On May 4th, 2009, Solomon went to BlobLive! at Westside Electic in Santa Monica, CA. This time, BlobLive! changed their format to a 90 second pitch contest and had a panel of 5 judges. There were at least 10 pitches and Solomon won first place and took home the $100 prize! If you know Solomon, you will see that this is a very different pitch style for him! He is actually wearing a tie in this one, talking slowly, and his energy is at a “normal” level. :)

Solomon’s winning pitch:

My idea is collaborative film making. It is taking all of these ideas, mass collaboration and change, that have revolutionized things like software and other parts of the web and combine them to make movies. We have already brought people from all over the world together through social networks and through digital technology, created original films, released them online, that have been seen millions of times. We are taking this idea to the next level and creating a web series where the audience is allowed to participate and this will be shared online with all of the revenue, ads and sponsorships shared with everyone who contributes. It is all tracked with a point system with new collaborative web software right through your web browser.

[Skip ahead]

We are opening a new studio in LA this month. One of our revenue models is to create viral web videos and commercials with our collaborative team for small businesses. And I need some samples so I am willing to take some volunteers, right now, and give you free viral videos which will release to millions of audience members if you we like your product. You will just pay the expenses. If you want to rent a building, you will pay for that. That’s it. Release it for free. We will use it as a shining testimonial and release it out to a worldwide audience and make collaborative filmmaking work for your business.

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This video was put together to serve as a call to action to get people more excited about participating in the series. I’ll be setting up new groups and forming a team which you can all participate in which will collaborate on future episodes. Send us your videos, your stories; we want to know what you think. More information will be posted online as it comes available; the official blog of Your Computer is Killing You can be found here, it’s updated regularly by Brian Bentow. Below are a few main questions and answers about the series.

What, Where and When?

We are making a collaborative open source series that takes a hard look at the side effects of a Techy Lifestyle including repetitive stress injuries (carpal tunnel, blackberry thumb), video game addiction, and other ills of the modern computerized world. Explore how our extreme computer usage is causing a host of problems that get worse as current trends continue. Unless we wake up thousands, even million of people may undergo un-needed surgeries, have their families destroyed by video game addiction, or suffer quietly in pain. We guarantee you’ll learn something, but more importantly it’ll be an adventure into the other side of the modern world. Paying attention to these issues now can save you more than just a little of your hard earned cash, maybe even your life.

How can you help?

Tell us your story, if you have anything related to RSI, computer related injuries, video game addiction, eye problems from modern devices, carpal tunnel or other wrist / finger issues, obesity, exhaustion, or anything else you believe is relevant to a documentary about the side effects of a techy lifestyle PLEASE e-mail us your story - we would love to hear from you.

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photo credit: Robutrix

I thought I was going to be the last hold out for getting on the Twitter band wagon, but I was wrong. It’s just too powerful of a communication tool to avoid, even if you’re swamped and falling behind on updating and fully using all your existing social media profiles. You can now view and follw me on my official twitter page at http://twitter.com/solro

My goals is to tweet or update twitter EVERY day and I’ve already started doing that. I get asked all the time (what are you working on in your movie projects RIGHT now). I can point them to blog articles and all kinds of long winded things, but they really just want the once sentence immediate action and that’s what twitter is going to provide.

If you want to know EXACTLY what we’re working on, follow me on twitter and you’ll be present for the crazy roller coaster ride of trying to take an idea and turn it into a realty. I was taking a walk with my father today and after having a discussion about the deal I’m trying to put together on this new project I had to agree with him that I choose to pursue one of the hardest occupations and areas I possibly could. I also wouldn’t have it any other way.

One of the cooler uses of twitter I saw work amazingly well, was for live feedback on bloblive presentations. Bloblive is like an open mic night for entrepreneurs and I’ve spoken there about open source and collaborative films many times. I even appeared in an article on front page of business section in the LA Times due to such an appearance. At Bloblive events a projection shows the current bloblive twitter feed. Since the video is streamed online in real time, members of the live audience or the internet can submit feedback via twitter and it appears DIRECTLY behind the person presenting. It’s cool, it’s intense, and a great use of twitter’s technology.

