Cape Winelands Film Festival Call for Entires

Since the first edition the Cape Winelands Film Festival (CWFF) has significantly grown in size and international participation. More than 70 features, documentaries and short films from over 35 countries were in competition during 2009. More than130 productions formed part of the festival programme, in total 62 featues, 27 documentaries and 44 shorts from more than 35 countries. The 2nd edition of the festival had 32 international guests. The festival had more than 300 screenings in March 2009.



Now the 3rd edition of what's become one of South Africa's largest film festivals has announced its call for entries. Entry forms are available on the official website of the festival: http://films-for-africa.co.za/ The festival will take place from 17 - 27 March 2010 in Cape Town and Stellenbosch.

And incidentally, if you want to see Facebook in action as a marketing and promotional tool, then join the festival's Facebook group; these guys are really leading the way in profiling their films and their festival using this totally free medium.

SATV CHANNEL LAUNCHES IN DURBAN

In case you missed this in the press, Durban is now the proud host to an online tv station all of its own. Welcome to the future, and congratulations to everyone involved: now it's your turn to get on board: visit SATV Channel and upload your projects for free.

Two Seas SA TV

Two Seas TV, a production company in Cape Town, has set up an online social network dedicated to film and TV production in South Africa.



It offers a number of tools to help you to stay in touch with other members and increase your online presence:

· Advertise your company
· Promote your film
· Drive traffic to your site
· Share ideas
· Brainstorm concepts
· Meet potential partners
· Read news & reviews
· Watch clips

It’s also FREE and easy to sign up, so go to: http://twoseas.socialgo.com/ and try it out, see if this kind of thing can work for us in KZN.

Monetising Digital

Some interesting stuff at Slate.com on the difficulties of monetising digital media. So, what are your chances of achieving YouTube stardom? Chris Wilson crunched the numbers to find out what percentage of YouTube videos hit it big, cracking even 10,000 or 100,000 views......

The results: here


(believe it or not, the fourth most viewed on You Tube???)

District 9 Movie and its Viral Campaign

Re. Digital (again) - here's something to look out for - the online viral marketing campaign for the new SA Sci-Fi movie District 9. It's produced by Peter Jackson (yes, he of Lord of the Rings fame) and has a clever but also quite relevant story about the integration of aliens. In this case, alien aliens, but there's a lot of apartheid in there, and a lot about the attacks on refugees last year. It looks like it might be the kind of SA tale that works without a lot of finger wagging and point scoring.....



So visit www.d-9.com and play around with the very cool interface and various websites that have been setup to give you an introduction to the origins, look and hardware/technology on the "non-human" aliens that are the focus of Neill Blomkamp's film.

And how does Viral Marketing work? well, just like this actually; I see something I like and send it on to all my friends. It's the kind of word-of-mouth advertising that money can't buy......

The Onion

A whacky but digitally pertinent spoof from the wickedly funny The Onion



"I am a block buster customber called Kathy. Two times a week I drive six miles to hire and return videos"

The Perfect Storm for a Digital Revolution

PriceWaterhouseCoopers have announced expectations that, inspite of recession, the global entertainment media market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 2.7% over the next five years, to reach $1.6 trillion in 2013. The firm projects a decline of 3.9% for 2009, followed by growth of just 0.4% in 2010, before regaining strength and reaching 7.1% in 2013.

Driving the survival is Digital Media. Marcel Fenez, Global Leader Entertainment & Media practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said:

“In some ways this could be called “the perfect storm”. Inside every cloud is a silver lining and in this case, a digital one. Companies who grasp the opportunities which are appearing in this fast changing marketplace and are agile enough to adapt their business models will be able to take full advantage of the potential and new revenue models as they emerge.”

The title of their report?: No Place to Hide from the Digital Revolution

Website becomes TV Show

As if to reiterate the convergence between digital and tv, in the USA, Prometheus Entertainmenthas signed a deal with website Axelist.com, a site that highlights users' complaints, to create a half-hour TV show.

Launched in September 2008, Axelist includes users' rants about employers, neighbors, businesses and other entities. Each episode will reportedly focus on a single complaint, and attempt to reach a resolution.



