filmmaking

PARK CITY, Utah--Jason Kohn, director of last year's prize-winning Sundance documentary Manda Bala, shot his every frame to be seen on the big screen, but now realizes "most people are going to experience it in DVD."

Given the latter, he said he was excited to have been awarded a new grant from Microsoft, announced here Sunday night, that will allow him to create a disc using the software giant's HDi technology. HDi enables him to complement the movie with interactive and Web-enabled features such as viewer polls, song downloads, or picture-in-picture commentary and character biographies.

"… Read more

PARK CITY, Utah--It seems wherever I go in this crowded ski-haven-turned-Tinseltown, people are talking about the Internet and its implications for the Sundance Film Festival and the overall indie film industry.

Whether it's chit-chat about the Hollywood writers' strike over compensation for content sold on the Web, or more formal panel discussions such as Saturday's "Webolution: Hollywood Adapts to the Web," the topic is ripe for discussion.

As for the writers' strike, the buzz on the street is that studio specialty divisions and other distribution companies will be buying Sundance films in earnest to fill their … Read more

PARK CITY, Utah--Last night I saw U2 live in concert here at the local high school performing arts center...at least it felt that way.

Bono and I even had a moment--during "Sunday Bloody Sunday" he reached out his hand and almost touched me. He had to be singing to me, and not Robert Redford, Google's founders, or the rest of the Hollywood glitterati in my company. Right?

It wasn't actually a concert. Rather, I was attending a screening for the concert film U2 3D at the Sundance Film Festival. But same diff. It really felt … Read more

PARK CITY, Utah--Adriana Falcao, the winner of a recent YouTube film competition, is no stranger to the film industry.

A professional author and screenwriter in her native Brazil, she's contributed to some 15 scripts, including A Maquina (The Machine), which screened at film festivals internationally, and Ano em Que Meus Pais Sa?ram de F?rias, O (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation), which Brazil's Ministry of Culture submitted for the 2007 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

But Falcao is totally new to making films specifically for the Web, as she did with Lacos (Ties), … Read more

PARK CITY, Utah--A documentary on steroid culture is shot with a state-of-the-art camera that saves footage straight onto memory cards, freeing the filmmaker from the burden of tape-shlepping.

The maker of a science fiction film makes budget by taking advantage of software that lets him do some of his own special effects.

And the director of a documentary about a high school adolescent's life is able to employ photo animators from around the globe using convenient Web communication tools.

These are just a few real-life examples of how cutting-edge technology is opening up new opportunities for independent filmmakers.

Such … Read more

There's something deeply satisfying about creating a video, and in the spirit of discovery, National Geographic Digital Media has announced Wildlife Filmmaker, an online video mashup to make you look like a wildlife documenter.

At first glance this is a nice-looking package for targeted video creation--all stylish black with bold accents in a Flash application. Putting together fun film clips is dead easy when you drag National Geographic's video footage of a variety of animals from the clips library to the corresponding clip bin on the storyboard. Repeat with sound snippets, music themes, and captions you author in the Web application's tab. Then click "play" and try to choke back the lump of pride you experience watching little Susie's--or your own--masterpiece.

It's a fun trifle, but from a Web application perspective, Wildlife Filmmaker is flimsy. Footage is limited, and there doesn't appear to be a way to import your own sounds, music, or video clips. Also absent is a way to preview the visual and audio media before dragging it to the storyboard. Once there, the clips lock into time slots graduated at every 5 seconds. The unfortunate result in my film was a caption that spilled over the crux of the clip. I should also note that I couldn't delete unwanted captions from the caption creation tab.… Read more

This post has been updated to include a statement from YouTube on why the Project Direct contest is only open to Web users in seven countries.

"I demand an explanation for these shenanigans. What do you have to say?" If you're a regular YouTube junkie, you might be hearing that phrase a lot more in the near future.

The massive, Google-owned video-sharing site announced on Monday a new initiative called Project Direct, a contest sponsored by Hewlett-Packard in which aspiring filmmakers are encouraged to submit films between two and seven minutes in length. A total of 20 … Read more

Despite the year of video coming to a close, the surge of video hosting sites hasn't really stopped. Jumping into the fray is Liberated Films, a niche site aimed at bringing film enthusiasts and filmmakers together. Liberated Films takes it one step further with a charity service they intend to implement once they have a large enough user base. After-tax profits would go to user-selected charities or help organizations.

As on other video sites, films are served up in Flash with a short advertisement at the start. Videos range from short cartoons about alcoholic reindeer to full-on mob dramas. … Read more