How do we sustain ourselves as filmmakers and storytellers in this day of shifting film distribution systems? How do we monetize our film and get the word out? Presented by From Here to Awesome, the Workbook Project and Current TV - DIY DAYS aims to answer these questions with a day of panels, roundtable discussions and case studies: A look at how to fund, create, distribute and sustain.

DIY DAYS are a series of free live events that will take place in LA, SF, Boston, NYC and London. Each stop will be a bit different and the goal is to have a rolling discussion / debate about the current and future state of filmmaking and storytelling. Our tag for the event is fund :: create :: distribute :: sustain. Everything around DIY DAYS is open content which is meant to be embed and spread.

We’ve just launched a site for DIY DAYS LA which takes place in 3 weeks. Registration is now open and space is limited so make sure you secure your spot.

DIY DAYS LA
Saturday, July 26th
Under Spring / Not A Cornfield
1745 North Spring #4
Los Angeles, CA 90012
http://www.notacornfield.com
Full Event details www.diydays.com

We are pleased to announce that the following speakers will be joining the discussion on July 26th.

KEYNOTE: Robert Greenwald - Outfoxed, Wallmart the High Cost of Low Price, Iraq for Sale
KEYNOTE: Marshall Herskovitz - Blood Diamond, Quarterlife
Tommy Pallotta - producer of A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life
Mark Pellington - Henry Poole is Here, Arlington Road & Mothman Prophecies
CASE STUDY: Lance Weiler - The Last Broadcast, Head Trauma
CASE STUDY: Arin Crumley - Four Eyed Monsters
CASE STUDY: M dot Strange - We Are the Strange
Ondi Timoner - DiG, Join US, We Live in Public
Saskia Wilson-Brown - Current TV
Micki Krimmel - expert in social media and online community
Alex Johnson - digital media strategist / filmmaker
Christy Dena - cross-media strategist and designer
Matt Hanson - filmmaker and founder of A Swarm of Angels
Timo Vuorensola - director of Space Wreck and co-founder of wreckamovie.com

More speakers and details will be listed in the coming days

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For more on Jeff Gomez and Starlight Runner click here

To listen NOW click the play button below.

RELATED:
Henry Jenkins interview with Jeff Gomez

Futures of Entertainment 2 - Cult Media

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WB: Can you explain A Swarm of Angels and how the community plays a role in the film?

MH: A Swarm of Angels is about creating cult cinema for the digital age: remixing the whole process from conception to completion of a feature film to include the audience, and allowing it to engage fully with the digital world and online possibilities. There’s been all these formal ways Hollywood has used to test audience reaction and build demand for a film, but the kind of participative filmmaking A Swarm of Angels is part of creating is in its infancy, so its a giant experiment to see what works and what doesn’t. People join because they want to be part of that community and help pioneer the whole process. They know they can help shape it, make it happen.

WB: What is the concept behind A Swarm of Angels and what lead to its creation?

MH: A Swarm of Angels an open movie, a participative feature film. Lots of projects were tiptoeing around innovating in particular areas, tinkering with this and that, and I really wanted to engage with all these ideas that are prevalent in the online world, but are slower to leak into offline settings.

I decided to create the Swarm after writing some books on digital film, and thinking I wanted to develop some of the ideas I’d been writing about, and get back into direct production — I’d been producing, directing and commissioning a bunch of the more experimental end of things through the onedotzero digital film festival/production company I previously created.

The catalyst for all this? Before I became a digital film specialist I wrote as a film critic for style magazines in London. The Face, Dazed & Confused, that sort of thing. I had the opportunity to meet and interview some great directors. But a particular feeling of excitement stayed with me one day: Pulp Fiction, a movie that was to change the face of cinema at the time, was just about to be released. Earlier that day I had just interviewed the movie’s director Quentin Tarantino, and now I was in the producer’s office. He showed me a series of designs for the U.S. poster and asked me which I preferred. I don’t know if I influenced the final decision at all, but the one I picked was the final poster that appeared around the country. That feeling of excitement, of having been part of this great cultural moment stayed with me. When I had the idea to create A Swarm of Angels, I imagined how I could develop that feeling so others could experience it. I wanted to create a feature film project that people could have an influence in. It might be something small, quick and easy like a vote, or if someone could picture putting more effort into it then it would be something bigger - a trailer, an effect or design, storyline or piece of dialogue.

WB: Looking forward what type of role do you see audiences playing in the process of creating and distributing films?

MH: I see the relationship between filmmaker and fan become closer and more
symbiotic - its not a create and consume one-way street anymore. Filmmakers will inevitably after open up their creative worlds to the audiences they want to engage with, as individuals expect to interact with the media they consume rather than simply being targeted and talked to. There’s many ways these interactions can take place and we’re in the wild west period of that with a handful of projects that are currently testing the frontiers.

