Advertisers to start funding film and TV as WPP moves to production 

In a long-feared response to the rise of free video, Martin Sorrell's advertising giant WPP has announced plans to join forces with Hollywood stars and media companies to help finance films and TV series in which it can promote it's clients products. As both OFCOM and the European Union consider relaxing the rules preventing excessive product placement, WPP confirms that a number of trials have been successful

WPP co-produced October Road with Touchstone Television,  co-investing in production, in return for offering 'opportunities within the show' to advertisers. The series, ironically about a return to small-town American routes, got decent ratings and has been recommissioned for a second series. According to Sorrell 'significant amounts of cash' have already been invested in trial projects.

A future where the main revenue model for films is advertising has long been discussed and feared in the industry, particularly with the rise of free content and piracy. The fictional Orange Film Funding Board, behind such hits as Killer in a Phone Box and Lord of the Ringtones, has shown cinema-goers since 2000 quite what this could mean, showing remarkable prescience for ad agency Mother, behind the spots. A recent clip on the Onion News Network (America's Greatest News Source) illustrates what such content could mean for TV, in this Home Depot sponsored spot (which is also the first time we've featured video on netribution with advertising pre-roll):

Home Depot Honors Fallen Soldier By Giving His Mom Free Power Drill

Meanwhile Nokia, has launched a competition with Spike Lee in a more imaginative (and honest) use of their cash - getting users to shoot and upload footage which Lee will cut into a short film. What's most interesting about the contest is that it was created in response to in-house research by the Finish company that by 2012 one quarter of all their users will be wanting to shoot and edit fiilms, on some level. 

Hopefully this vast new generation of filmmakers will be media-literate enough to spot  the suspect influence of brands on culture. Just picture it, 2001 A Space Odyssey sponsored by Norton AntiVirus, IronBruMan and Eternal SunnyDelight of the Spotless Mind? Post your 'if-brands-funded-movies' suggestions in the comments...

"Now Showing" — The Lost "Art" of the Film Poster.

Over 40 world-renowned creatives were given the task of creating their own interpretation of a Cult, Classic or Obscure film poster from the past. The result is "Now Showing", an art exhibition paying homage to more than 70 years of film, through the form of Prints, One Off Screen Prints and Sculptures.

The show opens on 29.05.08 / 6.30pm, at the COSH Gallery, Berwick Street, Soho, London.

 Please see www.wearitwithpride.com for more details:

"Each one of the book's four main sections, printed it must be noted in a highly readable font, is a veritable treasure trove of information and inspiration."

As we prepares to launch the Film Finance Handbook, How To Fund Your Film in the US, we're delighted to see a big thumbs up by one of the US's top film news sites. It's an interesting experience launching it, as a UK based one-title-self-publisher, attempting to launch our product in America, without the budget to so much as fly out there and promote it ourselves.

But we have been helped in no small part by the excellent Trafalgar Sqaure Publishing, the UK-import imprint of the IPG group, one of the biggest indie book distributors there. I had experience of the American entreprenrial, hard-working collaborative and enthusiastic work spirit when launching Shooting People in New York, but this has really impressed me. When I consider all our business communication has been virtual, without so much as a trip to the states to shake hands and sign paperwork. Emails are received and replied on Saturday evening, people seem to actually enjoy work, and it appears as if the organisation from the CEO down are all wanting to make the book a success there. 

 It's ironic that the Americans, like Cannes Film Marche, Guerilla Filmmakers Handbook and the NPA, can recognise something worth supporting, while here the book has had no support for the UK Film Council (or other institutions) besides an advert they took out to promote a competing free film funding info service they provide. Yet it will be a huge advantage in introducing to American producers the new UK tax incentive and funding opportunities, the very thing the Film Council should be working on. Indeed, with British spelling throughout, liberal use of pound sterling, and case studies with dozens of new British film talent the book could be seen as a great bit of PR for the UK industry. 

 book review from FilmStew.com

An Impressive Handbook

Though the emphasis is on the international rather than on the domestic, a new global edition of The Film Finance Handbook deserves a place in the laptop bag of any serious indie U.S. filmmaker.

