From American Cinematographer Magazine
(print and web edition: http://www.cinematographer.com)

Thanks in part to the Dogma 95 film movement and Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film "The Celebration," digital technology and its "DIY" (Do It Yourself) ethics have revolutionized both the film industry and the medium itself, much like the French New Wave did in 1959. In the United States, the wide releases of independent DV films such as Bennett Miller's "The Cruise" and Miguel Arteta's "Chuck & Buck" (see "AC" July '00) have caused a stir, and Hollywood has quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Even world-renowned filmmakers such as George Lucas and Spike Lee are getting in on the act: Lucas used Sony HD 24p digital cameras on the new "Star Wars" movie, and Lee photographed his latest film, "Bamboozled," in Mini DV.

Sorority Crimefighters
Because of this growing trend and the great advances in technology, we will soon see hundreds of independent films being produced by filmmakers who all have great hopes for fame, money and even artistic achievement. But there is one problem: where will we see all of these films? There are simply not enough distributors or theaters to accommodate every filmmaker's personal project.
Thus far, the only viable solution to the growing problem of distribution has been the Internet. According to Arbitron Research, more than 16 million people have streamed a video in the past year, and more than 100 million streaming-media players have been downloaded on the Internet. It's also predicted that consumer access to broadband will grow from two million subscribers today to more than 30 million by 2004. Even more fascinating is Forrester Research's prediction that by 2005, some 92 percent of U.S. online households will create and share personal multimedia content. With all of these factors coming into play, it's often said that the next "Blair Witch Project" will not be promoted online, but will actually "be" online.

An Eye-catching Short
on Eveo.com
In the main arena, the recent merger of AOL and Time Warner sent shockwaves throughout the business world and signaled a new type of collaboration between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Following in the footsteps of online digital music distribution, a great number of online entertainment Web sites are streaming films in the hope that the Net will be the future screening space of new and exciting work. "TV execs have ditched their vision of a 500-channel universe," says journalist Laura Rich of "The Australian" "Industry Standard, "which has dubbed itself "the newsmagazine of the Internet economy." Instead, she adds, "they're banking on thousands of channels surfed via mouse rather than remote control."
Many of these new sites are focusing on the thousands of unknown and struggling filmmakers who have not received wide distribution, or any distribution at all. With the lack of broadband in most households, most of these Web sites are starting with modest goals and are streaming short or animated films, which have a more feasible length for people who have slower, dial-up Net connections. And while online audiences and revenues are still small, the possibilities of this new outlet seem to be unlimited. In his keynote speech at the first annual Yahoo! Online Film Festival, Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber had some interesting thoughts about the future of online entertainment. "With a feature film being released into theaters, we have to market the film to millions," he said. "On the Internet, we will have to market to just one, but a million times over."

An Eye-catching Short
on Eveo.com
Perhaps the two online entertainment Web sites that have been getting the most attention in the press have been Atom Films and iFILM. Since starting up in late 1998, Atom Films (www.atomfilms.com) has been acquiring exclusive rights to short films, animation and digital media; the site generates revenue by distributing this content through TV networks, airlines, theaters, home video and the Internet. Keeping pace with the AOL/Time Warner merger, Atom Films has struck deals with Blockbuster, HBO, and Warner Bros., and has also established business ties with companies that produce handheld and wireless devices.
In addition to alliances with major companies, Atom Films has also developed relationships with celebrities and cutting-edge directors. For example, Atom recently teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio's Birken Interactive Studio to produce an international online short-film festival titled "The Savage Sideshow". They also recently announced that director Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich") has joined their advisory board and will help counsel Atom Films on the company's future direction. Atom will also exclusively distribute a number of Jonze's short films, including "Amarillo by Morning" and "How They Get There".
Following its launch in October of 1998, iFILM (www.ifilm.com) has become one of the leading resources for online film viewing. Very different from Atom Films, which functions somewhat like a traditional film distributor, iFILM is the first film portal and directory, linking viewers to more than 10,000 online films. Akin to a Yahoo! service for films, iFILM divides online films into different categories, including drama, action, international, experimental, spoof and student films. The site also has a section that attempts to target niche audiences, such as gay/lesbian, women and teens. Additionally, the portal links viewers and filmmakers to other things that relate to film, such as news, schools, festivals, production houses, studies and film trailers.

