The way we watch TV shows is changing. Whether one is watching a movie or other program over a TV set, a PC or a mobile device, the size of the display screen matters in terms of a viewer’s appreciation of a show. A recent study by two ad service firms, YuMe and IPG Media Lab (IPG Mediabrands), analyzes consumer viewing experiences, comparing four TV screens – traditional TV, online TV, a PC and a smartphone. As it reports, “while the size of the video screen did drive more excitement, variables such as ad clutter, creative content, and context had …

Producer Matt Compton says he knew the feature he produced — a “thinking man’s horror film,” Midnight Son, directed by Scott Leberecht — would eventually be pirated. “I always knew the film would end up on the torrent sites,” he writes in an email, “and that there would be nothing I could do about it. If the major studios can’t stop piracy, surely an indie producer such as myself can do nothing.” But he wasn’t prepared for his film to show up three weeks before the film was commercially available, when whatever word-of-mouth to be gained by the filesharing couldn’t …

Our friends at the National Film Society sent over this video interview with the filmmakers who go by the name of Wong Fu Productions. If you don’t know them, what’s wrong with you? They have 1.2 million subscribers and over 190 million views. Here, they give us tips on audience building and navigating the waters of the video sharing giant.

A curious occurrence took place in the wake of the Aurora, CO, mass killing on the opening night screening of the latest Batman release, The Dark Knight Rises. Revenue from opening weekend ticket sales was $211.8 million, slightly less than the $222.2 million for The Dark Knight. This was the highest box office gross for a conventional 2D movie for 2012.  While the large turnout for the movie can be linked to a response to the shootings as much as the appeal of the movie, the numbers hide a darker truth. The movie business is shrinking.  Ticket sales and DVD …

I first met writer/director K. Lorrel Manning and actor/producer Michael Cuomo at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, where we found ourselves the fish-out-of-water New Yorkers in a sea full of Southwest cinephiles. Their SXSW 2011 (sold out) hit Happy New Year is grounded in star Cuomo’s nuanced portrayal of a fictional outsider named Cole Lewis, a sergeant who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and now finds himself battling demons both mental and physical in the psych ward of a veterans hospital. I spoke with the two about their veterans outreach effort, Indiegogo versus Kickstarter, and the best …

Prescreen, the independent film discovery and distribution platform, has suspended operations, reports Rip Empson for Techcrunch. Beginning as a kind of film-of-the-day online distributor and developing into a marketing and discovery platform integrated with Facebook Open Graph, Prescreen both rented films and offered audience data to filmmakers developing their marketing plans. In his piece, Empson talked with Prescreen founder Shawn Bercuson: While Prescreen saw interest both from users and filmmakers (and the co-founder added that some of its investors were willing to re-up), timing is crucial. The space is hot, and Bercuson believes that it’s inevitable that a platform like …

  I dropped in on the IFP Documentary Labs a couple of times, and one of the highlights for me was the “Web Tools for Documentary” workshop run by guest speaker Gary Hustwit, a filmmaker who used the web to great effect in the production and self-distribution of his “Design trilogy” of Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized. Hustwit, who worked in publishing and distribution before he moved behind the camera, really knows this stuff inside out – and considers his engagement with the web an integral part of what he does now. “I think of all this stuff as filmmaking – …

L.A.-based independent filmmaker Jeffrey Travis (Flatlands) brought his latest short, Pollution, to the Short Film Corner at Cannes, and he’s using the trip to also look for a foreign sales agent for his new independent feature, Dragon Day. Below he talks about stalking the aisles of the Cannes Film Market, and why he hopes international buyers will warm to a dystopian near-future drama that imagines a U.S. destroyed by a cyber attack from China. Filmmaker: So how has the Cannes Film Market been for you? Jeff Travis: It’s been interesting. Before I knew very little about the whole world of …

Jon Reiss has finally realized that the secret to indie-film tutorial success is having a catchy moniker. So, his DIY distribution-and-marketing book Think Outside the Box Office has now birthed what he is artfully dubbing “the TOTBO System.” If you’re a filmmaker, file this snazzy acronymn along GTB, Zen to Done, or 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Oh yeah, and you need a YouTube channel too. Reiss has relaunched his under the authoritative title “TheJonReiss.” Each week he’ll be posting excerpts from his workshops, which I recommend to anyone considering releasing his or her own film. Here he is …

New York City’s “Made in New York” marketing credit, which offers NY-shot movies and television productions free, co-branded citwide advertising, is expanding. Now offered to these productions are additional bus shelters, subway advertising and TV spots. Participating projects are eligible to receive the following packages (and, as noted, must pay a very small percentage of their production budget to a New York charity): A production with a below-the-line budget between $5-$10 million: 40 Bus Shelters (4 week run) 500 Subway boards (4 week run) 13,000 taxi cabs (2 week run) City covers cost of producing the creative elements production donates …