Some cool stuff from the Toronto International Film Festival last week:

Liesl Copland, formerly of Netflix and now with William Morris Endeavor’s Global Finance & Distribution Group, gave a keynote at the Doc Conference about the state of digital and what it means for the industry. The takewaway: theatrical still has life; filmmakers need to learn about metrics; crowdsourcing is the new focus group.

Ted Hope, as captured by indieWIRE’s Eugene Hernandez, about Hope’s Doing It With Others (DIWO) philosophy. The takeaway: Blog, tweet, Facebook your whole life- or at least your projects and interact with other people using those tools. (He’s made a lot of films but does he have time now with all these social networks? He says yes.)

A conversation with a number of distributors in the New York Times about the state of distribution and what’s to come. The most interesting response for me was IFC prexy Jonathan Sehring’s, when asked about the glut of films in the marketplace (something the other respondents universally decried, as per conventional wisdom).

The one comment from my colleagues that drives me nuts is that there are “too many movies.” If one looks at specialized film as “art,” it is the only art form I can think where people who work within the industry say there are “too many” of. I never hear anyone in the music industry say there are too many songs, no one in publishing says there are too many books, no gallery or museum says there are too many paintings, no one in fashion says there are too many designers — why too many movies? When my colleagues say this it sounds like the anti-immigration, protectionist rhetoric from the far right.

Pat Aufderheide from the Center for Social Media on ‘what she learned at TIFF’- the takeaway: People still find Peter Broderick’s “DIY” presentation new, even after about 500 wears- he must be using Tide with Bleach Alternative! Also, go see some good docs.

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