'Fans, Friends & Followers' update: Events, Articles, and a Twebinar

I'm spending a lot of time on the road in June to spread the word about 'Fans, Friends & Followers.' Maybe I'll see you on my travels?

Events:

- Tomorrow (Friday , June 5th), I'll be running a filmmaker pitch session at Making Media Now, put on by Filmmakers Collaborative

- This Sunday (June 7th), I'll be at the Apple Store in Soho to moderate a free panel on film funding, promotion, and distribution as part of Internet Week NY.

- On June 17th, I'll be at Silverdocs to run a Silver Session workshop on 'Building Big Audiences & Generating Revenue in the Digital World' (sign up is required, and space is limited), and also to participate in a panel on the future of public media.

- On June 20th, I'll be at the Los Angeles Film Festival to moderate a panel called 'Digital Distribution: The Future is Here, But Where is the Money?'

Articles:

- Kendall Whitehouse has just published a great interview with Kat Parsons, an LA singer-songwriter who is following some of the same strategies for connecting with fans (and enlisting their support) as I explore in the book.

- Chris Holland from B-Side interviewed me via e-mail about some of the challenges filmmakers face as they're forced to do more marketing, promotion, and social networking.

- Liz Rosenthal of Power to the Pixel posted about the book this week, including an MP3 link to the interview I did with documentarian Robert Greenwald, which is excerpted in the 'Fans, Friends & Followers.'

Twebinar:

- Next Tuesday (June 9th), I'm doing a "Twebinar" on cultivating an audience for your work and developing a successful business model, with PermissionTV. You'll see a live video feed at 2 PM EDT, and you'll be able to Tweet in your questions. (Hence, "Twebinar" instead of just "Webinar.") It's free, but you'll need to register here.

In Boston? Making Media Now Takes Place on June 5th

The agenda looks great for this year's Making Media Now conference at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. The theme is "Surviving as a Filmmaker in Tough Times," and the speakers include Sandi DuBowski ('Trembling Before G-d'), Robert Greenwald ('Rethink Afghanistan') and Doug Blog ('51 Birch Street'). I'll be there for the tail end of the day, to moderate a filmmaker pitch/feedback session.

I've been to this event once before, and it seems to be the biggest and best annual gathering of filmmakers in the Boston area. The early registration rate expires May 21st. The conference is organized by Filmmakers Collaborative.

Yet More on Internet Film Financing: IndieGoGo Video and MyMovieStudio

Last Friday at the Making Media Now conference in Boston, I ran into Slava Rubin of IndieGoGo, and we sat down for a quick chat about how things are going with the site, which aims to help filmmakers raise money for their projects. (I've previously compared several of the sites trying to do this.)



(Aside: In much of the video, my nose looks like it is auditioning for the part of "The Nose" in a remake of Woody Allen's 'Sleeper.')

Before we shot the video, I mentioned to Slava that earlier in the week, I'd received yet another e-mail from yet another new site trying to help raise money online for films. This one, My Movie Studio, is co-founded by Glasgow Phillips, who has written a few episodes of 'South Park.' Users can post their ideas for movies (not scripts), and then vote on which ones they'd like to see produced. Co-founder Michael Bertin explains:

When we get a critical mass, we plan to form an investment vehicle and issue $100 shares for sale to members. We hope to raise $6 million (60,000 shares at $100 each) to finance the three most popular ideas as voted by the community—the three winning Movie Pitch authors will receive $25,000 and sole "Story By" credit on the movies based on their ideas.

Who's going to write the scripts? Bertin explains: "...[W]e're going to hire professional, credited film and TV writers to turn the ideas into scripts. We've got a really good network of writers so we're pretty confident in our abilities to get through any creative challenges from a scripting standpoint.

If the movies do well, investors will presumably be able to earn a positive return on their $100 shares. But dealing with securities regulations will be a challenge .... which is why IndieGoGo considers all the money its filmmakers raise to be "contributions" or "donations," rather than investments.