» Posts Tagged ‘distribution’
Twin filmmakers Michael and Mark Polish, whose previous credits include Twin Falls, Idaho and The Astronaut Farmer, have released their latest feature through iTunes — with zero advertising. Joining the advertising budget is the production budget itself, which officially clocked in at $0 (they didn’t count food and transportation, though even if you do, we’re still talking “no budget” filmmaking). Instead, social media — chiefly Twitter and Tumblr — have led to the film generating word of mouth online, and as a result For Lovers Only (iTunes link) has already made over $200,000. Shot on a Canon 5D Mark II, here’s a clip of the black-and-white, French New Wave-inspired feature: More »
Starting about three years ago I began brainstorming ideas for an internet-centric way of distributing independent films (as opposed to festivals, theaters, and DVDs). However, given I already run one web site, instead of pursuing these ideas in earnest I’ve spent the ensuing years working on getting a transmedia project and/or first feature off the ground (more on the latter soon — depending on your definition of “soon”). A year ago when taking a look at Dynamo Player, we saw the beginnings of what an independent video distribution widget would look like, and now newcomer Distrify has launched what looks to be a more feature-rich player. Several ideas I’ve kicked around (including an affiliate program) are implemented in Distrify: More »
'Iron Sky' Releases Lesson in Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing
Finnish director Timo Vuorensola’s forthcoming feature Iron Sky, which I’ve mentioned previously, has released a very nicely animated overview of their innovative production process to date. There’s a lot to be learned here when it comes to the future of film, both good and potentially bad; I’m a huge proponent of crowdfunding, but find myself hesitant to embrace the idea that crowdsourcing the creative aspects of a screenplay is a good idea. Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe in the “singular vision” of auteurs. Here’s their video highlighting the different creative and financial strategies they’ve employed to date: More »
While Netflix has been available on iOS since last year, it’s been conspicuously absent on the arguably most popular smartphone OS, Android. By finally releasing an Android application late last week, Netflix is moving closer to their goal of being on every platform. But their Android release is a perfect example of the fragmentation issues plaguing Android, as their app is currently only available on five specific phones: More »
Back in November I criticized Google’s Android operating system for lacking an iTunes-esque media marketplace. Android’s openness seemed a good match for independent content creators, except it lacked a streamlined way to sell media content. Yesterday, at Google I/O, the Big G finally announced an Android Movies Marketplace, as well as an Amazon Cloud Player
I’ll have more to come on RED’s NAB announcements (or strange lack thereof) in the coming days, but after a few visits to their booth, I thought the product that was being underreported was the RED RAY 4K playback system(s). The RED RAY Pro — announced long ago — was running flawlessly in a corner, and the RED RAY consumer version was on display as a mock-up. After spending some time with RED engineer Stuart English, the devices looked a lot more disruptive — especially for independent theatrical distribution. More »
I meant to post this months ago, but like so many stories on this under-staffed (single-staffed) site, it slipped through the cracks. Then the NewTeeVee article Forget Festivals, Go Online Instead re-brought it to my attention, and so here it is: if you haven’t already seen The Thomas Beale Cipher, the animated short directed by Andrew S. Allen and produced by Jason Sondhi (both from Short of the Week), here’s the 10-minute texture-tastic mystery in full: More »
Independent films are too hard to find. Their theatrical runs are restricted to art-house cinemas in select cities, their availability on DVD at a local brick-and-mortar (either to rent or to buy) is never certain, and when they show up on Video-On-Demand, it’s often only on one channel that might be located in the nether regions (channel 500 +) of your cable guide. Wouldn’t it be nice if indie film fans had a central place we could go to find the films we heard about six months ago on the festival circuit — but never had a chance to see? Now there is just such a central repository. More »
Up until now, for $79 a year, Amazon Prime
In the world of digital content distribution, things are changing so quickly that if you blink, you miss it. With iTunes and iOS, Apple is the 800 lb gorilla in the room, and ever since the iPad became the fastest-selling gadget in history, the elephant in the room (too many analogous animals in the room now?) has been magazine subscriptions. The iPad has the perfect form-factor for reading magazines — I personally like the Kindle more for reading books — but until now, Apple didn’t offer a standardized method of “subscribing” to a magazine. Until now. And as it turns out, Apple’s new subscription terms are going to govern far more than magazine subscriptions, but applications sales, video distribution, and more. More »
Tze Chun’s feature Children of Invention was the subject of a NoFilmSchool interview, and the film’s much-talked-about D.I.Y. distribution has now landed it on Hulu for the next two months. Hit the full-screen button and kick back to the indie film Variety deemed “austerely poetic”: More »
How to Cheat at the YouTube Game and Get Millions of Views
This is a guest post by filmmaker Robin Schmidt, who today courts controversy with his ongoing series Choosing an Online Video Platform. Next time you see a view count in the millions, you might wonder where some of those views came from! This is not to say that I’m suggesting filmmakers cheat, but NoFilmSchool is devoted to sharing the tools that might help a filmmaker succeed, and the ability to hack YouTube is certainly worth filing under “good to know” — even if you never employ such tactics. Without further ado, here’s Robin: More »
Choosing an Online Video Platform: Playing the YouTube Game
This is a guest post by filmmaker Robin Schmidt a.k.a. El Skid.
