Today’s guest post is courtesy of James Fair.
When I wrote ‘Linearity is the Enemy’ for Ted last month, I briefly mentioned how I felt the ‘family tree’ style organisational structure of filmmaking could look more like a ‘mind map’. I want to clarify my point a little further and follow it with why I think it is relevant.
In Figure 1, I have drawn what many consider to be the model that represents filmmaking structure best.
For the past five years, Aron Gaudet and I dedicated our lives to making and distributing our film, The Way We Get By. Our story takes place in Bangor, Maine and profiles three senior citizens, who have dedicated their lives to greeting troops heading off to war and returning home. The story is about finding purpose in your life and the role service plays in helping overcome your own personal obstacles.
For our three subjects, greeting troops changed their lives, and in many ways, this film changed our lives—personally and professionally. We want to share with you the journey that we took—to inspire you to find your own business model to extend the life of your film and reach the largest possible audience.
FINDING A SPOT IN THE LINE-UP
Aron and I had certain goals we wanted to accomplish with our first feature-length project. We wanted to make a quality film and get it in front of an audience, but we also wanted to establish our careers as filmmakers. This meant some of our choices would be made because it was the best move for our film, and some would be made to help our careers.
Today’s guest post is by John S. Johnson. The Harmony Institute, a research group that John runs, is offering a free new guide to help combat the Telecom’s tales in their efforts to end net neutrality. Here he explains a bit of the why and wherefore you need to download it (for free!) and read it NOW.
In 2010 it’s easy to forget how profoundly the Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate, interact and access information. When you logged on this morning to check your email, bank statement, or local news you may not have noticed that there are very few limits placed on the sites and services you have access to. While some people must crash the couch of their best friend to catch the latest HBO release, since he’s subscribed to all premium cable channels while they’re still stuck with rabbit ears on their TV, no one has an edge over anyone else when it comes to what we can access on the Internet.
Yet this principle of net neutrality that allows all sites, services and applications on the Internet to have equal access to consumers, and vice versa, is being fundamentally threatened. Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking to revise rules that have kept Internet Service Providers (ISPs) at bay for decades. These companies, like AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon, would love to become the gatekeepers of the Internet, reserving preferential bandwidth for those sites and services that make them the most money.
And I can guarantee you HopeForFilm is not one of those sites.
