Advertisers have long linked up with Hollywood by placing their products within films or trotting out stars as their official sponsors. But some companies are now going a step further, investing directly in movie productions in the hopes of striking even deeper connections with film audiences. In what could be the latest trend in the financing of independent films, Unilever brand Dove has agreed to invest $3 million — about one-fifth of the budget — into "The Women," the first theatrical movie by Diane English, the creative force behind the hit television series "Murphy Brown." Gatorade, the sports drink maker, quietly put up $3 million for the production of "Gracie," a story about a girls soccer team that is coming out this weekend.
While radically divergent in content, Killer of Sheep is a kindred spirit to Todd Haynes's first film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, and Cocksucker Blues (photographer Robert Frank's anarchic, drug-fueled 1972 Rolling Stones tour documentary) in that it's been legally prevented for decades from having a commercial release.
For the last few years, there has been a debate brewing about the death of the theatrical experience. With so many things fighting for people’s attention, and the downward trend in box office returns, I have often found myself wondering if the communal theatrical experience of viewing films on the large screen was in fact dying a slow death. Sure people enjoy going to the movies but the only thing that keeps the institution in tact is the release window that ensures a movie can only be seen in the theater when it is first released.
As the transition from film to digital feature production ramps up before us, one thing is certain: HD is here. Still to be answered, however, is the dilemma: is HD there yet?
This week I wanted to focus on a next generation social network called Webjam, which is based out of the UK. It has been labeled a myspace on steroids, due to its rich feature set. This past week Webjam opened their beta site, which previously required registration to see its community’s pages.
A good filmmaking forum
Has an excellent web forum where a lot of film noobs can learn about certain aspects of production. Main website also links off to some great "moviemaking technique" videos (linked also):
Website for the magazine - some good articles and a forum
Great way to search & quickly submit to film festivals online. I believe users that use this service to sign up for a film festival get a discount on their entry fee. Also have a new social network in the works for filmmakers called Audience.
A number interesting filmmaker resources.
A bit dated but still has some interesting info. "This section of our website is designed to be a resource for independent filmmakers working with very limited resources. For those needing to do more with less, we will provide as much useful information as possible."
In part two of their 1/3in chip camera test, Rodney Charters and Taylor Wigton introduce the Canon XL H1 and Panasonic HVX200 to the rigours of high-end drama production on the set of 24.
Could the new breed of 1/3in HD-style cameras have what it takes to replace film on high-end TV series such as the groundbreaking 24? That’s what 24’s DP Rodney Charters ASC CSC and fellow DP Taylor Wigton have been endeavouring to find out.
I am a filmmaker by trade and after making two feature films, I have come to value the social interaction that can be found at a film festival. There is a sense of discovery and discussion that surrounds films during a festival, and I often find myself searching for simple ways to bring a sense of community to the video I place online.
Each year thousands of film enthusiasts make the annual pilgrimage to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. In the past I have made the trek, but due to a prior engagement I will not be able to attend this year. I love the sense of community that can be found at a festival, thanks to the diversity of films and people who attend. Missing this year’s festival got me thinking about how I might be able to create the experience virtually.
I have been seeing more and more about mobile social software. With the flood of new handheld devices and the spread of broadband access, it felt like a good time to explore options for building my own mobile site.
“Do it yourself” is a simple phrase. Filmmakers have been “doing it themselves” for years, especially when it comes to production. However, the concept of DIY distribution, often considered to be a last resort or even a sign of failure, has recently become a first choice for many filmmakers. The digital video revolution of the late ’90s ushered in a new wave of filmmaking by making the tools of production accessible to the masses. That democratization has, in 2007, become a bittersweet reality. While producing new voices and stories, it has overloaded the current system, flooding festivals, distributors and theaters with movies. The old adage that quality work floats to the surface is quickly becoming a myth, especially with the thousands of films produced every year.
With digital-video cameras, credit cards and Final Cut Pro, any aspiring director can make a movie for $100,000. But few producers can earn a living helping directors make these no-budget productions.
The Bagger watched with some amusement as the gatekeepers of journalistic Hollywood gently knocked down David Denby’s big heave about movies in the New Yorker.
