Stage6, long a resource for high quality video online has closed up shop as of yesterday. Reasons for the closure are multifarious. Here is an excerpt from an e-mail by Stage6 guru Spinner:

“So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details involved, but at the end of the day it’s really as simple as that.”

Geekazine chimes in on the closure and the looming closure of another online resource Bloglines, which seems also to be a casualty of no-profits. 

If I had my druthers I’d take a year to just film fest. Not a difficult thing to do with a world-class festival running every month of the year. Here’s where you want to be from March to June.

March 7–15: Austin’s South By Southwest
The film component of SXSW has been growing every year and this year looks to be one of the film fest’s finest.

http://2008.sxsw.com/film/screenings/date/2008-03-07.html

April 17–27: Toronto’s Hot Docs
Hot Docs has become one of North America’s premiere documentary film fests. Every year promises a who’s who of current docs and a state of the union for the industry as a whole.

http://www.hotdocs.ca

May 14–25: Cannes, Festival de Cannes
Every year about 100 000 people cram into a 3 block radius by the sea and celebrate the full-out glamour and cheese of the International film scene. The festival for seeing and preening.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/index.php/en

June 16-21: Toronto, Reel Heart International Films Festival
4th year for this TO newbie that wants to get away form “niche” festival and cover a broad spectrum of films, genres, languages and all. Could be interesting to watch this fest grow.

http://www.reelheart.com/

The weekend was a 1-2 Film awards knockout, with the Indie Spirit Awards running on Saturday, followed by the the Academy Awards on Sunday. Crossover nominations for both were high this year, which must have resulted in a ton of tuckered out stars and starlets by the time Sunday night rolled around.

Having the two events back-to-back highlights how great the indies have fared this Oscar season. The Coen brothers No Country For Old Men proved the night’s big Oscar winner, with Best Picture and Director nods, while the crowd-pleaser Juno cleaned up at the Indie Spirit taking Best Picture, Best Actress (for Ellen Page) and Best Screenplay for Diablo Cody. Cody was a double winner: she grabbed the Oscar screenplay, too.

In some ways the two awards seem almost a reversal: the feel-good blockbuster taking over the Indie Spirit and the more edgy, but critically acclaimed, No Country For Old Men cleaning up at Oscar. Indeed, this might have been the year when the Indies most openly embraced big box-office returns and the Oscars pretty much followed the critics point for point, even giving the Best Actress nod to Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose.

The sea change can be attributed to a number of factors.  A big one: the huge-grossing comedies of Judd Apatow are fun but nobody is ready to give them an Oscar nod. More crucially, the sort of Important ‘A’ pictures that usually dominate Oscar season (such as Meryl Streep’s Lions For Lambs and Rendition) have had such a tepid audience and critical response that a nomination would be simply silly. Indeed, Hollywood has failed abysmally throughout 2007 to put out a thinking-pic that also attracts an audience.

If these trends keeps up, in a few years the Indie Spirit and Academy Awards may want to combine events with one big weekend extravaganza, hosted by, of course, Jon Stewart and Rainn Wilson.

When I was invited to start blogging for IPEX, most of my film reading came from the trades: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb Pro, Worldscreen, and C21, with the odd issue of Film Comment or Cahiers du cinema thrown in when I found the time to feel cultured. Over the last month, I’ve really enjoyed the chance to catch up on the state of online film blogging and am pleased to report that it’s a wild and woolly world out there with a lot of gems and really cutting edge information if you know where to look.  This week, I’m happy to present a satisfactorily comprehensive directory of film blogs, categorized under headings that make sense to me.

Coming soon: I get all Andrew Sarris on the list and offer my top picks, and top picks for industry professionals who are looking for the kind of alternative industry perspective blogs can provide.

Have I missed your blog?  I’d love to visit it, so please leave me a comment.

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"The Film Professional’s Guide to the Blogosphere: A directory of film blogs"

In 2007, retail behemoth Wal-Mart announced it was bringing in HD-DVD players made in China that would be retailing for around $200. In a nutshell, Wal-Mart’s support of HD seemed to be ringing the death knell for Blu-Ray. However, in a somewhat surprising turn-around, over the last month a number of studios jumped ship, Wal-Mart’s ship that is, and backed the great Blu-Way, leading to Best Buy and then Wal-Mart’s decision to also go Blu.

The odd thing here is that it seems Wal-Mart might have caved to studio pressure on this one, which would be a momentous role reversal indeed. Wal-Mart is used to calling the shots. Oh, well, war does strange things to a man. And, apparently, to America’s Most Massive, and possibly asinine, retail outlet.

So, you have an indie film and you want to find distribution.

Never have so many options for distribution been available; never has it been so confusing to decide what is right for you and your film. The industry is experiencing a transitional moment; everyone knows online downloads are the future, but nobody knows exactly how it will play out. As well, distribution has gone online too, offering a plethora of choices for the indie filmmaker and producer. What to do, what to do.

This article is the first of a 5-part series that looks at all of the avenues open to you as a filmmaker and distributor. We’ll offer some tips on how to find your film a home.

Regardless of your film’s ultimate destination, your goal is to find a license buyer for your film. Who are film buyers? We’re talking about broadcast TV (cable, satellite, and terrestrial), home DVD companies, VOD service providers, and mobile content providers.

Let’s start this series by examining the psychology of this rare and overworked professional. Here are five things you should know about Film Buyers and 5 tips for putting the best face of your film forward.

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"Looking for Film Buyers? 5 steps to secure distribution for your indie film"

We’ve already talked about the history and meaning of ‘sweding’ and we took a quick look at the marketing campaign intent on slipping New Line Cinema’s brand into Webster’s dictionary. But what about videos!

