Broadband Jungle Blog

The Royal Nonesuch

General consensus in our industry is that the most influential book published on convergent business models was last year's The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. A loyal fan and long tail evangelist myself, I recently re-evaluated my position and am hereby nominating a new contender for that precious title.

 

The Royal Nonesuch, written by Glasgow Phillips, is the memoir of a true multi-hyphen cross platform creative type of the sort only the Dotcom era could have produced. Seems like Phillips did it all, and years before it became hip and fashionable: Washed up novelist, indie director, rehab, Internet entrepreneur, TV writer for South Park and the list goes on.

Reading about the author's adventures on his way to adulthood (the sub-title is...Or what will I do when I grow up) comes from the same state of mind that made Dave Eggars A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius so compelling: It's an incredibly funny, well written, tell-all style memoir that doesn't shy away from stupidity and suffering...even more so it actually finds a way to make the painful moments resonate personally. And this book isn't only about real people you'd want to know, but in the case of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, people you've at least heard of.

What does any of this have to do with the Dotcom era: Glasgow Phillips apparently participated in initiatives that still impact our industry: His tales of running a branding agency dedicated to names and tag lines sound eerily familiar when considering today's intuitive witch doctors active in product branding and viral marketing. Hustling with Hollywood producers for breadcrumb budgets is more than just a familiar notion.

Phillips' countless failed and successful attempts at crossing the bridge between VC capital, television, Internet video and Hollywood may have been chaotic and sometimes ill-advised during the 1990's heyday. In a way, though, we've all been growing up trying to become mini-moguls at our own little studios, and have all re-invented ourselves repeatedly by the time we turned 30. I this regard, The Royal Nonesuch is a scary and tremendously uncomfortable read.

Phillips' efforts appear very much in tune with today's young mavericks carving out their share of an audience on YouTube and BlipTV. His guerilla approach to both business and content creation should be a blueprint for any young filmmaker getting out of school today and should probably be taught at the appropriate departments and become required reading material.

Here's a book trailer by  the man himself with highlights from a decade of defiance.

Amazon and Tribeca launch re:frame collection

Amazon and the Tribeca Film Institute are launching reframe, a nicely categorized site with downloads of rare films, including documentaries and indie pictures, as well as eclectic and barely available work from Sally Potter, Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras.

Downloads through Amazon's Unbox into your PC or Tivo vary from 12.99 for Alain Resnais' Night and Fog to 26.99 for Hubert Sauper's Darwin's Nightmare.

Gregg Goldstein reports in the Hollywood Reporter:

Tribeca, Amazon to digitize rare films. Launching with 500 titles; 1,500 more within a few months.
"The Tribeca Film Institute is partnering with Amazon to launch Reframe, a Web site for rare film and video owners to digitally convert and sell their titles.

Launching Monday at ReframeCollection.org, the site will provide free digital copies of video and "at-cost" conversion of films to content owners, then rent or sell the digital download or DVD versions on a nonexclusive basis. Reframe will use Amazon's DVD on Demand service for physical copies and its Unbox service for digital downloads to rent or sell.

TFI CEO Brian Newman said the site will launch with 500 titles, and about 1,500 will be digitized within the next few months. Reframe's goal is to host 10,000 titles within the next year. Experimental works from such filmmakers as Sally Potter and Ken Jacobs, archival footage and other rare materials will be available via the site's search engine.

Major funding for the venture was provided by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation."

The Foot Fist Way

My friend Erin Gates produced this hilarious movie directed by Jody Hill and starring Danny McBride as Fred Simmons, the King of the Taek Won Do Demo (?!).
It's being endorsed by the pantheon of American comedy: Will Ferrel (whose company helped distribute it), Ben Stiller, Seth Rogen... Go see!!

They created some terrific virals for FunnyorDie, also co-founded by Will Ferrel.

Need to say more?

Sidney Pollack

GreenCine Daily

TimesOnline

Los Angeles Times

New York Times

Time

BBC

Slate

Salon

Huffington Post

Charlie Rose

Jane '08 campaign trailer # 2

Jane '08 trailer # 1 of our fake campaign ad series has been quite successfully stomping in support of 'Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict'. The viral clip has been picked up by bloggers everywhere and already reached more than 1000 views on YouTube and close to that number on Zannel.

We decided it was time to send installment # 2,'Jane '08: Leadership' into the running.
Decide for yourself.

Talking about campaigns:
Nice "Exercise your Emmy Rights" campaign-themed spread from Universal in the current Emmy Magazine by the way: Every Universal show in the running received the presidential campaign treatment. 

