Drafthouse Films released the final U.S. trailer today for The Congress, the 2013 live-action/animation hybrid directed by Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir). In a sign of the times, the film will first be released onto iTunes/On Demand on July 24, followed by a limited theatrical release on August 29, and a New York release on September 5. Not only does the film contain animation, its story, which tackles the ethical and philosphical dilemmas surrounding the use of digital actors, is also relevant to the animation community. The idea was inspired by Stanislaw Lem’s 1970s novel The Futurological Congress: More than two decades after catapulting to stardom with The Princess Bride, an aging actress (Robin Wright, playing a version of herself) decides to take her final job: preserving her digital likeness for a future Hollywood. Through a deal brokered by her loyal, longtime agent (Harvey Keitel) and the head of Miramount Studios (Danny Huston), her alias will be controlled by the studio, and will star in any film they want with no restrictions. In return, she receives healthy compensation so she can care for her ailing son and her digitized character will stay forever young. Twenty years later, under the creative vision of the studio’s head animator (Jon Hamm), Wright’s digital double rises to immortal stardom. With her contract expiring, she is invited to take part in “The Congress” convention as she makes her comeback straight into the world of future fantasy cinema.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 5/28/2014
Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Feature Film, Stanislaw Lem, Distribution, Robin Wright, Ari Folman, The Congress, The Futurological Congress, Add a tag
By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/20/2013
Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Business, Feature Film, Distribution, Vimeo, Don Hertzfeldt, Add a tag
Last week at SXSW, Vimeo announced that Don Hertzfeldt will be among the introductory group of filmmakers to use their new Vimeo On Demand platform. Hertzfeldt has always been very selective about how he distributes his work online, which may be the first sign that Vimeo is doing something right with this new service.
The new platform allows anybody who has signed up for Vimeo PRO to distribute their films online. Hertzfeldt is selling his new feature It’s Such a Beautiful Day for $2 (to view the film online for one week) or $6 (to download a DRM-free version).
Vimeo’s On Demand set-up is fully customizable. Films of any length can be distributed, and prices can be set by filmmakers as can viewing periods for films. Here are some of its key features:
90/10 revenue split: You keep 90% of revenue after transaction fees, and we cover all delivery costs.
Your audience can watch anywhere: Your work is available online, as well as on mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs, all in gorgeous HD quality.
Customizable design: You can completely personalize your Vimeo On Demand page to match your work and bring it to life.
Flexibility + control: Sell films, episodes, and more at the price you want, anywhere in the world you want — including on your own website.
I haven’t delved into all the particulars yet, but Vimeo On Demand appears to be quite filmmaker-friendly. The system isn’t perfect: for example, they might be better off with a credits-based system instead of the currently cumbersome pay-per-view model. But such issues are resolvable over time. The important thing is that Vimeo has spent years building a solid foundation including its elegant video player and a large userbase interested in independent filmmaking. Their On Demand service is a positive development, and has potential to be a game-changer for indie animators and filmmakers.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/5/2013
Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Vimeo, Shorts International, Shorts, Business, iTunes, Distribution, Add a tag
If you read just one article this month about short film distribution, make it this piece at Short of the Week. Written by filmmaker Ivan Kander, the piece is ostensibly about the changing game of short film distribution, but it also contains a sharp critique of short film distributor Shorts International.
Nobody denies that Shorts International works for a handful of high-profile short films—think Oscar-nominated—but, as the article makes clear, their model simply doesn’t work for the average animation filmmaker, a complaint that I’ve heard often throughout the years. Their business model might have been relevant as recently as five years ago, but in 2013, they are an anachronistic presence on the short film circuit. They take far too many rights for the limited financial reward and exposure they offer in return.
Solutions exist, but companies in the short film community have been slow to implement them. Firstly, filmmakers need something like Bandcamp that facilitates the sale of digital downloads and merchandise, the latter of which is a major part of the income stream of established indie animators like Don Hertzfeldt and Bill Plympton.