I don’t have anything that amazing to use twitter for right now. It’s just a bunch of micro updates on the filmmaking process, but I’ve been asked about twitter so many times in addition to the bombardment of “what are you doing right now” that it was long overdue. SO FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER.

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photo credit: hainteractive

I’m currently in talks with an advertising agency about working together on a large project that involves the launch of web series using all our combined resources. One of the things we outlined was the potential need for finding a technology partner to build a collaborative platform that would allow contributors to vote, stay up to date on the project and interact with other team members DIRECTLY from their myspace and facebook pages (or other social network). I know this can be done using open social or directly with individual api aps. This type of project could break into the mainstream, especially with all their media and press connections if they get fully behind it.

Specifically it would be amazing if I could find or have a virtual event type system created with web 2.0 tools that would give “regular” people a much easier way to contribute in small ways to the project. I would love it if members could track the main project timeline and focus on particular parts they’re interested in following and attending live collaboration events (like discussions on where the plot should go in the series would be one example) and perhaps live updates and video chat from members of particular filmmaking teams.

These collaboration tools already exist in various forms, but putting them all together and making them work is far from user friendly and involves too much of a time commitment. This needs to be easy enough and even if the functionality is limited, if you can contribute to the project completely via a widget on your facebook page, that’s what we need to REALLY get people excited about collaborative and open source movies.

Our goals with Moviepals.org is to create original movies with a collaborative approach to filmmaking which takes input from its audience and all levels of contributors. Each project we take on will be announced with a call to action for people to join and contribute. As the projects evolve they often change directions due to the participation from the audience. The more resources the combined team has the more projects can be completed.

Our last short film – Jathia’s Wager was only 20 minutes, but there is no limit to the time a film can run. Features outside of documentaries require a VERY large commitment on the part of actors, so I stayed smaller until we have more resources to work with. Some projects require a lot more collaboration then others (which can be done well with a very small team). Jathia’s Wager has a number of actors, special effects, and since half of it was green screened there were lots of opportunities for people to join in.

In the short term we’re looking for a technology partner to work on this new web series and perhaps provide a long term solution for all the movie projects moviepals.org has and will ever do.

This technology partner could provide:

Tools to better enable collaboration between movie enthusiasts working together to produce original films. Ideally all these interactions could take place in widgets or api applications. It should also have VERY simple ways to contribute that can be as easy as voting yes or no on a simple question to the audience and be sorted by interested (some people are only interested in helping with the script, others video editing, etc).

How Moviepals.org could work with potential technology partners:

I’m VERY open to new ideas and we would probably need to have a few brainstorming sessions, because there are a number of directions this could go. This idea is HUGE and can be embraced on different levels. This really depends on how excited and onboard you are to this idea.

Here are a few possibilities of relationships Moviepals.org could enter into.

1. We could come to a revenue agreement and plan for compensation of all partners in a specific project (like the new web series), although if I’m going to launch and use it for my filmmaking efforts to send a millions visitsto a particular video communication site I’ll need to be compensated for that.

2. We could create a new business entity for this specific project which would include the collaboration tools branded for collaborative filmmaking and the partners could share in the revenue of this new entity.

3. The press and traffic I receive at moviepals.org could be very beneficial in getting video technology to market and in the mainstream. You could make me an offer (cash, stock, both?)to acquire moviepals.org including the films it’s already produced, the traffic, the team, the brand, everything, add it to your assets and together we could launch this collaborative platform and filmmaking project.

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photo credit: oooh.oooh

I’ve been in meetings with an awesome advertising agency that’s interested in collaborative filmmaking projects and open source movies. I won’t give their name yet, because it’s still in the handshake phase, but I’m excited about the possibilities and wanted to update you on some of the things we’re talking about.

