Leslie Lowes, 1947-2023
Am very sad to learn of the death of Leslie Lowes, aka James MacGregor, Northern Editor of Northern Exposure from 2000-2001, authoring over 340 stories; and News Editor from 2006-2011, authoring and curating over 700 more. He was also the author of the microbudget chapter of Netribution's Film Finance Handbook. Before any of that, Tom Fogg interviewed him about his production company Penultimate Productions. / Nic
Jess Search, 1969 - 2023
The sudden and untimely death of Jess Search at 54 left many stunned and sad. Obituaries rightly focussed on her huge contribution to documentary and social impact filmmaking – but miss something key: Jess was also a web pioneer. The digital community she founded with Cath LeCouteur 25 years ago has a long legacy – helping countless filmmakers, and demonstrating that social networks could make at least enough money to pay their moderators.
Netribution was founded in 1999 to support independent filmmakers making their way online. The website had two phases:
'Web 1' – Static HTML, weekly issues
Netribution went live on December 31st 1999 as a weekly magazine and filmmakers' encyclopedia, written in plain HTML, and growing to over 2,500 pages. It ran for 99 weekly issues, thru the dotcom crash and 9/11 until February 2002. Some is archived here, as it's static (ie without a database) it's never been upgraded or hacked, and looks much the same as it did then.
'Web 2.0' – Dynamic database+user-driven
In January 2006, Netribution returned (below) as a dynamic user-generated filmmaker group-blog, publishing 1000s of submissions until May, 2014, when the last user-generated article was published. As its built on a database, using a content-management-system, it needs to be regularly upgraded, and has changed its appearance many times.
The early days of Web 2.0
Thank you for supporting the Open Web with Web Monetization.
From Free Film Movement to Cluetrain: the importance of personal filmmaking
"For every entry in the encyclopedia, there is now a Web site. For any idea you can imagine — and some you can't — there are thousands of articles and images electronically swirling around the globe. But that's not the real story. That's not the big news. The word that's going around, the word that's finally getting out, is something much larger, far more fundamental. The word that's passing like a spark from keyboard to screen, from heart to mind, is the permission we're giving ourselves and each other: to be human and to speak as humans." Chris Locke, The Cluetrain Manifesto (Chapter 1), March 1999 ...
Sally Potter: “The beginning of a new way of looking at film”
Ewan McGregor: "You can do whatever you want if you're passionate about it"
Torrents, piracy and beyond: will the film industry survive?
"although iTunes has 70% of the pay to download music market - only 1 in 40 of all tracks downloaded on the web are ever paid for. That's 2.5%" ...
As crunch and piracy hits indies, micro-presales, crowd-sourcing and other options
Links to one thousand film funds in 46 countries
More good ideas from the music industry : crowdfunding perks
Crowdfunding’s lack of sophistication around risk: is staged-finance the answer?
Khine Wai Zaw, human rights activist, watches Burma VJ and shares his story
Mohamed Al Daradji's Son of Babylon feature wraps filming in Baghdad
DON CHEADLE - Playing Paul Rusesabaginia
Franny Armstrong - Determination amidst a rising sea of stupidity
The Yes Men fix the world. We ask what keeps them going?
James MacGergor
After bringing dozens of film stories and scoops from Scotland and the North of England to the London film set in the first Netribution with the weekly column Northern Exposure, Shetland-based James (pen-name for a film producer) produced and re-produced over 650 stories for Netribution's re-birth from 2006. He wrote Shooting People's Wideshot magazine and a chapter of the Film Finance Handbook.
Stephen Applebaum
Stephen has shot the breeze with everyone from Beyonce to Al Gore, Michael Moore, George Clooney, Bill Murray, Terry Gilliam, Vidal Sassoon and Jesse Eisenberg. He's the author of The Wicker Man: Conversations with Robin Hardy, Anthony Shaffer & Edward Woodward – and published dozens of interviews on Netribution.
Suchandrika Chakrabarti
From reporter and editer for national newspapers and international news agencies, journalism and media trainer to presenting the Freelance Pod podcast – Suchandrika also wrote almost 100 articles for Netribution. Get her weekly newsletter here.
Lawrence Boyce
Laurence published 46 'Special Edition' DVD review columns on Netribution. He was the director of the Hull Short Film Festival, short programmer for the Leeds Film Festival and lives in Talinn, Estonia.
Andrew Cousins
Eric Dubois
Parisian cartoonist Eric Dubois was resident with Netribution during its first few months relaunch in 2006, illustrating all 54 of the original Carnal Cinema series.
Where it began
I'm desperate to launch in the twentieth century, and work night and day around Christmas to get 800 pages ready and uploaded New Years Eve. I'll never forget the bewilderment and shock when I realised that it had worked - that I had a site online. What I failed to do, however, was upload the images - here was a big sexy site with no pictures. But I had a train to catch - and hopped up to Edinburgh, partied in the millennium, watched the sun rise over Arthur's seat, got a train back to London, went to a screening of Fantasia 2000, went home, and uploaded the missing files.
2002 epitaph
We embarked on this lunacy with no experience, no parental consent and no degree - just an acute ache for success that only the young have the energy and innocence to jeopardise in their quest. On the other side we've understood that we are adults now (I'm almost sad to say it) and besides, success stories are so predictable.