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Friday, January 30, 2009

AFM | American Film Market - Home of the Independents


Hi , Thought I might also add a reference to these panels on the media, especially the movie biz, to my blog. The AFM has posted all their panels from November 2008's market. This is some of the best info around, enjoy.
Dr. Media


AFM | American Film Market - Home of the Independents

Saturday, January 24, 2009

CES 2009: Video games 'more popular' than film and music, says studio boss -


Hi gang, Happy New Year hope that you are still employed, or funded, and had a great time. Had to comment on Griffith s self serving pronouncement of the death of everything but video games.While it is true that the sales on other entertainment mediums are flat or off, I don't see Sony or Warner's closing their doors, on the contrary I see them expanding their footprint, and looking for more ways to sell their product including  being in the game biz. After all, how is it that Warner's is still here, whan others aren't, or Universal, diversification. The entertainment industry is just that and means you need to go where the action is, but do not forget, a movie is still the cheapest date in town and a theratical release relase and its advertising budget can drive lots of other markets.Now you can drive advertising from the web, TV--still the cheapest--even within VR and vidgames themselves.
One othe thing, cost to do a film, and game are now comperable, and  like Walt Disney said when he opened Disneyland, every sale is just another ticket.
DR. M



CES 2009: Video games 'more popular' than film and music, says studio boss - Telegraph
Mike Griffith, head of Activision studios, told delegates at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that consumers’ interest in video games was increasing all the time.

“Movies, recorded music and television – these are all stagnating or contracting entertainment sectors,” he said. “Video games are poised to eclipse all other forms of entertainment in the year ahead.”

Mr Griffith said that casual, fun games with a social element were one of the main reasons for this surge in interest. He said that interactive titles, such as Guitar Hero, which is published by Activision, epitomised this trend.

“We all have an inner rock star waiting to be unleashed,” said Mr Griffith. “This is the 'Guitar Hero' secret: It’s both a whole new way to play a game, and a whole new way to experience music. The convergence of the action game with the passion of music is changing video games – and bringing games like 'Guitar Hero' to the forefront of entertainment.”

He added that sales of video games in the four years between 2003 to 2007 increased 40 per cent in the US, while over that same period, sales of cinema tickets had fallen six per cent, as did the number of hours of TV watched by the average American, while sales of recorded music dipped 12 per cent.

"Games are no longer pre-set trips through linear mazes," he said. "They are becoming a legitimate story-telling medium that rivals feature films.

"The moviegoer is passive whereas the gamer is active and part of the game itself."

Mr Griffith said consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, which uses a motion-sensitive controller, had proved crucial in driving the idea of games as an active entertainment medium.

He also said that video games were driving other forms of entertainment, citing statistics from analysts Nielsen SoundScan that suggests that artists featured in the Guitar Hero series of games had experienced an uptick in downloads of their music between 15 and 843 per cent.

"The one thing that is for sure is entertainment is changed forever with gaming," concluded Mr Griffith.

Scene Stealer - Suddenly, Hollywood Seems a Conservative Investment - NYTimes.com



Hi folks well now we can see how bad things really are, when the NYT is publishing articles that say movies are a safe investment, whew!
Truth is that everything else is so fuzzy that at least with a movie, or vidgame, or webisode, you know your costs, and your break even points even if you don't make them ,and , importantly, you can know t course, this is good news for media makers of all types, who knows maybe even publishing will come back--not!
One thing that remains true , inspite of bad accounting practices, is you can bank on talent, and creativity.
Dr. M, says get out there with those projects, who knows, the article could be correct?


Scene Stealer - Suddenly, Hollywood Seems a Conservative Investment - NYTimes.com
January 25, 2009
Scene Stealer
Suddenly, Hollywood Seems a Conservative Investment
By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES

WHEN it comes to Hollywood financing, the sky doesn’t fall so much as it just changes color.

