Right so, continuing my brief survey of the online distribution methods that Chris and I use to make money from our short films, next up is the Dynamo Player. Dynamo offer a simple embeddable “player” which is, to all intents and purposes, the same as the YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion or countless other streaming video players that now litter the internet. The BIG difference is that Dynamo charges the viewer – enabling the creator to earn money from their content. For…

So the future has fallen upon us and everyone is getting very excited about films online. We should however not flinch from the stinging rebuke that lurks in the fact that it took some years before anyone thought they could make a business work selling shorts online. To be fair I guess echoes of the dotcom boom still cause distant shudders in the minds of most people looking to sink money into ebusinesses. I well remember the wave of websites…

It is a rare delight to scroll through a page of comments all made by members of Shooting People and come across virtually no complaints or arguments. The latest Shooter’s Poll, opening a debate as to whether you should upload a short film or hang on to it in the hopes of a festival screening (a poll you can vote for and study here – http://shootingpeople.org/polls/6), has however produced a remarkable consensus. No one appears that outraged that the top…

Recently my brother and I have been doing some filming on the highways, byways and shopping malls of our fair country. Even in London this is an activity which usually draws a casual glance and often provokes strangers to conversation. However we’ve noticed a change in what they’re talking about. In the past, when a stranger stopped us to ask about our filming they’d generally be asking about the subject matter. “Is this going to be on TV then?”, “Is…

I’m writing again in response to something that’s cropped up on Shooting People’s Screenwriter’s Network, that peerless film community talking shop which has recently started to mull over the other ways in which screenwriters can market their wares. So thought I’d take a moment to add what is hopefully some useful focus to the usual over excited whoops of “SOCIAL MEDIA” and “NETWORKING!” that always come when people start talking about marketing. After all, like all tools, indeed like words,…

G-Tech, the chaps what make the hard drives, are running a new competition for filmmakers (and also photographers and musicians). At stake is either €5,000 or a 4TB G-Raid hard drive. Rather neatly entrants will be rewarded not just for quality but also for the drive they have shown in creating the work in the first place. Each strand of the competition (film, music and photography) is broken down in pro and amateur sections, so they’re really looking not just…

There’s been some discussion on this blog, though nearly not enough, about the future of distribution in the independent sector. I’m a fan of cinemas as places but I have to admit that I’ve become more accustomed to watching films on my laptop. This is in no small part due to the increasingly excellent service offered by sites like iTunes, The Auteurs and IndieMoviesOnline. I imagine you’ve heard of the first of those. The Auteurs is a site that, even…

Combining two of the themes of my blog for March, here’s Dom’s Canon 7D view of the European Independent Film Festival… If you can’t see the video click here http://shootingpeople.org/blog/category/bensblog/2010/03/faces-of-ecu/

OK if you’re interested in the new DSLR revolution then you’ve probably already seen this, but just in case – click on this link to see some pretty astounding evidence of how these little cameras hold up against film… http://www.zacuto.com/shootout