Why did Richard Raddon resigns the director of the L.A. Film Festival. Why? Because everything is politics!
Richard Raddon, the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival who has been at the center of controversy ever since it was revealed almost two weeks ago that he had contributed $1,500 to the campaign to ban gay marriage in California, resigned from his post over the weekend.

The nonprofit arts organization Film Independent sponsors both the Los Angeles Film Festival, held in May, and the popular Independent Spirit awards. Raddon is a member of the Mormon Church, which actively called on its congregants to work for the passage of Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. It has been estimated that Mormons gave more than $20 million in support of the recently passed ballot measure.

After Raddon's contribution was made public online, Film Independent was swamped with criticism from "No on 8" supporters both inside and outside the organization. Within days, Raddon offered to step down as festival director, but the board, which includes Don Cheadle, Forest Whitaker, Lionsgate President Tom Ortenberg and Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice, gave him a unanimous vote of confidence.

He Speaks! Ever since his Proposition 8 contribution came to light, LA Film Fest director Richard Raddon has maintained radio silence. Now, with his resignation confirmed, he's finally issued a statement about the brouhaha. We've got it for you after the jump: “I feel honored to have worked with such a wonderful group of people at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the last nine years. I am proud of our accomplishments. And I am proud to have worked at Film Independent, an organization whose principles and values of diversity and artistic integrity I cherish. I have always held the belief that all people, no matter race, religion, or sexual orientation, are entitled to equal rights. As many know, I consider myself a devout and faithful Mormon. I prefer to keep the details around my contribution through my church a private matter. But I am profoundly sorry for the negative attention that my actions have drawn to Film Independent and for the hurt and pain that is being experienced in the GLBT community.” [The Advocate]

Everyone at the L.A. Festival must be Kung Food Fighting!

The producer credited with helping to launch the careers of Vincent Ward and Jane Campion says he would sell his films for $2 on the internet if it would get them to fans when they wanted them.

John Maynard wants New Zealand to pioneer an iTunes-like system for movies - getting films out quickly and cheaply on the internet to stop people turning to illegal downloads.

The Australasian producer, who has worked on two movies each by Ward and Campion, said the growth of iTunes had slowed illegal downloads of music. This week he told the Screen Production and Development Association (Spada) conference New Zealand could lead the world by adopting a similar model for films.

"It could happen in New Zealand - it's one of the few places in the world I know that can change very, very quickly culturally," he said. "I would rather sell my movies for $2 a download and make it available to its audience" than have people steal them.

In April, the Motion Pictures Association representative in New Zealand - Tony Eaton of the New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft - recommended Hollywood studios create a New Zealand website for legally downloading movies to reduce internet piracy.

Yesterday, Mr Eaton told the Spada conference that more than a third of the $6 billion film studios lost to piracy in 2005 was from illegal internet downloads.

He said the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace had been illegally downloaded 3.2 million times - before its New Zealand release.

Until recently, the federation's focus has been on pirated DVDs. Demand for movie downloads in New Zealand has been stunted by slow broadband speeds. But it is expected to increase when broadband gets faster.

Sony Pictures New Zealand general manager Andrew Cornwell said music downloads were easier to sell because they downloaded much faster than films.

There is a huge battle brewing between film producers, ISP's, Copyright Law and the consumer. Hopefully, the consumer will win.

Internet users would have their connections terminated summarily on the whim of the film and TV industry should it win its landmark legal battle against iiNet, legal experts have warned.

Seven of the world's biggest film studios and the Seven Network last week filed suit against iiNet, Australia's third largest ISP, in the Federal Court. They claim iiNet authorised copyright infringement by failing to prevent its users from downloading pirated movies and TV shows.

iiNet, and the industry body, the Internet Industry Association, say ISPs should not be required to take action against any customers until they have been found guilty of an offence by the courts. ISPs argue that, like Australia Post with letters, they are just providing a service and should not be forced to become copyright police.

Conversely, the TV and movie industry want ISPs to disconnect people it has identified as repeat infringers. There would be no involvement from police or the courts and the industry would simply provide the IP addresses of users they believe to be illegal downloaders. "To shift the burden of proof and require that ISPs terminate access to users upon mere allegations of infringement would be incredibly harmful to individual internet users in Australia," the online users lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia said.

