The third instalment in the ensemble mystery franchise featuring Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc will screen in selected theatres globally for 14 days starting November 26 before streaming on Netflix on December 12, 2025.
In 2022, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” played in 600 cinemas for one week one month before streaming.
My take: kudos to Rian Johnson for putting this in his Netflix contract. Could this become their new norm, after Netflix’s success with its two-day KPop Demon Hunter theatrical release?
“The filmmakers who get noticed are the ones who don’t wait for permission. They write, shoot, and edit their own work. Even a no-budget short is better than waiting for the perfect offer that may never come.”
Unlike other crowdfunding platforms Seed&Spark is purpose-built for film & TV projects. They have a phenomenal 82% success rate.
“Kinema is a tech platform that enables non-theatrical exhibition — what you may call grassroots screening tours — of films in person and online. We make it easy and rewarding for anyone, anywhere to organize moving showings and share in the proceeds.”
Brian states:
“Those who fund programs on Seed&Spark get a dedicated Kinema account manager and custom distribution consultations. Fees are waived for filmmakers with over 500 followers or over 1,000 campaign backers.”
But hey, if you want to DIY, at least check out their free online resource The Distribution Playbook.
“In Park City for the (Sundance) festival is Cooper Raiff, the writer and director of Cha Cha Real Smooth, which just three years ago was a festival competition title that got snapped up by Apple TV+ for $15 million. This year, he’s shopping Hal & Harper — not an indie film, which would be a tough enough sell in 2025, but rather an independently financed TV series, whose path is even less clear.”
“(Selling your second movie for $15 million to Apple) makes you too confident. Because of that deal, I thought, ‘Let’s just do it with television.’ That’s what I told everyone. We’re really braving the storm with the series. ‘Cha Cha’ was sold on the backs of so many indie movies. With this, we’re trying to sell this show… so it has to be this undeniable thing to these streamers and these networks. But it made me too confident.”
My take: this seems extremely risky, unless your budget is practically zero, you have all the locations, and everyone is volunteering their time. Or, you’ve made so much, you need write-offs? I mean it’s a great way to keep total creative control — until Season Two, that is.
My take: Another reason is that British Columbia and California share the same time zone. And a further reason is the exchange rate — the Loonie is worth 69 US cents, so every dollar Hollywood spends automatically goes over 40% further north of the border. (btw, you get even more tax incentive to film in Victoria or on Vancouver Island!)
“The Attend platform will champion mid-range films that have largely disappeared from cinemas, as well as international films seeking release in North America, and films that typically receive limited theatrical release and could reach broader audiences through data-driven theatre selection, scheduling and marketing.”
Some features:
Filmmakers will be able to upload details and materials of their films directly
Exhibitors will be able to search the database
The platform will recommend films to exhibitors based on the preferences of their theatres and audiences
The platform will facilitate the logistics of projecting films in cinemas.
My take: this solves the “supply to theatres” issue, by cutting out distributors. I’d love to see some Canadian cinemas join — not that I have anything against Canadian distributors — it’s just that Canadian filmmakers have historically been shut out of Canadian cinemas by American distributors. How ironic that this American initiative might solve that for us.
“1080p Professional Mode: Kling 1.5 now generates videos at 1080p resolution when using Professional Mode. While it costs more credits, the output quality is significantly better and sets a new standard for AI video generation.
Motion Brush: Kling has introduced Motion Brush, a long-awaited tool in the AI video generation space. Currently, it’s only supported in the 1.0 model but will be available in 1.5 soon. Stay tuned!
End Frames: End frames have been introduced in the 1.0 model and are coming soon to the 1.5 model, allowing for smoother transitions and more control over your videos.
Using Negative Prompts: Improve your outputs by adding negative prompts to filter out undesired elements. Copy and paste the following negative prompts into your settings:
Of particular note is the emotion it’s able to generate.
Plus, Tim signals that Kling is about to add a full-featured Video Editor. Stay tuned indeed!
My take: of course, some will lament these advances. Yes, tasks that workers once spent their lives performing are now accomplished immediately. Looking at you, Medieval scribe, hot metal typesetter, telephone exchange operator. More job transformation is sure to come. We are well into the Digital Age and its promise is bearing increasingly wondrous fruit.
