Before you throw me into the the hater camp, hear me out. I don’t hate Ridley Scott. In fact, I admire him a great deal. The man was and is a legend to all aspiring filmmakers who at some point encountered the stunning, prescient piece of filmmaking that is Bladerunner while learning to make films. It was with some excitement that I examined his recently announced “Life In A Day” project, launched in collaboration with the Sundance Film Festival and Youtube.

Below is the video explaining the project, which is fairly self-explanatory: The film director Kevin McDonald will accept crowdsourced video from YOU, shot on a single day, and will create a feature length “experimental documentary” to be shown at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

On the surface, it seems the focus is to engage viewers, aspiring filmmakers, and create a narrative that ties the globe together in a neat way, sort of like, um…a commercial. At three minutes, Nike’s Write the Future World Cup ad is exactly THAT, only shorter, more exciting and actually ABOUT something. Nike’s spot is a brilliant, energetic, beautiful and poignant celebration of a world’s fascination with a single sport – about how the love for a game can be experienced across cultures.

While I’m not saying that such meaning and profundity as soccer sometimes inspires cannot be found randomly around the globe about other subjects. I just want to know – what subjects exactly? What is it ABOUT, people? I wish these large scale, commercially overblown so-called experimental projects would have meaning, otherwise it becomes a waste of the crowdsource, just another marketing ploy to keep the old school relevant in the new media world, something I referred to in my post about Ridley Scott’s initial foray into this arena, via the (now defunct)Purefold initiative back in November of last year.

Crowdsourced art isn’t about broad, jumbled collaborative initiatives asking everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. It should be about taking a point of view on a real subject and hunting down the truth and beauty in an idea, like artists are supposed to do, if they care about their art.

Such is the case in the new partnership announced last week between the illustrious Guggenheim Museum and Youtube, called YouTube Play. According to the Washington Post article on the launch, the Guggenheim sees this collaboration as an opportunity to “raise the standards” of YouTube. The writer of that piece takes issue with this idea, arguing that the beauty of user generated and curated content is precisely the randomness of it, and that it’s “strange to introduced a juried sensibility to a relatively new, user generated world”.

I feel as though this is a conversation I’ve had with folks who find “curation” as an idea to be yet another way to limit the forms and bind the creativity of artists, media makers and their audiences who are freely discovering all the randomness of the video/film art frontier on the web. While I don’t think institutions like the Guggenheim are well-informed enough about what is really happening in the frontier they are seeking, I do think there ought to still be curatorial forces that engage in thoughtful considerations of what is happening now, AS it is happening. We don’t have to wait a decade to figure out what the movements in video art were in the first decade of the 21st century. Information is readily accessible but it has to be searched for, studied and considered, before any grand pronouncements can be made.

In the museum world, there has traditionally been a very small pipeline leading to the galleries and eventually museums, and in order to have access to it, an artist had to be somewhat “in the know”. So I wonder now whether an open call for artists to submit their work publicly via YouTube isn’t just taking opposite yet similarly limiting tactic – that is to say the fact of YouTube doesn’t make for a better considered curation, it only makes for more submissions. It isn’t terribly different from any kind of open call, even a blatantly populist one like American Idol.

I wonder if institutions like the Guggenheim wouldn’t do better to study the troves of video ALREADY out there, and curate something based on real discovery, wherein a serious study of emerging video art forms is undertaken, and the discovery of video artists who may or may not consider themselves artists, might actually occur. We live in a culture of over-abundant content, and that is why I support curation. In my estimation, there shouldn’t just be a choice between clueless high-art curator vs. engaged user-curated option. There are lots of interesting movements happening right under our noses, and we don’t need a competition to discover them. Alright, Guggenheim?

Time was short but I promised that I would post a followup with video and here it is.

From Aramique Krauthamer, who works at Syrup as a story director.
Flashback”, directed by Marco Brambilla. it’s an interpretation of 6 stories of 6 perfumes. the perfumes are about experiences of nature and this film is imagining if we have destroyed natured and the experiences are gone how they will be remembered in the future.

And for Puma, a short documentary about the making of a painting. The painting shows the “Unity Kit” which is the first time a jersey has been made for an entire continent as a symbol of solidarity

Then from Writer/Director Hunter Weeks, who is often the subject of his own films and featured in the video, a collaboration with the sandwich chain Quiznos, in which he travels to 50 states in 2 weeks.