When the movie factory needed cash in the 1980s, it tapped individual investors through brokerage firms. That strategy ran its course, and in the 1990s German tax credits became the next sales pitch: Funnel money to our movies via a legislative loophole, Mr. Berlin Financier, and you can take immediate tax deductions.

More recently, the likes of Goldman Sachs, along with giant hedge funds, poured billions of dollars into groups of movies called slates. The idea was that investing in a dozen or more movies at once, with the return calculated in aggregate after all had been released, was a sure-fire way to invest wisely. In many cases, though, it wasn’t.

Now that the economic crisis has washed away much of that money, a new pickup line is starting to waft through the air in deal-making hot spots like the Sundance Film Festival. The new line is this: Wall Street, real estate, the art market — all of those other supposedly stable investment areas — are now such a mess that Hollywood is one of the safer places you can park money. Although the movie business has been hurt along with nearly every other industry, it’s proving far more resilient to recession than most.

“I can legitimately say: ‘Hey, wait a minute. My company is outperforming almost everything,’” said Jana Edelbaum, co-founder of an independent financing and production company called iDeal Partners Film Fund. “I think that’s a pretty strong selling point.”

Ms. Edelbaum has been pressing a lot of palms lately in preparation for the premieres of two iDeal movies last week at the Sundance Film Festival. One of them, “Motherhood,” is a day-in-the-life comedy starring Uma Thurman, Minnie Driver and Anthony Edwards. The other, “Arlen Faber,” is a romantic comedy starring Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham (of “Gilmore Girls” fame). Each cost less than $12 million to make and has multiple distribution offers.

NOW three years old, iDeal operates out of New York, with financing to make about eight movies. It manages risk to investors through a variety of routes: preselling its films to foreign distributors, casting commercially tested actors, taking advantage of state tax incentives for filming. With that approach, Ms. Edelbaum at the outset was able to promise her investors a risk floor of 70 percent on the chance that none of iDeal’s films succeeded.

But as iDeal rounds the home stretch on its first batch of movies, Ms. Edelbaum is projecting at least a 15 percent return for her investors and — if something big happens with “Motherhood” or “Arlen Faber” — as much as 40 percent.

“Obviously, I want to make as much money as I possibly can,” she said. “But I am being dreadfully realistic and conservative given the current environment. It’s the non-Madoff approach.”

Ms. Edelbaum is far from the only independent producer promoting herself to investors with a calmer-waters pitch. The Exodus Film Group, a Venice Beach, Calif., production and financing company, focuses on animated films and has had a slow start, with its recent “Igor” selling a sluggish $19.5 million in tickets.

Coming Exodus entries like the animated “Bunyan & Babe,” featuring John Goodman as the voice of Paul Bunyan, are more promising. But John D. Eraklis, the company’s founder and chief executive, says investors aren’t waiting to find out.

“We have witnessed a surge of existing investors interested in upping their commitment as other opportunities have become less compelling,” Mr. Eraklis said. “I recently had an investor tell me that we no longer occupy the high-risk portion of his portfolio.”

Anybody making the Hollywood-is-safer argument just six months ago would have been laughed out of town. Complex accounting methods, tremendous competition, soaring costs — it wasn’t exactly a safe part of the woods for even the most sophisticated investor.

All of that terrain is still intact, of course, but compare it with imploding investment banks, plunging real estate prices, a whipsawing stock market, Warhols sitting unsold and Bernard L. Madoff. At least in the worst instance of Hollywood investing, you’ll probably catch a glimpse of Angelina and eat some really good shrimp.

“Is investing in movies more attractive now because of what is happening elsewhere in the economy? Yes,” said Daniel H. Black, a partner at Greenberg Traurig, the large entertainment law firm. “Does that mean all the risk is gone? Absolutely not.”

The big studios probably won’t be able to rely much on this pitch. Their upfront needs are too big — Universal’s last round of private financing, which closed in September, totaled about $3 billion — and Wall Street and the real estate market may sort themselves out before their current slate deals expire.