More at Variety.

Real Change - Digital Style

If there is ANY doubt left in your mind about how the digital era is going to democratize and revolutionise our lives then take a brief squizz at the electrifying and exhilirating coverage of the Iranian crisis at AndrewSullivan.com. Sullivan's become one of my "must-read" daily fixes and he blends news, first-hard tweets, photo-journalism and really insightful comment from a variety of sources in a way that the mainstream media can only dream of.



The Digital Era offers us a total transformation of media in South Africa - what we make, what we see, how and when we see it. Things will never be the same again.

Mtuzini - Broadband Heaven

According to Toby Shapshak in this morning's Times, the small KZN town of Mtunzini is the "most wired place in South Africa right now."



Why? Because it's where the new Seacom underwater broadband cable hits land. At 1.2 terrabits a second, the Seacom cable brings 10 times more bandwidth than its existing rival, and therefore offers to radically reduce the cost of internet and improve its speed and functionality.

Says Shapshak: "I’ve often been asked why South Africa doesn’t produce Google, Facebook, Twitter or any other of the new breed of Internet companies and entrepeneurs. Simple — no broadband. No cheap broadband. But not for much longer....."

Of course, the opportunities this opens up for tv producers and other film sector entrepreneurs are simply unlimited. And these opportunities are coming first to KZN........

Twitter on Reality TV

TV, New Media and social networking: the future of communication?

Variety reports that microblogging service Twitter has partnered with production companies Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment to develop a reality TV series that will "put ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format."



However, less than 24 hours after the news broke, the New York Daily News reported that Twitterverse is up in arms about the deal. Protest was spurred by speculative reports - including one in particular on Examiner.com that was later amended - that the show might involve celebrity stalking.

Details about the show are scarce, but a statement from producers did say that "ordinary people" will be "put on the trail of celebrities in a competitive format."

Video Gaming Outperforms Movie-going

A report released by market research firm NPD Group shows that the percentage of American video game players (63%) now outnumbers those who have gone out to the movies in the past six months (53%).



According to DMW, the the survey found that one in three gamers bought a console or portable game over the past 12 months -- up 7% on the prior year, while 10% of U.S. consumers played video games on a social network, and 5% paid to download a video game from the Web -- up 2% from last year. Video games now account for one-third of the average monthly consumer spending in the U.S. for core entertainment content, including music, video, games. And while sales of physical gaming products still account for the bulk of consumer spending on video games, digital downloads and other delivery and game-play formats are also rising in popularity.

New Media

The Financial Times of London has a fascinating article on attempts to monetise digital content.

For well over a decade, the prevailing orthodoxy of the internet has been that information wants to be free. Publishers, broadcasters and games developers alike are beginning to discover, however, that advertising alone is not providing the sustainable digital business model they expected for their expensively produced content...... The biggest uncertainty holding back media owners remains the worry that customers have been schooled not to pay for content online.

....A migration from free to fee has worked before, when cable operators introduced a subscription model to television. But pay-television took off because it offered a dramatic expansion of the content on offer, from Hollywood films to live sports. Consumers are now overwhelmed by choice on multiple media.

Bridging the Digital Divide

At the Digital Music East conference currently unfolding in the USA, Ron Berry, e-Commerce Advisor to the Isle of Man outlined how the government of that little island is trying to be a pioneer in a field where many larger nations are struggling, namely finding a way to compensate musicians in a digital age.



The basic idea is to charge Internet users a flat fee for access to music online through their Internet Service Provider and then pass that money on to the collection societies, record labels and other interest groups.

Could that work for KZN film??

Illegal Movie Downloads

Digital Media Wire reports that the powerful The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed suit against three sites that provide links to other sites that offer its copyrighted films for download. The new suits target Campusist.com, Movies-on-Demand.tv and SSWarez.com.

U.S. federal courts have yet to rule on the merits of whether sites that merely provide a search engine or index to other sites that host music and video content for download are in violation of copyright law. Another case, brought by the MPAA against IsoHunt, is currently pending in Los Angeles.