Weeks’ new project is “Ride The Divide”, for which he has raised $100K in product, marketing, and cash before making film (about 50% cash). He’s partnered with Lance Armstrong’s foundation Livestrong, YouTube and a few other major distribution channels for a unique release strategy that combines online events and a theatrical tour that benefit Livestrong.

Ride The Divide Movie Trailer from Ride The Divide on Vimeo.

Ritesh Batra, who worked with Cisco on a project called “Digital Cribs” is a fascinating profile of a homeless entrepreneur:
Embed removed. Click link here to watch video: CISCO’S Digital Cribs

From Jake Abraham, formerly of Dandelion (division of Epoch Films) are two branded entertainment examples, the first for Sun Life, and the second directed by Brett Morgen for International Trucks:

There was MySpace, then YouTube, then Facebook, Twitter followed by every other niched and slightly varied social network. I love the idea of social media for a number of reasons, aesthetic, personal and political. Nothing warms my heart more than the idea that someone behind a firewall in Iran could connect with me sitting in my apartment in Los Angeles during the controversial political situation that arose from the 2009 Iranian election. I also enjoy the casual exchange of interesting ideas and happenings that is the stuff of Facebook friendships.

So here we are, in 2010 with so many ways to connect, form communities and find kindred spirits online. Yet for all the fun we have watching viral videos, getting recommendations from friends on what movies to watch, or playing Mafia Wars with them on Facebook, are we really accessing the best and brightest of what’s in that enormous web-o-sphere?

Let’s imagine for a second that the web is like a frontier, say, how most of America was before the 19th century. And suddenly, from literally a few hundred thousand settlers, 100 million people showed up and populated the land. You’d have something akin to the chaos that happens when people are displaced after massive disasters or wars. Nobody would what the rules were, how to find anything and the one guy who had the map of the entire land might be the most valuable person around.

I’m going to call the Mr. Wise Sage Google. So Google comes in and says: ask me a question, any question. You need to know where the nearest river is so you can access water? I can tell you? You need to know where you can find lumber to build your houses? Here, I’ll show you. Then slowly but surely, this massive number of people settle down, with the help of Mr. W.S. Google. A few years goes by, Mr. Google teaches a few classes, and people learn more about their world, how to find things and they come up with their own maps and books and ideas.

Then, another few years go by, and as people get when they are well fed and comfortable, they get bored, restless. They have a few books and games and songs they brought from the old country which they’ve read over and over again. The kids want something new, different so soon you get some young whippersnapper called Mr. Hot Stuff Youtube who invents a new, novel idea: anyone can come up with a brand new game, or story and share it with the rest of their community. Wow! The kids go wild. They love it. They tell stories of birds falling from trees; babies laughing, dancing, talking in funny ways. And everyone laughs heartily. A few of these kids become really well known all over the land and everyone agrees: the new age is upon us.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the adults are thinking: hmm, these babies dancing, are they really that interesting? They’ve seen babies do all kinds of extraordinary things in their lives and so this just doesn’t seem that exciting. But every once in a while, they see something beautiful, a performance that makes them think and look a little harder. But in between working, eating and sleeping, it’s hard to find those beautiful interesting ideas. So they just give up because mostly it looks like rubbish to them.

Then suddenly, riding on a gorgeous, shiny black horse, a familiar face from the old world appears, but he looks very different from what they remember, and his name is Mr. Slick Interface Hulu. He brings fantastic entertainment and beautiful packaging and everyone is happy, young and old because it gives the old folks what they want and does it just how the kids like it. For a while, everyone is happy. But as humans are inclined, they get bored with Mr. S.I. Hulu’s offerings and the rumblings for more entertainment begin.

At this point, the kids, who are still playing with Mr. H.S. Youtube’s ideas have grown up a little. They’re talking about politics, and music and art, and real stories, not just babies and animals and farting. Even the old folks notice that they are drawn to the new wave of inventions. But now, there’s a problem: there’s so much of this stuff that no one can find what they like. Even the kids are starting to get frustrated because there’s so much out there.

