Entertaiment

An old cowboy once told me, “If everyone saw eye to eye there wouldn’t be no horse races.”

Lots of people disagree with me. Luckily I have tough skin … not! 

Few of my detractors are more articulate than Ken Harris. Most are gratefully less verbose. 

Ken has a master’s degree in theater and film from BYU. He has made short films and directed live theater. He is a producer with National Geographic Television and Film in Washington DC. He loves to write.

Ken’s response to my article “In Search of Patron Saints” is printed here in full. I have done so because his analysis of the LDS market is crucial “knowledge” for wannabe LDS moviemakers and a sobering perspective for those already launched and battling the waves. I think my horse will win the race but I do agree with much of what Brother Harris has to say – most of all his opening paragraph. “Nobody knows anything.”

Response to Patron Saints
Ken Harris

There is a now classic line once penned by screenwriter William Goldman in his book Adventures in the Screen Trade.  Referring to what he called “the single most important fact, perhaps, of the entire movie industry,” he wrote, “Nobody knows anything.”

I have wrestled greatly with the writing of this article because it means that I am about to disagree vigorously with an artist whose work I very much respect. The October 26^th article published on the Meridian web site, by Kieth Merrill, entitled “In Search of the Patron Saint(s)”, laid out in print what I believe to be the single most significant impediment to Latter-day Saint filmmakers making a meaningful impact in the world today, with their work.  No, I don’t mean the lack of money, though that too is a significant impediment.  Let me put it this way: so much passion, so little knowledge.

There is so much to say (and much of it very complex) that I hardly know where to begin.  The fundamental premise of brother Merrill’s article, as I understand it, is this: “In order for LDS arts to blossom (particularly the visual arts), we have need of ‘patron saints’ – those who are willing to be sponsors, supporters, benefactors, helpers, backers, angels, and guarantors of LDS artists and artworks.”  This fundamental premise is seriously flawed, such that it can only lead LDS filmmakers, who rely upon it, up a blind alley, the recovery from which would be devastatingly difficult.

At the outset, let me be explicitly clear.  In the following treatise I am confining my remarks solely to motion pictures, irrespective of their ultimate methods of distribution and presentation.  I am not talking about the funding of music, painting, sculpture, theater, opera, or dance, or any variation of these.  Also, while I will endeavor to completely support the points that I make, they are nevertheless, my opinions.

To begin, film is not an art form.

As I write those words I can hear the grinding of axes in preparation for my summary execution, for writing such heresy.  I assure you, I am well versed in film history and theory, and notwithstanding the likes of Griffith, Eisenstein, Murnau, DeMille, Hitchcock, Wells, Neorealism, German Expressionism, the French New Wave, Cinema Verit, and a host of other filmmakers and movements throughout the 20^th century, still, in the context of this discussion, film is not an art form.

Now, in his article Brother Merrill quotes extensively from an essay by Bill Tolbert arguing for a greater level of patronage by wealthy Latter-Day-Saints.  Although I firmly believe that all of us have a responsibility to utilize all the gifts with which the Lord has blessed us, for righteous ends,  I also believe that it is imperative we do so with sufficient knowledge and understanding to realize the greatest possible benefit of those gifts.  To squander the gifts of God on uninformed and ill-advised projects, however well meaning they may be, is tantamount to the grudging giver, “wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift.”

The fundamental flaw in the patronage model put forth in the article, with respect to the motion picture medium, is that it simply does not fit within the context of the times and economic realities under which we live and work.

First, the statement is made that “patronage is the oldest model of support for the arts.”  While this may or may not be true, historical precedent alone does not make it the correct model for motion picture funding.  Brother Tolbert lays out a reasonable historical accounting of notable patrons throughout history, a litany of popes, kings and emperors that have supported the artisans of their day and given the world much of its artistic heritage.

I am reminded of the classic monologue from the brilliant Carol Reed film, The Third Man.  The villain of the film, Harry Lime, an amoral black marketeer and murderer in post WWII Vienna, Austria justifies his actions to his incredulous friend by telling him that, “In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed – but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance… In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?…The cuckoo clock.”  Admittedly, this is a glib bit of rhetoric.  But my point is that the historical precedent of patronage alone does not make it the correct model in this case.

