http://sundance.org/artistservices en Copyright 2013 2013-05-10T16:00:31+00:00 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/5Q6HwiocwGo/ Annie Roney is Managing Director and founder of ro*co films. After nine years working with a top industry distributor, Annie founded ro*co films in 2000 with two complimentary ideas: the belief that a well-told, well-researched and emotionally-driven documentary can challenge the way people think about issues in every corner of the globe; and, to be entrusted with the distribution of these stories, ro*co needed to be in service to the filmmaker first and foremost. Still from "How to Survive a Plague". Your company launched an educational division in 2009. What led you to focus on this market and what did your first efforts look like? For many years, I was repeatedly asked if we would act as a sales agent for films in the US market, in addition to our work outside the US. The answer was always "no - it's an entirely different beast". I would refer the films to the usual suspects - the sales agents everybody knows. But two situations caused me to pivot: 1) There were a couple of films that I absolutely loved that were not getting picked-up by the usual suspects for domestic representation. Those films weren't resonating with them, and I felt called to help in any way I could. With expectations managed, I jumped in and started pounding the pavement for domestic deals - pitching to theatrical distributors, home video distributors, broadcasters and educational distributors. 2) In the course of that new endeavor, I met with the owner of a well-known and revered theatrical distributor to pitch one of these films. He asked me if I considered partnering with one of the other known (male) sales agents. I replied that while I liked and respected them, the reality was we all chose to work with films we cared about and that resonated with us. And while often we shared the same sensibility around film, I came with more of a female sensibility about what films worked and what films didn't. The unnamed owner of this US theatrical company looked like he had just been punched. For a moment he was breathless. He said "My God, I only see films at film festivals with a sales agent attached, and they are all men!" He recognized in that moment that films that might better appeal to a female audience weren't even being considered. That was another calling -- one I hadn't asked for or wanted - but I felt I needed to do what I could for films that were important to me. So after signing on as the foreign distributor for Abigail Disney and Gini Reticker's film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell", I learned they had no US sales agent - and offered to help. We were looking at a myriad of opportunities for the film. In the course of that, a few offers for educational distribution came in. Still from "Pray the Devil Back to Hell". I was astonished at how bleak the terms were for the filmmakers, as well as disappointed with the catalog approach to marketing them. I suggested to Abigail that we could probably do a better job for the film and with better terms if we collaborated and focused on an educational campaign. I was right. Abigail and her producing partner Gini Reticker had done a fantastic job of building a community with the film since their first premiere at Tribeca. We already had a great base to work with; we began researching every possible educator who could use this film on their campus. In some cases we bought data that we thought would serve the film. We also knew there was great potential for community screenings. We weren't ready to support those at the time, so we worked with Caitlin Boyle at FilmSprout who did a phenomenal job of booking the community screenings for the film. In the end we did thousands of screenings and sales. But that's really not the end, because despite the home video being available, the educational DVD continues to be licensed to educational institutions and non-profit organizations -- with no sign of stopping. I didn't want to take another film until I felt satisfied our success wasn't a fluke and that we had the infrastructure built to accommodate more films. This was very different from what ro*co had done in the world of foreign distribution -- we had entered a retail landscape with manufacturing costs, inventory, shipping, sales tax and customer service. We focused on the infrastructure and about a year and a half later we were ready to take on more films. It should be noted that we no longer act as sales agents for films in the US - it really is a whole other animal. What is the size of the US educational market, or to put it another way, how much can a documentary film make in this market if it does really well? Is it $100,000, $500,000 or more? When we refer to the educational market, we are referring to more than just the sale of the public performance rights to colleges and universities. We also include the sale of the public performance rights to any community that might want to host a screening. That includes non-profits, corporations, NGOs, churches, mosques, military bases, learning centers, etc. So, really, the possibilities are limitless. There is always more that can be done. That's why we believe that having a focused campaign that identifies organizations that might want to host screenings is so important. In general, we'd like to see a film we take-on produce 50-100K in sales. Our most successful film to date has nearly reached a million dollars, including speaking fees. Why so successful? Largely, it is the right topic at the right time. It is a topic that truly affects us all: young and old, student, teacher, business owner, minister, man or woman. It is also consistently supported by an excellent social media campaign that engages on a daily basis. Your company has steadily increased its capabilities in the educational market, most recently with the launch of a new web site. Explain what led you to create this new site and what it provides to filmmakers and audiences. Over the past four years, we have seen the educational/semi-theatrical market grow and diversify, which has been tremendously exciting to watch. While the market used to mainly consist of visual media librarians at educational institutions, we have seen the semi-theatrical audience demographic grow significantly to include student groups, corporations, non-profit organizations, government orgs, religious groups, public libraries, community film series…the list could go on and on. So, after observing this shift, we wanted to update our site to reflect this new audience that was seeking out our films. ro*co films educational website. While the previous site was easy to understand and navigate for a very niche audience of buyers, we knew that it could be confusing and complicated for an average citizen wanting to show one of our films for their community. So, with the new site, we make it much easier for people to learn about hosting a screening, find answers to questions, and to purchase the proper licensing to host an event. We have found that many people still think the only way to see or show a film is either in a commercial theater or in their home, so this new website helps us to empower people to take action, host an event of their own, and engage their community. And the great thing is that our new website also includes highly sophisticated event planning and management tools, so once a public performance license is purchased, people can use our website to promote, organize, and execute their event as well as track rsvps. And because they use our website, it allows us to keep better track of where screenings are happening and also to stay in touch with screening attendees, keep them engaged, and possibly encourage them to host additional screenings in the future. The new site also allows for a much higher level of content and contact management. We can now more effectively control each film's page, which allows for easy manipulation of pricing, posting new information, and linking to current campaigns, articles, videos, etc related to the film's message. Also, because we talk to so many different types of people each day related to so many different films or topics, we love that the new website allows us to better target, track, organize, and communicate with potential and current buyers for our films. We can now, in one place (our website) communicate with people via email, Facebook, twitter, texting, and we can also encourage our supporters to recruit their friends and colleagues to host screenings of our films and get involved. So, our communication can now have this ripple effect, where we are able to reach people and communities in our periphery that we never would've reached before. We know that our success lies in our ability to activate, broaden, and respect the growing community of people who take interest in our films, and the new website helps us to do just that. I encourage your readers to take a look at www.rocoeducational.com.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Distribution Annie Roney, interviewed by Chris Dorr 2013-05-10T16:00:31+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/find-your-audience-in-the-educational-market/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/5XgQyCbpoFg/ Today’s Google+ Hangout featured Topspin Media Senior Vice President of Marketing Bob Moczydlowsky, filmmaker and founder of The Webby Awards Tiffany Shlain, and Sundance's Chris Horton and Joseph Beyer. It was educational and entertaining discussion on the evolution and explosion of Direct-to-Fan Distribution (D2F). The D2F model allows artists to create interest in their work directly with fans, develop relationships with their fans, and sell directly to them through various platforms. In case you missed it, here is a quick review: For the past few years, Sundance’s Chris Horton and Joseph Beyer have developed Sundance’s amazing Artist Services program that offers direct-to-fan marketing and distribution tools for filmmakers. Explore all of Artist Services’ resources and helpful articles. Artist Services has supported a number of films including the 2012 Award Winning Sundance Film Festival Documentary Detropia and Indie Game - The Movie. Bob Moczydlowsky, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Topspin Media, offered useful advice for filmmakers. His article on Stacy Peralta’s Bones Brigade: An Autobiography explains why Peralta embraced the new direct-to-fan model by retaining his rights and distributing the film himself. Read it here. Tiffany Shlain, who was named by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” provided valuable tips on marketing films and building relationships with fans through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Shlain’s website is a great resource for any independent filmmaker. During the Google+ Hangout, Sundance’s featured guests recommended a number of film case studies including 2013 Sundance Film Festival Selection Sound City and 2012 Sundance Audience Award Winning film Sleepwalk With Me that can help filmmakers build a successful direct-to-fan distribution campaign. If you’re an independent filmmaker, their talk on direct-to-fan distribution provided valuable insight on the process of distributing films outside of the traditional model. Watch today’s Google+ Hangout on Youtube.]]> Artist Services, Entertainment Industry, Artist Services, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Distribution, Partners, Topspin Media Sundance Institute 2013-01-21T01:29:50+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/sundance-google-hangout-direct-to-fan-church/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/0keWTlTtoas/ Sundance hosted its first Google+ Hangout that was broadcasted live earlier today featuring four of the New Frontier artists. It was the first hangout in a series of eight Google+ Hangouts happening live at 2 pm throughout the festival. The hangout guests today were Jigar Mehta, Yung Jake, Gregory Bayne, and Brigitte Dale. In addition to discussing the evolving landscape of transmedia art and tools for artists, they explained their various projects. Rap artist Yung Jake has two installments called E.m-bed.de/d and Augmented Real at the New Frontier gallery in this year’s Festival. Yung Jake has become an Internet sensation thanks to his website http://e.m-bed.de/d/ and intriguing style. He also has his own iTunes App (http://bit.ly/YungJake) Jigar Mehta and Brigitte Dale participated in Sundance Institute’s first ever New Frontier Story Lab at the Sundance Resort in 2011. Robert Redford, President & Founder of Sundance Institute, said, “The New Frontier Story Lab is a rare opportunity for these artists to explore their concepts and consider the impact they may have on how stories are experienced in the future.” At the 2011 New Frontier Story Lab, Jigar Mehta worked on his interactive documentary project that tells the story of the first 18 days of the Egyptian revolution through various media generated by users on the front line.  