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From AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft)

FOUR PIRACY SEIZURES IN FOUR MONTHS IN BANKSTOWN AREA

Sydney: A 36-year-old woman was arrested by New South Wales Police in Bankstown late yesterday and charged with copyright offences in relation to possessing for sale pirated movie DVDs.

Police discovered the woman selling the illegitimate movie DVDs from the rear of her parked car in Bankstown's Brandon Avenue Carpark. Officers seized around 2,500 pirated movie DVDs, including copies of Land of the Lost and Angels and Demons which have only just been released in cinemas across Australia. Other titles included copies of Valkeryie, which is not yet legitimately released on DVD.

Following the arrest, Neil Gane, Director of Operations for the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) said: "We commend the work of the New South Wales Police for putting a stop to the sale of these pirated movies in our communities. Legitimate suburban businesses like cinemas and DVD rental stores have enough challenges in these tough economic times without having to compete with criminals."

The operation yesterday represents the fourth seizure of pirated DVD movies in Bankstown in the past four months. Over 7,000 pirated DVD movies, with an estimated street value of $35,000, have been seized in these operations.

Police enquiries are continuing and further charges may be laid.

Penalties for copyright crimes are up to $60,500 and/or 5 years jail per offence.

 

"What are you really burning?": AFACT's anti-piracy campaign.

The Independent Television Service in San Francisco has just released a new report which looked into new ways of creating distributing and promoting films.    The report focuses on 10 case studies, and it's well worth a look.   The focus is on social filmmakers, but not strictly documentary.

They also highlight the Top 5 stategies in each area.   I particularly like the sugggestion that you could make an international film by collaborating with other idependent filmmakers in other countries.

Source: CinemaTech

This is possibly the video blogging equivellant of Twitter.    12 seconds posed a questions and allows you to give a 12 second response via your web cam.   of course you can update the world about other parts of your life in 12 seconds as well. 

I stumbled over an intriging and clever online marketing move today.

I have an account at Twitter, the mobile misco-blogging web site.   I rarely use it  and I've never connected it to my mobile - I'm way to busy to distracted by another thing.    My Facebook updates automatically repost to my Twitter account, and a few of my friends follow my activities through the Twitter feed.

One of the great (and possibly scary) things you can do on Twitter is you can start following people, every now and then I take a look at who is following me and block a couple of the more dubious ones.   Today I found someone following me who I wasn't expecting.    Cardinology.

The Cardinals are the backing band of one of my favorite performers, Ryan Adams, and Cardinology is their latest album.   I've blogged about Ryan Adams before and my love of his work is well known.   But surely I should be his fan - not the other way round.   It's very clever that someone in Cardinal land trolls the internet and makes connections with an artist's fans.

I clicked onto the Cardinology Twitter feed, their update from earlier today announced that Adams alter ego DJ Reggie had posted some more rap tunes online.   The link led me to the bands You Tube account and this beautiful new song, 'Dear Impossible'.   I didn't know this song.   What album is it on?   A google search revealed the answer.    Even though 'Cardinology' is only just in the shops, the next album is already underway.   My seach also revealed Ryan Adam's blog, on the tour bus he's been learning Final Cut Pro and posting simple videos to share the new songs, I found another one 'Sunflowers in Hotels' on Vimeo.

So what's all this got to do with filmmaking.    Well not a lot.    It has a lot to do with online distribution and marketing though.  

The BIG thing is that they didn't just create a online presence and hope I'd find it - they reach out and made contact with me.    Now I don't think anyone in the Ryan Adams camp is actually following my Twitter updates, mainly because they have 1995 friends to follow - but they made me feel like they were interested in me.

How many filmmakers just create a web page to promote their film and leave it at that?

The band is also cleverly getting me to like the songs from their new album - before it's released.    They're getting to me before the critics and the reviews.   Could this work for filmmakers?   Would you ever let me see your rough cut online?   Some footage from the shoot?   Something beyond the standard trailer?  

Listen to Cardinology on the band's My Space page.  

