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Truly Free Film

Filmonomics: Let The Right Ones In

By Colin Brown

Think you’ve got problems getting your films financed and seen by audiences? Well, you are in shockingly good company. In recent weeks, everyone from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to Steven SoderberghJohn TravoltaMike FiggisDavid Lynch and Lynda Obst have all bemoaned the near-impossibility of getting their own pet projects onto the big screen. Taken together, their published comments are a scathing indictment of a film establishment that is only obsessed with pre-assembled projects that pander to the planet’s widest common denominators.

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Issues and Actions

The Academy Is Indie Friendly

I got some pleasure and many smiles seeing many indie types and indie friends on this list.  It is a record number.

This is their Press Release, naming the names.
 
ACADEMY INVITES 276 TO MEMBERSHIP

Categories
Issues and Actions

What Can Film Biz Learn From The Fashion Industry?

The Fashion Industry has no copyright protection on design (only on trademarks). And their revenues are colossal. #JustSaying

This is a great lecture by Johanna Blakely and totally worth thinking about.

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Truly Free Film

A Call to Action: Teach Yourself!

By Reid Rosefelt

As I’ve said before, attempting to game social media is like trying to playing chess with a computer that can change the rules at will.   Every social media guru is aware of this, as social media changes like the wind.

This is why I’m not interested in writing “[INSERT NUMBER HERE] THINGS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT PINTEREST.”   Rather than pretend to be an expert by recycling other people’s insights and research, I’d rather direct you to the original thinkers here.

More importantly, when you are dealing with something that is always changing, trusting experts isn’t always the best idea.  I think you should be proactive–not just a passive receiver of other people’s ideas.  I’d rather suggest a working process, instead of “tips.”  I’m talking about curiosity and a willingness to make your own experiments.  

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Truly Free Film

What Do I Want To Do Professionally Right Now?

I was doing my mission check the other morning. I think you know that I find it useful to look at where you are and collect your thoughts on how you want to live your life, both personally and professionally, creatively and practically.

It is hard to determine your path if you don’t know your goals, right?  Granted it is also hard to live your life if you are focused only on your goals, but that is for another post (as is how to pursue your goals when you aren’t paid enough to both survive and pursue them).

This is my professional assessment of my work at this distinct moment in time.  The numbers are relatively arbitrary and not fully prioritized.  I hope I haven’t aimed too high…

1. I want to help create ambitious and diverse works of cinema, help them get seen, and make sure the creators & their supporters directly financially benefit from that work.

2. I want to use my labor, passion, determination, and intellect in

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Startup: Post # 30: Movie Live on VoD…Now What?

By Roger Jackson

Previously: The Vision Thing

Progress Bar

If you’ve submitted a feature or documentary to KinoNation, you were probably a little overwhelmed at first by all the metadata that’s required. We just made the process much easier by including a real-time Progress Bar, with a dynamic list of what required metadata is still missing.  We’ve also radically simplified the signup & login process. Check it out, the sooner you submit (or complete) a film, the sooner we can get it distributed.

Movie Live on VoD…Now What?

KinoNation films are now going live every day on our beta partners Hulu, Amazon and Viewster. And they’re getting watched. And generating revenue for the filmmakers. So now’s a good time to get into the weeds about marketing. i.e. what concrete steps can get people to discover your film on video-on-demand? And once they’ve discovered it, how do you get them to start watching…and keep watching ‘till the end credits roll? What’s at stake is whether your film makes, for example, a trivial $250 on Hulu in 2014 — or it makes $25,000. And then repeat that across a dozen other platforms? It’s what Gravitas Ventures CEO Nolan Gallagher calls “The Last Mile” — and like every other part of the filmmaking process, it requires imagination, hard work and persistence.

Early Success

Roseanne Liang submitted her documentary “Banana in a Nutshell” to KinoNation a few months ago. Roseanne in the doc is the “banana” — that is, white on the inside, yellow on the outside.

Categories
Truly Free Film

This Is The Era Of The Storyworld

One-off film is a fool’s errand.  When the biggest challenge before filmmakers is not creating great work, or getting good work financed, but actually getting people to watch interesting and ambitious cinema, we must recognize that practices and processes must change.

As I like to stress, the only sane response to an overabundance of