NZ film pretty much didn’t exist before the commission was founded in 1978. Now it does.

They support the need for a commission. But with many changes.

Gives very PRACTICAL advice: specific numbers, costs, prices, positions, tasks, etc.
Mentions transmedia 3 times.
Quite radical from a filmmaker’s perspective. I specifically mean indies, who always seemed to see themselves as a smaller Hollywood -> Hollywood’s concepts / business models / etc. should also work for them. Which they never did. But now it’s becoming more clear that they don’t and perhaps never will.
Not radical enough from my perspective. It’s a filmmaker sharing his insights from his struggles within the film industry. It’s not a step back to reassess the big picture.

29-36
Define who your film is for (hopefully not for yourself) and how you will reach it.

37
“The new 50/50 is as follows:
50 percent of your time and resources should be devoted to creating the film. 50 percent of your time and resources should be devoted to getting the film out to its audience, aka distribution and marketing.”

45-52
A good “overview of rights, markets and windows”; how they have been and how he reconceptualises them.

53-59
Know what YOU want to achieve and think about how to get there.

61-72
He describes “the bare minimum” of team members you need, and some more recommendable positions if you have the money.

127-131
His “Introduction to Transmedia” is less than 5 (!) pages short.

128
“media consumers don’t consume in one unified pattern anymore.”

129f
Definition “extradiegetic”:
“This material is called “extra-diegetic” and includes all content that is not part of the final released film, especially material that is created but never intended to be part of the final released film. However, as our understanding of film expands, there will not need to be a separate classification between diegetic and extra-diegetic; it will all be part of a seamless whole.”

133-136
Chapter 13: Redefining the Theatrical Experience
His new Definition-theatrical:
“It is time for filmmakers to reclaim the meaning of a theatrical release so that it is inclusive of a multitude of live-screening event scenarios. The theatrical experience needs to be redefined as people watching “films” with other people. Any place. Any time. Any media.”

143
“Unfortunately, due to contract obligations, IFC is currently only set up to do VOD day-and-date with their Festival Direct Program.”

151
“[...] Chris Hyams (the head of B-Side) did the research and found that all films (studio and independent), on average, lose money from theatrical.”

171
“I believe that incorporating aspects of an event into your screenings is the future of independent live event/theatrical releases.” A bit of a nonsensical sentence, but it goes back to stressing experiences.

172-174
“Ways to create a sense of an event:

1. Personal Appearance by the Filmmaker/Cast
2. Personal Appearance by a Celebrity
3. Parties
4. Partner with an Organization
5. Sell Advance Tickets
6. Live Audience Participation Part 1 (?)”

174f
“Transmedia Aspects to Screenings

1. Live Musical Remix
2. Live Film Mixing [Peter Greenaway]
3. Add Live Storytelling Elements to Your Screening [Head Trauma]“

175-177
Other options:

• One-Night Events
• The Film Tour

195
“The alternative theatrical grassroots screening model has shown the way to democratize and return a shared film experience to the control of individuals and groups,. With that newfound power, people will continue to find new ways to exhibit and congregate in order to watch films.”

243
“I think transmedia has tremendous potential for how narrative filmmakers can find new audiences and engage with them. Again, this is not just about marketing, it is about finding and engaging the audience for your film and your oeuvre.”

244
“Audiences don’t consume media as they once did. They have their own preferences, whether it is a movie theater, DVR, their iPhone, Xbox console, etc. Audiences have media and art form preferences. You can’t bend them, you must accommodate them.”

245
“Part of the death of DVDs has been due to people realizing that they didn’t need to watch a film more than once. Transmedia creates a life beyond the one viewing of a film.” -> Not sure about that. Isn’t transmedia even more ephemeral than a traditional movie?

275
“merchandise can be points of entry for films or narrative extensions – so they can be important to a transmedia strategy.”

289
“Television’s core business is repeat viewers.
It is difficult for television to command repeat viewers with individual films. When there was a plethora of fledgling channels such as HBO, Starz, Showtime, AMC, etc., they needed to buy movies to fill their schedules. But as those networks have matured, they have turned to series to bring back repeat viewers. Even indie stalwarts IFC and Sundance are buying fewer films in favor of series programming.”

