Distribution
Filmmaking - Distribution
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YouTube’s Aggressive Move into Original Content
Google’s YouTube is now into its second round of a long-term plan to remake the “original content” landscape. In the process, it is challenging the established broadcast and cable networks through its own Internet-based TV programming service. In 2011, YouTube began funding an estimated 160 ventures to feed a streaming Over-the-Top (OTT) programming service. It supported ventures involving Tom Hanks, Amy Poehler and others to produce new programs and signed up big-name talent like Madonna, Jay-Z and Ashton Kutcher to “curate” branded channels. It also supported dozens of start-ups run by established indie makers and others. AdAge found that among the […]
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Tugg Co-Founder Nicolas Gonda on Curators, Brand Ambassadors and Artist Entrepreneurship
Celebrating its first anniversary at SXSW 2013 was Tugg, the web-based, theatrical-on-demand platform that allows movie fans to create their own theatrical events while also providing exhibition opportunities for both studio and indie films. The company used SXSW to launch its new website, which offers greater analytics tools for event promoters, and co-founder Nicolas Gonda was on hand to talk up some of Tugg’s recent milestones. Those include the theatrical run of Honor Flight, a doc about World War 2 veterans that, according to Tugg, scored 56% of its total theatrical box-office via the platform. After a limited theatrical run […]
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At CPAC, Republicans Rev Up Conservative Cinema
The winner of the 2012 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature was Searching for Sugar Man, directed by Malik Bendjelloul and produced by Simon Chinn. Released in July 2012, it grossed $3,536,058 in box office sales. By year-end 2012, the other four finalists took in a total of $1,724,657. This breaks down as follows: The Gatekeepers, director Dror Moreh and produced by Philippa Kowarsky and Estelle Fialon ($1,418,694); How to Survive a Plague, directed by David France and produced by Howard Gertler ($132,055); 5 Broken Cameras, co-directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi ($101,940); and The Invisible War, directed by Kirby […]
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Five Different Routes to a Web Series
The web series can take many shapes, from a no-budget serial made in high-school media classes to Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to Netflix’s long-format House of Cards. These are just three of probably thousands of web series out there produced, written, and directed specifically for the Internet. But there are other roads to web series. Here are five of them. The Longish Short Film Repurposed into a Web Series Filmmaking partners Jacob Hensberry and Ken Cook had plan for their short film, Planet X, a stylized, modern romantic comedy with sci-fi leanings. “We were going to use the […]
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Dissecting My Brooklyn’s Success
Over at the IFP website, Filmmaker‘s Associate Editor Dan Schoenbrun has a comprehensive case study of Kelly Anderson’s My Brooklyn. The doc has had unprecedented success at the reRun Theater, selling out countless shows and bringing highly engaged audiences to the theater to both watch the film and discuss the issues it tackles surrounding local gentrification. Here’s a few choice extracts. Firstly, Anderson discussing “event-izing” screenings: I think that it gets at this deep question of – why do you make films? Maybe that’s what people need to do – sit back and think about why they made the film that they made. Do you just […]
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Torrenters, Six Strikes and You’re Out!
Has a peculiar notice popped up on either your TV set or computer reading: “Copyright Alert! #1”? This notice is the first of six that digital communications users will receive as part of the Copyright Alert System (CAS). Having failed to get Congress to adopt the SOPA/PIPA legislation last year, the movie and record industry trade associations, the MPAA and RIAA, respectively, have taken a second bite at the apple in their effort to address the problem of illegal downloading of copyrighted entertainment content. CAS, which went into effect on February 25, ties the major content trade associations to the […]
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Sundance Selects Pick Up Alexandre Moors’ Blue Caprice
IFP Lab film Blue Caprice, a chilling drama about the Beltway sniper starring Isaiah Washington, was today acquired by IFC’s Sundance Selects imprint. The movie is the debut feature by NYC-based French director Alexandre Moors — one of Filmmaker‘s “25 New Faces” of 2012 — and had its world premiere in the NEXT section at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Later this month, it is the opening night selection at New Directors/New Films. Commenting on the pickup, Sundance Selects/IFC Films president Jonathan Sehring said, “Alexandre Moors has made one of the most distinct and haunting American independent films of the year […]
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Sarasota Film Festival Announces Partnership with Factory 25
Today the Sarasota Film Festival announced that it is joining forces with Factory 25 to offer a distribution deal as the prize for one of its competition sections. The winning movie in the Independent Visions strand will get a deal with Matt Grady’s Brooklyn-based boutique label, which has released many Sarasota alumni films from recent years. Here’s the info from the press release: The Sarasota Film Festival today announced that its Independent Visions Award will be presented by Factory 25, heralding a new partnership with Brooklyn-based film distributor. The winner of this prestigious award will also be presented with an unprecedented […]
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The Internet and the Cult Film: On A Fan’s Notes
I stopped collecting comic books years ago, and I was never much of a vinyl person. Do you know anyone who truly fetishizes out-of-print books, because I don’t. Who needs rare DVDs anyway? Not suckers with Netflix streaming or HuluPlus accounts. The DVD has only been around 17, 18 years — what could possibly count as rare, even? Is there such a thing? Perhaps that DVD of an oddly artful B horror film from the ’70s that went out of print in 1996 and has never returned, but piracy has gotten so advanced now, surely you can find a stream […]
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Watch Kenton Bartlett’s Missing Pieces for Free
Here’s a good way to get the weekend started: download or stream for free Kenton Bartlett’s wonderfully original and inventive Missing Pieces, starring Melora Walters and Mark Boone Jr. The film, which the 24-year-old Bartlett began work on at the age of 19, was made on a shoestring budget but brilliantly used its meager resources to fashion a compelling and unique narrative. Birmingham, Alabama-based Bartlett cites filmmakers like Christopher Nolan as inspirations, and indeed Missing Pieces has much of the ambition and canny creativity of Nolan’s early works such as Following and Memento, though it has more heart than those […]
