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News stories from Jan 2006 to 2012..

  • 24 June 2006
    TV

Channel 4's Dowwnload Plans Revealed

  Since the beginning of May, Channel 4 has been offering Lost from its broadband site for audiences in the UK. Channel 4 made a deal to do this with Disney/ABC earlier in the year. Following this successful offering, Channel 4 plans to expand its video broadband services, offering films and older television series this autumn.   The film download site will offer thousands of movies and will use the FilmFour name. However, the FilmFour download servi…
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06 September 2007

Setback for Network Neutrality as US Department of Justice rejects it

 The US Department of Justice has declared themselves against Network Neutrality. The background of this issue is  that ISPs and internet providers earn £15 and upwards a month for providing access to the Internet. But unlike similar subscription services such as Sky Movies and Vi…
28 June 2006

Apple Slices Shake by 80% and begins phase out

Apple has updated its Shake video compositing application, adding support for Intel Macs and slashing the price from more than £1,600 has been cut from the price to £329. The industry leading 3D compositing software, behind the effects of films such as Mission Imposisble 3 and The…
05 May 2006

Short Films: An Art Form in Themselves

  Bitesize Cinema is taking shorts to the masses, whilst  filmmakers Matthew Jones and MJ McMahon want to make short films a viable alternative to just wandering down to your local Odeon.  Suchandrika Chakrabarti reports   The philosophy underpinning Bitesize Cinema…
  • 05 December 2006
    Internet

3,000 human rights groups collaborate to develop web services and now search

In an impressive display of cooperation, over 3,000 human rights groups around the world have been working together to share resources and develop a catalogue of human rights abuses. Huridocs, the name of the collaboration, whose members include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, this week announced it had set up a search engine - Hurisearch - to better explore the 2.5 million pages currently contained on the system.  More information from the BBC…
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14 June 2006

The Works To Distribute Shortbus in the UK

  The Works U.K. Distribution has secured UK rights to the new movie Shortbus. A sexually explicit, strikingly artistic and ultimately hopeful new film, "Shortbus" is the story of a group of New Yorkers, straight and gay, male and female, coping with life and love in the modern d…
18 December 2006

New BBC Trust Outlines Channel Aims and Objectives

  The BBC Trust - replacement body for the BBC Board of Governors - have released the first drafts of a series of Service Licences. The TV related service licences have been published on the BBC Trust website. Each TV, radio or on-line channel operated by the BBC will have a document stati…
03 July 2006

Film Four Goes Freeview From 23rd July

  Subscription Goes - Advertising Breaks Come In During Films Channel 4 has today confirmed that it is to relaunch FilmFour as the UK's only major free-to-air film channel, available at no cost to every digital TV home in the country from July 23rd. The channel will launch…
  • 19 January 2006
    Copyrights

Canadian Copyright Row MP Under Hacker Attack

Canadian MP Sam Bulte has been accused of taking campaign contributions from the copyright industries and supporting laws serving industry interests. The attack has come from Canadian fileswappers, who accuse the MP of potentially misleading her consitutuents during an all-candidates meeting. Downloaders are angered by the MP's support for copyright protection legislation which they say will result in the indiscriminate prosecution of people who engage in the twenty-first ce…
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01 August 2006

Debt Trail Follows Film Firm Downunder

  Hard Drive Sinks For Troubled River Queen Firm The film company behind the troubled movie River Queen has left a trail of debts in Queenstown after the collapse of its latest venture after only six weeks. Silverscreen Films (HD) halted pre-production work on Hard Drive, a car-chase…
30 September 2007

UKFC Development Fund unveils changes to script funding

New UK Film Council Development Fund head Tanya Seghatchian has unveiled her new plans for the department, with a big focus on supporting writers who haven't had a feature released yet. At first glance this looks like a real step forward for both simplifying the system and supporting new tale…
19 May 2006

Loach To Collaborate With FilmFour Again

    British film-maker Ken Loach will make his next film with FilmFour. Loach will direct the contemporary story With the provisional title  These Times> the film is set in Britain which reignites the leftwing director's longstanding links with FilmFour.  …
  • 17 May 2010
    Finance

Indie Filmmaker Danny Lacey embarks on Live Broadcast to raise £2,000 in 24 hrs for New Movie

from Rachel Devenport for Danny Lacey On Thursday 20th May 2010 Leeds filmmaker and former radio presenter Danny Lacey will broadcast live and uninterrupted on the internet for a full 24 hours in a bid to secure £2,000 worth of funding towards his next short film project, LOVE LIKE HERS. Danny has been planning his new short film for the last six months and charting his filmmaking adventure in intricate detail through his film blog, on twitter and in 1 hour live broad…
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25 October 2008

