openindie

Filmmaker Focus: Jon Reiss

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:26:00 +0100

Today we continue our series of bite-sized features highlighting a group of our founding filmmakers that we think are really storming this new world of indie film. This week our subject is filmmaker, educator, speaker, and author Jon Reiss.

Like all our founding filmmakers Jon not only gave to our Kickstarter campaign but has also been hugely supportive of what we’re trying to achieve. Jon’s latest film BOMB IT is a feature documentary covering the explosion of graffiti culture throughout the world. As a result of his experience distributing BOMB IT Jon has now written his book Think Outside The Box Office. In TOTBO Jon imparts his considerable wisdom on the subject of marketing and distribution in the world of indie film.

Now, he’s running a series of workshops both in Europe and stateside to impart his knowledge to filmmakers face-to-face. After the success of his day long courses in London and Amsterdam he now has two two-day sessions scheduled for New York City this weekend and Vancouver on the 12th of June. So, if you’re an indie filmmaker and you’re keen to learn more about what Jon has to say about marketing and distribution and you’re free this weekend you can still enroll for his NYC session. And, if you’re in Vancouver on the 12th you can enroll here.

OpenIndie would like to thank Jon for his support and if you’re about to face the daunting task of distributing your film we would encourage you to check out Jon’s book, think about attending one of his workshops and follow him on Twitter.

OpenIndie is currently in the midsts of a redesign, so watch this space for a new homepage and more in the coming weeks.

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder

New Demand Heat Map Widget

Fri, 14 May 2010 14:49:00 +0100

Afternoon folks, just over a week ago we changed the heat map functionality to make it far more shiny for you. The heat map now gives you detailed information about the quantity of requests in each area and zones are colour coded based on demand.

This version of the map is now available as a widget. So head along to any film’s promote page, here’s an example, take the embed code and add it to your blog. We know the iFrame version isn’t ideal for everyone so we’re working on a Facebook version amongst others.

We also have a sign up form embed option coming very soon so that people will be able to request your film directly from your site just by filling in a couple of their details. Watch this space!

Any questions, feel free to shoot me an email (kieran AT openindie DOT com) or ask on our help site.

Filmmaker Focus: Zak Forsman

Wed, 05 May 2010 12:42:00 +0100

A couple of weeks ago, we started our weekly bite-sized feature highlighting a number of our founding filmmakers that we think are really storming this new world of indie film. Yes, that was a few weeks ago, wow, 2010 is racing away from us. Anyway, the purpose of these blogs are A) to bring attention to people we think you should be taking notice of but also to introduce (or re-introduce) you to their work.

The subject of this weeks filmmaker focus is critically acclaimed filmmaker and all round nice guy Zak Forsman. Zak’s short film I FUCKING HATE YOU received several international audience, jury and festival awards on the circuit. Likewise, his feature HEART OF NOW has been called “Beautiful” and “Absolutely Gorgeous” by, amongst others, Ain’t It Cool News.

Zak is currently working on his next feature ELOQUENT GRAFFITI (2011) and has released a 6 minute prelude to this film entitled MODEL/PHOTOGRAPHER which is available to watch on the Sabi Pictures site. Sabi Pictures was co-founded by Zak and Kevin K. Shah and between them they have made at least six beautiful and engaging films, more information about which can, again, be found on the Sabi Pictures site.

Of those films, Zak and Kevin have chosen to put HEART OF NOW and Kevin’s feature WHITE KNUCKLES on OpenIndie. Zak was not only the first filmmaker to make it to 100 requests on the site but Sabi are also the first production company to have more than one film on the site.

Here at OpenIndie we hope that Sabi will be the first of many micro-studios to start distributing their work via the site and it’s a pleasure working with Zak and Kevin to build a site that works for them, and others like them.

You should check out the trailer for HEART OF NOW and WHITE KNUCKLES on OpenIndie and request both!!! You should also follow Zak and Kevin on Twitter.

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder

Two founders, two events, two sides of the Atlantic

Tue, 04 May 2010 15:55:00 +0100

This Saturday the 8th of May 2010, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, you have the opportunity to see both founders of OpenIndie in the flesh. Arin and I will be speaking to filmmakers this Saturday about how OpenIndie can help them distribute their film. Arin is speaking at the Connecticut Film Festival and presenting his vision of “A Model That Can Work” including crowdfunding, profit sharing, community driven distribution and building an audience that you can take from one film to the next.

