Joshua Bryce Newman

Our next film:

For the past few years, at least once a month I’ve received an email with the subject “CYBORG DINOSAURS”, which always begins like this:

I am a science fiction writer & I wrote four science fiction stories about dinosaurs. And I do need you to makes movies from my stories?? My first story is Prehistoric park. And my second story is Pterodactyloid man’s flight to Paris. And my third story is Pterodactyloid man gose around the world in 76 days. And my fourth story is Alien Dinosaur Planet……… With this e-mail I do have four drawing of the logo’s of my stories. But I do have allots more drawing of my stories then just the logo’s……………….

As promised, four drawings come attached to each email, all along the lines of this one, for the aforementioned Pterodactyloid man’s flight to Paris:

Amazing! For years, I’ve been laughing about these emails, talking about them with colleagues, and even forwarding them along to friends.

Last week, one of those friends Googled up the author and subject line, and sent back this video:

I am, indeed, going to hell.

After ten years spent in the film world, dipping a foot back into the tech space has been a bit of a culture shock.

Tech people seem happy to help out even strangers at other companies, just for the good karma. Whereas in the movie world, even close friends secretly root for one another to fail, if just for the frisson of Schadenfreude.

I suspect that difference stems straight from the trajectory of the two industries: the tech space’s total market cap is growing rapidly, while the movie industry’s total grosses have held largely static.

In that context, it makes sense for film folks to resent the success of other players: in a zero sum game, others’ wins necessitate your losses. Whereas in a growth industry like tech, someone else’s achievements don’t inherently undercut your own.

In fact, as many tech companies and products benefit from network effects, others succeeding is likely even a net positive, a rising tide lifting all boats (or, at least, all valuations).

Which is to say that, for whatever reason, the large number of tech people I’ve been dealing with of late have all been remarkably nice. After a decade of dog eat Hollywood dog, it’s a welcome change.

Having split my professional life between the tech and movie worlds, I’ve always been struck by how similar filmmakers and hackers are. For example, both groups:

• Think about the world as a collection of fascinating material to be mined / problems to be solved;
• Disdain things that are boring and have already been done;
• Distrust tradition/authority as a sufficient rationale in and of itself;
• Respect competence and support meritocratic structure;
• Work collaboratively and share ideas and solutions (even with ‘competitors’);
• Are willing to put in huge amounts of work, even when unpaid, just for the love of the game.
• And, most importantly, want to share the things they pour their hearts and souls into making with as many people as they possibly can.

In the tech world, that’s easy for hackers to do: they start startups, build stuff on their own terms, and then share their stuff with users by building direct customer relationships.

In the movie world, however, filmmakers haven’t had such a direct route; instead, they’ve traditionally had to rely on studios and distributors to build those relationships for them.

Now, sites like YouTube allow filmmakers to share directly. But those sites also don’t generate real filmmaker revenue. And while filmmakers (like hackers) don’t actually care all that much about getting rich, they do at least want to make enough money making their stuff that they can live comfortably, and show their investors strong enough returns to play again as soon as they come up with their next big idea.

With more and more films being made each year, it seems almost inevitable to me that new solutions will emerge somewhere between the studio and YouTube models – solutions that help filmmakers build broad audiences, profitably, and in ways they directly control.

I’ve been giving that a lot of thought of late. Because it seems like that’s a big problem waiting for a solution – and an equally big business waiting to be built.

Yelling to the Sky premiered last week at Berlin, and is headed off next to SxSW; trying to figure out if I therefore need to head there, too.

Was just speaking with a savvy producer who had completely missed this, which makes think a slew of other folks who could benefit missed it, too:

In short, Obama just signed into law HR 4853, a tax bill which extends the Section 181 film finance incentive through the end of 2011.

The 181 incentive makes investing in film an immediate, 100% write-off until dollar-back. Which, in turn, both levers up returns (as investors are investing pre-tax dollars) and provides a very effective (and completely legal) tax deferral strategy.

Further details are available in IRS Regulations TD 9312 and REG-115403-05.

If you invested in a film during the 2009 tax year, you are likely entitled to deduct that investment entirely. Feel free to contact us at Cyan for guidance, as we helped lobby for the bill’s extension, know more about its ins and outs than we probably should, and would be more than happy to share info with your accountant.

Former Columbia Pictures co-president Matt Tolmach just optioned the 2010 Black List script The Kitchen Sink. He explains, “it’s more in the spirit of The Breakfast Club than anything, but you get an idea of the title in an early scene where two kids are running from zombies. Those zombies suddenly are attacked by vampires. Just when they are all facing off, there’s a bright light overhead. You realize the aliens have landed and these groups have to band together, suppress the urge to kill each other, and it becomes thematically the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That makes it different than your usual zombie, vampire, alien movie.”

A timely addendum to my earlier “Listed” post.

Every year, film exec Franklin Leonard publishes the Black List, a roundup of the best unproduced screenplays of the prior year. Some – like Juno or The Social Network – go on to great acclaim. Others seem to set their sights a little lower, floating just on the edge of self-parody.

For example: this year’s Hovercar 3D. The name is pretty much all you need.

Or consider: F*cking Jane Austen. “Two men angry at Jane Austen for creating unrealistic romantic expectations among women today get sent back in time to the 19th century. The only way for them to return home is for one of them to sleep with Jane Austen.”

You couldn’t make that up. Except that somebody (Blake Burns) did. And Leonard deemed it one of the best things he’d seen all year.

That might be hard for non-movie-industry folks to believe. But they likely don’t get pitches all day, every day, like this one that recently floated across my desk: “It’s like The Sixth Sense. But without the ghosts.” Which is what? I see live people?

