Life On The Bubble

The Anatomy of an Academy Award-winning Movie Trailer

Clever.  Hat tip to The Hollywood Reporter's "Risky Business" blog for surfacing this.

Congratulations to Juan Campanella!

I'm just now catching up to the Oscars and was thrilled to see our writer/director client Juan Campanella receive his first Academy Award for his film "The Secret In Their Eyes," which won Best Foreign Language Film tonight.  Congratulations, Juan!

Daniel Frankel (The Wrap): The H'wood Stock Exchange, With Real Bucks

Global financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald is set to launch a real-money-driven futures trading market based on its popular Hollywood Stock Exchange multiplayer online game.

Domestic Box Office Receipt Movie Futures (DBOR for short) will offer both movie enthusiasts and serious, money-minded traders a 24-hour online market in which they will seek to predict the North American performance of movies after their first four weeks in theaters.

Acquired by Cantor Fitzgerald in 2001, the Hollywood Stock Exchange currently touts 1.7 million users, about 200,000 of whom use the site actively.

via www.thewrap.com

This is pretty cool. I dig prediction markets (RIP, Total Information Awareness Program) and am looking forward to seeing how this one plays ou.

Edward Jay Epstein (via Defamer): Can Indie Movies Survive?

To be sure, even before the phenomenal success of Avatar, the Big Six studios were shying away from smaller movies despite their potential profits. Consider, for example. the sad story told to me by one of the most successful indie producers in New York. In 2009, he brought a major studio a $20 million project packaged with a hot director and two stars. After running the numbers, the studio estimated that its potential box-office in America at $100 million, which would yield it, just from its 30% distribution fee and a locked-in output deal with HBO, a 100% profit on its investment. But it turned down the project. One of the studio's top executives told the producer, "We don't do films that do not have a projected box-office of at least $150 million."

The reason for this rule is that a studio has only a limited number of slots for its releases at multiplexes and it has to fill them with projects, whether profitable or not, that generate maximum revenue, since the slice it takes off the top in the form of distribution fee pays the studio's overhead (which includes the executive's six-figure paycheck). This means worldwide grosses — almost 75 percent of Avatar ticket sales is from foreign audience — and indie films even if they are profitable, cannot be counted on to do that job.

via gawker.com

I'm a big fan of Edward Jay Epstein. Looking forward to reading the new book...

Latino Review: Taylor Lautner Fan Letter To Universal: Your Wolfman Ripped Off Twilight

I don't print reader's letters to me because most of them contain words and insults that are unfit to print. However, once in a while a golden ticket will come into my inbox that is not only worth reading, it's worth sharing with the world.

The e-mail was from Kayla Patterson, a die hard Twilight/Taylor Lautner fan upset about Universal Pictures ripping off the werewolf idea from Twilight. That's right, Universal Studios, who first put werewolves in theaters, are a bunch of copycats.

via www.latinoreview.com

You've GOT to click through to read the Twilight fan letter Latino Review received last week.

MTV Movie News: James Cameron Writing 'Avatar' Prequel -- But Not For The Big Screen

James Cameron is beginning work on a prequel — but it won't be coming soon to a theater near you.

"Jim is going to write a novel himself," the film's producer, Jon Landau, told us when he stopped by the MTV News studios recently. "Not a novelization — and there is a distinction. A novelization basically retells the story of the movie. Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things."

via www.mtv.com

Hat tip to Anne Thompson (@akstanwyck) for retweeting SciFiSquad.com (@scifisquad).  I'm tagging this "Film" despite the fact it's just a novel at this point because if you don't think this is going to end up as some sort of filmed entertainment, you're high.

R.I.P.: Dick Francis (Telegraph obit)

Dick Francis, who died on February 14 aged 89, began his career as a professional jockey, becoming Champion National Hunt Jockey in 1953-54, and famously rode in Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's colours in the Grand National of 1956; after retiring from the Turf, he became a successful writer of 42 thrillers, topping the best-seller lists for more than 40 years, with worldwide sales of well over 60 million.

via www.telegraph.co.uk

Bummer. I've been a fan for over 20 years.

The Wrap: Hollywood CEO Pay in 2009

Like everyone else, media moguls did some belt-tightening in the recession era.

Nearly every one of the top entertainment chiefs consented to lightening their wallets in 2009, a year when the economy struggled to recover from a terrifying nosedive and media companies laid off hundreds of employees.

