Part One asked what kind of cinema ecosystem we are actually trying to sustain. Part Two of “What Does America’s Cinema Business Need Now?” looked at who can afford to remain in it long enough to develop a lifelong creative practice. Part Three turned to concentrated power: too few real buyers, too much control, too little transparency, and a market that too often teaches us to confuse somebody else’s preferred terms with inevitability.
In Part Four we are going to get into what should happen once we start changing how we’ve done it for far too long. After this we’ll move onto what’s missing in finance, distribution, data, and NonDē circulation; then to the culture that sustains cinema; and then on to responsibility for the health of the whole ecosystem; and finally to the Cheat Sheet. Unless, of course, the plan changes again.
I know, I know. It is a lot. But if we don’t start building the map, how will we know which path to take? If we don’t stare into the sun, how will we know how far to reach? And while we are at it, why am I the one doing this? Well, have you read my seven part essay on “Who Should Be Responsible For “Independent Film”?”
What Does America’s Cinema Business Need Now? Pt 4
We ended the last part with the power to say no, but let’s be clear: saying no only matters if there is eventually something better to say yes to. We need deals that help creative lives sustain rather than merely sign on the dotted line and then to think it is all fine. The goal is to leave the artists in a stronger position after the deal than we were before it. Or for that matter, let’s just leave it all better than it was when we found it.
For as long as I have been around, we were told that this is what the agents and lawyers were going to take care of. Maybe the unions too. That didn’t go that way though, now did it? We, and maybe our support orgs, are left with an obligation to examine who gains once a film succeeds, what happens when rights stop being actively used, and whether institutions can actually both free a work and help the work to gain influence and momentum. Since sustainability of the art, artist, audience and the ecosystem that supports all three is really our goal — and should have been specified as such oh so long, long, long ago — the deal itself has to now help build this better world we deserve.
Allow me to state a few basic principles when it comes to the goals of ALL of us.
If we share the risk, we should share the success.
Cinema has developed the remarkable ability of explaining why everybody has to sacrifice when the money is tight. There isn’t enough in the budget, so take less now. Defer the fee. Work for scale. Believe in the movie because we are all supposedly in this together.
Funny how quickly that collective spirit can disappear when the film succeeds. But eff those effers who somehow think they deserve to take advantage of others ignorance, need, and circumstance just because they can. We are going to do something else this time round, right? We are going to protect the things we love and make sure they can sustain into the future, providing access, opportunity, and satisfaction for all.
In Part Two of this series, I argued that passion cannot become an excuse for exploitation, and the same principle should apply even more strongly when a project produces unexpected benefits of any and all sorts. If people accept reduced compensation because the movie genuinely cannot afford more, meaningful success should trigger meaningful additional participation for the people who helped create it.
America built a strong new class of filmmakers in The Nineties and a bit beyond, not because we had strong institutional support, but because in America we were essentially free to exploit people beyond the extent of a law. Once again, let’s be painfully clear: Independent Film was a crime and the true beneficiaries were the corporate end user and the intermediaries along the way. Yeah, people got careers and some damn good movies too, but it could’ve been built something meaningful and sustainable, but nah. Wasn’t to be so.
That system was destroyed by institutional neglect, but instead of moaning the death of something that lasted well past its prime, let’s take that as a win. Once again, the welcome death of great things. Let’s put up the guardrails this next time though so we do less harm… maybe even aim for no harm. Let’s think longterm instead of getting while the getting is good and see how that might work out instead. Yeah? Think maybe we could plan for that? Matter of fact, I have one… But I digress… let’s get back to the plan where we all share in the success.
Backend supposedly provides participation in success, but Hollywood has spent decades teaching people to regard “net profits” as a sad punch line; they’ve undermined the power it once might have delivered. Participation nobody can understand, audit, or reasonably expect to receive does not solve any problems. We need simpler success-based bonuses and structures with triggers people can actually verify. We have the ability to deliver real-time payments based on established waterfalls but no one uses them. And that’s not by accident.
The principle should travel well across all: if sacrifice was communal on the way in, extraordinary success should not become concentrated on the way out. The exact mechanism of backend payments will vary depending on who is making it, where it is made, the budget and structure of the waterfall. Fairer participation is not generosity; it is part of aligning the people taking the risk with the value they help create. Good first principles institutionalized into processes can be a launch pad for wealth and talent generation. It is time we made it the law of the land.
Rights should come home when nobody seems to want them at the party.
One of the stranger features of our business is how often the person with the strongest incentive to keep a film alive has the least power to do so. We think this is a glitch, but it is the design. A distributor may enthusiastically acquire a movie, but soon abandon the strategy that generated it. The executive who loved it leaves, the company gets sold, or the title is perceived as too small to matter. Years pass, the movie disappears from circulation, and yet the filmmaker still cannot get the rights back. Welcome to the suck.
The problem often has very little to do with whether anybody wants to see the film. Control simply remains somewhere long after commitment to promote the work has vanished.
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