Film is a relatively young medium, only a little more than a hundred years old.  It is a medium for the masses, a technology for the economic distribution of the storytelling tradition from which it has sprung.  It is a sibling of the theater, another much older medium that (prior to the rise of film) was the pop culture mechanism of its time and another progeny of the storytelling tradition.  But in the case of film, patronage has played a miniscule role in its development, from its very beginnings it has been a commercial medium, developing, growing and thriving on investment.  Do not confuse patronage with investment; they are two different things.

Patronage has traditionally been the purview of “arts” organizations: symphony orchestras, dance companies, theater companies, museums, and other non-profit “arts” organizations.  But even for the traditional “arts,” private support (patronage), on average, makes up only one quarter of an organization’s operating revenues.  Earned income (ticket sales) is still as much as 60% of an “arts” organization’s operating revenue, which means that, for such organizations, even if they receive private support in the form of patronage, they’re still going to have to compete in the marketplace, and success or failure is still measured by their attendance.

Once again, film is not an art form.  Every major study since the seminal work by William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma, have specifically excluded film in their lists of art forms under scrutiny.

From Baumol and Bowen’s 1966 study to Arts Participation in America: 1982-1992 (published by the National Endowment for the Arts), to Arts in the Local Economy (published by the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies), to the 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (again published by the NEA), all of them specifically exclude film from their lists.  In the Surveys of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), film is included in the “other leisure activities” category and given only two questions in the entire survey – “During the last 12 months, did you go out to the movies?”  And, “About how many times did you do this during the last 12 months?”  A study published by the NEA in 2003, Arts and Economic Prosperity: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts Organizations and Their Audiences, includes the following qualifier: “Also excluded from this study was spending by individual artists, the for-profit arts sector (Broadway or the motion picture industry, for example).”

Now, that last one rather gives away the direction that I am running with the point that I am trying to make.  It categorizes the motion picture industry as a for-profit “art” form.  Patronage has almost exclusively been a funding mechanism of the non-profit arts, a category of which film has never been included in any significant way.  So, in the context of patronage supported “arts” organizations, film is not an art form.  It’s just another leisure activity.  But of course, as we all know, film is an art form (all you filmmakers out there can now breathe a collective sigh of relief).  But film has always been largely a for-profit medium and that is not going to change for the foreseeable future.

Yes, there are exceptions to this.  Documentary film has enjoyed some non-profit funding sources in the past, PBS and other private foundation grants among them.  However, the funding mechanisms have radically altered for documentary film over the past twenty years.  The rise of the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel, among many others, and major changes, in recent years, in the way PBS does business, have all combined to alter the landscape of documentary film funding.  But the reality is that documentary film is as profit-driven as any other form of film. (It should be here noted that I work for National Geographic Television and Film, which is a major supplier to the Nat Geo Channel.)

Next, in the “Patron Saints” article, brother Tolbert states that, “With a few notable exceptions, LDS films are funded through one of two mechanisms. The first is the friends and family financing program.  The second is the classic ‘patron saint.'”  While elements of this are true, the lack of critical definitions here makes this statement overall incorrect.

Essentially, these are one and the same method.  Whether it’s friends, family, friend of a friend, or the local wealthy businessman with whom you happen to connect, the statement simply blurs the distinction between patronage and investment.  For clarity’s sake, patronage is the donation of funds for purposes or motivations other than the expectation of a financial return; whereas, investment is the committing of funds to a project with the expectation of a financial return. 

Mind you, an investment can be made with altruistic motivations, and a financial return can be said to be secondary.  However, when a financial return is even hinted at, there is no patronage involved; it is an investment.  If you disagree with these definitions, I suggest you look them up in the dictionary.  Those who miss this critical distinction tend to run afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, and a host of law enforcement agencies.

As for the examples of the “classic patron saint” supported projects, God’s Army or Work and the Glory, I find it very hard to believe that those who have put up the funding for these films had no expectation of a return.  This may be the case; I am not privy to the funding mechanism used for these films.  However, my assumption is that those who supported these projects recognized the extremely high risk nature of investing in independent film – a risk only heightened by the very small niche of the LDS film market – and that they were comfortable with this risk.  That’s not to say that there aren’t those who are willing to give for such a cause, or that such philanthropy isn’t an honorable or noble act; however, I believe that patronage is neither a viable nor a desirable model, as a primary means of developing a successful film community among Latter-day Saints, or any other identifiable group of filmmakers.

