According to Gartner Research, the battle for high definition home video will soon be won by Sony-backed Blu-Ray technology. While I was too young to remember the battle over video cassets (VHS vs Betamax), as a consumer later in life I definitely benefited from having only one format to worry about.

The same will be true for HD video, I’m sure. Like a lot of people I know, I’m holding out on the leap to purchase a HD-DVD player because like changing lanes in traffic I don’t want to get stuck in the slow lane. Now I’m not about to go out tomorrow and by a $200 Sony player based on Gartner’s word alone, I’m sure they have some idea what they are talking about.

At the very least, Gartner’s pronouncement could turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just ask The Little Train that Could.

Dear DMEC Friends and Colleagues,

Happy New Year! With the birth of 2008 comes the birth of IndieGoGo. Eric Schell and I (DMEC’s 2007 Co-Mavens of Film and co-founders of IndieGoGo) invite you to join IndieGoGo’s vibrant community of filmmakers and fans.

IndieGoGo is an online social marketplace connecting filmmakers and fans to make independent film happen. The platform provides filmmakers the tools for project funding, recruiting, and promotion, while enabling the audience to discover and connect directly with filmmakers and the causes they support.

On IndieGoGo, filmmakers can raise money and awareness, find cast and crew, and gain credibility through the help of their number one resource, the fans.

Fans get the opportunity to discover and impact the films of tomorrow, while getting insider access and VIP perks for their support. It’s easy and fun!

Filmmakers who have already joined IndieGoGo include Irena Salina (”FLOW: For Love of Water,” 2008 Sundance selection), M dot Strange (”We Are the Strange,” 2007 Sundance selection), Christopher Roberts (”The Believer,” 2001 Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner), and Michealene Cristini Risley (”Tapestries of Hope;” Huffington Post Blogger).

If you would like to learn more about what’s possible, just follow the 3 steps outlined below. The more you take action, the cooler IndieGoGo becomes for everyone.

Enjoy making independent happen!

Best,
Danae Ringelmann & The IndieGoGo Team

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SIGN-UP:

• Go to www.indiegogo.com
• Sign-up for IndieGoGo by clicking on the Sign-up link in the Short Cuts window on the right side.
• Confirm registration via email and start exploring!

DISCOVER & PERSONALIZE:

• Click Around: Familiarize yourself. Read the “FAQs” and “How It Works” if you’re curious.
• Discover: Check out the Projects listing, People listing, Resource listing and MyGoGo pages. Click into Project & People profiles. Toggle through the Info, Media, Q&A, Team & Private sections. Watch videos, click on links, and have fun exploring! Check out the Take Action icons on the left.
• Create Personal Profile: Click on your Profile in the Short Cuts box and add some personal flavor. Include a cool pic & bio. Showcase your interests and tastes as a fan.

TAKE ACTION! (actions embedded in each profile on the left)

• PROMOTE projects you like (grab the widgets and stick them in your blog or websites).
• ENDORSE projects and people you like.
• RATE projects and people based on the different criteria.
• FUND the projects you would like to see made. Every little bit counts.
• BECOME A FRIEND of projects and people to gain insider access.
• COMMENT ON projects and people in their profiles. Ask questions. Do shout outs! Open up conversations with other filmmakers and fans.
• WATCHLIST: If you’re not ready to endorse or rate a project add them to your watchlist and follow their progress. Revisit your Watchlist on your MyGoGo page.
• GET VIP PERKS: Filmmakers decide what perks to offer their contributors. VIP Perks could include a credit in the film, an invite to a cast party or even a character named after you!
• CREATE PROJECT PROFILE: If you’re a filmmaker (or would like to be), create a project profile and use IndieGoGo’s platform to help bring it to life.
• SUBMIT FEEDBACK: If you have any problems or suggestions, please let us know by clicking Feedback or via email. We’re not perfect; help us get there!

Have fun making independent happen!

