Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

Been a while since I’ve had any Minushi news but here goes!

Remember that animated feature film I spent most of my twenties – starved of sunlight – making? Well now you can watch the feature cut right now!* On your computer! Or your TV depending on whether or not you’ve got the right doodads or doodhickeys set up. Or in the near future one of those iPad thingys unless Apple makes that a pain the ass to do.

Minushi is now available through Amazon’s Video On Demand (a.k.a. VOD) service. ‘Bout time, right? Best of all – for you, not me – if you want to be a cheapskate you can simply rent it! Nice right? It’s like $2.50 or something ridiculous like that. So what the hell am I going to do with the box of DVDs in the trunk of my car?

Anyway, if you’ve been following this weblog long enough to know what Minushi is then you deserve it, cheapo!

While I’m on the subject, the Minushi Double DVD Set is still available of course and it ships anywhere on planet Earth.

Is this the final word on Minushi after all these years? Until Jerry Bruckheimer calls to option the live-action film rights, then yes, my dear devoted Minushians, I believe it is.

*This is the really crap part: Amazon VOD is currently available to US residents only. Amazon is aware of my feelings on the matter so please be my guest and add your complaints to the pile here.

Yeah, I’m still dwelling on the future of the film business…

I don’t mean to, and I promise you that this little corner of the web will not turn into just another kvetching post by just another dork with nothing but an opinion. I just have to share one more gem from the world of distribution and more specifically marketing.

As stated in a previous post, I heard some bewildering thoughts from some film executives recently. One particular kernel that’s been rattling around in my head since then came from the mouth of a marketing professional. The wisdom in what he said was as simple and accurate as it was soul destroying. He reminded his audience (an audience of filmmakers, I might add) that cinemas are not in the business of showing movies, they’re in the business of selling popcorn.

Also, the Easter Bunny isn’t real and there is no doggy heaven. You’re a man now. Stop crying.

I often call on examples from the beleaguered music industry to point to what I think we’re headed toward. This popcorn point casts a pretty dire shadow over this comparison. It’s my understanding that once upon a time, before there was a gramophone in every home, musicians made recordings in order to send them around to radio stations. These recordings were then used to promote the artist’s tour of live shows. This concept has basically come full circle. Musicians no longer make any money on the sale of recordings (truth is they never really did, most of that revenue went to their record labels). Either way, that revenue stream is drying up, yet recordings are more prolific than ever because musicians are realizing that these recordings are great promotion for their real income; selling tickets to live shows.

So what’s the film industry equivalent of that? If making a movie is the equivalent of recording and album then what’s the film equivalent of selling tickets to a live musical performance? I doubt that using a digital download of Avatar would be much good as a promotion for a stage version of that film. I suspect something may get lost in such an adaptation… So as far as this comparison goes, the closest I can figure is that if I make a movie what I’m really doing is promoting popcorn.

Hm.

Should I be allocating money for my next production to buy stock in Orville Redenbacher? Is that what it’s come down to?

Maybe there is hope.

I attended a panel discussion not so long ago that featured a number of film distribution executives. I expected to hear a lot of new ideas about how these middlemen moguls were going to exploit the new media to ring in a new era of digital distribution. Video on demand, mobile content, convergence… Instead they proclaimed DVD sales are still their top earners with no signs of letting up and that what we really need in this country are more cinemas.

It was weird.

The most that was said about anything remotely digital was that we have to continue to fight piracy.

I’m not sure whether or not this should be terrifying or encouraging. With the biggest distributors afflicted by some kind of collective denial of reality does this open up the floor for some new blood to make some new moves? Or is the film business seriously not going to do anything to help save itself (the way television is at least attempting to do) and wind up in the same calamitous straights as the music industry? I don’t have any answers here, I just write stories. All I’m saying is it was a little weird—

More cinemas?! Are you serious? Yeah, sure, to accommodate all that extra 3D traffic which is bound to be our savior, right?!? Because we never tried that before! Maybe vibrating seats – no wait, tried that too! Maybe, like, a cinema only you can drive your car into it and park there… No wait… Unless these new cinemas that we need so badly to save the current distribution model are 3D equipped, smell like a Honda and have seats that tickle your prostate while you’re watching the movie I just don’t see it happening. Call me a skeptic!