My take: a lot of people will immediately claim this is heresy, and threatens the very foundations of cinema as we’ve come to know it over the last one hundred years. And they would be right. And yet, time marches on. I believe some variation of this is the future of ultra-low budget production. Very soon the quality will surpass the shoddy CGI that many multi-million dollar Hollywood productions have been foisting on us lately.
You’ve seen the Sora samples. The Dream Machine videos. How does LTX Studio, touted as “the future of storytelling, transforming imagination into reality,” stand up?
“There are whole bunch of things it does not do, but I love where it’s going and where I hope it’s going to go…. It’s brilliant for keeping track of all of the shots that you really do need to keep track of. It’s brilliant for scene wide settings and project wide settings, something I’ve been craving, and it’s really, really good at that. It’s great for casting. It’s brilliant for allowing you to then kind of just drop those characters in. I love the generative tools that will allow you to erase bits that you don’t need in your starting shot and to add other bits that you need that will help you tidy up the shot…. My two big gripes and I don’t think these are bugs that they’re going to fix, this is just fundamental features that it needs to be in there. One of them is every shot is slow motion…. Secondly, breaking the fourth wall. It drives me out of my mind!”
Here’s a peek at actually using LTX Studio by Riley Brown:
My take: In addition to Haydn’s slo mo and fourth wall gripes, I would add these requirements as well: movement and expression control including blinking and lip-sync. Mid-2024, one has to use each of the many AI tools for what it does best and then bring all the bits together in post. As an early proponent of Machinima (using video games to make movies,) I’m watching this space with interest. My conclusion: advances are being made but we’re nowhere near lucid dreaming.
“To fund Canadian narrative feature You Can Live Forever, Rob Vroom was able to utilize some of the same backers and funders he had used with previous films. They secured a pre-license TV deal that triggered Canadian federal top-up funding and Canadian tax credits. Canadian funding most of the time requires distribution to be in place beforehand, and although the film was Sarah Watts’ and Mark Slutsky’s first feature, Canadian distributor Mongrel Media stepped up and came on early.”
Robert explains:
“I proposed a CAD $2.5 million Canadian budget. I was able to raise that money through Telefilm Canada—through SODEC—which is our Quebec provincial equivalent to Telefilm, via a pre-license deal with CBC and a top-up fund through the CMF (Canadian Media Fund). If you can secure a pre-license fee of at least 5% of your budget, then CMF will top up another 15% of your budget, which for us was huge. And then of course tax credits.”
This table is very revealling:
equity / grant / TV licence / tax credit
amount
SODEC
CAD $750,000
Telefilm
CAD $550,000
CBC Films
CAD $125,000
CMF
CAD $373,500
Provincial Tax Credits
CAD $402,000
Federal Tax Credits
CAD $80,000
COVID Support Fund
CAD $195,000
Producer Investment
CAD $15,000
To summarize how to finance a low-budget feature film in Canada:
Get Telefilm Canada funding.
Get a Canadian Distributor (see below.)
Get a TV license to trigger CMF funds.
Make the movie and apply for Canadian federal and provincial tax credits.
My take: Some might wait until their festival release and the hoped-for bidding war, but I think it’s a great idea to get a Canadian distributor on board as soon as possible. They can help you secure:
A direct pitch to a foreign streamer doing business in Canada that as of September 2024 must contribute 5% of Canadian revenue to CanCon (and they can choose to direct invest 2% of that 5%.) See http://www.informediation.com/blog/2024/06/19/is-the-digital-ecosystem-starting-to-look-a-lot-like-tv/ The Big Three are Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. (CAVCO insists you approach these through a Canadian distributor to qualify for Tax Credits!)
A Canadian TV deal. They’ll get you in the room to pitch to CBC (includes GEM,) Bell Media (includes CraveTV,) and Rogers. This will then trigger Canada Media Fund funds.
An Educational TV deal: Knowledge Network in BC and TVO in Ontario.
Airlines for in-flight entertainment.
US and International distribution deals.
A one-week screening in Toronto to qualify for the Toronto Film Critics Association’s $50K Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, perhaps the biggest film cash prize in Canada. See https://torontofilmcritics.com/awards/signature-award-2-2/ (Hey Rogers, why did you reduce this prize by half, from $100,000? Are you goading someone else to offer more? Netflix and Prime, I’m looking at you!)
