Distribution and Advertising

Once a picture has finally been completed and is ready for the viewing public, the responsibility of selling the film remains. For some reason, distribution of a film has always been a tough area for a producer to effectively participate in. The views of a producer are generally not well received by distributors. The best thing a producer can do in this area is to be honest. Because the producer has been with the film from start to finish, their knowledge of the film is much greater than that of the marketing agent. In this respect, the producer can hopefully offer a more effective sales approach for the market.
Studios normally have numerous films in the works and gaining support for a film even after it is made may be difficult. Even if it is a wonderful film, if no one hears about it, it will not be successful at the box office. A producer should do whatever they can to get their film marketed correctly. It is very important for a producer to remain involved in the distribution process of the film. The producer is once again the liaison, the middleman between the people who make the film and the people who market and distribute the film.
Major film distributors (a.k.a. the film studios) receive the bulk of the distribution receipts from their films. The studios generally negotiate with exhibition chains (such as AMC or Century theaters) along with independent theaters (privately owned) for a split of all receipts brought in by their films. One of the most common splits for a major motion picture is 90/10, in which the studio gets 90% of the receipts brought in, while the theater receives the remaining 10%.
Over time the theaters’ profits will increase while the studios’ profits will decrease. In the initial stages of release, theaters will compete with each other for specific films by bidding a split amount and showing duration (# of weeks the picture will be shown at the theater) of the film. Films that are considered major blockbusters will be released in greater quantities and in more theaters across the country on opening weekend to try and bring in the maximum gross possible.

An area of ever increasing importance for negotiations of a film, and an area in which a producer can become very involved is that of commercial “tie-ins”. These tie-ins include everything from t-shirts to toys to books, records, posters, dolls and games. Producer’s negotiations with these distributors can help to further increase the profits of a successful film.
For a producer who seeks to assist in the marketing of the film, advertising is one of the most critical components. The more information the producer knows about the process the better. As with everything else, the more active and aggressive the producer is in promoting the advertising the better. From the beginning of the marketing and advertising process, the producer should have in mind what social groups the film will appeal to most.
He should be very knowledgeable about the film as a whole, and who will bring about the biggest response to it. With all this in mind, the advertising of the film can take on a much more focused approach, which will save both time and money. On the other hand, a producer must try and find a way to cross the lines drawn by all social groups; the more people that go and see the film the better. There is a fine line to walk when determining the advertising that will be most beneficial.
As with all aspects of the film, studios will also try and impose a time deadline on advertising. Unfortunately time deadlines create restraints on the amount of revising that can be done. There have been many instances when advertisers have presented their ads or movie trailers to producers without time to make changes. Producers must try and work with these deadlines and make sure to oversee the work as it is in progress. This way, when the deadline arrives, the advertisement will not need revisions.

One last area that a producer must be well aware of is foreign distribution of their films. In recent years, foreign revenues (those theaters outside the United States and Canada) have accounted for greater than 50 percent of the total gross of a film.
Foreign distributors can be of great importance to producers even before a film has gone to production. In this case, distributors will give the producer a cash advance on the film for distribution rights once the film is released. Distributors can also make advances after the film is produced. In either case, the producer can use this money for financing the film, and the distributor will be reimbursed from the producers’ share of the proceeds the movie will bring in.
Foreign distribution is an ever-increasing benefit for the producer. The producer, whether independent or studio-based, should maximize whatever foreign means made available but should make sure to have individual contact with each distributor from each individual country. This may seem like an overwhelming task, but every country will have a different approach to distribution and their profit margin, and therefore should be treated on an individual bases. If done correctly it is possible that foreign distribution could ultimately account for a majority of the film’s profits.
Gorham Kindem, writer of The Moving Image, sums up the role of the producer in a few simple words. He states, “Producers are risk takers, who seize an idea, run with it, and convince others to follow them.” Producers are the film industries’ building blocks. They can come from anywhere and don’t need any particular training to get in the game (other than the ability to socialize well).
They are always thinking and trying to sell a product, and always looking for that one idea, that one script which strikes a chord. Many producers begin their career as somebody's assistant. Others come from other areas of the industry, such as directing, acting, managing, law, etc. Others start out with simply a dream of being in the industry and money they received from family or another source.
In any case, to be a producer means you must have confidence, perseverance and a willingness to give your all to the project. The producer is the one who is there before the beginning and after the end.

