Pulp 2.0: July 2009

Friday, July 31, 2009

I Expect to be Called This From Now On...

Because seriously, I AM THE "Supersonic Enemy of Evil."

And a "Fantastic Brain Destroyer."

I am going to put that on my business card.

I am Essential

Thanks to Christopher Sharpe for listing Pulp 2.0 as one of 7 Essential Sites for Independent Filmmakers.

I happen to have all of them in my Google Reader so I can keep tabs on everyone and stay up to date. I would suggest you do likewise.

Thanks again, Chris! Let us know when The Spider Babies is ready.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Hard At Work (How the Indie Film Biz Must Change)

Courtesy of Screen Daily:

Kevin Loader, the producer of IN THE LOOP has a guest editorial in today's email version of SCREEN INTERNATIONAL.

"Despite what’s happened to the music industry over the past 15 years, the leaders of the global entertainment business seem unwilling to create a new model for distribution; like their predecessors in the 1950s, they are relying on 3D and Imax to save their short-term balance sheets.

Most of us at the film-making coal-face know this isn’t going to work for long. Founding an entire global distribution system on the profitability of a couple of dozen tentpole movies per year is insanity. It’s also bad for the health of cinema. The canary in the independent film cage has all but stopped singing already."

Of course, this is what we discuss all the time here at Pulp 2.0 - the changing face of media and what it means to those of us toiling away watching that little canary fall over in its cage.

I am excited by what Loader has to say about the Indie film business and how ITL's deal with IFC includes not only a theatrical release (isn't that the kind that usually takes place in a back alley somewhere?) but Video-on-Demand. That speaks to someone listening to the public and looking at their viewing habits and acting accordingly. This is the future. Going to the customer and providing entertainment (books, movies, TeeVee, games, comics). Yes, there will always be communal event programming/experiences - but creators need a gut check when it comes to the possibilities for their media.

Or as Loader puts it...

Here are some pointers for screenwriters: don’t tailor your story for the US market - maybe the days of the transatlantic mash-up are thankfully over; don’t write big period pieces unless you have stars or an A-list director already attached; write stories than engage your audience and can be succinctly marketed; know who your audience might be before you start, and assume it’s bigger than you and your friends; and above all, ask whether you would want to leave the house on a Friday night to see your film - or if not, whether you’ll be happy to stay in and pay £7 -or $12 - to watch it in your home cinema the week it opens, when the distribution system permits!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Believe It Or Not I Have a Post Up

Over at The Wrap.

As promised my post regarding what the PRINCE OF PERSIA key art means.

Thanks, and please go over there and leave a comment or twenty.

George Bailey has Nothing on Me

Thanks to all of you in the Legion who have responded to my message
yesterday. While we haven't nearly reached the goal, I feel like
the richest man in town. I am sure many more of you will
respond today as they find my urgent message in their InBox.

[I also feel like the local PBS station]

Many of you have responded with words of support, ideas and actions
that lets me know there's an audience out there hungry for good
entertainment they can use and to which they can contribute. That's
been the core business plan from the start and it's good to know that
our plan is meeting with such a terrific response. Thank you.

Knowing you are out there helps. Don't be shy.

Many people want the option to subscribe and that suggests a lot -
payment options, good customer service and just listening to what
the consumer is saying. As I've said before, a good company of this sort
must cultivate users instead of just readers.

I will answering your emails personally, but overall:

1. Most would subscribe if they could save money and the product was
what they wanted.
2. Yes, posters and prints are part of the plan. Especially from artists
who want to do something different than their usual comic magazine work.
3. As far as genres go, we will be open to publishing and developing
works in a variety of genres - especially if it opens our label up to bringing
in more users. Horror, Cliffhanger action, Spy-Fi, Westerns, Sci-Fi, Adventure.
4. If we do reprint public domain material it will be with the intent of adding
as much value to the property as possible. Illustrations, articles, photos, Omnibus editions, etc...
5. Clothing, especially unusual clothing (Angela!) is also in the plan.
But if you buy it, you must send us a picture of you (or the person you bought it for)wearing it.
6. We will be developing strategic partnerships with other publishers,
advertisers, and others.

All designed to give you good entertainment, cheap!