During the hangout, Mehta explained that he created a platform that, “built a community of young Egyptian activists and journalists who are going to work with us to go out there and talk to people to capture their stories and then get them on the site.” You can explore his project here: http://beta.18daysinegypt.com/ Brigitte Dale is a New Frontier Story Lab alumni. She has written/produced/hosted content for AOL, ABC Family, Ford Motor Company, Rogue/Relativity Media and NASA. Currently, she has been working on a hardcover book that has been funded online by hundreds of people. Click out this link to explore her project: http://www.indiegogo.com/bedtimebook Gregory Bayne who attended the 2012 New Frontier Story Lab talked about the amazing project he did with Cory McAbee called “Captain Ahab’s Motorcycle Club”. New Frontier at Sundance is a social and creative space that showcases media installations, multimedia performances, transmedia experiences, panel discussions, and more. If your in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival, stop by The Yard to check out the New Frontier installments. Don’t miss the Google+ Hangout tomorrow- Kickstarter School (Experts Analyze $100 Million Bucks of Film Funding. RSVP for the event here: http://bit.ly/SundanceHangout2 For more information about the New Frontier Artists and Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Story Lab, take a look at these Sundance articles: http://www.sundance.org/stories/article/transmedia-in-the-mountains-sundance-launches-new-frontier-lab/ http://www.sundance.org/press-center/release/sundance-institute-announces-first-ever-new-frontier-story-lab-october-23-2/]]> Artist Services, New Frontier, Sundance Institute Lab, Artist Services, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Marketing Sundance Institute 2013-01-19T02:50:18+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/sundance-google-hangout-new-frontier-of-storytelling-transmedia-disruptors/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/ZA-L15bg_QU/ An African Election illuminates a beacon of hope for Africa and for the value and vitality of democracy today." - Sundance Film Festival My first memory about politics in Africa began with the execution of former heads of state in Ghana, live on television in 1979. I remember the dimly lit shack, a flickering black and white television, which my friends and I were glued to and the sound of the shots as the bodies went limp. Thirty-three years later, I am still searching for the footage, not very successfully, since the archives have burnt down and all the material have been destroyed, so I am told. All I am left with are these memories, snapshots of a time when corruption was rampant amongst the military leadership and a young Lt. Jerry Rawlings was about to rewrite Ghana’s political history. Rawlings, a charismatic lieutenant was instrumental in the uprising against the leadership and its overthrow. Time flies and it is 4 years since I began filming An African Election, a feature documentary about the 2008 presidential elections in Ghana. Here I am sitting on a plane from Los Angeles to Ghana where I am planning to take An African Election back on the road with a truck and a movie screen to show this film to my fellow Ghanaians. I never thought I would end up doing this - A Political Safari - a mobile cinema outreach campaign to support Africans in democracy building. Was I completely out of my mind?! This kind of work was for the various organizations that flood Africa, claiming they can save it! But save it from whom? A friend once said to me he felt Africa was the cemetery of NGO’s. So why on earth did I think Africa was waiting for another project like mine? If in all these years there had been so little development, comparatively speaking, why should I dare believe that I, with my film, would make a difference? On March 4th of this year we held the Ghana premier of An African Election in a theater in the capital city of Accra with a thousand people watching their 2008 presidential elections through MY eyes. The audience was charged as they compared their recollection of the events with what was unfolding on the screen. At times you could hear a pin drop and then suddenly, a thunder of voices would comment in disbelief or excitement. We had touched a nerve. We had captured footage that revealed the behind-the-scenes intrigue of electioneering, the intensity of the vote counting process, and the political battle. This was something no cameras had ever been able to do in Africa. Yes, I documented events that almost brought down our country. But, it also showed how we were able to steer Ghana through this political storm. For the audience to see this clearly portrayed - this was the most powerful example of democracy. Given the recent tragic death of president Atta Mills the country is facing a new reshuffling of power, which might threaten democratic stability and may adversely affect the upcoming presidential elections in December 2012. Now, more than ever, it is time to take An African Election back home to Ghana so I can share the story of an election that made history. In an age where we have seen too many failures, this project exemplifies an African success story. Help us take this story on the road by supporting our Political Safari Kickstarter campaign. If we can raise enough money and support, we will be touring the entire country, including the remotest places, for two solid months, bringing the film in 5 local languages to inspire and support Africans in democracy building. Please join us. Akwaaba! About the author: Jarreth Merz - Director/Producer Jarreth Merz is an award-winning director, producer and actor. He grew up in Ghana, Germany and Switzerland and speaks five languages fluently. Merz has been making documentaries since 2007. His film An African Election premiered in the world cinema documentary competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Film Independent Spirit Awards in 2012. He is winner of the Etat D¹Esprit at the Visions Du Reel Film Festival, winner of the Grand Jury Award at the Atlanta Film Festival and most recently won the 2012 Africa Movie Academy Awards for best African documentary. He was invited to speak at TEDGlobal in 2011. In 1996 Merz co-founded the non-profit organization GTA - GERMAN THEATER ABROAD and for six years produced theater festivals, productions and staged readings on both sides of the Atlantic. He is also known for his portrayal of Simon of Cyrene in Mel Gibson¹s The Passion of the Christ and his recurring role as Charles Baruani in ER. He is currently working on a follow up documentary on the 2012 presidential elections in Ghana. Websites http://anafricanelection.com http://politicalsafari.org]]> Creative Funding, Documentary, Documentary Film Program, Sundance Film Festival, Artist Services, Documentary Film, Film Festival, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Jarreth Merz, director, An African Election 2012-07-25T03:51:54+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/political-safari/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/-oHC3U4Mzww/ Jessica Oreck is a filmmaker whose work focuses on issues of ethnobiology. Her first feature, "Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo" was released in the US and UK in 2009. Her short film "Venus" played the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. We have 9 days left on Kickstarter and $20,000 to go. We also have some crazy great rewards and an amazing film that we want to get out to audiences like you. This little piece was written to give you a sense of how personal the project is and how it got started – but now the film is in your hands, and it can only be finished with your help. Your help, your friend’s help, your mom’s help. Make a pledge, spread the word, and help us reach our goal! I love old Westerns. The character of the cowboy is infinitely appealing to me. I love the idea of a man alone in a great expanse of space, in tune with the weather and the needs of his animals. He knows the stars and the landscape almost innately. He is separate from the driving rush of civilization, his time exists for daylight and moonlight. He doesn’t have a Blackberry. I wanted to find that type of man (or woman!) – a modern cowboy. When my parents moved to Helsinki, I spent about three weeks traveling around the north of Finland, searching for the manifestation of this idealized concept of the modern cowboy, but I was consistently disappointed. Knowing that I was getting frustrated, my mom, helpful as always, said something along the lines of, “Well, there’s this really nice man down at the farmer’s market who sells reindeer meat, I’m sure he knows a family of herders you could get in touch with…” I was skeptical, but I did end up meeting “the nice man from the farmer’s market,” Jari Etelälahti, in April 2010. Before I could even open my mouth, he said, “I know just the family. You’ll love them. I’ll meet you in Rovaniemi in two weeks.” Two weeks and plenty of indecision later, I meet Jari in the parking lot of a hotel in Rovaniemi, the largest town in Lapland, more than thirteen hours from Helsinki by train. We get into his car, almost total strangers. A few hours later we arrive at the house of a man named Hannu. Hannu says something in Finnish. The three of us climb into his car and continue north. An hour later we are in the middle of the woods. We switch to snowmobiles. An hour later we are at a tiny cabin even deeper in the woods. There is no electricity and no running water. Hannu lights a fire. I shiver. And then I hear the sound of a snowmobile approaching. Moments later, Aarne Aatsinki saunters in. The three men sip coffee and speak Finnish. Without a word of explanation, I am loaded onto the back of Aarne’s snowmobile. I don’t know where to put my hands. His snowmobile is obviously for hard riding, not carrying tourists. I wrap my arms around him in the most polite way I can figure. We zip across frozen lakes, up mountainsides, take in vistas. We reach a giant fence, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. “Russia,” Aarne says, pointing to the other side. Later in our ride, we are stopped by some border guards who greet Aarne and skeptically study my papers. More mountains, more vistas. And then, without warning, Aarne stands up quickly, leaving me dangling on the back of his snowmobile with nothing to hold onto. I hear Aarne say quietly, “O-ho” and then we are falling down an incredibly steep, though thankfully short, cliff. We land and Aarne turns off the snowmobile. I dismount ungracefully, shaking. He laughs at me, but in a protective way, while he checks his engine. As I stand there, trembling, something catches Aarne’s eye and he hikes a short distance up the cliff. He waves me over, points to a track in the snow, and follows the trail to a tiny opening I hadn’t even noticed. Producing a flashlight from within his thick clothing, he peers into a cave and says to me, “Ahma.” I nod, mystified. It starts to snow. Thickly. Aarne turns his snowmobile and we meet up with Jari and Hannu at a nearby hut. Aarne lights a fire and someone fills a kettle with water. In a few minutes we are all drinking coffee. Jari explains to me that, on our way off the cliff, we must have startled a wolverine (one of my first Finnish words: ahma) leaving his lair. In Finland, wolverines are highly protected animals and it is illegal even track them. Jari expresses his concern for Aarne should the border guards see his footprints. I ask Jari how long we’ll be here. Jari ask Aarne. Aarne pulls open the door a few inches, looks into the blank, white sky and shrugs his answer in Finnish. “Two hours,” Jari translates. Two hours later, nearly to the minute, the snow stops, the sky clears, and I am back on Aarne’s snowmobile, Jari and Hannu behind us. Aarne stops several times simply to listen. It always sounds silent to me, but at one point he turns off the path and we crest a hill. Dozens of reindeer are spread out below us – my first sighting of the animals in the wild. Aarne eventually takes me back to the tiny cabin where we met and shakes my hand goodbye. I tell him I will return in September to meet his family and follow them for a year. He seems to think this is a good idea, and smiles – though I am pretty sure he had no idea what he was getting himself into...]]> Creative Funding, Documentary, Film Festival News, Partners, Kickstarter, Artist Alumni, Artist Services, Documentary Film, Film Festival, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Festival, Festival Indexes, Festival Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Jessica Oreck 2012-05-02T17:30:55+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/aatsinki-the-story-of-arctic-cowboys/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/KMAkqN-TzlM/ Simon Pulman works for Starlight Runner Entertainment in New York City, specializing in digital strategy and business development. He explores the emerging world of transmedia storytelling and digital business models on his blog at Transmythology.com, and can be followed on twitter at @simonpulman. If you follow the video game industry, you’ll doubtless have seen news of Double Fine’s outstandingly successful Kickstarter campaign. Seeking to raise $400,000 for a new adventure game, Double Fine has so far raised $520,000 (from almost 12,000 backers) in less than two days. With 33 days of the campaign to go, it’s not unforeseeable that it could exceed a million dollars in total donations by its end. Part of the reason that Double Fine’s campaign is so exceptional is because it is the first major games studio to finance a game (a new IP at that) through Kickstarter. As such, it sets the stage for an entirely new paradigm in the industry that eschews traditional publishers almost entirely. As Double Fine puts it: Big games cost big money. Even something as “simple” as an Xbox LIVE Arcade title can cost upwards of two or three million dollars. For disc-based games, it can be over ten times that amount. To finance the production, promotion, and distribution of these massive undertakings, companies like Double Fine have to rely on external sources like publishers, investment firms, or loans. And while they fulfill an important role in the process, their involvement also comes with significant strings attached that can pull the game in the wrong directions or even cancel its production altogether. Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community. They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision. It’s the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can’t afford. At least, not until now. A Bonus for Fans It is important to note that Double Fine is not merely pre-selling copies of its game at $15 a pop. It’s selling something critically important in the digital age: intimacy. When players donate to the project, they are granted access to an unprecedented “behind-the-scenes” experience: 2 Player Productions will be documenting the creative process and releasing monthly video updates exclusively to the Kickstarter backers. This documentary series will strive to make the viewer as much a part of the process as possible by showing a game grow from start to finish, with all the passion, humor, and heartbreak that happens along the way. Double Fine is committed to total transparency with this project, ensuring it is one of the most honest depictions of game development ever conceived. This level of increased transparency through the development process is something I’ve been in favor of for some time, across all parts of the entertainment industry. I applaud Double Fine wholeheartedly for understanding that, in an age of instant feedback and fan communities, the relationship you have with your audience is the most important asset you possess. