The P3 Update Magazine Blog

by Iain Blair

Got a call from a friend at the Berlin Film Festival where the biggest story this year is The Rolling Stones and their big new two-hour concert film, Shine a Light, directed by Scorsese. The band and the director took the place by storm when they all showed up for the premiere, and the film got two big standing ovations ─ one before it rolled and one after. After The Last Waltz and No Direction Home, Scorsese is an old hand at music films, but Shine a Light, which was shot at NYC’s Beacon Theater in ‘06, is more a parade of the Stones’ greatest hits (all excitingly shot by Oscar-winning DP Bob Richardson) than a probing analysis of what makes the band still tick after all these years. Fun fact: Jagger turns 65 this year, making him a lot older than the Festival itself, which just turned 58.

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by Iain Blair

Went to a special screening of Mongol the other night at the Landmark. Mongol, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, was directed by Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains), and tells the story and legend of Genghis Khan. Based on leading scholarly accounts, and written by Bodrov and Arif Aliyev, Mongol delves into the dramatic and harrowing early years of the ruler who was born as Temudgin in 1162. As it follows Temudgin from his perilous childhood to the battle that sealed his destiny, the film paints a multidimensional portrait of the future conqueror, revealing him not as the evil brute of hoary stereotype, but as an inspiring, fearless and visionary leader. After the screening, I chatted with Bodrov, who told me that making the film was “so tough, as we shot it all on location in very remote parts of Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan.” With thousands of extras and horses for the battle scenes, Bodrov and his crew also had to deal with “15 different languages. We shot for over six months, as we also needed summer and winter locations.” The result is one of the most visually beautiful films I’ve seen in years, and hopefully it’ll find an audience in the States. Picturehouse will be releasing this rated R film in Mongolian with English subtitles in 2008.

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by Dyana Carmella  

Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on the Preservation of California’s Entertainment Industry Paul Krekorian congratulated the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for finally coming to an agreement to end the strike.

According to Krekorian, Los Angeles was severely impacted by the three-month strike. “This temporary disruption should be a clear and loud warning that California will be devastated by the permanent loss of production jobs, if we do not fight aggressively to make our state more competitive with the other states and countries that are working so hard to lure these jobs away from us,” he says.

The Committee is working hard to make California a stronger partner for the industry by studying the main factors that are causing problems in the entertainment workforce, including foreign and domestic tax incentives, and piracy of intellectual property content.

For additional information, visit http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/filmproduction

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 by Iain Blair

Talk about survival of the fittest! I have been chatting with Emmy-winning writer/director Todd Robinson, whose credits include 07’s Lonely Hearts (with Travolta and Gandolfini), Law & Order and Mermaids. He says the Writers Strike was a “real wake up call. I’ve been so frustrated with the movie biz, as it’s so unforgiving, and you’re always begging people for money.” So when Todd came across hot young singer Amy Cook, he suddenly thought, “Why don’t I forget financing, use all the new technology and make my own film as an experiment?” Todd promptly rented four Panasonic HVX 200s, hit the road with the singer and a minimal crew, and is now editing the result: a documentary called, When Nobody’s Listening: On the Road with Amy Cook. “When I shot my first short film back in ‘90, it cost $120,000 ─ and this will barely cost me $40,000 for a full-length film.” Todd says he’s editing at home in Malibu. “I went out and bought a Final Cut Pro suite for just $6,000 and I have two guys who work with Robert Rodriguez at his Troublemaker Studios, doing all the post here. It’s just amazing what you can do now.” Todd also predicts “a tidal wave” of content, thanks to cheap technology. “All these movie conglomerates should be very nervous! People will deal directly with YouTube and Google ─ now that’s the future.”

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 by Iain Blair

I got some real insight into Sean Penn’s filmmaking methods from his longtime editor, Jay Cassidy. Jay, who’s nominated for his editing on Into the Wild, worked on last year’s Oscar winner, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and has cut all of Sean Penn’s films. “He’s a great person to work with and he approaches all his films almost like a songwriter,” Jay says. “Sean is often more concerned with the poetry, and the feeling and emotion than the logical storytelling. So he comes to a film with the grammar of music very much in mind. Songs are so crucial to him, and all that work with Eddie Vedder came about in post. We had some temp tracks we’d worked with, but once Eddie got involved, the film took this whole step up and flew.” Jay is now busy cutting Jim Sheridan’s new film Brothers  starring Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman.

