Month: December 2008

Categories
Truly Free Film

Brand Sponsorship: The Various New Tools

I got one of my first breaks in the film business over twenty years ago.  I walked into a production office and told them that I could raise over $100K of product placement for their indie film.  No one was doing it in those days and there was no how-to guide.  I told them they did not have to pay me unless I was successful.  I went to the library did some research on companies, and started cold calling.  It was pretty much a piece of cake.

Nowadays there are many product placement agencies that the brands contract with to seek out good placement opportunities.  On a typical indie film, you hire a rights clearance and product placement person to work with you clearing and obtaining trademarked items.  It’s a labor intensive field based around relationships and know how.
With the ubiquity of user-generated content, new opportunities have risen not only for the brands, but also for filmmakers.  Although I don’t know of any pot-of-gold stories, there are a handful of new services looking to bring efficiencies to the field by helping brands and creators utilize various online tools.  Granted no artist desires to turn their work into a walking advertisement, but brands also have an incentive to bring audiences to a work that they are featured in.  Careful consideration can yield a win-win situation.  
Which of these new services are the best?  What other ones are out there?  How do they differ?  I don’t know, but maybe some of you do.  These are the ones that I have found so far:
PlaceVine
StoryBids
XLNTads
Categories
Issues and Actions

Net Neutrality Update

There is a lot of buzz around about Google’s supposed abandonment of  their pro-Net Neutrality position due to what is being called a misleading and poorly reported article in today’s WSJ.

Save The Internet does a great round up of the issue and current state of affairs (as usual).  Read it now.
Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Good Website: NASA’s Mars Program Funzone

NASA has a website dedicated to the Mars Program.  And they have a whole bowl full of games.  What are you doing?  Get over to Mars.

Categories
Truly Free Film

Wanted: A National Collection Agency

Over the years I have heard filmmakers, executives, and lawyers profess the need for a public collection agency to work with international/territorial film licensors.  The concept is that there would be a neutral party that the licensors pay their contracted fees to, and in return for both collecting these fees and dispersing them out to the contracted parties, the agency takes a small percentage.  Although there is no US body doing this on American filmmakers behalf, these collection agencies do exist in other countries.  It remains a good idea, but the need has morphed and expanded with all the activity in the DIY distribution arena.

It’s hard enough to think all the bookers at the the various theaters want to hear from all the filmmakers eager to screen their work.  It’s harder still to imagine the theater owners want to squabble with these filmmakers over how much they are owed.  What’s needed is a neutral party to collect and distribute the theatrical receipts and a set of rules on what needs to be provided to demonstrate earnings.
This would be a great undertaking for either the IFP or Film Independent to embrace.  Frankly though it could be done just as easily as a for-profit venture and is the sort of low-cost infrastructure build that is perfect for the risk adverse type that still wants to be in the media space; I have to imagine that for less than the cost of another Sundance-wannabe feature, an investor could create a self-sustaining entity that benefits the entire community and our culture as a whole.
Such an agency would also be a very unique entity in terms of its data mining potential.  How great would it be if the funder embraced an open source attitude too?  Well, a guy can dream can’t he?
Categories
These Are Those Things

Timesculpture

Not having cable or being a television watcher, I miss out on some culture, some artistry, some trends. I am glad there are ways to make up for that now. Maybe it’s an odd thing to select to watch advertisements. But when someone reorders the world into new art, I want to see it. I also want it explained. I was glad to find this out there too:

And thanks to The NYTimes YEAR IN IDEAS for tipping me to this too.

Categories
The Next Good Idea

It’s That Time Of The Year Again

When the NYTimes publishes its Year In Ideas issue, its time for rejoicing.  Outside of an election year like this one, nothing helps me get excited for the future like this little round up (well, on a non-personal level that is).  

Wondering about how to spend your weekend or what to read on the john today, read the Year In Ideas.  Well, I guess on the latter option, you should go out and buy the newspaper (remember those?).

I hope to follow up on some of the ideas listed in this issue in the weeks ahead, but they have lots of good ones: the bio-mechanical energy harvester, the bus-wait formula, the climate change defense, the dog-poop DNA bank, fast-food zoning, plants’ rights,  and vending machines for crows, in addition to lots of interesting observations, like the glass cliff women are often asked to jump off of and the reach of wage inequality.
Categories
Truly Free Film

Who Is Doing It Well?

What are some good examples of filmmakers, beyond our TFF Heroes, who are reaching out to audiences early, engaging them with good content, maintaining a rich dialogue with them, and then working with them to get their work seen?  Who are those artists who are providing more than the one way relationship of “here is my film to watch”?  Who has reach beyond the limits of a single film / single platform paradigm and climbed on the cross-platform cohesion engine?  

We want to know.  We want to help your work reach the audience.  We want to show how it can be done.  And we’d like to discuss it.  If you generate this work or just locate it and love it — even if you hate it! — please bring it to us.  Let’s build this list too.