Patrick Goldstein on the collision of entertainment, media and pop culture.

From Big Picture correspondent Mark Olsen:

Film Independent's Los Angeles Film Festival had its opening night on Thursday with the world premiere of “Paper Man” at the Mann Village theater in Westwood.

The 10-day event will screen some 200 films from 30 countries. Among the selections are such high-profile Hollywood films as "Public Enemies" with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale and the Michael Bay mega-production "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," and so it felt like a particular statement of intent that the festival, in its first year under new director Rebecca Yeldham, would program a genuinely independent film without distribution for its opening night.

"I honestly didn’t know," Yeldham said at the party following the screening as to how she expected the film to be received.

"It’s an interesting environment," she said. "It’s a festival audience, but it’s also an industry crowd and an acquisitions crowd. So I wasn’t sure if it was the kind of situation where if a particular buyer didn’t think it was for them, they were going to leave. But everyone was glued to their seats, and it was so beautiful."

Co-written and co-directed by the husband-and-wife team of Michele and Kieran Mulroney, "Paper Man" follows a struggling middle-aged novelist (Jeff Daniels) who still maintains an imaginary friendship with a superhero (Ryan Reynolds) while struggling to hold on to his wife (Lisa Kudrow) and engaging in an awkward friendship with a teenage girl (Emma Stone).

"We felt so much genuine support from Film Independent and LAFF, real confidence on their part," said Michele Mulroney following the screening. "And when they feel that confident about the movie, how are we going to second-guess them? We really feel they walk the walk, they don’t just say they support independent film. This was a big move on their part."

“Even though we didn’t have a distributor, there’s no studio behind us, we knew they would come out and make a great night for us,” said Kieran Mulroney.

The opening night of the Los Angeles Film Festival sometimes feels like an indie film prom. Besides the usual sea of talent agents, managers, sales agents, executives, publicists, producers, critics and journalists, among the crowd were such notable faces as Dermot Mulroney (brother of co-director Kieran), Emma Stone, Christina Ricci, Melissa Leo, Laura Dern, Christian Slater, Joshua Leonard, Adam Yauch, Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, Anna Chlumsky, Penn Badgley and Robert Downey Jr.

The two main stars of the film, Jeff Daniels and Ryan Reynolds, were not in attendance, but prior to the start of the film a video screened featuring both of them. In the video, Daniels called Reynolds on the phone and they began to one-up each other for the reasons they couldn’t be there – Reynolds had talk show and promotional commitments for another film, while Daniels is appearing on Broadway in the play "God of Carnage."

In her remarks before the screening, Yeldham thanked Richard Raddon, her predecessor in the position of festival director, who resigned amid controversy when it became public that he had made a personal donation to a group supporting Proposition 8. When Yeldham acknowledged that Raddon was in the audience, a brief moment of reserved applause followed (and it should be noted, no booing).

Yeldham said afterward that she had not prepared her speech in advance, and so had not specifically planned to mention Raddon. 

"I saw Rich right when I came in," Yeldham said, "and I have very deep respect for Rich and what he did for this organization and this festival. And I saw him right when I was walking down, and I was so happy that he was here, and I wanted to pay homage to him and what he had built. It was a speech from the heart."

Finally, Kollywood is feeling the heat of the global economic meltdown.

Till recently, whopping budgets, big productions and skyrocketing star prices were the order of the day.Taking stock of the situation, the powerful Tamil Film Producers
Council (TFPC) had chalked out plans to do some cost cutting and revive the sagging fortunes of Kollywood.
As Ramanarayanan, President of TFPC said, “The cost of production has to come down. We were living on excess and the ongoing financial crisis highlights the need to control spending. Even actors should cut down on their fees. We are trying to implement certain changes to make filmmaking profitable.”

Suddenly producers and directors have become smart and are completing schedules on time within the budget. Last week, producer G Dhanajayan and director Kannan completed the first schedule of Kanden Kadhalai starring Bharath and Tamannaah covering close to 50 percent of the film in a record 27 days. Scenes for the film have so far been shot at Chengelpet, Ooty, Coonoor, Pollachi and Thirumoorthy dam.

