Crowdsourcing – paying 3x for your movie?

So VERONICA MARS fans cheered when they raised $5.7 million for their movie, and Zach Braff using Kickstarter to raise $2.5 million (and counting) for his film project WISH I WAS HERE – not because his movie project is in jeopardy, but because he wants full creative control.

Crowdsourcing – the concept – started off as a way to raise funds for poor and starving independent artists to get support for their endeavors.  Ask anyone at a film festival, and they’ll tell you how hard it is to make a film.  But the use of crowdsourcing for celebrities to fund their pet projects is a warped way of essentially getting the fans to pre-buy their tickets.

Most fans will buy a movie ticket and then buy the movie on DVD/Blu Ray if they really enjoyed it.  Now imagine the fan that pre-funds a movie – sight unseen – just because they’d like to see a movie made?  So this fan is paying for the movie 3x?

Here’s the problem.  Even at the indie film level, financiers and producers INVEST in a movie with the expectation to make money back or to have tax write-off’s.  Since crowdsourcing doesn’t offer that, it’s essentially charity to help a celebrity actor, writer or producer get a project made to demonstrate that they have a large enough fan base willing to put up dollars.

By comparison, a couple years ago, Glenn Close made her pet project a reality – ALBERT NOBBS.  She and her production company chased after the funding, casting and creative.  Emma Watson was instrumental in getting PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER made. There are ways for a film to get financed when they have the backing of a star.  No guarantees, but there are ways!

Zach Braff, who, according to Celebrity Net Worth, was worth $25 million in 2010 could have crowdsourced with a dollar-matching campaign.  His pet project is the sequel to GARDEN STATE, a film that only cost $2.5 million and grossed $25 million.  So does that mean Braff can guarantee his fans a 10x return on their money?  Will Braff take a pay cut to invest in the film? What do you think?

How about VERONICA MARS? Kristin Bell was reported to be worth $8 million.  With the recent announcement of the return of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (also thanks to a loyal fan base but WITHOUT crowdsourcing), I know its a shame when your favorite TV show is cancelled before its time.

Fan power has always been key to a movie, music or TV career, but crowdsourcing seems to me like a cynical way of holding fans hostage: If you want a project made, pay for it yourself.  Imagine if George Lucas or Spielberg asked people to crowdsource the next STAR WARS movie? And why not? Doesn’t sound too far fetched – big fan base, highly anticipated sequel.  Why not get the fans to pre-pay for a ticket?  No risk to the actors. Less risk for the producers/financiers. 

Let’s save crowdsourcing for indie artists. Just don’t ask me for a hand-out – I donated to disaster relief for West, Texas.

 

 

Roger Ebert RIP

Noted film critic Roger Ebert died a couple days ago on April 4, 2013. He’s probably best known for his TV show Siskel and Ebert with their thumbs up or down movie reviews and their sometimes funny bickering. For me, Ebert was also one of the first people who showed me how powerful the Internet could be.

Years before the Web, Ebert had a very active message board on CompuServe – an online community that even preceded America Online (AOL). He posted his reviews there and invited people to discuss movie topics with him. He deftly handled arguments – even in the early days of online community, we had haters and flamers – and he never failed to use the power of moderation to bring silly, pointless arguments to an end.

Ebert had declared that the Toronto Film Festival was one of his favorites because Toronto wasn’t so star-struck nor industry-ridden at the time. It was a film festival for people who love film, plain and simple. I messaged Ebert that I was in Toronto and told him that I’d be happy to recommend any restaurant to him. To my delight, he responded. He wanted to know about vegetarian restaurants because he was trying vegetarianism to address a number of health issues. I sent him a list, starting with Chinese restaurants and then expanding to a number of restaurants in The Beaches area. He was very pleased and went to a couple, even making his way into The Beaches to have a look around.

I guess because I have a memorable first name, Ebert occasionally messaged me privately in response to a couple of my posts. He was intrigued by the “Talk about Actors” folders I was moderating and building for Christian Bale. Ebert did not like any of Christian’s early works, but he was fascinated by the growing active and vocal audience I was cultivating. Within the space of a year (this must have been 1991), Christian was the most talked about actor on CompuServe and AOL. From Ebert’s point of view, here was an obscure British actor with an unremarkable body of work, so he wanted to know why was there the interest in Bale.

Simple. I responded to Ebert. I’m following your example and interacting with the online people. They have questions? I answer them. They want to know more? I supply them with details. When the audience realizes that this is an active actor’s forum, they start to flock and congregate. This was exactly the lessons I learned from watching Ebert’s movie review community on CompuServe.

Ebert’s online model got me very interested in the possibilities of using the Internet to promote actors and movies. He also fanned my own love of movies, and I was happy to contribute to Ebert’s book Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary.

