Here's an excellent cutting-edge article courtesy of the lovely and
talented Tara Donovan (www.taradonovan.com).

One of the movies it talks about, "This Film is Not Yet Rated" which
opens this weekend has composer Michael S. Patterson who scored the
short I wrote and produced, "Interminal". Check it out as well as his
site: http://absynthemusic.com

-Anup

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Netflix Presents

By Erin Biba

The main attraction is still renting movies by mail, but now the
company is producing its own indie flicks. Look out, Bob and Harvey.

"Tell us we're brilliant," Mark Duplass says. He and his brother Jay
are standing in front of an audience that's just seen The Puffy Chair,
a movie the brothers wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. Their
euphoria is understandable: The indie film they made has finally been
released in theaters, and this is their publicity tour.

The post-screening Q&A session at Mezzanine, a San Francisco club,
gets under way, but the first question isn't about the movie's quirky
plot (a guy buys an overstuffed recliner on eBay and hauls it
cross-country to give to his dad as a surprise birthday gift). It
isn't about the shoestring production, either – the $15,000 budget,
the crew of one, the free catering by the lead actress's mom. What the
audience really wants to know is how these scruffy twentysomething
neophytes ever got a distribution deal.

"It was really painful," Mark tells the crowd. "Every studio came to
us after the screenings and said, 'We love this movie.' We thought we
were gonna be millionaires." The Puffy Chair toured festivals or more
than a year, drawing raves and racking up awards. But no studio
believed the audience would be big enough, so no theatrical deal.
Finally, in January, the brothers were approached by a film
distributor that loved the picture and knew exactly how to find an
audience for it. But it wasn't Fox or Universal. It was Netflix.

You know, Netflix. In the last seven years, the company has amassed 5
million subscribers and now mails 7 million DVD rentals each week.
Along the way, it drew Blockbuster and other chains into the online
rental market and eventually persuaded Wal-Mart to drop its rival
service and become a partner. But that's only one side of Netflix. The
company also has quietly become the exclusive distributor of more than
100 indie films, and it's even starting to produce original movies.
Netflix will make The Puffy Chair available to its subscribers, and it
helped the Duplass brothers get a nonexclusive DVD distribution deal
so the movie will be offered at Blockbuster and other rental chains,
too. The company even teamed with Roadside Attractions to fund a
theatrical release.

Netflix's move into distribution and production calls to mind early
Miramax. Back in the 1980s and '90s, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the
founders of the company, toured independent film festivals like
Sundance, signed innovative movies (early distribution deals included
sex, lies, and videotape and Reservoir Dogs), created savvy marketing
campaigns, and – eventually – produced their own box office gold.
Netflix is pursuing a similar model, and in just a few years it has
distributed as many exclusives as Miramax did in its first 15 years of
existence. "Last year we acquired four new titles from Sundance, and
this year we're working on about 12 deals," says Ted Sarandos, chief
content officer of Netflix. "Eventually we'll be coming to Sundance
and saying, 'We can buy everything.' There's a deal for every film."

Sarandos, 42, oversees all of the company's DVD purchases. He has an
annual budget north of $100 million and a mission to keep expanding
the company's library of more than 60,000 titles. It's a job he was
born to do.

As a youth, Sarandos fell in love with video stores because they
exposed him to indie cinema even though he lived in the "very
secondary movie market" of Phoenix. By 30, he was a regional sales
director for ETD, a company that buys videos for Blockbuster, and he
was observing firsthand the effects that big chain stores were having
on the video rental business. "It mirrored what was happening in
theaters," he says. "Eighty percent of the business was coming from
the 10 top-grossing movies each year."

In 1999, Sarandos bought his first DVD player. Inside the box was a
red flyer advertising a new rent-by-mail service. Netflix was a dream
come true for the cinephile. He wrangled a meeting with Netflix CEO
Reed Hastings and COO Bill Henderson to discuss opening a line of
retail stores. Hastings and Henderson didn't bite, but they found
Sarandos' enthusiasm infectious. Soon after, he was working for the
company. "He had a gleam in his eye," Hastings recalls. "He'd spent
his whole life in the business as a film fanatic."

