"Corrado" - A production blog

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i totally hear ya. that's why i didn't post inside the thread. didn't want to get anyone in trouble. i'm fairly sure we are referring to the same movie, but it never hurts to ask.

beyond distracting from the original intent of this amazing thread, i'm just going to stop posting about this particular subject at all.
 
The odds of Lion's Gate picking up a $60k horror for distribution are a million in one.

But that's why people play the lottery too :) The worse the odds the more exciting it is to gamble. LOL

You want satisfaction, don't gamble, make the movie that you always wanted to do.

Because if you don't you might never get the chance.

I used to think, "make a few commercial action films and then with the money make a great art movie". It never happened.

Now, I've from scratch and I've made a new movie. I'm looking for a festival for FELLINIESQUE PLAYERS. I'll never make another movie I don't believe in.
 
Yes but I believe very much in Corrado. It's a film I very much have my heart in. Is it my ultimate goal in filmmaking??? Of course not. But it is a start.



filmman said:
The odds of Lion's Gate picking up a $60k horror for distribution are a million in one.

But that's why people play the lottery too :) The worse the odds the more exciting it is to gamble. LOL

You want satisfaction, don't gamble, make the movie that you always wanted to do.

Because if you don't you might never get the chance.

I used to think, "make a few commercial action films and then with the money make a great art movie". It never happened.

Now, I've from scratch and I've made a new movie. I'm looking for a festival for FELLINIESQUE PLAYERS. I'll never make another movie I don't believe in.
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taormina said:
I know several filmmakers - very talented ones (way more than me) who have $200K art films that are amazing and can't get a normal distribution deal with a decent cash advance and actually recoup their budget. Why? They have created an unsellable albeit beautiful and award winning product that they are stuck with.

Which leads them to utter such statements as "the model is flawed' , "it's all going to change", "The internet will democratize film distribution so we can get our movie seen" and things like that.

In my opinion, it's not the model that's flawed, it's the product. They are making movies no one wants to watch except film festival judges, who we all know have an agenda to begin with.
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If filmmakers are "very talented" and make films that are "amazing" and "beautiful" I'm confused why you think that they're movies no one wants to watch except film festival judges?

Personally, I don't watch STV action/drama movies, but I know a lot of people who do, and for the most part they see movies as entertainment and not art. So I can honestly say that I'd much rather see an amazing and beautiful 200k film that's underground and has no distribution than any of the last six STV Wesley Snipes movies. So to me there is a flaw in the market.
 
You're the minority, amigo. Look up a great little movie by Tao Ruspoli. It's called Fix. Look at all the awards it's received.


Now tell me why it can't get distribution.


Honestly? Fix is probably a better movie than Corrado. It's just not commerical.
 
"good" is all subjective anyway guys...

Here's the problem with most "fantastic art films"

The general public cannot relate to the films... and, a lot of times they don't have certain elements that people have to expect from movies...
 
Kubrick71 said:
If filmmakers are "very talented" and make films that are "amazing" and "beautiful" I'm confused why you think that they're movies no one wants to watch except film festival judges?

Personally, I don't watch STV action/drama movies, but I know a lot of people who do, and for the most part they see movies as entertainment and not art. So I can honestly say that I'd much rather see an amazing and beautiful 200k film that's underground and has no distribution than any of the last six STV Wesley Snipes movies. So to me there is a flaw in the market.
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here's the thing. people are essentially lazy. distributors are lazy. when they say something is "marketable", what they mean is wesley snipes' face on the cover of a STV dvd will attract a known, proven, and admittedly, niche audience. and it is a niche, just like art house films. otherwise, adam would be talking in millions of dollars instead of hundreds of thousands.

the flaw you perceive is an undeveloped path toward an audience starved for meaningful films. the promise of user defined digital distribution has the potential to open up that market. someone is going to make a mint off that. I, for one, will be a part of it.
 
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I don't know about starved. They can find them if they want them. Turn on the sundance channel.

Besides, "meaningful" is difficult to define.

One of my favorite movies ever is The Professional. A close second is Blackhawk Down. I also like Gladiator.

How are those movies meaningful? I for one didn't realize any life lessons from any of them. To me, they are entertainment. Very good entertainment. just my .02 but that's mainly what movies are for - to entertain.
 
