Artists Don’t Think Piracy Hurts Them Financially, Study Shows http://tinyurl.com/3dtm7kk

Big Media pretends to speak for artists but in reality they are only in the business for themselves and frequently take money out of artists pockets, quite deliberately. (more…)

Kevin Smith’s Red State Experiment Has Already Paid for Itself http://tinyurl.com/4ybp2ql

Kevin Smith announced that he would auction off the rights to Red State after a Sundance screening and then infamously sold them to himself, leading to a rant about the state of distribution for independent movies.

He planned on doing a series of screenings-with-director events leading up to an October theatrical release.  Well, according to reports he’s already close to, or achieved, payback of the $4 million budget.

Kevin Smith’s latest passion project Red State has already paid for itself, six months before it actually sees full theatrical release. Thanks to an ambitious multi-city road trip in which Smith traveled to screenings of the movie and spoke with audiences afterward, Red Statehas already made back the $4 million budget production company SMODcast Pictures invested in the film.

Now Kevin Smith comes with a built-in fan base that he’s cultivated over the years (and that is indeed part of any success in this new paradigm – first Connect with your Fans) but it’s not only working for Smith:

That said, Smith isn’t the only filmmaker experimenting with new types of distribution. Edward Burns, for instance, distributed his latest feature film, Nice Guy Johnny, direct to iTunes, VOD and DVD last year, skipping theatrical release altogether. Indie filmmaker Sebastian Gutierrez distributed his Girl Walks Into a Bar directly to YouTube. And Pixar CTO and independent film producer Oren Jacob used a mix of social media and food banksto boost the profile of his documentary Ready, Set, Bag!

Power to the People: The Democratization of Film http://tinyurl.com/4d6o3wq

This is a really good read by Jeff Steele that starts with how production has been democratized through the use of less expensive tools. That ignores a whole lot of costs associated with quality production that aren’t associated with less expensive tools of production, but let’s allow the point for the moment.

His primary point is that, while production is democratized, financing and distribution are not. Again, I wouldn’t argue.

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How TED Learned That ‘Giving It (their talks) Away’ Increased Both Popularity And Revenue http://tinyurl.com/4qo4g6k

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Piracy Once Again Fails To Get In Way Of Record Box Office http://tinyurl.com/5stn339

It seems strange to me that the various movie company players continually bleet how piracy is killing their industry and yet – even without changing business models – they still have record year after record year. Something just doesn’t add up.

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Subscriptions: The Secret to a Sustainable Web Series? http://tinyurl.com/6jz8k5s

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When All Content Is Personalized, Who Needs TV Networks? http://tinyurl.com/4rl3b3r

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Kevin Smith’s distrib plan: “eventize his picture” http://tinyurl.com/457kgee

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Cargo Cults, and Kevin Smith http://tinyurl.com/5tevudm

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What’s going to happen in 2011? http://tinyurl.com/48f979s

Our longest show ever!

In this episode Terence and Philip, with Greg Huson from Secret HQ, look forward to what we can expect in 2011.  You might want to pace yourself on this one as we’ve set a new record for show length.

What will the Microsoft Kinect be used for? Who’ll be releasing new software this year – will we see new versions of Media Composer, Final Cut Pro or Adobe Creative Suite? Will Avid open up to 3rd party hardware? What will be in those releases? Is this the year Metadata (finally) takes off?

How many movies have to not make money from 3D before the fad is over? Or will 3D TV spark 3D production? Will we see RED Epic this year and will it be a success? What will develop with large sensor cameras?

How will the collapse of State Governments affect production subsidies? Will runaway production come back to LA?

When will the tipping point come when distribution breaks out of broadcast and cable channel models? Is ivi going to be ruled legal? What’s the future of Netflix? Is a social network a replacement for channel guides?

What do we wish we could predit for this year? More use of metadata for production automation and where it comes from? What if we didn’t do a first string-out manually? This leads to a discussion of the philosophy of editing.

What will be this year’s surprise? Another DSLR? Another daVinci/Smoke on Mac?

What will happen in distribution? What’s the future of DVD Extras?

What isn’t going to happen that needs to happen?