Month: January 2013

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Truly Free Film

Filmmakers, It’s 2013. Do You Know Where Your Jobs Act Is? Part 1

Written by Michael R. Barnard
FILMMAKERS, IT’S 2013. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR JOBS ACT IS?
PART 1 of 3 parts
Young filmmakers today – those of you in your early to mid-twenties – entered filmmaking after the Great Recession and complications of rapid technological developments began to cripple the independent filmmaking industry in America. You entered the field just as the then-new perks-based donor crowdfunding function blossomed in the debris of crushed distribution companies, shrunken Minimum Guarantees, destroyed bank credit, and disappearance of most equity investment by hedge funds, institutions, and high-net-worth individuals. Those of us who are older are still smarting from the destruction, still aware of the way things had been.
The independent film industry in America shows signs of poverty, with many independent filmmakers living lives of ‘the starving artist,’ and jobs within the industry seem to be rare. Rarer still are consistent jobs that pay a living wage.
President Obama signed into law the American JOBS Act last spring. Called the “Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act,” its purpose is to help Americans who have good, sound business projects to attract cash from investors more easily. Businesses create jobs and hire people, and America needs that. The independent film industry in America needs that.
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Truly Free Film

Only YOU Can Stop Our Indie Film & Media Culture From Vanishing

I was invited to contribute to the “Wish For The Future” series on Good.is.  This is mine:

When do we stop just thinking about ourselves and instead start working together? I am not talking about saving the world; I am writing about preserving and advancing ambitious film and media culture. It’s threatened, and no one individual will ever rescue it. My wish for the future is for the creative community, locally, nationally and globally, to work together to build the better indie infrastructure that is now possible.

For the past four years, I have been

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Truly Free Film

Blue Potato – Breaking Down the Barriers of Film Marketing

By Kavita Pullapilly

You’ve heard about Fortune 500 companies signing product placement and marketing deals with big studio movies. But it’s next to impossible to actually get a significant marketing deal on an independent film. Filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly’s feature film, Blue Potato,  signed a deal with Terra Chips that will become a game changer for how independent films work with companies to support a distributor’s marketing efforts and increase audience engagement and visibility for the film. This high value deal will not only enhance a distributor’s advertising campaign for the film but open up new lines of marketing exposure that have not been done at the independent level.

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Truly Free Film

Film Festivals Offer The Life Lessons For Longevity

By Kellie Ann Benz

Okay, I’ll admit it. I think ‘Jersey Shore’ offered some of the best life lessons. I’m not too cool to reveal that I gleaned much from the leg-humping silverbacks who F-bombed their way into obscurity on that cautionary tale of a show.

Replace, if you will, their onenightstandpad with a film festival party, and you can see how they offered all of us a first rate how-NOT-to for which should be grateful. 

I cite their example as a sobering reminder for everyone packing for their first film festival.

First, the good news. Film festivals are wicked wild fun.  Truly.

Festival attendees are some of the most electric creatives you’ll ever meet – and when actors or actresses are in attendance, some of the most beautiful humans you’ll ever see with your own eyeballs – film festivals offer a throwback to Dominick Dunne-esque invitation only cocktail parties.  At the best international festivals, the ribald wits congregate as safe harbour from a cruel, cruel world that only understands their stories when told in a linear three act structure.  At the discovery-zone of regional indie festivals, you can feel welcomed into an exclusive club where only the cinematic smarty-pants go.

For the chosen ones with films competing, a film festival is

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Truly Free Film

Indie Films Are Our Best Ambassadors To The World

“Indie films are our best ambassadors to the world. They show the diversity of who we are and they travel without passports. If people were only forced to observe commercial cinema, they would think we all wore superhero costumes and carried assault rifles. These movies speak to our more expansive nature.”

So ends the article The Wrap released on Wednesday regarding the wonderful news that The San Francisco Film Society’s funding from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation for artist grants shall go on indefinitely.  And yes that’s my quote — but I am sort of paraphrasing my wife’s grandfather, the producer Walter Wanger.

Read the whole article here.  It’s pretty great news: “This funding will allow filmmakers to afford to take creative risk away from day to day commercial concerns”.  But is that initial quote that keeps coming back to me.

Yesterday,

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These Are Those Things

What Are Great Short Films? Well, These Are Some.

This is my Pinterest Board of Short Films I like.

What have I neglected? What would you like to suggest we all watch? What do you think is the best short films of all time?

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Truly Free Film

Forward! The Digital Future: Embracing the Web Producers

By Rob Millis
 
Hollywood and New York came together in Las Vegas this week for the largest event in technology and entertainment, the Consumer Electronics Show. The future of film has always been determined in part by what happens at CES every year. The massive industry conference helped launch VHS, LaserDisc, DVD, Xbox and every other major technology used to distribute and watch movies. Canon, Avid, Sony and every other major supplier of production tech demonstrate their latest and greatest in Las Vegas too.

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