HD vs. Hollywood

[Robinson_A]

Everyone,

I thought I'd share this little tid bit with you all for it made me chuckle. I was recently at AFM (American Film Market) in Santa Monica, CA drumming up press and business for my film. While overall business was slow especially the sale, or lack there of, of genre pics like horror, my film did incredibly well. I took several meetings with industry people at almost every level of production including one with a rather established independent film production/distribution company that was interested in producing my film.

Before I go any further, this company called me. This company requested a meeting with me.

My producers and I sat down at our "meeting" and right off the bat the company representative (the co-president) said he didn't read my script. Remember, they called me. But he said he didn't need to read my script because based on our business model he saw a glaring problem right off the bat. I want to shoot my film in HD. We have budgeted to shoot the film using the latest cinema 4K cameras or the equivalent but this wasn't good enough for them. He proceeded to give me a half assed community college dissertation on why HD is a fad, and not a valid medium or format for film let alone anything entertainment based.

As you can imagine my eyes rolled back far enough to touch my spine (thank god I was wearing sun glasses) and I proceeded to tell the gentleman that he was wrong and if there is one thing I know, it's the validity of HD especially when it comes to film and entertainment. I cited fact after fact regarding HDTV sales, home theater markets, as well as digital cinema projectors coming to theaters nation wide. Not to mention the HD formats such as Blu-ray and HD DVD. To each fact he replied, "nope, never going to happen. You're wrong." He even went so far as to say "I don't know where you're getting your facts, but our research has shown people don't like HD." WTF! I want to meet his researchers, then again, I fear I would've had to crawl up his butt to do so. And I don't want that. He concluded the meeting (which he asked for) by saying "shooting this film in HD guarantees that no one is going to see it." Right.

I concluded the meeting by walking away.

Just thought I'd share.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Robinson_A

Everyone,

I thought I'd share this little tid bit with you all for it made me chuckle. I was recently at AFM (American Film Market) in Santa Monica, CA drumming up press and business for my film. While overall business was slow especially the sale, or lack there of, of genre pics like horror, my film did incredibly well. I took several meetings with industry people at almost every level of production including one with a rather established independent film production/distribution company that was interested in producing my film.

Before I go any further, this company called me. This company requested a meeting with me.

My producers and I sat down at our "meeting" and right off the bat the company representative (the co-president) said he didn't read my script. Remember, they called me. But he said he didn't need to read my script because based on our business model he saw a glaring problem right off the bat. I want to shoot my film in HD. We have budgeted to shoot the film using the latest cinema 4K cameras or the equivalent but this wasn't good enough for them. He proceeded to give me a half assed community college dissertation on why HD is a fad, and not a valid medium or format for film let alone anything entertainment based.

As you can imagine my eyes rolled back far enough to touch my spine (thank god I was wearing sun glasses) and I proceeded to tell the gentleman that he was wrong and if there is one thing I know, it's the validity of HD especially when it comes to film and entertainment. I cited fact after fact regarding HDTV sales, home theater markets, as well as digital cinema projectors coming to theaters nation wide. Not to mention the HD formats such as Blu-ray and HD DVD. To each fact he replied, "nope, never going to happen. You're wrong." He even went so far as to say "I don't know where you're getting your facts, but our research has shown people don't like HD." WTF! I want to meet his researchers, then again, I fear I would've had to crawl up his butt to do so. And I don't want that. He concluded the meeting (which he asked for) by saying "shooting this film in HD guarantees that no one is going to see it." Right.

I concluded the meeting by walking away.

Just thought I'd share.

Wow, it's even less expensive for a small budget film...

that just doesn't make sense.

[Robinson_A]

The gentleman did say that his company had the necessary film cameras to shoot the film and that Kodak does "give away" 35mm film so the cost savings with digital were non existant for him. Aside from his special case though, HD on a whole is cheaper than film, esspecially when you consider the fact that most HD cameras now capture straight to hard disc thus eliminating the need for tapes all together. My workflow would be to capture the imagery straight to hard disc then burn the raw footage to DVD or to an HD disc format (HD DVD or Blu-ray) for backup purposes. Throw in the fact that Final Cut Pro can edit HD footage (including cinema 4K) natively and the reasons for shooting in HD become a no brainer.

[MoosePond]

just proves that Hollyweird is still plagued with a pandemic of rectal myopia . . . some things just never change. btw, hope that the others you met with were a bit more in tune with what's really happening on this planet.

[kennyt]

Andrew,

We all have to deal with morons and a$$holes in every business. Blow it off, his time is over. He or his studio just haven't realized it yet! The guy didn't even read the script? Come on, did he try to say he stayed in a Holiday Inn Express the night before?

Damn, reminds me of a favorite idiom....

The difference between genius and stupidity is that stupidity knows no bounds!

[Robinson_A]

Oh, believe me I am not loosing any sleep over that meeting. I forgot to throw in the fact that when I left that particular meeting I went to my next meeting and signed a deal. Greenlight baby!

I'll be filming June/July of '08.