Meanwhile on the other side of the pond at the world famous Ealing Studios I will be talking to the attendees of Film Distribution In 2010 a two-day event designed to empower filmmakers with the knowledge and tools they need to distribute their work. I’ll be talking about the origins of OpenIndie, how we enable community driven distribution, how the platform brings filmmakers, fans and exhibitors together in one space and I’ll also be touching on our plans for the future.

Other highlights of the two-day distribution event include Jon Reiss, filmmaker and author of Think Outside the Box Office, leading film marketer Sheri Candler, and Sarah Mosses of Good Screenings the platform recently used by Franny Armstrong to distribute her climate change film Age of Stupid. It looks like it’s going to be a great couple of days and I’m sad I can’t stick around for the Sunday. Anyone about to be faced with the challenge of distributing their film or currently in the process of doing so should definitely come along and learn how distribution is working in this new world of indie film.

Passes are still available for both events so if you’re up for a weekend of distribution antics check out the Distribution in 2010 site or if you’re already attending the Connecticut Film Festival or live within striking distance of Danbury, CT check out their site for more details about how and when to attend Arin’s presentation.

In the words of @FilmStew come join the “transatlantic twosome” for a weekend of open distribution goodness :)

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder

Filmmaker Focus: Mynette Louie - Producer

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:05:00 +0100

Photo credit: Stephanie Wu

Last week we started our weekly bite-sized feature highlighting a number of our founding filmmakers that we think are really storming this new world of indie film. The purpose of these blogs are A) to bring attention to people we think you should be taking notice of but also to introduce (or re-introduce) you to their work.

This week indie film Producer Mynette Louie is the subject of OpenIndie Filmmaker Focus. Mynette was one of the first filmmakers to add her film, CHILDREN OF INVENTION, directed by Tze Chun and which premiered at Sundance ‘09, to OpenIndie. Like all our founding filmmakers, she was also one of the first folks to put her hand in her pocket and donate $100 to our Kickstarter campaign back in November. So, for that, thank you Mynette!

Mynette is a New York based producer who co-produced Andrew Bujalski’s MUTUAL APPRECIATION, a film named one of the top-ten films of 2006 by Entertainment Weekly and the Village Voice, amongst others. She is currently in post-production on, winner of the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Lab, P. Benoit’s UNTITLED HAITI PROJECT and she is in development on another project with CHILDREN OF INVENTION director Tze Chun entitled YOU’RE A BIG GIRL NOW for which the log line reads:

“A Singaporean orphan is bought by a brothel, escapes to Hong Kong with an older prostitute, then returns to Singapore to uncover the mysteries of her childhood. Based on a true story.”

Mynette is also on the Selection Advisory Committee of the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program. In short Mynette’s work is exactly the kind of filmmaking that excites us at OpenIndie. She’s producing beautiful, surprising and truly independent films and we’re proud she’s one of our founding filmmakers.

For more about Mynette Louie and her films check out this recent IndieWire article and the CHILDREN OF INVENTION site. Oh, and don’t forget to follow her on Twitter.

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder

Kieran Masterton writes for Carsonified.com on the topic of "How to Crowdfund your startup"

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:42:17 +0100

Kieran Masterton writes for Carsonified.com on the topic of "How to Crowdfund your startup"

OpenIndie’s search story

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 08:45:00 +0100

OpenIndie’s search story

Filmmaker Focus: Gary King

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:03:00 +0100

Photo credit: grking.com

Back in November ‘09 we were lucky enough to receive financial backing and tremendous support from some seriously talented indie filmmakers. In this new series of bite-sized blogs we plan to introduce (or re-introduce) you to a number of our founding filmmakers that we feel are seriously storming this new world of indie filmmaking.

This week the subject of OpenIndie Filmmaker Focus is American DIY filmmaker Gary King. We chose Gary to feature this week because he has just successfully completed the colossal task of crowdfunding his next feature to the tune of a staggering $31,101!!! Like OpenIndie, Gary used Kickstarter.com to fund his film HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG which he plans to shoot in the summer of 2010.

