Well it’s not a bad film, which certainly helps. What’s also helping is that both Mac and his producer Matthew Jones of WE ARE CAPTURE are fantastic operators who, right from the outset, have approached their short as a potentially commercial object. This is rare. This is working. I was keen to find out more and Mac was kind enough to share his plans…

First off I asked Mac if the limited theatrical run was really going to make a financial difference to the project. “…Some cinemas are willing to do a profit share on admissions once their costs have been covered so some recoupment can be obtained there… doesn’t yield masses of money, but its great exposure and secures the UK Tax break, so totally worth doing.” And here’s the clever part because ticket sales are not the real benefit Mac gets from having his work in front of Potter 7.

“…Because we have obtained a theatrical release we qualify for the UK Tax break. This means we can receive a tax break of up to 20% of the total £67K Hawk budget, this is a significant amount considering its a short film. There will be lawyer and accountant fees that’s for sure but it will still be worth processing. We’ll actually be bundling Hawk in with another one of our shorts (Gin & Dry) that also secured a theatrical release and getting a tax break on both at the same time, saving on fees. In addition we do not have any debt on either film, so the money will come straight back to us, this will take about 3 months to process now that both films have secured a theatrical release.”

But that’s not the only way Mac is putting his bird to work. “We did a deal with Movie Score Media to release our classical soundtrack on iTunes, Amazon and HMV. We get a percentage of each CD/Download sale. This is available now - here- We’ve been getting some great reviews for this on the American soundtrack sites and sales have started off nicely.

We also co-own the original music along with the composer so will receive a significant percentage should there be any future use of the any of the tracks, in films, TV, radio promos etc.”

The score for Hawk is a pretty impressive creature in its own right, using a full orchestra and a full choir. But the music was not the only creative part of the film where Mac refused to cut any corners. I’ve known him since before the film was shot and so both Chris and I have had years of fun teasing him about it how it still wasn’t finished. However now that it finally has flown the nest (God, I’m so sorry, I promise that’ll be the last bird pun) Mac’s commitment to “total filmmaking” (my quotes, indeed, my pretentious expression) has left him with a great many high quality assets which now become valuable.

“We’ve designed two posters and they are being sold online, we just sold another yesterday from here. Also a 3rd design is on the way.

…We push everything as much as we can online, the online facility to an independent is absolutely crucial.”

This is a similar tactic that they’ve employed with We Are Capture’s other short film “Gin & Dry”, the book for which you can see here.

All of this is without the aid of a sales agent, though they are currently in negotiations; I suspect not least because there are some avenues, like iTunes, which are not yet open to unrepresented short films. All of this work though is also ahead of any thoughts about releasing the film as a download or physical copy.

“…Our aim is to fully recoup the budgets for our shorts, this my take a while but we have made a good start and solid foundation to sustain that recoupment, with many avenues yet to start… If we can make our shorts turn a profit then we should certainly be able to make our feature films turn a profit, added to that its good practise.”

Clearly though there’s something else at work here beyond either commerce or practise for a feature. Both Mac and Matt are both deeply in love with the whole experience of a movie and clearly see it as something that stretches far beyond just making a film. It’s clear from their approach with Hawk that they delight in every aspect of drawing people into their imaginations.

“…Making and finishing a film is just the half way point, getting it out there into the real world so it can have a life is the other half.”

If you want to see Hawk on the big screen here are some dates for your diary…

Hipstamatic – make your world look like 1972

ShakeItPhoto – shake it like a Polaroid picture

OldCamera – make your world look like 1892

Andigraf – lots of great options for creating multiple frames

Pencil Illusion – pretend you’re a great artist

Instagram – kind of like Hipstamatic but Instagram makes it really easy for you to share your pics

iTimeLapse – create timelapse movies, I stupidly had my iPhone turned the wrong way for this one

Timelapse Cowboy from Ingrid Kopp on Vimeo.

8mm – flickering old celluloid effect

8mm Cowboy from Ingrid Kopp on Vimeo.

Other great apps:

Everyday – take a photo of yourself everyday and create timelapse movies of yourself over time

Plastic Bullet – lots of interesting effects

AutoStitch – create panoramas out of your photos

Photosynth – create panoramas as you shoot

TiltShiftGen – make the world look like a toy town

Update: David Wilson from True/False told me about another great camera app: Pocketbooth – a photo booth in your pocket.

Consider this paragraph from You Are Not a Gadget for example:

If we choose to pry culture away from capitalism while the rest of life is still capitalistic, culture will become a slum. In fact, online culture increasingly resembles a slum in disturbing ways. Slums have more advertising than wealthy neighborhoods, for instance. People are meaner in slums; mob rule and vigilantism are commonplace. If there is a trace of “slumming” in the way that many privileged young people embrace current online culture, it is perhaps an echo of 1960s counterculture.

I think artists should definitely read Lanier alongside more optimistic accounts of our digital lives and alongside books like Lewis Hyde’s The Gift for a challenging balance.

Jaron Lanier

More on Bellflower.

Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to make an ad of less than 90 seconds for any one of five brands.

You up for it?

Register and download the briefs.

Act fast – you only have 3 days left!

• Ethics in Social Issue Film: Reenactments vs. Cinema Verite
• Money and Mission
• Outreach and Connection
• Art, Ethics and Mission

Here’s Sean Fine, Director of War Dance, Cara Mertes, Director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program and Thomas Allen Harris, from Chimpanzee Productions talking about Art, Ethics and Mission and responding to Moderator Sky Sitney’s (Programming Director of SILVERDOCS) question about whether documentary makers ought to subscribe to an artistic or journalistic code of ethics.

The Center for Social Media’s latest whitepaper Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics is also worth a read, especially if you are interested in the role public media plays in creating conversations in a democracy (which you should be!). Shooting People is mentioned on page 17 as an example of an organization sharing strategies through a peer-to-peer network. Hooray!

The Good Pitch at Hot Docs welcomes submissions from filmmakers of any nationality working on documentary projects with a human rights focus. There is no entry fee to apply. Deadline: 20 Feb 2009. Apply at www.britdoc.org/goodpitch.

The Good Pitch will make its first stop at the Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF), May 6-7 2009, part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto, April 30-May 10, 2009. See www.hotdocs.ca for more info.

The Good Pitch will then call at SILVERDOCS: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival in Washington D.C. (June 15-22, 2009) and IFP’s Independent Film Week in New York City in September. Sign up for email updates at www.britdoc.org.

The first Good Pitch was held at the BRITDOC Film Festival in 2008 – see the trailer at: www.britdoc.org/goodpitch. The Good Pitch North America tour is a partnership between the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP).

APPLY HERE.

Here’s the announcement that was made by Cara Mertes and Jess Search about the partnership between the Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program during the Sundance Film Festival in January this year.

You can also read the full text of Hope’s keynote address, delivered at the Arthouse Convergence in Salt Lake City just before Sundance, on indieWIRE.

Update: You can follow The Conversation blog here – the blog includes links to photos, tweets and other joys.