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the video Double Fine produced to accompany its campaign is both refreshingly candid and – crucially – consistent with the established humorous tone of the company’s games. Building a Community The other important element here is the relationship that fans have with each other. In the age of social media, people who like things will immediately and automatically seek out others who like it. This is no longer a niche activity – look at the communities around creative content that have been generated by tools like Pinterest. Again, Double Fine does not merely acknowledge the importance of fan community – it embraces it: There will be a private online community set up for the backers to discuss the project with the devs and submit their thoughts and feelings about the game’s content and direction, sometimes even voting on decisions when the dev team can’t decide. Backers will also have access to help test the game once a beta is available. Once the game is finished, backers will receive the completed version in the available format of their choice. This is a staggering development that blows the traditional testing/focus group model to pieces. In the past, I’ve admired the willingness of companies like Naughty Dog to acknowledge fan feedback. However, this takes it to a new level by empowering fans to exchange ideas with each other during the development process and even weigh in with valuable feedback. Kudos to Double Fine for understanding that when fans feel appreciated and listened to, their loyalty to the underlying brand and creator grows exponentially. The Power of Pedigree Of course, it’s impossible to look at the success of the Double Fine campaign in isolation from the company’s long-term pedigree. Double Fine and its employees have spent an enormous amount of time creating a first-class reputation and body of work that encourages fans to react instantly like this. Double Fine principle Tim Schafer created Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango – three of the most beloved adventure games of all time – while the company’s game Psychonauts is now widely considered one of the most underrated games of all time. Of course, Double Fine will have to ensure that the product they release fulfills fans’ expectations. Thus, there can be no denying that tools such as Kickstarter currently benefit established creators and brands most. While we have seen some fantastic successes by emerging artists on the platform, none have touched the immediacy of Double Fine’s campaign. Thus, it could be considered that the optimal long-term plan for success for most artists and creative teams currently looks like something like this: Establish reputation through products championed by traditional media and distribution. Nurture fan community and build relationship with fans. Leverage reputation and relationships into a direct distribution paradigm with managed costs and greater control of IP and revenue streams. The Next Questions I have two principle questions for the future of services like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo (notwithstanding the issue of allowing small investment/equity participation, which is another can of worms). The first is whether Kickstarter could be used to fund something with a much bigger budget, escalating into the millions. Could you fund a “mini-major” feeling feature film of the kind Miramax used to specialize in the ’90s? (although you could argue that with falling production costs, you shouldn’t need to). Or would attempting something so big effectively destroy the spirit of what makes Kickstarter unique? As Double Fine says: Keeping the scale of the project this small accomplishes two things. First and foremost, Double Fine gets to make the game they want to make, promote it in whatever manner they deem appropriate, and release the finished product on their own terms. Secondly, since they’re only accountable to themselves, there’s an unprecedented opportunity to show the public what game development of this caliber looks like from the inside. Not the sanitized commercials-posing-as-interviews that marketing teams only value for their ability to boost sales, but an honest, in-depth insight into a modern art form that will both entertain and educate gamers and non-gamers alike. The second question is more important. While an established company like Double Fine understandably sees fans immediately flocking to donate, things become much more difficult for an emerging artist working on his or her first project. While you could argue that it is the responsibility of that artist to earn his or her reputation over time, I can’t help but wonder what kinds of tools Kickstarter could introduce to facilitate discovery and fundraising for less visible names. This will become increasingly important as more established names and studios see the success of the platform and begin migrating to it. So, I suppose, my second question is this: How can Kickstarter ensure that it remains a platform for the best ideas and projects, not merely the biggest names? I’m fascinating to see what the next couple of years brings. Link: Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter UPDATE: The Double Fine Kickstarter campaign just passed $1 million, becoming a phenomenon in its own right. A true watershed moment for Kickstarter, although it will surely spawn debate about to what degree it’s replicable by other projects. Originally published on Transmythology.com]]> Creative Funding, Artist Services, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Simon Pulman 2012-02-10T03:04:30+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstarter-double-fine-a-seismic-shift/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/SfOemw8CXvE/ Jigar Mehta is a digital entrepreneur and video journalist. He is the co-founder of the collaborative storytelling platform GroupStream which powers his documentary project 18 Days in Egypt. Visit the 18 Days in Egypt Kickstarter page to help fund the hiring of young Egyptian journalists and students to travel throughout Egypt to collect stories from the last year. This project was part of the inaugural Sundance Institute New Frontier Story Lab. The entire 18 Days in Egypt team is in Cairo for the first anniversary of the Revolution. Little did we know that a major event would occur while we were here. One year exactly after the Battle of the Camels, when mounted thugs stormed into Cairo’s Tahrir Square and beat protesters, a soccer match erupted in violence leaving 74 dead. 18 Days in Egypt is an interactive documentary project that tells the story of the Egyptian Revolution, using the personal media created by Egyptians in the midst of their ongoing struggle. We want Egyptians to tell this story themselves, with their footage, their photos, their e-mails, their texts, even their Tweets and Facebook status updates, all created during the revolution. 18 Days in Egypt, which planned to deploy a team of young Egyptian journalists to collect stories and media fragments created around the events of the past year for an interactive documentary, changed course. Since the Egyptian freedom struggle continues today, 18 Days in Egypt is a living documentary—capturing the events of the revolution as it spirals forward. The fellows at 18 Days in Egypt have been in the field documenting the latest clashes between protesters and security forces. They have been collecting social media from protesters, and using it to create distinct story streams at www.18DaysinEgypt.com Events took a turn for the dramatic on February 1, when a soccer match between the al-Masry and al-Ahly teams turned deadly. In a matter of minutes, the death toll climbed from 5 to 20 to over 70. Our fellows gathered personal interviews and firsthand footage from on the ground to create a stream capturing little known details of the Ahly Massacre. The die hard soccer fans, known as Ultras, retaliated with marches against the military council, which they believe orchestrated the attacks on the pro-revolution Ultras. A funeral for the youngest killed in the attack—a 14-year-old!—was captured through the words of his friends just minutes before and after his funeral service. As the clashes continued, our fellows focused on stories from the frontlines, including those about women, shopkeepers who stay open despite being surrounded by violence, motorcycle ambulances, and the tough task of negotiating a truce. We have 6 fellows who are funded for 6 weeks to focus on stories in Cairo. That’s why we are raising funds through our Kickstarter campaign to fund the work of the fellows for an additional 6 months and to expand the program to 20 fellows. Our fellows are: Sara Elkamel, an Egyptian journalist living in Cairo; Nesma El Shazly, a political science graduate of Cairo’s American University; Mostafaa Sheshtawy, an engineer and citizen photo journalist; Mohamed Abd El-Hamid, student and young revolutionary, and Carmel Delshad, a multimedia journalist. Our fellows are back out today covering the personal stories on the frontlines of these clashes. We publish first to our twitter account so be sure to follow @18daysinegypt.]]> Creative Funding, Documentary, Artist Services, Film Festival, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Jigar Mehta 2012-02-06T21:49:38+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-18-days-in-egypt/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/i4fx2-MDSLY/ John E. Warnock is Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Adobe Systems, Inc., a company he co-founded in 1982 with Charles Geschke. Dr. Warnock was President of Adobe for his first two years and Chairman and CEO for his remaining 16 years at Adobe. Warnock has pioneered the development of graphics, publishing, Web and electronic document technologies that have revolutionized the field of publishing and visual communication. He is also a member of the Sundance Institute Board of Trustees. Over the past 25 years, technology advances have dramatically changed the fundamental structure of all media businesses. All of these transformations have had a common thread: The high cost of capital equipment and complex distribution systems have kept competitors out of the traditional media businesses, and kept profits high. For instance, in the newspaper businesses there is reliance on massive printing presses, reporter networks, paper sources, and complex distribution systems. In the Movie business, there are large studios, expensive camera and lighting equipment, film and processing laboratories, and relationships with networks of theaters. In the world of publishing, there are dependencies on prepress, presses and complex distribution. The music business depended on extensive recording studios, and distribution networks. Technology developments have changed all those barriers to entry. It all started in the printing and publishing area with the invention of the personal computer, the inexpensive laser printer, and desktop publishing software. This drastically reduced the cost of entry into the publishing arena. The growth of the Internet, and electronic publishing brought down the barriers of distribution. The desktop software dramatically reduced the cost of creating magazines, books and all other printed material. The arrival of the ubiquitous use of the Internet, the iPod, and iTunes allowed the transformation of the music industry. Records, tapes, and CDs are becoming artifacts of the past. Now, young artists use the Internet, YouTube, and Facebook to gain exposure. Desktop software is replacing the complex mixing equipment of the past. The advent of low-cost memory, high quality video technology, and high-bandwidth communication has changed all the cost characteristics of the moving picture industry. The Internet is changing the fundamental distribution mechanisms. Since its inception, Sundance has always believed in supporting, and promoting the voice of independent story telling. Now the direction of Sundance and the direction of technology are completely aligned. We actually are entering an age of the democratization of all media. Sundance’s role in this new age, is to insure that the cream rises to the top - that the artists are educated through the labs, that quality films are produced, that they gain financial support and that they receive effective distribution of the message. Originally, Sundance supported artists only through the labs. It role was to teach acting, directing, producing, and composing to aspiring film makers. Over the last ten years Sundance has funded documentaries thereby extending its assistance to film makers. Over the last year and a half, several new initiatives called ‘Artist Services,' under the leadership of Keri Putman, have extended Sundance’s effectiveness in helping artists. In addition to our documentary funding through the Institute, Sundance has sponsored over fifty projects and raised $1.5 million through Kickstarter (a public funding website). Seventeen of the films at Sundance this year were partially funded through Kickstarter. Through partnerships with iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Sundance NOW and YouTube, Sundance has arranged for the digital premieres of 13 new films. Technology is reducing the economic barriers between the artist and the audience. Sundance is trying to exploit the new technologies in every way it can to allow all the new talented voices to be heard.]]> Creative Funding, Entertainment Industry, Independent Film, New Frontier, Opinion, Technology, Artist Alumni, Artist Services, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Distribution Dr. John E. Warnock, Chairman of the Board, Adobe Systems Incorporated 2012-02-02T05:03:28+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/reducing-the-economic-barriers-between-the-artist-and-the-audience/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/grNtBuEq93M/ Kyle Henry is filmmaker using Kickstarter to fund his project FOURPLAY, an anthology of shorts including Fourplay: Tampa which is in this year's Sundance Film Festival. Click here to join the push to complete production on the feature anthology. So we're at Sundance, about to screen Fourplay: Tampa, one of the shorts that comprise our anthology of shorts feature FOURPLAY, and suddenly I'm a bit nervous. How will the audience react to this challenging and outrageous short? Each of the shorts in FOURPLAY pushes screen sex to new emotional boundaries, and with Tampa we're seeing how an "NC-17" slapstick farce about public restroom sex will go over.    GLBT audiences at our Outfest American premiere howled and squealed with laughter, but queer audiences might be more comfortable with the subject matter. I wasn't able to see the world premiere screening at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight. What will straight audiences think, raised as this generation has been with sanitized and promotional advertisements of queer life seen in mass media entertainment? Will they connect and care for our desperate hero, looking for love in all the wrong places? I can only hope they will relate to the experience of humilitating oneself for the chance at connection and/or love, and doing so in a way that's personal, even if highly unusual. The second reason I'm nervous is that we're using this Sundance opportunity to launch one last Kickstarter to fund the feature anthology. FOURPLAY's funding thus far has nearly exhausted our intimate circle of supporters, and the project needs to reach a wider level of support that perhaps Sundance exposure can provide. So we're "working it," mentioning the Kickstarter in every interview and Q&A. A $10 donation allows you to see Tampa online once the fund drive ends. Call it an mini-advance distribution/fundraising gamble, with Kickstarter offering not only fundraising but the opportunity for us to get part of the product itself to our fans early.   