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by Iain Blair

There’s lots of buzz about the strike getting settled any minute now ─ and not a moment too soon for guys like Eric Hulett, a decorator buyer who was on the acclaimed show Pushing Daisies for ABC/Warner Bros.  “We did the pilot and eight shows before we got shut down.  It’s been very tough,” he says. Hulett is a third-generation Hollywood craftsman, his grandfather was a grip for Hal Roache (Laurel & Hardy) and his father, Don, was a well-known prop master. “I’ve been lucky, as I was able to move into the talk show circuit and do stuff like Dr. Phil, but for the rank and file, the strike’s been really bad news. I’ve been doing this for 32 years and I’ve never seen it get so tough for people. We’re all praying they settle now.”

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by Dyana Carmella

Axium International, once one of the three largest payroll companies serving the entertainment industry, has filed for bankruptcy protection and is no longer in business. They are still obligated to send out W-2 forms to performers who were paid through Axium during calendar year 2007. In fact, AFTRA, in an effort to protect its members, just sent out a notification that Axium just prepared 130,000 W-2 forms, of which 105,000 have already been mailed.

So if you haven’t received your W-2 form yet, be patient; it’s on the way. However, if by some chance you don’t receive your W-2 form for AFTRA-covered work by February 29, 2008, please contact your local AFTRA office or email axium@aftra.com.

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by Iain Blair

Latin cinema is growing by leaps and bounds, and after talking to a lot of Latin filmmakers, it seems all are very excited about the Silver Anniversary of the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF) happening later this month. In fact, MIFF’s 25th Anniversary edition program has had a 300 percent increase in film submissions since the 2007 edition, and the Festival’s film screenings have expanded by nearly 20 percent in the same period. MIFF is attracting top talent, including recent BAFTA - winner Javier Bardem, and Demi Moore, Helen Hunt, Kate Hudson, Kate del Castillo, Carmen Salinas, Patricia Clarkson, Matthew Broderick, César Troncoso, Amber Valletta, Carlos Santana, and many more. “It’s such an important event for networking and meeting people,” Chilean director Gonzalo Justiniano told me. He’s coming to the festival for the world premiere of his new film Lokas, He says that it’s “a humorous look at intolerance in macho Latin society. “And now I’m starting a Chilean-Mexican production called, Have You Seen Lupita? that we’ll shoot in Mexico and L. A., starting later this year. It’s hard financing and making films anywhere, but it’s REALLY hard in Chile – we only make 10 to 15 a year, so this festival is very important for us.”

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by Dyana Carmella

The brutal three-month Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has finally ended.

“Our membership has voted and writers can go back to work,” WGA West president Patric Verrone said. “This was not a strike we wanted but one we had to conduct in order to win jurisdiction, and establish appropriate residuals for writing in new media and on the Internet. Those advances now give us a foothold in the digital age.”

In a study issued by Daily Variety, $1.9 billion was lost in episodic production for more than 70 broadcast and cable primetime shows, a whopping $800 million in above-the-line expenditures and $1.1 billion in below-the-line salaries.

Although the Strike negatively impacted the economy, we are all grateful and relieved that things will surely start to turn around.

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by Dyana Carmella

The strike has taken a huge toll on the state of California, the industry and related businesses. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “An estimated $733 million in production has been lost and another $1.3 billion came from the pockets of caterers, florists, valets, hotel operators, restaurant workers, costume house employees and others.” Dramatic television suffered the most through these past three months, leaving the 46 dramas that were supposed to shoot in L. A., incomplete. The Hollywood Reporter also pointed out that, “Since each episode of the 46 shows cost an average $3 million, the absence of dramatic, one hour TV shows has been sucking $138 million per week in direct production costs from the Los Angeles economy.”

Businesses will soon have to face the challenge of another change in the economy.
Companies that were forced to layoff many employees may be too understaffed to handle the work load when the strike finally comes to an end, which is expected on Wednesday.

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