Phi Phenomenon

With the Sundance Film Festival starting up this week, what is the future of independent feature distribution? Theatrical run opportunities are strangely shrinking, streaming services are buying and burying more indies than ever, and the goalposts for independent film success keep moving. On today’s episode is Jess Fuselier, from the Sundance Institute, talking about forward-looking ways to assess an indie film’s distribution strategy, what to do if that answer doesn’t involve “theatrical,” why “transactional is dying,” how to get a film reviewed by an industry trade-paper for only $200 in targeted advertising, and, more than ever, why filmmakers shouldn’t wait for gatekeepers to give permission to make something. Fuselier is the senior manager of research and education for the Sundance Institute.

It’s tricky to narrow down a favorite film of all time, but me, I frequently do: Star Trek II: The Wraith of Khan. Nicholas Meyer directed and wrote — uncredited — that film. On today’s episode, we talk with him about why that writing credit was uncredited, his pathway from novelist to writer/director, his B10 college movie column that was apparently more popular than Roger Ebert’s, the current state of his written but un-filmed Khan mini-series, and the surprise cinematic influence on Khan’s much-beloved “Battle of Mutara Nebula” sequence. Meyer’s most recent novel, his fourth Sherlock Holmes “edited by” story, is The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols: Adapted from the Journals of John H. Watson, M.D.

I have never met anyone, anywhere, who loves movies more than Ted Haycraft. No one who believes more in the movies’ power to make viewers empathize with their fellow species, its redemptive power, its ability to make us love life, and its power, simultaneously, to be fun. In this age where movie fandom online — especially film Twitter — can seem like a bloodsport, Ted, a film critic for Evansville’s NBC affiliate WFIE-14, walks the walk, sees everything he can, and regrets what he missed. For the first episode of 2020, we talk about how that habit started, sneaking into the drive-in, taping only the audio of Bond movies off TV pre-VCRs, regrets, and the epic struggle of trying to get art-house movies shown theatrically in a small media market.

Known on the internet primarily by his self-given character name “Sleepy Skunk,” trailer editor Louis Plamondon has been making dynamic and comprehensive end-of-year trailer mashups for most of the past decade. On today’s episode we talk about how this “hobby” developed into an full-time job at a Hollywood trailer house, the MTV-esque music/movie recuts from Quebec’s MusiquePlus in the ’90s that inspired his teenage mind, and how even mediocre movies can have one graceful, inspired shot, as long as one is willing to look for it. Plamondon recently completed both his best-of-2019 mashup and one for the entire decade.

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You’re not going to find a better book about the current mindset — and future of — the Hollywood movie studios than Ben Fritz’s The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies. Named best non-fiction book of 2018 at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards, it primarily drew from the Sony email hacks, and Fritz’s reporting, to tell an inside narrative of studios like Sony, Disney, Fox, and even Marvel, showing their logic from endless remakes to prioritizing merchandising. On this episode, we talk Disney/Fox, the oncoming streaming wars, Fritz’s journalism path from old Salon to Variety to his current job as a west coast editor for the Wall Street Journal, and a deep dive into media fragmentation, corporate consolidation, branding, and data. Y’know. Those ol’ movie chestnuts.

Paul Hirsch was the finishing editor on freaking Star Wars. Multiple generations of film-goers weened on that film learned what they know about film rhythm due to Hirsch’s work. On this episode, we talk about Hirsch’s career as a film editor, his new book, A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away…, and how, in a short time, that book has already cemented itself as one of the greats and rare books about editing. Also: Watching An American in Paris while in Paris as a child missing America, starting his career out with Brian De Palma, and the story of the screw-up in Star Wars’ first reel that wasn’t included in his book for fear of being “too technical.”

AJ Edwards answered a call for cast and crew from his local Virginia TV newscast and arrived, overdressed, in a suit, to an interview for what would turn out to be Terrence Malick’s The New World. From then till now, he would be one of Malick’s most trusted and consistent collaborators. We talk about the telling childhood gaps he found while researching Abraham Lincoln’s autobiographies, how it led to his first feature, The Better Angels, its critical reactions and go-to comparisons, and why all the accurate and interesting behind-the-scene movie making-ofs get rejected. His most recent feature, Age Out, which he wrote and directed, stars Tye Sheridan and Imogen Poots, and is still playing in select theaters and VOD.

Aaron Smith manages Evansville’s largest theater, Showplace Cinemas East, and has done so for almost 20 years. That makes him a first-hand witness on the subject everyone in the film industry is constantly trying to predict: the tastes of the average, middle America movie-goer. We talk about how the ’90s American indie wave felt in a small market, watching movies out of order in the theater while on the job only to later reconstruct their narrative together, and why, for a brief but glorious time, being a 35mm projectionist in a multiplex was the greatest job.

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On the inaugural episode, Shane speaks to Evansville filmmaker Kevin Chenault about the effect House Party and Kids had on his early film tastes, how skateboarding took him into filmmaking, and how he's gained a foothold locally on social media.