So, here we go. Take a breath, keep drinking water, and remember to keep focused on the mission of making sure people have the opportunity to see a work that will hopefully create a conversation about what stories we can tell each other about sex and sexual expression. We have until Feb 20th to make that a reality. Check out the video below and consider a $10 donation to bring a bit of Sundance to the privacy of you own home for some sexually healing.   PS - Well, maybe I don't have to be too nervous after all! See this great review by Michael Tully in Ted Hope's HAMMER TO NAIL site below. Still, these short are meant to provoke discussion, so totally prepared to engage with potential hostile responses.]]> Creative Funding, Documentary, Documentary Film Program, Artist Services, Film Festival, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Kyle Henry 2012-01-22T21:43:14+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-fourplay/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/D1APwmgZn0M/ Andrew Berends is a documentary filmmaker using Kickstarter to fund his project Delta Boys, a recipient of the 2008 Sundance Institute Documentary Film Grant. Click here to join the final push to complete production on this documentary. “Any time you wake up, it’s your morning. We are here waiting for our freedom. I hope that now is the bitter time, and very soon all of us will enter to the joy side.” That’s what one young militant named Chima told me when I was living in Ateke Tom’s rebel camp in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria. But the inhabitants of the Niger Delta are still waiting. They live in poverty while precious oil is pumped from beneath their feet, and the rivers on which they subsist are polluted by over three hundred oil spills every year! My film Delta Boys explores the untold stories of the Niger Delta militancy – rebels who band together in the face of corrupt government oppression in this oil-rich region of Nigeria – following the lives of two militants: Ateke Tom, the "Godfather" of the Niger Delta Vigilante Force, and Chima, a 21-year-old who left home to join the fight. The film also documents life in a tiny fishing village caught in the crossfire of the conflict. Mama, a 22-year-old, struggles to give birth to her first child with no access to modern medical care, while raids are launched from a militant camp across the river. The militants have called for a greater distribution of wealth and jobs. When their requests have been ignored, they've sabotaged flow stations, blown up pipelines, and kidnapped foreign oil workers. But many feel that while the Niger Delta cause is legitimate, the militants' motives are not so pure. In the process of filming Delta Boys, I had to sneak past government checkpoints to reach militant camps hidden in a maze of winding tributaries at the mouth of the Niger River. Getting access to the militants wasn’t easy, but once I was allowed in camp and demonstrated my willingness to share their risks and their living conditions, they began to share their story. I stayed on as long as I could until I was captured by the Nigerian Army, detained by the government for 10 days and expelled from the country. I hope that Delta Boys will help raise awareness of the Niger Delta oil conflict. We are overly dependent on oil to produce, transport, and fuel virtually everything that we consume. The Niger Delta is just one of many regions in the world that is being pillaged in service of this addiction. Delta Boys is virtually complete. I am reaching out through Kickstarter for support to help cover finishing costs. Unless something is done to change the current course of events, one thing is certain: in 40 years, Nigeria’s oil fields will be empty and the inhabitants of the Niger Delta will have nothing to show for a century of oil exploitation other than environmental devastation.]]> Creative Funding, Documentary, Documentary Film Program, Documentary Film, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Andrew Berends 2011-12-02T15:53:39+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-delta-boys/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/f5SK9j7l1VI/ Danielle DiGiacomo is an independent film producer, consultant, and programmer based in New York City. She participated at the 2011 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab and is currently working on Elijah Rosenberg's Ad Inexplorata, an FFP-supported project. Click here to support her most recent project, Best Kept Secret, on Kickstarter. On November 21, five days after the Best Kept Secret Kickstarter campaign was launched, I received the following Facebook message from a Hebrew School friend I haven't seen since shortly after her Bat Mitzvah. "Danielle,  I cannot tell you how moved I was by your link to Best Kept Secret. I'm sure you're unaware but my son is autistic (very high functioning with a diagnosis of PDD-NOS) but I can remember when the therapists broke the autism word to me--it felt like my nightmare was coming true and I couldn't imagine how my son's life would turn out. Who would care for him when we no longer could, etc. We are so lucky that his progress is ridiculous and, quite frankly, he may be a quirky person who works his way out of the official diagnosis, but I know what know the fears, and the crushed dreams, and hopes of how things are supposed to turn out. I'm so glad you shed a light on the lack of public resources and good resources for special needs people who age out of school. Great Work, thank you." I was moved to tears by this message.  We--myself (Producer), Samantha Buck (Director), Scott Mosier, (Executive Producer), and Zeke Farrow (Associate Producer)--launched the campaign for $14,675 to be used toward the rough cut of the film. That number is far lower than what we actually need, but after several discussions, we decided to play it safe and lowball our goal, due to our recent experience in the marketplace and the stagnant economy.  We were awestruck when, a week after we launched, we surpassed our goal. Through all the tools of promotion we have been using--Facebook, Twitter, e-mails, subway solicitation, sandwich boards, and oh, Scott Mosier (who is Kevin Smith's longtime producer and talked about the film on their weekly podcast, SMODCAST)--people beyond our usual circle came to be aware of the film and were responding from all over the country. People we had never heard of. Our film had hit the nerve we wanted it to hit.  And messages keep pouring in:  "I am a parent of an autistic child... You have my money and thanks for putting together such a great project." "Kudos to Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier for making this project known. As a father of an autistic son, I cannot wait to shake Mosier's hand and hug all the teachers at the JFK school." "My 5-year-old son is autistic and the more information that gets out there about this condition the better." The money, obviously, is why we used Kickstarter; frankly, we still need at least $60,000 total to finish the film. But the unexpected and most rewarding effect of our Kickstarter campaign has been finding our audience--people dealing with stories like the one we are telling in the film, including parents of autistic children, special education teachers, and social workers.  My number one lesson learned from this, my 4th successful Kickstarter campaign: Crowdfunding? Yes. CrowdFINDING? Also yes. ]]> Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter, Producing, Documentary Film, Producers, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Danielle DiGiacomo 2011-12-01T02:28:20+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-best-kept-secret/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/Eu9O5Bzw34s/ Lemon Andersen's play "ToasT" is being presented in collaboration with Under The Radar Festival at the famed Public Theater in New York City. Elise Thoron (who helped to develop and directed County of Kings and Washi Tales) and street artists will be collaborating with set designers to help him bring it to life. "ToasT" is raising production funding on Kickstarter and was recently supported with a development grant from the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab. Receiving a Fellowship from Sundance Institute brought all the ghosts back up. Nine months before, I had given up on playwrighting - even though it's the best medium for me to stage my poetry.  Playwrighting is also the hardest hustle to master. I sent out a mass email to my close friends and artists telling them that I no longer wanted to make a living being a playwright - that I will venture into copywriting full time and write poetry and plays on the side. It was a very dark moment for me. After putting up a couple of critically acclaimed shows you would think I was a made man. But actually it was the opposite. I would show up to award ceremonies uninvited and find myself in the darkest corners of the room accompanied by a watered down drink and the hopes of someone saying hello. My work and culture are not found in the social settings of the theatre world. People in that world barely use the word "whassup." But that never meant to me that we can't meet each other half way and agree that we all share a passion for live drama. When I was given the chance to join a couple of playwrights on a writing retreat to the Sundance/Ucross Lab in Wyoming, I knew it would be a great opportunity to re-kindle my love for writing for the stage and get the other artists at the retreat to know that even though I came from a tough place, I share the same passion for theatre and cry even harder than they did at the end of King Lear. I have daughters too. After Ucross, I walked away with new friends I still stay in touch with till this day. Blast their accomplishments on my social networks. Keep them strong when they have doubt about their positions as writers in theatre and remind them that sometimes we are all we got, so let's play hard. This fall I received a Fellowship from Sundance Institute's Theatre Program to finish the play I started at Ucross, which is titled "ToasT."  It's a about the harshest poetry you can ever read at a Sunday dinner. = Even Lenny Bruce would have said "Oh damn, here comes Dolomite!" (my main character). But these Toasts have the most beautiful characters who are dear to my storytelling and knock on my imagination every night waiting for me to give them a new place to signify. So I've put it out there. I will tell you now that Kickstarter is not for the weak at heart - but neither is playwrighting. So onward with the challenge of finding a way to make it happen. Onward with the lessons I will learn everyday of putting my pride to the side and even knocking on my neighbor's door asking for her support in Spanglish. Who knows? ToasT might be the first time she ever saw a play and her pledge would have gone further than she could have imagined. I'm Lemon Andersen, the playwright behind ToasT, and I'd love for you to be a part of bringing it out into the world. It's been waiting a long time to connect with you. Thank you. A Note from Sundance Institute Producing Artistic Director of Theatre, Philip Himberg: There is no such thing as a “Sundance Playwright,” since our body of work is defined by an eclectic  appreciation of theatre makers that reflect the range of art being created in America today. We are so excited that Lemon Andersen (spoken word artist, monologist, and now playwright) has joined the Sundance Family. An alum of our Sundance Playwrights Retreat at Ucross Foundation in Wyoming (2011), Mr. Andersen is launching his Kickstarter campaign to fund development, rehearsal, and eventual production of ToasT, a piece set back in the 1970s in infamous Attica Prison. What defines a Sundance Institute artist is their ability to venture into new territory, risk, leap into the unknown, into journeys that are the most challenging. With a talent like Lemon’s, this is sure to be an extraordinary project, and we are proud that he is our first official Sundance Institute Theatre Program alum on Kickstarter. Let’s get the ball rolling …]]> Creative Funding, Sundance Institute Lab, Theatre Program, Artist Alumni, Theatre, Artist Services, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Lemon Andersen 2011-11-22T04:44:17+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kick-it-my-new-play-toast-takes-the-leap-of-faith/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/s1smtxGBXTU/ Whitney Dow is an award-winning filmmaker whose directing credits include the 2002 Sundance Film Festival documentary Two Towns of Jasper and the Documentary Film Grant recipient When the Drum is Beating, among others. He is using Kickstarter to help fund global distribution of When the Drum is Beating. Click here to help the film reach its goal.  I am heading to Port au Prince tomorrow to screen When the Drum is Beating in Haiti for the first time.  A wonderful Haitian filmmaker, Rachele Magliore, has translated the film into Haitian Creole and recorded Haitian actors’ voices to replace the English speakers who appear in the film. We are going to be holding free outdoor screenings on large inflatable screens in camps for people displaced by the earthquake, and because illiteracy is a huge problem in Haiti, we felt we needed a version of the film that everyone could understand. It is ironic that Haitians who appear in the film speaking English (because the film was made originally for American public television) have now been overdubbed in Creole. Go figure. I must say that I am a bit nervous about these screenings, as I am sensitive to my position as another (white) outsider who is telling a Haitian story. Haitians, very rightly, are sensitive about how there country is portrayed in the media, and while When the Drum is Beating is celebratory, it also has some very tough content. And although I see the film as apolitical,  the reality is that everything in Haiti is political.  It should be interesting. We are about three weeks from the end of our Kickstarter campaign, and I have some thoughts on what has developed thus far. It is much harder than I thought it would be—the highs are incredibly high, and the lows are brutal. Help comes from some of the most unexpected places, as does surprising silence.  As someone who has funded my films in very traditional ways and played my cards close to the vest, it has been extremely difficult to publically request help. However, by doing so I have made connections that will live on far beyond this campaign. When you are going for a grant or a television sale, you are looking for that one great connection that will lead to the big deal that solves everything. With Kickstarter, incrementalism is the key. There is a Creole proverb that sums up the experience: "Piti piti zwazo fè nich li," which means “Little by little the bird builds its nest.”]]