I attended a meet-up today on the Open Media Web during which the presenter from Creative Commons commented on the irrelevance of whether record labels stay in business. Time will tell how many musicians will manage to make a living from music as a primary source of income, but, with the unlimited shelf space of the internet and the draw to making music, it seems certain there will be no shortage of music for us to enjoy.

As the WGA strike carries on, does the same logic apply to Hollywood? There’s certainly an abundance of video on the web. As the industry loses “share of attention” (and revenues) to web video, where does independent film-making fit into all this? Does a union still serve a purpose? Seeing as any video can find its way onto the unlimited shelf space of the internet (and our mail from Netflix), can working with producers willing to fairly compensate writers provide an attractive alternative to union bargaining with studios? (Despite the career benefits of striking reported on by Marketplace: the opportunity for less-established writers to network.)

For a humorous take, I enjoyed this inside report on the negotiations between screen writers and studios (as well as the text at the very bottom of that blogger’s site). My favorite line: “Bunch of smelly hippies, stealing our intellectual property is what the Internet is.”

(Some back and forth on Derek Powazek’s blog got me thinking about this.)

Mike Mohan won’t be holding back on today’s entertainment panel.  As a writer and director for monkeywithacamera.com, he has some heartfelt thoughts about the evolution of today’s content online.

My goal is to inspire people to remember that no matter what your role is in bringing some sort of content out into the world, there is an immense responsibility to the characters we create, and the more blinking things that take away from a user’s experience in enjoying that content, the more we are breeding a culture of disrespect.

I just read about a company finding ways to monetize their embedded clips from YouTube by adding ad banners on top of it.  Stuff like that actually makes me physically ill, because as a content creator you’re trying to give a user a very specific and controlled experience.   If you make a baby, and Budweiser will pay you 50 bucks to tattoo its logo on her forehead, would you do that?

Mike has some fantastic content on his site, and I’m looking forward to hearing more of his thoughts today at >play.  If you can’t make it to the conference, check back here for playbacks of all the panels and keynotes after the event.

If David Lynch is in attendance at >play this year, do not bring up the topic of product placement in films…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4wh_mc8hRE (seen on Derek Powazek’s blog).

I really enjoy David’s facial expression as he listens to the question: patience…concern…almost sympathy. He delivers his response well. His patient setup to the punchline reminds me of the Cadbury gorilla’s restraint and eventual release.

What the David Lynch clip does not show is that this was the final question in a nineteen minute interview where David happily discussed many-a-topic, including the importance of meditation in his life. Followed by an extended silence, it comes off as a painful ending to the interview.

p.s. While trying to figure out how to embed a YouTube video in our WordPress blog, I came across a blonde joke I hadn’t seen before. (It takes longer to get than your average blonde joke.)

Hey DMECers, it’s Danae again.. Co-Founder of IndieGoGo.

If some of you were wondering why I wasn’t in class last week, it’s because I was in NYC for the IFP Filmmaker Conference. My partner, Slava Rubin, sat on a panel entitled “Filmmaking 2.0 - Turning Your Viewers ‘On’” The panel discussion focused on how filmmakers could and should build their audiences BEFORE they make their films, rather than after. It was a perfect panel for us since IndieGoGo is a social networking platform to help filmmakers to do exactly that so that their fans and supporters can help the filmmakers with fundraising, marketing and even recruiting. By the end of the day, industry veterans and filmmakers alike were “buzzing” about IndieGoGo. I was certainly smiling! Check out a panel recap here.

One highlight of the conference was taking some of the biggest leaders, filmmakers and influencers in the DIY filmmaking space out to dinner. Attendees included the directors of Four-Eyed Monsters (Arin and Susan), Mdot Strange, Lance Weiler, CinemaTech blogger Scott Kirsner, Founder of Open Source Cinema Brett Gaylor, and the distributor of “24 Hours on Craigslist.” Kirsner even gave a brief shout out to the event in his blog.

