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Saturday, November 08, 2008

Lunchbox Lab on Digital Distribution: Audio File

This Thursday, I went to the first in a series of "Lunchbox Labs" that are being organized by several film-related organizations here in the Boston area. (Filmmaker's Collaborative, LEF, Central Productions, Color of Film, and the Mass. Production Coalition among them.)

This one focused on digital distribution, and the lunch-time discussion included folks like Susi Walsh of the Center for Independent Documentary; David Tamés; Jim Flynn of EZTakes and iArthouse; Chris Renzi of Netfilm; Denise DiIanni of WGBH; Sean Fitzroy; Lyda Kuth of The LEF Foundation; Bonnie Waltch of Filmmakers Collaborative; and Cynthia Close of Documentary Educational Resources.

I recorded most of the conversation (aside from the first three or four minutes, when everyone introduced themselves.) It's not a wonderfully-produced podcast, but it may be useful to folks thinking through the digital distribution landscape. We talked about iTunes, EZTakes, Amazon/CreateSpace, the re:frame project, new business models and new formats filmmakers should be exploring, and lots more. It's about an hour-long.

The MP3 is here. I'm the first person to start jabbering.

The description we were sent before the lunch is below -- though we didn't cover all these topics.

"The November 6 Lunchbox Lab discussion will focus on film/video distribution on the internet for independent filmmakers. Navigating through the maze of new media platforms such as VOD, video downloads, cable and broadband models can be daunting for filmmakers considering other forms of distribution besides theatrical and traditional broadcast. New models of distribution are constantly being created or evolving , for example websites such as indplay (http://www.indplay.com/home) connects filmmakers directly with licensors allowing filmmakers to have more control over distribution. Our hope is to engage in exploratory and purposeful conversations including answering these questions: what are these new platforms? how does a filmmaker/distributor navigate these new platforms? Which ones have worked successfully and which ones have not? How are small independent distributors working with these new technologies? Who is making money and how? Are there ways in which this community can do trials to test the efficacy of different methods? Are there opportunities to incubate some projects?"

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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Some more notes from DIY Day Boston

David Tamés posts some of his photos and notes from last weekend's DIY Day event in Boston. It includes coverage of the opening chat with digital media investor (and indie film producer) Todd Dagres...a presentation on virality called 'If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead'...and a talk by Slava Rubin on crowd-funding of indie film.

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Monday, October 06, 2008

From DIY Days Boston: Todd Dagres on Indie Film and Internet Video


To kick off DIY Days in Boston on Saturday, Lance Weiler and I interviewed Todd Dagres on stage.

Todd has produced several independent films (including the Sundance entry 'TransSiberian' this year), but he is best known as a venture capitalist who funds start-up companies like Veoh, EQAL, Twitter, and Next New Networks. Our conversation focused on how TV is changing... the as-yet-unproven business models of Internet video... financing and making independent films... how distribution is evolving... and why the word "community" ought to replace the word "audience" in your vocabulary.

Here it is in MP3 form (41 minutes long.)

Lance, Arin Crumley, David Tamés, and all the volunteers did a great job putting on the event -- and the audience was amazing.

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Saturday, October 04, 2008

Lots more multimedia about 'Inventing the Movies'

This was a big week for stuff related to Inventing the Movies showing up online...including:

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Tamés on the Evolving Cinematic Language of Online Video

Just spent the morning with David Tamés, a multi-hyphenate here in Boston (cinematographer, editor, producer, Web developer, and online video pioneer.) David also works at MassArt, helping manage the technology there.

David gave a talk last weekend at Podcamp Boston 3 where he talked about how to improve one's Web video using cinematic techniques: it's a pithy presentation that explores how production values are changing in this new world of online video, and it's definitely worth a look.

I'm embedding it here:

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Friday, July 27, 2007

This Weekend: Woods Hole Film Festival

I had the pleasure of lunching today with filmmaker/techie David Tamés, who has been doing some shooting of late on the Ray Kurzweil documentary 'The Singularity is Near.' David has a great blog called Kino-Eye.com, and also maintains a list of events that would surely be of interest to CinemaTech readers in the Boston area.

And if you happen to be headed to Cape Cod this weekend, David has organized three really cool panels at the Woods Hole Film Festival:

    - The future of long-form documentary in the age of Internet video
    - Delivering Video via the Internet: Challenges and Opportunities, and
    - Media Literacy in the 21st Century

Not only that, but one of David's short films, 'Smile Boston Project,' is screening at the fest next Saturday.

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