South West Screen and BBC Films have launched iFeatures, a new digital film initiative, open to writers, directors and producers from across the UK.
Headed up by Chris Moll who was behind last year's Digital Departures scheme ('Of Time and The City', 'Kicks' and 'Salvage'), iFeatures aims to harness fresh stories, outstanding creative talent and innovative production methods to create 3 full-length feature films during 2010.
Following an open call for submissions that runs to 8th December 2009, iFeatures will invite 12 filmmaking teams to take their ideas through an intensive creative and commercial development process. From these, it plans to ‘greenlight’ 3 films into production next summer. Each film will be produced in and around the City of Bristol, and must be capable of being realised on a budget of £300,000. The completed films are intended to be released theatrically and to embrace the myriad opportunities of digital distribution – DVD, online and mobile. The BBC is the UK TV broadcast partner.
Former drummer of Nine Inch Nails' Josh Freese's offerings for his micro-presales / crowdfunded album has some great possibilities for filmmakers going the same route. "For £10,000, name film's villain after your high school bully, shoot tequillas on the beach on a full moon with Johnny Depp, get a song conposed and sung in your honour at the wrap party". [suggestions please..] (via IndieGoGo / Soundcheck)
$75,000 (limited edition of 1)
Signed CD/DVD and digital download
T-shirt
Go on tour with Josh for a few days
Have Josh write, record and release a 5-song EP about you and your life story
Take home any of his drum sets (only one, but you can choose which one)
Take shrooms and cruise Hollywood in Danny from Tool’s Lamborghini OR play quarters and then hop on the Ouija board for a while
Josh will join your band for a month … play shows, record, party with groupies, etc.
If you don’t have a band he’ll be your personal assistant for a month (4-day work weeks, 10 am to 4 pm)
Take a limo down to Tijuana and he’ll show you how it’s done (what that means exactly we can’t legally get into here)
If you don’t live in Southern California (but are a U.S. resident) he’ll come to you and be your personal assistant/cabana boy for 2 weeks
Take a flying trapeze lesson with Josh and Robin from NIN, go back to Robin's place afterwards and his wife will make you raw lasagne
Individualproducers or production companies are invited to send a rough cut oftheir unfinished short film (up to 15 minutes in length) to Maya VisionInternational, along with a completed application form. The closingdate for applications has been extended, and is now 5pm, Friday 17th April 2009.
Ifyou don't have a rough cut by then, don't worry as the Completion Fundhas expanded to 2 calls per year allowing up to 14 short films to becompleted under the scheme each year. The first call of 2010 isscheduled to open later this year, but full details to follow in duecourse.
Actress-writer-producer Sybil Temtchine has raised about half of the
$600,000 budget for her film "Audrey" from female business leaders.
About a year ago, she sat in a Borders and collected the name of every
famous female author who'd written a book that somehow touched on
female empowerment, from Suze Orman to Marianne Williamson. She wrote
to 200 of them, and sent a link to her short film "Piece A' Cake," which was the launching point for her proposed feature, a comedy about female insecurity.
About 75% of the women wrote back. Some sent checks and others
introduced her to women's organizations like 85 Broads, which support
women entrepreneurs. 85 Broads' founder Janet Hanson "blogged about us.
It was the greatest blog, like only a mother would write," Temtchine
says. An actress who has appeared in TV shows and films, Temtchine
intends to play the lead and opted not to fill out the ensemble cast
with name actors because that's a process that can take years. "I felt
that this was a hard route, but no harder than waiting around for 10
years," she says.
One other sign of the time also took place at Memorabilia. A guy I was
speaking to said that he had Urban Ghost Story and really liked it. I
asked which DVD release it was, and he said, neither, he had downloaded
it illegally. Just plain came out and said it. I suggested he could now
own his own legal copy and he seemed a little ‘stunned’ that I would be
so direct with him. I didn’t push it.
We all know piracy is going on, at an incredible scale too, but to own
up to the film maker that they downloaded their film, and then be
surprised when the film maker gently suggests they should buy a legal
copy tells us a great deal about the state of things. People really do
expect music and movies to be free.
For (gulp) advertiser- and sponsor- financed films (see storybid - a new site specifically for this), as well as crowd-sourced films where the micro-funders all have an active interest in seeing the film viewed widely (ie for a campaigning documentary), not to mention films intended primarily to boost the careers of those involved; free, un-restricted file-sharing makes a lot of sense. The advantages of filesharing purely as cheap marketing is still open for debate. For those trying to produce their film so that can recoup its investment, yet who don't want to make a 90 minute Eurostar commercial, the options are currently stark.
As those who know anything about the film industry will realise - for independent, non-studio, non-mainstream films, income from theatrical and merchandise is virtually non-existant. A small independently written, published and distributed book can just about make it's author a living, while a band such as Radiohead can apparently make 70% of their income from touring. The same cannot currently be said for features - ie the non-piratable / non-digital revenues are tiny, while the cost of production is generally very high. To confound it all even further, to get a film on iTunes, the main digital store, at present seems very difficult.
Watching the fascinating Revolution or Reform debate between the Swedes behind the Pirate Bay and Pirate Party and John Buckman, whose Magnatune record label is pioneering the business use of Creative Commons distribution (and has just started a pay-what-you-want subscription service), my overwhelming sense was how films are more expensive to make than music - that a future where the only films made with a budget are studio blockbusters and sponsor-financed is neither culturally exciting nor a step forward:
Of course, much of the file-sharing movement is linked to the open-source world, where GPL-licensed free software competes with the biggies (ie OpenOffice vs Microsoft Office, Ubuntu vs Linux, Gimp vs Photoshop) but people still make donations and pay small independent developers for useful little applications. All these files could easily be pirated but people pay enough to give many of these developers a regular income (ie Joomla than runs Netribution is free, but the comments module at the bottom of this page, and the community manager program are both things I paid for).
