a wormhole has opened up between Sundance Past and the Online Present. Through it, films seemingly lost in time — or swallowed up by the gaping maw of bad distribution deals, or no distribution deals — might find commercial redemption.
Thanks to a recent arrangement between the Sundance Institute, which operates the festival, and the Manhattan distributor New Video, six Web homes — Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, YouTube and SundanceNOW — are making Mr. Noonan’s movie, and any other eligible Sundance film, available for streaming online. The option is open to every film ever shown at the festival, or brought to a Sundance lab, or given a Sundance grant. Filmmakers don’t surrender their rights. They (17 so far, with thousands of potential participants) can opt to go with any or all of the half-dozen sites. They have, in essence, a guaranteed means of distribution.
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan at mediapost.com, writing about online video distributors like Hulu and Netflix:
Now don’t get me wrong, while content is king, monarchies are no longer in vogue; indeed the distributors have the power. Any producer that doesn’t “get this” is living in the past. But to ensure that advertisers keep the system running, distributors need to please viewers. To do that, you have to give viewers the content that they want when they want it.
The lesson is that producers are still paying the price for giving away too much, too easily, too fast. That kind of reputation is hard to shake. But once they realize they can have the upper hand if they play the game right — then maybe, just maybe, they can get the diamond they deserve.
Normally I’m not crazy about advertising gimmicks masquerading as corporate sponsored “film festivals,” but this one is creative and compelling. The video above is a compilation of some of their best entries. The competition is open until December 13th.
From the official website:
190 years ago Nicolas Rieussec recorded time to an accuracy of a fifth of a second. The chronograph was born.
To celebrate his invention we challenge you to “seize the moment” and capture the beauty of a second.
The subject? It can be anything as long as it celebrates the fragile beauty of this short-lived unit of time.
Long, scrolling infographics like the one linked here have become a bit of a fad – the best ones tell an engaging story by visualizing related information in ways that make that information easier to understand. This one doesn’t quite reach the heights that I’ve seen in really great infographics – it’s too monochromatic, and some of the information isn’t helped by its graphical presentation. Still, there are some good tidbits here. Raising funds through sites like Kickstarter is now an essential part of independent filmmaking so it’s good to know all you can about the phenomenon of “crowdfunding.”
It’s the day after Thanksgiving – let the shopping begin! And don’t forget the filmmaker in your life while you’re at it. Here are some things that are essential to any filmmaker entering the film festival circuit.
5. A good travel bag like the ones made by Crumpler. At a festival a filmmaker needs to carry all sorts of things with her – promotional postcards, screener DVDs, cell phone charger – the list goes on. Crumpler makes some of the best bags I’ve seen. They’re durable, attractive, and well-designed. For a festival day bag I recommend the Western Lawn messenger bag (pictured), but for more room consider The Complete Seed, a mammoth bag that can handle all your laptop/carry-on needs.
4. Submissions fees. Filmmakers spend a lot of money submitting to festivals and they rarely budget for this expense. You can help quite a bit by pledging to cover a submission or two. Fees run anywhere from $20 – $100 depending on the festival and timing (later deadlines are more expensive).
Yet another in our series of South by Southwest 2010 videos, this time with Brian Chirls, creator of Crowd Controls. This venture is based on his work with Four-Eyed Monsters and is currently powering some of the fan engagement with Iron Sky.
Thanks to Mark Potts for shooting and editing this video.
A. For us, Purple Violets didn’t have the highest profile. I don’t know how well it did for the financiers. The problem I’ve had the last couple years is, you make these films, you get released in New York and L.A., and then you’re going to platform from there. A lot of times you don’t get beyond the second platform. But I’ve always had the ability to get pretty decent publicity for my films. You have, let’s say, people in St. Louis and Kansas City and Cincinnati who might see Selma Blair on Conan talking about the film, get really excited for it, and then it doesn’t get to that city. And by the time it comes out on DVD, they’ve forgotten about seeing Selma Blair and getting excited. What the iTunes thing enabled, in the moment when you have your greatest heat, publicity-wise, everybody who’s into your film can access your film. For the small movies, that’s probably the model that makes the most sense.
According to a YouTube spokesperson via email, “When we announced YouTube Rentals in January we said we would be creating a destination after more partners joined the program. To date, we have nearly 500 partners that have joined our Rental program.
YouTube’s online rental concept was introduced at the Sundance Film Festival in January and it looks like their model of presenting films currently running the festival circuit will continue. For example, you can rent Metropia (which has played extensively in Europe, at Fantastic Fest, and is now playing at Tribeca) on YouTube for $5.99.
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