A Wrap investigation into public records found:

via www.thewrap.com

The Wrap has a nice little rundown of studio chairmen salaries. I think comparing these execs' deals with their tech company ("new media") counterparts', as the article does, is apples-to-oranges, but whatever. Wish they'd dug down and gotten details on what studio presidents, EVPs and VPs make.

Tales From The Script: Advice for New Screenwriters

Hat tip to Andrew Stroscher for retweeting the link to the below.  It's a promotional piece for a new book called "Tales from the Script:  Advice for New Screenwriters" by Script magazine contributor Peter Hanson, but don't let that stop you from watching.  It's definitely worth watching if you're in an aspiring screenwriter.  Hope there's a Kindle version of the book...

Avatar review by that guy who reviewed The Phantom Menace

Since there haven't been all that many specs out so far today, you've got plenty of time to take a look at the below review of Avatar by that guy who did the inimitable 70 minute explication of The Phantom Menace.  This one's not quite as inspired (nor nearly as long), but perhaps that's because Avatar doesn't suck.

Part 1

Part 2

Apologies to whoever pointed out the links to the above on The Huffington Post - I can't remember which email/tweet/post I originally saw it in.

Nikki: Mike Fleming leaves Variety to join deadline.com

LOS ANGELES – January 10, 2010 – Deadline.com is going bicoastal. Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC)’s Jay Penske and Deadline.com’s Nikki Finke today announced the hiring of Mike Fleming, the 20-year Variety superstar who has been praised as the "top media dog" covering Hollywood because of his wide and deep network of entertainment business sources. Effective immediately, he becomes the Editor of the new Deadline|NewYork which will go live later this month at Deadline.com. Besides covering film and television dealmaking and production and casting, Fleming intends to expand his turf by breaking news and offering analysis about books, media, TV news, theater, and other Gotham-based infotainment arenas.

via www.deadline.com

Whoa. Big loss for Variety, big win for Penske and Nikki.

Variety: Lawmakers ask MTV to cancel 'Shore'

MTV is getting more pressure to cancel its "Jersey Shore" reality show.

The latest criticism comes from the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus, which says the show promotes derogatory ethnic stereotypes and is "wildly offensive."

In a letter sent Tuesday to the president of Viacom, MTV's parent company, caucus chairman Joseph Vitale asks that the show be immediately taken off the air.

The state lawmakers also have asked advertisers to boycott the show, which focuses on eight tanned 20-somethings and their escapades in Seaside Heights, a popular New Jersey beach town.

On Wednesday, a Viacom spokesman referred a request for comment to an MTV spokesperson, who did not immediately respond. MTV has said its intention is not to stereotype or offend.

via www.variety.com

Now that they've got healthcare reform out of the way, it's on to the 2nd most important item on Congress's agenda.

The Best and (ironically) Shortest Master Class on Film You'll See This Year

In the last couple of days I've had three separate people recommend an "epic [7 part, 70 minute] review/critique/analysis/filmmaking educational video" of The Phantom Menace, and finally got a chance to watch the first installment tonight.  What I was certain was a rickroll turned out to be a pretty damned great piece of analysis.  Looking forward to watching the rest of them tomorrow...after I get home from seeing Avatar.

I dig Girl on Girl Action (girlongirlaction.wordpress.com)

So here is the not-ridiculous part of the post: I have been thinking back on this past year of pseudo-career as a young pseudo-screenwriter. I mean, I kind of am a screenwriter in the sense that I have been able to con Manager Guy and Agent Guy into representing me, and I have specs, and I go on a lot of meetings, and people in those meetings seem to think that I am a Real Writer, and like sometimes the assistant will be all “Elana?!? Oh man, it’s so good to meet you, I loved your sample!” – which makes me think that they don’t realize that I am just some chump off the street or whatever.

BASICALLY: I am a screenwriter, but only in the sense that I am expected to function as though I am one, with the writing and the meetings and the being available all the time and the pitching, etc etc. Of course I am totally clear on the fact that nobody is paying me, so it’s not like I’m a REAL screenwriter. You know? It’s just like I have this weird full-time job I don’t actually make any money doing.

I have a couple of friends who are in this same place, and I was talking to them recently about what’s going on. We all had many of the same comments. So I thought I would write them down and post them on the internets and maybe someday in the future some young baby writer will happen on them and find them useful.

via girlongirlaction.wordpress.com

(Come on, if Elana can make that joke, I can rip it off.)