We want to work together on launching a collaborative open source web series that could skyrocket into the mainstream. Each episode will be 3-5 minutes long, involve heavy collaboration with a who done it mixed in a reservoir dogs style setting, and span 100 episodes in the first year. We could start shooting next month that’s how fast I want to move on this idea. This would be the PERFECT project to use new video communication technology and have embeddable widgets etc. We discussed looking for a technology partner to join the team. I wrote a seperate blog post about that here.

The episodes will be released furiously and we’ll be using all different writers, with pitches and ideas coming directly from the audience (the first few episodes will probably be written entirely by my existing team just to get things off the ground, with the ENTIRE rest of the season left open ended).

It’ll start with two full film crews (the one I used to make Jathia’s Wager which includes volunteers from all over the world, and the entire pro crew the ad agency has and hopefully grow to encompass MANY more people. The goal with Moviepals is to create original films using online collaboration, but also to act as a resource and source of inspiration for movie enthusiasts and aspiring filmmakers of all experience levels and backgrounds. This goal takes a lot of work and we’re doing it one step at a time.

We also talked about bringing on a technology partner (which I have 2 meetings with potential parties this week) to create a virtual event type system with web 2.0 tools will allow “regular” people a much easier time to contribute. I would love it if members could track the main project timeline and focus on particular parts they’re interested in following and attending live collaboration events (like discussions on where the plot should go in the series would be one example). It should also have VERY simple ways to contribute that can be as easy as voting yes or no on a simple question to the audience.

I’ll post more information on the events as they unfold. I will be doing this web series with or without their collaboration. It will of course be more difficult and take longer for me to launch without them, plus they were very enthusiastic, creative, unfraid of change and very intellgent. They would make a perfect partner for Moviepals.org.

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photo credit: MikeSchinkel

I just submitted Open Source Filmmaking as an official idea in the ideablob business idea contest. Ideablob is a site where entrepreneurs can submit ideas of any type (for profit, not for profit, inventions etc) for a chance to win $10,000 determined by a public vote . It includes ideas at all stages, planning, execution, and ones that have already achieved some success.

I would use the $10,000 to continue this foray into open source filmmaking and fund the next episodes of Jathia’s Wager. I would love to see more people get involved in movie making and see the open source distribution model really take off. Imagine how cool this will be if there were thousands of free open source movie projects with active communities of participants! Ofcourse getting there will be a slow one step at a time, but this idea really has the power to change our world (MOVIES DO CHANGE THE WORLD).

If you liked Jatahi’s Wager or just support the idea, PLEASE vote for us. The top ideas are not actually that popular, so give us a vote. If a mere 5% of the people that visit this site this month voted for us we would win in a landslide. You can also vote for more than one idea, so don’t worry if you also like something else on the site.

Questions I posted on ideablob to get feedback on:

Where would you like to see Jathai’s Wager go from here?

How can we break into the mainstream and get more people excited about the fact they have the ability to contribute and to create films and episodes?

What other revenue models can you imagine working for open source films?

Do you have any connections or networking opportunities that could help me?

What advice do you have to help me grow my idea?

Questions I posted to the Bloblive Audience:

Where would you like to see Jathai’s Wager go from here?

How can we break into the mainstream and get more people excited about the fact they have the ability to contribute and to create films and episodes?

What other revenue models can you imagine working for open source films?

Do you have any connections or networking opportunities that could help me?

What advice do you have to help me grow my idea?

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photo credit: waltarrrrr

For those of you following this blog you’re aware that I’ve been speaking at Bloblive events in Los Angeles talking about open source films and networking with other entrepreneurs.

On March 31rst the LA times published an article in the small business section entitled “Entrepreneurs bounce business ideas off bar crowds“.

The article is centered around Bloblive events which are deisgned for entreprenuers to share ideas with each other. It’s at a Bloblive event in Los Angeles that I met Brian Bentow and we started working together on a documentary on the side effects of a tech lifestyle that you can follow here.

