A Random Dude in Massachusetts

There’s a lot that’s encouraging and amusing about the fact that Detroit was able to raise enough money to erect a Robocop statue in 6 days. But my favorite bit in this NYTimes story is how this whole thing began:

The unusual fund-raising effort sprang from a question posed to Detroit’s mayor on Twitter last week by “a random dude in Massachusetts,” who proposed that the city celebrate “RoboCop” the same way Philadelphia does “Rocky,” according to the project’s Web site. The first-term mayor, Dave Bing, replied: “There are not any plans to erect a statue to RoboCop. Thank you for the suggestion.”

Hey! I’M a random dude in Massachusetts too! I can only hope that one of my off-handed tweets ends up one day capturing the nation’s imagination.

Further Thoughts on Making Money Through Podcasting

Thanks for all the feedback to my Turning Point blog post! Even though I was characteristically loquacious in that post, I still have a lot to say on the topic.

This morning, I received an e-mail from a listener and media professional who I’ll call Dee. Below is an edited version of our e-mail discussion, posted with permission. I thought people might find the details instructive.

***

Dave,

I think you need to refresh your view on your entire situation. You are in the rare position to actually have a large, passionate audience that actually gets mad if you post the podcast late, or if you don’t post an After Dark (see, I’m a regular listener, I hear you). While you may know some others with a similar passionate user base, the fact is that this is EXTREMELY RARE. What you have is valuable. Your statement here is key to your problem: “the money that we get does not come anywhere close to equalling the amount necessary to sustain a person for a living (nor should it, really).” YES IT SHOULD, actually. You need to realize you are in a great position that is hard to attain outside of major media. Buckle down, realize that no matter how uncredentialed you think you are, or how busy you are, you have a real BUSINESS at your fingertips that is simply not monetized. Buckle down and find a salesperson and get AD SPONSORSHIPS. It is no longer credible to say you can’t get Ads when major directors and critics are coming on your show and you have studios treating you to viewings as they would mainstream publications. Stop ignoring the fact that yes, if you take the Filmcast seriously as a business, you will prosper, but yes, it will likely cease to be a hobby and take on a smell of a job.

Also, I see that you have a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of $7,000 to fund your personal photo project. This makes no sense after reading your post. As far as I know, you are not a well known photographer, so anyone donating to that project would be doing so probably because they know you rather than because they think you are great photographer. So rather than using Kickstarter for that, why not use it for the Filmcast??? Hellooo? Make your goal $50k to start (no, you can’t pay Devindra and Adam, hard choices need to be made). I would bet anything that you reach $25,000 in less than 6 months. If that happens, then that should be enough to convince you to stop thinking fatalistically about the Filmcast and GO OUT AND GET SOME SALES PEOPLE!

I love you guys. I don’t always agree, but I love your show. I grew up with Ebert and Armond content, I prefer Filmcast. If you are considering letting it die on the vine simply because you didn’t want/or could not conceive of approaching it like a business, then I feel on some level you are betraying the loyal patronage of your passionate users, but most of all you are betraying Yourself.

***

Dee,

Thanks for your e-mail. I’ve thought a lot about some of the factors that you describe.

I’ve thought about your Kickstarter idea but there are a number of problems with that plan. I agree with you: I am pretty sure I’d be able to raise $30,000, $40,000, maybe even $50,000 to do the /Filmcast for one year. But that is not a sustainable way to do things. Kickstarter has this thing where if you don’t reach the funding goal, you don’t get ANY of the money. I definitely wouldn’t be abe to live year to year with that amount of uncertainty. And giving up my life for a year to do the /Filmcast would be fun and rewarding, but what would I do afterwards? I need to be looking towards a future, where there is hopefully a wife/family/mortgage coming up.

With regards to Devindra and Adam, I want to honor them, in the sense that we came into this enterprise together and I would not want to cut them out of any financial arrangement. Ironically, this desire to not be a dick to them will probably one day end up leading to the end of my involvement in the /Filmcast: In the most ridiculously optimistic circumstances, the podcast can probably make enough money for ONE person to survive off of. And since, in my mind, any money made from the show would have to be split three ways, I probably would rather see my involvement with the show end than deal with any attempt of my own to retain full monetary benefit from the show. There are more important things to me than seeing the show continue, including being a decent human being (side note: On the other hand, if Devindra and Adam were to give their blessing to any sponsorship/kickstarter arrangement, that would change things, obviously).

As for getting an ad sales person, it’s a real chicken-and-the egg problem: We don’t have enough money to pay an ad sales person because we don’t have ads. We can’t get ads because we don’t have an ad sales person. And so on.

As for people not knowing me as a photographer, my hope was that people would see the Kickstarter campaign who know me from all my other pursuits, and try to help me out out of the goodness of their hearts. This is typically the way a lot of Kickstarter campaigns work, only oftentimes, people DON’T know the people they’re donating for at all! Tons of people are paying completely unknown people to make documentaries and create albums. But, apparently my plan hasn’t worked in your book 🙂

Sincerely,
David

***

Dave,

Agree with all your points, sounds like you have a clear perspective on the matter after all. I do think your great co-hosts would be willing to go without pay on a trial 12-month basis if you presented it to them the right way (particularly if they understand that a future alternative may be no podcast at all).