My favorites:
'Support Our 'Heroes,' 'Baldwyn * Fey - All the Way,' 'Get a Clue / Vote SVU' and 'D'Onofrio * Noth tough on crime'.

Documentary.org officially relaunches

The International Documentary Association is very excited to announce the launch of the new IDA website, located at: www.documentary.org

The new site features some exciting changes and additions.

Documentary trailers, clips of works in progress, shorts and IDA events will be featured in our new video player.

• We encourage all members to use this service and submit video from their own productions.

• Members will be able to launch and update their own profile page. We hope you will use this to spread the word about your work, organization or business.

• More frequently updated news, blogs, commenting and forums will keep you informed about the world of documentary filmmaking.

• Easy-to-see calendar listings will spotlight upcoming events and opportunities.

• Plus, all of the resources and information you've come to expect form the IDA will be more accessible than ever.

• As with any launch, there are bound to be bugs. While we are doing our best to smooth all of those out, we would appreciate your help and input. Please email all comments, bugs and input to feedback@documentary.org.

Sincerely,
The IDA Staff and Board of Directors

Paris Hilton takes a cab ride to the Darkside at DocuWeek

Paris Hilton a documentary lover? 
The notorious heiress accompanied actor and budding documentary filmmaker Adrian Grenier of HBO's Entourage fame to a screening of Taxi to the Darkside at DocuWeek, the annual Oscar-qualifying showcase of documentaries organized by the International Documentary Association.

Filmmaker AJ Schnack of the excellent Kurt Cobain About A Son which is also screening at DocuWeek, has all the good stuff on his nifty All These Wonderful Things blog:

Paris Hilton Goes to DocuWeek (No Lie) and Adrian Grenier's Next Doc Project

It's not often that we, in our relatively doc-centric little world, are allowed to get all Just Jared on your ass, but lo and behold, DocuWeek - at least for a brief moment - found itself in the middle of a paparazzi moment when celebrity friend-couple of the moment Paris Hilton and Adrian Grenier dropped by the Landmark to catch Alex Gibney's excellent TAXI TO THE DARKSIDE.

Read AJ's entire post here.
Photos and a video with all the pertinent Paris and Adrian pics can be found here.

Girls On Film

Fellow movie lovers and entertainment industry veterans Suzanne Keilly and Heather Stewart (from Revision3's 'Ctrl-Alt-Chicken') review two movies a week on this frank and entertaining videoblog. Not too shy to pluck away on current blockbusters, the gals apply an innovative and convincingly simple ratings system: 'Run to the theater', 'walk to the theater' or 'netflix it'.

GOF follows an interesting distribution model: Instead of licensing their own broadband player, the Girls and the series’ producer, Diggnation's Alex Albrecht, opted to upload every episode to Revver and then string them together embedded in a TypePad blog. And voilá—the Girls on Film Network.

Check out the first episode they ever posted: The show’s domestic setting and laid-back single-set-up shooting style blends well with Suzanne’s and Heather’s tongue-in-cheek screwball delivery. The show open is adorable with sprinkles of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, only here two gals share top billing.

Run to the theater!

Liam Lynch podcasts Tenacious D

Liam Lynch, writer / director and composer of United States of Whatever-fame runs a very entertaining website that showcases almost all of his talents. In true 2.0 storyteller fashion, he muses on his experience with Tenacious D, whose upcoming The Pick of Destiny Liam directed, by posting his own behind the scenes footage on his site.

An entire Tenacious D episode of Lynchland, the director’s own podcast series, is dedicated to following the director to various post production sessions. Absolute highlight: Jack Black conducts the orchestra during a scoring session with passionate abandon to the delight of LA’s finest classical studio musicians.

StimTV

StimTV is a quirky channel streaming from Oxnard, California. Launched in the fall of ’05, the player exclusively serves up short clips of movies, television and music videos with some interviews thrown in, sort of like a multi-DVD player stuck in shuffle. If a clip catches your fancy you can play it full length if it’s in the archive. Most certainly sending every viewers ADD into overdrive, I also wouldn’t want to run their legal department and deal with Rights and Clearances issues.

Their StimTV promos are highly original and alone worth the click: Located under ‘tutorial video’ you can find promos that are shot like old fashioned educational films with the occasional low-tech effect thrown in, and there are more hilarious tutorials hidden in search. My absolute favorite—cardboard cutouts of StimTV templates to demonstrate how to navigate the site.