Phil Peel

I had been warned by my co-producer Melissa that the Cannes Film Festival was mad, but the reality is   …it's mad.

I'm now four days in and I'm just beginning to enjoy it. I've got over the jet lag.  

Jet lag? ..It's only one hour difference, I hear you say. Yes but Cannes happens at night so we've shifted to nocternal animals. Bed at 4 or 5 am and breakfast at 1pm.  (Assuming we haven't any morning meetings.)   Lunch at 6pm

Also  Cannes runs on alcohol, so all in all it's very unhealthy.  Burning sun and baking hot during the day, then chiling wind at night.   …and too much alcohol.  Steven Follows advice to me was to always drink lots of water …BUT the toilets are miles away.   ..and if you've got into a party you shouldn't have …not that we would do such a thing  ..then you have the problem that if you leave then you may not get back in.   but of course that doesn't apply to us. We would never do that as    We get inviations to everything!.   …Oh ..Did I mention that everthing in Cannes is about exaggeration.  

…and  crowds, heaving crowds, standstill gridlocked traffic. Celebrity madness.  Security checks, scores of identical black limousines. party after party.  ..and in almost everyone I'm bumping into the Brits. In the US pavilion, Argentinian, Greece, Russian, Canadian there are Brits.  It has been lovely to meet up with so many friends from the UK. David Wilkinson, Stephen Follows, Danny Stack, Tim Clague, Ben Richards and many others 

So I'm In the Greek pavilion for the Russian party. Melissa has disappeared off somewhere, I strike up a conversation with a friendly looking woman.  "Do you speak English?"  Yes she did   ..rather well …as she came from Dawlish in Devon. 

But it has been surprisingly succesfull.  A chance meeting in a wildly over the top charity fashion show in the  Charlton  Hotel.  In aid of Famine Relief or World Peace  or something like that.  ..go figure?  led to a long late night meeting onto another hour long meeting the following day with in depth discussions on International co-production on my next ..as yet unwritten script..     with five completed feature scripts is the unwritten on that is attracting interstt.  Really does show that in screenwriting, concept is everthing

So they are expecting the finished script in six weeks.  during which I am going to the Edinburgh Film Festival and Toronto. ..so no pressure.    

The subscription video-on-demand service Netflix is now the third biggest broadcaster in the U.S.  #filmmaking That’s according to data released today by online video advertising company Alphonso.   With Netflix’s current growth rate and its momentum, it will be the biggest broadcaster in the U.S. by next year.

The post has other bad news for traditional broadcasters: The audience for linear TV is down 15 percent year-over-year, which Alphonso calls the biggest decline ever in a single year for broadcast and pay TV.

Full details here

by Mynette Louise   ( Mynette serves as an advisor to IFP, the Sundance Institute, and A3 Asian American Artists Foundation, and has been a consultant for international sales agent Visit Films.)

Here’s a few off her list

Fast writer
Adaptive
Editing experience
Vast knowledge of film
Technically adept
Appreciative

“Not every director is suited for low-budget indie filmmaking, and that’s OK if you’re Terrence Malick or David Fincher. But chances are, you’re not…or not yet, anyway. I get a fair number of calls from biggish directors and producers who are having trouble raising money for their films and want to explore how to make them on the super-cheap. I’ve entertained some of these requests, collecting funny anecdotes along the way, like the director who wanted to fly in stars from another country and rent large trailers for them, but forego unions and production insurance…

Here’s the rest  http://www.ifp.org/resources/12-key-traits-of-the-indie-friendly-director#.UtbnG6hFAiE

Not what the film industry thinks,  according to Colin Brown’s article.  A fascinating view which compares sports and film production.. and even mentions the Executive Chairman of my local football club Southampton. (who ironically has just resigned)

Colin says…. A costly obsession with conventional star performers has blinded both industries to what really makes teams tick. To borrow both baseball and cinema parlance, it all comes down to finding those players who can truly “produce”. say much the same about the film business.
But could it be that investors would see more immediate benefits by evaluating producers in the way they already score actors and directors? In sports, this would be akin to betting on the team’s management, as well as on the coach and players. Those who doubt the wisdom of that approach need only look at British soccer where one of this season’s over-performers, Southampton FC, owes that unexpected success as much to its highly focused executive chairman as it does to those he has hired to bolster the performances on the ball-field.

Here’s the link      http://info.slated.com/thinking-in-teams/

btw 50Kisses premiere is on Feb 13th 2014