The biggest players in the investment world have also soured on entertainment because they have been burned badly before, said Amir Malin, a partner at Qualia Capital, a media-focused investment firm.

But for independent producers — especially ones that operate in a transparent manner — the strategy could offer a lifeline. They are in a particularly tough spot because they have almost no hope of tapping the debt markets, there is a dwindling number of buyers — with outfits like New Line folding — and costs are soaring. (Marketing an independent movie now costs more than $25 million, according to the Motion Picture Association of America).

What do investors have to say? Daniel Crown, the former chief executive of Crown Theaters, his family’s movie theater chain in the Northeast, said he recently put money into iDeal — but not because he has cinema in his blood.

“If you can find the right film executives, people who consider themselves fiduciaries more than producers, it’s one of the best bets you can make right now,” Mr. Crown said.

“Just remember that it’s over when you start taking yourself so seriously that the project stops becoming a commercial movie,” he continued, “and starts becoming an art project.”

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Sunday, January 11, 2009

movies, vidgames,emotional content and money

Hi gang, Happy New Year hope that you are still employed, or funded, and had a great time. Had to comment on Griffith s self serving pronouncement of the death of everything but video games.While it is true that the sales on other entertainment mediums are flat or off, I don't see Sony or Warner's closing their doors, on the contrary I see them expanding their footprint, and looking for more ways to sell their product including being in the game biz. After all, how is it that Warner's is still here, when others aren't, or Universal, diversification. The entertainment industry is just that and means you need to go where the action is, but do not forget, a movie is still the cheapest date in town and a theatrical release and its advertising budget can drive lots of other markets.Now you can drive advertising from the web, TV--still the cheapest--even within VR and vidgames themselves.
One other thing, cost to do a film, and game are now comparable, and like Walt Disney said when he opened Disneyland, every sale is just another ticket.
One other thing, which is most important. Griffith, states that movies are passive, vidgames active, and that vidgames are now better stories. Well, Dr, Media says, movies are interactive with the imagination as has been shown by numerous studies, vidgames are also interactive more directly, and now thatthey have better stories, thay are becoining more like films
In fact I would argue, most importantly that when a vidgame can move some one emotionally as a film can, trhen we would have invented a new form, and a most compelling form of entertainemnt. Show me the Slumdog Millionaire of video games, please
DR. M



CES 2009: Video games 'more popular' than film and music, says studio boss - Telegraph
Mike Griffith, head of Activision studios, told delegates at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that consumers’ interest in video games was increasing all the time.

“Movies, recorded music and television – these are all stagnating or contracting entertainment sectors,” he said. “Video games are poised to eclipse all other forms of entertainment in the year ahead.”

Mr Griffith said that casual, fun games with a social element were one of the main reasons for this surge in interest. He said that interactive titles, such as Guitar Hero, which is published by Activision, epitomised this trend.

“We all have an inner rock star waiting to be unleashed,” said Mr Griffith. “This is the 'Guitar Hero' secret: It’s both a whole new way to play a game, and a whole new way to experience music. The convergence of the action game with the passion of music is changing video games – and bringing games like 'Guitar Hero' to the forefront of entertainment.”

He added that sales of video games in the four years between 2003 to 2007 increased 40 per cent in the US, while over that same period, sales of cinema tickets had fallen six per cent, as did the number of hours of TV watched by the average American, while sales of recorded music dipped 12 per cent.

"Games are no longer pre-set trips through linear mazes," he said. "They are becoming a legitimate story-telling medium that rivals feature films.

"The moviegoer is passive whereas the gamer is active and part of the game itself."

Mr Griffith said consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, which uses a motion-sensitive controller, had proved crucial in driving the idea of games as an active entertainment medium.

He also said that video games were driving other forms of entertainment, citing statistics from analysts Nielsen SoundScan that suggests that artists featured in the Guitar Hero series of games had experienced an uptick in downloads of their music between 15 and 843 per cent.

"The one thing that is for sure is entertainment is changed forever with gaming," concluded Mr Griffith.