I remember after I moved to Los Angeles, I posted a public question to Ebert, asking him how he liked vegetarianism. To my surprise, I was flamed by angry people all thinking I was insulting Ebert’s weight. (Ahhh, the danger of the Internet.) By the next day, Ebert had posted a reply that I was an “old online friend” and that I was kindly inquiring about his health. Period. End of argument. I was impressed with his fast reply because it showed that he was still very active online, reading his audience’s every word.

Wowza 2013

Belated Happy New Year’s to everyone.  I was looking back at 2012, really amazed at how successful the Christian Bale biography was, and so thrilled with the support of my publisher and the reception of the community as a whole.

I can now go to parties and introduce myself as an author!:)  That’s so cool.  Hello, I’m an author!  I wrote the hit biography of Christian Bale!  Why did I write about him, you ask? Well, I worked for him for many years….  and the dinner or party conversation just gets crazy because of course everyone is curious about him, Batman and Hollywood.

The book has been on Amazon’s Top 100 Best Selling Celebrity Biographies for the past 3 months and has been a consistent seller.  To all of you who’ve remained interested and curious, thank you so much for your support!

I got to go to my first Comic-Con in almost 20 years – I can say that I sat next to Stan Lee to sign autographs!  And gee, he could charge $50 for his signature, while I gave away mine for free!:)

In a year of a lot of up’s, there were a number of sharp downs. I lost a couple of close friends, Dr. Chris Syed and Mrs. Jean McKay, two mentors who meant the world to me. It has taken me forever to decide to unfriend dear Chris on Facebook. And with the loss of Donna Summer, I lost the soundtrack of my formulative years.  Her career gave me a lot of perspective about the entertainment industry.

2012 was also the year I discovered Ezra Miller – very funny guy who was in Perks of Being a Wallflower and a very unfunny guy in We Need to Talk About Kevin.  I’ve very excited to see a formidable new talent on the rise.

So for those of you who wonder, what’s next?  Well, being a published first time author is like being, oh, I don’t know, Carly Rae Jepsen.  You have one big hit, and everyone wants to know, what’s next?

To that end, I have 2 more books on the way.  I can’t say much more about them. I’ve learned last year that I don’t even get to choose the title, but I’ll be happy to keep movie buffs, Baleheads, and writers posted about those projects.  One of them was really thanks to the success of all the social media marketing around the Christian Bale biography, and even though it’s hard to see a 1:1 correlation, it’s definitely important to keep the buzz going!

The best is yet to come!

Book Publicists – Why Authors Are Scared of You

This past weekend, I was at the Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas, signing at the Writers League of Texas booth.  It was a great experience with great crowds – though it was mighty chilly in the tent!

An interesting thing happens when a bunch of authors get together.  We all compare notes to see how we handled agents, publishers and the matter of marketing and publicity.  We all want to know if we’re being treated fairly.

Of course, every author’s experience varies depending on the different people involved, the type of book, the kind of marketplace. I’m sure J.K. Rowling’s agent returns her calls and emails really quickly.  A new author might have to wait!:)  But the most common complaint among us all was about marketing and publicity.

We all want more marketing for our books.  That’s no surprise. Walk into a bookstore or skim a book web site, and you see how many books, new releases or old, have to compete for attention.  However, what was astonishingly creepy was that a number of authors I talked to at the Book Festival all complained about publicity.

As Christian’s former publicist, I decided to handle publicity for the book with my co-author and with my publisher directly.  We made the decision to go this route after interviewing a number of book publicists who didn’t really convey interest or demonstrate any clear strategies.  When a typical book publicist is asking for $2500 a month plus expenses (minimum 3 months), you can imagine that a newbie author wants to know what they’re going to get for their money!

So here’s the weirdest part of my weekend at the Book Festival – all of the authors I talked to had bad experiences…. with the same publicist!  I’m not going to name names, but it is a local publicist who is very active in Texas, trying to find new victims (errr… authors!) I’m so glad I didn’t sign with that company, but it’s so sad and demoralizing to know that authors – who generally don’t make gazillion dollars like a Stephen King or J.K. Rowling – end up falling victim to a greedy publicity company that knows how to prey on the insecurity and lack of marketing skills most authors have.

This publicist wanted to charge for phone calls, charge for emails over a certain length, and, of course, would promise no results or deliverables.  When she kept mis-reading an email, I offered a quick call to clear up issues, but she told me she’d have to charge – all of this before a PR campaign was even designed or launched!  To put this in perspective, it’s like a receptionist charging you for answering the phone when you’re trying to make an appointment to see the doctor!

Publicity is not an easy thing to create – especially to launch a new book.  It’s not just “PR for Dummies” or by the book.  No, because each book is unique, PR has to be custom tailored to the target audience, the projected market, mining existing contacts and developing new ways to reach a crowded marketplace.