Sorry… Sorry, I let that get away from me for a second.

(Now, digital distributors! Now is the time to strike! Coup d’état! Coup d’état! Converge!)

Back in December, while driving, I was chatting with a new friend and mentioned that I would soon be putting winter tires on my car. He asked me why people did that; changed their tires for the winter. I was a little surprised by the question. Though I supposed it was a justifiable one for a life-long city dweller who would have no need for car ownership let alone seasonally appropriate radials. So I did my best to explain to him my understanding of tread patterns and varying rubber densities. Not to mention that here in Quebec, it’s the law.

After dropping him off, I reflected on the common adage “there are no stupid questions”. It’s a good one. The only thing that keeps us from asking questions – questions that for some reason we think we should already know the answer to – is pride. And I’ve never been a big fan of that measure of pride. Never the less I still often fall prey to this arrest in learning myself. It’s something I’m going to focus on changing in the new year. Mostly because I’m embarking on a new project, a new film, which will likely bring me into contact with people who have a lot to teach me. I hope to make “I don’t know, tell me” my new mantra.

It wasn’t until I got home that something occurred to me regarding my new friend’s inquiry about winter tires. It wasn’t that he’d never owned a car, or even ever seen a television commercial for Bridgestone Blizzaks. It’s that…

He’s from Toronto.

Toronto, a city less a part of the “Great White North” than many states to the South. A city beleaguered by our nation’s ever lasting (and mocking) memory of a particular winter that saw their mayor call in Canada’s armed forces to help clear the streets of snow. A city where, indeed, people could feasibly grow up never having purchased a set of winter tires. Well, it’s January now in Montreal and if I hollowed out the snow bank outside my window I could use it as a garage. I just hope my friend got a good pair of boots by the first snowfall.

There are no stupid questions. Just different routes to the same eventual destination of knowledge. “I don’t know, tell me” or maybe “Ask now so you don’t get snow-jobbed later.”

PS. This I do know: Refrain news coming soon.

The year of the Lion & the Gazelle is upon us. Well it’s a upon me. And as such, I’m wearing my writer’s hat these days and already neck-deep in the script (re)writing process. Unlike anything I’ve done previously, what this means is my drafts will be going out to a bunch of people who will all likely have an impactful opinion on it. My writing is good – I know, because I write it – so I’m not worried about opinions. Unfortunately however, this protective arrogance cannot shield me from the lack of control I have over one thing: How people read my script.

Getting someone to read your script is a pretty big deal, whether it’s a producer or your best friend. I think first-time writers have a false sense of how hard this is to do. Sure, your mom wants to read your script, but all those people who say “oh, you’re a writer? Cool, I’d love to read your script!” they don’t actually want to read your script. They just don’t know it yet. Your script is long, it’s formatted in a way that they don’t understand, Dancing With the Stars is on at 9… So believe me, getting someone to read your script is pretty tough. And getting someone to read your script properly is next to impossible.

I haven’t been doing this long, granted, but I’ve been doing it long enough to know that if I’m getting odd questions about continuity or lack of foreshadowing (that I know is there) from a reader there’s usually one reason for it: They didn’t read the script properly.

Properly, to moi, means the following:

You have to read a script the same way you watch a film: In one sitting. It’s not a Popular Mechanics article, you can’t just pick it up every time you sit down on the bowl. It’s not a novel, layered with detail and deep internal character building that you can ingest in little morsels every night before bed. It is the blueprint to a movie. Therefore, I declare!: That a screenplay must be read when you are fully awake, preferably in the morning. It must be read from a comfortable chair in a room no warmer than 21 degrees Celsius. All phones must be turned off. If you must eat or drink during the reading this food and beverage must be prepared in advance and be non-alcoholic. For best results you must only read a maximum of two scripts a day. Also, in this fantasy the sky is orange and people ride flying carpets to work.

All I’m saying is the entertainment industry completely sucks the instinctive artistry out of creative writing through the application of a regimented drafting process wrought with two-centsing notes from everybody and their dog so… The very least the lowly writer can demand in return is that a standard for reading be applied to their scripts.

Flying carpets to work…

Thanks for reading.