> Creative Funding, Culture, Documentary, Documentary Film Program, Partners, Kickstarter, Artist Alumni, Artist Services, Documentary Film, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Festival, Festival Indexes, Festival Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Whitney Dow 2011-11-17T21:13:37+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-when-the-drum-is-beating/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/OouhVQCspPQ/ Cheryl Dunn is a New York-based filmmaker and photographer whose films have screemed at numerous festivals including Tribeca, Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, and on PBS. She is collaborating with producer and Sundance alum Lucy Cooper (Hesher) on the feature documentary Everybody Street. Click here to visit their Kickstarter page and help fund the final stages of production.   Everybody Street is a feature documentary about NYC street photographers who have taken some of the most iconic images of the last century. Whether you take pictures with your phone or a Leica, or are just a fan of photography and film, you will relish the opportunity to hear the real stories of the men and women who are the very foundation of the street photography movement and of the medium itself. Some of these photographers include: Bruce Davidson, Joel Meyerowitz, Mary Ellen Mark, Max Kozloff, Ricky Powell, Martha Cooper, Jamal Shabazz, Bruce Gilden, Clayton Patterson, Jeff Mermelstein, Rebecca Lepkoff, Boogie, Luc Sante, Jill Freedman, and Josh Wildman. The film, shot in16mm and in HD and featuring a score by New York-based band Endless Boogie, takes you into the studios and out onto the streets where you will see firsthand the working techniques of these incredible artists as they unfold in the theater of New York City. Many of my subjects have never been documented before, remaining, until now, hidden behind their cameras. After being invited to show the short at the Tate Modern Museum in London, I spent the summer shooting more incredible photographers and street scenes, delving further into this elusive world. With the attention this garnered, we now have the amazing opportunity to record some additional, pivotal scenes with unprecedented access, not only in New York but abroad as well. In addition, I have been lucky enough to hire the talented editor David Zeiff  (The Cove, Some Kind of Monster, Crazy Love) to bring it on home. I have also teamed up with independent film producer and Sundance alum Lucy Cooper (Hesher, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints) to expand the 36 minute short into a feature-length documentary. Lucy’s films have played not only at the Sundance Film Festival, but also at Cannes, Edinburgh, Tribeca, and Berlin film festivals, among many others. They’ve received Oscar nominations and won a Golden Globe. Everybody Street is an invaluable treasure-chest of knowledge and insight into the art of photography and the City of New York. You can see exclusive stills and clips and follow our progress (and even participate!) by checking our Kickstarter page here. I know you will enjoy seeing it as much as I am loving making it.  My thanks, Cheryl Dunn  ]]> Creative Funding, Documentary, Partners, Kickstarter, Artist Services, Documentary Film, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Festival, Festival Indexes, Festival Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Cheryl Dunn 2011-11-15T21:10:56+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-everybody-street/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/GJ5QFkQIWDc/ Richard Ray Perez is a documentary filmmaker and director of Cesar's Last Fast, a Sundance Institute Documentary Film Grant recipient. Perez and his team are using Kickstarter to fund the final stages of production on their project. Click here to contribute. Yesterday I bought some pears, brought them home, and set them out to ripen on the kitchen table. This morning, just before I started today’s work on our film, I looked at one of the pears. I realized that it’s more than just a fruit. That pear is a story. The story starts with a seed that a farm worker planted. With water and proper attention, that seed turned into a sapling that another farm worker planted into a field. That field that grew into an orchard, a fertile forest nurtured by the hands of farm workers who care for each tree: feed it, water it, and prune the branches so it could blossom and bear beautiful fruit. At just the right time, another farm worker then picked it, careful not to bruise or damage it and along with other pears, carried it several hundred feet to a bin. That bin was transported to a packing house where another farm worker packed it. Then it was transported to the supermarket where I chose it and some other pears and brought them home to ripen on my table.   When I think of our film, Cesar’s Last Fast, of course I think of Cesar Chavez. But I also think of the hands that nurtured and delivered this pear to my table. I think of the probability that the farmworker who picked this pear lives in poverty, may face the threat of deportation, and ironically, can’t afford to eat the very fruit they pick. But the story doesn’t have to end like this. The most exciting part of our project is that when we’re done, we are going to screen Cesar’s Last Fast for farmworkers across the nation. Since Cesar Chavez’s passing, an entire generation of farmworkers have immigrated to the U.S. Interestingly, they know little about Cesar Chavez and the historic movement he led, a movement of their predecessors. The goal of our film is to introduce Cesar Chavez’s story and his organizing model to today’s farmworkers. This project is not just a film. It’s a powerful tool to empower today’s farmworkers and workers in other low-wage industries by presenting a concrete example of how they can organize and challenge the industries that routinely exploit them. Cesar’s story is a concrete example that it can be done. “Si Se Puede” is not a trendy slogan. It’s a reality rooted in history.  You can help us bring this reality to today’s farmworkers. There are 16 days left for you to pledge. You can pledge as little as $1. So I encourage you to contribute what you can to empower the people who work hard to bring food to you and your family. Thank you.]]> Creative Funding, Culture, Documentary, Partners, Kickstarter, Artist Services, Documentary Film, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Richard Ray Perez 2011-11-07T21:25:48+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-cesars-last-fast/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/WJ-RrnK93-E/ Mike Plante started Cinemad as a film zine in 1998, which continues as a blog and podcast at iblamesociety. He has worked at Sundance Institute since 2001 in a variety of roles and had some strange times working at CineVegas. He also helps run Cinemad Presents, a distributor bringing unusual films to unusual venues. Going into distribution, even micro-distribution like we are doing at Cinemad, is going to have some challenges. You just hope that 50% of what you think will happen, will happen.New lesson: A poster is a game of inches. We value the art of the poster, but had to make an adjustment. The traditional poster size, in the US since the 1980s anyway, is 27” by 41”. Every studio makes that, so every theater has poster cases that size. In order to make one or a few, you can go to most local printers with a big, awesome inkjet printer. But it gets pricey per poster, $20 is a deal. A more professional printer will want to do 1000 that size, to make it worth the time and materials. Great, as the price each gets down to a buck or so, but then you need more than a grand and you’ll probably have 750 posters left over. If you wanna go nuts plastering a town with them – that’s the way to go. But we really only needed 100-150 per project. That took us to a great place that would do 100 for a little over $6 each, but with a smaller printing press, as most of the big presses are being scrapped for metal in this day and age. Smaller run for a smaller press meant the biggest we could go was 26” by 39”. All in all, not a huge deal, but lesson learned. A quick trip to a theater showed the poster should be fine in theater cases. You just try not to have the budget affect the art.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Distribution Mike Plante 2011-10-15T00:09:19+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/a-game-of-inches/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/mW66-agUD9Y/ In her ongoing blog for #ArtistServices, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain will be taking us along with her (often in vivacious video!) as she readies her first feature documentary, Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology, for release this fall. In the film, she explores what it means to be connected in the 21st century. She also suggests, after centuries of striving for independence, that it’s time we, as humans, declare our interdependence. As a side project to Connected, she’s launched a global, crowdsourced short film centered around her “Declaration of Interdependence.” Shlain returned to filmmaking after launching the Webbys in 1996 and running the awards for online excellence for nearly a decade. Many of her shorts have showed at the Sundance Film Festival, and Connected competed in Documentary Competition this year. “I love, hate, and have hope for technology,” Shlain says, as she put together her first video blog for us here. “I am really interested in the intersection of film, the web, tactile tools and live events to get people talking about important issues and hopefully make the world a little better.” Shlain and her husband Ken Goldberg co-write many of their films and have two children who keep them laughing. Connected: A Video Diary, Part One Connected: A Video Diary, Part Two Connected: A Video Diary, Part Three Connected: A Video Diary, Part Four]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Distribution Tiffany Shlain, Director, Co-Writer and Editor 2011-09-25T07:35:51+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/connected-a-video-diary/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/JFFCJ9YFFN4/ Digital distribution has to be done in a certain order if Cable VOD is part of your plan. If Cable VOD is not an option, your digital release pattern can be more flexible, allowing for experimentation with the different platform options and timing. But for now, for films with Cable VOD potential, holding off on digital plays until Cable VOD has run its course is certainly worth it, given that it still accounts for 70-odd percent of your digital distribution revenues (it used to be approximately 80%). Very often, if a title has gone through digital distribution before Cable VOD, it will eliminate or at least dramatically hinder the possibility that Cable MSOs (Multi System Operators) or even an intermediate aggregator will take the film. Companies such as Gravitas are also programmers for some of the MSOs, so they have more flexibility, but they too discourage putting your film on YouTube rental channels before Cable VOD. After Cable VOD, Gravitas and other aggregators will usually follow with platforms such as Netflix SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand), which is the Watch Instantly service, and Amazon Prime (Amazon’s subscription service), to name two. There is more flexibility with transactional EST (electronic sell through)/DTO (download to own)/DTR (download to rent) services, such as iTunes, but much less flexibility with YouTube (even a rental channel) or subscription- or ad-supported services such as Netflix (subscription) or Hulu (which is both). Films that have been available on Netflix usually can’t go to Cable VOD after. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, perhaps because of relationships or a film proving itself in the marketplace — but it’s always better to plan ahead. In general, on the digital plays, people often go to transactional platforms first and ad-supported last, with Netflix being in the middle unless it has to be delayed because of a TV deal, for example. It’s not a hard and fast rule, though. Some distributors have experienced that one platform can drive another, but in my opinion it depends on the film and the habits of its audience. You should know that companies such as Showtime will pay more if you wait to do your Netflix SVOD after their window. Best way to go is to assess the value of each option and find out how changing the release pattern could affect revenues for your film.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Columns, Tip of the Week, Distribution Orly Ravid, Founder, The Film Collaborative 2011-09-13T03:37:16+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/tip-of-the-week-timing-is-everything-while-cable-vod-still-holds-sway/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/of0r8HR-IrI/ Do you really know what "VOD" means? There is no universal standard yet for definitions of digital rights. While IFTA (the organization that runs the American Film Market) has rights definitions for its signatories, it doesn’t cover all contracts out there. Many distributors and digital platforms use their own contracts with a range of definitions that don’t match up with those of others. So, let's take a look at the term "VOD." If a contract notes "VOD Rights" but does not define them or defines them broadly, it opens up a world of interpretations and questions. Recently, I even dealt with a contract that had one definition for "VOD" and another for "Video-on-Demand." Go figure. The term "Video-on-Demand" sometimes is used only to refer to "Cable Video on Demand," but other times its used much more generally. IFTA categorizes "VOD" as a "PayPerView Right (Demand View Right)," defined as "transmission by means of encoded signal for television reception in homes and similar living spaces where a charge is made to the viewer for the rights to use a decoding device to view the Motion Picture at a time selected by the viewer for each viewing." In other contracts, "VOD" could include things like "SVOD" (Subscription Video on Demand), which refers to subscription services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus. And the fees to the distributor and/or you could differ vastly. In a TV Everywhere (and hence Film Everywhere) multi-platform, all-device playable universe, you need to know exactly what you’re licensing to whom. Why? For starters, you do not want to inadvertently be in breach of contract. But also, you don’t want to lose opportunities for the best distribution — you should not give rights away for disadvantageous terms, especially if there are different fees for the myriad categories of rights and types of distribution. One can split rights based on mode of delivery: Download-to-own (e.g. iTunes) versus ad-supported streaming (e.g. SnagFilms). Or based on payment method, like Subscription Video on Demand vs. Free Video-on-Demand, which can refer to ad-supported content that generates some revenue or be just plain old