When I was creating a marketing campaign for Christian’s career, we had to look at a lot of variables – what did he want to accomplish, who was his competition, what was the goal.  And because the Bales were penniless when they first moved to the US, it was really important to figure out how to run a campaign for the lowest cost possible.

So aspiring writers, when you’re not writing your book, think about marketing, imagine what your selling points are.  Just like when you sell a book proposal to an agent, who in turn has to sell it to a publisher, you need to “sell” it to the press.

Before any book publicists get cranky out there – I absolutely believe in publicity, but I think there are some real sharks.  An educated author has a better chance of getting the most out of their marketing dollar.  (If anyone knows of an Angie’s List or BBB list for book publicists, let me know!)  You could write the greatest book in the world, but if reviewers and press don’t know about it, how are they going to let their readers know?

As they say in Hollywood, you know what happens without publicity?

Nothing.

Where goes Superman?

This past weekend, Henry Cavill’s new movie, COLD LIGHT OF DAY, bombed at the box office with nasty reviews and few dollars.  This is Cavill’s last movie as a civilian.  Next year, he either ascends superstardom or wallows in Brandon Routhdom as the next Superman in MAN OF STEEL.  Either way, he won’t be poor!:)

It’s also the Toronto Film Festival this week – one of my favorite film festivals from my old home town – and it always brings to mind my favorite topic about the battle between indie versus studio films.  And it is a reminder about a filmmaker’s passion and what kind of luck a film, its director and its actors can have.

It was at the Sundance Film Festival many years ago where AMERICAN PSYCHO blasted off to turn Christian into a star.  Indie films like JUNO became hits at a film festival when a major studio decided, “Hey, let’s buy this little movie and see how well it does!”  This month, I’m looking forward to seeing PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER because I loved the book, and I’d love to see how Emma Watson handles her post-POTTER career, and I think the next great actor is Ezra Miller.

In a similar way, my book, Christian Bale’s biography, is sort of like an indie film.  My publisher is smaller – think Summit Entertainment, not Paramount Pictures – and we had no advertising budget.  But the book has caught on and been doing well, consistently in the Top 100 Best Selling Celeb biographies on Amazon for the past 3 months.  Thank you all for your tremendous support!

The fan mail – yes, I’m getting mail! – has also been interesting as the nature of the readers have changed.  I think initially, hardcore Baleheads were bristling at any perceived criticism of their favorite actor.  But as the reviews have been getting out there, and people have been reading the book, the word of mouth is more like, “Wow, I didn’t know that!  I didn’t realize what it takes to be an actor!”

And this summer has been great proof of the power of fandom.  Witness the 2 Internet campaigns – the first one to get Christian to go to Colorado to visit the shooting victims, the second to visit with the cancer-stricken boy – I mean, really, Baleheads, you have to feel good about the power of the Internet and the continued proof of what’s in Christian’s biography – that fans have always mattered to his career.

I’m hard at work on my next book projects.  It’s too early to talk too much about them, but suffice it to say, you write what you know!:)

Indie versus Studio actors – the new Generation

Over the weekend, Shia LaBeouf, 26, declared that he was done with studio films and was eagerly going to have an explicit sex scene (or two) in his next project, an indie film by Lars Von Tiers.  Ironically, that same weekend, LaBeouf appeared on the cover of a Hollywood Reporter Magazine feature entitled, “The New A-List.”

And just a week earlier, Christian Bale, 38, announced, as expected, that he too was done with blockbusters and was going to pursue indie projects.

So this made me think about the indie film world – which I love – and the studio world – which is not as filmmaker-friendly. It boils down to motive.  Indie filmmakers make films. Studio filmmakers make money.

For Christian and Shia, after making their big bucks on their respective franchises (Batman and Transformers), they now have the luxury of doing indie films.  I do consider it a luxury because after banking their millions, they can afford to do indie films.

When Christian was doing indie films in his pre-Batman days, he was in financial trouble all the time, and had to support his family.  Shia himself was also a former child actor with his mom as both his manager and his dependent.  Compare their careers with actors who have remained in the indie world and haven’t yet had an opportunity to break outs.  Talents like Lili Taylor, Michael Pitt, or Sarah Polley. And while some people are applauding LaBeouf’s daring move, let’s remember that explicit sex scenes didn’t help the careers of aforementioned Pitt or Vincent Gallo.  And seriously, isn’t the fiercely independent Von Tier being hypocritical by enlisting a star to be in his films? Obviously, he’s going to sell a bunch more tickets and videos by having LaBeouf involved in his project.