"Every citizen has a right of due process under the law and, when faced with having their internet service terminated, every citizen has the right to ask that the case against them be proven first."

The iiNet case is similar to the one the music industry brought against the Kazaa file sharing service in 2002, which ended in 2006 with Kazaa's owners handing over $100 million in damages. Additionally, in 2005, Stephen Cooper, the owner of MP3s4free.net, and the website's host, E-Talk Communications, were successfully sued by the music industry for infringing copyright by publishing hyperlinks to sites that contained illegal music.

But Weatherall said both cases were different because they showed a clear knowledge and encouragement of copyright infringement, whereas iiNet simply provides the internet connection and is in no way directly involved with illegal downloading.

Further, the Copyright Act and safe harbour provisions introduced with the US free-trade agreement provide some immunity for ISPs when it comes to the actions of their users. Nic Suzor, an Australian lawyer doing his PhD at the Queensland University of Technology and vice-chairman of EFA, said internet users would face "substantial hardship" if iiNet lost the case.

"ISPs will be terrified of being sued, and will likely disconnect individual users without taking the care to determine the merits of allegations of copyright holders," he said. "There will be no court processes, so individual users will have no ability to contest the allegations, short of suing their service providers. There will be no court processes, so the media will not fully report on the issues, and a lot of the injustices will go unnoticed." John Linton, CEO of the small ISP Exetel, said legal action by copyright holders was "inevitable" and the movie industry's strategy was to "take one or more smaller ISPs to court to test the provisions of the current newer clauses in the Copyright Act".

Unlike iiNet, Exetel forwards infringement complaints from the movie industry to its customers. Linton said iiNet brought the legal action on itself by failing to play ball. Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association, said the impending court battle would be "a very important test case for the internet industry in Australia".

The IIA board will meet on Wednesday to discuss a response to the case, which will be before the court on December 17.

It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out!!!

One of my favorite movies of all time is Woody Allan's Hollywood Ending. What makes the picture so funny is that Allan who plays a "once famous," down and out director who is hired to do his "come-back film." Of course in the cast of the present HOLLYWOOD, it has a big problem on it's hands. What is it? Cash for new projects.  Here is a great over view I found at Forbes.

The movie business isn't recession-proof, after all.

Judging by the box office--a record-setting $70 million opening for Quantum of Solace, fans camping out for Twilight and a blockbuster holiday season ahead--things seem great in Hollywood. But look away from the glow of the screen, and Tinseltown gets a lot darker.

All of the 10 highest-grossing studios, which control 91% of U.S. market share have scaled back or combined their operations in recent months. This year's top-grossing studio, Warner Brothers Entertainment, shuttered two of its independent arms, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, and absorbed a third, New Line Cinema, in an effort to cut costs. Their total film output will drop to 20 films this year, down 25% from last year's slate. Paramount and 20th Century Fox made similar cuts.

It isn't the terrible economy--yet. People are still going to movies. The big problem is Wall Street. Without money from private equity and big investment banks, which injected an estimated $10 to $18 billion into Hollywood in the last four years, studios have had to change the way they do business--fast. "I would be very dubious for Hollywood as we know it surviving," says David Thomson, film critic and author of Have You Seen ...?

The American film industry "can't sustain much higher growth rates or attract capital at the same low rates the way they could a year or two ago," says Harold Vogel, president of Vogel Capital Management and author of Entertainment Industry Economics. "All the risk has been repriced."

As financing costs escalate, so will production costs. That means fewer films. Though the reduction ripple won't hit the box office until 2010, the number of productions will be down 5% to 10% over the next few years, predicts Vogel. The total number of feature films in wide release climbed from 478 in 2000 to 631 last year, a 32% increase. The number of movie tickets sold increased by only 1% in that same period.

The independent film industry may shrink even more. According to remarks made by Mark Gill, CEO of The Film Department, at the L.A. Film Festival last June, of the 5,000 films submitted to Sundance last year only "maybe five" would make money. There were 477 independent films made in 2007, according to the Independent Film & Television Alliance, each costing an average of $16.5 million to make.

