A couple of hundred folks gathered for the day at the Sheraton Delfina Hotel in Santa Monica, California, for an intensive assessment of the health, the shifting sands – trends both good and bad – and, ultimately, the future of the film business.

Where have we come from, where are we today, where will we likely be in one year and beyond ?

The event producers – Variety and DigitalMediaWire – brought together a ‘who’s who’ of the film industry as speakers and panelists.  The dais boasted a steady stream of thought leaders and success stories in Hollywood.  Rick Nicita, Bill Block, Michael London, Paula Wagner, Ashok Amritraj and Oren Peli (writer/director of “Paranormal Activity”) were among the many luminaries..

The sessions ran the gamut, from the technological revolution now convulsing the entertainment industry (who will be the winners and who will be the losers), ‘game changers’ (how new Hollywood players are changing the business as we know it), new finance models, the next wave of mobile film and video entertainment, how international markets are shifting the business, as well as a dealmakers’ roundtable.

A few ‘notes’ from the day…

• Producers, writers, studios – all of us – are the agents of our audience.

• ‘Write movies, not scripts’ (a quote from Paula Wagner).

• Our business model needs to increasingly shift – working together ‘on spec’;
we can no longer be process-oriented, but must create consensus from the outset
and adopt a success or result-oriented philosophy; writers, directors,
talent and producers must collaborate from the inception, and be willing to
reduce fees and contain budgets, and participate in successful outcomes.
“It’s better for the industry if we are all talking to each other early and more
often” – David White (Nat’l Exec Director, SAG).  Paula Wagner admonishes
“this is not the time to come into the film business to get rich”.

• Conversations are not always easy or speedy, but agencies and talent are slowly
embracing the future reality and culture where full-fee cash offers are not the
order of the day;  they too are ‘in the mix’ and, albeit reluctantly, are selectively
beginning to ‘partner’ up on projects.

• Budgets are an organic part of a film.  Candidly assess a film’s ‘value’ in the
marketplace, rather than simply budget the line-item or cost-based need of a
project.  That determines what number of dollars can be spent on production and
marketing – if the film can reasonably be projected to do X revenues, then you
can responsibly factor half X for your negative and marketing budget. The
conversation or rationale should no longer be “we’ve a small budget and can’t
afford X talent”, but rather a given film has a projectable value and all must
participate fairly and proportionately in a smaller pie.  On the subject of paying
talent, QED’s Bill Block says “We need to reward today’s performance, not
yesterday’s, and have a transparent backend.”  If creatives are to get paid from
successful results, accounting needs to detoxify.  Real costs have been artificial
for some time.

• Marquee talent is no longer the sine qua non for a film to get produced, or to
enjoy a successful experience at the box office;  films without big stars (or at least
the traditional high-ticket male star) suggest overwhelming and discerning
audience appetite for quality, whatever the genre or budget.  Witness: District 9,
Paranormal Activity, The Blind Side, and Precious.

• It’s no longer viable to allow the major studios to finance and own films.
A culture seems to be emerging that increasingly encourages all to see
themselves and behave as ‘partners’ in our projects.

• In recent time, the biggest problem in film finance has not been the credit
crunch, but the utter lack of domestic distribution for non-blockbusters, all of
which looks to be shifting with new indie models and companies coming on line.

• Brands will continue to marry, blend and interact in new ways with filmed
entertainment projects.  Imagine print and ad funds (last monies in, first monies
out) sourced from an established brand to underwrite your film’s marketing
budget.  There are more robust, innovative approaches to brands beyond
traditional product placement.

• Paula Wagner observed: “Those who figure out the monetization of new media
will be our next stars”.  Another interesting comment: “We have led technology
and we have been led by technology”.

• Search, recommendation and social media are the new opportunities for the
future of film.

• In 2010, independent filmmakers will find viable new audience and new
modes of distribution online, per Sibyl Goldman (VP Entertainment, Yahoo!
Entertainment).

• We are an ‘on demand’ generation, and we’ll soon see ‘day and date’ worldwide
releases become the norm, with video-on-demand and other distribution
channels opening the same day as a film’s theatrical release.  Jay Cohen (Head of
Film Finaning & Packaging Division at The Gersh Agency) agrees day-and-date
will be more prominent on the independent side. A primary benefit and
motivator is maximizing marketing spend (Mark Horak, President, Warner Home
Video). Sandra Aistars (Ass’t Gen’l Counsel for Intellectual Property, Time Warner
Inc.) agrees VOD will only continue to grow in the coming year.  Fox’s VOD
revenues are up over 100%.

• Ed Leonard (CTO, Dreamworks Animation) says “3D and holograms are not sci-
fi, they’re reality now, and will change entertainment experiences forever”. He
talked in terms of “removing the middle between technology and art”.
Sandra Aistar also believes we’ll see a real market for 3D in 2010.  Most agree
3D is a game changer and will reinvent the film experience.

