Persepolis trailer

I regularly check out the latest trailers on Apple.com and today this one caught my eye. It's a foreign-language film that toured many festivals and was eventually picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, Sony's independent distribution arm.

What caught my eye was the uniqueness of the film. It's a film set in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, told from the perspective of a nine year-old girl. It is based on the graphic novels of Marjane Satrapi and remains completely faithful to the visual look of the books. It's not a bloody, stylized Sin City-look, it's more the look of a children's animated TV show. It reminds me of the old animated show Madeline, about the schoolgirl in France. This kind of look and feel is an interesting approach considering the bloody nature of the story.

Persepolis trailer

Posted by Jon Chappell on Friday December 7 2007 6:43 AM to Indie, Festivals and Awards
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Looking to monetize your online videos?

If you're looking to gain money from online videos, you should definitely check out this report at TubeMogul.

The PDF file lists 11 video sharing sites that they monitor and shows statistics such as whether or not they offer a revenue scheme, how much of a share content providers receive and, uniquely (and most importantly in my opinion), gives user opinions on the site.

Very valuable if you're looking to make money from your content online.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Friday November 23 2007 9:40 PM to Industry, Indie, Analysis
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RED cameras delayed

RED has announced that it is delaying the shipment of some of its cameras in order to resolve issues discovered with some of the earlier models. They are fitting a new daughter board to the cameras which should increase dynamic range and reduce noise at frame rates 25fps and below, and they are designing new PL lens mounts. The old mounts were causing focus issues.

They are adding these modifications to cameras 1-100 which means that cameras 101-200 will ship a month later on November 30th, with this update included.

RED has stated that it is taking on the full cost of the updates.

[via CamcorderInfo]

Posted by Jon Chappell on Saturday November 10 2007 11:06 AM to Hardware, Cameras, Indie
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Moby offers royalty free film music to non-commercial films

Moby is offering royalty-free film music to "independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short."

If you are using it for commercial use, you can apply for an "easy" license with all proceeds being given to the Humane Society.

This represents the third example this year (that I can think of, let me know if I missed anything) of a major artist bypassing a record label. The first was Prince, who released his album Planet Earth for free in a UK newspaper, then Radiohead released their album In Rainbows on the internet for whatever price downloaders were willing to pay.

Life is getting harder for the record labels because the viral nature of the internet means that some established artists are questioning the need for a middleman.

[via HDForIndies]

Posted by Jon Chappell on Thursday November 8 2007 9:00 PM to Industry, Useful sites, Indie
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The results of Radiohead's experiment

iTWire is reporting that Radiohead's experimental approach of allowing listeners to choose the price they would be willing to pay for their album was, largely, successful.

Predictably, the majority (62%) of people chose to pay absolutely nothing. However, 10% of people chose to pay a price comparable to what they would pay in a store, whilst the majority of the remaining customers paid between $4 and $8.

Radiohead earned, on average, $2.26 per album sold. Not very much when albums sell on iTunes for $10. But if they were to sell the album on iTunes, they would only make $1 per album with the rest being split between Apple and the record label. It's also interesting to note that not only did they make more money (even with hosting costs), they lost none of it to piracy.

The article raises the question of how successful this approach would have been if it had been an unknown band adopting this approach. My personal belief is that although there will always be freeloaders in life, if the content is good enough there will always be people who want to see more good content in the future. The internet is the perfect place for viral marketing, if you know how to exploit it.

The album, In Rainbows, is available here for whatever price you'd like.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Wednesday November 7 2007 7:39 PM to Industry, Indie, Analysis
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