If you haven't heard of Movie Cloud, allow me to lay it out for you. Dov Simens (the world-renowned film instructor) and Derek Christopher (president of TV/Film Seminars) have set out to revolutionize the way independent films are produced, distributed, and consumed. The duo considers Hollywood to be a monopoly and claims that only 200 of the world's 50,000+ independent films are released for mass consumption each year. Movie Cloud aspires to be the home for the remaining 49,800+. While the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, independent filmmakers and fans have reason to be optimistic about what Movie Cloud represents and could ultimately become.
The tools have never been more accessible. Anyone with access to a DSLR camera, a laptop with editing software, and a few friends can go out and make a movie. The thing is, there are no guarantees that that movie is going to end up in top-tier festivals or find its way onto cable, Netflix, Hulu, etc. Movie Cloud wants to be the online destination for the independent filmmaking 99% -- a full working movie studio, a resource center that offers people the tools they need to make their own movies (including screenwriting software, budgeting software, etc.), a movie bank (for people to have access to funds to make their movies), and a social network to enable marketing and distribution.
While the video is a little... tongue-in-cheek, I believe Dov and Derek's hearts are in the right place. I also can't speak highly enough about Dov as a film instructor and motivator. If it weren't for his two-day class in New York, I never would've sprouted the cajones to produce and direct a micro-budget feature. If Dov brings the same level of enthusiasm to this new endeavor, I have no reason to believe it won't be successful. MovieCloud.com is also an undeniably killer URL. Apparently, Dov and Derek have been offered massive sums of money for the URL, but they've turned it down in order to launch Movie Cloud on their own terms as a crowdfunding effort. To me, that's just punk rock and represents everything that crowdfunding should be about.
Whoever figures out how to consolidate and successfully distribute the massive amount of independent films currently being produced stands to become wildly successful. Movie Cloud is positioning itself to have a fighter's chance, and considering that Dov and Derek legitimately want to put the power back into the hands of the filmmaker, it's at least worth checking out their IndieGoGo page for more information. Viva la indie film revolucion!
Follow Abe Schwartz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AbeSchwartz
I took Dov's class in 2007 and found it invaluable. He cuts through the BS of what it really takes to make a film and get it financed, and was instrumental in my success in making my first film. I've talked to a lot of people who've taken Dov's class and have the same story.
It's not cool to make personal attacks on someone you've never met, or whose class you've never attended. The problem with the internet is it allows people to be uncivil to one another because they can behind behind the mask of a screenname.
I support Dov in his new venture, and I'm sure it'll be a huge success.
By all means, give him your money if you want. But I feel for all the filmmakers like Angelegs who are doing everything in their power to make their movies. Dov is preying on their dreams and offering them a USB pen in return.
I took Dov's class in 2007 and found it invaluable. He cut through the BS of how to make my first film. I"ve talked to a lot of people in the industry who've taken him, and they all say the same thing - without his class, they would have never made their first film. It sounds like Abe Schwartz felt the same way.
My hat's off to Dov for shaking up the status quo and putting Hollywood on notice.
What do people expect to get for their contribution? A USB pen with some dusty old production documents? And how, exactly is MovieCloud planning to capture distribution rights for these 50,000 independent films made each year? They don't even broach the topic.
MovieCloud looks like all flash(drive), no substance. There are plenty of people and companies who are really working to crack this nut, but Dov just seems cracked.
They are frequently couched in Utopian rhetoric and I think anyone would struggle to name a single viable film that has emerged any of these initiatives.
Now, I would be the first person to want to see something like this succeed as it would make good on promise I saw in digital filmmaking and distribution technologies.
However, the filters that exist in the form of film festival selection committees, juries, agents, sales agents, distributors, studios, marketers, theater programmers and film buyers are what constitute an industry further mediated by market forces in which audiences vote with their wallets.
This is ultimately compounded by the "attention economy" there are only so many hours in a day, a certain amount of leisure time and consequently limited attention - therefore so pretty compelling stuff has to come out of this program for people to be willing to divert attention away from mainstream entertainment (including studio and major indie movies, cat videos and other internet memes).