Category: Creative Distribution Initiative

Sundance.org is dispatching its writers to daily screenings and events to capture the 10 days of festivities during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Check back each morning for round-ups from the previous day’s events.

My first memory about politics in Africa began with the execution of former heads of state in Ghana, live on television in 1979. I remember the dimly lit shack, a flickering black and white television, which my friends and I were glued to and the sound of the shots as the bodies went limp. Thirty-three years later, I’m still searching for the footage, and not very successfully, since the archives have burnt down and all the material have been destroyed, or so I am told.

Jessica Oreck is a filmmaker whose work focuses on issues of ethnobiology. Her first feature, “Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo” was released in the US and UK in 2009. Her short film “Venus” played the Sundance Film Festival in 2011.

Simon Pulman works for Starlight Runner Entertainment in New York City, specializing in digital strategy and business development. He explores the emerging world of transmedia storytelling and digital business models on his blog at Transmythology.com, and can be followed on twitter at @simonpulman.

Jigar Mehta is a digital entrepreneur and video journalist. He is the co-founder of the collaborative storytelling platform GroupStream which powers his documentary project 18 Days in Egypt. Visit the 18 Days in Egypt Kickstarter page to help fund the hiring of young Egyptian journalists and students to travel throughout Egypt to collect stories from the last year.

John E. Warnock is co-chairman of the board of directors of Adobe Systems, a company he co-founded in 1982 with Charles Geschke. Dr.

Kyle Henry is filmmaker using Kickstarter to fund his project FOURPLAY, an anthology of shorts including Fourplay: Tampa which is in this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Click here to join the push to complete production on the feature anthology. So we’re at Sundance, about to screen Fourplay: Tampa, one of the shorts that comprise our anthology of shorts feature FOURPLAY, and suddenly I’m a bit nervous.

Few people go into the business of making films because of a passion for file conversions or frame rate quandaries. But the truth is that every filmmaker who wants his or her film to be seen, screened, distributed, or streamed needs to contend with these and other issues pertaining to the swiftly changing world of digital deliverables. Gone are the days when reels of 35mm film were all you needed to show your film; now you need to juggle between ProRes files, HDCAMs, and DCPs—and that’s just for starters.

Andrew Berends is a documentary filmmaker using Kickstarter to fund his project Delta Boys, a recipient of the 2008 Sundance Institute Documentary Film Grant. Click here to join the final push to complete production on this documentary.“Any time you wake up, it’s your morning.

Danielle DiGiacomo is an independent film producer, consultant, and programmer based in New York City. She participated at the 2011 Sundance Institute Creative Producing Lab and is currently working on Elijah Rosenberg’s Ad Inexplorata, an FFP-supported project.On November 21, five days after the Best Kept Secret Kickstarter campaign was launched, I received the following Facebook message from a Hebrew school friend I haven’t seen since shortly after her bat mitzvah.

Lemon Andersen’s play “ToasT” is being presented in collaboration with Under The Radar Festival at the famed Public Theater in New York City. Elise Thoron (who helped to develop and directed County of Kings and Washi Tales) and street artists will be collaborating with set designers to help him bring it to life. “ToasT” is raising production funding on Kickstarter and was recently supported with a development grant from the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab.

Whitney Dow is an award-winning filmmaker whose directing credits include the 2002 Sundance Film Festival documentary Two Towns of Jasper and the Documentary Film Grant recipient When the Drum is Beating, among others. He is using Kickstarter to help fund global distribution of When the Drum is Beating. Click here to help the film reach its goal.