Getting moviemakers rolling in S.F.
When 400 cinephiles attend the San Francisco Film Society gala Monday, the party’s setting — the Armory, home of Kink.com — will be a metaphor for Todd Traina’s efforts to spice up the city’s film scene.
The well-respected indepen- dent film producer is on a mission to make San Francisco a sexier spot for moviemaking, by increasing opportunities for filmmakers, boosting film’s cultural presence and making the city a destination on the Oscar campaign trail.
The San Francisco International Film Festival launched its 58th season on Thursday with an energetic executive director at the helm: Noah Cowan, its fourth in four years. But since 2009, when Traina re-established hometown roots after nearly two decades in Hollywood and formed alliances in Silicon Valley, few others
have done as much to turn the Bay Area’s flagging film fortunes around.
Traina, 45, is a man in the middle of three worlds — San Francisco society, the Hollywood film industry and Silicon Valley’s investment crowd. He grew up in Pacific Heights, son of high-society power couple Dede Wilsey, now president of the Fine Arts Museums board and one of the city’s leading fundraisers, and the late John Traina, a Faberge collector. His brother, Trevor, is a philanthropist, too.
Reshaping perceptions
But Traina left San Francisco for 18 years in Los Angeles. His connections include TV producer Douglas Cramer (“The Love Boat”) and writerproducer-director Spike Jonze. He was behind the respected 2007 documentary “Punk Is Not Dead” and “My Suicide,” a dark comedy that won a 2009 Berlin Film Festival award. A foray into the Bay Area’s startup world led to friendships with investors in finance, tech and social media.
“One of the more fun things you can do,” said the Film Society’s Cowan, “is say to Todd, ‘I want to meet these three people who don’t seem to have anything to do with each other,’ and he gives you a look with eyes that have a playful sparkle and says, ‘Sure, let’s do it!’ and you have one of the most entertaining afternoons imaginable.
“He is an incredibly important kind of connector between what traditional cultural life once was and what it will be in the future,” Cowan added. “He’s kind of doing the heavy lifting right now, in terms of reinventing how we think about the place.”
A younger board
When Traina joined the Film Society board in 2009, he quickly put this networking ability to work, to help build the organization into something more powerful. He recruited to the board’s aging membership a half-dozen younger people, with filmmaker Chris Columbus among the “Toddlers,” as they’re dubbed. As chairman of three recent Film Society galas, he moved the event from hotel ballrooms to music halls like Bimbo’s 365 Club, to mix things up.
Two years ago, he created a new Fall Celebration event to honor potential Academy Award nominees and attract A-list directors, producers and actors. Two months ago, he joined forces with Route One Entertainment, a firm cofounded by one of his Pacific Heights neighbors, Value Act Capital CEO Jeff Ubben, which uses venture capital principles to invest in films, TV, games and digital content — and provide opportunities for independent filmmakers to work outside the Hollywood system. San Francisco, for instance.
He’s encouraging area universities to strengthen their film programs to lure the next Wes Andersons and David O. Russells to San Francisco, rather than New York and Los Angeles.
And, if he has his way, the Film Society one day will be talked about in the same breath as the San Francisco Symphony, Opera and Ballet.
‘An incubator’
“I’m not kidding myself into thinking San Francisco will become like a Hollywood — it probably won’t for a long time,” Traina said. “What I do think is attainable is that it becomes more of an incubator for successful future filmmakers.”
One clue to Traina’s energy, aside from passion: an endless stream of caffeine and candy. During a morning interview at his Lyon Street home, where he lives with his wife, Katie, and daughter, Daisy, 8, Traina popped chocolates and sipped a cola as he spent an hour explaining how Hollywood used to work (taking big risks on blockbuster films), and how it works today (turning the focus to tech companies and new distribution models that include video-on-demand rights, cable rights and digital rights).
Tech money
Decades ago, Los Angeles was ground zero for filmmaking and financing. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, two rebels, planted roots in the north. Now, with the tech economy soaring in Northern California, Internet billionaires are aggressively investing in entertainment ventures, from filmmaking to video games to content on the Internet, and using venture capital models of financing to spread the risk. Traina has been in negotiations with Amazon, Yahoo, Netflix and Columbus on a variety of projects, but declined to share details because the deals have not yet closed.
Fueled by sugar
In a subsequent interview at his Pine Street office, he pulled out a bag of mini Cadbury creme eggs from a small fridge. “Who doesn’t love minis?” he asked rhetorically. “I always have a lot of sugar around.”
If Traina’s nutrition is based on the stuff of childhood, the way his mind works takes a cue from childhood, too. His brain twists and turns like a Rubik’s cube, trying out combinations of names and connections to solve the puzzles presented to him at any turn: Which supporting actress might be best for an upcoming film financed by Route One (Who has time in her schedule? Who would make a difference in the international box office revenues?) Which company to tap in fundraising for the gala? (As honorary gala chairs, Traina and his wife secured a $75,000 sponsorship from the online luxury retailer Net-a-Porter this year, because of their ties to society, tech and fashion.)
‘An immediate love affair’
It was the Film Society’s former executive director, Graham Leggat, who persuaded Traina to join the board while he was still in Los Angeles. “It was an immediate love affair,” Traina said of the charismatic Scotsman, who died of cancer in 2011. Traina admired his vision — to turn the Film Society’s efforts from a twoweek festival with a gala into an organization offering educational and filmmaker programs year-round. He was also inspired by Jennifer Rainin of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, who with Leggat created two key initiatives at the Film Society: the KRF Filmmaking Grant (“Fruitvale Station,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild”) and FilmHouse, a Chinatown incubator for directors. Through her late father’s foundation, she doles out $1 million in total to the two programs each year.
“We were struggling here — we’d gone through a period where (filmmaking) had lost its luster a little” in the Bay Area, Traina said. Francis (Ford Coppola) wasn’t making films. Production became expensive. Film crews had moved away. I got re-energized when I met Graham and when I met the board.”
“This is where his heart is,” Rainin said. “It’s such a natural fit for him to be involved in the film community here.”
Board members are expected to buy a table at the gala, attend six board meetings a year, and raise funds for the Film Society. Traina goes way beyond this, a zeal that is rare, said film industry consultant and longtime board member Melanie Blum, noting, “He gets what it is to be on a board. It’s not just writing a check but it’s actually rolling up your shirtsleeves and digging in.”
Affecting people’s lives
San Francisco has a long way to go before its film festival is on a par with a Sundance or a Tribeca, or the city becomes a hub for the shooting of films. But that is what’s in Traina’s sights.
“No matter how big the film or no matter how great a job I have or how big a position I have at Route One or any further company, I have an opportunity to affect people’s lives by supporting film,” Traina said. “I love San Francisco and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. So now that I’m here, I want to bring whatever I can to the table.”
Traina “is an incredibly important kind of connector between what traditional cultural life once was and what it will be in the future.” Noah Cowan, S.F. International Film Festival executive director