'Tis the season for another screening party! The second event in our Revver Screening Series will feature holiday-themed videos and will be held on Tuesday, December 11 from 7:00-9:30 pm at the Goethe-Institut in Los Angeles. LA's best and brightest independent content creators will be there!! In addition to a hand-picked batch of great videos there will be food and plenty of libations to help keep you warm, so come get festive with us.

We're co-hosting the event with HollyShorts, LA's premier outlet for quality short films, and the evening's program will include HollyShorts Best Animation winner “Once Upon a Christmas Village,” featuring the voice talents of Jim Belushi and Tim Curry.

The event is free and there are still a few tickets left, but space is limited so if you plan to attend please RSVP on our Eventbrite page

*Help those in need this season! We'll be collecting food donations for the LA Regional Food Bank, and encourage you to bring a non-perishable food item for the donation barrel (their biggest needs are canned meat, canned veggies, canned fruit and peanut butter).

***The Goethe-Institut is centrally located in Miracle Mile, very close to LACMA. Parking is free in the building's underground lot WITH VALIDATION -- don't forget to bring your parking stub with you to get it validated!!

Hope to see some of you

This morning a class action lawsuit was filed against Santa Claus over the discriminatory nature of the naughty and nice list. Disgruntled parents from across the globe have banded together to fight what the suit terms as "discrimination and oppression."

The prosecution had even stronger words. "The case is not only examining the fairness of the list, but the inter-workings of the holiday as a whole. Think about it, here we have an old man with a beard who breaks into your house, eats your food, and leaves presents for your kids."
While the entire world watches for the results of this groundbreaking case, the greater holiday community into a general panic. If Christmas isn't safe from lawsuits, is Halloween next?

www.savexmasnow.com

The Concentra Award for video journalism is now open for entry.

In previous years this award has been for broadcast journalism from within Europe only. To reflect the changing news environment the award is now open to video journalism broadcast or published in any news program or on any online news site anywhere in the world.
The award also comes with a 10.000 euro prize.
The closing date for entries is Jan 7th 2008. Individuals can enter at anytime up to that point.
Details, rules and regulations can be found at www.theconcentra.org


The awards ceremony takes place on March 3rd at the DNA2008 conference, in Brussels.
The seven short-listed finalists will be invited to the event with their travel and accommodation costs paid by the organizers.

The Jury members are
Host: Willy Lenaers (CEO, Concentra, Belgium)
Chairman: Michael Rosenblum (CEO, Rosenblum TV, USA)
Sue Phillips (London, Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera, UK)
Cristian Trippe (Brussels Correspondent, Deutsche Welle, Germany)
Bas Broekhuizen (Editor, Volkskrant TV, Netherlands)
Tone Kunst (Editor in Chief, NRK Nordland, Norway)
Leif Hedman (Director, SVT, Sweden)
Vicente Partal, (Board Member ECJ, Director, Villaweb, Spain)

www.theconcentra.org

http://www.thedailyreel.com/users/site-members/roberthegyes/myreel

Subject: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
Race on to create studio model for the online market
by Debra Kaufman
Nov 26, 2007
On Nov. 11, the Hollywood creative team of Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick unveiled the dramatic series "Quarterlife." Not on network TV or cable, not in movie theaters, but on the massively popular online social networking site MySpace. And they own and control every plot, every line of dialogue and every dollar earned. "Ed and I had a running joke for the last two years that one day two kids in college would make a movie for $15,000, make $8 million and make the studios irrelevant," Herskovitz says. "And then we thought, 'We could be those two kids.'"

Herskovitz and Zwick aren't alone in thinking there might be gold in Internet content. A slew of Hollywood players are entering the fray, from Michael Eisner, whose Internet video studio Vuguru produced "Prom Queen," to Hollywood trio Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, who founded FunnyOrDie.com, a comedy video Web site with original exclusive clips, as well as user-generated content (UGC).

"If you had a chance to buy IBM stock in 1954 for 8 cents a share, would you do it?'" says actor Robert Hegyes, who has executive produced and written Internet series "The Venice Walk" http://www.thevenicewalk.com with writer Craig Titley (2003's "Cheaper by the Dozen"). "That's the Internet."

The intersection between Internet video entertainment and social networking is emerging as a powerful model. Herskovitz and Zwick have created a stand-alone social networking component that they hope overlaps with the series' audience; Internet video site FunnyOrDie.com allows viewers to decide which content stays and which "dies." And social networking powerhouse MySpace has gotten into the Internet TV business.

