Distribution
Filmmaking - Distribution
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Hope for Film Author Ted Hope on Life, Independent Film and Systems Reboots
Ted Hope — producer, Good Machine co-founder, and now CEO of Fandor — is no tongue-tied wallflower in the independent film community. Indeed, his passionate commentary, counsel and editorializing on topics ranging from net neutrality to making better films to a “systems reboot” of the independent film economy seem to be everywhere these days. But while his website, Twitter account and frequent speeches at industry events may make it seem that his opinions have been enabled — or at least turbo-charged — by this current social media age, he has, in fact, been lobbing list-driven rhetorical broadsides for years. (Don’t […]
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ITVFest: Is Independent TV More Than a Bridge to Mainstream TV?
In a small Vermont town on the edge of the Green Mountain National Forest, an hour and a half from Albany NY, the Independent Television and Film Festival (ITVFest) holds its annual get together. Taking place in the fall, ITVFest is very similar to a film festival, with screenings, panels and talks given by content producers. But rather than films, it focuses on TV and web entertainment. ITVFest started in L.A. in 2006, then moved to Vermont in 2013. I attended some of the screenings of web productions in a large tent set up for the event, as well as […]
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Factory 25 Acquires Little Feet and Boneshaker
Factory 25 will distribute Alexandre Rockwell’s Little Feet on a double bill with 25 New Face Frances Bodomo’s Boneshaker. The films will open at the IFC Center on December 12 and will be available for streaming on Fandor and Vimeo the same day. Little Feet was previously part of a Vimeo on Demand TIFF deal in which Vimeo gave the filmmakers $10,000 in exchange for 30-day exclusive distribution rights. Rockwell won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 1992 with In The Soup, and Little Feet harkens back to the film’s 16mm black and white camerawork. Said Factory 25’s Matt Grady of the paired acquisition, “Both films are very […]
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“It’s No Longer Enough for Artists to Simply Be Artists”: Artel Great on His Audience-Building App, Project Catalyst
There’s a lot of talk in the independent film community about building new audiences through internet technologies but far fewer actual attempts at doing so. One person who has thought deeply about today’s challenges and developed a tool in response is filmmaker Artel Great, whose Project Catalyst attempts to combat “the Hollywood-ification of our thinking” by connecting multicultural audiences to the music and films most relevant to their lives and communities. It is, he writes, “the first application software to distinctively showcase narrative short films, documentaries, and music videos all made by talented indie artists from Black, Latino/a, and Asian […]
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TWC and the Devaluation of Content
The notion of VOD as a stigmatized, modern update on the straight to video release has gradually and dramatically disbanded in the past handful of years. Day-and-date pioneers like Magnolia and IFC capitalized on the platform’s ability to cater to a wider, cross-country audience, demonstrating its economic viability, if occasionally at the cost of art houses. Though their sister label Radius-TWC has proven exceedingly adroit at the multi-platform rollout, The Weinstein Company has tended towards more multiplex fare, which makes their recent, free pre-theatrical release of One Chance on Yahoo! Screen even more bizarre than it sounds on paper. Originally intended for a 10 day “pre-release,” TWC […]
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“You May Have Made the Most Amazing Film in the World, But You Have Zero Followers on Twitter”: VHX’s Jamie Wilkinson on Building Film Communities
Jamie Wilkinson, CEO of the direct-to-fan online video platform VHX, had some words to filmmakers on Peter Katz’s Hollywood 2.0 podcast. Specifically: amp up your social media game. In the conversation, which also discusses some of the platform’s early successes, the role of filters and gatekeepers, and VHX’s partnerships with distributors, he preaches the virtues of building an audience online. “How do we get people promoting each other’s works?” he asks. “You may have made the most amazing film in the world, but you have zero followers on Twitter. How are you going to get the word out? In the […]
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Bond/360 Launches Cinepacks: Pay What You Wish Bundles
Scott previously wrote about and interviewed Bond/360’s CEO Marc Schiller on his decision to bundle and sell their movies via a pay-what-you-wish “Radiohead-esque” model. What began with the “Creativity Bundle,” the packaging of four titles that all dealt with making and creation, now looks to be a recurring initiative, with the company’s introduction of Cinepacks. Through October 23, you can purchase the Sports Docs pack, which allows you to own Medora, Desert Runners, Stephanie in the Water and Doubletime for no less than $1. While this may be a financial gamble, Schiller is certainly capitalizing on the notion of fan engagement, with each collection catering to a specific interest […]
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When Restoration Met Distribution
As CEO of the Los Angeles-based creative studio and postproduction house Cinelicious, Paul Korver had the unsettling feeling that too many deals were passing him by. The preferred film scanning and restoration vendor for Criterion and Alamo Drafthouse, Cinelicious was also making a name for itself as a digital intermediate supervisor. Touring the festival circuit with the likes of Boyhood and Prince Avalanche, Korver found himself in conversation with various rights holders who were looking to restore films but without the funds to do so. What if, he thought, Cinelicious had a distribution arm to monetize that restoration investment? Thus […]
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Thom Yorke Explains Value of BitTorrent Bundles by Releasing a New Album
At the Sundance Artist Services Day at the IFP Filmmaker Conference, I witnessed — and wrote about — the confusion and sometimes anger that erupted during the panel discussion on BitTorrent Bundles. BitTorrent Bundles use the peer-to-peer file sharing protocol of BitTorrent to package, give away and/or sell digital goods. Some vocal members of the audience challenged the panelists to justify why filmmakers should lie down with a site many associate with piracy. Replied BitTorrent’s Director of Brand Marketing, Straith Schreder, “It is a separate website and has nothing to do with the pirate ecosystem. As for monetization, one way […]
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“Giving Access Back to the People”: Fandor CEO Ted Hope on FIX and the Festival Alliance
Back in July, Fandor announced the implementation of two new initiatives, FIX and the Fandor|Festival Alliance. The former aggregates the work of over a hundred participating filmmakers, fostering audience interaction, while the latter assists festivals with technological services and highlights their programming. When I spoke to Fandor CEO Ted Hope last week, in what I deemed a belated inquiry, he appropriately countered that there is no such thing in the digital era. “Nothing is grounded as this is how it is, it’s constantly being iterated. What we launched with is not where our goal is,” he said of FIX. In our […]
