Month: April 2014

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Truly Free Film

BondIt: Organizing Big Data & Technology Theory For a Better Film Business

By Luke Taylor & Matthew Helderman

UploadThe term “big data” gets thrown around more often in technology circles then within film producing circles — but recently there’s been a shift. A noticeable shift that becomes obvious when a producer steps back and analyzes how the majority of their pre-production, production and post-production problems are solved. Whether it’s financing a new project, searching for potential talent or calculating an ROI structure.

Big data, the practice of organizing large quantities of information, has radically transformed every industry.

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Categories
These Are Those Things

What Makes YOU Happy?

When I lived in NYC, I walked around unconsciously listing out everything that made me angry. I was able to get a decent amount done by piling up the chips on my shoulders.

Recently, friends’ lent us their Venice, CA home. They were generous and it was lovely, with an open courtyard and perfect water pressure. Outdoor space & a good shower is so inspiring. 

It led me to something I think I will make a seasonal ritual:

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Truly Free Film

A Participatory Documentary, Is It Possible?

By Mike Hedge

Every summer, deep in the Nevada desert, a temporary city is created by tens of thousands of people. This week-long celebration is known as Burning Man. Radical participation, gifting, self-reliance, and self-expression, are a few of the core principles.

After many years of post production, we have finally finished our huge participatory documentary, As The Dust Settles, which was shot out at Burning Man during the summer of 2008.

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Issues and Actions

Foreign Sales Agent Masterlist

Courtesy of Screen Australia and sourced via Sheri Candler, three cheers for the sharing of information!

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Truly Free Film

Filmmakers: Why 1% is the Most Important Number

By Scott McMahon

Screen shot 2014-04-14 at 10.13.43 PMFilmmakers, what comes to mind when you think of 1%?

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement perhaps?

1% Milk?

Hmm … maybe …

1% RULE OF THE INTERNET

(From Wikipedia, because it’s fact)

In Internet culture, the 1% rule is a rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk.

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Truly Free Film

What Issues Do Filmmakers Need To Track?

If filmmakers don't track core issues, they will find their form abandoned in the parking lotA creative life is a precarious thing.  Actions occur that could profoundly effect your ability to earn a living doing what you love.  We get blindsided again and again, sometimes not recognizing things until they are too late to alter them.  It’s one of the reasons I have tried to meticulously track for you what are the good thing and bad things happening in indie film these days.  Yet, it seems to me we all need to do a better job of tracking them if we don’t want to get trapped in a future we won’t be part of..

My thought is that we should be able to define a series of issues in which we can put events, ideas, and articles into as they occur, helping each other stay on top of them. 

The first step is to define the issues.  That is what I am doing today .

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Truly Free Film

Diary of a Film Start-Up: Post #48: What You Must Know About Amazon CreateSpace

KNLOGOBy Roger Jackson

Previously: Quality Control or Why Films Fail

Filmmakers frequently upload their movies to Kinonation after they’ve submitted to Amazon’s CreateSpace service. This is a truly excellent service for book authors, musicians and filmmakers to self-publish their creative work and make it available on Amazon.com. And in the context of films, a good way to make DVDs available without upfront expense.

BUT: for getting a film onto Amazon there are many reasons to use a specialist VOD aggregator like Kinonation, instead of CreateSpace. I’m not saying that out of self interest. Yes, Kinonation (or any aggregator) takes a fee or percentage of gross revenue – in our case 20%. But it’s much more about video quality, speed, marketing and, above all, access to many more Amazon US and global platforms, including Amazon Prime.

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