I have always marveled at how Anthony Kaufman was able to maintain a freelance life.
Tony and I met at film school years ago. We are in each others’ short films, either in front of or behind the camera. When school ended we both went on to journalism. One of my proudest career moments is bringing Tony into an eager start-up I was working with called indieWIRE.
While I went on to make a living as a screenwriter, Tony kept at film journalism. I’ve watched Tony’s writing become sharper, essential, and wonderfully opinionated as the years passed. With regular gigs in Variety, Village Voice, HR, Filmmaker Mag, etc., I consider him one of the more important voices in indie film journalism.
I’m finally starting to feel the economic crunch—personally. Over the last year, I’ve written about the crashes of ThinkFilm and New Yorker Films, tracked the demise of VHS, the collapse of indie film financing and followed the obsolescence of movie critics. Now, I, too, am seeing my occupation slip away from me with every passing week. Major publications have admitted to me that they “ran out of money”; others don’t have the room or budget for feature stories anymore; and fair compensation has dropped to the insulting “blog rate”—$35 to $50 for what would have been $100 to $200 for an equivalent amount of work a couple years ago. This shit is real.
I know precisely how he feels. When the writers’ strike hit, I got a staff job at Variety. The steady paycheck and health insurance for myself and family was crucial. When I was laid-off, I relied on a few freelance jobs to keep the income coming in, as did many other former Variety staffers. But the pay started to rapidly shrink.
Recently I covered a film festival for a major indie film publication. Along with a fest wrap-up, the editors wanted daily blog posts of pictures and captions for their site. After four days of posts and another few writing the wrap-up for print, my grand take was 100 bucks.
When I mentioned that’s what I got paid 10 years ago for half the work, the editors apologized. It’s all they had to give. I believe them.
The freelance life is a scary one. Luckily, I’ve been able to transition back into screenwriting. This blog suffers for it, unfortunately, but it’s a move of necessity. But where will the other writers go? How will they cobble together enough scratch to weather this?
I’ll continue occasionally posting on this blog. But as many of you have noticed, it’ll be few and far between. I hope you’ll check back every once in a while. But before you come here, go to Tony’s blog. See what he’s writing now. He has much more interesting things to say anyway. He deserves the click-though votes. And he should keep writing.
There is certainly more to this story, but both AFI and the Dallas Film Society jointly announced “completion of their initial three-year agreement.”
The release goes on to say “The DALLAS Film Society is planning its 2010 international film festival and expects to announce details over the coming weeks.”
The AFI Dallas Film Festival came out of the gate strong three years ago. With a massive budget for a first time event, they had always intended to compete directly with the big fests. The “jointness” of this release indicates a mutual separation, though at the end of the day, I would imagine DFS didn’t want to shell out the licensing fee to AFI.
Did AFI contribute to the fest’s launch by increasing the profile? Probably. Is it satisfied being just a platform to launch events? A quickie branding opportunity that can be dropped later? Probably not. Might be time to rethink those fees.
“I was 25 and broke and working as a PA on movies. I had a giant mouse infestation in my apartment. All my friends were married, had health insurance, 401K plans. There I was with 200 bucks in my bank account while I was cleaning up dead mice in a New York walk-up on 25th Street.
But my brother said, ‘But you’re pursuing your dream and you’re not going to be here forever.’
And he was right. And a lot of my friends who took a job that they really didn’t want are unhappy. They ask me ‘What’s it like making movies? You must be really happy.’ You got to be willing to eat shit in your twenties to get to where you want to be. And I’ll tell you, it’s fucking worth it.”
Talking with indieWIRE‘s Eugene Hernandez at the Cannes 2009 American Pavilion, directors Lynn Shelton and Lee Daniels spoke about their festival films, their career, and what’s next.
Shelton’s alt-buddy comedy “Humpday” opens July 10 while Daniels inner city drama “Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire” debuts November 10.
— As an excited young producer (before hitting it big producing “Monsters Ball”), Lee Daniels courted then-emerging African American actors, including Morgan Freeman. “I know you from the Electric Company, man! We can rock this town!” Daniels told Freeman. “Let’s make some money!” Daniels said he loves actors and is not satisfied with the word no. “No don’t work for me. So I do things on my own. I decided to produce because I was tired of telling all my African American actors no.”
— Shelton firmly believes a comment she once overheard: “The sub-culture knows more about the dominant culture than the dominant culture knows about itself. Gays know more about straight people. Black people know more about white people.” With this in mind, Shelton has “always been fascinated by observing people, finding out what makes them tick.”