As for the Ad salesperson issue, good point. I’ve worked as an editor in various levels of publishing. Even at the lowest levels, the salespeople get a base salary of about $1,500 plus sales commission (typically 10-15%) per month. Without a base salary, it would be hard to get someone, but in your case you might be surprised. There are tons of salespeople selling inventory they don’t like, or that’s too hard to sell. You have the numbers, high profile, and celeb guests, I think offering a salesperson a larger upfront commission (say 35%) on a trial 6 month basis would actually get you a good number of candidates. Contract that 6 months trial in writing. After 6 months, if you have healthy Advertiser interest, you renegotiate the salesperson’s commission. If you don’t know where to start looking my suggestion (other than posting an ad on Craigslist–which still works great) would be to poach talent from someone else in a similar vertical. Salespeople are always looking to move to a better deal/product, and the deal I described + plus your strong brand/penetration makes a pretty attractive deal…

***

I am open to your thoughts, questions, and suggestions in the comments.

Because If An Actor Doesn’t Toe the Line, It’s Clearly a Journalist’s Fault

Myles Mcnutt has a thoughtful, detailed response to Sons of Anarchy showrunner Kurt Sutter’s latest outburst, this time targeted at Fred Topel from Screen Junkies:

While I think that Sutter could criticize the interviewer for pissing off his star, even if that still might seem a tad bit overblown, to then position this smaller site as the cause rather than the symptom of his larger problem is highly unrepresentative. Sutter’s kneejerk responses are rarely particularly nuanced, often lumping together large swaths of individuals (often critics) when only a small subsection are actually at fault, and this seems another example where the real story gets buried beneath a larger crusade.

There are problems with this interview. There are problems in entertainment journalism. However, the problems with this interview are not necessarily the problems which exist in entertainment journalism, and they are not grounds on which to suggest any sort of malicious intent on the part of the individual in question.

I’m Not Dead, But I Play Dead on TV

The WSJ has an in-depth look at the life of working stiffs:

The Screen Actors Guild doesn’t keep figures on corpse roles, but currently, seven of the top 10 most-watched TV dramas use corpse actors, including CBS’s “CSI,” “NCIS” and spinoff “NCIS: Los Angeles.” The new ABC series “Body of Proof” revolve1s around a brilliant neurosurgeon turned medical examiner who solves murders by analyzing cadavers.

It all means more work for extras, casting agents and makeup artists who supply corpses in various stages of decomposition. Matthew W. Mungle, who won an Oscar for his work on the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” does special-effects makeup on “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “NCIS.”

AOL Acquires The Huffington Post

This should go well. Because Arianna has consistently demonstrated that she’s interested in supporting high-end premium brands like Cinematical, a support demonstrated through the Post’s lavish payments to its multitude of talented bloggers, right? Right?

Om Malik has a take that I agree with:

AOL’s moves are much like the ending scene from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Surrounded by the Bolivian Army, Dos Hombres have no choice to make a gallant dash to their horses, guns blazing, hoping against hope as thousand guns blaze around them. The ever-increasing web inventory is like the Bolivian Army firing on AOL and others who have not yet come to terms with the futility of chasing page views…

In a chat with The New York Times, charming and always quotable Armstrong quipped “I think this is going to be a situation where 1 plus 1 equals 11.” Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, for in this case one plus one ends up equaling none – as we might soon see!

Time will tell.

My Favorite Commercials from Superbowl XLV (2011)

I’m not going to include any of the movie trailers, because we’ve covered them much better at /Film (my take: Super 8, Transformers, and Battle: LA were great. Thor was not). Excluding those, here are some of my favorites

CarMax – Takes a turn of phrase and expands it until its breaking point. Fun visuals.

Chevy Volt – A beautiful commercial for what I’ve heard is a legitimately revoluationary car.

Bridgestone – Hilarious take on the accidental reply-to-all phenomenon. Love the “Do Not Attempt” subtitle at the bottom.

Volkswagen – Sure it already has over 13 million views and was released prior to the game, but that doesn’t make it NOT adorable. That child(?) actor does a ton of emoting from behind a mask.

And some of my least favorites:

Chevy Cruze – For those who can’t even wait to get home to begin the stalking (side note: Why the hell is she updating her Facebook status about him when they’re Facebook friends?)

Doritos – Creepy.

Pepsi – I want to say this ad is slightly racist, but I’m afraid that that might make me slightly racist? Love the ultraviolence though.

The King’s Speech Was a Labor of Love

There’s this sentiment going around the internet that The King’s Speech is some kind of Oscar bait movie. And let me clarify that I think there’s a difference between “a movie that Oscars usually get awarded to” and “Oscar bait.” The latter implies some sort of cynical targeting, as though the film was written, directed, and/or produced specifically just to garner awards.