296
“Ways to monetize your digital rights”:

• “Fees Charged Per Download, Rental, or Viewing”
• “Ad Revenue Share”
• “Subscription Fee”
• “Merchandise Sales”
• “General Promotion/Theatrical Launch”
• “Ad Sales/Banner Ad Sales”
• “Branded Entertainment/Product Placement”
• “Sponsorship”
• “Pay What You Want/Online Tip Jar”

299
“There is an argument I have heard on panels lately: Most filmmakers have a greater problem with anonymity than with piracy. I think this is a false argument.” If nobody wants to pay for it, perhaps nobody wants to see it, so perhaps the film is simply shit or doesn’t have an audience. -> Market it properly!

347
“Dentler observes that if you look at the history of consumer media, you always have different models for different types of publications. Some things are free, some things you pay for. He uses print media as an example, pointing out the difference between the Wall Street Journal and the Free Press.“

The chapter about Australian horror was written by Mark Ryan.

00:35
“What I mean by that [storyworld] is I want to create experiences that allow the audiences to step into the shoes of the protagonist. I want the story itself to model itself more in the way that people are actually consuming their entertainment and media these days. So my work is a fusion of film, gaming, and technology.”

05:45
“And that’s what we try to do when we create storyworlds. It’s about texture. It’s about putting people in the shoes of the protagonist. And it’s about letting them feel something that they wouldn’t normally feel through just a passive film.

Lance describes the order of events in the remixed version of Head Trauma. He talks about how he remixed Head Trauma, added ARG and many other live elements. He calls this “cinema ARG”. But I’m not sure if he mentions the term here.

Then he talks about how the language of storytelling is all new. Of course, certain fundamentals are going to stay the same – like the idea of conflict, for example. But the language of how everything is done is changing A LOT at the moment.

Gives details about her income from Sita Sings the Blues. She is convinced she’s making more money using Creative Commons than if she had restricted Copyright.

She paid USD50,000 for the music rights. And she has nearly recuperated these costs.

13
“The question is then: how is such ‘creative destruction’ occurring in media industries, if at all?”
“In spite of the success of a few media enterprises, creative industries in China are fragile when compared with the corporate structures and production relations of Hollywood. In developed economies the mass media are dominated by highly concentrated forms of organization.”
“In China, the options for development of audiovisual industries are still uncertain and subject to vagaries in national media policy. Media organizations may expand provincially; they may aspire to horizontal integration; but the bottom line is likely to remain a lack of capital, which forces them to seek out low-cost ways of competing in a crowded media industry.”

14
“In television industries for instance financial returns on program development and production are extended across, and within new territories. In cinema co-productions and runaway productions are a means of ensuring cost savings.”

15
“Globalization by franchising provides a very different model of development, one that is flexible, post-Fordist, and subject to user innovation.”
“Within the context of globalization, [...] there are four levels of economic activity: economic specialization, de-territorialized production (production of goods in lowest cost locations), partially traded or non-traded services, and routine manufacturing and services.”

economic specialization

“These blockbusters and global brand services are often incubated in ‘export-oriented, specialized industrial clusters’. Hollywood and Silicon Valley, which are result of institutionally embedded know-how, produce continuous learning and innovation. The output of these centres targets world markets.”

de-territorialized production

16
“Outsourced productions in cinema are the most noteworthy example of how international producers seek to minimize costs.”

partially tradable or non-tradable services

“The internationalized services as such need to partner up with local knowledge, in turn creating mutual benefits and cultural technology transfer.”

routine manufacturing and services

“it is possible to make products and services at any location in the globe.”

16f
“The demand for innovation drives the imperative to constantly examine the international market for opportunities.”

17
“This leads back to the conundrum of creativity: how do developing countries compete? If it is easier to compete in the cultural economy by making local versions of global products—or by acting as a low-cost location for footloose multinationals—then the specificity of culture is ultimately eroded. On the other hand, a focus on the national can have the effect of marginalizing the cultural product and ensuring that it fits only into a niche culture market, as illustrated by national cinema and world music. The dilemma for producers, moreover, is making a leap into high-value markets: independents located in developing countries do not have the resources to incubate, produce, and market so as to produce ‘winner-takes-all’ branded products and services. In many instances, new artists are discovered in the margins and expediency drives them or their agents into to the arms of international financiers, often handing over the valuable IP rents in the process.”
“Over-bureaucratization is endemic to the cultural sector and works against implementation of long-term business models.”

