CineVegas Blog

Sweaty Robot, the group of filmmakers who directed the 2008 Jackpot Premiere HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRIS MALDEN, came out with a new video wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

NewTeeVee, an exhaustively thorough blog on all things online video, just held their second annual one-day event called NewTeeVee Live. It showcased the online video industry’s hottest topics, most talented video producers, promising technologies, leading innovators and top funding executives. Five days since the event NewTeeVee has decreed the following 10 commandment-like rules about the future of online video. Here’s the quick rundown:

1. The living room is on the horizon.
2. The audience has evolved.
3. New media startups are fading.
4. Participatory and multiplatform elements of shows are moving from their nerdy roots (Heroes and Lost) to the mainstream (CSI and Ugly Betty).
5. Indie stars can still be made.
6. Web stars still aren’t crossing over to mainstream success, but they’re doing pretty well for themselves.
7. Success is on its way, if we can only figure out how to define it.
8. Nobody’s worried about the big, bad bandwidth caps.
9. The logistics of bringing premium content to the web haven’t exactly been smoothed out yet.
10. Live-streaming still needs a lot of work.

Read the full post here.

The best science fiction short video ever…only it’s real.

via Boing Boing

Cinetic Rights Management announced today that its catalogue of independent films will be available on Amazon Video on Demand and via CreateSpace DVD on Demand. One of the films that will be released this month is HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRIS MALDEN, a Jackpot Premiere at the 2008 CineVegas Film Festival. Directed by Sweat Robot, a group of independent filmmakers, the film follows Harris Malden, the neighborhood darling who tries to pass off his facial hair as real to his friends and family. The mustache is a big bold lie affixed right above his lip and it isn’t fooling anyone but himself. The small community that shelters Harris supports his curious habit. Despite the big ol’ fake mustache, everything is fine and dandy — until his twenty-fifth birthday. Read the Film Threat article for more information and for a list of additional films that will be available on Amazon Video on Demand through Cinetic.

If you haven’t seen the amazing doc Hoop Dreams yet, check it out – its a great sports doc but also an incredible social study. Watch these other great films with basketball connections. Shoot the J!

Giuseppe Andrews, a self-proclaimed musician/madman/monarch (and CineVegas alumni), has a video for his damn catchy and addictive song: Paseo Del Mar. Be sure to check out giuseppeandrews.net for more insight into this mad monarch.

The i heart photograph blog has a cool collection of YouTube videos that invert the very nature of content and context within YouTube. While Ed Halter posts on the Rhizome blog about how this video meta dance came about:

Constant Dullaart’s series “YouTube as Subject” plays with the image of the arrow-in-a-square button that appears in an embedded YouTube video. When clicked, Dullaart’s videos retain their initial black backgrounds, but the arrow-buttons remain, plummeting, strobing, trembling, or turning into a mini-disco light show. In true YouTube spirit, Ben Coonley recently posted his own series as response, this time appropriating the spinning wheel of dots that eager viewers need to sit through as a video loads—in keeping with his longstanding interest in media breakdowns and frustrations. Coonley’s dot-wheel now drifts off into the distance, accelerates rotation, and (betraying Coonley’s Providence-scene roots) expands into a psychedelic black-and-white OpArt swirl. Better not put off watching Dullaart and Coonley’s ‘tubed conversation, however. Cory Arcangel’s Blue Tube, made only last year, has quickly become near-obsolete. Back then, YouTube embedded a logo bug in the corner of its videos, and Blue Tube simply turned that logo blue.

Click on the above video for a quick introduction to these interesting experiments.

Opening in Las Vegas this weekend is I.O.U.S.A., a documentary from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival that boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. Directed by Sundance veteran Patrick Creadon (WORDPLAY), the film follows former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker as he crisscrosses the country explaining America’s unsustainable fiscal policies to its citizens. The film will be playing at Regal Village Square in Las Vegas. For more information on I.O.U.S.A., visit the film’s website.

The trailer for director Rachel Samuels’ DARK STREETS can now be seen on the film’s official Myspace page or website. DARK STREETS world premiered at the 2008 CineVegas Film Festival and is being theatrically released by Samuel Goldwyn on December 5. Starring Gabriel Mann, Bijou Phillips, Elias Koteas and Izabella Miko, DARK STREETS tells the story of Chaz Davenport, a dashing but naive playboy who owns the hottest new nightclub in town - The Tower. Surrounded by blues music and juggling two gorgeous singers, Chaz is the envy of every man. Yet he’s up to his neck in bad debts and bad choices, and his father’s unexpected suicide gets more mysterious the more Chaz looks into it. As he is drawn deeper into a web of lies and betrayal, Chaz no longer knows how to trust or who to fear.

Why vote? Because all over the world people fight for the ability to vote for their government, don’t take it lightly. You have a voice, express it.

To get motivated, here are 20 films on hot button topics, including acclaimed documentaries, great films new on DVD, and one John Carpenter film that wraps it all up.