Over the past few years, cross-media has emerged as a buzzword at key documentary events happening around the world. This year, Sunny Side of the Doc has made cross-media a main feature of its educational program, hosted by Sunny Lab, and offered six cross-media projects a chance to secure funding at the Best International Projects Showcase (BIPS). These new cross-media additions to one of the industry’s most traditional marketplaces for documentary illustrate the growing movement to tell stories that reach across platforms and engage audiences around the world.

In this interesting article about crowdsourcing, the author discusses the case of the Beastie Boys documentary, AWESOME: I F--KIN' SHOT THAT.

http://www.cinematical.com/2010/04/07/doc-talk-big-deal-you-shot-that/

Condensing a documentary idea into seven minutes or less is not an easy task. This useful article offers suggestions on how to manage a successful pitch and provides an overview of the industry's most respected documentary forums.

http://www.documentary.org/content/pitch-fests-selling-your-project-seve...

In surveying more than a year of films and filmmaker interviews, Randi Cecchine decides that yes, funding streams can influence form, and the difference between the US and foreign models may surprise you.

http://www.independent-magazine.org/magazine/2010/03/doc_funds_and_form

As reported in filmmaker magazine, B-Side has announced that it will discontinue operations on March 1st, 2010.

http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2010/02/b-side-entertainment-annou...

http://bside.com/

“Burma VJ”
A Magic Hour Films Production
Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller

“The Cove”
An Oceanic Preservation Society Production
Nominees to be determined

“Food, Inc.”
A Robert Kenner Films Production
Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein

“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”
A Kovno Communications Production
Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith

“Which Way Home”
A Mr. Mudd Production
Rebecca Cammisa

Ahead of this week’s Sundance Film Festival, veteran film distribution and marketing consultant Richard Abramowitz is launching, with Kirt Eftekhar, a new domestic distribution company dubbed Area23a.

First up for the company are releases of Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman’s acclaimed “Soundtrack for a Revolution” from Louverture Films and Sandy Cioffi’s “Sweet Crude.”

CRM will begin releasing feature-length, short-form and episodic content including the documentary Capturedabout controversial New York videographer Clayton Patterson and Sally Potter’s fashion industry drama Rage starring Jude Law, Judi Dench and Steve Buscemi.

The documentaries Google Me and Naked States and the UK thriller Jack Says are among other titles on the roster, which has already been distributed digitally in the US through FilmBuff’s arrangements with

TwitCause is an interesting way to crowdfund. People who follow TwitCause can just retweet the cause to show support for it. Each tweet contain a link that directs people to a place where they can donate money using PayPal.

The website tracks the number of retweets and the money raised in real-time on the page, and also shows the most recent tweets about the cause.

Could this model be applied to documentary film funding? It will be interesting to see how much tweets can inspire people to donate.

http://www.experienceproject.com/twitcause

In an opinion piece today on the LA Times, writer Scott Kirsner talks about how those who are managing to succeed with creating content in the digital era are willing to experiment with new approaches based on how the habits of their audiences are changing:

"... a number of young creators -- many of them working outside of Hollywood's orbit -- have been feverishly experimenting with new ways to tell stories and generate revenue."

Digital technology and dollar signs

Fest o’ Fools : an articleblog for the DocAgora Webplex on the current state of documentary festivals by DocAgora’s Peter Wintonick

While the newspapers are dying, some leaner players in the industry are looking to pick up the slack:

Huffington Post Launches Investigative Journalism Venture

revision test

Take a one eyed film maker, an unemployed engineer, and a vision for something that's never been done before and you have yourself the EyeBorg Project. Rob Spence and Kosta Grammatis are trying to make history by embedding a video camera and a transmitter in a prosthetic eye. That eye is going in Robs eye socket, and will record the world from a perspective that's never been seen before.

www.eyeborgblog.com

Need I say more?

In a Washington Post / TechCrunch article today, documentary-film.net was added to the deadpool.

Featured today on the New York Times

Released on Web, a Film Stays Fresh

After releasing the first 2 parts of his new film Rethink Afghanistan on his website, filmmaker Robert Greenwald is returning to Afghanistan to continue filming for the final 3 parts of his film.

Here is the the trailer:

Pitch Positive by Peter Wintonick