YouTube has opened an indie film screening program called YouTube Screening Room. They’ll release 4 films every two weeks, both animation and real action short films, featuring award winning high quality movies. YouTube really steps away from it’s regular distribution methods, for the program it drops it’s 10 minute limit and experiments with a higher video quality. Moreover, all screened indie short films take part in a revenue sharing program. What’s really thrilling is, that you can buy the films directly from the page via direct download (1.99$) or DVD. Looks like a new distribution channel for the indie film industry?! Submit your film to ytscreeningroom@youtube.com

From the first batch of films I deeply enjoyed Miranda July’s “Are you the favourite person of anybody?”

What’s interesting is, that Atom films tried to push exactly the same idea for about ten! years and finally failed and has become a sub brand of comedy central. YouTube has a much bigger audience so I’m quite excited that they might can create more awareness for indie films.

What I don’t understand is that YouTube constricts the community tools for the Screening Room. You can’t embed the films, there’s no option for commenting or bookmarking them. Haven’t those tool been the key to YouTube’s success? So why do they make a step backward for distributing indie films?

“Moodstream is a concepting tool. The modern version of the fireplace. An interactive art piece. TV for the future. It’s a website we created for and with Getty Images to showcase all of their offerings – still, video and sound – and inspire interactive creatives. And it’s really, really fun to use.”

via Iconic Turn.

Weezer’s music video for their new single Pork and Beans fetures lots of YouTube Stars like Chris Chrocker, the CokeMentos guys or Miss Teen South Carolina.

“YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.

More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.”

Time is moving fast on the net. The medium changes so fast, that it already has lived through several transitions. For example, can you still remember how the Internet was before YouTube? When was that? Back in the 90ies? Of course not, YouTube went online on february 15th, 2005, so that’s 3 years only!!! Moreover, look at YouTube itself, haven’t there even been several generations of the platform in this short time?

But what role do time and temporality play in a medium like YouTube, when every second 10 hours of video footage is uploaded? You always see a very moment of the history of YouTube, symbolized through the “videos beeing watched right now” feature on the front page.

As the platform is changing it’s content so fast, it’s very hard to witness changes, e.g. the development of certain genres or the influences of videos onto each other. A software mashup called TimeTube tries to make the history of YouTube visible.

When you type in a keyword, the software shows you temporal relations between videos tagged with this word. Although, TimeTube is still missing lots of relations, you can use it to make some interesting observations. I typed in “dove evolution”, a very successful viral, which entailed numerous mashups, remakes and video answers. Through TimeTube I learned that it took 5 month until the first prominent remake (slob evolution) was released. I made another interesting observation on the “lifetime” of YouTube videos. “Dove Evolution” was release on October 6th, 2006. Most of the mashups and remakes were born between month 6-12 after the first release, but there are still reaction to the video after 1,5 years right now.

Ok, so go to TimeTube and become a YouTube historian yourself!

How does that sound to you? Lame doesn’t it? When THE FIRST FULL FEATURE ON YOUTUBE, Four Eyed Monsters, came out, I was wondering how much of it’s success you could count on it’s the first mover effect. Well, The Cult of Sincerity is the first full feature DEBUT on YouTube but it seems like it can’t get as much attention as FEM did, until now it only attracted 20k viewers.

The Trailer:

When I watched the movie I was thinking about reception situations again. How much time do you give a movie to catch your attention when you see it in a cinema? 30 Minutes? More? How much time do you give a movie on YouTube to catch your attention? 5 minutes? 2? When FEM came out, I gave it a try, because I really wanted to know what’s the first feature on YouTube is like. It turned out to be a great movie! This time with COS I had a much lower attention span so I caught myself clicking away the movie after some minutes. But movies need their time to envolve, they need their time to construct a rahter complex story…that makes them interesting. Just because you see it on the Internet, why does it have to blow up fireworks in the first minutes to hook you up? Therefore I gave COS a second try, and guess what…it turns out to be a great movie!

So go watch it here:

Get the filmmakers 2 $ by signing up here, and learn more about the project here and on the film’s website.

“I like your website.”
“The profile or the site?”
“The site!”
“So are we electronic friends yet?”

You see those animated illustration-videos quite often again these days, so here’s a very nice one for your viewing pleasures:

Blackbird from Thomas Frenzel on Vimeo.

“The Blackbird video is a music visualization project by Katja Schweiker and Thomas Frenzel. Both are working with an experimental approach on intermedia projects, striving for content generated designs.

This artwork was done for Michael Fakeschs audio-visual project called VIDOS—a collection of music visualizations based on Michaels latest album DOS. The video‘s design is based on visual samples that quote Michaels auditory style and mixes analog with digital elements—metaphors of the real and the immaterial. It‘s about trying and failure—trying to leave behind, trying to live in a forward-turned way, trying not to resign or surrender, trying to get aware.”

Greetings to Kai.

While MySpace TV is producing his own fictional content for quite a while, MySpace Germany only integrated content from other producers (e.g. Halt die Klappe) until now.

On May 19th the first exclusive web series from MySpace Germany is starting. It’s called “They call us CANDY GIRLS” and deals with the lives of four girls “between dancefloor, relationships, love, lies and the big city of Berlin”. Sounds like a Roommates Rip-off, right? There will be 20 episodes, 5 minutes each. Production company is Myself & Eye Entertainment GmbH, the series is directed by Miriam Dehne.

I’m really curious if a exclusive web series in Germany pays off. How many viewers will the format attract correlated to the production costs? MySpace Germany sees the investment as a test ballon. If they want to catch up with Germanies’ leading social network StudiVZ exclusive high quality content could be a way to achieve this goal.

Ok, today I have challenge for you:

Try watching John Cage’s masterpiece 4,33 (in full orchestral version!) without doing anything else!

Question is: How does it feel different to experience a concert in a concert hall than on a tv screen than on YouTube? I really had to force myself to concentrate on the piece.

via Hi-Res!

Republica 08 is already over for some days but I’d like to point a interesting panel out to you guys. The panel was entitled “The same production as every year - Media Aid 2.x”. The speakers introduced some interesting programs and gave some remarks on how to apply.

The MEDIA program of the European Union has a budget for interactive projects. Depending on your project you can get up to 100k €.

Local Aid institutions like The Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg have programs for digital content, too. As their program is in a test run right now, you won’t find any information on their website about it. If you’re interested in the program you can contact the responsible referent Rangeen Kathrina Horami.

I left the panel with hybrid feelings. The idea of gonvernmental aid for interactive content sounds very compelling in the first moment. One important aspects of the issue cool down my enthusiam. First, those programs are always an economic aid, not a cultural aid. Therefore, every submitted project needs a business plan. But would’nt it be great to develop new ways of interactive storytelling without economical bonds? I give you an example: The new webisode genre is desperately searching for new ways of financiation. Right now, product placement seems to be the most profitable method but it’s restricting narration heavily if you have to show a sponsor’s car quite often. Would’nt it be nice to experiment with interactive storytelling to push the boundaries of the genre? Therefore, a cultureal aid would help much more than an economical aid.

Anyway, media aid for digital content is a new possibility of financiation I’ll keep an eye on! Do you guys have any experiences with such programs? If so, please share them!