the frustration [following the shooting], and they didn’t have an effect,” says Coogler. “If I can get two hours of people’s time, I can affect them more than if they threw a trash can through a window.”

26. Recent history gives the film more emotional and political resonance • According to Coogler, Grant was cast as either a saint or a monster—the movie attempts to portray Grant as imperfect

27. Creative liberty was taken with the dog scene. It is based on an event that happened to his brother • Pit Bulls, are to Coogler like African American males. • “You never hear about a pit bull doing anything good in the media,” • “Whenever you see us in the news, it's for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody—for being a stereotype.” --Salon.com

28. Film and Reality • (Representation of Grant) Leads to questions of accuracy • Coogler worked with public records, news stories and Grant’s family

29. All of the events that take place at Fruitvale are carefully researched through witness’ videos and testimonies.

30. Authenticity • Coogler wanted to show Oscar Grant as real • The good and the bad • Human struggles • Struggles with limited opportunity • Making a change (right before the new year) • Shows his time spent in jail as well • Important not to portray him as a criminal or a saint • The perspective of the filmmaker and the actor Michael B. Jordan (related to Oscar Grant in personal ways)