Vimeo's News and Notes 9.16.13

A late update this morning. WSF news is a bit low because we took a week off after the big push to finish Paranormous. I expect things to start picking back up this week, however.

Indie News

How about a bit of actual production news for the indie filmmakers out there? Vimeo released an update for its on-demand service this week to give you and your audience more options of watching/paying for your content.


Vimeo On Demand launched in March as a simple way of selling video work on the web. To make some cash, all a filmmaker has to do is upload their work, add some information about the movie and set a price. (That plus some shameless, hardcore marketing/self-promotion. We apologize for that, but nobody, and I mean nobody, gets people to watch their stuff by sheer happenstance.) Vimeo takes 10 percent of any revenue, with the rest going to the filmmaker.

Here are the newest features:  if you’re an uploader, you can now set different prices for renting (stream only), and buying (stream and download) – whereas before, you could only offer one price for both options. And if you're a marketing wiz and can generate some buzz, you can also make your film available for pre-order.

Personally I think this is a great thing for indie folk and I expect it to actually change the way we do things here at Walk Softly. Had this feature been in place when we released Cannonball, it may have had a significant impact on our bottom line. So, in the future you can expect our bigger projects to have an On Demand release before they go completely free.

Chipotle Short Film?

And, just because... here's the best commercial you'll see today.


Deadline News and Notes 9.9.13


So, the big news for us last week was this big bubble-lined envelope you see above. If you've been following along lately, you know that we've been feverishly working on our newest project with the hope of submitting it to RiversEdge Film Fest before their final deadline closed. Well, it took a few weeks of hard work and a couple of edit parties to help finish it off but, with a wide grin on my face, I dropped that thing in the mail on Thursday.

I've talked about it before and you'll hear it again I'm sure, so I won't bore you with a bunch of details about why we love RiversEdge so much. In a nutshell: it's a Fall fest, we love downtown Paducah and the food you can find there, the peeps that run it are super nice and they take great care of us. Now, do we think there is some guarantee that we'll be accepted just because we got our submission in under the wire? Absolutely not. I know there were over 80 submissions in our category from countries all over the world, which means that likely less than 25% of them will be accepted into the festival. We've been accepted three years running right now and this would be the fourth. We realize that sooner or later our run of good fortune has to come to an end. But, every year we'll continue to cross our fingers and wait for that email that lets us know yay or nay.

Paranormous

 Now, some thoughts on the product that actually made it into that envelope. The question becomes, what do we have on our hands here? I am extremely curious to see how Paranormous is received. I know we all like it. I know it makes us laugh. A lot. That's nothing new. But, Allen has said several times that he believes Paranormous will have more universal appeal and more audience laughs than anything we've done up to this point. Allen's positive vibes are really interesting to me. I don't disagree with him at all, but it's always hard for me to judge. As the guy who spends the most time in the editing cave, I usually become disconnected with everything we work on and rarely have a solid notion of how good or funny it is by the time I'm done with it. Also, we've been surprised before. Just like we had no idea that Bizarnival, a glorified camera test, would win several Best Short awards and get the attention that it did. You just never know how the public is going to react until you put it out there.

It's also an interesting experiment for me because the very first project we worked on together was in mockumentary style, much like Paranormous. We tried to submit Meltdown to a Lexington festival, got turned down flat and it practically disappeared forever. So will Paranormous be our mockumentary redemption or are we off base? Time will tell.

Speaking of, you may be asking yourself, "When can I see this 'Paranormous'?" Well, IF RiversEdge takes us in, your first opportunity to see it will be in Paducah, KY, November 7-10. We're going to hold off and give those guys the World Premiere if they'll have us. Then we'll have an online premiere sometime afterward. But, if we get denied, we'll likely put it up on our site the day after we stop crying. We'll let you know as soon as we get the news.

So, what now? Finish Space Cops 4 and 5!

We'll see you back here for Indie Wednesday and any other goofiness that comes up.

Indie Wednesday: Toast



Today we feature another film that was shot in Kentucky by a filmmaker born and raised in the Bluegrass State. We met Grayson Johnson at RiversEdge Film Fest two years ago and got the chance to watch his film, Raftbag. The film was genuinely funny, had a fresh voice and Grayson and his cohorts all seemed really nice in our brief interactions.

Now it seems that he is about to debut a new feature that I'd love to see, so let's all take a gander at the trailer for Toast together.

Filmspiration: Accomplish Anything


Hey! We make things!
Our friend Michael Startzman inspired us to inspire YOU with wisdom from our favorite films.

There is no better way to kick off our filmspiration with the master of motivation himself, Mr. Kesuke Miyagi. Now you'll never forget what a man who catches a fly with chopsticks can do.

We'll be selling professional prints of every poster, so get ready to order.
Anyone excited? Let us know in the comments.

Labor Day's News and Notes 9.2.13



Paranormous

Happy Labor Day everybody! I don't know how you're spending yours, but I'm trying to finish up the Paranormous edit, so you aren't going to get much out of me this morning.

The guys came up for an extremely productive edit party on Thursday and now I'm on the cusp of putting a cap on this thing. It's actually within the realm of possibility to finish up and get a DVD in the mail tomorrow.

Labor Day Melee

I'll also leave you with one short video of how we used to spend our Labor Days...


Ahhhh, the good old days.

See you back here for Indie Wednesday and any vital Paranormous updates. Enjoy your day, folks!

VMA's News and Notes 8.26.13

Wait...  I'm not the only one that can see this, right?

Sooo... the VMA's were last night. Apparently they still give out awards for music videos. Where exactly do people see these videos? And I'm not taking a snarky (albeit easy) shot at MTV. Seriously, where do people go to watch music videos?

And can someone please tell me what in the name of all that is (un)holy happened to Hannah Montana? Not to sound like a 90 year-old but, between Miley grinding on Alan Thicke's kid and Kanye being Kanye and all of the other debauched insanity that was going on last night, I'm not sure how the Earth didn't open up and swallow the Barclays Center.

 Miley's performance was an equal-parts mix of horrifying and horrifying and I can't in good conscience recommend that you go find it and watch it. (But do it anyway.) I believe if you took someone from the first century and dropped them in the Barclay's Center last night, they would go back and write the book of Revelation word for word. Somebody start searching for pictures of John the Apostle in last night's crowd.

The Week That Was

-  A quick recap of everything that happened here last week in case you missed it. Judging by the numbers, the Parnormous Intro got lost in the shuffle for a lot of people Saturday morning. If you're in that boat, don't fret because here it is again... (I have no shame.)



-  Our new Office Game got people stirred up pretty well on Friday and gave us a traffic spike.

-  And I also threw out some thoughts on our new Batman-elect, Ben Affleck.

WSF Updates

I spent most of Saturday working on the Paranormous edit and I am happy to announce that the day was well spent. I believe we may be able to put a cap on it this week if I get a couple good nights of work in and if Todd gets the chance to come up and smooth out the rough edges.

The assembly cut is basically all stitched together. Now we need to cut any fat, add some music and graphics and a few effects, and then we might be able to get this thing in the mail. Don't close the mailbox just yet, Paducah!

We'll see you back here for Indie Wednesday and any other goofiness we can come up with.