Here are my favourite sweded videos for your delectation. Believe me, after watching the critical amount (4 or 5), it’s the real oddballs that win you over.

Die Hard

and Ghost

I give it to these guys if only for the sing-along soundtrack—nice touch.

See the Sweding YouTube channel here.

On paper it sounds like the sort of viral marketing campaign that would take the genre to the next level, the sort of marketing campaign that would become an overnight superstar of the blog-o-sphere. Yet somehow, Be Kind Rewind’s invitation to 'swede' your own film, a la Jack Black, has met with a surprisingly tepid online response. Perhaps the campaign simply started too late to get its Inter-web legs in shape and find an online following; perhaps the fact that the contest segment of it (submit Sweded videos for prizes) is only open to the UK and Ireland has stalled the growth of a trend.

Apparently coined by Michel Gondry, the term 'sweding' is the practice of remaking a film with a whole lot of love and no resources (you can read about a Brief History of 'Sweding' here). Is the concept of 'sweding' meaningful enough to achieve any lasting cultural significance? It's been a while since we've seen a marketing campaign ambitious enough to try and cash in on coining a phrase. Does it pay off for Be Kind Rewind?

The film opens this Friday and both the film's website and its You Tube channel are still low on entries, although the last two weeks have picked up. The larger problem may simply be that with few exceptions the DIY swedes lack the humor and pizzazz or just the outright weirdness that would demand repeat views and sharing.

Overall, the campaign has seemed a bit fuzzy and out of focus. More of a damp drizzle than internet storm, one wonders about the audience being targeted here. Michel Gondry fans are too shy to seek exposure; and Jack Black fans are too lazy. In some respects, like the film itself, the marketing campaign is a brilliant idea executed with sagging spirit. If nothing else, swedsters may pick up on the potential fun of sweding and continue to build the You Tube channel in time to make a larger impact alongside the film’s DVD release.

It remains to be seen if independent filmmakers can swede this marketing campaign for their own purposes.

Swe·ding (swee'ding) 1. verb. To express your love for something by imitating it in a way that is obviously an imitation. Especially the act of a fan remaking a beloved film with no budget. 2. noun. A marketing campaign from New Line Cinema for the Michel Gondry directed film Be Kind Rewind.

Alison at IFC Blog was kind enough to help us get the word's origins straight:


Gondry's film is about a couple of hapless VHS Video Store clerks who have to swede the inventory of their store in order to keep product on the shelves after a massive tape demagnetization mishap. The film has taken sweding one step further by using the sweding practice in all aspects of the film’s viral marketing campaign: Gondry swedes the film's own trailers, Youtube users are invited to swede scenes of their film favs on Be Kind Rewind's YouTube channel, and the film’s website stages a breakdown of the Internet and quickly swedes a site.

Sweding is basically remaking with no dollars. With a lot of love, duct tape, and well, that's about it. The joy of sweding is the gap between the lack of resources available to the sweder and the sweder's tremendous love for what is being sweded. Anyone can pay tribute with a budget; sweding is paying tribute despite the fact you don’t have a budget. That's true love.

While Gondry might be the first to put a name to this phenomenon, the practice has been around for awhile, and, if the New Line Cinema marketing team has their way, it will reach critical mass in 2008. Who are some notable sweding pioneers? Keep reading...

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"Viral Film Marketing: A Brief History Of ‘Sweding’"

A 'sell sheet' (also called a 'one sheet') is a film/video licensing industry term for summary publicity. 'Sell Sheet Sampler' is a continuing feature on our blog where we showcase fascinating clips, which, while part of a digital sell sheet, are of interest to a large audience.

Animal Crackers is the show that features the kind of Animal and Human relationships that shouldn't work -- but do. In this clip we meet a Jack Russell terrier who, along with his owner, is really into extreme sports. He surfs, kayaks, cliff jumps...and that's just for starters.

Click here for the Sell Sheet for
'Animal Crackers' - Distributed by Bullseye TV

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys is launching an indie film distribution and sales company called Oscilloscope Pictures.  He has brought in ThinkFilm VP David Fenkel to run things, and David Berger from ThinkFilm is also on board. Bergel and Fenkel know film and over the last few years Thinkfilm has been the company to watch in indie film. The group will be looking to pick up documentary and fiction films from the fest circuit, as well as provide finishing funding.

The down side is Yauch wants to make this happen without any outside financing; he is looking for deals where the filmmakers can “share” the risk. What this means is not exactly clear; but anyone who doesn’t mind a low MG and a DIY ethic should look out for these guys.

Link: The Hollywood Reporter

Film fan bloggers are up in arms all over the information superhighway over the recent announcement that Sony Pictures Classics has purchased distribution rights to Sundance fest favorite The Wackness. The film features unlikely cast-mates Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen (we were all wondering when these crazy kids would finally get together), in a dark comedy about getting high and getting therapy.

The Specialty Film Division for Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Pictures Classics is taking a blog-beating for its film’s poor box office showings, moving too slow to go into wide release, and just generally not being hip enough to handle the promotion of non-mainstream films in the manner that Fox Searchlight and Focus Features have come to excel at. 

Well, I may be sent to Hell for it, but I am going to defend SPC on this one.

Just in case you missed the brouhaha (thanks to Cinematical for the summary):
Neil Miller (Film School Rejects)
Peter Sciretta (Slashfilm)
Alex Billington (First Showing)
Edward Douglas (ComingSoon.net)
Josh Tyler (Cinema Blend)

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"Indie Film Distributor Spotlight: Sony Pictures Classics deserves an Indie Spirit Award. Really."