AllThingsD » Sundance Film Festival

Ready for His Digital Close-Up: The NYT's Media Dude, David Carr, Talks About "Page One"

Kara Swisher — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 18:35:07 +0000

While I was in Los Angeles recently, I was invited to a private screening of a documentary about the New York Times called “Page One: Inside the New York Times.”

The film, which debuted at the most recent Sundance Film Festival, opens Friday.

The documentary is by Andrew Rossi, who spent a year following reporters and editors at the famed newspaper, even as the media landscape shifted dramatically due to the impact of digital technologies.

Luckily for me, one of the movie’s principal characters — and I do mean character when it comes to him — is the Times’ quirky media columnist, David Carr.

I met Carr a dog’s age ago, when he ran “The City Paper” in Washington, D.C. He has only gotten more interesting over time, especially as the Web has transformed the news business.

Actually, wrecked the news business seems more the sensibility of “Page One” and also the audience at the screening, which largely bemoaned the troubles that quality papers have gotten themselves into in the age of the Internet.

Of course, the situation at the Times is a lot more complicated than that and there are some significant benefits to readers in the new paradigm, even if it did not help traditional media.

Carr winks and nods to both sides of the debate in the film — his attack on Web bad boy Michael Wolff over aggregation is priceless, even though he clearly loves the Internet’s thrilling possibilities, too.

As I have previously written, what is probably most interesting is that many of the stories covered by the Times in the film are about the technological forces that have put it and other traditional media organizations through the digital ringer in recent years.

Here’s the video of my interview with Carr — please, as I tried to, ignore his rant at the start about the Times’ failed talent raid on a defenseless little tech blog site! — as well as an exclusive clip and the trailer for the movie:

[ See post to watch video ]

The Stylings of Hulu Head Jason "Jerry Maguire" Kilar Over the Years

Kara Swisher — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:43:19 +0000

After reading Hulu CEO Jason Kilar’s most excellent recent blog post taking aim at how television and cable companies (i.e., his bosses) deliver and the follow-up piece by MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka (“Is Jason Kilar Trying to Get Fired?”), BoomTown had an intense feeling of déjà vu.

That’s because–even though what he wrote put the knickers of the Hollywood/New York media bigwigs who own the premium video service into a series of ever more painful knots–it is a variation of things Kilar (pictured here) has been saying for quite awhile now.

Including in homespun videos by me!*

As you will see below, though Kilar’s essay was designed to tweak, it was by no means a geek version of a Howard Beale “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” moment either.

Here is a quintet of video interviews in which Kilar talks about the end of linear television watching, the need for browser-based TV sets, how hard it is to build paywalls (and real ones, too) and more.

As you will see, it would be a shame if the clearly talented Kilar can’t eat lunch in this town for restating what he has long maintained, even though a happy ending here does seem unlikely.

Until we find out how the story ends, here’s Kilar talking, from 2008 to last summer:

April, 2008 at Hulu HQ in Santa Monica, Calif.:

December, 2008 at Hulu HQ:

January, 2009 at Sundance Film Festival (Kilar is at 8:00 mark):

July, 2010 at Hulu HQ:

December, 2010 at Hulu’s New York office:

*And one by Peter Kafka.

Viral Video: "Page One" at Sundance

Kara Swisher — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:39:59 +0000

One of the more interesting movies at the 11th Sundance Film Festival, which opens today in Park City, Utah, will be “Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times.”

Here’s the program description from Sundance:

With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, newspapers going bankrupt, and outlets focusing on content they claim audiences (or is it advertisers?) want, PAGE ONE chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy if in-depth investigative reporting becomes extinct.

The film deftly makes a beeline for the eye of the storm or, depending on how you look at it, the inner sanctum of the media, gaining unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom for a year. At the media desk, a dialectical play-within-a-play transpires as writers like salty David Carr track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism–including vibrant cross-cubicle debate and collaboration, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching–is alive and well. The resources, intellectual capital, stamina, and self-awareness mobilized when it counts attest there are no shortcuts when analyzing and reporting complex truths.

What is probably most interesting is that many of the stories covered by the Times in the film are about the technological forces that have put it and other traditional media organizations through the digital ringer in recent years.

And, as someone who made the move away from a big mainstream newspaper to an online-only publication, I experienced some significant déjà vu watching clips in this interview with Rossi below, especially of the editor-centric tone of the newsroom and the franticness of reporters to get a story on the front page.

Which these days feels like such an odd and ancient way to think of journalism and which I also don’t miss for a second. (By the way, you can do “rigorous” journalism online too and without all the endless meetings.)

Check out Rossi (and that’s the very funny NYT media columnist David Carr in the photo below):

Exclusive: SnagFilms Snags $10 Million in Funding at $50 Million Valuation

Kara Swisher — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:15:38 +0000

SnagFilms, the online video distribution site for professional documentaries, has nabbed $10 million in funding from Comcast’s investment arm and New Enterprise Associates, and will also now be distributing fictional independent film releases.

That and the new investment giving SnagFilms a valuation of $50 million should be big news at the 11th Sundance Film Festival, the famous independent film gathering opening in Park City, Utah, on Thursday.

And SnagFilms also announced that well-known industry exec Bingham Ray is joining the start-up to spearhead its distribution of fictional narrative and foreign-produced independent films.