Enter a new-old character: Ms. Smart Thinking Curator. Ms. Curator was once a kid who played with H.S. Youtube ideas. Now she has traveled, been educated by curators of from the old country and developed some tastes of her own. The old folks love her because she understands their language, and the kids like her because she’s one of them. Ms. S.T. Curator suggests a simple new idea: How about if I figure out what everyone’s into: so the people who love puppies and babies can have as much as their hearts desire and the best of the Shiba Inus in the universe. Then those political rabble-rousers, who want to hear and participate in arguments all day long can have their own little corner. And same with the people who love food, clothes, horses and so on. And because Ms. S.T. Curator knows that people want to taste the product before they sign up, she spends a little time explaining why those puppies she selected are the best puppies in the entire world. And Voila! The curation of entertainment is born.

So now I ask, is it not time to trust some new voices and tastes to curate entertainment for us? I don’t discount the voices of the masses, nor am I unaware of the significant challenges in aggregating and distributing video/film in a meaningful way online. BUT, with the advent of interfaces like Boxee and to some extent Roku (and other such devices) which make it possible to combine many entertainment sources this is imminently possible. I see that Clicker is attempting some such organization although my argument about them is that they are still quite neutral in their aggregation and not aggressively curatorial.

I believe we are entering the age of the Curator. There is plenty of entertainment being created that is difficult to access or find. What we need are assured voices who understand contemporary tastes and can do a better and more effective job than the crusty and outmoded TV and film studio executives of bringing relevant content to the attention of interested audiences.

So while technology inventions and killer apps are amazing, can somebody please invent the Human Curator – that would be killer.

The truth is, right now, in January 2010 most of the visual storytelling–series, one-off videos and even features you’ll find on content sites (outside of the Netflix and Hulus of the world) ARE independent. That is to say, they were created by individuals who independently decided to create and in most cases finance their own projects. Whether it cost $5 on a borrowed Flipcam to make that cat fall of the piano, or it cost $50K to make that VFX masterpiece that got 1 million views on Youtube, the bottom line is that the idea of the “independent” has gone totally mainstream.

Film and video festivals are proliferating like never before, and the amount of content at online aggregation sites is staggering. Let me put it in perspective: Back in May 2009,  YouTube’s blog said 20 hours of video were being uploaded to YouTube every minute and they point out that it would be the equivalent of over 86,000 new full-length movies into theaters each week. Every filmmaker I know rolls their eyes about YouTube stats. So let me be clear: my point is certainly NOT that a video like Chris Crocker “Leave Britney Alone” a filmic masterpiece because it had close to 12 million hits.

Rather, my question is: What happens to “American Indie Film,” largely defined by the self-financed, autonomous creation of filmed stories by a person or group of people- either documentary or fictional, and to be possibly sold and exhibited to the public. Film schools all over the US are filled with filmmaker hopefuls wanting to do just that, and spending a lot of time and money working towards that end. (I know because I went to one of them.) One could argue that the distinction is obvious, and that my argument is at best, semantic. But I don’t think it is.

I know there are a lot of rah-rah traditional American indie filmmakers out there trying to figure out how to bring the whole kit-and-kaboodle of indie filmmaking from the analog/old/Sundance world into the digital age. And there are some wonderful resources for crowdsourcing funding, marketing and distribution evolving from these efforts. BUT, I am going to argue that the idea of American Independent filmmaking as a cultural movement defined by films all the way from the 70s through the early days of  Sundance, is over.

So while I applaud the spirit of indie creators, I’m going to call a spade a spade: most indie filmmakers (and I know this because I’ve worked on MANY indie films) bootstrap their “passion projects” so they can have a shot at the big time: Hollywood. And I’m not knocking this as a strategy. I mean who doesn’t want to get on a movie where you have a Honeywagon instead of your mom’s station wagon? However, let’s not confuse a financial/career approach with a cultural idea called “independent.” There are fewer and fewer filmmakers working outside of the cultural and even political constraints of the mainstream (as defined by Hollywood). In fact, I would venture to say, there may be more true “independent” thinking buried in the vast depths of the billon-deep YouTube video vault right now.

So maybe the moment has come to re-define “Independent Film”. Perhaps what we are really talking about is filmmaking for niche audiences, the same way cable television changed the way we see television. More rarified, maybe, but by no means does any vague set of “indie rules” apply to any work being created  in the “feature” category by a non-studio entity. I think once we get real about what it “means” to be an independent content creator, we can get down to the business of learning one or two things from folks who are having success in the vast world of online media.