Here is a revealing article from wired.com about how two young filmmakers, Arin Crumley and Susan Buice, took full advantage of the new media to make their 70-minute autobiographical feature film--including using MySpace to build an audience ahead of time, getting their fans-to-be to help them figure out where to try to book the film into theaters, and finally how to make money by allowing people to see the film, Four Eyed Monsters, free on the web (it has been viewed over half a million times in the week or so that it has been posted on YouTube). They financed it with $100,000 in credit card debt, but have already made $20,000 of that back in the first week via Spout.com, which is giving them a $1 commission for every person they get to sign up for that site. You can see the film on YouTube through August 15.
There have been others who have used bits and pieces of these strategies, but this story makes it obvious how all of these components are starting to come together. Good news for creative people with a drive to tell stories without necessarily depending on the old systems.