Gary only started his feature filmmaking career in 2009 with drama NEW YORK LATELY for which he garnered some serious critical acclaim. Since, he has directed horror film DISMAL (2009) and has also been hired to direct action/comedy zombie flick DEATH OF THE DEAD (2010). As if that wasn’t enough he has also just wrapped post-production on his latest feature film WHAT’S UP LOVELY (2010) which is the film Gary has chosen to build an audience for using OpenIndie.

So, if you’re unfamiliar with Gary’s work check out his website to keep up-to-date with his prolific output and from the guys at OpenIndie: Gary - congratulations on such an amazing crowdfunding achievement and we look forward to working with you to get as many eyeballs on your work as possible!

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder

One month in the cloud with Engine Yard

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:17:00 +0100

Photo credit: notsogoodphotography on Flickr - “hey son, get out of the clouds”

Way back at the end of February I blogged about the fantastic experience that I’d had launching (or preparing to launch) OpenIndie on the Engine Yard Cloud platform. That post received fantastic feedback from both other developers and Engine Yard staff and resulted in me being asked to give a testimonial for the Engine Yard site, which was very flattering.

In that post I promised to reflect upon the experience of deploying the site into the cloud with EY and also my feelings about the platform one month on. Sadly I wasn’t able to post this exactly one month after launch (on April 1st) as I promised. Development of OpenIndie and other business commitments such as preparing for DIY DAYS NYC have taken up my time. However, I did want to return to the subject and give you my thoughts after using the product for a reasonable amount of time.

Launch went incredibly smoothly. There wasn’t a single hosting issue to be resolved on the day. We launched the site, had to make some adjustments, specifically to our smtp settings, and then redeployed without a hitch. The interface is so simple, again not something that you normal hear a developer praise, however, in this instance I am the only developer on the project and I need to abstract my hosting concerns in the simplest way possible. This, I believe, is vital to a business with such a small team. If Rails sped up development of our site by 1.5x then Engine Yard Cloud has to have saved us the same, if not more, time in terms of hosting infrastructure.

That isn’t to say that we haven’t encountered any problems. Times where we did come up against issues were in no way attributable to Engine Yard. The key issue we came across was when using their experimental stack in order to utilise Unicorn. This was obviously our choice and a known, but measured, risk. In our testing Unicorn had performed very well but in the production environment we had some issues. Whenever we redeployed after pushing changes back to Github the site would start throwing Method Not Found errors.

This error then required a complete termination and restart of the instance in order to resolve the problem. As a relative newbie in the Rails world I began exploring issues with my own code but eventually tried the codebase on a different stack and discovered that using Passenger or Mongrel the site redeployed without a hitch. Hrm… time to start using a more stable stack. We switched to Passenger a week after launch and then after some further testing (after an Engine Yard deploy) we have now actually moved back to Unicorn, all inside one month. That’s how easy it is to test, diagnose problems and make decisions on EYC.

In line with their pre-launch service EY staff have been absolute rockstars, these include but are not limited to @ezmobius, @tmornini and @abheek. With any query we’ve had their team has replied instantly with clear concise advice. There have been a few frustrations with having to delay a deployment of our software because Engine Yard have been deploying theirs, but this is extremely minor. Likewise, we’ve been keen for a long time to use Ruby 1.8.7 and this was something that wasn’t previously available on EYC. However, two weeks after asking, low and behold a beta program with 1.8.7 became available to enable on your environment. Perfect!

I genuinely don’t have a bad word to say about Engine Yard, they have successfully created a product that is to hosting what Rails is the development. It makes our life easier, pure and simple. It’s developer friendly and takes a huge weight off my shoulders by managing our hosting infrastructure for us, brilliant!

Once again, OpenIndie hasn’t had a big fat cheque or any free hosting from Engine Yard in return for this praise, we just think they’re kicking ass and we’re extremely pleased with our choice of host!

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder

Kieran Masterton wireframes OpenIndie over tea and biscuits -...

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:29:00 +0100

Kieran Masterton wireframes OpenIndie over tea and biscuits - April 2009

Photo credit: @markmapstone

Zak Forsman talks to Karen Worden of @filmcourage about using...

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:35:20 +0100

Zak Forsman talks to Karen Worden of @filmcourage about using Crowd Controls and OpenIndie in combination.

