Making A Feature Length Film For Today's Convergent Culture

Young filmmakers today are starting their professional lives just as a tide of user-generated content is rapidly changing how motion pictures are being told, produced and received. Making feature length films for this new world, where theatrical distribution is no longer attainable for 99.97% of the films being made, requires a new approach to film financing, filmmaking, film distribution and film marketing.

This blog is being written by filmmakers who are making a feature length film for somewhere close to $50,000. The idea is to make a feature length film and pay back our investors.

In documenting our journey, we'll cover a great variety of subjects:

We'll discuss equipment with a special emphasis on the lower cost HD cameras and the tools that are revolutionizing production and post.

We'll also cover the skills any filmmaker should know, with a special emphasis on the screenwriting principles that will distinguish our film from the thousands of others out there today.

We'll also discuss how stories are being told across multiple platforms and how we propose to tell our story.

And how to use existing content (like music or a logo) without breaking the rules.

And we'll devote considerable attention to marketing and distribution for a world where making and distributing motion pictures is no longer a centralized business.

Here is a video clip that sets the scene for the emerging world of convergence media:

In July 2009, Henry Jenkins will leave M.I.T. (where he founded the Convergence Culture Consortium research group in the Comparative Media Studies program) to become Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Prof. Jenkins is also the author of several books, including Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture and What Made Pistachio Nuts?: Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic.