FanLib founder goes after amateur moviemakers.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

From moviemaker.com, dated October 21, 2008.

Are you an aspiring, tech-savvy moviemaker posting your short films on YouTube, hoping to use the Internet to eventually develop your first feature-length movie? Your dreams may become a reality now that Perkins’ 14, the first feature film to be developed entirely over the Internet, will soon be released.

Says Craig Singer, "I had long been interested in what’s now called 'user-generated content,' from the days of my previous company, FanLib, which I started with partner Chris Williams. Now was really the right time to use crowd-sourcing to create a professional film for theatrical release."

Now was the right time because FanLib went belly-up? Ah.

So they are moving from ripping off fanfic authors to ripping off amateur youtube moviemakers. The FanLib talent-suckers got the massify.com crowd to do all the work, and will release the film Perkins' 14 in 2009.

Yes, that should be Perkins's 14, or Perkin's 14. What dumbasses.

More from Singer: "This is my second feature for After Dark Films. After Dark and [online community] Massify Media and I wanted to make what would be the world's first 'crowd-sourced' feature film, a film that opened up the filmmaking process to emerging talent by utilizing the reach and efficiencies of a social network."

I wonder how long it will be before the "emerging talent" realizes that, when these people say "crowd-sourced," the translation is: they make money off other people's creativity and pay nothing for it.

Full article:

http://www.moviemaker.com/producing/article/craig_singer_looks_to_the_internet_for_perkins_14_20080828/

Comments

[scarah2.livejournal.com]

120 minute rickroll y/y?

[quietus-x.livejournal.com]

CHOCOLATE RAIN.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Good lord. I missed Singer identifying with P.T. Barnum.

[quietus-x.livejournal.com]

I want those guys to fail so hard.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

I hate them with a fiery passion. I used to just think they were jerks. Now I think they're destructive jerks.

[quietus-x.livejournal.com]

The problem with them is that when you use people, you hurt their feelings, and frankly, fandom's a very friendly place, IMO -- I mean, sometimes fen will be mean to each other, but on a whole, it's very welcoming and encouraging. So when outsiders, especially when they're outsiders, try to use/manipulate us, we go fucking berserk.

I can't believe they're trying it again. But the impression I got from Wikipedia is that it's not AS bad as fanlib was. It looks like they just asked the internet for ideas and actor auditions, rather than, er, writing and production and acting.

...

I think. I hope.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

They seem to have operated it as they did their FanLib corporate sponsored gigs for The L-Word and so on. Which brings up something interesting.

Although FanLib folded, the nuts and bolts of the business, the my2centences "crowd writing" software, is still their property. It makes me wonder if they wanted to dump the name FanLib, since that was permanently associated with their failed fanfic venture, and continue on under another name. I've been wondering about this since they closed the FanLib website.

FanLib getting into amateur moviemaking is not wholly a surprise, considering one of FanLib's moves towards the end was to host fan vids.

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

My god, they never give up. They're like cockroaches -- can survive anything.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Who is still giving these people money!???!?!?

[quietus-x.livejournal.com]

I REALLY WANT TO KNOW THIS. WTF, PEOPLE. :<

[shalom]

I think of them as one of those hard-to-get-rid-of infections.

Let's hope the film communities they're courting know about Fanlib.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

It makes me ill, because Singer could probably help amateur moviemakers legitimately -- with funding.

But no doubt Singer sees what he's doing as "help."

[ealbiest.livejournal.com]

Cockroaches sounds like the perfect metaphor. What surprises me there, is not some avid idiot wanting to make money out of something he does not understand - but the same idiot trying the same trick again! Maybe in his world free and voluntary and shared and social just do not exist?

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

I was saying in a comment above that the FanLib founders may have closed down the business just to get rid of the tainted name. And now they are continuing on in other guises.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Well, they obviously learned nothing from Fanlib. Or maybe they think they did. I agree with Mirabile-dictu. They're like cockroaches.

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I bet they think they learned something. What they learned is that they need to exploit something more profitable than fanfiction.

[megselv.livejournal.com]

WTF!!!

They're such... entrepreneurs!

*lives where socialism is a positive word* :P

[stewardess.livejournal.com]

Entrepreneur = when the first, and only, reaction is "How can I make money off this?"

Ugh.

[rileysaplank.livejournal.com]

And the thing is, it isn't the first "...'crowd sourced' feature film, a film that opened up the filmmaking process to emerging talent by utilizing the reach and efficiencies of a social network." I'm sure that Faintheart, which the producers solicited ideas from MySpace members for, would claim that title. Hell even Snakes on a Plane changed some things during filming because of things that were being said by fans on the internet.