We're starting to see ever more sophisticated uses of the medium, from major studios as well as indepen-dent film-makers. Of course, most people simply put their finished work on YouTube to promote their films and to make some money from advertising. But many are putting experimental ideas on the site to gauge the reaction and refine their plans, while others have used viewer feedback to determine where in the world to arrange showings when distribution budgets are tight. The point is that film-makers are involving the viewer in every stage of the process – from ideas-generation, to editing, to distribution.

Movie-making has always been about collaboration. But the new kinds of interactivity we're seeing are blurring the division between fans and film-makers. Look at m.strange's We Are the Strange, which viewers have translated into 17 different languages; look at

Four Eyed Monsters, which is about the couple who made it and how they met on a social networking site, and which has drawn so many video responses from viewers that they've edited their favourites into a follow-up film.

The mainstream is catching on. After its success online, Four Eyed Monsters got a DVD release, and after 32 million views, an amateur nature film called Battle at Kruger has been adapted for an hour-long National Geographic special

• Reed Hastings / Founder & CEO, Netflix
  How is the home viewing experience evolving?


• Phil Tippett / Founder, Tippett Studio
  Jonathan Rothbart / Co-founder, The Orphanage
  The future of visual effects


• Sara Pollack, Film Manager, YouTube
  Alex Afterman, Founder, Heretic Films
  Tiffany Shlain, Director, "The Tribe" & "Connected: A Declaration of Interdependence"
  Jonathan Marlow, Director of Content Development, Vudu
  The new landscape of distribution


• Mike Curtis, HD for Indies
  Jeremiah Birnbaum, Founder, San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking
  Insights from the edge of digital cinematography and post-production


• M dot Strange, Animator and Filmmaker, "We Are the Strange"
  Building a fan base online


• Gregg Spiridellis, Co-founder, JibJab Media
  Michael Ferris Gibson, Director, "24 Hours on Craigslist" & Producer, "Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story"
  New avenues for creativity and storytelling


• Michaelene Risley, Independent filmmaker
  New approaches to fundraising


• Alex Lindsay, Founder, Pixel Corps
  Producing high-end series for the Web


• Lance Weiler, Director, "Head Trauma" and Game Developer, "Hope is Missing"
  Peggy Weil, Artist & Game Developer, "Gone Gitmo" and "The Redistricting Game"
  Opportunities at the Convergence of Games and Cinema

Here's how bad the odds are: of the 5000 films submitted to Sundance each year-- generally with budgets under $10 million--maybe 100 of them got a US theatrical release three years ago. And it used to be that 20 of those would make money. Now maybe five do. That's one-tenth of one percent.

Put another way, if you decide to make a movie budgeted under $10 million on your own tomorrow, you have a 99.9% chance of failure.

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir wrote a follow up piece with this final, positive-ish conclusion:

The indie booms of the '80s and '90s crested and collapsed in their turn, but the best filmmakers always survived -- and without fail every year moviegoers turn some totally unlikely release into a big hit. As far as the old-fashioned movie experience is concerned, Gill is probably right that in a few years we'll have half as many films released in half as many theaters. This will be a sad transition for many of us, sure. But the movies weren't killed by television, they weren't killed by VHS and DVD, and they can't be killed by whatever's happening now.

The New York Times' David Carr concluded thus:

Some of Mr. Gill’s peers in the industry told me he was more Captain Obvious than prophet. Still, he got people’s attention because by the time he finished talking, it sounded as if he were pitching a particularly gruesome horror movie: “The strongest of the strong will survive and in fact prosper. But it will feel like we just survived a medieval plague. The carnage and the stench will be overwhelming.”

Brian Newman, CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute, doesn't disagree with Mark Gill but argues that most truly independent filmmakers are not remotely affected by the fate of Warner Independent, Picturehouse, New Line, Paramount Vantage et al:

Mark Gill’s analysis, even the parts I would debate, is fairly accurate, but pretty much meaningless to 99% of the indies I (and you) know. For most of us – those making truly indie films, and those watching them – not one of Gill’s thirteen disaster points mean anything to us.

Nothing.

Picturehouse, Warner Independent, etc and all – wouldn’t distribute most of the films that I've seen and/or supported this year, have nothing to do with what we call Indie, and are for all intents and purposes meaningless to us. I’m not saying I haven’t liked any of their films, or that they haven’t been important to the movie business. I am saying that few of these companies would ever pick up 99% of the films accepted to Sundance (or any other fest) anyways, and that whether or not they tank has no real impact on the majority of indies I know. For them, they haven’t truly had a distributor for their films since perhaps the early 90s, if ever. And they’ll keep making their films, their audiences will keep finding ways to see them – be it at festivals or online or through a hand-me-down VHS tape. So, for the rest of us, points 1-13 add up to possibly one thing- less parties to try to get into at Sundance, but not much more in terms of indie film.