17f
“These factors, in combination with existing conventions within the marketplace, notably a propensity to rely on relationships make it difficult for cultural enterprises to generate start-up capital. Product innovation is therefore more likely to be incremental and imitation is favoured over innovation. The focus on imitation has led to the success of Japanese and Korean creative industries. Whereas these countries have managed to move to the next stage (innovation), China remains locked into a cycle of dependency.”
“The principal financiers of the Chinese film industry are government: direct support for approved films as well as indirect support for co-productions via tax breaks and reductions of expensive red tape; foreign investors: particular in co-productions and joint-venture arrangements; major business enterprises: through revenue-sharing arrangements and product endorsements in film; advertising companies: often through brokering of services such as post-production; and state-owned enterprises: many of these such as the People’s Liberation Army, are in fact highly profitable enterprises with interests in communications.”
“In 2003 80 percent of revenue from box office receipts came from the 20 imported blockbusters (Hua 2004). According to official statistics copyright earnings on imported films were 10 times more than those received from domestic productions.”

18f
“The politicization of film content, erratic censorship regimes, and the necessity of managing scripts to appease officials, impacts on production investment in two ways. First, it discourages domestic investors who are unwilling to sink their capital into scripts that are politically doctored; and second, it opens up a private investment market for the more adventurous producers. Since 1997 the partial privatization of China’s leading film studios (Beijing Forbidden City Film Corporation, Xian Film Corporation, Ermei Film Corporation, and Shanghai Film Corporation) has stimulated private investment and co-productions. Most of the capital investment has come from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. While the majority of films in 2003 were still produced by the state-funded studios, there was a significant increase in the number of films (Ibid, 32) produced by privately invested companies. Some of the more notable independent production and investment houses are Beijing New Vista, Huayi Brothers and Taihe Film Investment Company, and Century Hero Audio-visual Investment Company (Yin 2004).”

19
“The success of China’s film industry and the capacity to create exportable content is contingent on unleashing creativity as much as stimulating finance.”
“Tarantino has undoubtedly been impressed by the willingness of the Chinese to work enthusiastically for low salaries in contrast to the spiralling costs in other international locations.”
“With a population of more than 1.3 billion China’s cinema box office revenue is just 25 percent of that of Korea, whose population is 47 million.”
“The success of the Korean new wave has seen film financing models going on-line, allowing ordinary people to buy into the movie-business (Kim 2003). Netizen funds are a way by which (mostly) young Koreans invest in film projects for a return based on the movie’s success after release.”

19f
“International connections are important in order to break out of the cycle of dependency on state funding. In 2003 more than half of the 140 feature films made in China received substantial investment from government but less than half the number of films legitimately screened in Chinese cinemas in 2003 were profitable, and as mentioned above, the heavy grossing films were international ‘blockbusters’.”

20
“the average cost of production was only rmb 3 million (USD362,000), or 0.5 percent of the average cost of production in the U.S.”
“Cellphone received investment finance from a number of sources with major contributions coming from Motorola, China Mobile, BMW, and Mtone (a Chinese internet content provider). Motorola invested rmb 4 million (USD484,000), China Mobile rmb 800,000 (USD97,000), while BMW contributed rmb 1.2 million (USD145,000). Sponsors received product placement and visible recognition in the film promotional messages. For instance, the protagonist of the film—a successful TV talk host who inadvertently left a message from a lover on his new Motorola cellphone—also drives a BMW. In addition, Motorola and BMW’s logo were displayed prominently on advertising billboards. Music copyright delivered a further rmb 8 million (US$968,000) (Meng 2004). In addition to securing financial support, the production company (Huayi Brothers and Taihe Film Investment Company), which is incidentally the advertising agent for China Mobile, sought to ensure returns on investment by working with a Guangdong-based DVD maker to produce cheaper legitimate versions in efforts to limit piracy (Shanghai Daily Jan 21, 2004).”
“Television is an industry that employs an army of people in China. The flow of investment is more dynamic than cinema as the market is shaped by domestic consumption and broadly supported by advertising.”
“Television stations are still technically owned by the state but they are now allowed to apply for licenses to operate as corporate entities responsible for their profits and losses.”

21
“This is not straightforward philanthropy, however, but investment based on guanxi (reciprocal) relationships.”
“In China cable television is ubiquitous but the business model remains low value because subscription to the 30 or so channels is under priced.”
“the mass audience for television – some 900 million — is shared among some several hundred stations. The bulk of income for television stations, and for producers, now comes from advertising.”

23
“Digital content industries provide new challenges for investment in the creative industries.”
“Chinese government is investing heavily in video games production in Shanghai and an animation centre in Beijing. These are joint public-private ventures that draw upon government largesse towards new industry/new economy development in the wake of Korea and Japan’s video games exports. The government recognizes that digital content industries are growth industries and that they have global impact; that is, products and applications developed in China can be marketed globally, in comparison to television and film, which is hampered by being nationally specific. In addition, digital content is invariably produced with the intent of repurposing in multiple platforms: cable, free-to-air, Internet, mobile phone etc.”
“Until recently oligopoly structures have not existed in China due to the need to control information.”
“Digital media is especially relevant to user-led innovation. There is a need to respond quickly to consumer demand and this gives China an advantage in that it has a large consumer base to test new products and applications.”

