Still working for all of us

I want to thank everyone for your continued support. Showing loyalty and willingness to follow me over here These two sites will be merged when I shift us all over to streamingindy.com
I have been working a lot lately on logistics and behind the scenes web development for the distribution model that will make what I am talking about on the seminar video a reality.
I keep running into obstacles which tells me I am definitely doing the right thing. Real distribution for the idependent that puts them in control and reduces the chance of losing all revenues through bad distribution contracts.
As of this writing I am developing a script to shoot as a feature following the mainstream template to a point of names and faces that are recognizable to the general public with the sole intention to distribute online through the network.
I have a budget established around 400K for production and marketing.
This as you can imagine is a difficult number to come up with for an unknown business model but that is exactly what I am doing.
So just to keep you up to date. We need something that is ready to distribute and of course I am a filmmaker. That is what iI want to do., make films.
And so I shall.
I have the player almost ready for distribution but found some issues with censorship from the host company trying to force their agenda through the business and have been trying to work that out.
Otherwise we can't have any nudity language gore or violence in a feature.
I mean seriously, that is just not reasonable If I was James cameron I couldn't load Titanic under those restrictions.
So obviously, I am still fighting under the radar and just want you to know that I am still working for all of us.

Rob Ellis
Streaming Indy
Founder

They tell me I'm crazy

There are no experts in this field. No one is talking this language and my business friends are telling me I'm crazy for sharing this video.

Find more videos like this on Streaming Indy

Will you make art or gas?

I've been working on a web system for almost a year now to help filmmakers get paid for their efforts even with a short film.

There is a way but when I try to explain it most people look at me cross eyed with a false ego based knowing that tells me I'm talking to a sheep. Bleet, bleet.

They all want the theatrical release for their $5000 budget film. and can't see that that will never happen.
The film world doesn't want your film.
Sorry to break it to you but you've been duped. Just like thinking if you go to college you'll make more money, then you go to work for someone that owns a company that never went to college. Yeah that system is well advertised too.

I am almost ready to throw in the towel and just do it for myself like everyone else does, almost.
But that wouldn't fit with my ethics. Which to me is doing what is the greatest good for the most.
Even if it leaves me out.
I've been at this for some time now, almost a year and have been running into the same attitude from people everywhere. They can't see into the future beyond their own ego and wallet.

I don't care what they do anymore. I know my conscience is clean, and my ethics are what drive me for the vision I am going for.
Still it does bother me to see all the people I try to help so easily led astray.
People with short films excited to be getting a free screening when they could be making money from their art.

The film industry here is full of ego driven people with no real vision. little support for art. Lots of critics.

I don't think very much of critics. If you want to criticize a film, make sure you can show a film YOU MADE that was better and give examples of what you did in your masterpiece, and let me see it.

Or shut up. Your opinion is only so much gas wasted in the atmosphere.

Go make something and stop criticizing.

Art is alive and free and moving to the one who experiences it.

Cowards make copies of past successes. An artist has the tenacity to go against the grain and do something great.

Make art or make gas, eventually we will all smell the difference.

Visionaries often see the wonderous panorama alone.

I have been blogging and doing more blogging about the trends I see moving to the online distribution of film on the internet for some time. When I sit with someone who thinks they are an authority and they haven't got a clue what I am talking about, I just smile and think to myself, you should have listened to me when you had the chance.
I don't need permission to do anything I want to do and regardless of what the self appointed experts think we are going to make this an effective business model that will be pioneering a way to profitable entertainment for the independent.
I know that if enough people get involved in the fund raising and production parts of creating a project then they will have a vested interest in helping promote the film to all their friends and we will be successful.
I have been working extra hard lately to push past the opinions of others. I know they haven't done the research that I have done and come to the projections I have so don't think less of them just am aware that I am operating from different data.
Many people would love to be involved in the film industry, but don't think they have the means, be it capital to invest or experience on the set or as a writer.
But we are going to change all that and give the fans an opportunity to be involved at whatever level they want to be or can afford.
I have a new business plan under development that outlines how a cashless investment of one hundred dollars can add up to enough guarantee notes to get funding for a feature film in New Mexico.
There are some great programs here that give a filmmaker an opportunity to shoot on a budget that he may not have been able to anywhere else.
State loans and refunds for expenditures in the state are a few of the things that make this the time and the place to shoot.
Couple that with the online distribution model I have outlined elsewhere and the collaboration of hundreds if not thousands of people and you have something that has never occurred before.
A panacea of opportunity for the filmmaker that can see the opportunity and seize it.
So I still shout from the rooftops and am looked at like the local crazy.
Now I have nearly completed a feature script for production and I have other friends with scripts ready to shoot.
We are almost there.
Waht we need now is attention and the right exposure to the ideas we are ready to shoot.
I created the collaborative to give people the opportunity to see first hand what I see as the future of entertainment. Where everyone has an opinion and even as a minor investor or group member can have a say in the final product.
What do you want to see on the screen?
Let's do that.