In the new studio ranking system, both Christian and Shia are considered A-list actors – actors who’ve starred in major studio productions (let’s say, budgeted at over $100 million) with built in distribution.  However, the nature of Hollywood has changed.  Neither Christian or Shia can open a film on their name alone.  Witness the lackluster box office of any of Christian’s non-Batman movies — same deal with non-Transformers movies for Shia.  It seems that we’re passed the era of singular movie stars where a Tom Cruise or a Harrison Ford could guarantee a Number One opening weekend based on their name alone.  Looking at an action flick like Expendables 2, the new reality is that a strong ensemble cast is one of the few ways to guarantee a Number One weekend anymore.

Having watched LaBeouf grow from his Disney days, one has to give him kudos for being so blunt and unedited.  After he appeared in the last Indiana Jones movie, he complained that the script wasn’t the greatest. His public complaints led to a split with Steven Spielberg.

LaBeouf recalled, “He told me there’s a time to be a human being and have an opinion, and there’s a time to sell cars.”

For Spielberg to say that to an idealist, it must have been quite a reality check for LaBeouf. But again, I had to keep in mind that LaBeouf has made his money, so he can be as mouthy and opinionated as he wants to be with little damage to his career.

Around the same time LaBeouf was declaring his move to the indie world, up and coming actor, Ezra Miller, 19, proudly declared he was gay in Out Magazine.  He is doing press to promote his indie film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which comes out next month. I think Miller represents the best of his generation with considerable acting talents  and screen presence (We Need to Talk About Kevin, City Island), but he’s either bravely or recklessly declared himself in the public eye.  Miller is the darling of the indie world and all of his films have been film festival winners, but he has yet to star in a studio film. It may be a move that relegates him to the indie world with a smaller emphasis on box office returns.  It may be a move that opens up a new generation of actors who are unconcerned that a studio may be reluctant to cast a gay actor in a straight role.

That’s right. Let’s not forget that there hasn’t been a single A-list actor to come out of the closet.  Traditional Hollywood thinking is that an A-list actor would be terrified to limit their careers if they came out.  Would the public accept a gay actor in a straight role? Maybe, but to date, no A-lister or potential A-lister is going to take that risk.  Except, I suppose, Ezra Miller.

It’s an exciting time to be a movie buff.  There are more choices than ever before.  And there are more ways to watch movies than ever before – On Demand, Online, DVD, blu-ray, and, of course, in the theaters.  And looking at actors like Christian, Shia and Ezra, we get a bird’s eye view of three generations of actors with three very different attitudes toward fame. The super private, Bale, the always opinionated LaBeouf, and now the very open Miller.  It’ll be interesting to see how these 3 actors in particular will fare in their respective indie worlds.

Comic-Con, Colorado, California

I had an amazing 10 days in California – we started our book tour at Comic-Con where we met the press, signed books, and chatted with lots of fans.  Fans – not of us, but Batman fans, Baleheads, and people who were curious about this first biography of Christian Bale.

Any concerns I had about haters were averted.  You see, people will post anything anonymously on the Internet, but in person, the people who came to see us where engaging, friendly, and really supportive.  And given that Christian’s biography is really a story about fan power, Comic-Con was the very best place to go!  By Monday, we heard the good news – the first run of the book had almost sold out!

Our booth was right beside Marvel legend, Stan Lee.  I saw Mark Hamill, Shia LaBeouf, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, some TV stars of yesteryear – I’ll add their names when I look them up on the IMDB, but the original Boomer from the 1970s Battlestar Galactica was there.  Although some people complained that Comic-Con has changed into a massive studio and TV network showcase, it’s still very much about fans celebrating fandom, and the enthusiasm in San Diego was infectious!

In Los Angeles, I stayed with friends and got to do more press and star-sightings in Century City and Malibu and Culver City.  I had forgotten how beautiful and sweet smelling the oceanside could be.

Fan power would be part of Christian Bale’s life again last week.  When the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado happened last Thursday, a Facebook and Twitter campaign was launched to ask Christian to visit the wounded.  A lot of editorials across the country debated about the wisdom of Christian showing up in Batman costume.  The Warner Bros types also didn’t want to appear culpable for the tragedy.   After President Obama’s visit, Christian and his wife finally reacted to the fan pressure and flew into Colorado yesterday – wisely without the Batman garb.  There’s now word that Anne Hathaway may also attend, and it continues to open up the debate about fan petitions – look at the stars who have been invited to people’s proms!:)  If a celeb ignores the petition, they look heartless.  But if they respond, they’ll get inundated with invites.  It’s a tough decision.

Anyway, thank you to all who made our Comic-Con appearance so much fun and memorable!  Thanks very much to the awesome staff at Barnes & Noble Manhattan Beach – we were told our short 1.5 hour appearance exceeded their book sales expectations!  And thank you all for making this book such a success – your listening and reading out there prove that fans always matter!