One of the big success stories from iFILM has been the short film "Sunday's Game," which was directed by Gene Laufenberg and produced by David Garrett. Produced as a "calling card" while Laufenberg and Garrett were working on sitcoms, "Sunday's Game" was rejected by every film festival until iFILM president Roger Raderman approached the filmmakers about launching their short on his Web site. Compared to the typical film festival, which probably has a few hundred attendees, iFILM's showcase allowed "Sunday's Game" to be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. "It's really hard to quantify what it did and didn't do," says Garrett. "But when it went up on the site, we were all unemployed writers." After the film was shown on the site, however, it received press coverage from "Variety, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times" and "The New York Times," which in turn generated a tremendous amount of buzz about the project. Based on the exposure and overall strength of the film, Garrett and Ward subsequently sold two TV pilot scripts to Fox and three feature-film pitches, one of which recently completed production at Disney. Director Laufenberg sold a pilot that he wrote and directed for MTV and has also inked a studio deal at Fox 2000.
In contrast to Atom Films and iFILM, a few other sites have adopted unorthodox business plans and a more grass-roots approach in attempting to lure viewers and filmmakers. Launched in the summer of 1999, San Francisco-based Eveo (www.eveo.com) is an independent video network that enables aspiring filmmakers to create short videos (dubbed "Eveos") that will premiere on the Web site. Most online entertainment companies, such as Atom Films, have a competitive selection process that's not unlike those used by traditional film distributors and festivals. What sets Eveo apart is that the site offers any individual an opportunity to showcase his work, as long as it hews to a simple requirement: a running time of three minutes or less. Eveo will also not accept home videos or pornographic material.

An Eye-catching Short
on Eveo.com
As a predominantly DV-based site, Eveo has assembled a creative advisory board that includes independent DV pioneers such as Bennett Miller ("The Cruise"), Todd Verow ("Frisk") and Haskell Wexler, ASC ("Bus Rider's Union"). Eveo president and CEO Olivier Zitoun, who has more than 14 years of experience in the high-tech industry, has a very individualistic attitude about what his site will provide for filmmakers. "The Web has been very successful as a tool (for) letting people express themselves since the first days of the Internet, (from) chat rooms and bulletin boards to home pages and MP3s, (and) now video," Zitoun says. "Like the Internet, Eveo is truly about people and self-expression."
Based in New York and Los Angeles, Nibblebox (www.nibblebox.com) is another of the more interesting online entertainment sites on the Web. Created by TV executive David Bartis and film director Doug Liman ("Swingers, Go"), Nibblebox gives college students around the country cameras, sound equipment, funding and mentoring to allow them to create video, radio and animated content to be showcased on the Web. During their student days at Brown University, Bartis and Liman founded an organization called The National Association of College Broadcasters. They created Nibblebox for 18- to 24-year-old college students, who are usually the early adopters and innovators of the Internet.
The site has built a network of content creators by developing partnerships with campus TV stations, radio stations, film clubs and other creative groups. Students submit proposals for projects, which Nibblebox then puts through a selection process. The chosen projects are assigned mentors, who assist in the development and creation of the content; this program has already benefited from the participation of world-class filmmakers such as Steven Soderbergh ("The Limey, Erin Brockovich") and Wim Wenders ("Wings of Desire").

Virtual Rob
A good example of the type of programming Nibblebox offers is a show called "Virtual Rob," which is both episodic and interactive. Each installment of the show features Rob, the first clickable human being, standing in the middle of a different environment that is also clickable. If you click Rob's arm, something strange happens to it, and if you click a vodka bottle in the background, Rob will drink it, fall over and slap himself to sober up. Bartis firmly believes that Nibblebox has the strongest grass-roots philosophy of any site on the Web. "Nobody is out there developing grass-roots content, and nobody is giving people the tools to create content like we are," he maintains. "We like to say that we're (providing) both the physical tools and the intellectual tools."
In terms of profits, most Web sites have standard deals with filmmakers, although many of them differ. Eveo has a two-level agreement. The first is a non-exclusive deal via which Eveo pays the filmmaker $100 to stream his or her work on the site. Every time the film is viewed, the filmmaker makes 5 cents. If the film is one of the top picks, it will be acquired for exclusive rights, for which Eveo pays $750 in up-front costs. On top of that, the site offers the filmmaker 55 percent of the revenue for online and offline syndication. According to Zitoun, a filmmaker can make $100 on the low end and $1,500-$2,000 on the high end. Nibblebox requires the assignment of the rights to Nibblebox, but the site attaches the name of the creator permanently to the show in case he makes a deal to take the show offline into a TV series or feature film. Thus the filmmaker will always have an ownership position for the life of the project.
The press has given extensive coverage to the fact that many online entertainment companies are experiencing financial difficulties because of the lack of broadband in the mainstream and the general instability of tech stocks. Recently, Pseudo Programs Inc. (www.pseudo.com), one of the early pioneers of Web-based entertainment, announced that it had laid off all of its 175 employees after running out of money. "It's a little early to do what we do, but it's probably not too early," said CEO David Bohrman in a press release. "I think the funding paralysis that's out there in the economy, (which) happened after April, is what really stopped the flow of financing into this kind of company."

