Film distribution in the digital age.
- Internet Week + Filmmakers
So I have almost completely ignored Internet Week this year (”The Internet”? That is so 2005). I plead absence- lots of travel this month. Anyhow, it’s not too late to attend IndieGoGo’s latest edition of “When Internet and Film Collide” parties. It’s at 4PM on Sunday the 7th at Katra and you have to RSVP here. If you go, let me know how it was and if the collision is leading to fusion yet.
- I want to rock and roll all night (and wake up in the gutter)
Ben from Shooting People was weighing the piracy issue a couple of weeks ago and its impact on independent filmmakers. The first dilemma is whether independent filmmakers can transition in the way indie bands have to be able to make money in other ways besides money for product transactions. In theory, this seems like it is the wave of the future- Robert Greenwald or Four Eyed Monsters-style. Filmmakers can, in theory, sell events versus selling DVDs, and potentially can make some money. No doubt touring in a bus is not as easy as having… [more]
- Post Fest Thoughts- is VOD the means or the ends?
Back from a great time at Cannes and Hot Docs- somewhere out there, there is footage of the panel I was on in Toronto but I’m not sure if it is essential viewing. The divide between distributable product and the vast masses that don’t fall into saleable niches is growing. Some niches seem to be growing too- given the lower financial commitments of getting films out digitally, perhaps there is a chance for new kinds of risks (though that hasn’t proven true so much yet).
With sales down in Cannes and the specialty film maket suffering, TV/VOD may be… [more]
- Free screening: RiP: A Remix Manifesto
“Mashing Up Copyright” - a screening of the new NFB film RiP: A Remix Manifesto and a discussion. Presented by the NY Film and Video Council.
WHEN: Friday May 1st; 6:30 pm
WHERE: The Cooper Union’s Wollman Auditorium, 51 Astor Place.
RSVP: 212-330-0450. The event is free… [more]
- Distribution for a New Era: Hot Docs panel action
If you’re at Hot Docs next month, you’re welcome to check out this panel on ‘The New Distribution’ I’ll be on. It’s Tuesday, May 5th at the Rogers Industry Centre and will concern:
As commissioning budgets shrink, distribution bucks the trend with acquisition and sales windfalls. Is it a sign of the times, or the ebb and flow of the market? Join our international sales and distribution powerbrokers’ status report on their theatrical, broadcast, DVD and online media ventures. Find out how they are working for filmmakers and adapting sales techniques to the new economy.
Not sure if there’s… [more]
- Points in Whose Favor? You and Charlie Wu
Taking a small meander away from distribution to look at an example of what’s going on in the ‘indies financing on the web’ scene, “You and Charlie Wu” is a microbudget project ($35K) hoping to entirely finance through Paypal donations. They have created a referral scheme in which supporters receive ‘points’ for donations made by friends, and the points are worth certain credit levels within the final crawl (sort of like selling off your special thanks section, I guess).
Anyway, thus far they are at 5% with this plan, so perhaps it’s not quite sure-fire- but it… [more]
- Digital Docs- upcoming workshop & networking event
I’ll be moderating a panel organized by NY Women in Film called “Digital Docs: Case Studies of Distributing Documentaries Online”. It’s on April 27 at 6:30 PM at NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, 20 Cooper Square. Panelists are Greta Schiller, Aaron Woolf, Lilibet Foster and Mark Lipsky.
We’ll definitely be talking about reaching audiences and how to maximize the potential of the internet without hurting (and ideally while complementing) your DVD, television, and screening revenues. What advice do you have for documentary filmmakers putting films online? Any words of caution?… [more]
- RiP, Snag, Friends, and Followers: Quick Hits
Some recent news of note:
RiP: A Remix Manifesto premiered at SXSW and has been ‘picked up’ in the US by B-Side, whose DIY model will presumably avert some of the bigger copyright issues that might be a problem for regular distributors.
Snag! Films has made a deal with Hulu to place films on that site. This begs the question for filmmakers of whether, when they license their film to one online market, they are permitting that company to resell their film elsewhere (presumably cutting into whatever revenue there might be). It’s probably a good idea… [more]
- CineGoGo is a different kind of “Festival Direct”
CineGoGo explains how they take films from the festival circuit and distribute them to the nontheatrical/semitheatrical market on HD… [more]
- Free movies, only not that many
A few weeks ago, Snag Films announced, by way of their subsidiary media outlet indieWIRE, that they had just closed an exciting deal with Cinetic Rights Management that would add over a hundred films to their catalogue and (in a curious bit of math) “add hundreds” more films to the documentary sharing widget’s playlist.
Cinetic has been very aggressive in their placement of films, and if one looks at the various online film channels and markets, the fruits of their labour are evident. Joost, Jaman, Hulu, Snag, Amazon, Netflix Watch Instantly, E-Z Takes and others are all flush… [more]