"We're excited to provide the content exclusively to our users for now, but we're looking at the model (of posting it on other sites) and will make decisions that are right for the show and our users," MySpace TV general manager Jeff Berman says. "The whole focus here is serving the MySpace users. We're really community first and a video site second." http://www.myspace.com/thevenicewalk

Whereas the Hollywood players rely on their production expertise to create "premium" content, which they're betting will win out over the hit-and-miss dynamics of lower-quality UGC, social networking sites believe their experience in creating communities will give them a leg up in generating loyal audiences. "We really approach it from the perspective of how our community engages with content," says Berman, who notes that the TV series' characters will video blog and respond to feedback on their MySpace pages. "It's about discovering content, sharing it, using it to express yourself and communicate with others."
the venice walk productions @ 2404 pacific ave. venice, california 90291 310 666-8008

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE - SKATE ON OVER TO THE VENICE WALK
Showcasing Venice Teens on The Verge of….You Name It! Produced by Welcome Back Kotter Star and Venice Local Bob Hegyes Who’s Back With The Next Gen "Y" of Sweathogs
*the VENICE WALK `Web Series Benefits Communities In Schools "Drop-Out Prevention Program at Venice High School

VENICE, CA, October 31, 2007 -- He calls his new series the “Anti-O.C. Teenagers on Probation. Bad kids getting Badder.” And who better to tame new age juvenile delinquents than an older aged juvenile delinquent? He’s not a Crip. He’s not a Blood. He’s a Sweathog! Robert Hegyes, Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter, a veteran actor, writer and director, has created a new series for the Internet with partner and feature film scribe, Craig Titley (Sam Raimi’s upcoming remake of 20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea) revolving around a retired NYPD Gang cop turned Venice Beach Juvenile Probation Officer, and the seven Venice High School delinquents who must report to him.

“Write what you know” is the age-old adage Hegyes quotes when describing how he came up with the R-Rated Kotter. “My B.A. is in Secondary Education. I’ve been a full-time teacher at Venice High School, hanging out with 4,000 hormone driven teenagers a day,” said Hegyes. “I live with my four teenagers (two 19 year-olds & two 16 year-olds… don’t ask!) plus all their friends at my beach house in Venice. I’ve played a juvenile delinquent on one hit series, and I’ve played a Gang Cop on another hit series (Cagney & Lacey). “I think that qualifies me to write about teenagers.”

Shot as a docudrama with dark comedic overtones, The Venice Walk stars teenagers on probation for such crimes against humanity as grand theft auto, credit card fraud, computer hacking, possession of drugs, felony assault gang-banging under the Witness Protection Program. Robert claims it’s not really his show.

“These kids carry me along for the ride,” said Hegyes. “There were 2,000 young actors who auditioned in L.A. for these roles, and the actors we’ve found are explosive and dynamic. These kids are the next Brat Pack.”

The Venice Walk is just what the Internet Webisodic genre has been waiting for -- an established television star appearing in bite-sized portions on a computer or mobile device near you, with an original thrashin' soundtrack provided by local Venice bands including Matt Ellis, The Cheat, The Janx, Holly Long and Matt Tecu.
THE VENICE WALK - LINKS
THE VENICE WALK MySpace http://www.myspace.com/thevenicewalk
THE VENICE WALK Web Site http://www.thevenicewalk.com
ROBERT HEGYES LINKS:
ROBERT HEGYES WebSite http://www.roberthegyes.com
ROBERT HEGYES imdb http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0373881

Film Gravity

"Filmmakers in unity. Building networks. Grounding community. Sharing perspectives. Seeing their ideas come to life. In this new global village of world cinema a revolution takes hold. Interacting minds. Insights abounding. Finding fruitfully financing. Distribution possibilities unfurling. Create a connection.
Gravitate to the center and sing your story."

It's still a little to early to tell how powerful a tool Film Gravity is going to be. Just out of Beta, it is another profesional networking site. What sets it apart are the tools that they are developing.

• Job posting, casting calls , and events- fairly standard


• Film Market- "a shop window of your projects for distribution"; similar to what inDplay is doing (http://www.indplay.com/) and Withoutabox (http://www.withouthabox.com/) is moving toward.


• Film Finance- "List you film for Finanace - FilmGravity Finance Network is designed to help filmmakers connect with potential film financing for their "

This site is SO new, there are hardly any posting. In fact one of our films is the third ( of three) listed in the Film Market at the time this is being written. On the other hand, since signing up, I've gotten new network requests nearly everyday. The say it's not what you know, it's who you know. While it maybe another networking site Film Gravity, with the atmosphere that is being created and the functions the are being built may prove to be a worthwhile professional meeting place.

Go to: http://www.filmgravity.com/ or see my profile : http://www.filmgravity.com/Deacon78

Enjoy...

I'm usually a little late to pick up on new things but I found out about CreateSpace.com last week and it looks a little too good to be true...

Back in the glory days some of you may remember that MP3.com had a CD on demand service where you could upload your music tracks and art work and they would take care of producing one-off copies of your CD for customers who ordered through their site. It was a great little no hassle way for independent artists to be able to sell their music with no overhead; my "A Didgeridoo Christmas" did quite well seasonally, but I digress.

It seems that CreateSpace.com is doing the same thing with CDs as well as DVDs and books. And what's more is they're owned by Amazon.com which means that not only can you create your own online store to sell DVDs through your site but your titles will also be available on Amazon.

Is this all too good to be true? Cut out the middle man and sell your videos directly to your audience with no overhead? If anybody has had any experience with https://www.createspace.com please share!

T