An Eye-catching Short
on Eveo.com
Perhaps the most well-known demise of an online entertainment company has been the turbulent saga of Digital Entertainment Network (DEN). During its short life span, the site raised over $26 million in its first round of financing but suffered financial woes, massive layoffs, management reshuffling, business-plan changes and a sexual-misconduct lawsuit that led to a filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year. According to former DEN President David Neuman, the important element for success is to have financial backers with the will to succeed. "Every successful major media corporation of the past 20 years is inevitably a story of mistakes and/or patient investors who go through years of losing money," said Neuman at this year's Streaming Media East conference. "The venture capitalists in the Internet marketplace do not have the enthusiasm or patience anymore." Even Steven Spielberg's Pop.com, which was to Webcast video, animation and other programming created by big industry names, shut down before streaming even one byte of content.
Until the marketplace begins to take on a firmer shape, many filmmakers and cinematographers are sidestepping entertainment Web sites in favor of their own sites, where they can showcase their films or reels. L.A.-based director of photography Matt Uhry has clips of his reel on his site, www.fuzby.com, which showcases his work as a cinematographer on feature films, commercials and music videos. According to Uhry, the technical process is easier than one might think. He had a version of his reel on Mini DV, which he then captured into his computer using Media Cleaner Pro, which allows the user to capture, enhance, encode and publish streams from one streamlined workflow. Using Sorenson compression, and bearing in mind that most people have only dial-up connections, Uhry chose clips that would last about a minute or less, which would require about 2 or 3 megabytes. With a dial-up connection, downloading the clips would require five or six minutes, while a faster broadband connection allows virtually seamless acquisition.
In mounting his site, Uhry simply used the Webspace that came free with his DSL subscription. Various types of free hosting services exist, but if you have a large media file (such as a feature), you will definitely need a hosting service to stream the content; that can cost anywhere from $10 to $1,000, depending on the services and potential streams.
In terms of shooting specifically for the Web, Uhry feels that compression is the most important factors for cinematographers to bear in mind. With compression, it's best to use a stationary camera, very plain backgrounds, and "even" lighting. Of course, many cinematographers will find these restrictions creatively limiting. "It's okay if you're trying to do something that's strictly information-based, but if you're trying to make something entertaining, you sort of have to drop those guidelines," Uhry says. "Still, it's definitely good to keep in mind what compresses most easily; for example, handheld camera footage does not compress very well."
Putting his reel online has been a great help to Uhry's career in terms of speed and convenience. "I found that having pieces of my reel on the Web has been great when I'm on the phone with a director I've never met," he says. "While we're talking, I can simply direct that person to my Web site to pull up a clip so he or she can see what my work is about."
The Web site also makes the process of making and sending out VHS tapes much easier. "Some jobs don't necessarily merit sending out a tape," Uhry notes. "It might be a situation where the director or producer is in New York or overseas and has to see something that day." Although Uhry admits that a VHS tape is better in terms of quality, he believes that his Web site gives people an easy place to start.
Although times are presently hard, the film industry is optimistic about the future of online entertainment and confident that the profits will eventually come. As the tech side of the economy corrects itself, everyone involved in the Internet has sobered up and realized that they can't build a business simply by advertising and selling banners. Nibblebox's Bartis believes that everyone is learning from the examples of DEN and Pop.com. "It's tough right now," he concedes. "I think we all believe that entertainment content will be delivered online, but whether you can make money with that as your sole business has yet to be seen."

Eveo's Zitoun believes that the technology still has limitations, particularly in light of the fact that computer users still don't have a TV-like experience while watching content on the Web. He predicts that streaming video and the distribution of content will go beyond the PC to include wireless devices, PDAs, set-top boxes such as Tivo, and new kinds of appliances that have yet to be developed. Zitoun also predicts major changes in copyright law due to cases like the Napster court battle. "I will not be surprised to see two models of copyright: one section of copyrighted content and one section of everything else," he offers.

A sky-diver takes
the plunge on iFilm.com
On an individual basis, however, content creators are optimistic. The filmmakers behind "Sunday's Game" agree with the assumption that the Web will be a future farm club or nursery for exciting new filmmakers. At present, notes Garrett, "there's the studio system, (which is) inflexible to new talents, but there's also the film-festival trap, (in which) only a few people decide what the audience is going to see. With the Web, it's definitely up to the individual."
In terms of cinematic images, Uhry is excited about the arrival of more broadband in American homes. "As people have faster and faster data streams into their houses, it makes it a lot easier to up the quality from a QuickTime movie to a DVD," he says. "As far as NTSC is concerned, you can kind of kiss videotapes good-bye."
In Michael Powell's classic 1960 thriller "Peeping Tom," actress Maxine Audley scolds Karl Boehm with the line, "All this filming isn't healthy!" That phrase may be an appropriate metaphor for the current state of independent filmmaking in America. Whether or not the Internet will be savior of film exhibition and distribution remains to be seen, but it's virtually certain that independent film production will skyrocket. Given the thousands of films being made each year, most will never be viewed on an actual theater screen. In some cases, that may be a good thing, although the current ratio of good films to bad might still apply.
On the positive side, however, the Internet and new digital technology will definitely allow creative people the opportunity to make films that normally wouldn't have a chance. In the 1991 documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse," director Francis Ford Coppola muses, "One day, some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father's camera, and for once this so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever, and it will become an art form."