Release on Indieflix
I was just notified that The Lionshare is slated for a June 8th release date on Indieflix. From their ‘about’ page:
IndieFlix is dedicated to providing a forum for filmmakers and their audience to interact and to building a community that translates artistic vision into commercial success.
IndieFlix promises to build a fair and open market to empower filmmakers to be the engine of their achievement and audiences to be a vital part of a movie’s success.
IndieFlix is committed to encourage public opinion and power of choice while reinvesting in the independence of film, the people that craft them, and the organizations that support them.
We believe that every movie has an audience, every filmmaker has a story to tell and each story has the right to be shared.
Indieflix will be selling DVDs and digital downloads. I’m very happy to be associated with them.
Lionshare on DVD Talk, plus contest info
I recently was the guest on Cody Clarke’s DVD Talk to promote the movie. Check it out.
To enter a contest to win a free copy of The Lionshare signed by Josh Bernhard and Cody Clarke, send an email with a minimum of 100 words, on any subject, to dvd@lionsharemovie.com with the subject DVD Contest. Talk about anything you like as long as it’s at least 100 words. Entry deadline is March 15. The winning essay will be read on the next episode of DVD Talk with Cody Clarke.
‘The Lionshare’ is academic
My good friend Dan is currently in a screenwriting program at a university in Scotland. One of his classes has to do with copyright issues and file sharing (first off, how cool is that?). Last night, he sent me the following:
So in class we watched Steal This Film, a presentation from TOM by Larry Lessig called “Laws That Choke Creativity” (It’s really amazing, check it out if you haven’t seen it. It’s available here among other places.), talked about the Girl Talk documentary, RIP: A Remix Manifesto, but didn’t watch it, and of course we talked a LOT about file sharing. After the break (it’s a 3 hour class) he showed us this webpage called http://vodo.net. And as you know, SHIT! There’s The Lionshare on the mainpage on the giant screen at the front of my class. And my professor starts talking about the web site and how this is the first feature film that they’ve hosted. I told the class that the film is actually by a good friend of mine, how we graduated from the same program, told them a little bit about the film without giving too much away, and encouraged them to watch it. And remember, there it is on the giant screen in the front of the room. The coincidence was insane.
Actually I cheated just slightly with my storytelling. But don’t worry, that makes it even better. During the break (before he showed what is currently, basically a page advertising your movie to my screenwriting class), of course having a personal and professional interest in all this copyright stuff I spoke with the professor and mentioned the band Negativland because of all of their famous and infamous legal dealings on the subject. And then, of course, I mentioned The Lionshare. The craziest bit was that as soon as I mention “this film you should check out that was made by a good friend of mine.” He goes, “Oh yeah. I just downloaded that last night. I’m going to talk about the web site that’s hosting it after the break.” Insane. So minor though it was, The Lionshare was a part of the copyright and file sharing discussion during a lecture in one of my classes on my screenwriting course. In Scotland. It made my day actually.
Made my day too! It’s certainly quite a coincidence that a person I know very well happened to go to Scotland and happened to join this program and happened to take that class that happened to be taught by that professor. Sometimes I wonder…
Additionally, Andrew Currie, who wrote that great review on Open Attitude, followed up with another article titled Instead of “making it,” just make art. It’s generated an interesting discussion on his Facebook page. Here’s an excerpt from the original post where he mentions The Lionshare:
Will art suffer from a dearth of professional artists? I don’t think so — for example, The Lionshare is far more compelling a film than anything I’ve seen from Hollywood so far this year. It may well be that such grand projects are undertaken with the ultimate goal of “making it”, but what if artists were to free themselves of this antiquated notion — really just a blip of the 20th century — and concentrate instead on just making art?
VODO creator namedrops ‘Lionshare’ at Slamdance panel
Jamie King, the force behind the VODO distribution platform that released the movie last month, was part of a panel discussion at Slamdance yesterday about the future of film distribution. While he was speaking, he mentioned The Lionshare’s downloads on the filesharing networks equaled 8 terabytes. It was quoted on the blog of Filmmaker Magazine:
Discussing a recent VODO film, Lion’s Share, King did point to one useful statistic. He said the film’s downloads on the filesharing networks totalled eight terabytes. “The value of that is in the thousands of dollars,” he said, “and that bandwidth cost has been shared by our community. It points to a future when the distinction between filmmaker, producer and distributor has been broken down.” In this future, he continued, “We will need to incentivize people to promote our films.”
Okay, so, they called it ‘Lion’s Share’ but that’s still awesome. Check out their full report on the panel here.
‘The Lionshare’ to be distributed on VODO
The movie has been selected to be the third release of VODO, a new online distribution platform that launched in October. It was founded by members of The Pirate Bay and some of the guys behind Steal This Film, the footage from which I remixed and used as a special feature on the DVD (see here). VODO stands for voluntary donation: you get the movie for free, and donate to the creators if you want to support them and their work.
It looks like The Lionshare is going to be their first narrative film release. Stay tuned for more info soon.
12/18 UPDATE: The movie is up!
Charm Face Music Video
Charm Face’s album release party was awesome, as was their Lionshare-tie-in video. Check it out:
Music Video Premiere
Bracey Smith and the band he played with in the movie went on to form a band called Charm Face. They’ve been achieving a lot of success and tomorrow night is the release party for their first album Hup. Before they play they will also premiere the Lionshare-inspired music video for “Comfort Food,” a song featured at the end of the movie. Bracey had a great concept that results in the video being what I consider an unofficial ’sequel’ to The Lionshare, even further blurring the line between reality and the world of the movie.
Here’s a quick behind the scenes video Bracey put together of the shoot:
So check out their free show tomorrow night and get there early to see the premiere of the video!
Friday, October 9
8:00 pm
Blarney Stone, 2nd floor
410 8th Ave
New York, NY
http://www.facebook.com/charmfacemusic#/event.php?eid=138049056445&index=1
The Russells review ‘The Lionshare’
Tom and Mary Russell, husband and wife filmmakers and prolific twitterers, have written what I think is the best review of the movie yet. They, more than anyone else so far, hit the nail exactly on the had with their read of the film (at least in terms of what I was conscious of trying to do). An excerpt:
But every once in a while, there’s a film that packs its 65 minutes with ideas, explored fully yet obliquely– a film that makes you wish there was another half-hour to look forward to, yet leaves you feeling satisfied. One such film, peering a few decades back, was 1967’s The Firemen’s Ball, the delightful sociological comedy that is still one of Milos Forman’s best films. Another is Josh Bernhard’s The Lionshare.
I do not make this comparison lightly; to my mind, the two films have more in common than the slim running time. Both films are comedies that explore sociological phenomenon with a light but occasionally biting touch; both come at their respective subjects a little sideways, making points in such an oblique and organic way that they don’t feel like points at all, that they only register on a subconscious level– which ensures that the films will last beyond the current sociological climate, that they have things to say about life when their subjects have been regaled to relics.
The comparison to Milos Forman’s The Fireman’s Ball is quite humbling. Read the whole review here, and check out more of their film criticism on twitter: @tomandmary.
Lionshare Trailer
In what I can only describe as an inexcusable omission, until now I have not created a trailer for the movie. We have a poster, a DVD, reviews, promotional stills, but no trailer. I can only say that I had some difficulty getting something together that I was happy with, and that I am dumb. But I’ve finally come up with something I think works pretty well, so without further ado:
