All articles by Michael Gubbins – Page 4
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News
Screen Opinion - film industry means business
You don't need to be Alan Greenspan to detect a change of atmosphere in the new year. There's a relatively widespread feeling that 2008 will be a tougher year than 2007.It's the reason, incidentally, why scrapping major awards ceremonies is an indulgence for the business as a whole, whatever the ...
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News
Search for business models undermines digital progress
The term 'business model' has been haunting the film industry all year. It has been a given in any conference presentation and a must at market and festival discussions.The reason for this ubiquity is easy to understand. However great the raw data appears for this year's box office or however ...
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Screen opinion - Marketing aloud
At Cannes this year, an enterprising producer came up with the wheeze of advertising his film on the underside of toilet seats in leading hotels. It's a ploy that carries with it an in-built joke about the quality of the product but it expresses a truth that's become increasingly evident ...
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News
In focus - Facing the 4-month challenge
It is increasingly difficult to market the non-quantifiable film,' warns David Mamet in his book Bambi Vs Godzilla.Certainly the recent box office has been dominated by the easy sells - remakes, adaptations and sequels. And under pressure from tightening budgets and heavyweight competition from a Hollywood buoyed with private equity ...
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Digital distribution - a new world order'
We are in the post-major studio and pre-internet era,' says Ira Deutchman, founder and CEO of New York-based Emerging Pictures. The supposed starting point and destination in his assertion are of course highly debatable. But there is now a clear consensus that this is an industry in transition. And as ...
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UK film finance - In sickness or in health'
'No news is good news' might be the motto of the UK film industry this year. The UK has been condemned to live in interesting times of late, with its entire financing system ripped up and replaced over the last few years.But since the beginning of the year, the territory ...
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News
Screen opinion - liberal profits
Whenever commentators have run out of inspiration during the long march of festival screenings, there's always that lazy column filler about how politics is taking over the cinema. We've heard it about Cannes and Berlin in recent years, based on the success of overtly political polemical documentaries, notably from Michael ...
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News
In focus - The search for a new audience
The idea of a 'digital revolution' for film can sometimes seem ridiculously overblown. For all the talk of paradigm-shifting technologies and the long tail, the traditional box office has been happily breaking records around the globe.In the UK and France, the July box office reached new highs for the modern ...
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Opinion: Format war is futile
A barely noted landmark was passed this week when next-generation DVDs overtook VHS in worldwide sales. Although it is not much of a breakthrough, the unsung but remarkable resilience of tape is a reminder that new media does not simply kill its predecessors.Still, the arrival of the rival Blu-ray and ...
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Editorial opinion: punching its weight
Can we judge the success of a national film industry on the numbers brought in by studio productions through subsidies and incentives, asks Michael GubbinsThere was a time when terms like the 'creative economy' sounded wildly self-important to the general public - at least outside Los Angeles. Even the term ...
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Editorial opinion: D-cinema is E for effort
The announcement of a major European financing deal for digital cinema put the proverbial cat among the pigeons at this week's Cinema Expo in Amsterdam.To be fair, the virtual print fee (VPF) agreement announced by Arts Alliance Media, Fox and Universal Pictures International didn't need to be the fiercest of ...
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News
Strong Fox finds comfort in Grass
Fox's Christian Grass, distributor of the year at the upcoming Cinema Expo, says a solid partnership between distributors and exhibitors is essential for the future. Michael Gubbins reportsThere is a certain irony in this year's choice of distributor of the year at European exhibitor conference Cinema Expo. Christian Grass, executive ...
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Editorial opinion: international affairs
The international markets are beginning to exert pressure on how business is done in a way that was once the sole preserve of the US domestic market - but there's still room for growth, says Michael GubbinsThere's a bitter joke among the residents of Brittany in France about the oil ...
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Editorial opinion: dangers of diversity
There are two words that should be worrying the international film business: cultural diversity. That's not in any way to disagree with the principle: globalised trade does have an innate drive towards homogenisation, with the big overpowering the small. So United Nations body Unesco was fully justified in raising the ...
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Editorial opinion: complications at birth
'This story, in which we believe so much, is going to reach lots of people now,' Cristian Mungiu said as he deservedly collected his Palme d'Or.The victory for 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days will indeed allow the film to spread its wings. Its success points to the sound ...
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News
Sweet 60 for Cannes
The 60th edition raised expectations but the festival and market succeeded because Cannes concentrated on what it has always done best. Michael Gubbins and Mike Goodridge report.The merchandising, and particularly the ubiquitous poster, made sure no-one forgot it was the festival's diamond jubilee. But there was a commendable refusal to ...
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Screenwriters playing against type
Arguments over the credit for a film are as old as the industry itself. Ironically, at first actors were insistent on not getting credits, embarrassed by their association with what was considered a fairground attraction. But as novelty grew into mass entertainment and art and - more importantly - into ...
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News
Global Tax Guide 2007
If you don't use soft money, you shouldn't be making an independent movie.' Ryan Kavanaugh, CEO of US financier Relativity Media, perfectly sums up the importance of tax breaks for film-making. 'It's free equity, literally. It's free money that doesn't generally require participation in a movie. And there's soft money ...
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Editorial opinion: festivals' right to choose
The one that got away is a favourite subject at every film festival. Selectors put their necks on the line at each event, picking their favourites for competition and it's only human to reward their efforts with invective about the ones they missed.One of the joys of the season for ...
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Features
United States - A man of the world
When Catherine Hardwicke's The Monkey Wrench Gang hits the screens in 2008, it will be the result of 15 years of careful nurturing for its veteran producer Edward R Pressman.The story of environmental activists fighting over-development in the American West has just been waiting for the right time to find ...