Faster that a speeding bullet. Check out the video here.
You can read about it here.
Whew!
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Author: Ted Hope
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Competition Is THE Problem
Lance Weiler gave an excellent presentation at Power To The Pixel in London a few weeks back. As he points out: competition is the problem.
He boils it down and provides the antidote (collaboration!) in a short powerpoint presentation here:
And if you want to hear and see it all with Lance actually presenting it, catch it here — he provides a great context for it all:
Another post from Jon Reiss:
I had the opportunity to see Lance Hammer’s Ballast on Sunday night at the Laemmle Sunset 5. It is a wonderful film and as you probably know – Lance eschewed the standard distribution deals he was offered and decided to self distribute. I had a chance to talk with him after the screening to compare war stories and we both agreed that there needs to be a paradigm shift on the definition of ”theatrical”.
“Theatrical” is the industry term for the first “window” of a release normally in movie theaters where they are screened for at least a week starting on a Friday night. This is a very limiting notion of what a theatrical experience should be and has the potential to constrain our own imagination of what constitutes a theatrical experience.
I feel that any screening in front of a live audience in which the film is projected in the dark with good sound – approximating the way in which the filmmaker originally intended (so long as they intended to screen it for such a live audience) should be considered a theatrical screening. This should include not only Hollywood’s definition of a typical theatrical run – but should also include festivals, museums, clubs, colleges, film societies or anyone else who will set up a screening of your film in front of a live audience in a manner acceptable to you. This should include Brave New Films network of Living Room Theaters (which are often much bigger than a living room – many of the screenings are in community centers).
Lance and I both agreed that some of our best screenings were in non-theatrical venues. Usually the film is screened for one or two nights and is promoted as a special event – which helps to pack the house.
We also agreed that we as filmmakers need to create a database of such venues similar to the Workbook Projects Theatrical Mapping Project. Eventually we should combine theatrical and non theatrical lists – but currently they need to be approached in slightly different ways – so I feel it is best to keep the lists separate for a little while.
Lance and I have agreed to cull our own information but we could use your help.
If you know of any non traditional venue that has screened films on a regular basis – such as museum, film society, college student or screening association, please send them to me at:
jon@jonreiss.com
and I will add them to the list (And of course post them here at TFF via a simple comment!)
We will post the list here at TFF for a start within the next couple of months.
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Cool Cars #2: Ferrari Monza
Ferrari has a car of the future: the Monza. It’s a car but you operate like you operate a computer. You tell it to do something, say go 243 miles per hour, and it does the rest.
Check it all out here.
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Ivan’s Cool Contraption
Bowlers know we have a nose for Goldbergian complexity. THE WAY THINGS WORK will forever remain our our list of Required Viewing. We also endorse “home-made” and “swede-ing” amongst all nose-wearers. We gave a Golden Honker today to Ivan in Austin for his embrace of all this goodness on 11/9/08.
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Aggregate NOW!!
I was listening to Scott Kirsner‘s podcast from Futures Of Entertainment 3 Conference on Digital Distribution recently, and heard Jim Flynn of EZTakes say they currently don’t charge clients to digitize and upload their content — that is clients that provide twenty or more titles. Since the two approved indie aggregators for iTunes (New Video & Docurama) evidently charge $500/title, EZTakes is looking like a sweet sweet deal.
This gives every Truly Free Filmmaker out on the festival circuit the mandate to aggregate on their own: you have got to find the other 19 filmmakers you want to keep company with AND YOU HAVE TO FIND THEM NOW. There’s got to be some young smart producer out there who wants to curry favor with 20 good filmmakers, right? If I was such a filmmaker I would definitely pay a cut of my revenue to whomever pulled such a feat together.
Maybe saving $500 is not enough of an incentive for you, or even getting your film up on the internet for digital download to own is still not enough of an incentive. All I can say is the reasons to keep good company, and as much of it as you can, will continue to multiply. I think at every festival the Truly Free Filmmakers need to organize their own summits and band together to maximize future opportunities for their films — be it building their own traveling festival, sharing theatrical booking tips, accessing download sites, or whatever: the filmakers united, will never be defeated. The others on the other hand…