OpenIndie gets “MAN AS HELL” at DIY DAYS...

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:41:00 +0100

OpenIndie gets “MAN AS HELL” at DIY DAYS NYC

OpenIndie was asked to participate in the DIY DAYS incubator on April 3rd 2010 where Kieran & I spent the whole day reviewing the strengths and challenges of introducing OpenIndie to the world.

The tail end of the day was spent preparing and rehearsing this presentation that I then gave to the DIY DAYS participants. It felt great to just let loose with the crowd screaming at the top of our lungs, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” The message was very well received.

Afterwards Kieran detailed the incubator experience saying, “We arent the OpenIndie that went into the DIY DAYS Incubator.” It was a truly transformative experience.

So lets get this ball rolling guys. Lets build phase 2. Lets get investors on board who can fund this effort so we can do it right.

If you know anyone who should be a part of the OpenIndie effort, please send referrals and suggestions along via twitter or our help and suggestion site.

And please join the site and start requesting films or add your own film.

Arin Crumley

OpenIndie Co-Founder

CREDITS:

Filmming was done by Alex Liss, Mike Hedge & Raffi Asdourian. The scene is from Network copyright by MGM Home Entertainment and we are using under fair use law. The music in the “request” video is by our friend Drew Danburry. That video is a part of the Four Eyed Monsters Case Study Presentation we originally gave at Power to the Pixel 2007.

Saskia Wilson-Brown joins OpenIndie

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:36:00 +0100

We are incredibly pleased to announce that Saskia Wilson-Brown is joining the OpenIndie team as a consultant in the role of filmmaker outreach. As many of you will know Saskia is an independent media advocate, producer and strategist for indie film, festivals and filmmakers. Her recent experience at Emmy-Award winning Current TV as the head of filmmaker outreach and with events such as the Slamdance Filmmaker Summit and Cinema Speakeasy means Saskia has stacks of experience in the relatively new world OpenIndie inhabits. Finally, and most importantly, Saskia is a known and respected figure in the indie / DIY filmmaking world and really gets what we’re trying to achieve here at OpenIndie.

Saskia’s role will be to engage with filmmakers and discuss ways in which OpenIndie can help with their distribution strategy. This is a process that we hope will augment and enhance the 1 hour consultation provided by Christy Dena after filmmakers start using OpenIndie. Arin and I are delighted that both Saskia and Christy have agreed to be a part of OpenIndie, we’re really building a rockstar team and are incredibly excited about the future.

If you’re a filmmaker and you’d like to know more about OpenIndie, how it works and what it would mean for you and your film please feel to reach out to Saskia either via email saskia AT openindie DOT com or twitter @saskiawb

Reflecting upon the DIY DAYS NYC Startup Incubator

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:45:00 +0100

Lance Weiler introduces OpenIndie and Arin.

Some time shortly after Sundance ‘10 we were fortunate enough to be asked by Mr Lance Weiler of the Workbook Project, Head Trauma and many other notable projects to take part the DIY DAYS NYC Startup Incubator.

DIY DAYS is a roving series of conferences for those who create and it’s part of the WorkBook Project an open resource created by Lance to support the community. The purpose of the incubator was to subject OpenIndie to the scrutiny of a room full of experts in various fields relevant to our business and what we’re trying to do. During a four hour process the group discusses various salient issues and then produce a presentation or pitch to be delivered to the conference attendees at the end of the day. Arin and I jumped at the chance to put OpenIndie under the nose of such respected folks in the industry for such a concentrated amount of time and the process began.

In the week leading up to the conference neither of us knew exactly what to expect but Lance kindly set up a Skype call with Matt Johnston of Kinetic Fin who was our Entrepreneur In Residence and facilitated the conversation on the day. He immediately set Arin and I at ease and got us really excited about the potential for the day. In just a one hour conversation Matt equipped us with a shared metaphor for how to think about what we were trying to achieve, drew out of us some key issues we wanted to address and gave us really valuable feedback about the challenges that he felt were ahead of us.

