Robert Redford In Spain on the Short Film and Content Vs Technology

Short films for the mini-screen: a perfect match?Robert Redford, director, actor and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, speaks during the opening day news conference at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah January 17, 2008.


BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) — The short film, often used by aspiring directors to showcase their talent, could be more than a career leg-up in the future if the format is embraced by mobile phone users, industry insiders hope.
Hollywood star Robert Redford appears in Barcelona on Wednesday to help sell the idea of the short format on the mini screen at the industry's annual get-together here, the Mobile World Congress.
Promoters believe the three-minute film is perfect for the mobile: conventional wisdom has it that consumers want short, snappy content that they can squeeze in while on-the-go.
"I think there's a global audience for compelling story-telling on mobile phones," says Bill Gajda, marketing director for the mobile industry body the GSM Association.
The industry is desperate to encourage phone owners to use their handsets for more than just phoning and texting -- for which profits are declining in developed countries -- with video, sport, games and mapping the basis of new product offerings.
Actress and film-maker Isabella Rossellini, daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini, is also here to promote a series of mini films she has made about the sex lives of insects, called "Green Porno."
The GSM, after partnering with the the Sundance Film Festival last year, is showcasing a selection of films from leading festivals around the world at this year's Mobile World Congress.
Gajda believes that the supply of short films is abundant, that previous hurdles to watching films on mobile phones are falling and that the challenge now is one of marketing.
"The Sundance festival gets 8,000 short films per year from aspiring directors," he says, underlining the glut of productions available.
"We've got to get the message to mobile users that if you've got five minutes a compelling mobile short film is a click away," he said.
Dan Winterbottom, an analyst for IT and telecom consultancy Informa, stresses that only about 30 percent of people currently use their phone for more than basic phoning and texting on average in most developed markets.
While Gajda stresses the abundance of films available, Winterbottom underlines that the big production companies and film studios that could really drive demand are not interested in the mobile market for the moment.
One day, dreams the industry, someone will make a short-format television series that will be available only on mobile phones, with three-minute installments available for download periodically like a regular TV soap opera.
"At the moment, there are just not enough people watching video on their mobile to make it viable," says Winterbottom.
"It's a chicken and egg situation, until you've got enough content there won't be users, but the content makers aren't interested because there isn't the audience."
Under Gadja's idea, short films would be curated and aggregated then sold to network operators such as Vodafone in bundles.
In the process, the director would get a license fee and the network operators could then offer the films as premium content to their subscribers.
Pete Nuthall, a telecom analyst at market research group Forrester, says short film directors should be encouraged by the emergence of mobile phones with bigger screens and faster download speeds, which make film-watching viable.
"Short films have always been a way into the film industry for film students and film wannabees and the phone presents a new distribution channel for them," said Nuthall.
As well as the aspiring arty directors and the established directors, there are an increasing number of amateur directors whose content is available on user-generated content sites such as YouTube.
Nuthall cites Grocery Store Wars, a hit YouTube production, as the perfect viral film that could drive the use of mobile phones for watching short films.
The five-minute production, based on Star Wars but staged in an organic supermarket, sees stormtroopers played by free-range eggs and Obi Wan-Kenobi as a chocolate biscuit with a cream cheese beard.
"There are some incredibly talented people out there," says Nuthall.

Short Film at the Hook Me Up! Narrative

I was part of the ShootingPeople's, "Hook Me Up! - Narrative" last night at DCTVNY.org a Speed Dating type event were 36 filmmakers: 6 Producers, 6 Directors, 6 Editors, 6 DPs, 6 Writers, and last but not least 6 Composers meet and pitched our projects to each other.

I was very impressed with each member present and even run into one attendee from last year's Film Program Cannes put on by ISFA during the Cannes Film Market.
This Hook-Me Up! alone made it worth being a member of ShootingPeople.org which is a international group based out of UK that all indies should be members of.

I was amazed at how many of the Hook-Up people had been to the Cannes Short Film Corner and is one more sign of the growing importance of the short film which I know call, "video" to distingish them from the feature FILM. In addiction all the Hook-me Up attendees had made or been involved in making short films - "videos".
Even though we only had 3 minutes to talk to each other at the Hook-Up it was enough and those that we want to followup with is easy as we all are NYC filmmakers.

Join ShootingPeople and when they have their next hook-up sign-up and hook-up.

