Tag: video stores

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Truly Free Film

IndieStreet Post #11: The Rebirth of the Indie Video Store Experience — Why Human Curation Will Never Die

By Lindsay Blair Goeldner

Screen shot 2013-08-19 at 4.51.06 PM

Previously: Sundance 2014 — a Microcosm of a Greater Divides

At Indie Street we are holding on to all hope that the interpersonal human elements of storytelling will never fade away into obsoleteness.  The following piece comes from one of Indie Street’s own curators.  While she is not programming a film festival or being one of the coolest computer programming chicks in the game, Lindsay finds time to work at one of the last Indie Video Rental Stores in Canada.  Who better to get a street level breakdown about the effects of technology on film consumer’s behavior…Enjoy!

Screen shot 2014-02-24 at 12.53.06 PMThe death of the indie video store is imminent. At least that’s what everyone tells me. Working as a video store clerk in one of a handful of stores (Queen Video) in Toronto is both a blessing and a burden. While the job remains interesting, I’m continually receiving remarks about how great it is that we’re still open. In the wake of the Blockbuster collapse, the independent video store flourished. Business seemed better than usual around late 2011 when the last Blockbusters were closing down in Canada. At that point in time, Netflix had already arrived, and streaming was still popular, but for some reason many people did not want to let go of the video store experience.

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Truly Free Film

Over 30 Really Bad Things In The Indie Film Biz 2013

"It Feels Like A War Zone" 30 Really Bad Things About #IndieFilm Biz 2013
“It Feels Like A War Zone” 30 Really Bad Things About #IndieFilm Biz 2013

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Ah…  I have given my thanks so now it’s that time of the year when I get to complain about what’s wrong — and what hasn’t yet been fixed.  I have done this before (several times), but this is that post on where we are right now. Like always, I suggest you don’t forget that lists like these only make the foolish despair.  After all, we can build it better together.  Let’s take this post as an action list. All are opportunities to truly ToDo. It does not need to be this way.

  1. The film business lives in Bizarro World, thinking we do something for the love of it, but in fact creating something far far far away from what we actually love — and thus making it so much harder to do what we love in the process. We have turned our strengths into our weaknesses. The worst of course is we now take it for granted that this is how it is and this is what the film biz needs be (if you are not fully following me here, I suggest you click on the link above).  It’s not and it doesn’t but I don’t hear a whole lot of folks saying we need a complete systems reboot of the whole film ecosystem (see #2).
  2. It’s not enough to just think outside the box.  The box is a trap and a false representation of a reality.  We have to break the box, probably smash it to bits and then
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