January 2012
32 posts
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Life After Sundance: Distribution and Marketing... →
Sundance selected 110 features from 4,042 submissions for its 2012 U.S. and World Dramatic and Documentary Competition lineups. Based on the festival’s history, it’s fair to say that less than 40 of those films will be acquired by established, full-service film distributors. At best, this translates to a 1% success rate for aspiring Sundance filmmakers. Given this sobering reality,...
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Curating Facebook: Finding Meaning In The Noise
By Steven Rosenbaum
If you’re like me, Facebook is both a blessing and a curse. As more and more people that I’m connected with join Facebook, the more I find Facebook both valuable and noisy.The truth is some of my actual friends are folks who I’m glad to be connected with, but I might be happier if I could tone down, or tune out, some aspects of their Facebook Broadcast.
...
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SOPA Survey: Piracy or Privacy →
Our COO, Jon Patricof, created an survey realted to SOPA. Please take a minute to share your thoughts. It’s much appreciated!
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An Innovative Launch for Joffrey: Mavericks of...
By Jon Reiss
For the past four months, my company Hybrid Cinema has been working on the release of the new film Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance directed by Bob Hercules about the history of the Joffrey ballet. I will be writing a number of posts outlining the unique path that I and my partner on this release, Sheri Candler have taken to release this documentary about the history of the...
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James Franco Has A New Webseries →
Is there anything that James Franco isn’t willing to try? He is just one of the many celebrities who are getting involved with web-based content. Is this a trend?
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Netflix Streaming Margins Are 11 Percent, DVD... →
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What Really Lies Beneath the SOPA Debate?
By Chris Dorr
The battle raging around the SOPA bill these past several weeks has been fascinating to watch. There have been a lot of blog posts and interviews full of bluster, confrontation, some sanctimonious, others nasty and yes, also informative. It is worth spending the time to read them all to get a feel for the complete picture of this epic battle.
We are reminded yet again...
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Academy Awards Launches Digital ‘Celebrate the... →
Iconic moments from 84 films in Oscar history are currently being showcased online and on digital billboards in NY and LA. Fans can view digital images at Oscar.com and at YouTube.com/Oscars. Movielovers can also share their favorite movie-going experiences using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.
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Make Sure You Have A Plan A for Plan B
By David Larkin
Film festivals are an amazing launch pad for your film. Hopefully your film will premier at the festival, be anointed by the critics as the new coming of Sex, Lies and Videotape, you’ll sign a major distribution deal for big bucks, and then your profit will really kick in as the film platforms from a limited release to a wider release and the theatres are packed. You get...
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YouTube Launches Action Sports Channels, Starring... →
Interesting. Is this the future for film and television?
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A global search for the world's best storytellers →
YouTube, Ridley Scott, the Venice Film Festival, and Emirates have teamed up to create Your Film Festival, a global competition that will provide one deserving entrant with a half million US dollars to work on their next great story.
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WatchFrom Your Storytelling Brain: “Cognitive Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, a pioneer in the study of hemispheric (left vs. right brain) specialization describes ”the Interpreter” - a left hemisphere function that organizes our memories into plausible stories. Less romantic, perhaps, than Gone With the Wind, the Interpreter may help to explain our species’ profound...
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Online-Only Originals Are Entering A Virtuous...
By Will Richmond
Editor’s Note: Will Richmond argues persuasively that the creation of original web series is now entering a transformative period. In 2012 a number of factors will come together and online originals will begin to compete with broadcast and cable TV. And take note, a lot of creative independent voices like Richard Linklater and Morgan Spurlock are leading the charge. We look...
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As Social Media Hits Television, 2012 Is the Year... →
“The question now is not whether networks should utilize social media but how they can use it most effectively and monetize it.”
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“Twitter has fundamentally changed the way I make films.”
– Edward Burns
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What Does Kickstarter's $100 Million Haul Tell Us?
By Chris Dorr
This week Kickstarter posted a number of statistics about how their projects fared in 2011. Every independent filmmaker should spend some time looking at this report.
They revealed that in one year, close to $100 million ($99,344,382) was pledged to all kinds of creative endeavors, ranging from dance to music to film and video projects. This represents an almost fourfold ...
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“Hollywood is discovering that the return on investment becomes more minimal if...”
– Jeff Gomez in THR on the approved transmedia credit for the Producers Guild of America
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VH1 Leaps Into Social TV and Second Screen for... →
Is VH1 leading the charge on social television viewing or is it playing catch up? Are you more likely to watch a show if there is a second screen offering?
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Marketing Through The Social Graph
by Marc Schiller and Mike Lee
Today, the most important question a film marketer can ask is: “Is my movie showing up in people’s social media feeds?”
This post orginally appeared on PSFK.
More than keeping us connected with friends, family and colleagues, our social graph acts as a media filter and cultural curator. When news about a new movie reaches us on Twitter or Facebook, it must...
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“I think that Kickstarter has a promising future ahead of itself. We’re...”
– Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter Co-Founder in Indiewire
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If We Build It, Will They Come?
by Jon Patricof
The preliminary estimate of a 4% decline in movie theater attendance in 2011 vs. 2010 is certainly not good news for the film industry.
That said, if you are in a room filled with the 48 owners of professional sports teams whose teams also saw their attendance decline in the last year or, more specifically, sitting next to any of the 21 team owners who saw their attendance...
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Tom Hanks to do a Socially Conscious Web Series? →
The show is about a “seemingly peaceful city situated in a post-apocalyptic world” and each episode will be three or four minutes long.
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“The New Year offers a fresh start. It’s a fantastic time to reset your goals,...”
– 10 Ways to Refresh Your Digital Life for the New Year
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5 Rules of Casting For The Indie Filmmaker
By Rider Strong
As an actor-turned-filmmaker, I’m often mystified by how fellow directors think about actors. I know one director who considers Clint Eastwood the greatest actor of all time. I think my friend is insane. Sure, Clint’s got amazing presence, but acting?
Rider Strong/Credit: Tribeca Film
Then again, sometimes presence is...
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2012 Science & Technical Oscar Winners Announced! →
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Analyst: Netflix Now the 15th Most-Watched TV... →
With Netflix streaming usage exploding, the times they are a-changin’.
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7 Twitter Habits To Adopt In 2012 To Double Your... →
Inspired by a post from the editor of Mashable, Lance Ulanoff, Buffer has shared 6 easy to implement habits for anyone that wants to expand their Twitter following and make it work more effectively.
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Call Her Venus: The Super Artist of Tomorrow!
Posted by James Lawler
There’s been a great deal of breathless chatter recently about comedian Louis CK’s online sale of his comedy show, which, at the risk of dredging up what is old news at today’s pace, is as good a starting point as any for this post.
Some of the latest praise came from Fred Wilson, the founder of Union Square Ventures, who doffed his hat in a recent post to the power of...