Thank you all again. Please spread the word. While it says "Donations"
on the button, I am considering all of this an "Investment."

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**If you would like to make an investment in the future of pulp media, please go to the top button on the sidebar and donate. We thank you for your support. It's Paypal, so you know it's secure.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Watch Out For The Mercury Men! (The Almost 20Q Interview)

I have been fascinated with this project ever since I became aware of it. MM is a blend of Scifi, serials and pulp delivered to your laptop with the speed of the internet.

Here with our 2nd "Almost 20Q" Interview - I present Chris Preksta the Captain behind this pulpy production:

1. What is the origin of the Mercury Men?

The short: I noticed a serious lack of ray guns in modern entertainment. The long: I had been working on a feature project with a production company for nearly two years that just wasn't gaining any traction. I was getting really anxious not filming anything, and I've always wanted to film something with ray guns, so I pulled together a small crew in October 2007 and filmed a black and white short over the course of a day and half. It just followed this nameless office employee fighting off glowing men with a ray gun. We screened it at a few film festivals, including Comic Con, and it was really well received. I started thinking there may be an opportunity to tell a bigger story.

2. What drew you to creating a pulp / serial styled adventure ?

I love both the look/design and the style of storytelling, especially the cliffhangers. I'm also a huge fan of black and white.

For years I've been saying they ought to bring back serialized shorts proceeding feature films, similar to what Pixar has been doing for years. That way viewers get a bit more for their buck and studios get the opportunity to try out ideas, characters, actors/directors before committing to an expensive feature. Can you imagine going to see Iron Man 2 and before it they play a 5 minute Captain America live action short of him storming a Nazi base? And if you end it on a cliffhanger people will make sure to check out the next Marvel movie to see what happens. Maybe one day we'll get to see Mercury Men before the summer blockbuster at your local cineplex!

3. What was your writing and development process? Did you conceive it as a feature THEN break it down OR was it always conceived as a serial? What sparked the title? The idea?

I, along with story contributors Ben and Curt, work in outlines/index cards for a long time. Probably 75% of the process. Once you get into a script it's pretty easy to lose sight of the big picture. I really aimed for this story to work both as a serial and as a feature/DVD. Each episode works on it's own, but a few episodes together form a larger act.

The original short was called The Mercury Men so the title just carried over. It was the first and only title I came up with, and it was there from day one of the idea. When you hear or read it your brain sort of naturally poses the question "Who are the Mercury Men?" Which makes for great marketing/posters of course.

We were a little worried calling the new series The Mercury Men and even considered changing it for two reasons. One, I knew a lot of people would confuse us with The Mystery Men Ben Stiller movie. And two, further sequels won't always have the Mercury characters so it may be a little confusing later. While discussing a possible title change, Curt Wootton, who plays Jack, told a story of a Terminator 2 trading card he had as a kid with a picture of the liquid metallic T-1000. The card was subtitled "Mercury Man." He told us that name always struck him with a bit of awe. That settled the debate.

4. What's your background? (School? self-taught? location? experience?)

Went to a local film school here in Pittsburgh. Hated it. Everybody was making either really bad experimental video stuff or a rip off of Boondock Saints. I left after three years and took the money I was spending on tuition to help pay for my first feature film Captain Blasto.

5. Yes, Captain Blasto was your first foray into this arena - what did you learn from it (Production, marketing, distribution)?

I learned practically everything from it, both good and bad, and too much to list here. The most valuable lessons I took away were: the nuts and bolts of how to make a production run, that being incredibly well organized will help you gain and keep volunteer cast/crew, and the incredible amount of discipline it takes to make it through an entire production. I also learned that the "make a good cheap movie, take it to film festivals, sell movie" model of filmmaking was dying REALLY fast.

6. Let's get into the production: How long did it take? Ups / downs?

Pre-production went from March 08 - September 08 and included everything from writing, designing/building/buying props and costumes, schedules, shot lists, and storyboards (I draw storyboards for every single shot of the film.)

Principal photography began on October 2nd 2008 and went for three weeks, shooting on nights 6 days a week. Average crew size was roughly 12 people (from Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Ohio), all working till one, three, sometimes five AM and then having to go to their day job and come back to film at five PM! We shot for a week in a downtown parking garage and it was really neat/eerie to be eating "lunch" at midnight outside in the middle of a dead quiet city.