Vimeo, by virtue of its name-recognition and user base, is perhaps in the best position to make a major impact in the film distribution game. Their recent introduction of the “tip jar” was a step in the right direction, but what I’d really like to see them do is introduce a micro-payment system. For example, a filmmaker on Vimeo could charge 5 cents per film view. As a viewer, I’d purchase a $5 credit from Vimeo, and then everytime I watch a film that requires payment, the site would automatically deduct a nickel from my account. Vimeo could charge 10% for the service (that’s half a penny on a five-cent film). A film with 500,000 views at a nickel apiece would earn $22,500 for the filmmaker and $2,500 for Vimeo. Add in downloads for 25 cents, and you’ve instantly created a more effective model for short filmmakers than Shorts International, iTunes and YouTube’s Partner Program combined.
(Rich man smoking money photo via Shutterstock)
Add a CommentBlog: Schiel & Denver Book Publishers Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Lisa Campbell, STL, People, booksellers, distribution, Add a tag
STL Distribution has been rebranded as Trust Media Distribution after making 32 people redundant.
The Carlisle-based supplier of Christian books announced in March it would be making a quarter of its 120-strong workforce redundant to keep up with a "transitional" market.
The company has since told The Bookseller 32 people lost their jobs after company-wide consultations, the majority being compulsory redundancies.
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By: Kathy Temean,
on 4/13/2011
Blog: Writing and Illustrating (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Advice, ebooks, authors and illustrators, Distribution, children writing, earn money, need to know, demystify, dianne Ochiltree, Telemachus Press, Add a tag
Emerging Leader in the eBook and Print On Demand Markets
Interviewed by DIANNE OCHILTREE, www.ochiltreebooks.com
The back story: Telemachus Press is today’s equivalent of the classic ‘private press publisher’. Their attention to detail has earned the company its reputation for quality and value. Telemachus Press authors and illustrators can bring out-of-print titles or original work to the marketplace in all formats at once: eBook, paperback and hardback. Recently, I sat down with Claudia Jackson, founder and partner of Telemachus Press, to find out more about the company, its products and the creative community it serves.
Q: Why did you decide to establish Telemachus Press?
I’m neither a writer nor do I have any desire to become an author of popular books for the masses! I gave that up many years ago after writing and publishing several software training manuals (before they widely existed). Since then, I’ve spent many years as a computer consultant specializing in desktop publishing and printing. Recently, I found myself in a strange predicament where I had to publish a book for a friend. OK, it was my husband, Steven H. Jackson, who wrote a murder mystery titled, “Death of a Cure.” It was a tough decision that we jointly made. (Do you wait for a literary agent to sell your book to a publisher or should you publish it yourself?) I already had the background, the skill set and the software – all of the tools to get the job done. What I lacked at that time, however, was a working knowledge of the process that takes a completed manuscript and turn it into a novel or non-fiction work. Countless days and nights were spent reading, researching, studying opinions (everybody has one) and comparing the various options available.
There are many publication services on the Internet and they continue to grow in number every day. Costs can be high, complicated and very confusing. Many of the business models employed by these author services companies were anything but transparent value propositions. To be honest, there was a lot of “bait and switch” leading the author to pay and pay without any upfront, full disclosure. Be all that as it may, it doesn’t take long before the brain is overloaded with everybody’s advice, not to mention having to weed through a multitude of Internet scams. It proved to be a long and frustrating experience, not unlike the experiences read about in blogs and forums as other authors travel down this same road.
Not being one to sit around and wait for things to happen, I woke up one day and decided to not only publish this book, but to go all the way and start a publishing company focused on providing all the technical publishing services a self-published author needed in a simple and fair model.
Telemachus Press has come a long way since that first book. We have expanded our resources and continue to build an excellent network of people who not only care about the job, but care about it getting done professionally. Our references are our most important asset! At Telemachus Press, you will have someone to actually talk to, and, more importantly, someone who will not only care about the finished product, but take responsibility for it as well.