In Part 1 I talked about picking YouTube as the correct platform for our project Super Massive Raver, for the plain and simple reason that it had the greatest access to an audience of any of the current options. When looking to monetize video online I think you have to be pretty circumspect and accept that the general public are highly unlikely to pay for video content unless you give them a compelling reason to do so. More »
Choosing an Online Video Platform: YouTube Pt. 1
This is a guest post by filmmaker Robin Schmidt a.k.a. El Skid.
If you receive Koo’s regular newsletter (and you should by the way) you’ll have recently read a short appraisal of the various video sharing sites currently around. I’ve been developing a weekly comedy show called Super Massive Raver which we’re looking to monetize online and, believe me, once you start digging into this area the reading gets pretty grim pretty quickly. More »
Apple has released iOS 4.2, which comes with a slew of improvements for iOS devices. However, iOS isn’t the only kid on the block, with reports that Samsung’s Android-powered iPad competitor shipped 600,000 units in the first month. Amid reports that Android phones are outselling iPhones (possibly 2-to-1), and the news that Apple and Google are locked into competition over who will premiere “tap to buy” first (which will allow us to use our smartphones as virtual credit cards), I thought I’d delve into NoFilmSchool’s analytics to see what percentage of visitors are running iOS versus Android. Both mobile OSes will be a growing distribution platform for movies, but which OS will help independent filmmakers? More »
The day Google announced Google TV, I wrote “Google TV is what independent filmmakers have been waiting for.” I was bullish about the possibilities the device offered for getting independent content onto living room screens, and I also wrote a piece extolling the device’s (potential) virtues in the last issue of Filmmaker Magazine. Now that the device has launched to decidedly mixed reviews, however, do I feel Google TV is a failure? Not at all. Here’s why: More »
This panel from the Woodstock Film Festival features Richard Abramowitz, Bob Berney, Edward Burns, Ted Hope and John Sloss (for their bios, see this page and search for “New Distribution Paradigms”). It offers not only an opportunity to listen to industry titans talk frankly about the changing distribution landscape, but also to relay their own past experiences. Could you get all these guys together to give a guest lecture at a film school? Probably not. But here they are free thanks to the internet and the Woodstock festival: More »
Lost in the debate over the future of 3D is the question of how independent art-house films could take advantage of the added dimension — in ways that have nothing to do with the shock value of horror films or the spectacle of action movies. In an article at Salon, @mattzollerseitz asks the question of what could happen if filmmakers begin to use the use 3D technology to make films that are more abstract or more intimate than their 2D counterparts. More »
When the iPad was first announced I wrote an article about how the device could affect filmmakers, saying, “when you’re developing a cross-platform story, what happens if you can’t define your project along clear lines? Should I say it? ‘There’s an app for that.’” Stonehenge Productions has stepped in to create these very apps, which basically package your film along with a number of extras in a manner similar to a DVD release. This allows you to sell your film in the App store — thereby circumnavigating your way onto an Apple device without having to go through the iTunes movie store. More »
The reason I slipped from my daily posting schedule this week is because it’s Independent Film Week here in New York; as a participant in the No Borders co-production forum, I pitched my feature-length, interactive murder mystery 3rd Rail to something like eighteen different producers/financiers/sales agents/distributors over the past three days. This post, about the experience of attending and pitching at Ithe Project Forum, is cross-posted on the Filmmaker Magazine blog. For more on what the Project Forum is and why you should apply, check out this post. More »
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