We had three locations: a church office floor, an insurance company office floor, and the parking garage. We found locations through both the Pittsburgh film office and friends. Once we knew what we needed we just started asking around, even putting it out on my Facebook status. If you can't find it that way, try to get in touch with your local film office. They should have a ginormous database of location pictures. The trick is finding the ones that won't charge you thousands of dollars. We got turned down by about a dozen places.

We shot on a Panasonic HVX and rented a small lighting/dolly package from The Gaffhouse, a local equipment house. If you're interested in shooting your own film/series and don't have your own equipment or a great budget, never be afraid to ask a local equipment place for help. A lot of times they have equipment just sitting there not making money so they'll gladly rent at an incredibly reduced rate.

7. Postproduction: what tools are you using to create this look? This sound? The VFX?

Most of "the look" is created by our lighting design. But as far as post-production I'm editing on a Mac Pro using Final Cut Pro and After Effects for the VFX. I learned how to do FX while working on the original short just by watching an insane amount of online video tutorials like videocopilot.net. I wasn't copying any specific effect or tutorial (you can see a lot of their stuff being copied ALL OVER the internet now a days) just learning how the program worked.

As for sound, we have a local studio (Market St. Sound) handling the mix for us. While I'm able to handle a lot of different areas of filmmaking, sound is the one I have to hand off.

8. Who designed your poster?

I did the poster. Art and design is my other love/hobby.

9. What are your favorite pulps?

While it's not originally of the golden age of pulps, and often not considered pulp, I've got to go with Raiders of the Lost Ark. That film inspired Mercury Men a great deal and remains a constant source of conversation between the cast/crew.

10. What are your favorite comics and comic artists/writers?

Darwyn Cooke hands down. The New Frontier is easily among my top 5 comics. The style of art, story, and characters is everything I love. I'm a big fan of 60's design.

The Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale dynamic duo is a close second. They create the most cinematic comics.

11. Raygun or jetpack?

Jet pack, which I'm REALLY hoping we can pull off in a Mercury Men sequel.

[Check out a cool Mercury Men raygun here]

12. Underground mole machine or rocketship?

Rocketship. I'm claustrophobic. And a huge fan of space.

13. What's next for Mercury Men?

Beyond just getting the series finished we're working hard on some fun stuff for this season such as the digital props and trading cards we've been releasing on the blog (http://themercurymen.blogspot.com). We're going to be releasing something every few days. We've got some behind-the-scenes video coming soon and some projects that viewers can contribute to the story. We're also already working on the story for the next volume of the series.

14. I see it's available on blip.tv - is this the only venue available?

It's also available on iTunes.

15. What online marketing tools are you using? Facebook? Twitter? Ning? etc... what do you think of each one in terms of effectiveness for what you're trying to accomplish?

We're VERY active on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mercury-Men/60005770026), Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/themercurymen), and the blog.

I really think the interaction and dialogue with viewers is the most important part of this for me, and I am absolutely genuine about that. I love both sharing what we're doing, how we do it, and also hearing what others are doing.

16. Do you have traditional distribution (DVD, TV, Cable, International) yet or are you shopping it around? What's been the response so far?

No distribution agreement just yet.

17. What's next for you?

I've got two other projects ready to go, but all energy is being aimed at Mercury Men now.

18. What are your longterm goals in this industry?

Feed and house my wife and future kids. Beyond that I like telling fun stories that also have a deeper meaning in there. I'd love for Mercury Men Pictures to one day be the Pixar of live action film.

19. What do you want to say to the audience out there?

Hi. My name is Chris.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Who Am I Gonna Kill Next ?

You're in San Diego (or elsewhere) and I'm here in the industrial solitude that is the mad pulp bastard's domain, contemplating heinous things.

Note the train in the far background which hides Playboy's Cable Channel studios. You have to cross the LA River to get there.

The Hollywood glamor.
I am all about the glamor.

Damnit, Rogers!

