American Film Market Dailies

Ron Howard Visits AFM for HanWay Documentary Pavarotti

·         Two Spotlight Events took place yesterday with the focus on China

·         AFM Conference Series continues with the annual Pitch Conference

•       LocationEXPO opens today

·         First night of Carousel Cocktails drew huge crowd

The Pitch Conference panel included:

• Panelists

Tobin Armbrust, President, Worldwide Production & Acquisitions, Virgin Produced

Cassian Elwes, Independent Producer

§  Moderator: Pilar Alessandra, Instructor/Consultant, On The Page

Producing Successful Content for A Global Market:

• Panelists
  • William Feng, Head of Greater China & Vice President, Asia Pacific, MPA

§  Belle Avery, Producer, The MEG

§  Bennett Pozil, EVP, East West Bank

Understanding Distribution in China:

• Panelists
  • William Pfeiffer, CEO, Globalgate

§  Bill Sondheim, President, Cinedigm Entertainment Group, Int’l Distribution

§  David Lee, President, LEEDING Media

§  Jack Gao, Founding Partner/CEO, Smart Cinema

Quotes

Pitch Conference

Cassian Elwes, Independent Producer

“If you think about it, this whole business is a series of pitches, frankly.”

“You take their idea and you run it up the flagpole to whoever your boss is, and your boss runs it up the flagpole to somebody else. And so that idea has to be so clever or distilled into such a clever way that literally the person who hears it can tell somebody else.”

“Ultimately the final pitch isn’t the studio that is making the movie, its them pitching the poster and the trailer which is essentially a pitch to the audience to come and see the movie. So, pitch goes all the way up from the very bottom to the very top.”

“You’re trying to hear something, and say, ‘Wow, that’s actually a movie I would like to go and see’”

“It’s not just talking, its listening and hearing what they’re saying and adapting to what theyre saying. Because part of it is a human interaction.”

Tobin Armbrust, President,  Worldwide Production & Acquisitions, Virgin Produced

{most common pitches} I would say the largest volume of pitches that I hear now are on the phone. Which is a very difficult scenario.. .you can’t read the room, you almost feel as though you have less time… But I do get a lot of my pitches on the phone because it is almost impossible for people to continually get physical meetings, hear pitches, have people come in and out.”

“I have to take whatever that idea is, whether it is in script or it is in pitch form, I have to take that idea and I have to get it down to a kernel, because now we are talking agents. The result of however I pitch that is going to get that script or that idea or whatever that is, going to get it from number 20 in the pile to maybe number 5 or 4, so it’s incredibly important.”

“Know the room, know who you’re pitching, know what they’ve done before, know their credits. Speak to their ego. Because, everyone has egos, so make sure you understand what it is that they do. If you come in and you’re pitching an animated epic to a company that does 2-million-dollar horror films, then it’s not going to go well. And it’s not even worth either of your time. But I think if you get into a room where someone is more of a generalist, if it’s a company that does films of multiple genres, then figure out what you can speak to as part of your pitch, that attaches itself, however tangentially to something that they have done before. It will work for you.”

Producing Successful Content for a Global Market

William Feng, Head of Greater China & Vice President, Asia Pacific, MPA

“More than 80% of co-productions film in China”

“Hollywood movies used to dominate the top 10 in China, now it is Chinese films”

Belle Avery, Producer, The MEG

[On Shooting in China] “You are going to be very surprised if you shoot there… They have been wonderful… We had 2000 people on set and everything went smoothly”

[On Chinese Distribution] “Some Chinese films are not getting proper distribution… We need to see more of these films in broad distribution”

Bennett Pozil, EVP, East West Bank

“[The] new generation of directors have great exposure to Hollywood… Every year, in the top filmmakers there are 20 to 30 Chinese filmmakers.”

Understanding Distribution in China

William Pfeiffer, CEO, Globalgate

“Even if you opened up the market completely I don’t know if it would change the Chinese Viewing Habit that much.”

“In China it appears to be they have these… word of mouth communities that are [most] influential in what you go to see.”

Bill Sondheim, President, Cinedigm Entertainment Group, Int’l Distribution

“The elimination of the quota would do one important thing which would allow the studios to not put forth only their big blockbusters.”

Jack Gao, Founding Partner/CEO, Smart Cinema

“For whatever reason, Chinese audiences still love Hollywood movies.”