Attn: Star F*ckers: Robert Rodriguez Sells Out To Blackberry

The British film types, Shooting People and Little White Lies have been touting Robert Rodriguez's Project Green Screen as "This is an ultimate collaboration opportunity that gives YOU the chance to star, cameo or design elements of the finished film, from March 18th – April 17th"

Looking at the competition and the links and the structure of the competition I can only surmise that my mates at LWL and SP have sold out big time to Rodriguez, whom it appears has sold out big time to Blackberry in return.

I can't see any benefit to a filmmaker in getting involved in this competition, other than the self gratification of star fucking. Having run a great number of competitions myself here at Raindance (our first was with Nokia Shorts in 2003) I had to learn how to provide benefit to competition entries.

Unlike Rodriguez's competition, we never insisted that we, the competition organisers got 100% of the intellectual rights to the submissions. Never mind that the design of the Blackberry competition is meaningless, to ask for 100% ownership of the submissions is ego mania gone way too far.

Lesson learned: read the T's & C's before you submit.

I'd love to know your opinion on this: Email me.

Social Media Capitalism For Filmmakers

Since I started Raindance in 1992 there has been a seismic shift in how the industry works. Until a few years ago, I thought the digital filmmaking revolution only affected production. but no, distribution is how at the epicentre of a perfect storm that threatens to obliterate film distribution as we know it.

Some my find this disturbing and refuse to acknowledge this change with blinkered eyes. Others will embrace it and see this change as the perfect opportunity to carve a profitable niche for themselves and their careers.

The only way to really make this owrk is for filmmakers to think of themselves as capitalists.

Read: 7 Ways Social Media Capitalism Works for Filmmakers