As if I didn't have enough to do - now, thanks to your tweets I'm gonna have to go watch this:

This is actually structured like a really good Dr. Who episode.about 15 hours ago from web
You too, Caleb Mayo http://tinyurl.com/mvjljlabout 15 hours ago from web
Jason Graham, your deadpan just won you a role on something I type. http://tinyurl.com/myqnjaabout 15 hours ago from web
I will never write a death scene as good as that. EVER.about 16 hours ago from web
"How long's it going to take to re-light?" This is the GREATEST FILM ABOUT FILM-MAKING I HAVE EVER SEEN.about 16 hours ago from web
"... hold on, I hear wind." "Good for you. Roll, and action!" Not a director on earth hasn't wanted to say that.about 16 hours ago from web
"It's been tested many, may times. And cleaned,"#oneeyedmonsterisridiculouslyentertainingabout 16 hours ago from web
"... it disables the olfactory bub in my limbic system, so I can't smell anything for 12 straight hours."about 16 hours ago from web
"She's making $6,000? What has she made, only a hundred, a hundred fifty movies?" This movie is killing me.about 16 hours ago from web
" and introducing RON JEREMY." One-Eyed Monster, you're already a thousand times better than you have any right to be.

This Will Be Me One Day...Soon

H/T to Boing Boing & Kid Schlocko:

On my way to my neighborhood auto parts store one morning, I saw a diminutive, shabby, bearded man standing by the side of the road with an armload of papers. As I approached, I saw a sign: "$1 Stories." Excited, I fished a dollar out from my pants somewhere and handed it to him out the window; I think he fanned out his stack of stories to let me pick, but he may have just handed me one at random. I can't really remember, and it doesn't matter, since so far everything I've read of his has been great in its own odd way.

The Losers

Comic by Diggle and Jock.
Movie by Berg.
Pulp by Design.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

This Promises to be a Howling Good Time!

No Explanation Required: Ninja Assassin

Simple design filled with energy. A moment frozen in time.

(And nary any Trajan in sight)

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

It Wouldn't Be Day One of Comic Con...

without a bit of controversy.

This morning an open letter was posted by Anthony Tollin on one of the Yahoo Message Boards. Tollin, as everyone in pulp knows is one of the few pulp scholars and editor of the DOC SAVAGE and SHADOW reprint series.

An open letter to the pulp community:

For those taking advantage of the discounted SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE volumes at Half-Price Books, please be aware
that Nostalgia Ventures began remaindering these books last summer in direct violation of its sub-contract with
me. Also, as of today (July 22, 2009), Nostalgia Ventures has still not paid royalties to either Condé Nast or me for any books it has sold since July 1st, 2008. (A semi-annual royalty payment was due back in February, and
another six months of royalties are coming due in August.) There is a very good reason why Nostalgia Ventures/Nostalgiatown is no longer co-publishing these books, and it involves a continuing series of contract violations.

And for anyone who may not be sympathetic because Condé Nast is a huge corporation, please be aware that Condé
Nast has chosen to continue the oral agreement it had for decades with Walter Gibson, and is splitting its royalties for the SHADOW reprints with Walter's family. This is an extremely rare and decent act that is quite unusual in the publishing world.

I think my SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE double-novel trade paperbacks are a great value at the $12.95 cover price.
Obviously, the books are an even better value at discounted prices. However, please be aware that purchasing these books from either Half-Price Books or Nostalgiatown does nothing to encourage the continuation of these series. And since Nostalgia Ventures still hasn't paid its contract-required royalties for any of the books it has sold during the past 12 1/2 months, the money from Nostalgia Ventures' and Half-Price Books' sales also hasn't been continuing on to Walter Gibson's family.

It's not necessary to purchase THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE directly from Sanctum Books to support the ongoing
publishing operation and encourage the continuation of these reprints. Bud Plant Comic Art, Adventure House, Mike Chomko, Vintage Library, Girasol, Edge Books, The Mysterious Bookshop and any comic specialty shop that orders its books from Diamond Comic Distributors all get their books either directly or indirectly through Sanctum Books (which continues to make its regular royalty payments to Condé Nast and would like to continue publishing these reprints for many more years).

Please feel free to forward this message on to other pulp-oriented email groups.

--Anthony Tollin
Sanctum Books

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First off, I want to say it's admirable beyond belief that Conde Nast is honoring a verbal commitment it made to one of its creators (who put a lot of money in their coffers when they were Street & Smith).