• Those with compelling and universal concepts and stories, and a true ‘wild west’
indie filmmaker attitude, will fare better.

• Content will find its own level of distribution.  It’s not about your budget, it’s
about the quality of your story.  Oren Peli (writer-director of “Paranormal
Activity”) admitted going ‘over budget’ – his film cost $15,000 (the initial budget
was $10,000) !

• A host of new independent distribution companies with forward-thinking models
are beginning to come online and will increasingly dot the landscape within the
coming year, a harbinger of a new  and healthier day for what has been, in recent
years, an independent cinema in decline.

• Foreign film investment will increase in the coming year, according to Lindsay
Conner (Partner, Entertainment & Media, at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips).

• As the studios produce fewer films annually, the ‘middle’ has dropped out of the
market (films in the $20-50M range), yet new technologies, financing models,
and distribution companies and models are re-defining what is possible in the
independent arena.

• The consensus: one year from today, the independent (not necessarily low-
budget, but non-studio) film landscape will look far more robust, with more
funding sources, distribution companies and methods enabling quality
productions.

Future of Film Summit

http://www.lafilmconference.com/

Click on images to enlarge.

I’ve been slowly writing my book “Tactical Toolbelt for Screenwriters: Success Strategies to Market and Grow Your Passion as a Career”. It’s nearly finished. The real success of my teleseminar – “Scaling the Great Wall of Hollywood” – inspired me massively and, as soon as it ended, I launched back into my book with even more enthusiasm and real world desire to impact others in a positive way.

The astonishing success of my seminar amazed even me. The amount of hands-on, concrete simple strategies I was able to squeeze into that course, and the amount of real-world traction people experienced in just over a handful of weeks exceeded my every hope and expectation.

It was so jam-packed, I had to add two additional Q+A sessions to insure everyone’s questions got 100% answered. And that was on top of the usual hour of Q+A at the end of every week’s regular class. The content, questions and group mastermind elements were unimaginably energetic and value-laden.

The seminar ended the week before Xmas and, over the phone and via an outpouring of emails, the group was clearly disappointed for the course to come to an end. These few dozen completely committed writers and producers participated every week from Canada, Australia, all over the U.S. I’ll continue to mentor quite a few.

The best part: I consistently receive emails delivering more incredibly good news – real world results – from quite a few of the screenwriters and producers in the course. The majority have taken major action based on tailored strategies, and I see more good news is just going to keep coming in.

It just didn’t matter where they’re from, what age they are, what level of experience in the film business. Knowing how to be an effective ‘advocate’ for their film projects only depends on their willingness to get in the game. And this teleseminar proved that in spades.

Using simple strategies, learning how to network in a very targeted way, how to truly get in the door (via phone, email, social marketing and beyond) and get ‘heard’ and get read… that’s the stuff of moving a creative career forward. And that’s precisely what happened and continues to happen.

So the course truly motivated me to launch back into the book and get it done. It proved to me the power and value and need for this very focused approach and set of step-by-step tools for anyone who wants to drastically increase their likelihood of making it in Hollywood.

I was so amped up and inspired by the teleseminar, by the massive response and results being reported, that it lit a fire in me to spend most of the holidays working on my manuscript. I’ve only a couple of more chapters to revise, a few more dynamic tools to layer into some of the various sections, but overall the book as a powerful set of career-advancing tools has clearly come into full focus.

I’m incredibly grateful and appreciative of the many who just spent the better part of two months with me. They deserve enormous kudos for their dedication to growing their careers, for jumping into action, making half an hour a day available to master simple but powerful techniques.

They showed me just how realistic it is to transform valuable information into smart action and quickly achieve results. In less than one year, I plan to publish a series of success stories from this group and celebrate their ‘wins’. I feel genuinely honored to know them and to have mentored screenwriters and producers with this level of commitment.

Gary Goldstein has produced some of Hollywood’s top feature films, including among others: Pretty Woman (Touchstone/Disney) starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, The Mothman Prophecies Sony/Lakeshore) starring Laura Linney and Richard Gere, and Under Siege (Warner Bros.) starring Steven Seagal and Tommy Lee Jones.

Gary’s films have generated well over a billion dollars in worldwide revenue… and received mulitple Academy Award nominations, People’s Choice Awards, a Golden Globe and various other awards and nominations.

Two dozen years ago, Gary left San Francisco to move to Los Angeles and pursue his passion for filmmaking. An attorney – turned literary manager – turned film producer and author, he’s also passionate about teaching and authoring, technology and philanthropy.

His book coming out in the Fall – “Tactical Toolbelt for Screenwriters” offers dynamic and concrete strategies for writers to market and grow their career.