Some things seem so obvious that you can’t believe they’re the subject of breathless feature pieces speculating about futuristic technology.
The iPad as an indie movie distribution tool, for instance. It’s all about the apps, right?
There’s an article today in The L Magazine, a NY events & culture mag, about how Behind The Scenes Of Total Hell will be the first indie movie released as an app for the iPad this summer, after selling literally dozens of copies on the iPhone.
Total Hell has used a Silicon Valley app developer called Stonehenge Productions, who specialise in getting indie films into the iTunes store and turning them into Apps.
The article weighs up the pros and cons of distributing via Apple apps and some other proprietary storefronts like Netflix and iTunes. Read the rest of this entry »
– Update: Kieran has responded with answers to my questions in the Comments
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Even though OpenIndie has been getting a lot of attention recently, it’s taken me a while to sit down and properly look at what they’re planning to do. Partly because of all the other things on my radar at the moment, partly because I knew they’re focussed on independent feature films.
But it’s an inspired idea – proved by the fact that they’ve just raised over $12,000 from 226 interested filmmakers. Just as IndieScreenings opened up distribution of The Age of Stupid (of which more here soon), so OpenIndie is being set up to help the hundreds of filmmakers who are crowdfunding its creation via Kickstarter.com.
It’s being put together by Arin Crumley (of Four Eyed Monsters) and Kieran Masterton from the UK – seems they’ve been planning it for a long time (5 years and 1 year respectively), and now it’s funded, it’s due to be launched on March 1st.
Ted Hope delivering his keynote speech at the Power To The Pixel forum at BFI in London last month: “Take Back What Has Always Been Yours” (full text)
In it he encouraged film makers to “take back” what he called the six pillars of cinema – since they have traditionally only concerned themselves with the first two:
1. Content
2. Production
3. Discovery
4. Promotion
5. Participation
6. Presentation
Readers of his blog, Truly Free Film, will be familiar with his analysis of the industry and call-to-arms:
“We must also recognise that there is no workable present day business model to support the current mode of cinema, other than one built on the exclusionary practice of isolated control of the funding, marketing, distribution, and exhibition systems. We know the model for financing and distribution – and by extension, also creation – is now running on fumes.
How long can the controlling studio model survive when the wall of control has already come down and the people — now embracing that they are both audiences and creators – have recognised the power they truly have and will unlikely ever surrender that power again?
How long can a business based on library assets survive when everything that has been digitised has also been copied and can now be spread with a touch of a button – and every time it is stopped, it is only to reappear somewhere else.”
Some things seem so obvious that you can’t believe they’re the subject of breathless feature pieces speculating about futuristic technology.