As Vladan Nikolic’s Zenith continues its slow roll-out — finishing its U.S. screenings while premiering on Amazon and iTunes — I thought I’d post on the blog this piece on the film that originally ran in slightly different form in our Winter, 2011 issue. “What is Zenith?” was the question posed on About Top Secret and other conspiracy-related websites last Spring. Paranoid-minded posters jumped in and followed a breadcrumb-trail of online clues relating to everything from the Bavarian Illuminati and fluoridated drinking water to biochemistry and the New World Order. They clicked through a maze of 50 other websites (priestoftruth.com, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2011After reading that Warner Bros was streaming The Dark Knight and soon thereafter the Harry Potter films though Facebook, I immediately thought it was a genius move. More information is shared on Facebook, and this would be a great way to close the window between discovery and consumption. In addition, on Facebook distributors and filmmakers are provided very meaningful analytics — and then, of course, there’s the monetization aspect. In Part One of this two-part email interview I talk to David Raycroft, co-founder and Vice-President of Product and Operations of Milyoni, the company that made this all happen. He talks […]
by Malaika Mose on Apr 27, 2011“You have no idea what you’ve created, and how many people this will help” I was wrapped in warm embrace with a woman I had just barely met when she whispered this sentence into my ear. We were standing in the lobby of the Egyptian Theater in downtown Boise, Idaho where my film, JENS PULVER | DRIVEN, had just let out after a lengthy and fairly emotional Q&A with me and Jens Pulver, the subject of my film. This surprising interaction was the first of many that night, and one that came as quite a shock to both myself and Pulver. I […]
by Gregorybayne on Apr 4, 2011At the Los Angeles New Music Seminar yesterday Ian Rogers from the fulfillment service Topspin gave a talk titled “Getting Practical: a Step-by-Step Sales Plan to Building an Online Sales Plan That Works.” Topspin has posted the PowerPoint slides on its website. The specific plan is oriented towards musicians, but Topspin services filmmakers too, and there’s relevant info here for those looking to build an online business. It’s all about converting casual listeners to fans and followers, getting them to throw down for the swanky merch and not just the buck downloads, and there are recommendations here for maintaining a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 18, 2011Brent Green is a self taught filmmaker and artist who lives and works in the Appalachian hills of Pennsylvania. His unique hand drawn and stop motion short films have played venues including the Sundance Film Festival, the L.A. Film Festival and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. He was also one of Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces in 2005. Recently he wrapped up filming his first feature-length film, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then. Shot entirely in stop motion using human beings, the film tells the true story of Leonard and Mary Wood, two people joyously brought together but separated through forces far […]
by Webadmin on Feb 17, 2011Filmmaker Christopher Boghosian has a great post up today at Truly Free Film. Titled, “I am a Nobody Filmmaker,” it’s not a self-pitying whine but rather a rational discussion of what a young and relatively unknown filmmaker can expect from the independent film marketplace as well as audience. He writes: I’m a nobody filmmaker: I don’t have a recognizable name nor a recognizable film. In essence, most of the world couldn’t care less about me nor my movies. This sounds pathetic, I know, but coming to grips with this reality has truly liberated me and provided an invaluable perspective on […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2011Before I posted Thursday’s blog post about financial troubles at independent fulfillment service Neoflix, I tried to reach its owner and president, JC, for his account of the situation. Tonight I received from him an email addressed to me and Jon Reiss, whose blog post I included in my posting. I am reprinting JC”s response here in its entirety Dear Jon and Scott, Those in the Indie film community who are interested in self-distribution deserve a direct update from me on Neoflix shutting down. I hope you will include this letter in its totality in any articles or blog posts […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2011Neoflix, a fulfillment house used by many self-distributing independent filmmakers, has fallen severely behind on its payments, say filmmakers and producers who have contracted with the company. Today in a blog post, filmmaker and former Neoflix customer Jon Reiss writes, “I have received reports from a number of filmmakers that they have not been paid by Neoflix for months. Some filmmakers are owed hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.” Separately, Filmmaker has also been contacted by filmmakers who say they are owed money by Neoflix. We have been told that discussions with the company throughout the Fall of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2011Gregory Bayne shoots Jens Pulver. Photo courtesy Alex Couey. A short collection of observations from my year of DIY. My name is Gregory Bayne, and in 2010 I stumbled into a full time “DIY” film career without a back up, without a net, and without, in many respects, a clue. And, though over the course of 2010 I ran two successful crowd-funding campaigns (http://bit.ly/drivenks, http://bit.ly/poiks), made a fully fan-funded documentary feature (that people really seem to love), and released, with my collaborator, a narrative feature…I made less than enough money to scrape by, and currently find myself about to start […]
by Gregorybayne on Jan 3, 2011It’s Independent Film Week and the IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Conference, so I thought I’d bring up Radiohead before some panelist does. A couple of years ago I remember sitting at a panel (not at the IFP, actually) at which a young filmmaker was asking how to jumpstart his own business model. A guy onstage in a suit who probably billed at $600 an hour looked at him and said, “The answer is Radiohead,” referring to the band’s strategy of releasing their In Rainbows digitally over the internet for whatever price fans were willing to pay. (The band subsequently released a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 19, 2010