Says director Kannan, “I am delighted with the way the film is progressing. Both Bharath and Tamannaah attended our script reading session before the shoot and made things easy while shooting. The production team offered everything on time making any compromises unnecessary.”  

The remaining part of the film will be shot in Theni, Pollachi and Chennai in June and the film will be completed in 55 days within the budget.  

Another case in point is Kamal Haasan’s Unnaipol Oruvan, a remake of A Wednesday.
Kamal plans to complete this bilingual in Tamil and Telugu within 45 days at Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad and release the film in the first week of July!

The film will have Malayalam superstar Mohanlal in the Tamil version while Telugu top star Venkatesh will be seen doing his role in the Telugu version. The film will be marketed and sold to distributors only after completion. The actors’ salary and producer’s share will be from the profits accrued from the sale of rights and distribution rights.  It is a win-win situation for Kamal, as he will be able to complete the entire film on a shoe-string budget.

Similarly, Soundarya Rajinikanth and her Ocher Studios are trying to keep the cost down for their Venkat Prabhu film Goa. After completing the village scenes of the film in Theni, they are starting their second schedule in Goa, which they will complete in 45 days.  

Dhanajayan maintains that these tough times will initiate smart sizing. Says he, “Spiralling star fees and astronomical movie budgets are hurting the industry. This will come down. The financial crisis could also bring back good sense, respect for the craft of filmmaking and restore focus on creative issues in Kollywood.”

 By Anjana Pasricha
New Delhi
17 January 2009
   
Hollywood studio Warner Brothers has made its first foray into film production in India with the release of a Hindi film, Chandni Chowk to China. Several big Hollywood studios are investing in India to tap the huge movie business in the country. The Hindi film Chandni Chowk to China, which was released Friday in nearly 30 countries, is the story of a simple, bumbling cook living in the crowded alleys of Delhi who is mistaken for the reincarnation of a Chinese warrior.The story is quintessentially Bollywood - the name popularly used for the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai.

The film is packed with breathtaking action, spectacular locations, bouts of laughter and heart stirring emotions which appeal to Indian audiences. It has a cast of top Bollywood stars.But there is a difference. It is the first Hindi film co-produced by Hollywood studio, Warner Brothers.Warner Brothers is among several Hollywood studios which have begun entering into joint ventures with Indian production houses.They are eyeing the huge movie audiences in a country of over one billion people, where watching Bollywood films is a passion which transcends its ethnic and linguistic divide. One of the producers of Chandni Chowk to China, Rohan Sippy, says India represents one of the world's big movie markets.   

"This is the one market which is a successful cinema market in the world, so they would obviously like to be a part of it," he said. "We have got a great cinema culture, we have loyal audiences, and great filmmakers of many, many years, it is such a prominent part of our culture, it is very healthy and vibrant, and hopefully will sustain for a long time to come."Hindi films do good business not just in India. They are also popular in other Asian countries, and with Indians living overseas.From left to right, actress Deepika Padukone, Warner Bros. President Alan Horn, and actor Akshay Kumar arrive at a screening of 'Chandni Chowk To China' in Burbank, California, 7 Jan. 2009From left to right, actress Deepika Padukone, Warner Bros. President Alan Horn, and actor Akshay Kumar arrive at a screening of 'Chandni Chowk To China' in Burbank, California, 7 Jan. 2009Warner Brothers plans to produce six more Hindi films in the next few years. Like Chandni Chowk to China, these films will be based on Indian stories, and be locally produced.

Film producer, Rohan Sippy, says it is important that the films appeal to an Indian audience. "Most important whoever is working on it, we must satisfy an Indian audience first, that is always the priority when we are making Hindi films, and then if we can extend that beyond to new markets that expand, that's wonderful," he said.For Hollywood studios the investment in India is relatively small. Bollywood productions are modest by Hollywood standards - the $15 million budget of Chandni Chowk to China is considered lavish in India.Warner Brothers is not the only Hollywood studio to invest in India. Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, and Paramount Pictures are also collaborating in film production in India.

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!!!

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.