"There's been an open spigot of money flowing into Hollywood, and the pictures are killing each other," says John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners. "We can't handle the number of movies we're getting right now."
Comment On This Story

International financing has increased importance. Recently, Abu Dhabi Media announced it will spend $1 billion over the next five years on U.S.-produced feature films. Steven Spielberg's new venture is being funded with $1.5 billion in equity and debt from India's Reliance ADA group.

The theater industry is also feeling the pinch as it transitions from film to digital projection. "The traditional funding sources are currently shut down," says Bud Mayo, CEO of Access IT, a third-party integration company that has converted 70% of the digital screens in the U.S. Last fall, Access IT announced plans to furnish 10,000 additional screens in by the first quarter 2011. They've installed eight so far this year.

Loans from investment banks provided companies like Access IT with the credit to install the new equipment, while studios essentially pay off that debt through a fee--usually around $1,000--for every digital copy they ship to the movie theaters. "As long as the movie theaters show movies, we're going to get paid," says Mayo. "We're very bullish on the industry."

Though the nationwide overhaul would cost near $3 billion, it would save distributors and theater owners nearly a billion dollars a year by replacing the cumbersome, costly film reels with digital versions. Currently 5,200 screens, or 13% of all the screens in the U.S., are digital.

Theaters without digital technology will be at a loss in the coming years as consumer demand for, and output of, 3-D movies increases. Starting in 2010, about 20% of all wide-release films will be in 3-D, a format that can only be shown on digital projectors with an additional converter.

Fithian remains an optimist. "History clearly shows that the cinema business tends to do better during recessionary times," says Fithian. "We have to have good movies to get people to come to the cinema." Maybe just not so many.

Written by Mitch Santell
Today we are in the final days of editing our first release, "Truth, Lies & Misinformation." As I was scouting over the internet today, I found this article that I know will be of inspiration and another idea toward your own production and film. Enjoy and read on......... (this blog is for educational purposes only so be aware that we find the best content on the net and place it right here)........

by Eric D. Snider
The Internets are saving independent film again! Often the biggest dilemma for small-time filmmakers is that distributing their movies, whether in theaters or on DVD, costs too much money. So we're seeing more and more films skip theaters, skip DVD, and go straight to the Internet, where movie downloads are becoming increasingly common.

The latest development is that a company called Cinetic Rights Management is releasing its catalog of indie films through Amazon's Video on Demand service and its CreateSpace DVD on Demand system. The arrangement will allow customers to rent or buy digital copies of films that aren't available anywhere else, many of which are just as worthy of being seen as the ones that were lucky enough to get theatrical distribution. (And that often really is the only difference between a movie that makes it to theaters and one that doesn't: luck.)

The new arrangement launches today with the featured title On Broadway (pictured), a gentle comedy about a Boston man who writes and stages a play in the back of his pub. The cast includes Eliza Dushku, Will Arnett, and New Kid on the Block Joey McIntyre.

On Broadway is a new film, but CRM will be releasing many of its older titles through Amazon, too, including the Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk and 1995's A Modern Affair, a romantic comedy about a man and woman who meet at a fertility clinic. The newer titles include Your Mommy Kills Animals, a documentary about animal-rights extremists; and Happy Birthday, Harris Malden, a rather delightful comedy that I reviewed at CineVegas earlier this year and that I'm glad to see is getting some kind of distribution.

And that's really why we're telling you about all this -- because we're excited about the way new technology is making it possible for small films to find audiences. I've never used Amazon's Video on Demand service, I don't know how well it works, and Amazon certainly ain't givin' me a kickback for mentioning it. But it's there, and more and more titles are being made available through it. Digital distribution is the way of the future! I, for one, welcome our new Internet overlords.

For many North Americans, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire will be the first slice of cinema sampled from the location of the world’s largest film industry.