free. A Netflix SVOD license, for example, has a fee that can vary over time. The fee is determined by the demand in the system. Whereas Cable VOD is a rev share based on transactions. Cable VOD also involves numerous operators, with just a couple of middle companies servicing the primaries. And some of those aggregators and distributors charge different fees for different classes of digital distribution and that can be for very good reason. The work is different, and so is the revenue. So, how does one classify an iPhone app that offers in-app purchase downloads? Are they mobile rights? Digital-download-to-own rights? Does the term "VOD Rights" encompass them? Ask three people and you might get three different answers. So the devil is in the definition. Read definitions carefully before you sign on the dotted line. And don’t rely on a distributor/aggregator/platform's pre-set definitions, but know what you want and what is possible for your film. Then carve it up and spell it out. For example, you may be doing a broadcast deal that prohibits “mobile wireless” distribution (perhaps for a set amount a time) but you want to make sure you’ll be allowed to do a Netflix SVOD deal that will entail making the film available on mobile devices. The broadcaster may allow this, if you argue for it (as long as the film is not streaming for free to non-subscribers). And perhaps your film has an iPhone app and is available for in-app purchase. That too should be allowed and not be prohibited by a holdback against "mobile wireless" because this form of distribution is no different than DVD or digital-download-to-own in terms of the revenue model. But remember, not all films have the same revenue potentials or work the same way on all platforms. Know your film, know its audience and their film-consumption habits. And, above all, be sure to know how any and all rights are defined, classified and accounted for and analyze that in relation to the realistic potential for your film. Not all films perform well on Comcast, for example. These days Netflix revenue is bigger for many films than various other platforms, and yet that may change. Since the launch of the iPad, download-to-rent (DTR) is growing and is anticipated to grow further. This is the kind of stuff we’ll explore in this ongoing Tip of the Week blog.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Columns, Tip of the Week, Distribution Orly Ravid, Founder, The Film Collaborative 2011-08-25T22:22:50+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/tip-of-the-week-the-devils-in-the-definitions/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/1MbfAkLRXqs/ This is part of a series by Red Flag Releasing that documents their ongoing efforts to position We Were Here (release date September 9) in the marketplace. You can read the first part here. Last week, it was about 110 degrees and Paul were I were in line at the post office, with about 20 poster tubes and boxes each in our arms. We were laughing as we waited, though the people in line behind us were visibly frustrated, their glares piercing our backs. It was nearly 7pm (tip: the Hollywood Post Office stays open late!), our intern had disappeared and had not shown up for the past 2 weeks. The attendant weighed and stickered each package as we debated — regular mail or parcel post, Priority or Express… We always ask ourselves on occasions like this: Is it worth the time and effort? How much is it saving us? With the margins in our business, this is the central debate to almost everything we do: real savings vs. the opportunity costs. It helps us remember who we are, what we are doing, in service of what purpose. It reminds us that the risks are too high and if we want to be doing this next year at this time, we have to do everything we can to spend money where it matters (and not on freight). Seriously. Is it worth it? FedEx and messengers come to you! My use-everything-three-times before you throw it away traditional upbringing would tell you, “Yes.” My obsessive-compulsive, anti-hoarding, pay-the-bills-as-soon-as-they-come mid-Western self would say, “Yes.” Philosophically, the answer is always “yes” to me – I can’t help it. Keep things simple, plan ahead, be resourceful and frugal even when you have plenty. My mother (who would wash and re-use paper towels and sandwich bags) would be proud. Certainly there are some cases where we simply do not have the know-how, or the time, so we grit our teeth and pay others to help us. In this case, though, the answer is an easy “YES.” It was the end of the day, and the post office is air-conditioned. End of story. Each trip like this saves us about $1,600 (everything went parcel post, though we did overnight to the Angelika, our first playdate, Paul dropped off posters and trailers at the Arclight on the way home and I took postcards and posters to Pasadena). It’s not a mint, but nothing to sneeze at. We’re back to basics here, in service of films that we love, that people should see, but that are going to be a challenge, any way you slice it. The point is: Everything adds up. By planning ahead and mailing our posters and trailers, our savings will pay for advertising in a couple markets! Red Flag Releasing is an independent distribution company owned by Paul Federbush and Laura Kim. The former Warner Independent Pictures executives shepherded films such as March of the Penguins; Good Night, and Good Luck; and Paradise Now. Federbush also worked as a production executive on Slumdog Millionaire. As a marketing consultant, Kim has handled films including Restrepo and Winter’s Bone.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Distribution Laura Kim, Partner, Red Flag Releasing 2011-08-25T16:08:47+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/adventures-in-specialized-distribution-part-2-opportunity-costs/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/Q5Lmi5h_kt4/ As the spiritual closing of the Creative Producing Summit, Sundance Film Festival Director John Cooper wrapped up the weekend with a session aptly titled the “One Word Challenge.”Cooper’s challenge to his three keynote guests was simple: "It is 2011, The Most Important Thing A Producer Needs To Survive Is …"  Panelists were given this one-word task by email before arriving in Utah and told to bring their best thinking to the audience of creative Fellows and Advisors a week later. The experiment is both simple and profound at the same time. While seemingly easy, the crowd is also given a chance to ‘play along’ with a card and word choice of their own. Playing a sort of P.T. Barnum for the evening, Cooper kicked off the presentation by reading some audience cards to himself and remarking, “We’ve got some wise asses in here.” Laughing, he introduced the evening’s first speaker, Ricky Strauss, head of content for Participant Pictures. Ignoring the podium and instead opting for center stage, Strauss stepped forward as his one word was projected on the screen behind him: MISTAKES. “I chose this word very carefully, and I chose it because every mistake is an opportunity for learning.” Citing a quote by James Joyce, Strauss said, “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” He then treated the audience to a notable anecdote from his early years in the industry: “Years ago I accidently sent a negative email to a studio executive thinking I was sending it to my producing partner. It outlined my thoughts that she just didn’t get our film and maybe we’d be better going elsewhere with it. The studio exec was on my mind obviously because I mistakenly sent it to her. Her simple reply was ‘I don’t think you meant this for me.’” Strauss stressed that the horror of his mistake was only balanced by the learning he took from it. “I never ever did that again.” Ricky Strauss speaks at the closing night of the Creative Producing Summit. Photo by Fred Hayes. Strauss went on to describe some other common mistakes that defined his growth as a producer. “It’s a mistake not to value partnerships in the independent film community. It’s always true that one plus one equals three, and partners are our chance to learn more expertise.  It’s a huge mistake not to ask questions. What’s the worst that can happen?” Smiling at Cooper in the front row and dedicating his final thought to him, he finished with a quote from Sophia Loren, “Mistakes are the dues we pay for a full life.” Cooper then introduced his second handpicked producer, Liesl Copeland from William Morris Endeavor’s global department. Copeland congratulated Strauss on his observations and then launched into her own. “I really wanted to help this community, and when Cooper sent me his email invitation, this word immediately came to mind even though it may at first seem cheesy,” said Copeland. Her word then appeared behind her: BELIEF. “This word is really distinct for me, it’s distinct from ‘hope’ or ‘faith,” she explained. “Once you have the conviction of belief, it can be very, very persuasive. And that’s a great quality for an independent producer,” said Copeland.  “When a potential financier looks you in the eye and sees your belief, it can be a powerful tool.” “Search your soul on your projects. When you are on your set, you believe you will bring the film in on time and on budget,” she passionately explained. “And so believe.” And with that she thanked the enthusiastic crowd and passed the mic back to Cooper. Finally, the panelist who had come the farthest to be at the Summit (London), John Battsek of Passion Pictures, took the stage. “You may think at first that this is tongue in cheek, but I assure you it’s not,” Battsek said as his word appeared: BAGGAGE. “I believe a great producer must recognize and embrace their own emotional baggage.” The crowd laughed, unsure at first what to make of the lively Brit behind the podium. “My working theory is that successful producers have to prove themselves, or compensate for, their own personal emotional baggage,” he said.  “In my case, I had such low esteem and deep insecurities that I then also had this deep need for recognition to combat that. Friends screwed me, the films I was working on were bad, I felt all my experiences were frauds, and that only reinforced my insecurities.” Audience members share their 'One Word' with the panel. Photo by Fred Hayes. Battsek then told a personal story about his history of producing what he called “bad feature films, I mean really bad.”  Feeling down and somewhat ashamed of his own vocation, Battsek was wandering the streets of London one day when he was drawn to a certain art house cinema and suddenly found himself watching Leon Gast’s When We Were Kings. The screening led him to change his life and transition to producing documentaries. He recalled, “I remember vividly the moment of epiphany watching the film and thinking, ‘This is what I really want to do.’ I wanted to make things made of truth, the magical ingredient that had been missing from my fictional projects. They felt like frauds, but this truth had real value. Even if it was only symbolic of changing the format of film I was working in.” From Ricky Strauss’ awkward email mishap to Battsek’s ambiguous yet inspiring ‘one word,’ our three panelists had enlightened the full house of aspiring and established producers. With this, John Cooper officially capped the third annual Sundance Institute Creative Producing Summit and a successful weekend of strategic support for independent producers.]]> Panels, Producing, Artist Services, Producers, Artist Services, Artist Services Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Distribution, Theatrical Sundance Institute 2011-08-18T21:19:14+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/in-one-word/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/mONYqeBC_mI/ Jason Asenap is a Comanche/Muskogee Creek writer and filmmaker originally from Walters, Oklahoma, but now residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His project Rugged Guy was selected for the 2011 Sundance Institute NativeLab. Click here to learn more and help fund this film. I always knew I was a writer. I didn’t always know I was a filmmaker. Because of this, what I end up doing is merging all of my influences to make something unique and new. My creative output is a mixture of Goddard, Woody Allen, Link Wray, James Welch, T.C. Cannon, and Jack Kerouac, all rolled into a Comanche/Muskogee Creek tortilla (or should I say frybread?). Oh yeah, and I’m influenced by the place I live, the beautiful state of New Mexico. And let’s not forget Oklahoma, which is where I was born and will always be in my blood. 2011 NativeLab Creative Advisor Taika Waititi and Lab Fellow Jason Asenap. What I’m trying to do is create the best work of cinema that I can. I’ve received some great help from some pretty terrific filmmakers in their own right--my producer Blackhorse Lowe, a Sundance veteran, and my right-hand man, director of photography, Jonathan Sims. We are all Native Americans, trying to make a good film right here in the heart of Albuquerque, New Mexico, but at the same time we want to be clear: We strive to make good cinema. We are telling a universal story. And what is this story? Well, it’s a story about being bold when the time is right, and recognizing your inner strength and talents. It’s a universal story about having doubt in yourself and your dreams, and rising to the occasion because you always had it in you. This story is about finding your “mojo.” We are drawing from the urban Native community here in Albuquerque and into the state of New Mexico, and even further than that into Indian country with our families in Acoma, Navajoland, Oklahoma, and Texas. We have received tons of support be it requests to participate as crew, actors, financial pledges, or just shout outs and encouraging words of support. We still need help. We’re not quite at our goal on our Kickstarter campaign, but we’re hopeful. We meet, plan, set goals, and think positive. We, like the film’s theme, are being bold and reaching for the stars. We plan to make this film. How would you like to be part of this unique story? Not only a story about being a modern Native artist trying to make it in these crazy times we live in, but the story of three Native Americans trying to tell a contemporary, funny, intelligent story about us, written by one of us, directed by one of us, acted by one of us, produced by one of us, and shot by one of us. How cool would it be to participate and support us in telling our own thoroughly modern and inspirational story?]]