Just back from Silverdocs, well, actually I've been back for a good two weeks but haven't had a chance to write. I am pleased that after spending one year screening great programs for our new DVD label Alive Mind, building online communitiies, and mastering the tricks of online marketing, it is all starting to take off. It has been a blast launching a company based on the templatization of self- distribution and it is even more fun to see it start to succeed. My favorite new concept: scalable.
But back to Silver Docs. It is a great small festival attended by top notch producers and filmmakers and the panels were great. I moderated a panel on the educational market, 'Old School’ is New Money: Opportunities in the Educational Market, as well as attending several others. My educational panelists included Cynthia Close from Documentary Educational Resources (DER), John Haskyll-Abrahams from Bullfrog Films, Kathy Tan from Films Media Group and Lori Griffin from Schlessinger Media/Library Video Company.
add comment Welcome Nik Sheehan to the My Film Blog community and congratulations on receiving the Best Feature Documentary Award at the Hot Docs International Film festival for your film, FLicKeR. Brion Gyson is a fascinatiing figure who invented the dream machine and an unrecognized artist whose influence continues today. Interviews with Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithful, DJ Spooky and others provides a provocative protrait of an almost forgotten luminary.
I look forward to FLicKeR's New York debut.
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program
NEW DEADLINES: JULY 7, 2008 and FEBRUARY 5, 2009
Each year, the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program awards more than $1.5 million in grants to support documentary films focused on contemporary social issues. Films supported have included My Country, My Country; Why We Fight; Born Into Brothels; Iraq in Fragments; The Inner Tour; The Devil Came on Horseback; and Everything's Cool.
In a world where truth is stranger than fiction, we can help you tell the stories that must be told. If you believe that creative non-fiction filmmaking is vital to society, and you are an artist with passion for the work of storytelling, we want to hear about your project. Tell us what you see. For the rest of the story or to apply online, visit:
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program
Lately, all I have been hearing about is how Word Press is "free." Now, the way I do math, anything that takes over ten hours to set-up and still doesn't function without a consultant and/or IT specialist has a cost associated with it: the cost of loss time, lowered employee productivity and no blog at the end of the month. For the last two weeks at my office we have been struggling to set-up a simple blog using WordPress.org that I have come to call the "buteverybodyusesit" software. I understand that developers and programmers love it because it is "free" and allows them to exploit gullible users in search of "free" software.
But I think there is some confusion regarding the defintion of free...
1 comment ( 180 views )My Film Blog would like to welcome Dark Fibre Films to our nascent community. Their latest film, Stuff of Life, is number one on YouTube and CNN as of yesterday. Watch the trailer below and read the producers blog at darkfibrefilms.myfilmblog.com
Great article by Lance Weiler in the Winter 2008 Filmmaker's mag about digital distribution and generating online revenue for independent filmmakers. I think the most important point of the article, besides the benefits of working with a content aggregator/distributor, is that filmmakers need to be very technically savvy when it comes to self-distribution.
A lot of times filmmakers are advised to avoid working with traditional distributors, who are essentially described as greedy vultures, and to strike out on their own. The main challenge of doing so is creating awareness of your one, lone film and connecting it to your audience. There are a gazillion websites out there, two dominant social networking sites, and an undefined marketplace. Unless your potential customer can find you, no matter how good your film is they aren't going to buy it. This is not an original idea and a book that expresses this idea very eloquently is Ambient Findability by Peter Morville.
BBC Storyville's commissioning editor Nick Fraser, a key visionary on the international documentary scene, will be awarded the Doc Mogul Award recipient at Toronto's Hot Docs in April.
The Hot Docs Doc Mogul Award is presented by Hotdocs to an individual who, over his or her career, has made a significant contribution to the creative vitality of the documentary industry both in their home countries and abroad. Last year the festival honoured Rudy Buttignol.
The 15th annual Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival will be held from April 17-27. Industry professionals that want to attend, can now register online.
Grants for America’s Media Makers support media projects that explore significant events, figures, or developments in the humanities and offer creative and new approaches to humanities content. America’s Media Makers projects promote active exploration and engagement for broad public audiences in history, literature, archaeology, art history, comparative religion, philosophy, and other fields of the humanities. NEH supports the development of humanities content and interactivity that excites, informs, and stirs thoughtful reflection and urges applicants to consider more than one format for presenting humanities ideas to the public. Grants for America’s Media Makers should enable greater audience engagement with the humanities, encourage dialogue and discussion, and foster discovery-based learning across the age spectrum.
NEH offers two categories of grants for media projects, Development Grants and Production Grants.
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