Хрестоматия для самостоятельного чтения по специальности “Режиссура кино и телевидения”

INTRODUCTION

A good director makes sure that all parts of a film are creatively produced and brought together in a single totality. A director interprets the script, coaches the performers, works together with the montagist, etc., interrelating them all to create a work of art. According to Film Scholar Eric Sherman, the director begins with a vague idea of the entire film and uses this to help him determine what is to be done. He gains most when others are given their freedom to show what they know.
The position of the director in the traditional filmmaking process varies greatly and is extremely complex. The film director is seen as a leader of others, as providing a kind of guiding force. According to this view, the final outcome is more or less predetermined by requirements of the script, camerawork, acting, and editing; the director providing certain organizational context to the picture.
Judging from the comments of most professional directors, there is very little agreement as to what exactly their function is. There are some directors who say that they must concentrate primarily on the structures of the script. If their films are to be works of art, it will be because of the inherent beauty in the narrative and dialogue patterns in the script. Other directors are occupied primarily with the performance of actors. To them, the beauty of the film will be correlative with the quality of acting. These directors attend not only to the performance as a whole, but to endless minor nuances and gestures throughout.

Some directors attend primarily to the camerawork, their chief concern being for a pictorial beauty and smoothness of execution. There are still other directors who say that the art of film resides in the editing process. For them, all steps prior to editing yield crude material, which will be finally shaped and lent an artistic worth through their imaginative juxtaposition. The point is that there have evolved nearly as many theories of film directing as there are directors.

We cannot, while watching a film for the first time, point out particular shots or lines of dialogue and fully appreciate their ultimate relationship to the entirety of the picture. Similarly, the actor concentrating on every gesture, the writer concerned with logical narrative and captivating dialogue, the cameraman dealing with isolated images, and the editor concerned with the rhythmic flow are not in the position that the director is to grasp the film as a whole.

Only the director stands apart from any one particular contributory element but lends to all of them a sense of the pictures entirety. Many of the strongest directors have refrained from virtually any function besides that of an overseer of the film.
The director, whether he explicitly controls all the subordinate work in a film or merely creates a certain context through his very presence, is the only participant in a film’s creation whose moment of self-expression is wide enough and, thus, whose artistic vision may come to characterize the film as a whole. The director's very role in the filmmaking process forces him to attend explicitly or implicitly to the entire film.

The director approaches a film with more or less a well-defined sense of its meaning. For him, this limits and determines what the basic drive should be of all the other contributing elements. As previously stated, the director’s concern is always conditioned by a sense of the whole. He selects and guides all work and shapes it along the necessary route to achieve (as close as possible) what he has in mind.

When it is said that the director approaches a film with a sense of the whole in mind, obviously it is not meant that he has a complete knowledge of the finished product in all its parts. In fact, a director learns, as the production of the film progresses, exactly what it was that he had envisioned. There is no “beautiful shot” or “great cut” that has not been conditioned by the overriding vision of the whole that only the director provides.

WHAT AND WHO IS A DIRECTOR?

By definition, the director creatively translates the written word or script into specific sounds and images. He or she visualizes the script by giving abstract concepts concrete form. The director establishes a point of view on the action that helps to determine the selection of shots, camera placements and movements, and the staging of the action.

The director is responsible for the dramatic structure, pace, and directional flow of the sounds and visual images. He or she must maintain viewer interest. The director works with the talent and crew, staging and plotting action, refining the master shooting script, supervising setups and rehearsals, as well as giving commands and suggestions throughout the recording and editing.
Could a director be compared to an architect? A bricklayer laying brick upon brick? A conductor of a great orchestra? These descriptions fall short of the mark because what is being build is more volatile than stable, more fluid than secure. Director Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields) stated, “being a director is like playing on a multilayered, multidimensional chessboard, except that the chess pieces decide to move themselves.” Every director has his own vision of what they feel directing entails.
Roman Polanski finds that “First of all, directing is an idea that you have of a total flow of images that are going on, which are incidentally actors, words, and objects in space. It's an idea you have of yourself, like the idea you have of your own personality, which finds its best representation in the world in terms of specific flows of imaginary images. That's what directing is.”

Polanski, director of films such as Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, also stated that, “Directors are like generals, political dictators, aggressive people. You don’t have to be aggressive in a malevolent way, in a hostile, disagreeable way. Actually, you have to be the opposite way. You have to be a real leader. That’s to say that you have to let those who are doing their work do their work. You are a guide, and you’re a “tell-it-to”, and you’re a prophet, and you’re a boss, and you’re a slave, and, in the end, it’s your fault. And everyone in the film is always grateful if you tell them what to do.” Obviously, to be a director, you have to take on several different roles depending on the particular situation at hand.