The city formerly known as Bombay, India – Mumbai - is home to Bollywood, a massive film industry that cranks out twice as many films annually as Hollywood. But it is only courtesy of a 52-year-old Englishman that a Mumbai movie is finally connecting with the average North American movie fan, via film festival acclaim, critical raves and growing Oscar buzz. "[Mumbai] is just coming at you the whole time and you can't control any of it," says Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle of the world’s fifth most populous metropolitan area during a recent interview with FilmStew in San Francisco. "You can try. You can futilely try to control it and you'll end up with rubbish." "What you've got to do is just embrace how out of control it is and how impossible it is apparently to find a pattern in anything, but if you do trust it, there is a pattern there," he continues. "It does work. Against all the odds, it does work and you will find it eventually. The country gives it to you back eventually.” “You start work, and you think, 'We're never going to get this. We're never going to get anything done today.' By 4 o'clock in the afternoon, you've got everything you've ever wanted."  


The story of a teenager from Mumbai's slums who makes the most of an appearance on the Indian edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Boyle's heartfelt drama (co-directed with local Loveleen Tandan) has been creating a stir ever since its world premiere at August's Telluride Film Festival. It went on to win Audience Awards at the Toronto International, Chicago and Austin Film Festivals and has been nominated for six British Independent Film Awards, including Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Independent Film. Harrow native Dev Patel, who received a British Independent Film Award nomination for Most Promising Newcomer, plays Jamal, the 18-year-old accused of cheating when he gets to within one answer of winning the quiz show. Boyle's original plan was to cast all of his actors in India, but he ran into trouble when it came to casting Jamal. Not that the young Indian actors he saw weren't good actors. "But they are all built like bodybuilders," Boyle reveals. "If you want to get on in Bollywood, you have to look like a hero. You've got to be able to take the shirt off and kind of like dance in the waterfall in Switzerland. They all looked wrong. I didn't want anybody that looked like that." It was Boyle's 17-year-old daughter who clued him to Patel, a co-star on a favorite TV show, the British series Skins. "Dev plays a comic character in it. He was good and he looked dead right for me. He was kind of nothing looking, not particularly handsome, a bit scrawny, and I kind of liked that look. And I met him, and he was cool," Boyle recalls. In the film, Jamal faces arrest and even torture when the powers that be decide that there is no way that an uneducated Mumbai "slumdog" could possibly know so many correct answers. The only way to clear himself is to tell his life's story, the source of his knowledge springing directly from hard experience. It was those twin conceits of the game show and personal history revealed and taking on nearly epic proportions that enthralled Boyle when he first read Beaufoy's screenplay. "I love the idea of India, that it was portrait of India that was clearly changing,” he explains. “It’s such an extraordinary culture and history and yet it's clearly changing all the time. Those are things I responded to, that I jumped at." "I've always wanted to make a film about seeing a person age," he adds. "Normally, it's done, they're 80 and they're on their deathbed and they're reminiscing, and they're trapped by their memories really in a way. But he's 18 and he's got a fistful of memories, and they set him free really, because he's got his whole life in front of him really. I loved that fact, that was quite kind of radical, and I thought, quite cool. I'd never seen that before."

Kevin Smith is an amazing filmmaker who started out totally independent making the film Clerks on his credit cards totally 27,000 Dollars. He later sold the film to Miramax for 1.5 Million Dollars.


Here are some recent questions and answers with Kevin Smith at University Of Kansas.

Since writing, directing and producing the 1994 cult classic Clerks, Kevin Smith has become one of the biggest names in comedic filmmaking. Smith’s newest film, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, hit theaters last Friday. Jayplay recently had the opportunity to chat with Smith as part of his conference call with other student journalists around the country. Q. You’ve had a lot of difficulties with the marketing for Zach and Miri Make a Porno. What’s the big deal with the word “porno?”

A. I knew when we titled the movie Zach and Miri Make a Porno that it was going to turn some people off. I assumed that the people who would be turned off by that title were never going to see the movie in the first place, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal. But suddenly cities have been popping up that won’t allow us to put a billboard up. Like Philadelphia wouldn’t allow us to put up any billboard that had the word “porno” on it. I was flabbergasted, because I felt like we had used the cutest word possible to describe that industry. I understand people who wouldn’t be into pornography, but you can’t object to the term. How else are we supposed to describe it?