Mind you, it’s not just the fact that film has never been a patron-supported art form.  There are other elements that I find as problematic, if not more so, in this patronage model being advocated.  Patronage is a matter of taste, if the patron likes the work of an artist, a theater company, a symphony, etc. then he contributes.  Does the patron know which scripts are worth funding?  Is he sufficiently knowledgeable to make that determination?  A great film is built on the foundation of a quality script, and determining what constitutes a quality script is not as easy as writing a check.  There is a winnowing quality to the free market system, and there is a certain check and balance within the industry, though to be fair, it most certainly isn’t perfect, as Hollywood proves convincingly every summer movie season.

Now Brother Tolbert quotes De Tocqueville as stating that “Democratic nations will habitually prefer the useful to the beautiful.”  To that I can only say, hogwash!  (That’s a technical term that means, “I don’t believe that any more than you do.”)  As if the whole of America were some sort of utilitarian warehouse club with exposed ducts and trusses for a ceiling and bare concrete for a floor.  If this were true, flower shops would be a scarce oddity in the world, and not a multi-billion dollar floral industry.  In this democratic nation, $12.99 gets you a fistful of beauty with no other obvious use than the enjoyment of its beauty and fragrance.  I understand what Brother Tolbert was trying to say with this quote, or at least I think I do – that the free market, where film is concerned, has a tendency to dumb down, to appeal to the least common denominator, to sensationalize and titillate for the sake of revenues.  That the system has a tendency to sell our collective moral birthright for a mess of potage and leave our society morally wrung out, used up, and bankrupt.  And he’s right.  But the system is only as morally valiant or corrupt as the leadership that guides it, and leadership changes frequently in the media industry.  Remember, the people of the Book of Mormon were only as wicked or righteous as their leadership.  Thank heavens for an inspired Prophet to guide us!

Film is a commercial medium.  This fundamental fact must be the basis of any effective long-term strategy for creating a sustainable effort of the scope and significance necessary to making a difference in the world.  The top six media companies in the world [i] have a combined market valuation of nearly $300 billion dollars, their combined 2003-04 revenues were $164.3 billion dollars, their combined profits for the same period were $6.65 billion dollars.  Vivendi/Universal had a bad year, recording a loss of $1.3 billion.  If you exclude Vivendi/Universal from the profit numbers, the combined profits for five of the top six media companies in the world were $8.04 billion.  Now, do you understand the magnitude of the assets that are marshaled in the cause of spreading a popular culture throughout the world? 

Kieth Merrill made a very important point in his article – it’s not just about talent, genius, education, or a passionate commitment.  All of that is useless without the resources to put it all to work, and we’ll never be able to tap into the resources we need without a comprehensive understanding of how the system works.

Focusing on the LDS market alone is an isolationist strategy that will leave us all in a state of stunted growth.  Allow me to try and give a little perspective here by attempting to describe the Mormon audience.  There are roughly 12 million members of the Church, but that figure is misleading, if you’re using that for your figure as your potential audience. So let’s do a few quick calculations and see if we can’t come to a more accurate understanding of just what constitutes the Mormon audience for film.

Using the figures of the breakdown of Church membership, published on the Church’s website, will help in determining a more accurate potential audience figure.  The numbers currently published are from the year ending 2003.   Beginning with a round 12 million-member number (rounding up from 11,984,254 members as of December 31, 2003), roughly 54% of church members live outside of the US.  Given the factors of cultural differences, language, and lack of reliable distribution channels for “Mormon” product to those foreign markets, members outside of the North American markets are a dubious inclusion in any calculation of potential audience size.  That brings our potential market down to approximately 5.5 million.

When I served as ward clerk, it was my understanding and experience that the average activity rate in the Church is around 50% to 60%.  Generally speaking, an inactive member is unlikely to be a reliable audience member for such product.  In economic terms, demand is purchasing power plus desire.  An inactive member may have all the purchasing power in the world; however, the desire to purchase is unlikely to exist.  Estimating conservatively is usually best in such calculations, so using a 50% activity rate; our potential audience figure is now down to approximately 2.8 million.