24
“while ideas may be generated in developing countries, finance to commercialize still comes primarily from multinational investors.”
“In order to avoid becoming a low cost location for media production (Miller et al 2001), China needs to further develop its own industrial base and to recognize the importance of intellectual property protection in developing local creativity. The synergy between creative enterprise and financial inputs into core creativity, R&D, incubation, and marketing now becomes central to meet the challenge of developing export content.” Not sure about that.
“how do countries move from a low national production base into competitive export markets? The transition encompasses a five-stage process.

1. low-cost outsourcing,
2. isomorphism and cloning practices,
3. legitimate co-productions and franchising agreements,
4. niche markets and regional breakthroughs,
5. cultural/ industrial milieu and local clusters can be produced to target high-value exports.”

“These media capitals (Curtin 2003) bring with them economies of scale and scope, the attraction of foreign investment, the certainty of rights management, and greater network and distribution complementarities.”

25
“Successful exports of Chinese film and television, moreover, are ultimately contingent on institutional reforms within China, which will bring these five growth stages into synergistic alignment in order to generate greater value and industry confidence.”

483
It is difficult to pinpoint “how many people are affected by runaway production because of the locomotive nature of the industry.”
“Entertainment executives counter the unions’ argument that the decline in production jobs is due to runaway production, saying that the decline is due to a decrease in the number of films made per year and other efforts to cut costs as above-the-line production costs rise while profit margins fall.”

483f
“Proponents of a petition filed with the Commerce Department in late 2001 supported regulations compelling tariffs equal to the amount of the Canadian subsidy of a particular film or television production to be paid in order for it to be distributed in the United States.”

484
“Other labor groups such as the MPAA, DGA, the International Alliance of Theatrical State Employees (IATSE), and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) opposed countervailing tariffs because a possible trade war could result in the loss of thousands of jobs.”
“The petition was withdrawn in January 2002 without prejudice.”

485
“One of the historical benefits of working with a union is that the producing company is assured a certain standard of work and experience, without having to bargain about the workers’ rates and benefits.”

486
“Co-productions are beneficial because they decrease the costs for all parties; foreign entities view them as a “vehicle for collaboration with Americans who excel in technical and creative expertise” and, as a result, better equip them to compete with Hollywood.”
“partnerships generally permit filmmakers greater creative control than if a major studio were the backer of the film or program.”
“From the corporate point-of-view, producing in the United States is no longer cost efficient.”

486f
“While a higher percentage of Canadian workers are unionized than their United States counterparts, the average wage for below-the-line workers is less than in the United States. Further, the “costs related to the acquisition and production of a movie prior to its release,” so-called “negative costs,” doubled between 1990 and 1999, as did the average distribution costs. Entertainment conglomerates dealt with this reality in the 1990s via vertical integration, layoffs, co-productions and other joint ventures, and by conducting more aggressive market research prior to production and distribution.”

487
“”We don’t want to do a TV show in Canada called ‘Pasadena,’ but we can’t justify to our parent company the extra $200,000 per episode it costs to shoot here.”"
“Production revenues in British Columbia, where the popular production city of Vancouver is located, were about $1.2 billion in 2000, compared to $43 billion in revenue for California, furthering the Canadians’ argument that their industry is infinitesimal compared to that of the United States.”

491
“The concept of tax credits for labor expenditures has been gaining support amongst legislators and within the entertainment industry.”
“Ever since the 1920s [...] the entertainment industry has been largely self-regulated.”

495
“North Carolina has consistently ranked as the third highest production center in the country since the mid-1980s.”

498
“From the signing of the Declaration of Independence, capitalism has ruled the federal government’s approach to the arts.”
“The U.S. government should be cautious in its approach, however, not to favor independent or television productions over high-budget feature films, since in the aggregate, high-budget productions do the most damage when they flee U.S. shores. Federal involvement through retraining and displaced worker assistance programs is the least intrusive option.”
“Accepting that runaway production will occur and dealing with the consequences may be a more prudent approach than trying to direct the economics of the entertainment industry from the outset of production.”