At first, Sarandos spent all his time securing rights to rent out
films that were playing in theaters. But he was hoping to do more. He
floated what he now calls "a harebrained idea" to produce original
content to supplement the company's DVD library. But higher-ups gave
him only $100,000 for the project – "This way you won't feel so bad if
it doesn't work out," Hastings told him – so Sarandos started small.
He used the funds to sign obscure, overlooked films that had no
theatrical or video distribution.

The first deal – a simple revenue-sharing agreement – was for a
low-budget romantic comedy called Nice Guys Sleep Alone. He'd seen it
at the 2000 US Comedy Arts Festival, in Aspen, Colorado, and knew that
it had languished unsigned for two years. "It was very funny," he
says. "Nothing groundbreaking, but it deserved to be seen." Sarandos
told the film's director, Stu Pollard, "Send me 500 DVDs. Every time
it rents, we'll pay you something." Pollard was eager to comply – he
had thousands of copies of the film in his Louisville, Kentucky,
garage. Nice Guys Sleep Alone fared so well with subscribers that
Netflix doubled and then quadrupled the order. "An awful lot of people
started renting this no-name title with zero marketing budget,"
Pollard says. "As a result, it was picked up by HBO."

Since then, the division, called Red Envelope Entertainment after the
packaging the discs are delivered in, has boosted the careers of many
filmmakers. It struck a deal to distribute Born Into Brothels on DVD
six months before the movie won an Oscar for best documentary.
Sarandos also points to the success of Open Hearts, a picture by
Susanne Bier, whom he calls "the most popular romantic-comedy director
in Denmark." It bombed theatrically in the US but did so well on
Netflix that Sony is considering picking it up for wider DVD distribution.

Hastings says Red Envelope is something of a mission for Sarandos.
"For him, it's as much about giving back to the film community as it
is about growing the Netflix content base," he says. But, Sarandos
insists, "this isn't philanthropy. We're not 'supporting the arts.'
This is a market-based solution using technology."

The technology that makes Netflix profitable and Red Envelope viable
is the company's recommendation system, which Sarandos swears skirts
the annoyances of similar software used by a certain popular ecommerce
site. ("I went through a divorce," he says, "and I bought a book on
Amazon.com about coping with it. Now you would think I'm a divorce
psychologist – those are the only suggestions I get.") Netflix's
version is more effective, he says, because it has more data: During
the same period that an Amazon customer might select one or two
purchases, a Netflix user may select a dozen DVDs. And subscribers are
surprisingly eager to rate the films they view – they've already
submitted in excess of 1 billion ratings, an average of 200 per
person. With rich data like that, the company can develop
sophisticated profiles to anticipate preferences and tastes. "It can
tell that you liked The Godfather because you love family immigrant
pics, and I liked it because I enjoy gangster flicks," Sarandos says.
"So the next film suggested to you will be Avalon, and the next one
for me will be Scarface."

Knowing so much about your customers makes acquiring unknown film
properties a little less risky. It's also how Netflix determined that
a critical mass of subscribers across the country – particularly the
ones who loved Garden State and Sideways – would probably like The
Puffy Chair, and that a critical mass of subscribers in Boston, San
Francisco, and five other cities would actually trek to theaters to
see it.

Funding the production of new films is the next step. The company has
partnered with the Independent Film Channel to coproduce several
shows, and Netflix is executive producer of six original features,
including John Waters' This Filthy World and the documentary This Film
Is Not Yet Rated. IFC general manager Evan Shapiro says money from
Netflix has allowed him to triple the number of his original
productions, and he gushes about the reach of his business partner.
"They buy and move more independent film than anybody else on the
planet," he says. "They're the Google of DVD. They are FedEx."

