Moving The Ball Forward

Throughout my career as a film distributor and later on as technology became a bigger and more passionate focus for me, Seattle has been a constant. In fact, Seattle became an important testing ground for the first film I released at Miramax and for myself as the company’s new head of distribution and marketing. The film was an obscure Danish coming-of-age film by a no-name director and with no recognizable actors. I was handed the film as my first assignment and told to get it opened and move on. Essentially dump it as quickly as possible. This was at a time when home video was suddenly making independent film companies rich as store after store was opening and all those empty shelves were crying out for product. The studios were making money hand over fist and even the independents got a share. Barriers to entry were low. Open theatrically by a certain date, spend X dollars in advertising and deliver the film for duplication. Miramax was late opening and delivering this particular film  and the video company was bitching.

I’d just been hired and Bob (Weinstein) handed me a tape of the film to watch back in Dallas where I packed up for my move home to New York. (I’d been working for Paramount Pictures out of their southern division office.) I watched the film and loved it. When I arrived back in New York I made an impassioned plea for opening the film properly and not rushing it out just to satisfy the video deal. “Try it out in Seattle” was the answer. Seattle was and still is a great movie-going city and it was a natural for a test run. There’s a longer story but the crux of it is that we broke the house record (can’t remember which theater) and the film, “Twist and Shout” went on to double the gross of any previously released Miramax film. The director, Bille August, won a foreign language Academy Award with his next title, “Pelle the Conqueror” which we also released.

I returned to Seattle often over the years either opening films or attending the Seattle International Film Festival which has always been among the top 5 or 6 film festivals in North America. In 1996, my brother Scott was recruited away from Barnes & Noble by a then-obscure start-up called Amazon.com which provided plenty of new excuses for me to head northwest. In 1999, after nearly a decade of creeping closer and closer to full-blown geekdom, I actually moved to Seattle to work for another start-up called Singingfish.com which eventually was sold to AOL and served as their multimedia search engine. I left after we sold the company and moved back to New York to work with brothers Scott and Jeff at their recently launched film distribution company Lot 47 which ended its run after a fatal blow delivered by the events and aftermath of 9/11. And now, happily – almost giddily – I’ve made my way back to the place where all roads have always seemed to lead for over 30 years.

And I want to make a difference. I want to give back and I may as well start right now.

As I take meetings and network and move forward with my career, I’m going to reach out to both the filmmaking and film-going communities in Seattle and offer to help motivate, stimulate, agitate and propagate a vibrant, inspiring, congenial, progressive, stress-resistant and self-sustaining, 21st century independent film menagerie.

Step one will be to meet up, talk a little bit about yesterday and today, then start focusing with new eyes, new energy and open arms on the future; both short term and long. I have no idea where, if anywhere, this will go, but my gut tells me that it’s going to take a village to get the log rolling once again with momentum and purpose. Whether it winds up being this village or another only time will tell, but this is a damn good village full of energetic, creative and forward-thinking citizens so I’m pretty excited by the prospect. Whether I’m the right guy to lead the charge – or whether anyone even thinks there’s a reason to charge at all – well, I guess we’ll find that out in a big hurry.

If you know anyone who lives in the area, please pass this along and suggest that they participate. I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks figuring out logistics (venue recommendations much appreciated – especially if you own one and want to pitch in with space/inebriates) and working out the inaugural agenda. I’ll be launching a Facebook page soon (need a cool name for this menagerie) and a LinkedIn Group and will be reaching out to local film-related organizations for their cooperation in spreading the word. Please shoot me an email if you’d like to be added to the mailing list for information and updates. (lightafire@incitecinema.com) While we’ll physically be here in Seattle, I’ll be devising ways to push out the activities and ideas peculating up to anyone anywhere who’s interested in what we’re doing and who might want to duplicate our efforts – or some version – in their own backyard. (I know, cart before the horse but this is all about doing and embracing the future so what the hey. A dude can dream.)

We can do this, right?

Let’s light a fire in the great Northwest!