499
“In a competitive international marketplace it is neither realistic nor economically practical to completely halt runaway production.“

1960s

• Australia needs identity
• Less connection between Australia and Britain
• Cultural nationalism
• High ratio of Australian productions on pay TV

1980s

• 10BA

Today

• Free trade agreements all around
• Lure foreign film production to Australia
• Low ratio of Australian productions on pay TV
• PayTV probably overtakes free-to-air TV
• Policy embraces internationalism

Australian film and TV industry (AFTI) drifts gradually from cultural nationalism to internationalism.

“Australian film and television policy is a case of incremental change through ‘layering’ and ‘drift.’”

Very interesting but very utopian.

161
“Many screen practitioners I have come across don’t seem to recognise that there is a fundamental conceptual difference between how you construct old media and how you construct new media; that old media is about story arcs, editing to build inference and dramatic connotation and achieving narrative outcomes, whereas new media is largely about a real-time, private, momentary, disposable experience that unfolds in a virtual space.” This is way overgeneralised. The two can be combined => entarch!

163
“Even the so-called leaders in global, virtual world thinking, are still thinking old media. Hence the opportunity for the Australian screen industry. […] Australian screen practitioners just need to get ahead of the game and embrace progress, rather than be determined by it.”
“In a film, we measure our codes of morality and values against what is happening to a character. In a virtual world, we get the cathartic benefits without being put in the line of judgement (whether or to this is a false illusion). We are questioning our own reality.”

164
“[…] in our traditional way of looking at things we have to work with a timeframe, whereas someone could remain engaged in a virtual world forever.” (“That could be a young guy starting at 17 years old and ending at 42!”)
“The new era of vital word is about a conceptual exploration of emotions in more abstract ways. It is about exploration of consciousness. Your mission as a creator is to keep that fantasy going. This is based on the relationships your participants find within that world. The basic journey is of participants forming relationships and developing confidence to becoming a mentor or even a collaborative designer.
If audiences are both beneficiary and creator, the virtual world producer is the facilitator, the town planner – it’s a totally different role. You’re centre management. It’s customer service. The creative element is in setting up the next project: what its conceptual design and machinations will be. You want to get to a point with your brand where it can be licensed and sold off, to support your other brandable entities. Filmmakers will do best to think of each business as one aspect of a greater brand.
The six key principles of virtual worlds are shared space, persistence of world, immediacy, interactivity, a graphical user interface (GUI) and the encouragement of communities.The Big Brother house shares all six key principles but, again, from the point of view of the Big Brother participant. The unique experience of each contestant is their “ego journey”, as they experience self growth. But someone self-evolving in real time makes for rather uninteresting TV viewing for the rest of us, so we rely upon the edited highlights.”

165
“In fact, Reality TV is perhaps the closest example of an ego’s journey, although the editing, dramatic musical inferences, “highlights” packages and competitive “winner” outcomes tend to make it lean towards an audience friendly “hero’s journey”. It is still about structuring a passive, prescribed story which builds dramatic point cliff hangers to ad breaks. The Ego’s Journey in the virtual world is more private. There is no audience.” Not sure that’s true.
“There is much that can be learnt from the virtual paradigm in terms of screen content. Films don’t have to be films anymore. The notion of three acts, 90 minutes, does not keep up with the next level of internet customisation already being enacted out there in society every day.” I only partly agree. Film will continue to exist.
“If Johnny Rocku becomes enough of a presence to become a film, so be it but that shouldn’t be the starting point. This is a fundamental conceptual problem.
Filmmakers need to think of themselves as a brand first that has multiple slate of projects under that theme. Once you are established and have a core following you can branch out.”

166
“The reason I prefer to talk about brand is that it has longevity far beyond 90 minutes. Disney, for example, does not have a beginning, middle of end. Disney will go on forever.” “A child will form relationships and an identity with Disney for as long as he or she desires it. That’s his or her journey. Until eventually he or she grows out of it. It’s not about imposing a story within that space but rather gives it enough interest to sustain participants creating their own journeys there.”
“I’m starting to think that social communication is entertainment.” Of course it is.

167
“There is also a need to design for different personality types: some people seek socialisation, some seek a sense of control, some want to nurture and some just want to blow things up! And the one person can go through many different phases. The whole system of designing the virtual world is about human psychology and how people relate to each other at various stages of their own evolution.”

168
“What does the age of ego-centricity do to character arcs?”
“In this new frontier of filmmaking, I’d like to inspire Australian screen practitioners to take a unified approach, to redraft policies together and rethink conceptually the future framework of our ideas. “Who am I?” is, after all, the oldest question on the planet.”