Some useful ideas explored here from New Breed - these are part of an on-going series from Filmmaker Magazine and The WorkBook Project to document the Filmmaker Summit held last Saturday at Slamdance (more about this to follow soon).

Filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah of Sabi Pictures arrive at Park City with an intent to define the questions most relevant to independent distribution options. Insights from Brian Newman, Dan Mirvish, Jon Reiss and Ira Deutchman open a path toward discovering some real solutions.

SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah move away from identifying the questions toward some possible answers that may, in fact, lead to the solutions we seek. Insights from Linas Phillips (Bass Ackwards), Habib Azar (Armless), Dan Mirvish, and Brian Newman are fleshed out with more thoughts from the pre-Filmmaker Summit roundtable.

SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah move away from identifying the questions toward some possible answers that may, in fact, lead to the solutions we seek. Insights from Linas Phillips (Bass Ackwards), Jon Reiss and Brian Newman are fleshed out with more thoughts from the pre-Filmmaker Summit roundtable.

Workbook Project’s New Breed brings you this piece by Zak Forsman on how to make the festival circuit work for you EVEN if you don’t have a film screening. The key advice is: manage your expectations and make connections because these connections will help you in the long haul and festivals are probably the best place to meet all the key players in one place.

Here is Zak’s video from SXSW:

The incredibly useful Workbook Project recently added another weapon to its creative arsenal. NEW BREED consists of first person accounts of the filmmaking process – you can read through all the posts or go straight to the filmmakers or projects that you’re particularly interested in. The site outlines some NEW BREED goals for 2009:

With the dawn of 2009 comes some new additions to the site. NEW BREED: CRITICAL FOCUS will introduce a new series of interviews, special topics addressed by site regulars and more articles from guest contributers. Look for upcoming conversations with filmmakers Hunter Weeks, Ondi Timoner, Barry Jenkins, Lynn Shelton and Joe Swanberg, as well as a new series of articles by site regulars sharing insight into lessons learned… the hard way. And in a few days we will introduce a prolific filmmaker of short films, Jack Daniel Stanley, who takes his southern gothic horror film, A Little Mouth To Feed, to Slamdance 09 and offers insight into his preparations, planning and experience at the festival.

If you’d prefer not to learn ALL your lessons the hard way, read NEW BREED and hear from filmmakers who learned them for you!