Bend & Bow Via Netflix

For those of you running out of entertainment ideas while you're taking a little time off, here's an easy documentary-related notion. The International Documentary Challenge DVD is now available on Netflix. It's got 17 great short films, including our short documentary Bend & Bow.

You can buy the DVD on Amazon also:

If those two ideas don't help... I don't know, maybe watch some cartoons, I've done what I can.

Party Like It's 1993

Is it just me, or is a lot of the current conversation about the future of film distribution very similar to the discussions folks had in the early 90s about the future of the Web?

I have a book about the "future of art" on my shelf, printed just as the World Wide Web came along. Its predictions are completely wrong. I remember all the excitement about media moving to CD-R. That's faded away, though you could certainly do that today easily -- but no one wants to. And I remember many people who were very adamant that they would never read on a computer screen or buy online. Others said they'd never visit a page with advertising.

I streamed a live video conference in 1997, put streaming video online not that long after that, and have made a lot of work for the Web -- so I'm not surprised by the changes that have happened.

What I don't get, the part that is surprising to me, is how flat-footed people in the film production world have been caught by the changes. I think it's being explained in the wrong terms: it's not that you can't make a film, and it's not that you can't distribute a film. Those things are actually easier than ever. The problem is that they no longer make financial sense. The financial system in place works fine at a certain scale, but doesn't work under the new conditions. There's pressure to make Transformers 8 or a YouTube video of your hamster.

The stuff in the middle -- the good stuff -- needs a new model.

Doc On A Stick

One swallow does not make a summer, but two documentaries on USB flash drives? I think that marks a trend.

Mann releases mushroom doc on USB stick

Canadian director Ron Mann is testing a new method of movie distribution, releasing his documentary Know Your Mushrooms on a customized USB stick. The Toronto-based filmmaker was in the U.S. promoting his new doc — which follows mushroom-hunting gurus and explores mushroom culture — when he discovered a company that creates these flash drives in different shapes, including that of a mushroom.

Limited Editions and Blu-ray Disc!

We’re pleased to announce two limited-edition versions of Objectified designed by our friends over at Build, and the Blu-ray disc edition of the film. Available for pre-order now! USB Limited Edition: Fixed media? Meh. We’ve put a digital copy of the DVD on a tiny, custom-printed 16gb USB drive. Copy the file to your hard drive, watch the movie, and then use the nice little USB stick for all the things you normally use a USB stick.

Distribution and Other Disasters

No one is certain how documentaries will be distributed in the future, or how documentarians will pay the rent. We seem to be in a period of competing possibilities. Obviously, I'm watching this very closely. It's like a science fair experiment.

You can get the International Documentary Challenge DVD on Netflix, and it includes our short documentary Bend & Bow -- as well as sixteen other great documentary shorts.

You can buy that DVD on Amazon as well:

Or you can watch our short Blind Faith: A Film About Seeing on SnagFilms.

I don't know where any of it leads, or how much it adds up to. It's interesting to see it develop, though.