Obviously, the Black List is ripe for parody, and lists pop up yearly along those lines. This one, credited only to the semi-anonymous “KDF”, seemed particularly good.]

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MY BRIDESMAID IS A SLUTTY ASSASSIN The night before her wedding, a bride-to-be discovers that her bridesmaid is an international assassin … who has been contracted to kill her fiancée … and also, she’s a total slut.

FK YOU HOWIE KAPOWSKI, YOU’RE A FKING MOTHERF**KER A young man loses his job due to a Lehman Brothers-type financial scandal and returns home to find that his former high school bully is now dating his mother, his grandmother, his stepmother, his ex-girlfriend, and his ex-girlfriend’s mother. Betty White is attached.

THE DARKENING A mysterious darkness begins to fall across a sleepy town every night.

ROBERT FROST AND THE SUNKEN AZTEC TREASURE OF KING TUT A reimagining of the life of Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Frost as a swashbuckling poet who kicks ass.

FRENEMIES WITH BENEFITS When a young man’s longtime female best friend transforms into an evil zombie vampire, the two start sleeping together.

YEMEN A CIA analyst relocates to the Republic of Yemen to hunt for an elusive terrorist, but soon finds himself being hunted by the terrorist … his former high school bully.

ESCALATION A contained thriller set entirely on a shopping mall escalator. A freshly laid off mall employee gets mixed up with a twisted sociopath who forces him to continue going up the down escalator in order to stay alive.

BEAUTY & THE BEAST & VAMPIRES & ZOMBIES & DOUCHEBAGS Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Beauty and the Beast must join forces to take on an army of vampires who then team up to take on an army of zombies who in turn team up to take on an army of douchebags. Betty White is attached.

UNTITLED RELEVANT FINANCIAL CRISIS THRILLER A young hotshot securities trader must travel back in time to prevent his company from issuing collateralized debt obligations and unregulated credit default swaps. But things get ugly when the toxic assets begin to fight back.

TAGGED When a single, socially awkward high school girl accidentally gets tagged in a photo of popular girls on Facebook, her life gets turned upside down for a few minutes. A modern retelling of She’s All That.

THE WEDDING REGISTRY A bride-to-be, her sister, and her best friend register for her wedding at Williams- Sonoma. But when they realize they accidentally registered for Calphalon cookware instead of All-Clad, they must quickly race back to fix it. A female Hangover.

POST IT A quirky tale about an off-center middle manager who works for a faceless corporation and his best friend who is a Post-It Note.

SEX NIGHT On graduation night, five nerdy high school seniors set out to see who can contract the most sexually transmitted diseases. A modern day Superbad. Betty White is attached.

“Show business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long dark plastic hallway where thieves, pimps and whores run free and most good or weak men die like dogs! There’s also a negative side.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Sure, it’s great to keep an eye on your long-term goal. But, as your parents are doubtless constantly reminding you, you need a job far more immediately. Unless you intend to live in their basement.

But what kind of job? Keeping with our functional approach, let’s think for a minute about what a job can give you:

1. Money 2. Experience 3. Connections 4. Credibility

Let’s look at each of those a bit more in turn:

1. Money

Unless you were born with an extensive trust fund (in which case, come talk to me about investing in movies), you’re going to need to make money to pay for your life. The tradeoff, though, tends to be that as you maximize how much you earn in any given job, you tend to minimize your returns in the other three categories. Make sure any potential gig pays well enough to cover low-cost essentials (an apartment shared with roommates, vodka that comes in plastic bottles, etc.), or you won’t be able to sustain yourself moving forward. Then, beyond that, focus more on the intangibles you can get out of a position, at least in the near term.

2. Experience

Looking back to the three-leg theory of filmmaking, there’s a fair amount of technical expertise involved in aligning each leg. If it’s raising money, are you familiar with PPMs, pitching investors, operating agreements, or the laws regarding accredited investors? Or, if it’s attaching cast, do you know how to make offers, draft deal memos, or figure out the finer points of a most-favored-nations deal?

And, of course, especially if you’re looking to produce or direct, would you actually be able to make a great film after the three legs are in place? Are you familiar with tech scouting, storyboarding, or how a shoot day runs?

There’s a lot of stuff to learn, and you can probably only pick it up by doing. So, ideally, a job helps you start filling the void in some area of your expertise.

3. Connections

All three legs of a film have at least one thing in common: getting them in place is far easier with an excellent Rolodex.

On the money side, for example, there’s a old adage that investors pick jockeys, not horses – they’re betting on you as much as on the project. Which means a cold-call is nearly always doomed to fail. Whereas a pitch to someone who knows you, who’s been actively following your career, and who is waiting for you to put something exciting in front of them, has an incalculable leg up.

A job, then, is a great way to start building your network. Perhaps it gives you the chance to meet agents, established producers, writers with interesting spec scripts, or entertainment bankers. All people you’ll need to know eventually. And all people you can meet far more easily if you’re in the context of an established company.

4. Credibility

People are like sheep – they love to follow the flock. If a number of name actors are attached to a film already, for example, it becomes increasingly easy to bring in more.

Eventually, to direct, write, or produce, you’ll need a lot of different people to place bets behind you. And the more you can provide social proof, evidence that other people have already bet on you in the past, the easier that will be.

That’s one more thing a job can potentially provide – a stamp on your resume indicating you’ve already been picked as smart and savvy by a decision-maker at some organization.

Here, too, there’s often a tradeoff. Working at a small literary agency, for example, you’d likely get much more hands-on experience, get to build many more outside relationships directly. Whereas working at CAA might leave you literally delivering mail, but provides a far more impressive piece of resume padding.

So, how to balance those four factors? And what kinds of jobs, specifically? In our next several posts, we’ll look at a number of possibilities, and the upsides and downsides of each, through the lens of those four factors.