As I am based in the UK I Skyped into the conference on the day. I initially thought this would be fine as Arin and I are used to Skyping all our conversations. However, as the day went on the Skype situation became increasingly frustrating from my point of view. While I felt I had a great deal to contribute to the conversation the Skype lag caused me to start talking and discover I was interrupting someone. I also got the impression that the folks in the incubator found it hard to understand what I was saying due to the distortion. As a result of these issues I didn’t personally feel like I was as useful as I could have been and this was really frustrating. However, that shouldn’t reflect negatively in any way upon either the folks taking part in the incubator or the people organising DIY DAYS, it was something that always had the potential to be a problem.

The day began with Matt laying out the format for how we’d proceed and everyone introducing themselves. Our group of experts was made up of:

Matt Johnston - Entrepreneur In Residence (COO at Kinetic Fin)

Karol Martesko - Film Industry Expert (SVP / General Manager at Babelgum Film)

Brian Newman - Business Development (Founder at Sub-Genre and former CEO of Tribeca Film Institute)

Joseph Williams - Design

Bradley Farrell - Branding (CEO at Kinetic Fin)

Karin Chien - Producer / Distributor (The Exploding Girl (2009))

I’m sure you’ll agree this is a formidable team of experts and I for one was really nervous about the potential feedback they were going to have about OpenIndie. I can say, again from my perspective, that the feedback and discussion was incredibly constructive and while the process could have turned into a group of industry experts picking holes in a new platform that didn’t happen at all. This was partly down to the fantastic people Lance and his team had found to help us but also because whenever someone criticised it was always constructive. Nobody said “this sucks” or “you’re kidding yourselves” arguments were reasoned and based on years of experience.

In short, the group’s feedback was incredible and I would go as far as to say that the process has been totally transformative for OpenIndie. Some key takeaways from the day were that we need to improve our messaging, we’re not yet effectively explaining, clearly and concisely, what it is we do and how we do it. Our filmmaker bias was also very evident. This, in some respects, is natural because Arin is a filmmaker and our source of financial support has come from filmmakers. However, we need to reorientate the business to focus upon to the audience requesting films and the hosts organising screenings. This isn’t to say that the filmmakers aren’t vitally important but the focus upon generating an audience and screenings will benefit the filmmakers most in the long-term.

We were also challenged about our $100 per film per year fee and some good discussions came out of the suggestion to open the site to all for free or to curate the films on the site. Right now that $100 a year is our only source of revenue and is paying our hosting costs etc. However, all three options are still on the table and you will know as soon as we do about how we plan to proceed. The decision we make on this topic will depend greatly upon the level of success we have in the search for investment.

The day ended with Arin giving a fantastic presentation that Matt and Joseph helped us put together. It was impressive to see how Matt took the salient points from our discussions and drew them together with us into a presentation that was incredibly successful. At one point Arin had the whole audience on their feet shouting “I’M AS MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE” a phrase made famous by the 1976 film Network and repurposed by us in our fundraising campaign in November last year.

Upon reflection, I think the day broke us down and built us up again. It drew out of us our biases that were clearly holding us back in many respects. It made us rethink our business model and reevaluate the decisions we’d made. It enabled us to compare OpenIndie to businesses that we would never have drawn comparison with previously. And, it brought to our attention an entire world of potential competitors that we hadn’t considered in our planning. I think the term transformative is very apt, we aren’t the OpenIndie that went into the DIY DAYS Incubator. We’re more knowledgeable, refocused and have a better understanding of our priorities moving forward.

We would like to thank Lance for this incredible opportunity and his entire team at DIY DAYS NYC for volunteering and making this vitally important event possible. Finally, we would like to thank Matt, Brad, Karol, Brian, Joseph and Karin for your time, your knowledge, your support and your incredibly constructive criticism. We’re very fortunate to have been afforded this opportunity.

We’re seriously excited about the future of OpenIndie and the potential for this platform. We hope you guys are too!

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder

Photo credit: Raffi Asdourian - “Packed Audience for Openindie”

Photo credit: Raffi Asdourian - “True Passion” Arin...

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:20:00 +0100

Photo credit: Raffi Asdourian - “True Passion”

Arin doing his motivational speaker act at DIY DAYS NYC - “I’M AS MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE”

mikehedge: IMG_7770 Arin and Matt Johnston taking part in the...

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:15:37 +0100

mikehedge:

IMG_7770

Arin and Matt Johnston taking part in the OpenIndie Q&A after our Incubator pitch at Saturday’s DIY DAYS NYC.

