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While Toronto festival co-director Cameron Bailey is optimistic that by year's end money spent to acquire 2009 TIFF films will be comparable to that of prior years, others say he's dreaming. "Usually there would be one film that came close to a double-digit million-dollar sale, if not hitting that," says Ted Hope, a 20-year veteran indie-film producer whose credits include 21 Grams and The Ice Storm. "Then you would have four or five films in that $4-to-$6 million range and four to seven films in that $1-to-$3 million range...
Lower sale prices aren't just a bummer for indie filmmakers; the prices also undercut the economics of American filmmaking, denying investors the sale price needed just to break even. Hope says some sales do happen for less money but they are not true business deals. "The international films can sell for low six figures to what buyers remain here precisely because they are subsidized by their local governments...
...what's happening just a recession rut? Partly, yes, but the business is also changing in fundamental ways. Just look at the way indie filmmakers raise money today. In the past, they would "presell" their movie to foreign distributors, using not much more than a script and a cast list. That meant certain funding for the filmmaker no matter how good or bad the film turned out to be. The filmmaker could then go to a private investor who, knowing that the movie was already presold to foreign territories, would view it as less risky and invest. With money from...
That funding model is now dead. One reason is the foreign presell market has dried up - foreign governments now prefer to focus on their domestic film industries. Another reason is that U.S. films are often priced too high for investors to make money on, a problem that has intensified with dropping DVD sales around the world. Without being able to presell foreign territories, everything falls apart. "Imploded is the word I would use," says Roger Smith, senior motion-picture analyst at Global Media Intelligence...
Already in Wisconsin, the prospect of grant money has unions agreeing to allow standardized testing to be a factor in teacher evaluation so long as it is not used as grounds for firing. While this may lead to bad teachers simply cycling through the worst schools, this compromise is leagues better than the stagnation so characteristic of public-school policy. It is an encouraging sign that Race to the Top is already working before even a single dollar has been spent...