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?
Flight404 published a new short film made with Processing. Music by The Flash Bulb. Truly Beautiful!
The very famous experimental short film “Der Lauf der Dinge” von David Fischli and Peter Weiss from 1987 is uo on Joox. The film is up 30 minutes long and just show a long chain of everyday object, reacting to each other. A must see!
…and once again, all the great photos in this entry are made by the very talented Anne Helmond!
And on yet another rainy morning in Amsterdam (not surprising, you get used to it after a while!), full of curiosity and hopes for the day, I went to the second day of the Video Vortex - Responses to YouTube conference. I was hoping that today would be more fruitful than yesterday, and indeed, what a pleasant surprise! Well, call me selfish, but instead of giving a general overview I will focus on the session that was the most interesting for me personally: Curating Online Video.
On a rainy morning in Amsterdam (that demanded lots of coffee!), the Video Vortex - Responses to YouTube Conference was kicked off at Club 11. I will be blogging on the conference for movingweb, but I was also there because I have been involved with the project through my work at the Netherlands Media Art Institute where we made an exhibition with the same title and related topics. Well, the program of the conference is quite extensive, and I was very disappointed by some of the presentations today (that seemed unprepared, unfocused, had nothing new to say…a total contrast with the first Video Vortex conference in Brussels!). So I will focus on the gems of today’s presentations!
There is a new project up on keyframe.org - Cinema in the digital Age:
“Life is a Remake. This film is a work in progress. Day by day it is growing, changing length as well as storyline. It is a diary, an essay film, a documentary and a fiction film at the same time. And it is a homage to Kurt Schwitter’s Merzbau.”
Videopark Broll Call for video:
Galerie Helga Broll, Lodypop and Videopark invite you to submit work for a 3-day mini-festival in 2008 in Basel. Your work will be screened at the cinema «Club» and at Lodypop, and will be part of an online exhibition on the website «Video Park Broll».
Videopark is an independent online video gallery project initiated by Jan Voellmy. Galerie Helga Broll stands for works that are collaboratively provocative, for the production of visual discussions and joint presentations. Lodypop stands as an art space for “performance without pressure†and “projects without panicâ€. www.galerie-broll.com / www.lodypop.ch / www.videopark.org
Interesting hybrid of an advertisement and a shortfilm. Martin Scorsese with a Hommage to Alfred Hitchcock.
The Video is an interesting mixture of the actual shortfilm-ad and a fake-documentary of Scorsese talking about how he found a lost Hitchcock script.
Also see the website for the campaign: ScorseseFilmFreixenet
“darkly twisted yet entrancingly beautiful” - Chocolade Haas is a short film by Sander Plug.