Everyone has a story

As I immerse myself further into the possibilities of telling and viewing stories through the Internet I am finding more and more real stories, about real people and real life. Not about Tiger Woods problems or balloon boy but things that that really hit home. By nature media has come to a precipice of disconnect from our day to day lives and only draws us in with drama and tragedy.Don't get me wrong, it has its place and time but I believe there are more worthwhile stories to see and hear and take with us in our daily lives. Here is a website telling just these kinds of stories in short little blurbs called Everyone Forever Now. Visually interesting and speaking volumes on everyday things we don't usually think about or discuss. Take a look at this short on Stoop sitting, something people have done for years. Its a nice comment, if it wasn't so cold today maybe I would go sit on my stoop.

Everyone Forever Now - "Stoop Sitting" from Everynone on Vimeo.

Links for Film and Tv Campfires

Here is a list of great links to different websites in our TV and Film Odyssey

FUNDING YOUR FILM/VIDEO PROJECT
Kickstarter A funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, journalists, inventors, explorers, etc . Get your film or video project funded !!

WEBSITES FOR FILM, TV AND CINEPHILES
FolkStreams.net A national preserve of documentary films about American roots cultures.

Jaman a movie site with a wide and interesting selection of free and cheap for rent films and downloads including Neil Youngs "GET AROUND" where he tours around in his converted earth friendly Lincoln Continental the Lincvolt with tunes from "Fork In the Road"

Get Around



Indieflix Connecting people through movies .

Blip.tv Independent television shows, the next generation television network.

Hulu.com Big network television shows to be watched after original airing on television.

Wax or the Discovery of Television Among Bees by David Blair is an interactive hypermedia film that was the first full length feature film to be shown on the internet in 1993.

Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees [10:00/85:00] from David Blair on Vimeo.

WAX An amusing and interesting short online film about getting your hair waxed.

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager A funny fan web show with a version of our favorite Star Wars Villian as a grocery store manager.

Born Of Hope A Just released (Dec. 1 2009) fan made movie based on the J.R.R Tolkien series for free on the website. A trailer for the film is here for your viewing pleasure.




Revision 3 Internet television network with a wide variety of community driven programs

Take 180 Awesome web shows all 180 seconds or less

The Auteurs A rotation of a wide variety of the best world cinema from Kurosawa to Kubrick. Almost to good to be true!

The Smalls A great site of Independent short films

Sputnik7.com A wide variety of great media from music videos, commercials to feature length films

Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog Joss Whedon's project he wrote and produced during the 2007 writers strike showing that professionally established writers, directors and actors could successfully use the Internet for content.

DISCUSIONS AND WATERING HOLES

The Streamy Awards
An Award show dedicated to web only shows

TED TALK :Peter Hirshberg On Tv and the Web. Silicon Valley executive Peter Hirshberg talks about the relationship of the computer and the TV and the emerging media.

Film & TV's Internet Odyssey

In this blog am going to explore and discuss how film, television and the Internet and modern technology have converged, opening up a whole new way to see, distribute and experience this media. The Internet has changed the landscape that was primarily controlled by the networks and corporate Hollywood for film and television. The now low cost and accessibility of equipment and the user friendly technology that is available today has made making a low budget film, documentary or whatever story or presentation and have it be seen and made easily by every day Joe's. Through out this blog I will provide highlighted links for further information and exploration as we discuss different areas and In the end I will provide a list of links that relate to this discussion and see whats happening in the new frontier. We are going to look at the first and probably best case study example of this with the 2005 story of the independent film Four Eyed Monsters.This is not so much a new story as it is a great example of the new landscape and its potential.




This was an indie film project that through a grass roots campaign on the Internet and by creating of buzz through webisodes gathered enough attention to be seen on many formats including big screen theaters. The real story is through different techniques using the Internet they created buzz about their movie on blogs and webisodes on social networks. The quality of the material helped propel this, but without the tools of the modern day Internet this film would not have received the audience it did.


