Having just mentioned WITHOUT-A-BOX in my last post...

here is an awesome article by filmmaker magazine about the guys that set it up, where they are going and what they stand for...

Go David Straus and Joe Neulight! Two film school graduates from UCLA & they launched without-a-box in 2000. Some extracts I likes from that article called

HITTING SEND: Withoutabox prepares for the big time BY LAURA DAVIES

follow below:

While at film school we [Straus and Neulight] made a number of films together, and through that process I saw that anything was possible in terms of making one’s art. But we knew there had to be a way to empower filmmakers so that they could attain their goals without ever having to “ask for permission,” and that’s where Withoutabox comes in. For me, Withoutabox is all about choosing to make something happen, because as an independent filmmaker you have the power to make it happen.

What is The International Film Festival Submission Service?

Straus: It is a product that connects filmmakers from around the world with festivals from around the world. Filmmakers can put all the information about their film — their marketing materials, press kits, trailer and anything else they would need to submit — into the system. They can then search our database of festivals and look for the festival that best matches their needs and submit that information to the festival. What one festival gets is different from what another festival gets, because [its submission] requirements are different. And festivals = manage their submission process through us as well. The filmmakers that use our product are [everyone from] Academy Award winners [to filmmakers] right out of high school. Our filmmakers make 30-second films and 2½ hour films. They use 35mm and they use digital. It’s on all extremes.

Have you abandoned the camera for the business
suit?

Straus: Just to put things in perspective, I’m sitting in my office with Birkenstocks on. If you ever tell me I can’t wear my Birkenstocks, I’ll get upset. The thrill that I get when I log in to our system at three in the morning and I see a filmmaker in India or New Zealand or the UK using our system, I’m incredibly fulfilled. I never saw myself as abandoning filmmaking; I just saw myself participating at a different level.

How do you expect a site aimed at industry professionals to compete with other services that encompass much wider general audiences when it comes to the marketing of indie films?

Joe Neulight: We are not trying to compete so much as to organize differently. Our goal is to empower our filmmakers to use whatever tools are at their disposal to get the word out on their films and to get their work out to audiences. Withoutabox is a professional bridge from more general sites like MySpace and YouTube for filmmakers who want to take the next step, monetize their work on the world marketplace and perhaps make a career of it. Filmmakers and festivals are already beginning to run Audience as a “private label” platform beneath their own Web sites, and we expect Audience will come to distinguish itself as “the source” of independent film, whether their work lives on our site or on those run by our partners and competitors.

In order to read the rest , go to:

http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/fall2006/line_items/hitting_send.php


Love & Inspiration,
Miri
Lunar Wolf Productions
www.myspace.com/lunarwolfproductions