So I'm probably late to the party and Elana Frick's blog has already been bookmarked by everyone who's anyone, but I stumbled over it this afternoon for the first time and am a big fan. If you haven't, you should check it out, not just because she's got several great posts on how she almost died a month or so ago (seriously) but also because she's in a stage of her writing career that's all too common and writes about it winningly (and humorously, and candidly, and self-effacingly, and so on).  I dig her voice.  And the name of her blog.

Go read it. Right now.

Iron Man 2 Trailer

I admit, this is a little outside the scope of this site, but what can I say?  I'm a fanboy at heart.

Here's the newly released trailer for Iron Man 2.  Looks fantastic.

http://movies.apple.com/movies/paramount/ironman2/ironman2-z7r459g-tlr1_720p.mov

Avatar on Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX)

I haven't fooled around with Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) in forever (more-or-less since it launched in 1996, in fact), but since it was referenced in a recent Slate piece on Avatar, I checked it out this afternoon.  (Design geek note:  The current user interface of the site looks fantastic, by the way.)

For those of you unfamiliar with HSX, it's a virtual stock market where you can buy and sell "stocks" of movies and actors, not unlike (in fact, exactly like) companies' stocks on NYSE, NASDAQ and so forth.  The price of a given "MovieStock" is supposed to correspond to the number (in millions) that a given film will earn at the domestic box office in its first four weeks of wide release (or first twelve weeks for limited releases).  

A few minutes ago, Avatar was trading at $205.75, up from just under $200 yesterday, and predictions of its opening weekend's take are $76.5m.  Any of you with an HSX account should go over and buy up this stock immediately.  $205.75 in the first four weeks?  Seriously?  That's way low.  For reference, I just double-checked boxofficemojo.com:  Transformers 2 did $380m in its first 33 days this summer, with a similarly long running time.  I'd bet Avatar hits $300m in its first month without breaking a sweat.  

Are any of you playing with HSX?  Am I missing something here?

Shameless Plug: LOTB is one of "Five Websites Every Screenwriter Should Know"

Only had to promise the writer I'd... Wish I knew the writer was writing this, I would have been more on the ball with a link to it.  Here it is:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2456806/five_websites_every_screenwriter_should.html?cat=40

I'm in pretty good company -- I, too, read those other four sites on an almost daily basis (just look at my blogroll).  Thanks to Mystery Man On Film for retweeting it (that's how I found out about the article this afternoon).  You can follow him here:  http://twitter.com/mmonfilm

A Modest Proposal: Uniform Script Notes

Most professors believe that clear and effective writing is important in all levels of psychology and in most of the professions for which we are training our students. And most professors give their students writing assignments because they believe that practice will improve students’ writing. And as part of this process, most professors (and their teaching assistants) believe that their feedback will improve the quality of students’ writing, so they spend countless hours providing written comments on these papers (after all, psychologists have long known that practice without feedback is futile, right?). Of these three assumptions, probably only the first one is true.

via www.psychologicalscience.org

Interesting article. I was tempted to joke that you could replace "professors" with "managers" and "students" with "aspiring screenwriters" (NOT "clients"), but I there are enough comments about the particulars of students' writing habits that I know I'd get in (unintended) trouble. In any case, I think it makes sense to use a set of standardized feedback like the list in the article.  Not unlike the now-ubiquitous (and for good reason) Save The Cat! structure.

[Hat tip to Anne Thompson for retweeting the link to the article.]

Update (correction?) to previous Google/studiobriefing.net post

UPDATE:  I'd never heard of studiobriefing.net before today and thought the below was interesting from a technology-meets-entertainment industry perspective (which is to say, my own POV).  For more info on the issue, here's a link to David Poland's take.  The upshot is that studiobriefing.net's reporting methodology is/was less than professional.  Worth a read, if you care about this story in the first place.

via www.studiobriefing.net

Bummer.

ScriptShadow article in Wired

UPDATE 11/28/2009:  Here's the link to the online version of the Wired article on ScriptShadow.

I'm a big fan of Carson Reeves' site, ScriptShadow, so when I cracked my new copy of Wired magazine's December issue this morning I was stoked to see Scott Brown's article on him and his site.  The article's not online yet, so below is a link to so-so scan of the article.  I'll link to the online version once it goes up on Wired's site.

Download ScriptShadow/Wired magazine article

I need to work on getting this kind of coverage for www.lifeonthebubble.com and www.itsonthegrid.com...