In sum, it was a fruitful week of marketing, networking and learning for IndieGoGo. The filmmaking 2.0 space is like the Wild Wild West. And it’s certainly fun to be a cowboy… or cowgirl, rather

“Tally-ho, IndieGoGo!!”

Hello Fellow DMECers,

I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Los Angeles Film Festival next week. The panel is titled “Monetizing Content” and is part of the festival’s Film Financing Conference, which takes place on June 23rd at Westwood Village in LA. While the panel runs from 4:30-6:00, the conference runs all day and festival runs all week. Check it out:

Schedule: http://www2.lafilmfest.com/film_financing_conference/fc_schedule
My Bio: http://www2.lafilmfest.com/film_financing_conference/fc_ringelmann

Hope to see some of you there!

Best,

Danae Ringelmann, CFA
Co-Founder, IndieGoGo.com

Dearest DMEC friends:

So I arrived at the Cannes Film Festival via New York, Frankfurt, Zurich and Nice (aka: world traveling on a shoe string. God I love being a student. Who needs direct?)

Anyhow, I came to market IndieGoGo.com (the online film financing platform Eric Schell and I are launching that will democratize the independent film financing business) as well as do what business school has prepared me so well to do - network, network and network.

After handing out 500 postcards, and delivering 501 elevator pitches (the extra one to be explained later), I have finally realized the reason I returned to business school — to not only perfect the art of door to door salesmanship, but to embrace it and completely and utterly reject its bad rap. Seriously, there is little better in life than identifiying a need, crafting a solution and selling it to someone who really needs it - whether it be a Nigerian Film Commission Rep or a skater dude filmmaker from Holland.

Forgive me: I a may be a little high on all the sunshine, but Cannes has simply rolled the 1st year core all up into one big 3-day grassroots marketing adventure on the Mediterranean. If only Haas could throw in a few star sightings too - now that would be an MBA to remember.

Door-to-door from Cannes,

Danae

There’s a fascinating article in the most recent East Bay Express about Johnny Shaw, a homeless Berkeleyan who has produced a film about the many interesting characters and life in general on Berkeley’s streets. Johnny lives in a carport, gets his meals free from a local church, and doesn’t usually have more than a few dollars on him at a time. However, using a digital camcorder and a laptop, which he acquired through some interesting means, he’s created a film that’s gotten distribution through local retail and indieflix.com. A variety of film festivals across the globe are also requesting his film. The meat of the story deals with how Johnny will wrestle with the undesirable notion of playing in the normal rules of film production, not because it’s a typical story of selling out, but because Johnny’s central theme and creative flow is a direct result of his situation.

Seriously? Well according to reports that came out of last month’s 3GSM World Congress, Sundance and gang reached out to several filmmakers to produce 5 short films (one of which is helmed by the directorial talent of Little Miss Sunshine) specifically for the mobile screen. The films were shown at the World Congress on both normal projectors and various mobile devices and utilize frequent close-up shots and different lighting effects to make films viewable on such a small screen.

Given India’s 900 billion person population, a fast growing mobile device market, and a film industry that somehow releases a gajillion movies with the same nine actors every year, Bollywood is planning to distribute its world famous genre of cinema to the mobile platform. Now I’m not sure how many of you have seen Bollywood flicks (my guess is three, Tony C loves him some Rani Mukherjee), but over its 9 hour runtime, a flick will showcase roughly 300 dance sequences that feature no less than 42,000 actors draped in colorful and sparkling attire while unloading massive amount of funk to an elaborately choreographed dance sequence with fireworks, shooting stars, rainbows, and elephants to boot. Oh and it somehow rains when it’s really sunny outside. Weird. Anyway, how Bollywood directors plan to show these films on your mobile device without it literally exploding boggles my mind.

Oh and Hungama Mobile and Roamware are the biggest players in the mobile Bollywood scene right now.