We are an advocate for you, the author!
Q: What makes your publishing company different from the many other publishers in today’s marketplace?
Full transparency to the author. We are a work-for-hire
By: DGLM,
on 9/8/2010
Blog: Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: opinion, publishers, distribution, future of publishing, Stacey, marketing/publicity, Add a tag
This piece about the successful online magazine Rumpus becoming a publisher is pretty interesting. Because they have a built-in readership, and members through their book club, it seems to make sense to go this route for them. But my question is with such limited resources (a staff of two), wouldn't it be more efficient to go with a traditional publisher for better marketing, sales, and distribution channels? I'm not sure if they tried this and for some reason it didn't work out, or maybe they want to fully be in control of the product they are releasing, but this seems like the kind of thing that if it works for them to publish successfully on their own, traditional publishers will be knocking on their door to try to get in on their built-in audience and make the stakes even higher and the numbers even bigger.
I think as an idea, this small-scale publishing has merit, but in actuality will be difficult to manage successfully, and to build on and grow at a sustainable level. And I know that at least one of the Rumpus writers is working on her own book project, and my guess is that she, and others affiliated with the mag, will be going the more traditional publishing route. I'll be curious to see how it all plays out.
By: DGLM,
on 3/30/2010
Blog: Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: opinion, e-books, Apple, Amazon, publishers, distribution, Michael, future of publishing, price wars, Add a tag
April 3 is right around the corner! For those of you who don’t pay attention to, well, any form of media, that’s the day that Apple’s iPad finally hits the stores. And, being the nerd that I am, I have to say I’m pretty excited. I love product launches, and Apple does them like no other. (I was very disappointed by the lack of excitement surrounding the launch of the Palm Pre when I went to purchase it on day one last year, but I digress.) I think our readers know how this relates to books, but in case you don’t, Apple is launching their iBookstore that day, as well. They’ll be offering books from all the major publishers, with one huge exception: Random House. When Steve Jobs announced the iPad back in January, he said that 5 of the 6 biggest publishers were onboard for the iBookstore. The absence of Random House was conspicuous, but they released a statement afterwards saying that they were working on an agreement with Apple. I’d assumed there’d be one in place by this point, but it looks like the iBookstore could very well launch without the largest trade publisher on board, as reported by the Financial Times. Honestly, I was really surprised. Until last week.
That’s when this article popped up on an iPhone fansite. It purported to show the working iBookstore, along with the prices. And the price for 27 of the 32 listed bestsellers that day? $9.99. The same price that publishers have been fighting against in the Kindle bookstore. I was thrown for a loop. The reasoning behind the to switch to the agency model was to take control of pricing and get rid of the expectation that ebooks cost $9.99. But here we were at that price again. Then, only two days later, a new screenshot showing most (but not all) of the bestsellers at $12.99. Color me confused. This pricing kerfuffle brought to mind this New York Times piece about publisher agreements with Apple. The piece suggests that Apple wanted the flexibility to drop prices for hot books that would be majorly discounted in print. As of today, it’s not at all clear what iBookstore pricing will be on April 3.
Thinking about the possibility of an ebook sold at $9.99 is troubling. In the agency model, retailers act as an “agent,” selling books at prices determined by publishers and collecting a percentage of each sale (30% in most cases). Authors are generally being offered a percentage of the net income from these sales—publishers are pushing for this to be 25%, so we’ll roll with that number for the purposes of this argument. In the agency model, with a book priced at $9.99, authors will earn $2.50 per book or less. Compared to the $3.75 they currently earn on a $25 hardcover (15% of list price), this is a dramatic reduction. Comparing this amount to what authors would earn under the current ebook market conditions is nearly as depressing. In the current sales scheme (the consignment model), a retailer is buying the book for about a 50% discount, then selling it at whatever price they like. Assuming the same $25 price list price for the ebook (which is pretty standard) and same 25% royalty for electronic books, the author receives a royalty of $3.13. (The question of why they would receive less than they do on the hardcover in this situation could be a blog post in itself.) If ebooks eventually make up 50% of the market (a number I believe is possible), that royalty arrangement will radically alter author compensation. That, obviously, concerns me. I’d really
By: DGLM,
on 3/25/2010
Blog: Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: advice, queries, publishers, Jessica, distribution, Add a tag
I was chatting with some colleagues about assorted misconceptions about publishing, and I thought I’d pass along three.