The article mentions both, the documentary I’m working on with Brian Bentow and my other open source film projects in good light. You’ll also notice a bit about how I use to work for a web marketing company that went under in the economic down turn. That is true, but I’m ok and spending a lot of time on these filmmaking projects that I love so much. I am looking for freelance jobs to create income, if you need a web commercial or a viral marketing campaign contact me.

Now outside of that pitch, I hope this press gets people more excited about bloblive in addition helping us get some more attention for open source films in general and the specific documentaries “Your Computer is Killing You” and “I shot the camera
. I’m going to post some new videos from my bloblive talks soon. Hopefully you’ll find some of them interesting.

I’ve been networking with a filmmaker in Vancouver, Canada, named Jason Derr who is planning an exciting open source film project. He joined our social network at filmmaking.la- please join if you haven’t it only takes a second and will connect you to filmmakers and move lovers alike from around the world. You can read about his project and see my comments in his blog post here.

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I just released the open source sci-fi film Jathia’s Wager on March 1, and  2 weeks later I’m announcing that we’re in production on 2 new full length documentaries.  I want to elaborate on the project more in depth than the video above does.I’ve been up all night working, so please excuse any typos / spelling issues they’ll be corrected soon. - Solomon Rothman writer, director, actor

1rst Documentary Film is tentatively entitled - “Your Computer is Killing You - Side Effects of a Techy Lifestyle“.

What, Where and When?

We are making a full-length, independent documentary that takes a hard look at the side effects of a Techy Lifestyle including repetitive stress injuries (carpal tunnel, blackberry thumb), video game addiction, and other ills of the modern computerized world. We’re going to explore how computers and our high tech society are causing a host of unique problems that will only get worse as the trends continue unless we wake up.

We’re talking to injured workers, doctors, ergonomic experts, and your everyday average joe and we’ll share interviews and stories from the “computer athlete” Brian Bentow as we travel around the LA area and the US holding ‘MeetUp’ groups, and talking with everyone from CEO’s and education professionals and generally doing everything we can to bring this issue into the mainstream. We guarantee you’ll learn something, but more importantly it’ll be an adventure into the other side of the modern world and how paying attention to these issues now can save you more than just a little of your hard earned cash, maybe even your life.

What stage of production are you in? -
We’ve already begun shooting. More will be released as becomes available. For now we’ve setup a separate blog on moviepals.org to track the progress of the film.

How can you help?
Tell us your story, if you have anything related to RSI, computer related injuries, video game addiction, eye problems from modern devices, carpal tunnel or other wrist / finger issues, obesity, exhaustion, or anything else you believe is relevant to a documentary about the side effects of a techy lifestyle PLEASE e-mail us your story - we’d love to hear from you.

What stage of production are you in?
We’ve already begun shooting.  More will be released as becomes available.  For now we’ve setup a separate blog on moviepals.org to track the progress of the film.

How can you help?
Tell us your story, if you have anything related to RSI, computer related injuries, video game addiction, eye problems from modern devices, carpal tunnel or other wrist / finger issues, obesity, exhaustion, or anything else you believe is relevant to a documentary about the side effects of a techy lifestyle PLEASE e-mail us your story - we’d love to hear from you.

2^nd Documentary film tentatively entitled - “I Shot the Camera - the making of a no budget documentary”

What’s it about?  How we shot, edited, marketed, and produced the no budget documentary “Your Computer is Killing You”, it’s going to take you up close and you’ll be able to follow us from script to screen, from the late night editing sessions to the celebratory toast, if you’ve ever wondered what it would take to make a documentary and get it out there, join us and experience the highs and the lows of movie making.

What stage of production are you in? - We’ve already begun shooting.  More info will be released as it becomes available.

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There were multiple times I found myself shaking in my seat, with a WTF facial expression.  I saw a midnight showing the day it came out.  Well into the movie at least two people behind me fell asleep and started snoring, people had to shake them to wake them up.

I was and still am to a degree a fan of the director Zack Synder.  I saw both Dawn of the Dead and the 300 in theaters and will still check out his upcoming films Guardians, but Watchmen was a turd.

