Shorts Come Into Their Own at Sundance

By Jack January 26, 2000 12:42 PM

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Producers of short films who had previously been disregarded by buyers at Sundance, have suddenly found themselves the object of mini-bidding wars among cash-rich Web sites looking for content, reporters covering the festival indicated Tuesday.?"Interest in short movies is hotter than ever at Sundance," the Associated Press commented, quoting Skip Paul of Ifilm.com (which recently received $35 million in funding from Sony Pictures, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and others) as saying that the Internet represents a "breakthrough" for new filmmakers.?"It's not the old, difficult audition process," he added.?"If their film is good, there's immediate exposure for it." Mika Salmi, who according to the Toronto Globe & Mail, recently landed about $30 million in new cash for his AtomFilms Internet company, told the newspaper, "We're buying them [short films] up like crazy ...?and we get them cable-TV deals and Internet posting within 24 hours." One Harvard film student told the G&M: "I had no idea I could get this kind of attention." But, in an interview with today's New York Times, Liz Manne a Sundance Channel exec, commented that the prices for short films have not gone up.?"The speed has gone up, people have to act more quickly, but not the prices," she said.?Source: Studio Briefing

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RE: Shorts Come Into Their Own at Sundance   reply

Posted by cmaraschino (cliff@DO-NOT-SPAM-ME.justcreated.com) on January 27, 2000 9:26 AM

I just came back from Sundance. I was there to purchase animations for our website, http://www.justcreated.com, and I was constistantly outbid by AtomFilms and IFilm... 

Cliff
cliff@JustCreated.com - where independent animators receive 50% of all profits for the use of their work, including videocassettes, DVDs, and other merchandise.

We Pity you   reply

Posted by Jack (jack@dtheatre.com) on January 27, 2000 10:47 AM

It's time for a smack down on atom films..