Devin Faraci’s response to this year’s Oscar nominations is characteristic of the tone:

The answer to who got nominated: The King’s Speech. I have not yet seen The King’s Speech, and I hear it’s very good. But I have stayed away from the film because it looks genetically engineered to take home Academy Awards, and it’s well on its way – the film received 12 nominations, making it the front runner at this year’s Oscars. So now I’ll trudge down the street to catch the film at my local theater, where it’s been playing for weeks, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it well enough. I’ll just never forget that this thing is like the shark of the movie world: it exists only to consume. Awards, in this case.

Reading something like this, it’s easy to suspect that The King’s Speech’s awards success was assured from the outset. I don’t think this is the case. Rather, listening to director Tom Hooper tell the story, it’s clear that creating the film was a labor of love, and that without some creative, elaborate patchwork of financing deals, the film (whose screenplay, by the way, was originally supposed to be a play) never would have come together.

Here’s KCRW’s interview with Hooper. Hooper’s segment begins about 8 minutes in.

In Which /Film Disappoints Roger Ebert

A couple of years ago, I wrote a lengthy reflection asking readers of /Film why they read “Top 10” lists at the end of each year. Here’s what I wrote back then:

We read these lists because we have strong feelings about films and as social creatures, we like to see our opinions validated. When allegedly respectable people disagree with us, we label their views as inferior. We express mock outrage because it’s fun to rip apart a writer on a message board or comments section. But ultimately, I think all of that misses the point. Lists, reviews, even news items: We should all read these things to be informed, not only about objective reality but also about subjective opinions. How else can our own opinions be refined and improved except in the presence of those that are opposed to ours? As the old adage goes, “Variety is the spice of life.” How boring, monotonous, and oppressive would it be if everyone just had the same opinion on every single film out there?

I still agree with this sentiment completely. Perhaps when I was younger and more foolish, I read lists to make sure that critics agreed with my own picks. But these days, I celebrate the fact that people have different choices. Maybe they’ll give me an idea for a movie to check out on the festival circuit, or maybe I’ll have more fodder to add to my ever-lengthening Netflix queue. Whatever the case, diversity in film opinion should be celebrated, not quashed. And when someone picks a film that you hate on their “Top 10” list, that should be more motivation to read their reasoning. Considering opposing opinions sharpens the mind, rather than dulling it.

I thought about that piece recently when I learned that legendary film critic Roger Ebert had commented on an article over at /Film. Ebert set the film blogosphere on fire when he tapped 24-year old writer/blogger Ignatiy Vishnevetsky to appear in his new At The Movies television show. Scrutiny of Vishnevetsky escalated shortly thereafter, a phenomenon exemplified by the comments in our piece listing his Indiewire ballot best films of 2010. Vishnevetsky’s choices were certainly unorthodox, but as I’ve already tried to explain, one’s justifications, reasoning, and criticism are more important than some arbitrary numerical ranking of favorite films.

Here’s what Ebert had to say about Vishnevetsky’s list:

I think it’s a good list. “World on a Wire” is a rediscovered Fassbinder. “The Father of my Children,” “Vincere” and “White Material” are on my Best Foreign Films List. I gave “Vengeance” 3.5 stars. Loved Jane Birkin in “Around a Small Mountain.” Didn’t see “Eccentricities,” but it was good enough for the official selection at Cannes. Do these posters know who its director is? I wager not.

The Romero I didn’t see. Every critic is allowed one weirdo title out of 10. It’s a tradition. All depends on *what he said about it.*

Bear in mind Ignatiy wasn’t seeing all the mainstream movies last year. Not his job. He went voluntarily to movies he wanted to see. This list suggests the extent of his knowledge and curiosity.

Some of these Slashfilm readers disappoint me. They criticize this list for (1) not rubber-stamping other lists, and (2) for, gasp, including films they haven’t seen! Typical of that conformist group I call the List Police.

I read the list and rejoiced that we had Ignatiy on the show.

Roger Ebert

Some of them disappoint me too, Roger. Some of them disappoint me too.

I’m obviously crestfallen that commenters displaying the intellect, manners, and capacity of middle schoolers are allowed to hijack such a conversation on our site (and that, on one of the few days of the year that Ebert ventures over to visit us, that’s what he has to see). But there are several factors that counteract my desire to throw my hands up in the air and just give up hope. Because, you see, I know that there are great deal of intelligent people reading our site, people who’ve written me e-mails containing thoughtful, lengthy discourses on the nature of John Woo’s violence, and on the merits of Martin Scorsese, and on the prevalence of chauvinism or masochism or hedonism in this film or that film. Their encouragement has been immeasurable to me.

I also know that we, as writers, can only do our best. And while some of the readers we are attracting may not leave the most respectful comments, we can all aspire to be better than we would otherwise be. It’s also possible, too, that one day our commenters will grow up and realize that there’s a great, big, beautiful world out there, full of people who hold different opinions than they do. Hopefully, we’ll reach that day soon.

[P.S. Mr. Ebert: If you ever get around to reading this, you should really check out The Tobolowsky Files. I think it’d be right up your alley.]