Month: January 2013

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Truly Free Film

Corrupted By The Individual Hero

Stay with me on this one…  It may start personal, but it is about the stories we tell and why…

Yesterday, Vanessa and I began the marathon of unpacking our life in San Francisco. Probably 7 more such sessions to go… Boxes galore!

Our place in SF is 1/2 the size as what we left in NYC (such is the not-for-profit life!). Aching back, some broken dishes, but each new box is a promise and a hope. And every time we empty one, I get more energized.

You don’t get many chances to change your life, or to embark on grand adventures with

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Truly Free Film

Forward! Pirates Know Best

By Rob Millis

Last week Kim Dotcom — the notorious king of piracy — unveiled Mega, his new, barely legal file sharing site that is sure to be a haven for illegal video sharing. Film distributors are up in arms and a renewed cry for harsher consequences has reached the ears of Congress.

Yet there is no legislation, lawsuit or technical restriction that can stop piracy. In an industry riddled with conflicts of interest, many leaders of media companies are reluctant to speak frankly, but every single one of them knows they cannot protect against piracy in any absolute way. We can put up roadblocks, we can scramble data, but there is always a way around digital security.

So how do we defend against piracy when there is no way to secure content?

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Issues and Actions

Most People Feel It Is Okay To Share Content

TorrentFreak reported last week:

One of the most comprehensive studies into media sharing and consumption habits in the United States and Germany reveals that nearly half of the populations have copied, shared or downloaded music, movies, and TV shows. Sharing occurs both on- and offline, but the latter is seen as reasonable by most people. The report does, however, reveal that online file-sharers consume more music than their non-file-sharing counterparts.

Today the American Assembly, a non-partisan public policy forum affiliated with Columbia University, published

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Truly Free Film

Google with Friends? Facebook’s Graph Search and What it Means to You

By Reid Rosefelt

IMPORTANT NOTE:

As I was finishing my recent post on Facebook’s Graph Search, Tom Scott’s Tumblr blog on Facebook’s new Graph Search feature, “Actual Facebook Graph Searches,”  went viral.   Scott searched things like others of Jews who like Bacon,  married people who like Prostitutes, and current employers of people who like Racism, and more disturbingly, family members of people who live in China and like Falun Gong, and Islamic men interested in men who live in Tehran, Iran.   It’s likely that some of these “likes” were intended to be ironic.  I’m doubtful that that people would say they liked Prostitutes, even if they did, andGizmodo  found people with dubious likes for “Shitting my pants,” as well as some creepy things that might not be ironic.   But as has been noted a lot, it would be hard for people in China to say they were joking about liking the Falun Gong.

I advise all of you to go to “3 Privacy Changes You Must Change Before Using Facebook Graph Search”  (Gizmodo) and  Facebook Graph Search: Now Is The Time to Go Over Your Privacy Settings (ABC News).  I also think it would be worth studying The Facebook Privacy information page.

Last Tuesday, Facebook introduced a new feature called Graph Search at a highly hyped press conference.  Wall Street, which had been expecting a phone ,was not impressed, and the stock dived by 6.5% (it’s since recovered).  On the other hand, the social media bloggers almost unanimously called Graph Search a triumph and Mashable declared:  “Facebook Graph Search Could Be Its Greatest Innovation.”

What is it?  Graph Search gives you the power to tap into the web of connections between you and your friends in a way that has never existed before.  For example, if you type in a question like “Which of my friends like Moonrise Kingdom?” you will be shown a list of your friends, weighted by the ones you interact with the most, i.e., best friends on top.   You could also ask, “What films do my friends like?” and presumably–I haven’t seen it yet–the films at the top of the list will be the ones most liked by your friends. You can also add other variables to your search like “Which of my female Los Angeles friends who speak French like Moonrise Kingdom?”  

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Categories
Issues and Actions

When Do They Need A License To Screen A Film?

The other week I tweeted:

Any time a film is shown outside a person’s personal home, the screening is considered “public”& u must license the rights.

I expected not much of a response, but it got some retweets & favs.  I fell into this subject courtesy of the Art House Convergence google group (always a fountain of information!).  My tweet was abbreviated from

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Truly Free Film

More Good Things In Film 2012

I wrote a list.  I checked it twice.  I wrote one naughty.  I wrote one nice.  But dang it, I just could not get it all done in a single sitting, now could I?   So here I go, singing low.  Swing on sweet chariot…  Carry me home.

There’s more good in this world than I can see in a single glance.  I have six more reasons I found to celebrate (bringing us up to 22); maybe you can add further to the list?

  1. Megan Ellison.  I don’t know this savior to our world, but I thank her.  She makes complicated movies with ambition and no easy answers.
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Truly Free Film

Our Indie Infrastructure Limits The Menu Of Our Content Consumption

Not only are you what you eat, you are what is on the menu.  It’s not just what sells that people buy, it is what is sold.  The March Hare Syndrome indicates people don’t demand the truly tasty until it is delivered to them.  Market forces are not the be-all or end-all – a little intervention can be a game-changer.

If you want movies to be able to change the world, sometimes you have to change the world first.  In pivoting the film infrastructure from a mass-market focus to that which can serve niche audiences, we have to observe who it is that is setting the menu.  Not much of a surprise there really, it is once again the Old White Guys (and yes, I am one).

Film will

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