Kent’s Official Blog

Back in 2003 when I worked on two cancelled shows on the USA Network, one of the people I had the pleasure of meeting was Anthony Deptula.  I finagled him to be in my 48 hour Film project and another sketch comedy thing that has never seen the light of day.  Anthony was always forward thinking and ambitious, so it came with little surprise and great pleasure that the film he’s been working on for the last few years — One Too Many Mornings — got plucked and put into the new “Next” program at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

(BTW, a great interview with John Cooper, the new head of the Sundance Fest, is here.)

Part of what is so exciting about what the OTMM crew is doing is that starting now — during the festival (but after it debuted at Sundance) — the film is online for both purchase and download.  Their store even has an option to buy the film’s domestic distribution rights for a scant $100k.

I got Anthony, along with Stephen Hale, co-star, co-producer, co-writer, and co-friend of mine, and Michael Mohan, director and co-writer, to agree to answer some questions before they headed off to Park City.

Read the Interview after the jump!

Keep reading →

I’ve been thinking about this since A Curious Case of Benjamin Button went through the awards cycles last year.  Where’s the line between Visual effects movie and animated feature.

Last night in one of his acceptance speeches, Cameron said that every blade of grass had to be created.  How is that different from Up or Kung Fu Panda?  If that’s the case then the design categories, especially Production Design and visual effects need to be opened to films like Up.

Last year Benjamin Button won for best makeup, but Brad Pitt was mostly CGI’ed.  Watch this TED Talk about their process here.  Now tell me it fair for them to compete in that category against a film like Hell Boy II that used way more practical effect and makeup…

Go a step further and think about what we are giving these awards for — it is for mastery of a physical technique or is it for using techniques in a masterful way to tell a story.  If it’s for physical techniques, then we need to come down hard and segregate out films like Button and Avatar into a reality like they used to do — awards for Color and Black And White films.  If it’s for using techniques to service a story, then I think we need to lift the written and unwritten bans on Films like Up for even being considered for non Animation awards.

And it’s important to address these issues sooner rather than later.  Watching a movie like Up In The Air after watching Avatar, both good for what they are, but realities and orders of magnitude apart in terms of scale and budget.  And last year some of the best Cinematography ever was in Kung Fu Panda, but that’d would never even come close to being considered for the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

If you’re thinking CGI Cinematography and Real Cinematography are different, then you haven’t spent any time on a set of a real big budget movie, where they have complete control of their environment, especially in the studio.

Anyway, food for thought.  Where is the line?  Should there be two set of awards?  Should they invite Pixar to compete in all of the categories?  Chime in in the comments!

From Observer.com:

But increasingly local broadcast TV stations are struggling to come up with the money needed to pay hefty syndication fees.

In the months and years to come, whenever big programs like The Oprah Winfrey Show sit down to renegotiate their deals with local, broadcast stations they are likely to find a grim market where station-group managers are unable or unwilling to match the fees of yesteryear, let alone increase them.

That leaves two options for the likes of Oprah. Lower your fees. Or pack up shop.

The multiverse continues to grow.  This move signals a further devaluation of local broadcast media.  The line between big network and cable network continues to be blurred, and the line between online only network and cable nets will also blur.

So how does Oprah moving away from local TV affiliates effect me and you as indie media makers?

Well, for one thing, it puts us into further competition with Oprah for eyeballs and attention.  Oprah is probably the single best self-marketer in the history of humanity.  She’s come from less than nothing to become one of the richest and famous-est people in the world, and now she’s going to be using that fame and money to build up a new media empire.

All of the same leverages that have been available to us, ownership, control, and distribution, will be available to her, and you had better believe a ton of brand dollars will flow to her.

And that’s a good thing.  It means that if you, tiny little indie media person, can build up your brand and attention, you’ll be able to get some future brand dollars flowing to you.  Once money is flowing into the space it’s hard to get it to flow to other spaces.

But Kent, you ask in an earnest tone, I don’t have a cable network like Oprah does, how will I compete with her?

Well, you won’t directly, but as eyeballs and dollars flow away from broadcast down the hill to cable, and cable eyeballs peel off into the net, you’ll see an overall growth in the the net sector.

It will be a slower process than any of us would like, but it will continue to happen.

These last three years in Hollywood has been like when your grandma picked up the rug at one end and just shook it all out and then beat the crap out of it.  A lot of violent unsettling of dust and old crusts of bread have been loosed and taken out, and though the pets and children may be confused, it’s ultimately for the best.

It’s always been hard to make it in the entertainment industry, now you’re just at the mercy of you audience, not some gatekeeper.  The gatekeeper was strict, but offered some level of security and hope that you could make your lot in life if you just kept the gatekeeper happy.  The audience may indeed be fickle, but once they are your fan, they are your fans, and it’s hard to lose them if you treat them well.

And if there’s one thing that Oprah can teach us all — be good to your fans and they will be good to you.

I was driving around the other day and I hear Mr. Tom Bodett come on and do an ad for Motel6.com.  Nothing too unusual there, but then Tom says ‘Totally Pwned”.  OMFG.

I went to Tom’s site and Motel 6’s and googled, and couldn’t turn up the audio.

So I went oldskool and sent Tom an email and here was his response:

Kent,

Attached for your listening pleasure is the one.  Go forth and multiply.

Best,

Tom

(the streaming sounds awful for me, but clicking on the file link sounds great!)

The Whole Ad

Just Totally Pwned

I’m sorta in the middle of an indie-filmmaking online scuffle, I know both parties involved and this post is meant not as a critique of any one party, but as an attempt to bring a larger perspective to the whole situation.

In this corner: Jessica Mae Stover, creative force behind ArtemisEternal.com, a site which is dedicated to destroying conventional filmmaking by raising $100,000 through small donations to make a 10-minute short film with the title of “Artemis Eternal.”  I appear in an upcoming promotional video for the site/film and know Jessica socially.

And in this corner, Mike Ambs and Amanda Walker, the creative force behind ProjectPedal.com, a site which documents Mike and Amanda’s five year struggle to produce a feature-length documentary about a cross-country bike trip which will ultimately be titled “For Thousands of Miles.”  It should be noted that Amanda and I were in a very serious relationship until recently and that her dog still loves me.

Okay, so with that, here’s the drama.  Jessica feels that Mike and Amanda have pulled off some sort of thievery in their recently re-launched “For Thousands of Miles” site.

There are certain similarities to both sites, both are about unfinished film projects, both feature a side scrolling timeline, and both ask for donations.

That’s it.

Sidescrolling is a bit novel, but it’s pretty out there already.  This collection of scrolling sites doesn’t include Artemis at all.

And donations?  Well, PBS, The One Second Film, and countless other projects (including projectpedal.com from 2005) have been seeking donations to make their visions a reality for decades.

So what’s the crime?

Not sure — I know I have been outright ripped off before (there are billions of Ask A Ninja homages out there…) but I never complain or let it get under my skin.  I compete by being better, funnier, and more creative than them.  And I actively try and promote our business model and try and learn from the success of others.  Because when it all comes down to it, we’re all just trying to do our art and make a living from it.

Mike and Amanda struggle just as mightily for their survival as Jessica does.  It’s one thing to steal source code or content and try and pass it off as your own (which no one claims happened), it’s another to see what works and make it your own.

It’s crazy to think there can’t be two indie film projects with a side scrolling timelines.  Just as it’s crazy to think that Jessica can’t open a twitter account for her film, or a myspace, or a facebook.

All of those things are just tools and techniques to talk to an audience.