Newman adds:

Bottom line- very few people are doing well in the film business. Kinda like in America in general, but that’s another blog post. It’s about time that filmmakers wake up to this fact collectively, and come up with their own models. No one can afford to keep making films per the usual model. People are spending a lot more making their films than what they are earning back.

Producer Ted Hope sent out an email to friends and colleagues saying that we are at a cultural crossroads and that we need to step up as a community and fight the good fight :

We are between things and the old model no longer works and the new one is undefined. But I see some real hope nonetheless.

This change has been much discussed for the last fifteen years, but the digital revolution is very slow in coming. This slow trickle has, in my opinion, allowed for a withering away of what truly made the indie film world unique, which is the glue that kept it a community and not just a demographic. Digital downloads won't be anyone's salvation, but the internet can truly rebuild what has collapsed -- but it's time to look at the infrastructure first.

Time and time again, films emerge that define a community and the community comes out to support in droves. Similarly, it truly feels to me that we are at a cultural crossroads, where we -- as a community of filmmakers and film lovers -- are in real danger of losing access to a dynamic range of personal cinema, unless the various communities start to take steps to unite and speak up for the world they want. We can't keep settling for the crap that is hoisted upon us.

There are new models emerging as people and organizations experiment and try new things. Just look at the work of Lance Weiler, Matt Hanson, Brett Gaylor, Liz Rosenthal, Peter Broderick, Four Eyed Monsters, Withoutabox, B-Side, Breaththrough Distribution, IndiePix... and Shooting People!

Are we feeling optimistic? Well, there's a lot of testing and inventing and experimenting to be done and there's a lot at stake but hell yeah! We're not going to stop making films (and we know there is an audience out there thirsty for innovative, creative and visionary work - and for work that isn't as prescriptive as the solution for successful films that Gill proposes, go make your dark, rambling Western if you can pull it off!) so we're going to have to figure this out. Together.

We maintain up-to-the-minute relationships with and knowledge of all digital retailers, from the large portals serving the broadest audiences to the small sites serving deep niche interests. CRM provides clients with a fully-integrated digital rights management service including:

• Pioneering sales negotiation and strategy
  


• Digital encoding logistics
  


• Committed grassroots marketing
  


• Collated accounting and reporting

From the article

“We act as a conduit for these smaller films that don’t have a fighting chance to compete with blockbusters,” notes Matt Dentler, a sales agent for one-year-old CRM. Dentler knows all too well about plucky indie films — his last job was director of the well-respected South by Southwest film festival. “Big budget films dominate the market, while other films don’t have the manpower to support a $20 million marketing budget.”

So how can an indie film attract eyeballs before its release? CRM is pursuing deals with various portals, although Brown is tight-lipped about specifics. Dentler mentioned the firm will try to get word-of-mouth buzz to prominent bloggers, while also embracing online-video campaigns to release scenes, outtakes and trailers on various media. Some strategies may involve podcast interviews with directors; others may use offline screenings to help build momentum. “These aren’t new tools,” Dentler admits, “but we’ll apply them correctly to the films that best fit them.”

Brown says CRM will focus on all films where the digital rights are cleared. Back catalogue titles can be spread virally, as well, such as the 1994 classic Hoop Dreams. Dentler envisions those kinds of films garnering new audiences. “There are younger fans who have never seen Hoop Dreams so if they heard about it online, maybe they’d want to rent it somewhere,” he says.

“We bring a specialized skill set,” Brown says. “We get these films to audiences who want to see them.”

Easier said than done. CRM is trying to stay on top of social media and blogosphere trends in order to give producers a much-needed digital boost. But it has to promote films online without irritating Web surfers and give audiences something fresh and exciting. The real challenge to promote a new film comes when the public is being bombarded by billboards and trailers from the major studios, stiff-arming less expansive campaigns by smaller films.

“The easiest way to not go viral is to try going viral,” Dentler says, half-laughing. “There’s no perfect science in how to market and brand films. We’re hopeful our deals with major portals will lead to a satisfying and enjoyable experience for everyone – filmmakers, studios and movie fans.

If you get in to a festival, make yourself available to them for press. Make a contact that you can rely on (and who can rely on you). Meet your deadlines. Have a healthy dialogue about screening times and potential audiences. And treat everyone with respect.

If you don't get in, how about sending a letter of thanks for their consideration (you're going to make another film, right?) and how you look forward to meeting them down the road. And then move on.

Festivals, whether they pay you or give you face time with Debra Zimmerman or put you in a fancy B&B, can be your friend. More importantly, they can be your partner in reaching an audience for your film that you might otherwise miss. And yes, they can be part of an "ersatz distribution system", particularly at a time when fewer films are being distributed.

But like all parts of your filmmaking journey, it's up to the filmmaker to be educated and to make smart choices.

AJ links to some top doc festivals in the post which is a useful resource if you're trying to figure out how fests differ and where you should consider submitting your film.