WB: Do you think audiences are looking for a richer experience with their media and if so what have you personally seen that shows this?

MH: Everyone is creative in some respect, and everyone wants to be heard: if you can develop projects which allow that to happen and also fulfill your goals as an artist you are onto a win-win situation. You can already see this with fan fiction, user-generated wiki’s and fan communities, et al. Personally, I think there’s so many possibilities to screen bleed artistic realities and narratives, push them beyond the traditional boundaries of the screen. Other people might call this transmedia storytelling, and you see alternate reality games pushing this envelope.

The amount of ideas and suggestions that have been generated with the Swarm community on the two scripts we’ve been developing has been amazing - it illustrates audiences want to plug in their skills and contribute when they can to making something bigger. Apparently this has been identified as one of the key features of happiness. I was watching a talk by Jane McGonigal, the games designer, who mentioned that ‘extreme collaboration will be the most important human ability in the next decade’.

WB: What is next for you?

1: Greenlighting the first A Swarm of Angels feature film.
2: Launching the open content resource, ViewShareRemix.
3: Doing a couple of super-small video projects with my kids.

RELATED:

Matt was an early interview on TCIBR.

CASE STUDY - A SWARM OF ANGELS via power to the pixel

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In addition to discovery and distribution, From Here to Awesome has a special FREE educational section entitled DIY DAYS that is an extension of the Workbook Project. The DIY DAYS events are a joint effort between FHTA and Current TV and will consist of workshops, case studies, panel discussions, and screenings. LA and SF are locked and we’re working on events for Boston and NYC. All the activities will be recorded and “embedding and spreading” of the materials will be encouraged. There will also be some live streaming as well.

WHAT: DIY DAYS LA
WHEN: Saturday July 26th 9:30am to 7:30pm
WHERE: Under Spring / Not A Cornfield
1745 North Spring #4
Los Angeles, CA 90012
www.notacornfield.com

DIY DAYS are shaping up here’s a partial list of speakers:

Tommy Pallotta - A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life
Mark Pellington - Henry Poole is Here, Arlington Road, Mothman Prophecies
Lance Weiler - The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma
Arin Crumley - Four Eyed Monsters
Ondi Timoner - DiG, Join Us and We Live in Public
M dot Strange - We Are the Strange
Saskia Wilson-Brown - Current TV
Jon Reiss - Bomb It
Alex Johnson - digital media strategist / filmmaker
Christy Dena - cross-media strategist and designer
Matt Hanson - filmmaker and founder of A Swarm of Angels
Timo Vuorensola - director of Space Wreck and co-founder of wreckamovie.com

More details coming soon.

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WB: Can you explain Space Wreck and how the audience played a role in the film?

TV: Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was a huge collaborative effort made by a core group of 5 people, and a community of about 3000 volunteers from around the world, during the years 1998-2005, in a small country of Finland, with the help of Internet.

We started working on a film with only a little knowledge in how to actually make a feature-length film. Luckily we had a small base of a community, thanks to our earlier Star Wreck -episodes (mainly short animations), who were very eager to help us out. Without thinking too much, we started to ask for help from the community, which proved pretty soon to be a very good resource base, whatever was our need - when we wanted people to help us out with the script, when we needed actors, when we needed 3d-models, and later when we needed publicity, subtitles & all that type of things.

WB: What is the concept behind Wreck a Movie and what lead to its creation?

TV: The idea was when we started working on our next film, Iron Sky, that we wanted to do the film in many ways the same way as Star Wreck - by having the community joining the production. We realized, that what we did with Star Wreck, communicating via email, forums, ICQ, MSN, IRC and other stuff like that was OK, but pretty inefficient. So we wanted to build a platform that would support what we called ‘collaborative film production’ for Iron Sky, and started to design one.

Obviously none of us knew anything about coding or anything, but we had a good understanding on how the community works, and what makes it tick - we’ve always had this kind of intuition. So we gathered some money, hired some coders and started to build the platform.

Few years later we now have a good Alpha of the system up and running, and it’s already working the way I’ve always wanted it to work: it activates people, gets a lot of good input, and strengthens the community around the film.

WB: Looking forward what type of role do audiences play in the process of creating and distributing films?

TV: I would say there’s a lot of roles that the community can either fill or be helping with. Personally, I wouldn’t think about writing the script collaboratively, or trying to find some solutions on collaborative directing, but I think on pre-production and post production the community can be a very effective help, and later on on getting the message across the Internet, it’s most valuable.