In The Four Eyed Monsters Case Study Directors Susan Buice and Arin Crumly talk about how after no one would pay attention to their film and how they used the Internet to promote and create buzz about the film and story through a series of techniques. By creating webisodes documenting the making of the film , their rocky relationship and new filmmaker mishaps they created a following of folks who then wanted to see their feature. By promoting on MySpace and then You Tube they were able to get an audience. About this same time Ipod had new capability to download podcasts such as four eyed monsters which people did , therefore creating a bigger following. They were attending smaller film festivals looking for distributors with little luck and decided to try the non traditional Internet promotional approach paving the way for low budget filmmakers to get their work to an audience. Another interesting phenomenon that happened was there was a dialog created with the audience about the webisodes and the how they could see the film. By collecting data of fans wanting to see the films in certain cities and bringing it to theater owners they were able to convince the theaters to have showings by guaranteeing a certain amount of sales through their fan base from the webisodes and dialog with fans. The fans were able to do this by the request for the movie and view the cities with the most requests on a google Heart Map. This is an amazing concept and model, we the consumers and movie fans could request the movies we want to see and if enough of us ask for a certain indie film at our local theater like the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Or. They would show it. Soon after they premiered their movie on You Tube for free for a short period of time. After that the IFC showed webisodes furthering the talk and interest. The truth is this little film and webisodes got more attention ,time and promotion than a Hollywood feature film that comes and goes quicker than Vanilla Ice on a reality show and spent much less money doing it. One question is what was the financial thinking behind making this film? just for art or possibly to make a profit? We know Hollywood has one thing in mind, making big profits and because of this its system limits its creative possibilities. Because of the generative design of the Internet at this time it has become easy and accessible and the directors of Four Eyed Monsters who simply wanted to make a film and show it and in this setting the were able to do that. Not only did they do that , they created a community around the film that gave it life. Did the filmmakers recover the debt they created making this film? We know a great deal of it was but the real profit was the visibility of their work and capability paving the way for future projects and paying jobs. But this system has issues and limitations. Even low budget projects require money and people cant forever put out content for free or generate it for nothing. In the end its up to the consumers and viewers to support content either by paying in some shape or form or allowing advertisers in and continue with the old rules.We can examine this in the article " The Price Of Free" where its discusses how some of the best shows with quality writers , actor and directors have high costs to produce and if everything was free it would be replaced by low end sloppy programs. It is wonderful the Internet has opened a portal to volumes of interesting viewing material but it could mean as this all evolves it will need to find a balance. The real fear for the studios here is the high end big budget studio work will loose much of its value in post theater DVD/digital download release competing in the Internet TV realm.





If we look at Marshall Mcluhan's Tetrad it fits into how the film/video has evolved in this new Internet age which you can get an understanding of in this in this video.




Through the new medium it has enhanced creative expression, finding media you know and don't know and creating access to experts and amateurs.The new film/video age has made the old Hollywood system somewhat obsolete changing the accessibility and communities by making them much larger and shifting the power more into the hands of the consumers,filmmaker and viewer. It has rekindled old films through open accessibility and made access for a global archive creating a community that branches out past just the simple viewing of materials.This new age has completely flipped and blurred the lines of the old traditional way we viewed these mediums. It is now blurring entertainment, education and community bringing it together as a whole. In this new universe the evolution of projects like Four Eyed Monsters became entirely possible. David Thornburg who works and writes on the advancement of communication media has written an essay called Campfires in Cyberspace:Primordial Metaphors for Learning in the 21st Century about our new way of communicating and processing information on the web which translates well about Internet film/video community. Looking at the way we communicate he uses metaphors such as "Campfires" as places where we go to get the stories such as Atom.com an indie web show site. We have "Watering Holes" where we can gather and talk about the content such as blogs like Atom Blog where fans can talk about the shows and give input and we Have "Caves" where we go to reflect on the content we learned and process the information perhaps in a personal journal on your computer . In today's Internet media viewing experience I would refer to Marshall Mcluhan's references of "Hot" and "Cold" as we we view different Movies or TV shows on our computer. In the moment while watching our event in the "Global Village" it would be hot as we were immersed in the content but as we moved to the watering holes it would become cool as we interact with the content we viewed and moved into discussion, then reflection in our caves. This is starting to encompass our whole experience with film and video in the home front as our televisions start to merge with our computers and the Internet.We are on the brink of this convergence as we read about in this article "Some TVs Go Directly Online For Streaming Movies" and look at some of the competition and devices that are making this happen in this article about Roku Vs Boxee .





With this convergence brings diversity and an enormous range of choices of medium to take in. As we see in Four eyed monsters we can become part of the process and have a connection with the content. Henry Jenkins talks about other grass roots filmmakers in his book "Convergence of Culture" stemming from fan cultures making connections and films about films and shows they are fans of creating a whole community that breathes everlasting life into stories like "Lord Of The Rings" with tributes like "The Hunt for Gollum" that can be seen in its entirety for free or the fan Star Trek tribute film "Of Gods and Men". The choices are infinite. You can read more about how our relationships in this fan realm have changed at Online Fandom.
The Internet has completely changed the way we view film and TV and made us participants in ways before that were only possible for a few specialized professionals. My first TV when I was a young boy was a 10 inch black and white with rabbit ears that I would adjust late at night so I could clearly see the old twilight zone shows. Now I can find those same shows on the Internet and just about anything else I could dream of to watch. Soon our film and TV will converge all into one big system bringing together the ultimate viewing experience with endless variety. Its hard to say exactly how it will all turn out but it will be a different Movie and TV world. This discussion just barely scratches the surface on these topics and my hope is it opens the door for further discussion and exploration of this topic.Four Eyed Monsters is a great place to start and get a feel for our new Film and TV Internet Odyssey




In my other Blog posting Links for Film and TV Campfires I will bring you some links to a variety of sites with different content and information to further our journey into this exploration. So get the popcorn popping, some of the sites will have you glued to your chair!