Secondly, purchase your Shadow reprints through one of the retail entities listed above so that the money that is rightfully due Gibson's family gets to them.

Three, stay tuned. I am sure there will be more to this soon.

Since You Won't Have the Bastard to Kick Around at Nerd Prom This Year...

I thought we could do some special posts this week for those not attending the nerdtivities...

To spark things off, I want to talk about the future of comics, and in particular I want to speak about a comic demo for the IPhone that I saw last week called SPARKS from Catastrophic Comics.

From the press release:

"SPARKS PART 2", the first-ever iPhone/ iTouch motion comic book with lip-synch - - released by Catastrophic Comics

Voiced by Hollywood actors Michael Paré, William Katt, and Michael Bell

(July 7, 2009) Los Angeles—"Sparks Part 2,” the first motion comic book with lip-synch, created specifically for the iPhone and iTouch, is proudly presented by Catastrophic Comics. The SPARKS PART 2 Application, which includes original artwork, in addition to the original motion comic, can be downloaded for 99 cents at the iTunes Store (keywords: "Sparks Part 2" or "Catastrophic Comics"). A superhero noir-thriller that was published as a comic book series in 2008, “Sparks” bridges the gap between the printed page and full-fledged animation.

"Part 2” is voiced by actors Michael Paré ("Eddie and the Cruisers"), Michael Bell ("Transformers"), Charlie Brill ("Star Trek"), Kevin Sherwood ("Gamers"), Courtenay Taylor (“Justice League Heroes”), and Ashley Bell ("United States of Tara").

And here's the introduction by William Katt:

And if the preview was interesting, you can buy it on ITunes.

CHRISTOPHER FOLINO, the Creative Director of Sideshow Productions which created the animation and the writer / co-director of SPARKS 2, thinks this is one of the futures of comics - and I don't disagree. I think the IPhone will be for more animated projects like this and the Kindle will be for mimicking the print experience.

BOTH are comics and both play to their format's strengths.

As creators we should think of how we want the work to be received by the user. I like that comics creators are jumping into new media and creating something that pushes limits - because those limits need to be pushed (folded, spindled and sometimes mutilated). These things need to be tested, developed and made plentiful.

Because seriously - we need cheaper and better comics that travel well.

Now I'm Going To Take Over The World

Courtesy of Boing Boing.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

It's A Tumor!

From PW:

Although Amazon.com has published prose works exclusively on the Kindle before, in a first the online retailer has teamed with graphic novel publisher Archaia to publish Tumor, an original graphic novel by writer Joshua Fialkov and artist Noel Tuazon, initially in a digital edition formatted specifically for the Kindle;Tumor will be released serially on the Kindle before a hardcover print edition is published three to six months later. This is the first time Amazon has published a graphic novel specifically designed for the Kindle 2, and it will be followed by three additional Archaia books released on the Kindle that will be announced during the San Diego Comic-Con International this week.

The venture also offers a glimpse of a future model for serial/digital/print publication. The Kindle e-book will be sectioned into eight, 22-page chapters and, like most Kindle editions

I'm Syndicated

Select blog posts of mine from here at Pulp 2.0 will now be featured content on TheWrap.com

These will be augmented blog posts featuring extra or refocused content.

Please inform the appropriate humanoids (especially those with disposable income) that I will be discussing all sorts of topics related to the entertainment industry, new media and the wonderful mosh pit of convergence.

As always, I will strive to be the soft-spoken, easy-going huggable... ah hell. I can't even finish that sentence without throwing up a little in my mouth.

I will be the same outspoken, tell-it-like-it-is-in-the-real-world bastard I have always been*

I will now have a bigger and shinier soapbox upon which to do it. Readers will get added value with these TheWrap.com blog entries.

Of course, for you pulp die-hards who wish to eat the 'big sandwich' I would suggest subscribing to the Pulp Legion Electrogram (see sidebar), where I delve even further into the subject matter and add links to 'news you can use.' Based on the last Electrogram (wherein I dissected the D2DVD movie MEGA SHARK V. GIANT OCTOPUS) I have had five separate discussions with Legionnaires. Did I mention it's free?

Here endeth the transmission.