> Creative Funding, Native American and Indigenous Film Program, Partners, Kickstarter, Artist Alumni, Artist Services, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Festival, Festival Indexes, Festival Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Jason Asenap 2011-08-16T21:26:59+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-rugged-guy/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/0qtKngSUwhY/ Madeleine Olnek is a New York-based filmmaker, director, and playwright whose debut feature, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Click here to help fund her film’s distribution. As I’m writing this, an article in indieWIRE with a somewhat mocking title--“The Kickstarting Never Stops”--has appeared mentioning how three films (including mine) which played at Sundance are still looking for funds. I personally was trepidatious about announcing a Kickstarter campaign after the movie had already premiered. Wouldn’t that seem silly if the movie has already been screening? How would there be any urgency for people to donate? But we didn't have much of a choice. We jumped into making this feature without really knowing anything about the reality of post costs (and honestly, if we had known everything, maybe we wouldn’t have gone ahead) and we lucked out by getting into Sundance. But in hurrying to finish the edit, some of the aspects of getting the film distribution-ready had to fall by the wayside. So here we are in the position of raising money for a movie during its festival run. Like most people, I was totally intimidated by the idea of asking people for money. In film school, I was always secretly horrified by the budgets of some of my classmates shorts, many of which could have been used to provide an irrigation system to a small village. Before film school, I did theater in the East Village for years. At a certain point, downtown NYC artists started sending fundraising letters to people--including other downtown NYC artists--and they were genuinely scandalized. Wasn’t it enough that we worked on each other’s shows, and/or had given up our few available nights to watch them, and now they were actually asking other artists to fund it? It seemed like a snake eating its own tail. Flash forward to Kickstarter. When I first heard about it, my response was cynical. My friends and I all thought it was a good idea, but really, how could you use something like that more than once? What changed my mind about a Kickstarter campaign was a workshop that they held for Sundance alumni. I learned that there were people on Kickstarter who enjoyed “collecting projects,” and that the top collectors were even competing with one another for how many projects they funded. So in other words, going on Kickstarter would allow for these people to find me, and I would then be able to benefit from their competition with each other. My therapist talks a lot about how I “don’t ask people for help” and how I “need to let people help me.” “If you build it, they will come,” she even had enough nerve to say in one session. The irony is that after years of therapy I’ve finally been having this experience via Kickstarter. There are people I know, of course, and friends, who have donated, and that means a lot. But there are also people whom I don’t even know who have donated to the film. One day I opened the project’s dashboard (where you get the updates) to learn that the following people donated to my Kickstarter campaign: Actual Kickstarter donors. I have no idea who these people are! They just chose to bless Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same with their munificence. I was asked to write this blog to share some of what I’ve learned on Kickstarter with other Sundance artists. First of all, I know they advise you against having a long campaign, but I thought I would be too hysterical if there was too much of a time-crunch and I wanted to be graceful and avoid pressuring people. So we decided on a two-month campaign. It so happens that it was the smart thing to do, because in our instance, every time the movie plays at a festival, we have found that more people donate. Secondly, the length of the campaign has given us a chance to spread the word, and, I think, allowed the artists involved with the project a chance to feel comfortable publicizing the campaign. And there has been so much support for the Kickstarter campaign from the people involved with the movie who really want to see it reach its goal. As the director, you are really close to the project and might not be the ideal person to create the campaign. I had my associate producer, Lucy Sexton, set up the page, which was exremely helpful, since she brought a fresh perspective and created a list of prizes--Lesbian Pub Crawl, anyone?--that were truly inventive. That prize list isn’t incidental, it’s very important and helps you feel good and have confidence while fundraising. Kickstarter’s advice to have an event with laptops ready so that people can simply step up and donate to the campaign makes it even more compelling. Even if you don’t feel comfortable asking someone for money in person, you can always ask if they can spread the word about the campaign by reposting the page on Facebook--sometimes people get so interested by seeing the page that they decide to donate anyway. In LA, we were amazed when a famous actor whom we admired so much saw the movie and asked to see the Kickstarter page we mentioned in the Q&A--later he donated one thousand dollars. After we got the news, we spent the rest of the night watching YouTube clips of his brilliant work and saying, “He gave us a thousand dollars!” But don’t make a mistake that I did, which was failing to factor in the actual cost of shipping each prize (I just got a shock when I mailed the film’s t-shirt to a friend). We are currently shipping a truck load of t-shirts, which will cost us, so we are definitely trying to exceed our Kickstarter goal. I remember how surprised I was to read in an autobiography of Fellini how he and his producers spent years knocking their heads against a wall trying to get together the budget of a new film, and that was after he had made 8 ½ and Nights of Cabiria. You think at that point the money would have just been handed to him. How is it that the greatest cinema artist--possibly of all time--would not know if he would have the funds to make his next picture? Don’t you think there was a nation of people sitting at home, twirling their pasta on their forks, waiting and wishing that the local cinema would get a new Fellini picture already? They would have gladly spent the price of a box of pasta to hurry that process along! Kickstarter has created a system to allow those who love cinema to do that, and Sundance has compelled those who want to make cinema to do that too. For me it’s been an experience that’s been both surprising and inspiring. The Kickstarter campaign for Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same ends on Tuesday, August 23. If the project reaches its goal, the Lesbian Pub Crawl will take place in New York City on August 29. Thanks for your support.]]> Creative Funding, Park City at Midnight, Partners, Kickstarter, Artist Alumni, Artist Services, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Festival, Festival Indexes, Festival Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter, Theatrical Madeleine Olnek 2011-08-16T18:59:09+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-codependent-lesbian-space-alien-seeks-same/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/vSS7y3IZejM/ Orly Ravid, founded The Film Collaborative (TFC), a nonprofit educational and services organization dedicated to indie film distribution.  She has twelve years of experience working in distribution, acquisitions and sales at companies including Wolfe Releasing and Senator Entertainment. TFC’s first digital book, Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul, will be available in September. The business of film distribution is predicated on being in the know
of some basic information, and then trading on it. I founded The Film
Collaborative in 2010 to educate filmmakers about distribution and
facilitate it to the extent needed, without taking rights and without
padding middlemen. We monetize transparency, not secrecy.

I started working on digital distribution deals back in 2004 and
created the Digital Distribution Guide that is now part of TFC’s 
Distripedia, an online resource tool for filmmakers. The industry and
filmmakers are finally starting to focus on digital now that revenues
are picking up and DVD is truly, undeniably dying. But the digital
distribution world still confounds almost everyone.

So, each week I will be sharing a little piece of wisdom relating to
digital distribution — we’re calling it a Tip of the Week — with the
 readers of #ArtistServices. 

So here it goes, my inaugural tip for this week: THINK OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS AS STORES The first order of business is to simply think of digital distribution 
platforms as if they are retail storefronts. It should help you make 
decisions about which ones not to waste too much time on, which to make sure you get into, and how directly and at what cost. Digital platforms are not distributors; they are places where film consumers shop (e.g. Comcast, Time Warner Cable, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube's rental channels, Hulu, Netflix).  WalMart and Best Buy have their digital stores too, as does Blockbuster still. A consumer's credit card is already on file (e.g. iTunes) or they're already a subscriber (e.g. Netflix). In any case, a billing mechanism is established and a non-issue.  We can talk all day long about filmmakers setting up their own 
websites, and that’s valuable to be sure — for some more than
others (think name-brand filmmakers like Kevin Smith). But not every
 filmmaker has enough traffic flowing to their site or a film that will
 drive a major volume of sales that way. And not every film lover is
 going take the time to find you or entrust their credit card info to 
you. So if you are at that point where people know you already -- and want to buy your work no matter what -- then all the more reason to focus on direct sales and/or have an affiliate relationship between your site and Amazon, for example. But, for most filmmakers, being discoverable in the top digital "stores" is key. Clearly, there is much to discuss and in the coming months we’ll dig deep into 
the details of digital, what rights are worth what, which platforms
are working for which films, what to watch out for in deals, what to 
do on your own to work your film and let it work for you. And it’s 
important not only to be in the know now, but to anticipate the 
future.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services, Artist Services Home Page, Columns, Tip of the Week, Distribution Orly Ravid, Founder, The Film Collaborative 2011-08-09T17:11:42+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/tip-of-the-week-think-of-digital-platforms-as-stores/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/Bi6EY93VC-E/ Peter Sillen is a New York-based documentary filmmaker whose documentary shorts Speed Racer and Branson: Musicland USA screened at the 1994 and 2003 Sundance Film Festivals, respectively. He is using Kickstarter to help fund a theatrical run for his film I Am Secretly An Important Man. Click here to contribute. Jesse Bernstein was a brilliant, complex, and troubled individual. He lived a more colorful life than most people ever dream of. When I first set out to make this film in 1992, I was in my mid 20s. Jesse seemed larger than life. At the time, I believed I was making a film about Jesse Bernstein, the writer. A couple of years earlier, just before his 41st birthday, he had taken his own life. Forty-one seemed like light years away to me at the time, but as fate would have it, I finished the film at the age of 43. Director Peter Sillen (right). My relationship with Jesse has changed over time. I never met him face to face, but he's been with me most of my adult life. As I caught up to Jesse in age, I became less of a fan and more of a contemporary. I found myself coming to terms with many of the everyday life struggles he faced. But unlike Jesse, I've been able to navigate at least some of the bigger potholes. When you look at Jesse's childhood for early signs of emotional instability or mental illness, it seems pretty clear that things started to go bad after his parents divorced. He was diagnosed with polio at age five and his Dad moved out of the house when he was seven. In 1955, he found himself in a rehabilitation facility in Santa Monica, surrounded by grownups. He was already leading a very different life than most 5-year-olds of the time. The medical files from his early adolescence document episodes of violent outbursts that seemed to coincide with his father's diminished involvement with the family. At the same time, his mother was struggling to make ends meet as a single parent and trying desperately to care for Jesse. She was incredibly devoted to him, but somehow their relationship was like oil and water. When he began to threaten her, his mom eventually signed him over to the State of California at age 13. He was placed into Camarillo State Mental Hospital. The doctors who convinced her to institutionalize him said he'd be placed in a special juvenile facility. That didn't happen. He was placed in the adult psychiatric wing of the hospital. It is rumored to be the same place that a decade later would inspire the Eagles song, "Hotel California." He had a tough time inside Camarillo. After six months he escaped and began what his brother, Jeff, termed, "The Runaway Years." Much of Jesse's writing is fueled by this time period. He found himself in and out of different institutions over the next few years before eventually making his way to Seattle in the late '60s. As documentary filmmakers we focus so much on making a film. We submerge ourselves in other people's worlds, eventually surfacing with something that we hope is meaningful or inspiring, only to realize that making the film was only half the work--getting it seen is the other half. Our Kickstarter campaign is all about mounting a micro theatrical distribution for I Am Secretly An Important Man. Luckily for us, we teamed up with Sundance Institute and Creative Capital to help get the word out about our Kickstarter project. If you have a theater or venue that you think would like to screen the film please let us know here.]]