Individual
producers or production companies are invited to send a rough cut of
their unfinished short film (up to 15 minutes in length) to Maya Vision
International, along with a completed application form. The closing
date for applications has been extended, and is now 5pm, Monday 5th January 2009.
If
you don't have a rough cut by then, don't worry as the Completion Fund
has expanded to 2 calls per year allowing up to 14 short films to be
completed under the scheme each year. The next call, 2009/II, is
scheduled to open in February 2009, but full details to follow in due
course.
Producers or production companies are now invited to send a rough cut of their unfinished short film to Maya VisionInternational, along with a completed application form. The closing date isMonday10th November 2008.
If you don’t have a rough cut by then, don’t worry as the Completion Fund has expanded to two calls per year allowing up to 14short films to be completed under the scheme each year. The next call, 2009/II,is scheduled to open in February 2009, but full details to follow in duecourse.
Are you a short film-maker looking to take the leap into features? Do you have the burning desire to tell a story and need funding and support to realise your project? Round three of Microwave, Film London’s micro-budget feature film fund, is now open for applications.
After three years of discussions that looked like they may never end, the UK-India film co-production agreement is finally set. Both governments have completed negotiations which began after Tessa Jowell signed the main body of the agreement in 2005. In recent, years more and more Indian films have used locations in the UK, with the new agreement allowing such producers to access UK tax relief - and other benefitis - on local production spending if eligible as a co-production.
Likewise numerous British filmmakers such as Alex Snelling, Ashwin Kumar and Arun Kumar have shot films in India in recent years, and will now be able to get Indian support when partnering with local companies. The Indian film industry is the most productive in the world, while 2.5 million Brits went to see Hindi films last year, with the market making up 16% of all realeases.
As a direct result of the treaty the government expects that up to 10 UK-Indian co-productions will be made within the first two years. Indian films can qualify as British by meeting the requirements of one of the following: an official
UK bilateral co-production treaty; the European Convention on
Cinematographic Co-production; or the Cultural Test.
As part of the introduction of the treaty, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) will run a series of workshops for Indian filmmakers who are interested in co-producing with the UK and making use of the treaty. The four UKTI workshops will aim to provide all those involved – the
national bodies, trade associations, individual production companies
and professional advisers – with a better understanding of how the
treaty will work and how potential co-producers can benefit from the
same.
Producers or production companies are now invited to send a
rough cut of their unfinished short film to Maya Vision International, along
with a completed application form. The closing date is Friday 30th
May 2008.
If you don’t have a rough cut by then, don’t worry as the
Completion Fund has expanded to 2 calls per year allowing up to 14 short films
to be completed under the scheme each year. The next call, 2009/I, is scheduled
to open in September 2008, but full details to follow in due course.
Please pass the news on to all your filmmaking friends. We’d
love to receive a bumper crop of exciting new films and look forward to seeing
your entries! Full guidelines, forms and more information can be found at:
Star Wreck Studios, the guerilla filmmaking collective behind one of the most popular Finnish films of all time - and a big success story of online film distribution - have unveiled a teaser trailer for their follow up, Iron Sky, and are asking fans to help fund and produce the film.
Star Wreck : In The Pirkinning was produced by five friends in a two-room flat in Tampere with a small budget and the
support of a few hundred fans and dozens of acquaintances. From the land of Linus Torvald, creator of open source (and world changing) Linux, the film is appropriately released under a Creative Commons license - Laurence Lessig's attempt to bring open source practices to other IP. The film was released in 2005 and was subsequently picked up by Universal Pictures for distribution across Scandinavia and screened on State TV in Finland, Belgium and Italy. Viewed online or downloaded more than 8 million times, Star Wreck has become, the filmmakers argue, the most popular Finnish film of all time. With virtual sets and Hollywood quality CGI effects, the films production values have been widely acclaimed, with the only criticism being that it's a Trekkie fan-film rather than an original concept.
“Iron Sky is a story about conformity: those who want to conform, those
who want to make others conform, and those who refuse to conform.”
Timo Vuorensola Iron Sky looks set to change that with an ultra-high concept futuristic space thriller. The premise is simple - in 1945 the Nazis left to the dark side of the moon, where they hid out rebuilding their forces. In 2018, they come back. A trailer appeared online this week (below) following a thirteen-part behind the scenes vlog . Under a 'Buy War Bonds' shoutout, the producers are currently inviting fans to pre-buy the DVD and a making of book in a special edition pack for €50, a kind of micro-pre-sales made popular by the likes of Brave New Films and Franny Armstrong . Tho committed to using open source principles, creating the excellent looking WreckAMovie community (currently in beta) for collaborative task management, the producers are yet to promise Iron Sky will be a free download, saying they are currently exploring all options. Tho if they make enough in micro-presales, they won't need to pre-sell any territorial rights to traditional distributions, which in theory would allow the film to come out under a Creative Commons license. Watch this space...
Producers or production companies are now invited to send a
rough cut of their unfinished short film to Maya Vision International, along
with a completed application form. The closing date is Friday 30th
May 2008. Full guidelines, forms and more information can be found at www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/shortfilm
If you don’t have a rough cut by then, don’t worry as the
Completion Fund has expanded to 2 calls per year allowing up to 14 short films
to be completed under the scheme each year. The next call, 2009/I, is scheduled
to open in September 2008, but full details to follow in due course.
Please pass the news on to all your filmmaking friends. We’d
love to receive a bumper crop of exciting new films and look forward to seeing
your entries!