Wait!  We’re not done yet.  In the 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, published by the NEA, survey participants were asked the question, “During the last 12 months, did you go out to the movies?”  65.5% of Americans answered yes to this question.  There is no reason to believe that LDS Church members are any more or less the movie going cohort than the rest of the American population.  In fact, given the generally deplorable moral state of content in movies produced and or released by the major studios in the US, and the discontent that we, as Latter-day Saints, have with that content, I would say that the LDS cohort would possess a lower rate of film attendance.  But hey, I’ll be generous and use the known 65.5% rate of attendance, which brings our potential audience figure down to approximately 1.8 million.  That’s a very small niche market, and the demographic composition of that potential audience is likely to be all over the map. (Demographic composition consists of such relevant audience vital facts as age, martial status, level of income, family size, education level, etc.)

Given this 1.8 million figure, it is now time to ask some hard questions.  How many in that potential audience do you have access to, given the distribution system in place?  How many are going to pay full price to see your movie?  How many are going to like your movie and tell a friend? (Word of mouth is critical to the success of any film)  How many will have access to your movie in a theater?  How many will see it on video?  How many will buy it on video or DVD?  Also to be considered is the fact that between dollar cinemas, video parties, and borrowed copies the attractiveness of the niche diminishes considerably.  Money isn’t everything, but it’s essential if you’re going to make movies, and so are profits if you’re going to continue to make movies.  My point is this; we’re talking to ourselves.  Worse, we’re talking to a small fraction of ourselves.

We are divided, and therefore we are easily conquered.  We are all so busy trying to get our own films made, banging on the same doors, expecting every Latter-day Saint of means to invest in our project, because ours is the one that can break through, ours is the inspired one, ours is the one the world will embrace because we have faith.  Remember, faith without works is dead, and talent without training or understanding is mediocrity.  Even if the “100 mega-money Mormons” (is there really a list of these people?) were so inclined, and I expect they are justifiably not, they don’t have the resources, even collectively, to continually fund all the projects the LDS film community could conjure up to lose money on.

Now, if patronage is not the model to build an effective, sustainable effort upon, then what is?

Again, film is a commercial medium.  Learn how to operate within the context of the larger industry.  Learn to speak to a broader audience, build a career, build a company, establish a reputation as a filmmaker that can deliver a successful product.  Build up your capital within the industry and then you will have the freedom to make the films you want to, then you will have the clout to help those up and coming filmmakers get a quicker foothold within the industry, then you will have the ability to endow educational programs that can breed future moral filmmakers, then you will be able to make a significant impact. The kind of impact that the Lord expects of us.

I tell you it is possible to be a dominant force in this industry and be a moral filmmaker in the process!  It takes an understanding of how the industry works, in all its economic intricacies. To those who say “I don’t want to compromise myself in order to succeed,” I say you don’t have to, nor should you have to, in order to succeed.  There is a $300 billion dollar mechanism in place to develop, produce, market, and distribute our cultural products.  Let’s put moral leadership at the head of it, and then we will make a difference.

And now, this is where those who have been so blessed with financial resources come in.  Learn how to invest; learn how to create media companies that can compete in the broader marketplace; use sustainable models that can build upon success.  The price of the right to complain about the corrosive products that the media industry is flooding the market with, is participation.  There is a vast pool of moral and eminently creative talent out there that is ready to excel in the industry.  All that are needed are the leadership and resources to make it happen.  Among ourselves as a people, we have the talent, we have the leadership, and we have been blessed with the resources.  Isn’t it interesting how all three elements are within the Lord’s grasp but are distributed among so many hands?  Maybe if we all came together we could actually flood the world with the truth instead of being satisfied with a mere trickle.  It would be bit like being of one heart and one mind.

To those who say, “Well, it’s just not possible to create moral products that the industry at large is willing to distribute.”  I can only say to that, rubbish!  (That’s a close linguistic cousin to hogwash!)  In less than ten years, Pixar Animation Studios has established a company and reputation that is unequalled in the industry today.  Pixar has created six mega-hits in a row, and every major media company is rolling out the red carpet for them, trying to become their new distributor. 

