Three Cool Ideas: Streaming from the Set, OpenIndie, and "14 Islands"

I hear about way too much cool stuff via e-mail, and am constantly feeling guilty that I don't / can't blog about more of it.

So, if you are doing cool stuff (whether or not you have been letting me know about it), please keep it up! You're awesome.

For now, just wanted to share three cool ideas that have popped into my inbox this month:

1. Australian marketing and distribution consultant Simon Britton e-mailed to let me know about a cool live streaming project he is involved with that takes place on November 4th, to help generate awareness for a feature film about sharks called 'The Reef.' From his post:

In what we think is a world first, the production company will provide all-day live stream from the shoot in Hervey Bay on November 4th.

Viewers will be able to see [director] Andrew [Traucki] and the cast in action (and probably in the water) as a video crew follows him around on the day.

It's live coverage and a making-of rolled into one, featuring interviews with cast and crew as the action unfolds. Viewers will be able to ask questions in real-time.

Simon tells me via e-mail that he "will be be going to location for the stream, doing some camera work and editing. In typical Australian style, everyone on the team does whatever is required!"

2. OpenIndie is a new distribution project from Arin Crumley and Kieran Masterson which hopes to raise $10,000 from 100 filmmakers this month. (They are about half-way there.) Eric Kohn serves up the details on IndieWire, but the gist is that they'd like to have independent filmmakers pool their e-mail lists of people interested in seeing their film (or in putting on screenings), and then be able to collectively use the people in that database to understand where the greatest demand is for a given film, organize screenings and fill theaters (or house parties.)

3. I love this contest for filmmakers in the UK: "The 14 Islands Film Challenge." From the PR e-mail I received:

The 14 Islands Film Challenge (http://14islandsfilmchallenge.co.uk/) is an initiative to find 14 of the best young filmmakers in the UK - to send to the 14 islands of The Bahamas, where each director will create a movie of any genre, on their own island with the help of a local team. They will be there for 14 days and once they return there will be a BAFTA red carpet screening where a grand high winner will be selected by public vote and a panel of judges to win, yes, £14,000!

Amazon's New Video on Demand Service: A Shift From Downloads to Streams?

Today's big news is that Amazon.com is planning to offer its library of film and TV shows in streaming form, according to the New York Times, transforming Amazon Unbox into Amazon Video on Demand. Brad Stone explains:

The video store will be accessible through the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, a $300 tower-shaped device that funnels Web video directly to Sony’s high-definition televisions. That is an awkward extra expense, for now. But future Bravias are expected to have this capability embedded in the television, making it even easier to gain access to the full catalog of past and present TV shows and movies, over the Internet, using a television remote control.

And Amazon is also eager to do deals with other set-top box makers.

But the new streaming service is still being tested, and it won't actually launch until later this summer.... for now, all you can do is sign up to be notified about it.

Two questions I've got:

1. Will Amazon still offer downloads? Downloads are kinda nice when you're away from connectivity (like on a plane or train or car trip), and also for transferring to a handheld device (though Amazon Unbox only works with a few Windows-compatible portable video players, and not the iPod).

2. Will Amazon still deliver movies (either in streaming or downloadable form) to TiVos? A lot more people have those than the Sony Bravia Internet Video link.

Here's the NewTeeVee post on the news, and another from Hot Hardware.

Jaman Tries Ad-Supported Streaming

Jaman, the Silicon Valley movie marketplace geared to indie content, is introducing ad-supported streaming this week. That adds a second revenue stream to Jaman's business model, which was originally built atop selling downloads and rentals of films.

I don't think this is a surrender, indicating that downloads and rentals aren't working for Jaman, but it has undoubtedly been a challenge for the site to get visitors to hand over their credit card information... and ad-supported streaming makes it easier to simply start watching a movie that looks half-way interesting. Jaman will offer 100 ad-supported titles to start with.

Here's the TechCrunch coverage ... and the official press release.

Post-Thanksgiving Linkage: Blockbuster Kiosks, Streaming Video Piracy, Speed Racer, Vudu

- Blockbuster is gonna try putting automated movie rental kiosks into Papa John's pizza joints and Family Dollar stores. DVDs will rent for just a buck, cheaper than at Blockbuster's traditional outlets, and they can be returned to any kiosk -- not just the one they came from.

- Slate has a great piece on a new kind of online movie piracy. Dan Morrell writes:

As the MPAA has focused on BitTorrent downloading, however, a newer, more popular kind of piracy method has come along. BitTorrent is out. Streaming video is in.

Before it was shuttered by European authorities in October, the British-based TVLinks—which offered links to hundreds of pirated movies and television shows—had become perhaps the Web's leading destination for illicit streaming video. If you've never heard of it, you're not alone: A LexisNexis search found only four mentions of TVLinks in major news sources over the past year. The Pirate Bay, one of the most popular torrent Web sites, was cited more than 300 times. The lack of hype didn't stop the site's spread. According to Web traffic analyzer Alexa, TVLinks passed both the Pirate Bay and TorrentSpy in global traffic rank this August. At the height of its popularity, TVLinks ranked 160th in global traffic, near the level of the New York Times.

- Looks like the Wachowski Brothers are taking the green screen approach with 'Speed Racer.'

- To help market its $399 set-top box, Vudu is throwing in high-def copies of two of Universal's 'Bourne' movies. (Here's more on Vudu.)

- My mother-in-law asked me on Thanksgiving for my advice on whether she should buy "a Blu-ray." When I mentioned the format war, she didn't seem aware of it, and she didn't seem to have much recognition that HD DVD existed. She and my father-in-law are big Netflix users, and Netflix offers movies in both Blu-ray and HD DVD, so I told her the only possible problem could be if HD DVD wins, they'd need to buy a new DVD player in a couple years. Just a data point...