Ryan Adams is playing Metropolis Fremantle in January - he's more than welcome to drop by FTI for a FCP tutorial session.

..and while I don't believe that The Cardinals have a connection with all 1995 of their Twitter friends, I would like to take a moment to recognise my 584 Facebook friends...your all great. 

The WALL STREET JOURNAL has a catch up article on some of the newer technologies that are set to change the screen exhibition and distribution side of the business.

Amongst the news of Blu-Ray, 3D and Digital Projectors was one technology I had to think twice about.   A blu-ray DVD that links into social networking.   You watch a movie at home and friends who are watching it at the same time can comment and chat on the TV screen.  

Personally I hate people who talk in the movies, and I don't think I'm going to appreciate my facebook aquaintainces giving me their thoughts as I watch a film.   Do people want this?   Are there any signs?   Are we talking on our mobiles while friends watch films? do we text them SMS messages?   Do you hear teenagers parting in the playground with calls of 'let's all watch 'Gossip Girl' at the same time and chat'?

With all the calls for content to be free of time and space and the proclaimed death of appointment viewing - is this a little of target?

What do you think?

See the article at the WALL STREET JOURNAL

In November we posted a link to a story about webisodes, FTI Member Justine Smith provides this guest post in response to the article.  

I think the article is focussing on points which are not completely relevant. What they are referring to, I think is the re-packaging of material and putting a price on this for creative development. If you want to understand more about this have a look at the current negotiations in Hollywood between the Writers’ Guild and studio execs. Hollywood is on hold waiting for this to be resolved. The Directors’ Guild of America are coming in behind the Writers’ as their agreements are also up for negotiation soon.

But if we’re talking purely content generated for on-line viewing I have a lot to offer. I was recently a participant in the Portable Screen Academy in Melbourne which is directly exploring this territory.

The first point is: People are already making money from creating webisodes.

{Have a look at this surprise hit story of a one-off http://www.catfish.net.au/index.php?h=NewMedia} 

The main examples that we studied were extremely profitable enterprises. We met and were mentored by the creators of these success stories.

In North America Miles Beckett and team started the “Lonely Girl 15” phenomenon. They looked at what works on YouTube, mostly copyright rip-offs and video-blogging. Obviously the only profitable area was focussing on video-blogging.  Lonely Girl created a video blogger identity. A short series began, with Bree complaining about her parents and not being able to go out as much as she would like. 

A buzz was created. People started to wonder who this person was, where they lived, what her parents did for work, which religious sect they belonged to. And those people were asking these questions on-line in forums and on Lonely Girls profile pages.

Eventually the Lonely Girl team came out and stated publicly this is a fiction, we have created Bree and her story.  It was a scandal without too much bite, a victimless crime, and Lonely Girl’s buzz increased as word got out. 

Now Bree has loads of fans and followers and the story still continues 18months after it started.

Next step, the spin-off.

The Lonely Girl team noticed that they had world popularity, but the most impact was close to home where users has more opportunity to interact with the characters and story. So they created a new series in the UK, Kate Modern. 

Luke Hyams is a key writer and producer for the Kate Modern series. Using the same format profile, but new characters and storylines the new UK series was created. But this time they started with a big budget. Due to the notoriety of Lonely Girl, the team garnered immediate sponsorship and alignment with the social-networing site, Bebo. Bebo is the primary social-networking tool in the UK, and they saw this as a way keeping there difference and excitement for consumers. They held initial first- run of all episodes, before the ep’s could then be re-distributed in ‘traditional’ on-line areas, such as You Tube – a virtual free-to-air distributor.

Highly successful. Highly interactive.

A standout story for me was hearing how they held an Art Gallery opening of Kate’s work. Only 12 viewers showed up as no-one really believed it was for real. The writers had devised a double-whammy for this event and thus staged an abduction of another character at the Opening. Some savvy viewers recorded this on their mobile phones and effectively scooped the Kate Modern team by uploading that night. But it also created a greater buzz and there are loads of loyal viewers and participants in this show week-to-week.