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* This is because I respect you. I won't sugarcoat something to make you feel good if that's all it does and doesn't make the work better. I expect the same from everyone here.

Indie Film - It All Growed Up

Drew Bellware sent me this via Google Reader about the pitfalls and triumphs of an indie film called FULL GROWN MEN. The post is from one of the producers, David Munro who is guest blogging on Prep Shoot Post and it is a perfect case study for today's indie film producer.

Read it now.

Of special interest is this:

Days turned into weeks, that turned into months. More top-tier festival play, more great reviews (and yes, some not-so-good ones – personal visions are always an acquired taste), more ‘We love it, buts” from acquisitions people. What was going on? Why hadn’t Harvey and Bob backed up the Brinks truck yet?

In crystal-clear hindsight, two reasons: first, we had not made a 100% audience-friendly film. And second, films that were not 100% audience-friendly were no longer selling. The irony, of course, is that indies were never meant to be mainstream. But the runaway success of Indiewood, and the resulting co-optation of indie distributors by studio specialty arms, had created unrealistic hopes, and imposed blockbuster logic on films that were never intended, or capable, of performing like “Pirates Of The Caribbean 3.”

The whole blog post is filled with good, solid in-your-face advice that only comes from someone who's lived this experience. I think Mr. Munro has experienced something similar to what I did several years ago... growing pains.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Oh What a Difference a Font Makes

I've seen this linked around today but here's a good one over here at CHUD.

This could have been another victim of Trajan, but instead they took the bolder, more-designed route and added elements of fashion and energy to a video game movie.

And gee, it's getting noticed.

Mankind's Giant Leap of Promise

Occurred today in 1969.

I was 6 years old when it happened. Clan Cunningham was vacationing at some local cabin by the lake in the Midwest. My parents woke us kids up to watch the landing on the moon. I remember watching the flickering of the B&W TV set and then looking out to see the moon up in the sky.

"They're all the way up there?"

We had dreamed of rocket travel back in the 20's and 30's (yes, even before then). We gave that dream form and constructed possibilities - atomic rocket motors, space helmets, aerodynamic foils, maneuvering rockets - all flights of fancy that sparked real world initiatives. The call to adventure.

In the 1940's - 50's we began to understand the forces we were dealing with. The dangerous possibilities of going out into interplanetary space...

But still we forged ahead in the real world and our fiction. Excited. Terrified and yet understanding this was our destiny if we wished to pursue it.

And then finally the Sixties. Colorful yet oh so dangerous. We had reached a point where we could destroy ourselves. We needed to be better. We needed the challenge of the unknown.

President Kennedy set us on a path of looking to the future and reaching out and grabbing it. Then, 9 short years after the launch of the New Frontier, we were there. Like the baby who learns that he can climb the stairs. The first step is the hardest, but once done it gets easier as you go along.

The era had an infectious optimism, and signposts up ahead that said we could be better. That we would use the exploration of space to better ourselves.

Then came the reality. July 20th, 1969.

And even though it was in shaky black & white with scratchy sound, the future - the promise we all held onto for decades - was being fulfilled. I think that perhaps to my young eyes it was all the more real precisely because it was scratchy and monotone. "Real" outerspace was dirty and scratchy...

but just as glorious as the promise we'd made to ourselves.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Make Something! The Studio Edition

Hoist the sails kids. The pulp winds be a blowin'.

This has been reported elsewhere, but LA Times' blogger Joe Flint has an excellent blurb in the Times' blog "Company Town" that finally brings some hard research to an old idea here at Pulp 2.0. I am reprinting it below with my commentary after:

The studios' path to profitability? Make more movies.

by Joe Flint

Money's tight. Financing is nowhere to be found. DVD sales are slumping. What's a big studio to do?

Make more movies.

That contrarian thinking is the word from industry research firm SNL Kagan, which just released a report suggesting that cutting back on production is exactly the wrong thing to do right now.

Kagan looked at the 611 major studio releases between 2004 and 2008 and then broke them down by genre (comedy, drama, action, etc.) and year to create imaginary slates of five,10, and 15 films. Then the firm ran three versions of each slate with a mix of movies with high probabilities of success (action) and low probabilities of a big box office take (adult drama).