Podcast: Mediasnackers.com Interview OpenIndie Co-Founder

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:15:00 +0100

Podcast: Mediasnackers.com Interview OpenIndie Co-Founder :

Recently Mark Mapstone from Mediasnackers.com interviewed Kieran for their series of Podcasts on social media, some interesting questions were asked - check it out!

Speaker Highlight on DIY DAYS NYC - Arin Crumley

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:09:53 +0100

Speaker Highlight on DIY DAYS NYC - Arin Crumley:

Arin will be attending the DIY DAYS incubator and speaking at the end of the day about OpenIndie

Speaker Highlight on DIY DAYS NYC - Kieran Masterton

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:48:06 +0100

Speaker Highlight on DIY DAYS NYC - Kieran Masterton:

Kieran will be attending the DIY DAYS NYC Startup Incubator virtually via the wonders of Skype.

OpenIndie at The Conversation and DIY DAYS NYC

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:44:00 +0000

The Conversation (1974)

We have had an amazing first three weeks, we have over 500 users, over 100 filmmakers, 40 films available to request, and hundreds of requests have been made. We have had almost 80,000 page views and for the most part the site has remained stable. While these are by no means staggering figures in the world of web applications we are very proud that the site has been so well received and so many people are already using the site. And, once again we thank you all for your continued support.

In this blog post we just have a few things we’d like to highlight that we’re taking part in in the coming weeks. First up, OpenIndie Co-Founder Arin Crumley is speaking The Conversation, a conference which describes itself as:

“In March, pioneers at the forefront of change in cinema, video, digital media and technology are gathering again to share ideas, insights, and innovations. Our focus for this second edition of The Conversation are the opportunities created by social media, the Web, digital distribution, and an increasingly engaged audience.”

Arin will be taking part in one panel and one workshop. The first session at 9:45am is a panel entitled “What I’ve Learned About Attracting an Audience through Social Media” where Arin is joined by the likes of Ryan Werner, VP of Marketing at IFC Entertainment and Nina Paley, Director, “Sita Sings the Blues”.

The workshop takes place at 2pm and is entitled “Social Media Consults” here Arin and Sean Fitzroy (Founder, Cineshift), Leah Jones (Founder, Natiiv Arts and Media) and Lance Weiler (Filmmaker, “Head Trauma” and Editor of The Workbook Project) will discuss techniques for generating awareness for your project using social media and take part in a Q&A. As well as all those highly knowledgeable folks all these lovely people are taking part in various sessions at the event:

Ira Deutchman, CEO, Emerging Pictures and head of Columbia University’s Producing Program
Brian Newman, Founder, SpringBoardMedia
Peter Broderick, President, Paradigm Consulting
Hunter Weeks, Director, “Ride the Divide”
Brian Chirls, CrowdControls
Scilla Andreen, CEO, IndieFlix
Adam Chapnick, CEO, Distribber

To name but a few! The Conversation takes place tomorrow March 27th and is actually sold out so if you’ve already got tickets and would like more information and full details on the days schedule check out The Conversation’s website.

We’d also like to mention DIY DAYS NYC which is happening at The New School, Manhattan, New York, on the 3rd of April. The day is presented by The Wookbook Project and video below describes perfectly what you’ll get out of the day:

DIY Days from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

OpenIndie is incredibly fortunate to have been asked to take part in the DIY DAYS Incubator which takes two media startups and exposes them to a think tank of experts from various industries to help us think about our models and to craft a presentation which will be made to the conference attendees at the end of the day.

We have already had our first taste of this process via a Skype call with Matt Johnston our Entrepreneur in Residence and DIY DAYS organizer Lance Weiler. Even in a one hour conversation Matt, who is COO at Kinetic Fin a social media consultancy based out of NYC and SF, has given us great advice and filled us with confidence about the process ahead of us at DIY DAYS. We’re really looking forward to the day and thank Lance and his team for the opportunity.

Right, what’s next? Well late next week you should expect a site update which will push a number of bug fixes and feature changes live. These should include the much demanded maps widget, email login and screening approval process for filmmakers and two new films available to screen on the site.

As always, if you have any questions, suggestions of problems please do not hesitate to start a discussion on our help site.

Kieran Masterton

OpenIndie Co-Founder