Harvey Weinstein at the London Film Festival

Fresh from announcing The World Dance Awards at MIPCOM, Harvey Weinstein attended the 56^th London Film Festival to deliver a much-anticipated and packed keynote speech last night.

Aside from some political jibes about Mitt Romney and mentioning the lack of historical knowledge of film in Hollywood, Weinstein’s main comments were about piracy on the internet which he said was killing the industry. With sites such as YouTube hosting pirated clips from films “doing the industry a massive disservice”, he went onto say companies like Google and Apple were “getting paid and not the actors”.

He criticized the consolidation of media companies stating it would create a “central bureau” allowing “six companies to end up owning a 500-channel universe” making it more difficult for smaller and independent films to reach an audience without the support of members of this consortium, who may demand franchises and remakes.

“These companies make movies to make money," he said. "We too want to be profitable, but also to do something worthwhile and innovative."

A few days ago. when speaking about his joint venture with Michael Flatley at MIPCOM, he confessed “The movie business to some extent is shrinking, and we have to look for new horizons,” when talking about The Weinstein Company’s foray into television. He also responded to a question about digital services like YouTube and Netflix by stating:

"I think it all matters, but at the end of the day it's good stories that rule everything. I think more of a premium should be placed on content and a lot of the work that independent producers do."

Comment:

Whereas piracy is a growing problem in the film and television industry, market research has repeatedly shown that viewers will happily pay for content – they just don’t want to have to wait for staggered releases or deal with region censorship (such as in the recent Avengers case).

Joss Whedon’s Avengers film was downloaded and widely circulating pre-release on home video but still managed staggering figures in home media sales, including download. In the UK, many were importing discs from the US showing frustration at the lack of extras on the UK release and censorship mistake.

Weinstein’s comments also discard the success and following some independent films are able to reach through avoiding the box office and studio system. Through crowdfunding, private investment and a boom in low-to-no budget filmmaking (thanks in part to actors’ willingness to do these films), it has been seen that some filmmakers have raised the entire funding for their film privately and then sold it at a profit to the same audience that is consuming digital downloads and systems like Netflix.

Harvey’s speech has certainly inspired a lot of debate among filmmakers some of which have never worked outside the studio system, but his advice that “good stories rule everything” is the ethos of many new and independent filmmakers who have a shoestring budget and focus more on storytelling than anything else, compensating for what they lack in production values.

We may not completely agree on the future and where things are heading, but Harvey, it’s always great to talk about it with you.