— Despite Scott Rudin‘s advice to him to only worry about film, Daniels is working on a drag queen musical with Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Beyonce. “I wanna show how versatile I am,” he said, but it’s not easy. “Theater is a motherfucking beast. You have no control. But I’m a control freak. I’m also a masochist.”
— Daniels mused on the circle of his career: “I started in theater, now I’m back in it. I started with Lionsgate, now I’m back with them.” He said picking his film’s distributor, Lionsgate, was about letting go of his film. “I have a problem letting go. But you have to let go. I’m blessed to say they do get it. They’ll do everything they can to get out the word, even if it’s illegal.”
— Lynn Shelton mused on her trajectory. When Lynn’s second film “My Effortless Brilliance” screened at SXSW, the director was her own press agent, sales rep, and entourage. “When Humpday got into Sundance, it all became a lot more business-like. “And what is it about signing a deal at midnight? Are these people teenagers? I was told ‘Don’t go to bed! It’ll sign at 4am!” For two nights she stayed up, waiting. Her sales rep, Submarine, finally signed the deal with Magnolia Pictures—at 10am. “A perfectly reasonable time to sign a deal.” Too bad she lost two nights.
— “You live your life to make your mom happy,” said Daniels. “She would always tell me ‘Why don’t you want to be Tyler Perry?’ So I had him see the film. And now I know my mom will see it.” It also helped that as Daniels took the stage to receive his Sundance audience award, he got a call from Oprah, whom he mistook for his friend “who does a great Oprah impression.” “I said, what do you want, bitch?” said an embarrassed Daniels. “Or something like that.”
— While the author Sapphire had many offers for her book, Daniels scored the prize through sheer persistence. “Everybody wanted the book. She gave it to me for a dollar. I stalked her. She was just tired of me calling.” When she saw the film, she fell into his arms, crying. “I’m most happy to have served her.”
— Shelton began as an actress in New York, but the lifestyle didn’t suit her. “I had a falling out with acting. Directing has been a beautiful way of reuniting with it.”
— Up next for Daniels: “I’m being offered sci-fi and horror projects, which I’m really excited about. But next I’m working on getting my kids to love me. They’re 13. People tell me you got 4 years to go before they start loving you again.” Obviously, that’s not going to work for Daniels.
— Up next for Shelton: “I’m learning how to deal with an agent and manager. I’m worried about my world getting bigger than I can handle. I know I’m shooting something this fall—a project modeled on “My Dinner with Andre.” It’ll star Sean Nelson and author Sherman Alexie.”
— Instead of giving advice to the audience, moderator Eugene Hernandez had each director give a bit of advice to the other. “Don’t worry about your agent and manager,” Daniels advised Shelton. “Do your thing. Be a fierce bitch. Don’t let them mind fuck you.”
— After that, and clearly enamored with Daniels, Shelton’s only advise was “Keep on keeping on, Lee. I’ve loved being on this with you.”
Jean-Pierre Busche and Mike Jones
Check back for more AmPav Notebooks. Upcoming panels are here.
by Jean-Pierre Busche
The 70-year-old directing legend Francis Ford Coppola spoke to a packed Roger Ebert Conference Center for a intimate conversation on his process. Some notes gleamed from the hour-long talk:
—After an enthusiastic welcome by the audience, he joked that he is “currently living up past failures.”
—The director reminded moderator Scott Foundas that “Apocalypse Now”—Coppola’s follow-up to “The Godfather”—did not receive good reviews initially. Nevertheless, it was appreciated over time and is much more appreciated today.
—Coppola emphasized the importance of quality and innovation over budget, a notion well received by the audience: “The smaller the budget, the higher the ambition, the bigger the budget the more stupid the movie is. Films nowadays are just made for money”
—A big inspiration in Coppola’s life was his older brother who advised him on good literature when he was a child, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Huxley’s Brave New World as examples.
—In remembering some of his studio work, Coppola said that tried very hard to not feel like a prostitute. “I tried to find something to love in everything I did for them. Like “Peggy Sue Got Married.” I read that and said ‘Okay, it’s sweet, like ‘Our Town.’”
—Coppola’s advice for film students—“If you’re making movies out of passion, you need a dayjob.” His best time to write? “I like working in the morning, when no one has hurt my feelings yet.”
Tony and I met at film school years ago. We are in each others’ short films, either in front of or behind the camera. When school ended we both went on to journalism. One of my proudest career moments is bringing Tony into an eager start-up I was working with called indieWIRE. 
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