> Creative Funding, Documentary, Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Festival, Festival Indexes, Festival Home Page, Institute Site, Institute Indexes, Institute Home Page, Creative Funding, Partners, Kickstarter Peter Sillen 2011-07-27T21:07:09+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/kickstart-i-am-secretly-an-important-man/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/txOWVpNpjB0/ 1989, 2002, 2004. Doc lovers will recognize the dates as the years that Michael Moore released the films Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911. Boxofficemojo grosses list $6.7 million, $21 million and $120 million respectively, give or take some change. Whatever you think about Moore’s films, each of these releases offered a sense that the potential in documentary distribution was only just beginning to be tapped. No doubt these were outsized successes, and they  should not obscure the fact that the vast number of documentaries produced in the US do not even have traditional distribution deals, and if they do, the rarely break the $500,000 mark, let alone the $1 million mark. And yet Moore’s increasingly successful releases pointed to tantalizing possibilities, even as the distribution options for outstanding independent documentaries continue to thwart even the most intrepid filmmakers. This is where Sundance’s newest initiative, the #ArtistServices Program, will, we hope, play a transformative role. In a nutshell, #ArtistServices will be a game changer if it accomplishes one simple task: helping filmmakers more effectively leverage their film’s potential.The program is designed to support filmmakers and their stakeholders in providing strategic resources to create flexible strategies for distribution. Available to Sundance Institute-supported films through our Creative Programs and through the Sundance Film Festival, the initiative combines in-depth knowledge resources with creative funding and web marketing partners like Kickstarter and Topspin with a range of pre-negotiated deals with major digital platforms, including Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and more. These are all crafted to benefit the artist, in an age where the idea of a sustainable career on both the feature and the documentary fields is hard to imagine and even harder to accomplish. It is an idea that has been blue skied for at least a decade by filmmakers, funders, non-profits and other stakeholders, and now Sundance Institute is taking a flying leap into the unknown vortex we know as distribution hell. We don’t know exactly what will happen, but we do believe in the assumptions that have guided the program’s design. It is non-profit, artist-led and future-leaning. It combines community with creativity, and keep the control points in the hands of the filmmakers or their designees. It is flexible, responsive and scaleable.In the age of information, it’s all about curation. For film to survive in this new age, filmmakers need access to and mentoring with the new digital tools, and cutting edge ideas about reaching the audience. As someone working with independent documentaries for over 15 years now, I think that the timing couldn’t be better for a service like this, whose vision is to extend Sundance Institute’s founding mandate to support the artist, to hardwiring the connection between audience and artist, with an eye towards a sustainable future. We re good at telling stories that need to be told; now, again guided by the creativity of the artist, we can reach the audiences that need to be reached. Let’s see what happens together …]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Columns, Staff, Distribution Cara Mertes - Director, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program 2011-07-26T23:11:32+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/the-reality-of-artistservices-or-a-docs-pov/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/rCBF7r7V_EE/ Robert Redford Built This Site.  His adventurism and intelligence and curiosity have always pushed us ahead into these areas with a supporting and generous spirit.  He has sat through countless site demos, heated debates, PowerPoints and meetings over the years in the pursuit of these ideas.  We all thank him. In order to truly credit all the people involved in this launch, you’d have to go all the way back to 1999.  That’s when John Cooper and Trevor Groth and Shari Frilot hatched up plans for the very first Sundance Online Film Festival. Years of quiet experimenting occurred: showing films online, captivating conversation around the subjects of our times and how artists could think about these amazing new tools we’d been given. That was our first step into the unknown, when Internet video played in four formats across 56kbps and we still all stood in awe.  Ian Calderon (a founding member of the Institute) kept at us, telling us constantly what a rocket ship of media opportunity it would be for our artists. The Institute deepened it’s commitment to digital media, holding advisory meetings at the Presidio in San Francisco with online gurus and alumni artists.  They energized and pushed us to do even more, faster.  Among those early gatherings were Mika Salmi and Tiffany Shlain and Joyce Deep.  DeepBlu Studios' Amye Osti had been building the online sites with us for years.  Without the generous help of John Warnock and Adobe Systems in those days, we couldn’t have done it.  Vitalstream donated the first hosting.  The year was 2004. Redford, John Cooper and Jill Miller always made sure we were investing in our future and allowed us to run with many schemes, knowing how important and relevant our online community could become. Web Developer Nathan Hemenway styled the sites back then and handled Flash Video for hundreds of short films that Mike Plante, Todd Luoto, Roberta Munroe and Nazgol Zand curated.  Shari Frilot hunted online for innovative storytelling and mixed media.  We featured all of it as fast as we could.  We embarked on self-distribution for shorts the following Festival season with iTunes, Netflix and Xbox.  Our team rolled five deep; our web coordinator had to augment her part time job with us by working at Chili's Restaurant.  We often stayed up really late working on all this.  We visited Amazon and IMDB in Seattle; iTunes and Netflix gave us considerable support.  The year was 2007. We kept pushing, using and adopting social media and our incredible archive of artists to create thousands of episodes of original and inspiring content.  With the help of developer Blue State Digital and consultations with Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and countless other companies – we could not have ridden the waves.  Key voices in our chatter were Sara Pollack, Glenn Bulycz, Jon Fougner, Christian Gaines, Jon Reiss, Mike Mohan and Bob Moczydlowsky.  We visited Facebook and Twitter in "The Bay."  The year was 2009. We had designed and redesigned websites, we had experimented constantly, we had built apps, live-streamed, UGC’d, Wiki’d, broke early Facebook rules, crashed codes, launched early cell phone films, won Webbys, learned lessons, tried it all as carefully and thoughtfully as possible.  For you. But it truly wasn't until the leadership of Keri Putnam that the organization could accomplish this complex and original initiative.  She has accelerated, defined and led our way. We held a secret convening in Los Angeles at the Avalon Hotel with trusted advisors to refine and test our plans.  In attendance were Ted Sarandos, Wendy Levy, Ted Hope, Peter Broderick, Cara Mertes, Michelle Satter, and Reid Carolin among others.  Katie Kennedy helped craft our earliest strategy and reached out to our partners to expand our collaborations; she has contributed greatly to every part of this project. Our Board of Directors gave us the greenlight to start making plans in October of last year.  We hired Chris Horton to join us and handle our production.  Sharon Swart came as an Editorial Advisor to this site.  The Bertha Foundation infused us with the support needed to grow quickly and ramp up online. Sundance Institute’s staff on this launch was supported by many people, but chief among them are Amy McGee from our Alumni Department and Justin Simmons, Mark Poncelet and James Gragg from our technology side.  Bridgette Bates, Tanya DeAngelis, Jennifer Pentes, Morgan Vidakovich, and Nate VonZumwalt gave countless hours of creative and editorial support.  Jessica Buzzard was our ally and contributor.  Internally, we are all just the Dot Org Team. Last but not least is Roger Tinch (@tinch), a man so creative and talented and dedicated that he has won the deep respect of all who’ve worked with him.  His influence and work is all over this site. I think tonight of all these people and more who are threads in the fiber of what's just been born, and I thank them.  You can now use this platform to access the most independently conceived and original suite of tools today.  You are connected to the waves. The year is 2012.  We're still staying up late.  #ArtistServices.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Columns, Staff, Partners, New Video Joseph Beyer, Director of Digital Initiatives 2011-07-26T09:33:49+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/the-invisible-digital-ninjas-who-made-this/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/5Cfq2TIsqFU/ Since the founding of Sundance Institute there has been a commitment to supporting Native American filmmakers in developing their work through the Labs and screening films at our Film Festival.  Since the early years of the early 80’s as a fledgling community of filmmakers paved the way for newer generations, there have been constant shifts in the way films are funded, made and seen.  Tenacity has been at the core of existence for those few Native filmmakers who have actually made a feature film  and taken it out into the marketplace.  Today, there are more Native filmmakers than ever making films and yet reaching audiences continues to be among the biggest challenges. With technology the way films are made has broadened and become more and more democratized.  With social networks and crowd-funding, films are getting funded in new ways, and now more than ever audiences are viewing films in digital platforms.  Traditional theatrical distribution has most often eluded Native filmmakers, while stellar Native films have won top awards at some of the world’s most influential film festivals, still the Native American audience has gone under-served as they constantly ask about when and where they can see the latest Native films in the comfort of their own communities and homes. With the launch of Sundance Institute’s Artist Services the birth of these films is going to be more frequent as social networks and community are called upon to fund films.  And, with our new deals with digital platforms, the lives of these films are going to be extended longer than ever before.  In our partnership with Kickstarter already two Native films have taken advantage of this relationship and held successful campaigns to raise a important dollars to launch production and finish post-production.  Aurora Guerrero’s Mosquita y Mari and Julianna Brannum’s LaDonna Harris: Indian 101 collectively raised nearly $100,000.  And just today, Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s On the Ice launched a campaign to support their impending theatrical release and is planning to take advantage of our new relationships with digital distributors. Our newly launched Artists services is offering support to our Native Alumni which includes filmmakers whose work has screened at our Festival or and those who have participated in our Lab Programs.  Keep an ear out for forthcoming information and keep a special ear out for the many wonderful films which have been difficult to find in today’s marketplace.  Sundance as it matures in its 30th year is doing as it has always done, to respond to the times and stay core to our mission of supporting independent filmmakers and films.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Columns, Staff, Partners, Kickstarter N. Bird Runningwater, Director of Native Film Program at Sundance Institute 2011-07-26T08:36:46+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/nativelabs-and-artistservices-unite/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/C0sL228U9QA/ Working the reception desk at Sundance Institute and fielding questions from a wide array of people has taught us that not everyone understands exactly what it is we do here – which is support filmmakers.  #ArtistServices is our latest and most cutting edge way to do just that.  It is an exciting opportunity to provide our alumni exclusive access to creative financing, distribution, and marketing opportunities in our rapidly evolving industry.  This ambitious initiative has been spear-headed by the tireless team here at Sundance, and since reception is situated right outside their offices, we thought we'd share a bit about what we've seen and heard that has gone into its recent launch.  If you think it happened overnight, think again. Over the past six months since the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, we have transferred countless calls to our peers from filmmakers, managers, aggregators, lawyers, marketers, and digital distributors.  We've arranged conference calls and forwarded calls to cell phones.  We’ve seen them forget to eat lunch because they're determined to meet their deadlines.  We’ve heard their heads pound against the walls while struggling to define the language of first-of-their-kind legal agreements.  The circles around their eyes have deepened and we're pretty sure some haven't shaved in months.  We’ve even seen them resort to physical violence when - hang on, we’ve said too much. Bottom line, these guys have worked themselves past the point of exhaustion to pull this initiative off.  When challenges came up, we watched them put their heads together and try something else.  We've witnessed firsthand the dedication, the hustle, and the elation that comes along with success.  Although small in staff size, they have managed to deliver their vision for this exciting new component of Sundance Institute.  We are inspired by their efforts and proud to have played a small role in them. We can be reached at 310-360-1981 and yes, we’ll patch you through to #ArtistServices.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Columns, Staff, Partners Todd Croak-Falen & Jason Kaminsky 2011-07-26T07:58:32+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/the-view-from-the-front-desk/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/artist-services-blog/~3/_D-AhnMSIrs/ We are thrilled and genuinely excited that SundanceNOW is a partner in the Sundance Institute’s Artist Services initiative.  As part of a vertically integrated distribution company our goal through SundanceNOW, Sundance Selects and the Sundance Channel has been to provide filmmakers with the ability to connect with audiences wherever they may be.  Unfortunately there are a limited number of films any distribution company can successfully release to the world.  The Artist Services initiative provides a brilliant solution for Sundance Institute artists to release their own movies through various online distribution platforms under the prestigious Sundance Film Festival label.  I applaud Keri Putnam and the entire Sundance Institute for undertaking this initiative and providing yet another opportunity for artists voices to be heard.]]> Artist Services, Artist Services Indexes, Artist Services Home Page, Distribution, Partners Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects and IFC Entertainment 2011-07-26T04:58:32+00:00 http://www.sundance.org/artistservices/blog-entry/our-sundancenow-partnership/