The studios are also tripping over themselves trying to replicate Pixar’s success by setting up their own computer animation shops.  Almost all of them will fail.  They will fail, because they fail to understand this one important fact that is so well stated by Brad Bird, the director of Pixar’s current hit, The Incredibles.  He said, “You have to make a good movie and you have to sell it, and if you don’t do those two things you’re not going to succeed.”

Now, to those Latter-day Saints of means who thought that perhaps my differing point of view would let them off the hook.  Sorry to disappoint.  All the elements to succeed are within our grasp, but there can be no success until all the elements are brought together for good.  Remember what the Lord said, “With some I am not well pleased for they will not open their mouths.” (D&C 60:2)  I think it not improper to extend the principle taught here to include, will not exercise their talents, or commit their resources.

I am open to any and all comments or criticisms.

Ken Harris

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Kieth’s notes and comments.

What did the old song say? “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don’t mess with Mr. in between.”  On the positive side Ken makes some excellent points. On the negative he is dead wrong about some issues.  Curiously, when it comes to telling our story on film without compromise and the Harris controversy between “patron saints” and “commercial ventures,” we may need to “mess with Mr. In between”.

Ken is correct on several points. We need to know the industry. We need to understand the limitations of the LDS market. It is possible that an LDS moviemaker could become “mainstream” without compromise. (Provided, however, they have no illusions about getting there on the back of Mormon movies.}

Ken’s model for success is certainly a good one. Become “mainstream.” Be successful. Be commercial. Make any movie you want. I call it the Steven Spielberg model. Besides being brilliant, Steven didn’t get to do Schindler’s List until he was the most successful director in the world. [You might also call this model, “winning the lottery.”]

I do not think it is possible for a Mormon moviemaker to become mainstream by making Mormon movies. Ken has spent too much time in the altruistic world of National Geographic and no time in Hollywood to believe otherwise.  Richard Dutcher told me once that his interest was in telling “our story” – not in becoming a mainstream Hollywood moviemaker. Richard’s films have received critical acclaim beyond the Mormon market, but finding funding in Hollywood for the stories he wants to tell remains almost impossible.  Life is filled with choices.

Ken is flat-out wrong when he says that, “The single most significant impediment to Latter-day Saint filmmakers making a meaningful impact in the world today with their work (is) so much passion, so little knowledge.”

Or was he really trying to say, “relying on patron saints to finance their art”?

Perhaps this dialectic horse race is about the meaning of “meaningful impact.” Ken’s standard is “The kind of impact that the Lord expects of us.”  This is hardly a modest expectation.

My standard has always been the vision of Spencer W. Kimball.

 “A masterpiece which would run for months in every movie center, cover every part of the globe in the tongue of the people. live forever. a masterpiece which would live forever. “

Either is an ominous aspiration. Perhaps they are the same.

Mel Gibson’s brilliant film, The Passion, would never have been made without a patron, an “angel investor.” Hollywood studios and traditional funding sources locked the doors or ran the other way. Having watched the film with Mel Gibson and discussed it with him in person, I am convinced his motives were purely patron, not investor, when he plunked down 30 million of his own money.

Mel Gibson is one of the most powerful moviemakers in the world. He is the epitome of Ken Harris’ model for success. But Gibson could not get this movie made without a patron. [Unlike the other 99.999 % of filmmakers, he was able to become patron to himself]

Larry Miller plunked down 7.5 million to make Work and the Glory. Larry is a gifted businessman. He knows the numbers in Ken’s valuable analysis of the Mormon market. He knows that there is at best a slim chance that the movie will play outside the LDS community with any significant success. He’s run the numbers on the DVDs. As a businessman he surely hopes to recover his investment. As a Mormon he believes Work and the Glory is a movie that needed to be made. Larry Miller, like Mel Gibson was patron first, investor second.

Here is the point, Ken. Both of these men funded films that they believed were important. Both of these men “invested” in these films prepared to lose all the money. You can argue that “pure patronage” is the absolute absence of expectations for return and profit. Ok, let’s use them as Exhibit A if you like and define the new hybrid “patron saint/investor” of the future; willing to support the movies that must be made with the hope of return of investment, but an absolute willingness to make patronage the driving motivation. Do it because it must be done. Ever wonder why backers of such personal projects are called “angel investors”?