PRESS RELEASE :: WEB SITE

PlaceVine today announced the conclusion of its successful beta and the general availability of The Brand Integration Service, a web-based information service connecting marketers to product placement, sponsorship, and branded entertainment opportunities in film, tv, and new media.

I believe we are on the brink of a new indie filmmaking movement. And i don’t mean the emergence of a new sub-genre. Currently filmmakers are focused on the monetary value of their films. And selling it to a distributor as a monetary reward. but say you were to aggregate your film using bit torrent, giving it away for free as Jamie King did with Steal This Movie. his film has been downloaded 6 million times. if he were able to track who and where those people were, he would have something very valuable – a list he could take to advertisers and brands and say, this is my audience. this is the demographic i can offer, lets negotiate and strategize.

And so I come to this… METADATA. At the recent Power to the Pixel conference, this topic was on everyone’s mind. A special think tank I sat in on and observed was put together to address this and other challenges the DIY filmmaking community faces.

How to collect it, what info could be useful to collect, is anybody out there already doing it — these are the questions they asked and we will be asking as this movement evolves. For lack of a better term, I’m using From Here To Awesome to describe this movement from now on. forget the first incarnation of FHTA as an online festival of sorts. It is evolving into something bigger, more inclusive. this new wave is what I will continue to blog about so everything will go under my “from here to awesome” category if you wish to follow these articles.

Would a universal form be ideal? Like what Without A Box did for film festival submissions – fill it out with all your film’s info then open it up to your audience like a Wiki? obviously the tech for something like this is not in place, but I imagine there are ways to do it. perhaps by embedding the metadata into the files of the film, like that which is done with mp3s.

Thinking about this, I pose the question to you… what metadata could be useful for filmmakers who want to sell DVDs, hold screenings, use brand integration, solicit advertisers? And how do we collect it?

Chuck Forsman, who sometimes goes by Chuck McBuck, just won two Ignatz Awards for Outstanding Comic and Outstanding Series. He was also nominated for Promising New Talent. The Ignatz Awards, named for the character in the classic comic strip Krazy Kat by George Herriman, is a festival prize that recognizes outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning. The ballot is created by a panel of five cartoonists and is then voted on by the attendees at the event. This offers a unique reflection of the views the professionals and their fans.

You can check out his work at his web site and blog, ChuckMcBuck.com.

I FUCKING HATE YOU will be available for a limited time as a FREE SCREENING on YouTube.com in conjunction with the From Here To Awesome / OurStage.com promotion. If you dig our little short, please sign-up for a free account and OurStage.com will donate $4 to us, and you’ll receive 30 FREE mp3 downloads.

Click to Watch I FUCKING HATE YOU on YouTube.com.

Just follow any of the OurStage links in this post or at the YouTube link and we will get the referral. It’s not necessary to fill in any referral info, it’s all automated. THANKS!!!