So how long until Netflix becomes the new Miramax? Both companies
started out acquiring movies and ended up making them. Bahman Naraghi
saw this transition six years ago, when he was named executive VP of
finance and operations at Miramax. "It was a fascinating period.
Miramax shifted from being an independent distributor to producing
Shakespeare in Love." Now Naraghi may see it happen again: He's gone
from being "the guy Harvey and Bob would throw ashtrays at," he says,
to the new VP of original content at Netflix, where he'll work under
Sarandos.

Naraghi is cautious about original productions. Even if a filmmaker is
eager to strike a deal, Netflix will still have to wade through a
morass of details – clearing music rights, remastering the film,
creating menus and bonus features – for everything it signs. "There's
a limit to the appetite of the company," Naraghi says. Hastings is
much more enthusiastic. He maintains that original content will be an
increasing part of the company's strategy from now on. Netflix will
distribute finished movies, help filmmakers complete their pictures,
and even collaborate on projects that are still on the drawing board.
"We're agnostic about what stage of creation the film is in," Hastings
says. "That can mean some production, some finishing funds – a whole
continuum." He also outlines a scenario that outstrips Sarandos' lofty
vision of acquiring every picture that plays at Sundance. "About 3,000
films are submitted; only 100 or so get in," Hastings says.
Ultimately, Netflix wants to be able to pick and choose from the 3,000
submissions, he explains, and maybe even allow moviemakers to
circumvent the festivals altogether.

There's a link two clicks away from the Netflix.com homepage where
anyone can submit a movie for possible distribution. Netflix will not
only rent it out, but may get it into theaters and then help you shoot
your next flick. Soon the only barrier to success for filmmakers will
be lack of talent.

Erin Biba (erbiba@...) wrote about a superhero reality show in
issue 14.07.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/netflix.html?pg=1&topic=netflix&topic_s\
et=
_________________________________________________________________

MEMBER UPDATE


Check out Rasika's project below. However, also check out this clip
of her from Nick Cannon's Wild 'n Out http://www.badmash.tv called,
"Rasika's Booty Call".
-Anup


Come one come all to PROJECT DOGUMENTARY!

I wanted to let you know that I am having an awesome
show that doubles as a fundraiser next Tuesday
evening, Sept 5 at 8pm --
It's called Project Dogumentary (see the flyer), full
of sketch comedy, stand up, improv and songs and short
films, where we celebrate our love of DOGS!

We are raising as much money as we can for the HUMANE
SOCIETY OF LOUISIANA so that we can hand them a heck
of a donation check to help the misplaced pets in New
Orleans (some who are still homeless and separated
from their owners from Katrina). This is very near and
dear to my heart as you know my parents are living in
New Orleans.

So help me make a difference with $20 bucks and an
hour of your time :) and you get entertainment and a
shot and some pretty rockin' raffle prizes in
return!!! (like yoga classes or movie passes!)

Pass the word on to your rich, dog-lovin' friends so
we
can powerfully make a difference!!!!!!

Love,
Rasika
rasikamathur@...

========= Want to catch Rasika's mediocre brilliance
live on stage? =========== Email me about any of these
shows (all in the Los Angeles area)
-- aug 29 8p (improv) LAST SHOW! Reading Robin &
Rasika * www.westsideeclectic.com/reading.html LAST
SHOW!
-- sep 1 8p (music * comedy) The Cacophany Club * The
Haunted Studios, NOHO
-- sep 5 8p (all) Project Dogumentary * A Fundraiser
to Help the Pets in New Orleans RIGHT NOW!! IO West Theatre

========= Want to catch Rasika's mediocre brilliance live on stage?
=========== Email me about any
of these shows (all in the Los Angeles area)
-- aug 29 8p (improv) LAST SHOW! Reading Robin & Rasika *
www.westsideeclectic.com/reading.html
LAST SHOW!
-- sep 1 8p (music * comedy) The Cacophany Club * The Haunted Studios,
NOHO
-- sep 5 8p (all) Project Dogumentary * A Fundraiser to Help the Pets
in New Orleans RIGHT NOW!!
IO West Theatre