ENTERING THE BUSINESS

Whether it is intentional or by accident, there is probably as many ways to enter the business of filmmaking as there are filmmakers. Some directors, such as Paul Mazursky (Next Stop, Greenwich Village) and Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Manhattan Murder Mystery) started out as comedians and then actors. Eventually this led them both to screenwriting and finally directing.

Allan Dwan (The Iron Mask, The Three Musketeers) planned to be an electrical engineer. Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) worked in a video rental store. Louis Malle (French films, India) and Irvin Kershner (The Hoodlum Priest, A Fine Madness) began by making documentaries.
There are those however, that knew from the beginning that directing was what they were going to do. Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, What’s Up Doc?) stated, “I always considered myself a director who was sort of making a living writing about pictures, not the other way around. In other words, I always wanted to direct films, even when I didn’t know it.” Stephen Spielberg (E.T., Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List) grew up directing his siblings in the family room of his house, then after sneaking on to a lot at Universal Studios, he set up an office and there began his professional career. Oliver Stone (Platoon, Wall Street) and Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas) both attended film school on their way down the director’s path.

THE SCRIPT

The first basic element in creating a film is the script. The script is basically the guideline. Even if it is very precise, it is a guideline. Later, the period of the shooting will bring you a lot of surprises. Then, the editing is a completely new experience. Every picture starts out with an idea placed on paper. These ideas come from a multitude of places, including plays, poems, paintings, music, etc.

There are thousands of people currently writing scripts in hopes that theirs might attract the attention of a producer, studio or director. There are a lot of well-written scripts that for one reason or another will never make it to the screen. Martha Coolidge (Rambling Rose) has said “You're always looking for a metaphor that is extremely visual and dramatic so that it becomes a picture and not just words on the page.”
Besides the fact that the budget of a film is the underlying determinant as to whether a picture is made or not, all films begin with a visualized concept. This concept represents an attitude towards characters, events, environments and objects.

Michael Winner (Scorpio, Deathwish) has quoted, “What normally happens in this town (Hollywood) is that somebody gets a script and says, “Let's give it to somebody else, which I really can’t understand at all, and ten writers later and six arbitration's later…. Sometimes very good films are made that way. Some of the finest films ever have been through many writers in the most extraordinary manner.” Case in point: One of the American Film Institute’s 100 greatest movies of all time, MASH, was turned down by 12 different studios/directors before Robert Altman decided to take a chance and make the picture.
“One sets out to make a film because one likes the subject matter. I believe the script is never finished. I constantly work on the script, either with the writer, or, if the writer is not there, with another writer, or with the people that are working with me. I think the script is the blueprint and then it has to have a life of its own,” John Schlesinger (The Manhattan Cowboy, The Marathon Man). Still there are other directors who take a script word for word, action for action, never changing a thing.

For many directors, the creation of an unforgettable character in a script is the key to winning them over. Many directors begin by considering how the character’s journey through the story will ultimately affect the audience. For Ron Howard (Backdraft, Apollo 13) this is the single most important consideration. Directors like Howard tend to seek out material that will confirm their own worldview. More often than not this involves an attempt to carefully select the kind of stories that will have a lasting and positive impact on the audience.
Once a director has finally settled on a project, the next step is to begin the development process. Normally research is a big part of this process, considering many scripts are based on other scripts, real-life events or adaptations from other previously written materials (such as books, plays, etc). Ron Howard spent many nights with firefighters and at firehouses learning what he could about their lifestyle before he began production of his film Backdraft.
Roland Joffee traveled to Calcutta several times over a period of 4 years to learn what he could from the culture before filming City of Joy. Stephen Spielberg sent his actors through boot camp and had them live in very primitive conditions before he began the filming of Saving Private Ryan. The best research is that which yields a true vision of the arena in which the story takes place. Ideally this means going beyond the cultural cliches to create a dynamic and insightful script that will result in an honest movie.

As the process of researching material comes close to completion, it may sometimes become apparent that parts of a script need to be reworked before production can begin. Reworking the script may consist of minor changes such as different locations, seasons or character situations. On the other hand, major changes may also be necessary, such as changing the entire scope of a character. For example, in the script for the movie Alien, the character eventually played by Sigourney Weaver was initially a man.