World premiere of Symphonetix's Small World in Whitby

submitted by Nigel Ward "Having no commercial constraints is an aid to that - not an impediment. No share-holders - no compromises. No sell-out!" Nigel Ward The latest symphonetix feature-film small world is to be premièred before an invited audience at Whitby Colis…
06 January 2008

Free widgets for weather, sun position and film calculator

Film Source LA have posted up a few useful tools for filmmaking for your computer. These work on Dashboard on a mac, tho PC equivalents can probably be found. Sun Position - which lets you input any location, time and date and kicks out the suns position. Weatherbug - a pretty comprehe…
03 April 2007

Northwest Gets £300K in Extra Screen Support

  North West Vision, the film, TV and digital media development agency for England's Northwest, has offered awards of over £300,000 worth of funding to some of the major players in the region's film industry. The annual Heritage, Access to Film and Audience Development (…
  • 29 July 2006
    Film industry

Todd Wagner Warns Film Industry Times Are Changing

  "New Distribution Rules Are Being Written" Billionaire trustee of the American Film Institute, Todd Wagner, delivered a wake-up call to the movie industry  at the AFI Digital Content Festival where he delivered the keynote address. Describing Hollywod as "one of the oldest closed clubs in the world," he warned the industry, times are changing and they had to get used to seeing new players on the field. His wake-up speech has been dist…
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26 September 2009

Seven projects selected for Power to the Pixel Pitch, 15 October

An all-star jury ranging from UKFC Premiere Fund head Sally Caplan to YouTube's Sara Pollock will judge the Pixel Pitch award for a cross media project, with details of the seven finalists now released and detailed below. One winner will walk away with the £6,000 Babelgum Pixel Pitch Award. Tick…
28 September 2006

Peter Jackson bored with movies, moves to Xbox

After returning from Mordor and battling Kong, Peter Jackson has just signed with Microsoft to develop 'a new form of interactive entertainment' for the Xbox 360. The Oscar winnner, soon to begin production on a film version of the video game Halo is set to create a series based on th…
14 June 2006

Kevin Spacey's Double Life

  Six weeks into his run as the suave, fast-talking socialite CK Dexter, Kevin Spacey left his role in The Philadelphia Story to his understudy. He was only away for six weeks, but the artistic director of the Old Vic still came in for a lot of flak.   At the time, he patient…
  • 06 August 2007
    Film

News roundup: Crude, YouTube, Funds, new mag, book and Gondry

A roundup of some of the latest news, events and funds doing the rounds at the moment - McLibel docmaker Franny Armstrong's new film Crude, made with Oscar-winner John Batsek, is shaping up as a British pioneer of user-engaged filmmaking. Like Brave New Films work in the US, the film is using the web for more than simply marketing. On a recently launched website (by TorchBox) - one of the best for a documentary I've seen in a long time - the production tea…
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12 March 2006

New Kids on the Box

ITV is taking on children’s heavyweights CBBC, Disney and Nickelodeon with its own channel and has vowed to emerge from the playground scrap victorious. On March 11, ITV launched its new children’s channel into the already crowded and incredibly competitive kids’ television…
13 July 2006

London Animation Director Wins Short Award

  The Battle Of Cable Street Will Relive 70 Years On A film director and animator from London has won the top prize in this year's UK Jewish Film Festival's Short Film Fund Competition. Yoav Segal won a £15,000 grant which he will used to produce his ten-minute film The…
04 April 2006

Samsung Delays Blu-ray Player Launch

  Samsung will delay the US launch of its Blu-ray Disc player by one month. The delay has been called to allow compatibility testing with Blu-ray Disc test media due in April, Samsung said. Once compatibility is confirmed the player will be ready for mass production, it said. &…
  • 28 August 2006
    Festivals

Sheffield Docfest Calls All Doc Makers to meet their match in The MeetMarket

The Sheffield International Documentary Festival (Docfest), has introduced a new initiative designed to match documentary makers'  ideas with national and international executives at this year's festival from 30 October - 5 November 2006. Get your applications in - the deadline for the scheme is September 11. The MeetMarket will be presented and coordinated by Documentary Filmmakers Group (DFG) and will provide an opportunity for original ideas to…
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11 June 2006

Asian Festival of First Films is Open For Submissions

  Asian First Film Festival is an annual film and documentary festival, now in its second year, to celebrate excellence for first-time Producers, Directors, Cinematographers, Writers, Actors and Documentary makers from the Asian Diaspora.   The Festival Directorate invites…
06 January 2008

