Author: Ted Hope

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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.

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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

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Truly Free Film

Digital Distribution, a Complex Way to Make Money

by Andrew Einspruch

Filmmaker Andrew Einspruch recently attended the Australian International Documentary Conference and wrote a series of articles for the event, which he’s graciously allowed us to reprint here. These articles originally appeared in Screen Hub, the daily online newspaper for Australian film and television professionals.

Tim Sparke, CEO of Mercury Media International, subtitled his talk Digital Distribution in a Traditional Market at this year’s AIDC with “Only for the Brave?” It is certainly a brave new world for filmmakers, with distribution possibilities popping up like mushrooms, and with a few dominant players emerging in certain markets. This is the context within in which your distribution decisions must now be made.

“The digital market can no longer be ignored,” said Sparke. “Over the past two years, those distributors who have schooled themselves on the complexities of the market, balancing digital against traditional and experimenting with creative windowing, have seen good returns.”

So how do you come to grips with that complexity?

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These Are Those Things

We Are Standing In The Dinosaur’s Footprint

The problems and the solutions are both hidden in plain sight.  We don’t know where we are even when the map is right in front of us.  What is this?

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These Are Those Things

Another Way Of Telling

I have had the pleasure of being a judge for the Disposable Film Festival.  Last night they rocked the house at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, celebrating the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival.

I almost forgot how much I love MALARIA.  It’s ambitious. It is risk taking.  It is fun. This is that:

 

Malaria from Edson Oda on Vimeo.