I re-watched the trailer to see if I had missed any clues to why I would not enjoy this film, and again the trailer is awesome.  It shows a high stylized montage of action sequences and no real information on the plot or subplots.

I wish I could get the time I spent watching this film back, it wasn’t only terrible, but the ridiculous plot and dark philosophy kept hitting you in the face and when I asked myself, ‘could this get any more ridiculous’, up popped  another shot of the super being - Dr Manhattan complete with blue skin and a dangling penis.  I guess he’s too cool for clothes in addition to being magically have  buff steroid pumping muscles that he doesn’t use or need for anything.

The main plot is retarded. That’s right retarded.  For all you comic book buffs who love your graphic novels, the plot in this movie wouldn’t be very convincing to an 8 year old.  Grow up.

I’m not saying movies like the Dark Knight are even in the realm of the possible, but at least they play out within an fictional world that does obey some kind of  internal logic and only has a few contradictions.  Other comic book films like the Tim Burton Version of Batman or Xmen, successful create an alternative universe that’s so fantasy filled it doesn’t bother you to see a hot chick in spandex kick a mutant’s butt.

This film and underlying story tries to take itself seriously as a critique of the dark side of human nature and absolutely wreaks with anarchistic undertones.  It continually attempts to keep you in a “real world” mindset by referencing real historic people and events (including President Nixon) set to a cultural iconic sound track including Bob Dylan, Jimmy Hendrix, and Simon and Garfunkel.

If you’re going to continually make references with culture iconic music and real history, it should follow at least the confines of the real world, or specifically state what laws or magic the characters are allowed to do.  This movie does not succeed on either level.

Girls without any visible super power of any kind,  weighting at most 130lbs, with 4 inch heels, in latex, beat the hell out of gangs of thugs, directly after real historic references.  As soon as that happened, I start shaking my head and the WTF is this face came out.  It’s so ridiculous; it’s hard to even stay focused on the plot points.  There is no flash back scene and over the top gore like in Kill Bill, to keep it entertaining, it’s just thrown in without warning and suppose to be taken seriously.  Give me a break.

Although the trailer is filled with nonstop violence and action, the actual move is so slow that at least two people behind me in the theater fell asleep.  There was also audible snoring from a few rows in front of me.  The main plot revolves around  “Who done it” type mystery, but they fail to make you care about the characters to such a degree I just wanted them all to die and something more exciting to reveal itself.

When there was action, lots of it revolved around hitting you in the face with the whole “ugliness of human nature” theme, which even included an absolutely disgusting scene of the comedian shooting a pregnant women (with his baby) in the face.  The problem is we know nothing about the characters at this point and not only that, but there are no hints of anything even remotely interesting about any of them.  It’s supposed to be pointing out something dark about human nature, but comes off as completely preachy ridiculous crap.

I’m not saying I want to read or watch a traditional hero story.  For example, I LOVED Frank Miller’s Sin City.  Loved it, saw the film twice in theaters, but the reason why all that violence worked so well in that film is with all the visual stylization and the “dark city” the audience was successfully brought into a dreamy or nightmare like fantasy world and into the drama of it’s citizens.

This film shows you tons of violence and tries connecting it to actual real world events, but still in comic book style.  It fails on all levels.

SPOILER ALTER

These are the type of people who I believe will love this move

• Individuals that honestly believe we’re all doomed and that hate “human nature”
• People that only watch the pretty colors and visual effects and take no time to think about the themes and philosophy behind the scenes.

What were you suppose to get out of the main characters?  They were like empty shells, skipped over in furious flash back scenes with almost no real character development at all.

Rorschach was a super human (who didn’t have any described abilities, but for some reason was basically invincible) who’s flash back was the most stereotypical crazy person flash back you could imagine (mom was a prostitute who didn’t like him etc).  I mean what the hell are we suppose to feel for this guy?  It doesn’t make any sense, the flashbacks were extremely quick cuts so there was no character development or bonding, it’s like we were being for fed a load of crap to make the character appear more feasible.