You have to feel sorry for the music industry. No sooner have they begun to back down over DRM, then the new bandwagon arrives - industry-free music. It didn't start with Radiohead, but that certainly pulled the issue to the foreground. Anyone who has watched Thom and the boys jamming on Radiohead.tv (now on YouTube), with no slick lighting, no studio director, no make-up - basically no executives -  can't help but feel a tingle of excitement.

"The idea of relying on listeners, treating music as a cooperative, is humbling, yet interesting to me. This is a bit of a manifesto, I'm sorry, and now I'll shut up, but I wonder if we might be able to do this together."
 Kristen HershCoalition for Artists and Stake Holders (CASH) have just launched CashMusic, a site for music lovers to download and pay musicians for the work they like. Musician Kristen Hersh (Throwing Muses, 50FOOTWAVE) is behindthe service which seems to still be in a pre-beta, but looks very promising from it's minimalist, subtle interface. As well as letting you name your price, and download DRM-free tracks, artists on the network can share the source files for their songs freely under a creative commons license so that other artists can remix their work. 

To anyone who's ever swum through the trench of shit of rying to get a record deal, this is very promising. As a Nirvana producer in one of the links on the front of the site illustrates, conventional music business economics is rarely any good for bands:

A 48 foot-high steel ‘4’ is being constructed on the steps of the channel’s headquarters in Horseferry Road, London. The Big 4 will be unveiled by the Arts Minister Margaret Hodge at the official unveiling on Tuesday - 16th October at 11:15am.

The towering installation, designed by Freestate, in conjunction with award-winning engineers, Atelier One, will mirror the channel’s award-winning idents with steel bars forming the instantly recognisable ‘4’ logo only when viewed from a certain angle.

The work coincides with a major television series on public art and art in the built environment, the Big Art Project (www.channel4.com/bigart), which comes to Channel 4 screens in 2008. Four artists over the course of 12 months will customise the Big 4 starting with Nick Knight one of Britain's most innovative and influential photographers, Mark Titchner, shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2006 and celebrated Ghanaian sculptor El-Anatsui. The fourth artist will be the winner of a competition open to young arts graduates, run in conjunction with the Saatchi Gallery.

Slam the new novel by Nick Hornby bestselling author of Fever Pitch and About A Boy is coming out in October 2007.

It stars Sam, a 16 year-old skater whose girlfriend gets pregnant and his whole world flips upside down. He turns to his idol for advice, skate legend Tony Hawk, talking to him through the poster on his bedroom wall.

Which role model would you turn to for guidance? Which hero deserves a place of honour on your bedroom wall?

You could WIN the chance to have your poster of your hero exhibited at London’s Design Museum and be a VIP at Slam’s London Launch Party

In an upcoming Olympic games, athletes will be assessed on both their ability, but also their financial fitness. A new breed of corporate punk musicians, who previously sang about stable interest rates plan a one hour show based entirely on sponsored music. The Xanadu shopping pill, meanwhile, 'stimulates the euphoric buying experience' for consumers (although adverse side effects such as nausea and headaches may emerge if not taken while shopping).

The BuynLarge Corporation's website illustrates a future where one company effectively controls everything on the planet - from industry and media to the world clock, government, and, even North on the compass. If it want's to stop paying tax, it can. It's opponants such as anarchists and anti-consumer groups, are in fact 'customers we haven't reached yet'. To top it all the site is littered with cringable stock photography and a web-standards unfriendly Flash interface.

And the source of this smart (and wet myself funny) illustration of the nightmare Stalinist totalitarian future for unchecked global capitalism? Adbusters, perhaps? Greenpeace or Armando Iannucci or Chris Morris?

Pan Macmillan launch a treasure hunt to launch David Baldacci's new book The Collectors.

Pan Macmillian have recently released this new crime novel by eleven-times New York Times bestselling author of Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth, Hour Game and The Camel Club.

To go along with the theme of Pan Macmillian have launched an online treasure hunt to find codes all over the net to promote his new book 'The Collectors' and there are lots of prizes up for grabs including a trip to Washington. www.the-collectors.co.uk

The successful drama, Skins is coming to Channel 4 this summer and a new series is planned for E4 .