The device was as elegant as an old cigarette case and not much larger than a child’s palm. I was holding a video iPod, poised at the frontier of a new digital age, a new platform for movies, a new convenience that will annihilate old paradigms. Last spring and summer, when I visited a number of executives and tech guys in big-studio Hollywood, I kept hearing disdain for the mall cinemas and the multiplexes—the theatres in which most Americans see movies. And I heard a new mantra: “Content on demand—when you want it, where you want it, and how you want it.” By the end of the summer, movies were beginning to flow into homes and portable devices through the Internet. In September, Apple began offering previously released Disney movies through its iTunes Store. I downloaded the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” onto my hard drive, then put it onto a video iPod. The screen was only two inches across.
Interesting but an older report. Digital technology is transforming filmmaking. And policymakers are scrambling to catch up with the changes. What policies are good for independent filmmakers? What are the hot issues, and what are the positions that best support the creativity and diversity that independent filmmakers represent? Digital Futures: A Need-to-Know Policy Guide for Independent Filmmakers answers those questions with to-the-point answers. Funded by the Ford Foundation.
SofaTube is a specially designed web application that lets you browse and watch videos from YouTube and Revver in your living room. While you can just as easily visit these two sites directly, both sites were designed to be used on a high resolution computer monitor and viewed 2 feet away from the screen. SofaTube, on the other hand, was developed to be used in a living room environment where viewers are usually sitting far away from their standard or high definition television. SofaTube was designed and developed by Red Kawa.
Videora 2.0 is the latest version of our new personal video downloading program. Utilizing BitTorrent peer to peer technology and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds, Videora automatically and intelligently finds and downloads video you want to watch. With easy to use features like Watch Lists and Season Tickets you will be able to watch your favorite video, no matter where you are in the world. All you need to get started is a broadband internet connection and Windows.
I had the chance to participate in the beta of "The Venice Project", the next project of the Kazaa and Skype founders. The website describes the software as a new venture that combines the best elements of the TV experience with the most powerful Internet technologies. To me, this sounds like another Peer-To-Peer application or a video download service. But it definitely is not. At this point, there is no access to Live-TV, it is more like a Video-On-Demand (VoD) service.
From financing to marketing and distribution, savvy filmmakers are using the internet to take control of how their films are made and seen.
Something that worked well for the promotion of my newest feature, HEAD TRAUMA was the creation of digital swag. Our mantra became “embed and spread” as we made everything easy to access and share. The approach worked well within social networking sites like myspace, where you can embed flash and html into your profile.
This page assembles a number of DIY projects that have been mentioned on Self-Reliant Film. It also includes “6 Thoughts on DIY Projects”, to-date the single most popular post made on this website.
Creating a Podcast That will be iTunes-compatible
New revenue opportunities are emerging with the recent boom in video viewing on the Web. On this chart, I've tried to list all of the Web sites that enable independent video producers to make money from their work. I've ranked the sites subjectively, based on how much traffic and buzz they've been attracting, and also how likely it seems that a video producer would actually manage to earn a significant return by posting a video to them. (Media companies with large libraries have a wider range of options for monetizing their content, including Apple's iTunes Music Store, Movielink, and Vongo.)
These two guys are really thinking seriously about web video as a medium, and you should check out their conversation. Here's how Kirsner sets it up: "We talked about short-form versus long-form, amateur versus professional, fiction versus non-fiction co
From its very start, the movie industry in America has been tilted against the independent filmmaker, and designed to exclude the entrepreneur. Yet almost every important cinematic innovation of the past century – from sound to color to 3-D to the wides
A 24p HD PD170? Good things may come in small packages... In early November, a Sony product manager delivered a pre-production HVR-V1 HDV camcorder, one of seven then floating around the country. The camera came bubble-wrapped in an aluminum camera case c
The first in a series of Workbook podcasts called "this conference is being recorded" This week we catch up with Alex Afterman from HERETIC FILMS to discuss getting your workout to retail and rental outlets.
Discussions and case studies around DIY distro. Arin Crumley, Susan Buice, Tiffany Shlain, Lance Weiler, David Strauss moderated by Liz Rosenthal
Lynch will work with theatrical and home video partners to launch his epic fever dream of a film, retaining all rights to the low-budget project in each deal. The partnerships will be announced within the next week. "Basically we learned a lot from ou
Gilliam had a revolutionary idea: Why not get the audience to pay for a movie before it gets made? He calls it "People Powered Film." It could be the start of something. Gilliam founded Brave New Films in 2004 along with Robert Greenwald, the documentary
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