Q. Do you think this movie will change views of pornography?

A. I think most people will take this movie for what it is. I don’t think they’ll look at it like, “Hey, man, suddenly this is changing everything I’ve ever felt about the porn industry.” I’m not looking to convert people. I’m just looking to entertain them with this one story. There are a bunch of people out there that find it offensive, and I get that. And there are a bunch of people—mostly dudes—who see it as an essential part of their day. I don’t think the movie will affect that.

Q. How did growing up in New Jersey affect your filmmaking?

A. I think the area in New Jersey where I grew up affected the dialogue I write, where it’s kind of candid dialogue with a lot of vulgarity, because that’s just my circle of friends. I imagine if I grew up anywhere else it wouldn’t be that much different, although having the friends I have has certainly influenced me as a filmmaker as far as the stories I like to tell.

But you grow up in New Jersey and you’re kind of always growing up in the shadow of New York, and you’re the butt of a lot of jokes. There’s still that necessity to prove yourself to people, so I think we tend to try harder. Growing up in Jersey is like growing up fat. You just tend to try harder.

Q. You’ve always been known as a talented writer, but how do you feel your directing skills and the look of your movies have improved over the years?

A. Only recently has that stuff started to improve because I’ve started putting some thought into it. I’m not a born filmmaker, where it’s in my genes. I don’t live, breath and eat film. But I do like to write. When I made Clerks, it was more about writing the script and directing actors. I never really thought of the look of the film. And then when the reviews for the movie came in, people would write wonderful things about it, but invariably every review would say, “Well, it looks like shit, but man is it fun.” So I kind of took that, idiotically, as a pass to never try to improve my visual game, because I’m like, “As long as people are laughing, nobody gives a shit what it looks like.” It was only on Clerks 2 that I really started trying. I think that movie is the first one that I look at and go, “Oh, that is actually a visually interesting film.”

Q. What are you doing now that Zach and Miri is finished?

A. Hopefully in the spring I’m going to do a flick called Red State. It’s a little political horror movie. I’m looking forward to it because I don’t really feel like a filmmaker most days. I just feel like a guy who directs the stuff that he happens to write. With Red State, I get to switch genres altogether. There are no laughs in the movie whatsoever. I feel like if I can pull this one off, I might feel more like a filmmaker. If not, I’ll just be like, “Okay, I get it. I’m a dick-and-fart joke guy, and I should just do that for the rest of my life.”

Q. What advice would you give young filmmakers trying to break into the business?

A. I’d just say everybody should tell the exact story they want to tell, never mind the influence of people telling you how to change it or make it more marketable. At the end of the day, you’ve got to live with that movie for the rest of your life. That’s your flick. If you start subverting what you set out to do, then it stops being yours. Stick with your voice, because nobody else has your voice, so nobody else can do what it is that you want to do.

A growth in infrastructure is also fueling the acceptance of small budget films
Written by Gouri Shah

Walk into any multiplex today and chances are, a majority of the films being played out on those screens are small budget films featuring new talent. Whether it is the hilarious comedy about non-resident Indians called Loins of Punjab, thriller Johnny Gaddaar featuring newcomer Neil Nitin Mukesh, films such as Bheja Fry and Life in a Metro, or internationally acclaimed films such as The Namesake—industry experts say it is clear that audiences are developing a sensibility for small, independent films.

The box-office takings aren’t bad either: Madhur Bhandarkar’s Traffic Signal, which cost Rs5 crore to produce, made Rs15 crore at the box office, says an industry analyst. Right on cue, some film production houses are setting up separate divisions or companies under the parent brand to work on small budget projects. These have budgets less than Rs5 crore, and are generally less dependent on commercial success than mainstream Bollywood films.

“Today, production houses don’t have a choice but to start looking at small budget films or independent films. With actors turning producers, producers are now looking at lesser known names and smaller projects as an effective way to keep the ball rolling,” said Taran Adarsh, trade analyst, and editor of Trade Guide, a film business weekly. Top Bollywood actors such as Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Aamir Khan, Arjun Rampal, Ajay Devgan and wife Kajol have set up film production houses of their own. But why would studios set up separate divisions for budget films? Industry experts say there are several reasons ranging from de-risking their portfolio and clarity in brand strategy, a shift to large studio formats, to ensuring the inflow of new talent. They are also using high-content “art” films as an inroad to the international awards scene and markets beyond non-resident Indians.