Without getting caught up in the nitty-gritty of the analysis (which is available for a fee here), the end result of their study was that the bigger the slate, the better the odds for profit. The five-film slate had a net loss of $94 million. The 10-film slate had almost $140 million in profit, while the 15-film slate had $466.4 million in profit. The study, which used a time frame of 12 years to determine the results, assumed 8% in distribution costs and 10% profit-participation and also included video and television revenues.

Kagan analyst Wade Holden says if the studios cut back too much, they are "putting themselves in harm's way."

-- Joe Flint

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Here’s the situation in plain English:

Money’s “tight” because the studios put all their eggs in one basket. Tentpole supported baskets to be sure, but the eggs are just as fragile. If a movie bombs, it bombs big. This is the same situation you can find in today’s book publishing -- fewer books published by the mainstream publishing houses who are only backing a few big names (I.e. Stephen King).

You can read about that situation here and how e-publishing is changing the dynamic by taking the “midlist” and “niche“ and search & preference technology (“If you liked this book/DVD/Game, we recommend you try this one.”) and meshing together a new digital paradigm. [Link sent to me via Carlucci]

So why haven’t the studios switched? Frankly, they make too much money by doing it the old way and manipulating how movies are financed and pre-sold, sold back and so on. They keep their lawyers and the bankers very busy moving things around while fewer and fewer actual movies get made.

And don’t get me wrong either. I like big movies. I’m going to see one today after I write this note. However as a self-sustaining business model it’s very risky, and very prone to mainstreaming (“dumb-ing it down for the masses”), which isn’t good for the form nor the business as a whole. You need things to break the standards, defy them, in order to have real progress and innovation.

But again, the studios say, “Why innovate when overall the model, though risky is serving our short term cash flow needs?”

Well for one, international banking and financing policies are changing. Banks are going to take a long look at how multinational corporations are financing their movie product, just as banks are now wading through the short-sighted home lending fiasco.

Credit isn’t available the way it used to be. I can’t really put it any simpler than that. Movie studios are looking around for financing and banks are shying away at lending $200M for a movie - even if the paper (the international contracts) and the cast are already there. It’s tough.

German (and other) tax shelters are drying up, restructuring, tightening, you name it. A major, bankable setup is gone.

And as Joe Flint says above - DVD is flattening (but Blu-Ray is growing) as a revenue source. It’s going to take awhile to transition over to more downloads and BR sales. Make no mistake kids, DVD is where it has been at in terms of actually making a profit on a studio movie so the situation is very transitory.

But now we have research that indicates that studios have to make more movies.

Let’s face it , if they have only x amount of funding and they should make 3Y movies (Y = the number of movies they have previously made) then the result will be that X/3Y = less money per movie. More movies less money to make them.

This is a good thing.

1. More movies = more profit (potential)

A) International buyers generally (like to) buy packages of films

B) Libraries of content continually generate revenue (See: Artisan/Lionsgate)

In both of these scenarios the more movies you have the better your chances of a sale if you have the product to satisfy a demand. Even if you have to split off a package of movies, if you have the library of pictures out there working for you then can constantly be relicensed, repackaged and sold. Movies are what is known as an evergreen product - they tend to not go out of style, or go away and come back (See 1970's Italian action pictures).

As new media is created (VHS to DVD and then Itunes) you have big packages of content to sell.

2. More movies = more people being employed, with more economic dollar turnaround/impact.

Consistent employment is more desirable on a variety of levels then the up and down of freelancing. Steady growth, steady income leads to more people spending and that has a huge economic impact.

3. More movies = more opportunity for people to make movies, learn the craft, get better.

A) On a cast and crew level

B) On a company level

Okay, so one picture doesn't do well. It's not going to kill the company. Stock isn't going to plunge. People won't lose their jobs as the studio cuts back.

4. More movies = meets the needs of the growing diverse distribution methods (Xbox, Set top boxes, Iphones, Ipods, laptops, etc…)

If you have a movie that appeals to a certain demographic, then it makes sense to go to where they hang out and deliver them entertainment. This is extremely important in our rapidly evolving user culture.

5. More movies = Movies that can serve 1 or 2 quadrants of the audience spectrum and not necessarily have to “compromise/mainstream” their content.