View my page on Sta.rtUp.Biz - The Small Business Social Network

Battle for focus

I'm fighting the seemingly never ending battle to stay focused.
The Holidays and the new year come and go with all their drama and new challenges but the unfinished work remains so until I finish it. There are so many reasons to get distracted.
Life has a way of demanding your attention when you need to focus most.
It's as if the universe wants to challenge your commitment as soon as you determine that you will stay the course.
But I will tell you this; even if it takes a little longer to complete what I started in the productions I am working on, and the distribution model that the world of independent film is waiting for.
I will stay the course.
Though there are others that would take from me and try to make me submit to a lower calling than what is outlined here. I will stay the course.
This is an unstoppable idea and it's time has come. I will prove it and you can help.
Units and microunits for the next feature film will be offered soon.
This means you can get involved in the production of a film and have a viable part in making it a reality. Right here.
We will be putting a paypal button on here for the collection from investors with a full breakdown of the treatment and distribution model as well as the production budget and profit return for each unit and microunit investment. You can participate in the distribution of the film and track right here what is happening with the project.
This will be the atart of a new method of indy filmmaking.
Where as a community we can make it happen. It takes a whole village to raise a child. It will take a whole community to create a film we can all be proud of.

Stay tuned here for more details.

A basic template for the future of streaming movies

There are several sites out there that you can watch free to the viewer streaming video content. They are quite successful in getting sponsorship with that media because the quality is good enough to get people to watch the videos available. Usually they are familiar with them from other sources and advertising.

What I am proposing here is duplicate the already proven methods of driving traffic to a streaming movie or video site, but add to it the social network aspect, because we are talking about working with indy filmmakers.

Let me paint a picture for you.

Say you want to watch a movie, or some short films and you get onto the forum. You'll see some of the titles that are creating a buzz, in whatever format that may be, bloggers talking about a film, articles written about a production or just the name of a filmmaker you know that you want to catch up on. You would in that case click on their profile see the productions they are currently working on, their blogs talking about the films they made in the past and movies or short films they liked, with links to the videos being discussed, right there in the meta data of the text. You could then click on the link and the viewer pops up and starts playing the film or short you were looking for, also right there in the player there will be links back to where you linked from as well as the profile or info page for the filmmaker or production team that created the film.

This is a small part of the web 2.0 experience that I think ultimately people will be looking for, a direct link to comment or email the filmmaker, view their other content and support any projects they may be trying to fund if you should so desire. All in one nice neat little easy to use site with very few distractions and banner ads to clutter things up.

Of course there is the financing aspect that I will get into at another time but it would suffice to say that logically if the viewer got to watch for free the quality of the player was the very best on the web, (I hear cinematographers sigh when I mention 720p streaming with no buffer) and the filmmaker gets paid a majority of the net profit, that this would be a winning proposition all the way around.

The real trick is the involvement of the viewers to blog about streaming movies they liked and create a viewer or reader base with rss feeds and Google clicks that should share in the profits to some degree as well. Anyone with a blog could have a link directly to the film they are recommending and get a "pay-per-click" income stream from the movies promoted on their blog.

Of course I think it would be important for everyone to be able to use the free system to link to their other content on other sites, like if a film is only available on Create Space, Veoh, Miro or Amazon, even a pay-per-view link to the filmmakers own website, there should be no criticism or bias, to linking directly and seamlessly to those.

This is what we are in the process of building and your involvement in the foundation is needed and wanted. You will see the links to the Streaming Indy social network around this and other sites. Go ahead, get involved now when it matters. No one will salute the 10000th member but the 100th that is still a celebration and a comrade won. Help us form web 2.0 for the indy filmmaker if you like what you are reading here and if you don't then tell us about it and make a contribution there that is what it was designed for.
Stay tuned and we'll see you there.

Hollywood and the economy of the calculated sequel

There seems to be a shortage of original thought in the industry of film and from what I am hearing from the audience members they are getting tired of the bigger explosion and faster paced action selling the show.
What about art? Why isn't that being really cultivated in the market?
Well it's a lot like the recent bailout of the stock market. The choices were made clear and what should have been done wasn't.
I will clarify this. One politician stood up in the forum and said that if the government was going to try to bail out the economy it should give the $700,000,000.00 distributed to the citizens of America instead of to the very people responsible for the debacle in the first place. (that is paraphrased of course or I would have named and quoted)
But he was right. Look at what the money distributed to the people would have done:

For each citizen that would have been about $300,000.00 as a economic boost from the government.
What would the majority of American's do with the money?
Spend it of course. They would pay off debts and buy new cars, electronics and all the things that they buy now and some would even invest in the stock market.

Honestly who cares what the stock market does if they don't have money on the line?

But the people we elected to make decisions with that kind of money, our tax dollars, decided to give it to the failures that got everyone scared in the first place.

I personally think that is stupid. They don't trust their own constituents.
I think it would have made this a much better country to live in over the next five years and before the money is spent they should put it to a vote.
This is supposed to be a representative democracy. The problem I see is the the elect are representing the wrong people.

And so it is with Hollywood. Instead of letting the artist have free reign in the creation of the cinematic piece, the industry is controlled by the non creative financial types and decisions are based for distribution on what a film just like x or y has boxed in the past. The sure thing, or as close as they can get.

Very much like Paul Zane Pilsner talked about in his book, "The Next Trillion". Predominately about the wellness industry. He talked about the drug companies being a for profit group making decisions for research and development based on not what the world needs, but on the profit generated in the outcome of the research. He gave the example of a comparison of the profit between a one pill cure for cancer and a maintenance drug that the patient (customer) would take for the rest of their life.
The decision is obvious. The greater profit is in the maintenance drug of course.

Therin lies the problem with a capitalistic approach to decisions of this nature.

Don't get me wrong I'm up for profit just like every red blooded American, but where do you draw the line between sanity and profit margins?

Art and politics, The carving of the future by the desire for the almighty buck.