WB: Do you think audiences are looking for a richer experience with their entertainement and if so what have you personally seen that shows this?

TV: I’d say that the media consuming habits are changing and adjusting to the fact that Internet is around, and the people want to have a more personal experience with the media. Thus, the most personal experience with media is actually to create or join the creation of the media itself.

WB: What is next for you?

TV: Right now we are working on a film production called Iron Sky, which tells a story about Nazis that went to the Moon in 1945, and now, it’s 2018, and they are returning to earth. It’s the first film on WreckAMovie, with another finnish film, a horror flick called Sauna. We are opening Wreck A Movie for outside productions slowly during this year. I’m also working on few very early ideas for some films, and going around the world to talk about WAM and our stuff etc.

Iron Sky trailer:

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For more info on Skot and the Lost Zombie project click here.

To listen NOW click the play button below.

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The selected projects for the 2008 Narrative Lab and Lab Fellows include:

At The Foot Of The Tree – Alfie, a freckle faced eleven year old boy, seeks heartfelt and poetic revenge for the beating of this father. Ricky Shane Reid (Director, Writer); Kelly Jo Reid (Producer, Actress); Gregory Singer (Co-Producer, 2nd DP, Editor)

Good Intentions – Meet Etta Milford: Loving Wife…Doting Mother….Armed Robber. Jim Issa (Director); Pamela Peacock (Producer); Richard Sampson (Producer)

How Would You Feel? Vol. 1-7 – Centering on the story of a young man and woman, friends whose relationship is perpetually teetering at the edge of platonic and romantic, this experimental narrative explores the ambiguity of their rapport and is consistently fed by the inhibiting melodrama of their individual romantic pasts and present. Terence Nance (Director, Producer, Writer, Editor); Yvonne Shirley (Editor); Vincent Wheeler (Sound Designer)

The Mountain Thief – A father and son escape their war-torn village in the Philippines to seek refuge in a town called Little Hope, a community of scavengers. Gerry Balasta (Director, Writer); Desireena Almoradie (Producer)

Mr. Sadman – In 1990, before the First Gulf War, a Saddam Hussein body-double loses his job and moves to Los Angeles in search of a new start. Patrick Epino (Director, Writer); Cindy Fang (Producer)

Periphery – Four college-bound kids take a road trip to Mexico and find themselves caught up in a pharmaceutical drug smuggling operation that goes wrong. Duane Allen Humeyestewa (Director, Producer, Writer); Deepa Donde (Producer, Writer);

Sorry, Thanks – Kira has no attachments. Max has a girlfriend. Sometimes love is a happy accident, sometimes pure disaster. Mostly: love means having to say you’re sorry. Dia Sokol, (Director, Writer); Lauren Veloski (Producer, Writer); Jennifer Lilly (Editor)

St. Nick – A brother and sister run away from home and try to start a new life, free from adults, all on their own. David Lowery (Director, Writer, Editor); James M. Johnston (Producer); Adam Donaghey (Executive Producer)

A Thing As Big As The Ocean – Two Hurricane Katrina survivors leave New Orleans and travel west into the desert, where their mutual quietness is overwhelmed by a world of possibilities. Joseph Cashiola (Director, Producer, Writer); Jeff Harms (Producer, Actor); Nathan Duncan (Editor)

We Are The Mods – High school loner, Sadie, befriends the wild new girl, Nico, and together they explore sex, drugs and rock and roll by embracing 1960’s British Mod Culture in present day California. E. E. Cassidy (Director, Writer, Producer); Robert Poswall (Producer, DP); Daniel Gabbe (Editor)

Zero Bridge – In occupied Kashmir, where every day is about survival, a petty criminal’s last chance at escape is threatened when he faces a moral crisis. Tariq Tapa (Director, Writer, DP, Editor)

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For more on the Million Dollar Movie click here

To listen NOW click the play button below.

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Adeo Ressi at The Next Web Conference 2008 from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Vimeo.

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WHY: Projects like Wreck a Movie and A Swarm of Angels are at the forefront of a new movement in collaborative filmmaking. These projects are experimenting with processes that could dramatically change how filmmakers approach their work.

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MyFestival For those looking for a festival experience without having leaving the comfort of your own home then indieflix and there new offering MyFestival might be the perfect fit. Running from May 23rd to June 8th MyFestival will showcase features and shorts vying for a theatrical slot at the Seattle International Film Fest. Stop by and support the films and choose the one that you think should close out the fest.

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WHY: A Wiki is an interesting way to grow a community around a topic organically. WetPaint also offers a new embed versions for publishers so that they can easily bring a wiki into their own sites.