Ralph Ackerman, Founder and Director
International Short Film (video) Association
Film Program Cannes

ISFA's 1st Progressive Film of Note

This is the International Short Film Association's 1st progressive film of note:

Trailer below!

Death of Two Sons

by Micah Schaffer

Synopsis

41 Shots
On Feb. 4, 1999, four New York City Police officers killed African immigrant Amadou Diallo on his own doorstep in a hail of 41 bullets. The inhumanity of Amadou's death outraged African-Americans, so often the victims of such violence themselves, and people of all ethnicities took to the streets in protest.

And yet, despite all the publicity, how many of those marching in Diallo's name could tell you what his native language was or place Guinea on a map?

Two Lives
Jesse Thyne knew Amadou's history better than any other American. An exuberant Peace Corps volunteer from Pasadena, CA, Jesse was assigned to Amadou's home village in Guinea, West Africa. He'd been "adopted" by members of Amadou's family and lived in their house. While Amadou sold hats and gloves on a New York City street corner to save money for college, Jesse was learning to speak the local language and teaching Guinean children math.
When Amadou died, people in Guinea turned to Jesse for an explanation. Jesse was present at Amadou's funeral, where he sat with the Diallo family and served as a translator for American journalists.

Two Tragic Deaths
In January of 2000, almost a year to date after Amadou's death, Jesse was killed in a brutal car accident on a Guinean highway. The taxi driver responsible for Jesse's death spent three years in a Guinean prison - a harsher-than-usual punishment. Amadou's killers walked free.
Jesse's death, like Amadou's, was used as a rallying cry against endemic problems. While thousands of Americans protested Amadou's death, thousands of Guineans came together to march for road safety awareness in a country notorious for reckless driving. Like Amadou, Jesse was repatriated to his home soil for burial. Both families had premonitions and dreams foreshadowing the deaths of their sons, and both deaths had a profound spiritual impact on their nation's religious communities.

One Story
Death of Two Sons follows the life histories of Amadou and Jesse as their dreams led them to each other's home countries. The film looks at the religious, social and political implications of their deaths, raising painful and difficult questions about race and global disparities of justice. Beyond examining the broad societal aspects of these events, the film leads us to a very personal truth: that the loss of any human life is equally tragic. Death of Two Sons shows the common humanity shared by these young men, their families, and their nations.
View trailer:



If you have a progressive film to nomiate for Progressive Film of Note please send to ISFA, 526 W. 26th St. #713, New York, NY 10001 ATTN: Ralph Ackerman

I want a Short Film Anywhere Anytime

Short Films Now with a Digital Assist- I have witnessed many changes in film production and distribution since I made my first short film in 1964. In the early sixties we independent filmmakers dreamed of a time when we could distribute our films directly to the consumer. We had to wait about 35 years for what is now called the "Digital Revolution” to bring that dream to a reality. What I call the "digital reach", is the digital production and distribution of video referred to now as "content" is enabled through Internet sites devoted to making the short film available to view online or download to portable video players or devices like the iPod which connect to the computer and to the internet to gather video content or "3rd generation" cell phones referred to as" smart phones" like the iPhone that receive, download and play a wide assortment of video content sent directly to the user’s phone.
Ralph Ackerman, Founder and Director
International Short Film Assoicatiom

Where Small (short film) is BIG!

Welcome to the home of the International Short Film Assocation's Blog. Visit IAFA's home page for details: www.shortfilm-association.org.

ISFA's MISSION:
The International Short Film Association's mission is to increase the professional opportunitiesfor films, to enhance the growth of film media by providing services, information, and networking with industry distribution professionals to stay on top of emerging delivery systems that consumers find attractive and filmmakers find profitable.

ISFA's Goals: to create new opportunities for films to reach broader distribution; to provide profitable opportunities for filmmakers; and to increase the understanding and ability for makers, technology partners, distributors to collaborate and together influence new distribution models. Members will find all the tools and links to aid them with the day-to-day business of making films.
ISFA is committed to increasing opportunities for films to find their way to emerging distribution platforms and providers. ISFA believes that film is and will become increasingly indepentent "filmmaker" driven. "Gatekeepers" will give-way to a proliferation of "tech" and user solution, empowering distribution enablers.
Ralph Ackerman, Founder and Director
Film Program Cannes www.fim-program-cannes.com
International Short Film Association www. shortfilm-association.com
A717 Entertainment www.a717-entertainment.com