Something to think about: When Star Wars was released, there were no A list actors in it. I'll stick with Story as being the key element of success. I understand distributors foam at the mouth for A list actors. And it's a given that there will be a problem getting their support when your film has relatively unknowns in it, but look at the many films that did well with unknowns. Does ET ring a bell?...look at the box office on that one, and production cost was super low. It's one of the best negative to box office ratios out there.... beside Blairwitch, where are the A listers on that one?, hmmmm.

The old system is cracking that's why 3D is the next big theatrical hope. I think it will have limited appeal, maybe I'm wrong. When a market system changes it starts slow and gains momentum, and before anyone realizes, it's a whole new ball game. Remember this: Theaters are forever, oh wait, VHS is forever, oh wait, DVD is forever, oh wait!...;)
 
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taormina said:
I don't know about starved. They can find them if they want them. Turn on the sundance channel.

Besides, "meaningful" is difficult to define.

One of my favorite movies ever is The Professional. A close second is Blackhawk Down. I also like Gladiator.

How are those movies meaningful? I for one didn't realize any life lessons from any of them. To me, they are entertainment. Very good entertainment. just my .02 but that's mainly what movies are for - to entertain.
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"meaningful" is subjective, but it is easy to define. it is a film that is expressive and resonates with the viewer on any number of levels.

i'm not going to speak to your specific taste or willingness to engage with a film beyond entertainment value or the films you choose to watch. that has nothing to do with the audience I'm talking about because you likely don't share their affinity for this kind of experience. i agree that cinema's purpose is to entertain. but just like the word "meaningful", "entertainment" is equally subjective. what entertains the audience i am a part of is the experience of being profoundly affected by films you have likely never heard of. and i'm not alone. i'm part of an audience that has to work to find the films we want to see. if a distributor had the foresight to do that work for us, to put a distribution model in place that didn't rely on Wesley Snipes' face, they would be opening up a tremendous niche market.
 
Zak Forsman said:
the flaw you perceive is an undeveloped path toward an audience starved for meaningful films. the promise of user defined digital distribution has the potential to open up that market. someone is going to make a mint off that. I, for one, will be a part of it.
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Absolutely!

Andrei Tarkovsky wrote "All manufacture, as we know, has to be viable; in order to function and develop, it has not merely to pay for itself but to yield a certain profit. As a commodity, therefore, a film succeeds or fails and its aesthetic value is established, paradoxically enough, according to supply and demand -- to straightforward market laws. Need one add that no other art has been so subject to criteria of this kind. As long as cinema remains in its present position, it will never be easy for a true cinematic work to see the light of day, let alone become accessible to a wider public."

Hopefully the position of cinema can change with digital distribution opening up the market. I want to see Fix and probably will because I'd bet they do distribute somehow, maybe not in a local blockbuster but through netflix where where you have 20x the selection.
 
Brandon Rice said:
"good" is all subjective anyway guys...

Here's the problem with most "fantastic art films"

The general public cannot relate to the films... and, a lot of times they don't have certain elements that people have to expect from movies...
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i don't think it's about relatability. people are as likely to relate to a Russian heroin addicted pregnant teen mom sold into sex slavery as much as a hulking green guy or vengeance fueled hitman. people (audiences) are simply attracted to different types of films as defined by their own education, life experience, personal sensitivities et cetera. in the same way that while everyone likes italian food (except my girlfriend), only a niche likes Indian or Mediterranean. or perhaps there's just been no "model" in place to expose one to Mediterranean food unless you live in a major city? alot of people trash Christian themed films as something they cant relate to.
 
the only reason distributors want celebrities in these low budget films is because its the only way that anyone will watch them. its how they dupe people into picking them up off the shelf at blockbuster and thinking, "hmm, this has ..so and ..so in it, it might be good." its how small time distributors sell small time piece of crap movies that they can buy cheaper than a real movie.

proof-
blair witch - no celebs
clerks - no celebs
el maraichi - no celebs
napolean dynamite - no celebs


what makes these movies sell is a damn good story, good direction, good acting, basiclly"the whole frikin package"

bottom line, you need celebs in your flick if it sucks, if its good, no celebs needed.

people call their films art films when the films turn out to suck, its their excuse for why the film sucks, "it doesnt suck, i'm not a bad film maker, you just dont understand the film cuz its art"

some people need to admit that they just arent cut out for making films. even if the films they make get small time distribution, people should admit when their film sucks and find a new profession.
 