Profitable Webisodes Downunder

The local version of this type of online serial is the Melbourne based “Forget the Rules”. Their second series is uploading as we speak. 

They started out in the first series offering viewer participation by giving a choice of 3 endings which would be voted on, chosen, written, filmed, edited and uploaded all within a week. Loads of fun and very vital filmmaking.

They are linked with Optus for the second series and also received development funding  from Film Victoria.

Portable Screen Academy

We produced in two teams of 12, two separate on-line serial formats. Then we broke our teams down and in smaller groups to create individual episodes. Bearing in mind that we filmed in about an hour and half, and edited in an hour then compressed and uploaded all in one day, a mighty effort. All our work was fitted around seminars and speakers, but it feels great to have put it into practice and see how possible it all is. The other West Australian on the course was Kane Jason. He was on the Help Me Get Karen team, and I was on the Forever storyline. 

Follow the links below to learn more about these on-line serials. And if you are going to look at my story (Forever – Episode 3) please put in a comment and favourite it, and give it 5 stars. Support local content, harnessing these new delivery forms.

Cheers,

Justine
 

YOU TUBE

Forever – Episode 1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=x0mwaCd5yY0

Forever – Episode 2 http://youtube.com/watch?v=HqYPZwQLlBU

Forever – Episode 3 http://youtube.com/watch?v=zjLB8luUDRQ

 

Forever Productions http://youtube.com/user/foreverproductions20

 

YOU TUBE

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 1 http://youtube.com/watch?v=SN-pvoTA9vQ

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 2 http://youtube.com/watch?v=oBuklV1YA70

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 3 http://youtube.com/watch?v=W6Kfkj6I1ZI

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 4 http://youtube.com/watch?v=pzq5k6JI5m8

 

It is what it is what it is http://youtube.com/user/itiswhatitiswhatitis

 

PORTABLE FILM FESTIVAL

http://portablefilmfestival.com/

 

Forever – Episode 1 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=206

Forever – Episode 2 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=209

Forever – Episode 3 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=207

 

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 1

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=202

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 2 http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=203

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 3

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=204

Help Me Get Karen – Episode 4

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=205

 

Also of interest:

Have a look at our actor Oliver Clark, in another online creation…

http://portablefilmfestival.com/video.php?video=167

 

Australian made webisodes, generating an income, and harnessing the form.

http://www.forgettherules.com/

 

Lonely Girl 15 – from the USA

http://youtube.com/user/lonelygirl15

www.lg15.com

 

Kate Modern – the UK spin-off

http://youtube.com/user/KateModernLG15

http://www.bebo.com/katemodern

 

Over at Cable and Broadcast there is a great article that explores the world of the webisode.   As writers in the US strike over rights to earnings from online content, a deeper question is asked, can you make money from online content?

Dan Ackerman Greenberg is the co-founder of The Comotion Group, a company that specialises in viral videos for advertising.   In an article at TechCrunch he discusses the secrets to making a viral video work.

Now we know where we went wrong with this viral video for FTI from a few years ago, it should have had a naked woman in it.   

Well known 'You Tube' video blogger Meme Molly posted a video which is a letter to her own body, a positive acceptance of her physical being, it's quite empowering.   This has led to a stack of teenagers making videos about their acceptance of body issues.   Take a look at the work of Apples and Mustard or What About Adam or Disney Kid 1.    The absolute best one though is from Frezned.

It's interesting though how these ideas spread and the creativity appears and interesting mutations on an original ideas spring forth.

Over in the 'Training Wheels' blog we recently had a post about the business model being used by rock band Radiohead on their new album and asked the question if this model could work for film?

Now there is a film being distibuted through this method, the new documentary '10mph' is about two American guys who quit their corporate jobs and head off across the country on Segways, those vertical two wheeled driving machines.   If you want to see this film it can be downloaded from their site, just pay what you think it's worth.  

This is certainly different to the Radiohead model because Radiohead are a very established brand with loyal consumers.   These guys could be anybody.

I wonder if the local cinema could work this way, pay what you believe to be a fair price?