To celebrate this E4 have launched a search for talented and creative people to act as an official photographer at a Secret Party to be held in August. Other chances exist for designers and budding journalists to play key roles with the team at the event.

To find out more information and how to enter, head over to www.e4.com/skins.

Competitions close Monday 23rd July 2007.

The 60-second film, which has been viewed by more than 100,000 people on the internet, shows the man hurtling down the 100 metre (300ft) escalator at Angel station in North London at a speed of more than 30mph.

In the footage, shot from a camera in the man's helmet, passengers can be seen strolling past as he fixes his skis at the top of the escalator. He then launches himself down the stairs, arriving to applause at the bottom seven seconds later.

Pioneering filmmaker May Miles Thomas - long tracked on Netribution - whose microubudget One Life Stand was one of the first digital films has been awarded the Scottish Arts Council's Creative Scotland Award.

The £30,000 award, established to reward the achievements of Scotland's creative talent, will help May to realise The Devil's Plantation, an ambitious multi-media project tracing Glasgow's secret geometry. "It's about finding the magic in ordinary places, not grand monuments," says May, "It's a great opportunity for me to explore a different kind of storytelling." Using video, photography, graphics, sound design and animation, The Devil's Plantation will unravel the myths of Glasgow's prehistoric sites to discover ancient and occult patterns in the landscape. The project will be launched as a website in 2008.

"Glasgow we think of as this great industrial city but it is such an old city. This will look into the hidden secrets about its history, the hidden tracks that lie across it: it will be like a Da Vinci Code for Glaswegians," she told The Herald. "I have been looking at the idea of ley lines and have read accounts that the city is laid out along them in a geometric pattern. There is another idea that its layout reflects in some way the seasons of the moon. That idea stems from pre-Iron Age Glasgow, so I will be investigating all these ideas, how the city was built and re-built, and finding the extraordinary in the ordinary."

 On-Line Direct-to-PM Petition Signing Against Permit System

UK Citizens Only!

The UK Government is about to propose restrictions on photography  in public

places which could make street photography and documentary photography

against the law. These proposed changes to the law could result in

photographers having to apply for ID cards in order to take  pictures in

public places.

The consequences of these proposed restrictions to the fields of  documentary

and street photography could be hugely damaging, potentially wiping  out an

entire area of photographic practice and certainly provoking suspicion

around people simply carrying out their profession or hobby.

Channel 4 Radio have created a survey to find out what listeners think of the state of music today. It is a one off chance to give your opinion to Channel 4 and a chance to nab some iRiver gadgets along the way. 

The survey will hopefully inform future programming ensuring we get more of what we want!

Michael Joseph have unveiled a bold and highly creative marketing strategy to support The Malice Box  - their lead adventure thriller for 2007.  The Malice Box Quest, a five-week interactive scavenger hunt drawing on themes from the book will launch two weeks prior to publication on 15^th January at www.maliceboxquest.com

Arriving always in an expensive car, a Porche, Range Rover or Ferrari - and usually always a different one each time he appeared, Richard Maskery created the illusion of being a successful film producer, offering to buy expensive property, but never paying for it, persuading  local builders to make alterations to house his fleet of cars.

Artist Anders Weberg has created a 73 minute experimental video, made for - and only available on - peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing networks. The work was offered by the artist until one other user downloaded it, on 15th Sepetember, after which point he deleted the original file and all the materials used to create it. "There's no original" said the artist, pointing to the fact that the work now only exists as a digital copy, and possibly will be distributed no further if the downloadeder decides not to share it further. Alternatively the film could  be copied, and even changed, many times over.

Citing research by King's College, London showing that 11-year-olds measured in cognitive tests were "on average between two and three years behind where they were 15 years ago" a number of leading academics, child experts and authors have made a strong attack on the combination of junk food, marketing, over-competitive schooling and electronic entertainment.

In a 110 signature letter to the Daily Telegraph, which includes Philip Pullman, author of the soon to be major film His Dark Materials, Jacqueline Wilson, the children's laureate, her predecessor Michael Morpurgo, Baroness Greenfield, the director of the Royal Institution and Dr Penelope Leach, the child care expert, they claim the combination is a major contributing factor for a significant increase in childhood depression and behavioural problems.