My Video And Conclusions On Film & TV's Internet Odyssey

36th NW Film and Video Festival -VIVA LA VORTLAND

This week I attended one of the showings from the 36th NW Film and Video Festival held by the NW Film center in Portland (or as I call it the Vortland region). I attended the showing of Shorts 1 and a documentary called "Died Young and Stayed Pretty" about the underground rock poster world. the Shorts were almost all worth while with some exceptional highlights. For me the short "AXIOMS OF A DISHWASHER" by Director Vance Malone was a visual pleasure reciting a poetic philosophical view of the harsh life of a dishwasher in today's restaurant world with some advice for aspiring plate ware washers.Through the lens of this director I could see beauty and respect for this thankless job. The other Exceptional short was " NOUS DEUX ENCORE" by director Heather Harlow that told its story of love and loss through mostly still images and narration in french creating a haunting and lovely effect. There is a certain freedom to short films you see that comes from not being bound by models for profit that Hollywood sets, allowing stories to be told in ways I would otherwise never see. If I had more time I would see all 3 of the Shorts series and a few more of the feature length documentaries and films. I stuck around for Feature documentary 'Died Young And Stayed pretty" by Eileen Yaghoobian. A view into the world of underground rock poster art that was incredibly hip and cool for about 30 minutes leaving the rest 58 minutes less of a statement and more about me trying to stay awake. This would have fared much better as a short, non traditional , arty documentary capturing the anti-establishment sentiment of the director and the subjects. As always though, I am grateful see different views and styles of film and if not for this one I may still not know what 'VIVISECTIONIST" means (Someone who has a minute or pitiless examination or criticism). Something always learned! I also enjoy the fans of these events. When I go to my local cineplex people do not respond in applause and there is no Q&A to ask questions and learn more, we just march home and onto the next thing. Here the audience clapped after every short, as if to thank every director for their time and energy to give us these short bundles of joy. Perhaps in our own ways we should all applaud the folks who make and bring us these films so there will continue to be more. This festival is another great example of the wide variety of interesting things our region brings to the table. VIVA LA VORTLAND !

For more of the 36th NW Film Festival this weekend check out http://www.nwfilm.org/

Vortland Vancouver Gallery

Megan and I were having an afternoon stroll in Vancouver on Main St. and wandered into one of the several cool galleries along the drag there called ANGST.

We found some interesting works by various local artists and this cool poem which left me thinking..... what music would we have if John had lived? And I too will never see the godfather of soul, not because I couldn't, just because I never did, and now its a little to late.

The poet does poetry at open in Mic in Vortlands Vancouver Cover to Cover books, another cool

gem in our landscape. I would like to see more galleries, more groove and soul in our growing

community and perhaps just a little more Angst!

YouTube - The Informant! - Trailer 2009 HD

YouTube - The Informant! - Trailer 2009 HD

Vortlands Vast Cinema Landscape

Vortland has a really happening Film scene and a variety of Movie theaters showing a variety of Indie, foreign and Hollywood movies. I Live in the downtown Vancouver area and when I'm not heading over to Hollywood theater, Cinema 21 or Regal FOX Tower in Portland I make use of the Regal city 12 in Vancouver and the one screen they keep an indie or foreign movie going on.This past weekend I caught Steven Soderberghs "The Informant" at the city center which was a well done, darkly funny story about Mark Whitacre a corporate management type who worked for a giant company producing Lysine (An essential amino acid found in proteins)and Informant for the FBI about price fixing within the corporate giant.I like Soderberghs fuzzy look for the film adding to the feeling this Brady bunch had gone off there meds.This will not win film of the year but is a very fun, solid film. So since I don't always need the best, most intelectaul movie on the planet I give it A on sheer fun and entertainment. I am a fan of the director Steven Soderbergh , bringing me fun creations like the first Oceans 12 or more obscure wonders like "Bubble" a fantastically creepy little film about some odd folks in a doll factory. Being a cinephile I am of course one of the very few folks who attended (and stayed all the way through) "CHE" . I mostly stayed to see and hear Mr. Soderbergh talk about the film which was fun and well worth it.
I have visions of an arty movie house in downtown Vancouver adding to the Vortland scene and filling a much needed gap on this side of the river. Perhaps Kiggins take over?

http://theinformantmovie.warnerbros.com/