The comedian was this total piece of crap character with absolutely nothing redeeming at all, who supposedly is fighting crime right along side the other characters.  Why the hell would anyone fight crime or do anything next to someone like that.  I’d fucking kill the guy if he was next to me, even if he was a super hero.

The super human godlike matter changing being asks some dumb ass question about human life, would this be improved with a street or a shopping mall?  That’s ridiculous.  Even an elementary philosophy student should understand that either

a.        Human Life has intrinsic value

b.      Human life does not have intrinsic value

If human life has intrinsic value it would be worth saving by definition.  If human life does not have intrinsic value then the decision to save or let human life die should be entirely based on the end result of what humans produce and create or made for selfish reasons (this is what I get out of humans).

Instead of mentioning any of these things and making an argument on why human beings should not be saved, the dumbass god like being talks about beauty which is completely irrelevant to the conversation.  Whether or not mars would look better or be improved with a shopping mall or parking lot is not a very wise way to talk or think about the future of an entire species.  That would be like us discussing whether or not ant hills were pretty when talking about if humans should save an entire specifics of ant.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that is not a very logical way to look at things.

Even worse, this being (Dr. Manhattan) later on says that the smartest human is no more dangerous to him than the smartest terminate, but that contradicts the fact that on mars he said some dumb girl who gave very un-insightful information somehow showed him the value of human life.  Did I miss something here?

The ending provided yet another total insult to common sense.  Humans have survived two world wars thus far with death rates far outnumbering the 15 million from the attacks.  Despite that and all the historic references in the film, magically because all these people died the whole world is going to hold hands and sing songs and there will never be another threat of nuclear extinction.  That’s ridiculous, the greatest danger to human life is not from nuclear war, if you do any research into technology the longer humans survive and the greater our technology develops, the more of a threat we become to ourselves and long term sustainability.  Although I’m not scared about this, there are many, many, many things more dangerous and less all out than nuclear war which would still result in almost complete devastation of the human race (many of these are made into great movies like the Andromeda strain).

Within just 10 years and definitely within 50 years the world would have forgotten about the devastation and once again resumed feuding and fighting with each other, just like what happened after both world wars.  This time however, technology would have advanced and they’d have much more dangerous weapons than just nuclear bombs.  In Watchman it suppose-ably took the smartest man alive to figure out the plot to kill a bunch of humans to prevent this mass apocalypse.

I’d avoid this movie at all costs, it’s terrible waste of almost 3 hours of your life and I know multiple people who saw it and agreed with me.  Almost 50% of the top critics at rotten tomatoes gave it a bad review, so you’ve been warned.

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Jathia’s Wager, an original open source Sci-Fi film has been released online for free.  Thanks to everyone involved you can watch the entire movie right now and soon you’ll be able to download it in HD format, download the source files and contribute to the film.  Visit the watch and download page for more viewing options (this page will be updated when the HD versions become available etc).  PLEASE leave a comment on the film after you see it.  The License releases for the various versions are here and the official page with a lot more info and links is available here.

It will take a week to complete all the uploading and distributing ( the source files are huge) so please be patient.  This is a dream come true for me and the result of months of hard work.

Jathia’s Wager is a no-budget Sci-Fi film created by a collaboration of strangers.  Copy this film, distribute it, and give it away all you want - it’s 100% free and I hope you like it.  Most of the people involved (including the actors and the sound designers) only know me through our e-mails and online discussions.  They learned about the project entirely online and joined the team, because they love movies and wanted to contribute.

An Open Source Movie?

Like open source software, this film free and created using a collaboration of strangers, it’s being released with the files used for its creation and you’re strongly encouraged to modify it, expand it, and use it in your own derivative works.

Everything from the script, to the unedited video footage is available for downloading and using in your own creative endeavors.  Fifty percent of the movie was filmed using green screen backgrounds. There are lots of opportunities for continuation of the story and continuing the project.  If you really liked this film, you’re encouraged to contribute or support it by sharing it with your friends. PLEASE stumble and digg it :)!!!

If you liked this movie please join us and help create new films

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