“The event was motivating due to the knowledge of panel members as well as the clever filmmakers attending. Shooting People is ‘as yellow as the generosity of a pineapple’.” (Tontxi Vazquez, Writer/Producer)

I think Shooting People is as yellow as the generosity of a pineapple should be our new tagline!

Whether you attended or not make sure you download the book of useful contacts (sales agents, festivals, websites etc.) and some tips from yours truly on filmmaking in a web 2.0 world. There’s lots of good stuff in there for all filmmakers although the focus is on short films.

If you think we have left out any ueful contacts or websites please leave a comment here so we can build our database and continue to provide useful information to y’all. Plus if you agree/disagree with any of my tips please leave comments too. It’s always good to hear from filmmakers who are actually going through it because I know it’s much easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk.

Whole Earth had a profound influence on many technologists. People have described it as a kind of pre-internet internet. Steve Jobs called Whole Earth one of the bibles of his generation, “It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.” Stewart Brand and his Whole Earth colleagues have shaped many aspects of our contemporarty digital world, inspiring the birth of the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL) and WIRED magazine. As Tim O’Reilly says, “A huge amount of the O’Reilly sensibility, a mix of practicality and idealism, was learned from the Whole Earth Catalog. And of course, the Whole Earth Catalog is one of the wellsprings of the modern DIY movement, for which Make: magazine is now carrying the torch.”

The sections of the catalog included industry and craft, communications, and community, all ideas that continue to inspire us at Shooting People as filmmaking moves into the world of Web 2.0. In this spirit we have launched our new TOOLS blog where we will continue the fine tradition of communicating and sharing resources with each other. It’s not quite as nice as the Whole Earth Catalog to hold in your hands but I hope that it will be useful nonetheless.

We want to tell you about tech wunderkind filmmakers like Lance Weiler who is spreading the knowledge so brilliantly with his Workbook Project.

And talk about innovators like Matt Hanson with Swarm of Angels, M dot Strange with We Are the Strange, and Matt Gaylor with Open Source Cinema.

And show you the filmmakers who have ventured into the scary territory of self-distribution and survived to tell the tale. Filmmakers like Arin Crumley and Susan Buice with Four Eyed Monsters, Hunter Weeks with 10MPH, and Todd Rohal with The Guatamalan Handshake.

And investigate the filmmakers who are partnering with non-profit organizations to promote their films and change the world in the process, filmmakers like Marc and Nick Francis with Black Gold, and Paul Taylor and Teddy Leifer with We Are Together.

And we want to talk about cool blogs and podcasts, interesting plugins and widgets, new online social networks and video hosting sites, and anything else Web 2.whateveritisnow that takes our fancy.

But we also want to hear from you about your experiences and about the resources you have found useful so please leave comments and get involved. We’ll have guest bloggers posting too so that you get to hear a variety of perspectives from all over the world.

Bring it on!

Your Long Tail theory is a basic and profound truth that I happily embrace AS A CONSUMER. But as a producer and creator of Long Tail content it is basically spelling out my doom. Other than your book examples which are still basically about VERY LARGE entities and aggregators, I am finding very few self supporting examples of independent Long Tail producers.

It feels like niche markets and the tools of Web 2.0 are ideal for small producers but how does everything add up? I would love more stats on this stuff. Anybody know where to find them?

Bigshinything also have a post which talks about a possible MySpace/Facebook class divide that is very interesting although the whole “hegemonic/subaltern” vocabulary is bringing back my academia-rash! The issue of how divisions and inequalities in the offline world get manifested online is an important one. The research in Danah Boyd’s essay is a little tenuous and incomplete, as she herself admits, but it’s good food for thought.