“Today, with multiplexes, these small budget films can actually be made, and can be given a theatrical release to audiences with a growing sensibility for such work,” said Siddharth Roy Kapur, executive vice-president, marketing, UTV Motion Pictures.

These projects have a longer shelf life compared with bigbudget films, where the opening week is extremely crucial. “So, you could release a few prints first and the perception created by running full house for the first few weeks is extremely effective. Buzz is built purely on word-of-mouth,” said Navin Shah, chief executive officer, P9 Integrated Pvt. Ltd, which has a separate unit, P9 Searchlight, for small budget films.When it comes to selling an independent or small budget film, it’s vital to work smart. “You are catering to a discerning audience and, more often than not, (are on) a modest marketing budget,” said Shah. His company, which was responsible for marketing Traffic Signal, sponsored T-shirts with the logo ‘Traffic Signal’ for a large group of traffic cops running the Mumbai Marathon early this year.

There are two revenue streams for both big and small budget films: theatrical—through the number of prints sold—and non-theatrical—comprising home DVDs, satellite rights, DD telecast rights, etc. The only difference is that the territories and rights for big budget films are much larger. They also have additional streams of revenue comprising music rights, downloadable properties such as wallpapers, ringtones, music and international releases which are very rare for small budget films. Still, small is clearly getting big in filmdom.

This November 14-15th marks the tenth anniversary of the Melbourne Independent Filmmakers Festival and it is sure to be a crowd-pleaser! This year's fund-raising festivities will be held at the beautiful

Premiere Theaters Oaks Stadium 10 and will feature new cutting edge international films, independent films from Florida and international filmmakers, the winners of the Florida Today's annual filmmaking contest, and a special engagement of a film that is being called independent filmmaking world's Cinderella story, Touching Home starring four time Oscar nominee, Ed Harris.

The Melbourne Film Fest prides itself on bringing some the finest independent film work to an enthusiastic local audience and this year is no exception. This year's festival line-up will feature 2 Previews, 44 short films and 3 features.
There are plans for an exclusive wine-tasting and silent auction on Friday night sponsored by Von Strasser wines and the Yellow Dog Cafe and it is set to co-incide with the premiere of the new James Bond movie, The Quantum of Solace. There will be a Friday night comedy program at 7:00 pm and a horror program at 9:30 pm which will also feature selections of some of the best genre movies from this year's entries and the MIFF's past ten years.

On Saturday at 10:00 am, the matinee program begins featuring Florida made films, Florida Today 90 Seconds to Fame winners and 2 features. This will culminate in an opportunity to me the filmmakers at a roundtable forum for a Q& A session. At 3 pm, award-winning filmmaker Alex Ferrari will teach his seminar "Guerilla Marketing and Self Distribution for Your Indie Film" for the discounted price of $50 (All sales to support charity).

At 6 pm, the red carpet reception begins at the Premiere Theaters Oaks Stadium 10 and the 90 second winner of the Florida Today's film contest will be shown followed by the Miller Brothers' feature film, Touching Home. The Miller brothers will be in attendance and there will be a VIP courtyard reception following the screening sponsored by Florida Beer and many local restaurants including Chart House, La Placita, Meg O' Malley's, Miyako's, Mustard's Last Stand and many more. Live entertainment by Robin & Eddy and an awards ceremony will follow.

For more info on ticket sales go to
www.oaks10.com
Exclusive Wine-tasting Friday Nov 14th $100.00
Friday Comedy Program $10.00
Friday Horror Program $10.00
Saturday matinee & Meet the filmmakers $10.00
Seminar- Alex Ferrari "Guerilla Marketing and Self Distribution for Your Indie Film" $50.00
VIPparty, Red Carpet & "Touching Home" $50.00
ALL PASS $65.00(Does not include Wine-tasting and Alex Ferrari's Seminar)

For more info on the Melbourne Film Fest go to
www.3boysproductions.com
www.myspace.com/melbfilmfest

Each and every day we will do our best to point out the deals, dreams and trends affecting the film and entertainment business.