1) In the name of writing an arresting, throw-down-the-gauntlet type of query, insult the agent to whom you are writing. Every so often I get a query that dares me to look past my own evident myopia/mediocrity/corporate co-option and read a project so mind-blowing that it will challenge everything I presume to know. Although it’s true I am near sighted (and entirely open to earth-shattering literary experience), I’m always a little astonished that anyone imagines contempt might be an effective conversation starter. I do wonder whether the writer in question started out composing less strident letters, and has simply grown bitter over time. If so, I get it. Rejection is excruciating, and who wouldn’t love to craft some cutting cri de couer? Satisfying? Certainly. Self-sabotaging? Probably. Calling an agent a tool seems a poor way of hiring one, but perhaps even Pyrrhic victory can be sweet.
2) I often hear it bandied about that it is harder to get an agent than a publisher. Comforting as this may seem, I feel fairly certain it’s not true. To find representation, you must convince only one person that your story is well-crafted, saleable, and worthwhile. To get a book into print, you generally need to convince a battery of people with disparate tastes and interests, a long, highly particular history of success and failure selling books, and improbably high sales targets that your work is worthy and commercially viable. Most slots on a given list are carefully guarded, and awarded to people who can play some active role in rounding up readers. In the case of business books, an “active role” might take the form of a “buy-back” in which a company or foundation commits in advance of publication to buy ten or fifteen thousand copies. Quite a deal sweetener, also something like the publishing equivalent of Stone Soup. The house brings the stone, but the author brings all the other ingredients, including a baseline of sales. Getting an agent means recruiting a single (albeit tenacious) ally; getting a contract means winning over a whole team.
3) Once you have a publisher, your book will be available in bookstores throughout the country. Not always the case. Publishing houses, even those with great distribution, are not solely responsible for the number of copies shipped. They may announce an ambitious first printing, but the bookseller accounts have a say in how many copies they will take, how many stores will stock it, and for how long.
Any misconceptions that you have encountered/discovered? I’m happy to add to the list.
Posted on 1/13/2009
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: robots, Japan, Technology, Geography, A-Featured, Ben's Place of the Week, atlas, Asia, ben keene, distribution, Add a tag
Crack open just about any atlas and you’ll find at least one map of distribution: people, wildlife, minerals, places of worship, the density of all of these things can be plotted on the globe. And while observing small changes from year to year in these categories can be interesting and informative, I found the 2008 report published by the Statistical Department of the International Federation of Robotics particularly fascinating. Their Executive summary estimates a “total worldwide stock of operational industrial robots between a minimum of 994,000 units and a possible maximum of 1,200,000.” And they expect this already-impressive number to grow in the years ahead. So where are these robots you ask? Generally speaking, the answer is Asia, a regional production center for a wide range of manufactured goods. But the highest concentration is in Japan. Fully one-third of the total—a whopping 353,300 machines can be found here. In fact, the island nation has approximately 300 robots for every 10,000 people employed in manufacturing.
Ben Keene is the editor of Oxford Atlas of the World. Check out some of his previous places of the week.
I think there is also something to be said for controlling the labor that you do. If I were looking at undertaking a project and knew that I could spend, say, 5 hours a week working with one person that I adore on a project that I love and then release a product that pays my expenses, or I could spend 5 hours a week working with people I don't know or trust and have to answer more phone calls and be accountable to more people and use more of my headspace on all the annoying things people in large organizations care about, I might very well choose the former, even though the latter would reach a wider audience.