Free widgets for weather, sun position and film calculator

Film Source LA have posted up a few useful tools for filmmaking for your computer. These work on Dashboard on a mac, tho PC equivalents can probably be found. Sun Position - which lets you input any location, time and date and kicks out the suns position. Weatherbug - a pretty comprehe…
27 February 2007

Work Experience Exploiters Named and Shamed by NUJ

  Shocking Exploitations Revealed in Media Companies The NUJ will today (27/02/07) deliver a letter to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) naming and shaming employers who exploit journalists on work experience. The union, which is launching its Work Experience Guideli…
  • 09 April 2007
    Festivals

WITHOUTABOX AND CANNES SHORT FILM CORNER PARTNER UP

  Leading Filmmaker Online Media Network  to Oversee Short Film Corner Withoutabox, the leading worldwide online media company dedicated to advancing independent film, and the Short Film Corner, a division of the Cannes Film Festival, the world's foremost film festival and market, have entered into an exclusive partnership agreement for the festival's Fourth Annual Short Film Corner. The announcement was jointly made today by David Straus, co-foun…
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25 May 2009

New event and venue database on Netribution

A new button at the end of our menu bar is for the increasing number of events mentioned here and in the forum. Click events above and you can see a listing of events (one at the mo!), and if you're logged in you can add one, because, like everything round here, it's user generated. So dive in, pre…
01 December 2008

Slumdog, Hunger Shines at BIFAs

Picking up Best Film and Director at the BIFAs for his Mumbai set feature, Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle, who like many fell in love with the city, referred to the tragic events of the week : "It is weird to win this at the end of what's been a terrible week. The human spirit is dominant…
13 July 2010

Philips Cinema and Sir Ridley Scott filmmaking contest

article submitted by Philips Cinema publicist Philips has launched an exciting global contest giving aspiring filmmakers the chance to have an original work judged by one of the world’s greatest film directors - Sir Ridley Scott, director of Hollywood blockbusters including Alien (1979), Blade Run…
  • 15 July 2006
    Latest

Free Short Film Festival opens in Soho on Mon 17 July 20006

The 3rd Talent Circle Super Shorts Film Festival takes place in venues across Soho between 17-24 July. All events are admission free and include screenings, seminars, workshops, panel discussions and networking parties…
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19 January 2006

Canadian Copyright Row MP Under Hacker Attack

Canadian MP Sam Bulte has been accused of taking campaign contributions from the copyright industries and supporting laws serving industry interests. The attack has come from Canadian fileswappers, who accuse the MP of potentially misleading her consitutuents during an all-candidates meeting. Downl…
23 May 2006

Red Road Contender For Cannes Camera D’Or – DEREK MALCOLM

  London Evening Standard film critic Derek Malcolm says "A small bomb exploded at Cannes over the weekend. It was made in Glasgow and hurt no one." But it did apparently impress a number of film critics. He says Andrea Arnold's feature debut Red Road could be a "serious…
29 September 2008

A New Kind of Movie Viral That's ‘Daylight Robbery’

From Rachel Devenport: A new viral from the makers of British gangster film Daylight Robbery has been launched online  at www.70millionquid.co.uk The cast and crew of the film teamed up with creative digital agency Silence to produce a personalised short which asks for viewers to…
  • 07 February 2006
    Festivals

Euro-MEDIA Has Strong Oscar Showing

European films with MEDIA support are strongly represented at this year’s 78th Oscars. All in all, there are five MEDIA supported films nominated for one of the prestigious golden statues which will be awarded on Sunday, 5 March 2006, in Hollywood. Three out of the five films nominated for the Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category have received MEDIA support: Merry Christmas, Paradise Now and Sophie Scholl - The Final Days. Merry Christmas, a four country…
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21 September 2006

Africa in Motion: Edinburgh African Film Festival

The programme for Africa in Motion (AiM), the first Edinburgh African film festival, has just been launched. AiM is taking place from 20-29 October 2006 at Filmhouse cinema.   The inaugural AiM festival presents a "best of" selection of more than two…
10 November 2008

Calling all creative types.. E4's Skins needs you!

From Lauren @ Holler: Skins 3 is coming soon, and the Skins creators are looking for some bright young things to help them with a very special project. They’ll be creating an online mini episode of Skins that will feature some of the series 3 cast. There are four very important be…
31 May 2006

Stars Sign Up For Cathy Come Home Anniversary Drama

  Actors Colin Firth and Robert Carlyle will star in a BBC drama marking the 40th anniversary of Ken Loach's film Cathy Come Home.  Nighty Night's Julia Davis and Anne-Marie Duff of Shameless also star. The drama will present the stories of several characters who find thems…