I don't think cinema's purpose is to entertain just like I don't think music or writing is merely to entertain, I think there is different poetic meaning in each artform.

Art is difficult to define is described differently by everyone who loves it, but allow me to again cite Andrei Tarkovsky on what I've often thought but never said so well..

"Art affects a person's emotions, not his reason. Its function is, as it were, to turn and loosen the human soul, making it receptive to good. When you see a good film, look at a painting, listen to music (assuming of course, that it's 'your' sort of art) you are disarmed and entranced from the start -- but not by an idea, not by a thought. in any case, as we said earlier, the idea of a great work is always equivocal, always has two faces, as Thomas Mann put it; it is as multi-faceted and indefinite as life itself. The author cannot therefore reckon on his work being understood in one particular way and according to his own perception of it. All he can do is to present his own image of the world, for people to be able to look at it through his eyes, and be filled with his feelings, doubts and thoughts..."

He also adds "Of course, the yardsticks by which art is distinguished from non-art, from sham, are so relative, indistinct and impossible to demonstrate, that nothing could be easier than to substitute for aesthetic criteria purely utilitarian measures of assessment, which may be dictated either by the desire for the greatest possible financial profit or from some ideological motive. Either is equally far from the proper purpose of art."
 
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A products purpose comes from the creator of it. Whether or not it fulfills that purpose is another story because that depends upon an untold number of factors: from audience, economy, social trends, etc.

Cinema is both art & entertainment. I agree cinema could be great Art, but it's also fine being just entertainment, after all, don't we eat popcorn, suck down cokes while chewing on red vines while enjoying our Art, and then we sit attentively in deep contemplation for our Entertainment, -- or is it the other way around ;)
Actually for me the great Art in Cinema is montage, cinematic time compression /expansion and all the other amazing methods that set it far apart from any other form of communication. Mastery of this so the audience can experience fresh new perspectives is Art; it's like travel, it makes you feel alive after living too much of a ho-hum boring routine.

Audiences relate to stories where human themes are played out, the time period & locations are largely irrelevant if the story is about human themes of adversity, struggle, defeat & success. All humans can relate to these common experiences on all our levels: intellect, emotional, spiritual, etc.

I wonder if the distributors demanding A list talent actually have had any top performing films to their credit or are they speculating that road to success is through A list talent; yeah! that's the magic formula. To me they don't completely know what they're doing. The films listed above with non celeb actors disprove the success myth theories. W.G., Nobody knows nothing in this town.

Hopefully Corrado holds a new fresh experience for us all. :)
 
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merc said:
the only reason distributors want celebrities in these low budget films is because its the only way that anyone will watch them. its how they dupe people into picking them up off the shelf at blockbuster and thinking, "hmm, this has ..so and ..so in it, it might be good." its how small time distributors sell small time piece of crap movies that they can buy cheaper than a real movie.

proof-
blair witch - no celebs
clerks - no celebs
el maraichi - no celebs
napolean dynamite - no celebs


what makes these movies sell is a damn good story, good direction, good acting, basiclly"the whole frikin package"

bottom line, you need celebs in your flick if it sucks, if its good, no celebs needed.

people call their films art films when the films turn out to suck, its their excuse for why the film sucks, "it doesnt suck, i'm not a bad film maker, you just dont understand the film cuz its art"

some people need to admit that they just arent cut out for making films. even if the films they make get small time distribution, people should admit when their film sucks and find a new profession.
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I disagree as I would describe the films you listed as "cult" films basically. They're fun and a niche market love them to death, but there are other films out there that are as good and better, but simply aren't as lucky as those films in finding their audience.

I would honestly hope no one looks at El Mariachi and thinks it's a great film. It's not, but it's a very fun film done well especially considering the budget and the story behind it (hence cult film). The movie wouldn't have even sold had RR not known a "friend of a friend" at a major Hollywood distributor who got him the meeting.

No one guessed Blair Witch was going to be a big movie because it really wasn't that great of a movie. It freaked the audience out due largely to incredibly innovative marketing of it. My proof? No one from that film has done ANYTHING since.

Honestly, I think those famous cult films are, in general, well made, but I think their directors would all agree that their was a lot of luck in finding a core audience that spread the word on their film.
 
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