The service, unlike the subscription-based video giant Netflix, currently distributes free non-fiction documentary films with advertising, as well as offers rental streaming and purchase options.

And it is profitable, said Ted Leonsis, the former AOL exec who is the founder and has been the driving investor in SnagFilms.

“It was always my personal frustration as a backer of documentaries that you could not get distribution far and wide,” he said in an interview earlier today.

He noted that while Netflix is really now focused on big studio fare, “what we’ve discovered is a big supply of independent video that has never seen light of day, but that has a big audience.”

SnagFilms’ strategy is to give broader reach to these films, which often don’t even have a theatrical opening–or, if they do, are very small.

Along with its site, which digitizes the films and adds advertising to them, SnagFilms also encourages Web sites and others to grab films and create a “virtual movie theater.” (You can see my effort below.)

It also has video-on-demand deals with Comcast, Verizon and more, as well as purchase options with Apple’s iTunes and others.

Earlier this month, SnagFilms also launched an impressive and free iPad full-movie-watching app.

SnagFilms also owns a popular news site called indieWIRE, which covers the independent film market, and the new funding will also be used to expand it.

That market has been in need of a boost of some kind, since it has been struggling as financing has dried up for the production of quality documentaries and outside-the-Hollywood-machine movies.

It has long been hoped that the Internet would perhaps save and strengthen the genre, with its supposed long-tail magic.

But the going has been slow. Currently, SnagFilms has 2,000 films in its online library, although Leonsis said the aim is to use the new funds to get 10,000 films on the service as soon as possible.

“We’re trying to build a beachhead in the independent film world,” he said of SnagFilms, which currently has about 40 employees in Washington, D.C., and New York. “We think we have a niche and video is the killer app on Web now.”

Leonsis, who has backed such notable documentaries as “The Rape of Nanking,” said NEA’s Peter Barris will join the board, along with existing investor Steve Case.

Case and Leonsis, of course, were the dynamic duo of AOL’s glory days.

So, I am rooting for another win in an arena that needs it.

Thus, here’s my own movie palace online and also the official press release from SnagFilms:

Watch more free documentaries

Industry Powerhouses NEA and Comcast Invest in SnagFilms

$10 million in new funding to distribute documentaries and fictional independent films on all digital platforms and devices, globally

Washington D.C.–January 17, 2011 – SnagFilms announced today it has received $10 million in growth capital from new investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Comcast Interactive Capital (CIC). Existing investors, including Ted Leonsis (SnagFilms’ Founder) and Steve Case, also participated. The financing will be used to expand its distribution of independent films–including, for the first time, fictional independent releases–across all digital platforms and devices, and on a global basis.

SnagFilms is a leader in distributing free, ad-supported titles from a library of over 2,000 non-fiction films. Last year, SnagFilms entered the transactional world with launches of video on demand channels on Comcast and Verizon FiOS, as well as titles for sale through the Apple’s iTunes store. Earlier this month, SnagFilms debuted its iPad application with the largest collection of award-winning U.S. films offered free to iPad users.

“As a profitable company with substantial private investors, SnagFilms didn’t need to raise outside capital,” said company founder Ted Leonsis. “However, we saw overwhelming strategic value in involving NEA, a pioneer and leading venture capital firm, and CIC, the investment arm of Comcast. SnagFilms is very well-financed and uniquely positioned now to bring the full array of independent films–fiction and non-fiction, U.S. and foreign–to global audiences on all platforms and devices. We’ve amassed a library of 2,000 documentaries since our launch, and we’re now building distribution opportunities for tens of thousands of independent films in both categories. That’s great news for film fans and for filmmakers.”

“SnagFilms is perfectly positioned to fuse technology and content in a manner that has marked many of the transformational industry leaders we have helped build in the past,” said NEA Managing General Partner Peter Barris, who joins the Company’s Board of Directors. “New devices and digital platforms will allow consumers unprecedented access to quality content, and SnagFilms will be there to delight them. We are pleased to be able to invest in SnagFilms at this time, and to help them add fictional indie films to their expertise with documentaries–and to take both genres to the full swath of digital platforms and devices.” Among many other investments, Barris serves on the board of Groupon as its first VC investor.

“We are excited about the new opportunities SnagFilms creates, especially for independent filmmakers who historically could not get distribution,” said David Horowitz, Managing Director of Comcast Interactive Capital. “This investment reflects our view that consumers are demanding a diverse selection of high-quality content that can be watched on any platform or device.”

SnagFilms also announced that industry veteran Bingham Ray will join the Company to help guide its entry into distribution of fictional narrative and foreign-produced independent films. Ray, former President of United Artists, October Films and Kimmel Entertainment, and honored for Lifetime Achievement by the Gotham Awards, has deep experience in the acquisition, marketing and distribution of motion pictures, including “Hotel Rwanda,” “Bowling for Columbine,” “Secrets & Lies,” “War Room,” “High Art,” “Last Days” and “Breaking the Waves.”

“Bingham has been an advocate for filmmakers throughout his career,” noted Rick Allen, SnagFilms CEO. “His record of successful distribution on traditional platforms provides a strategic sense and depth of relationships that will be invaluable as we extend our model into a broader array of films. Bingham will be a key member of our large presence at the Sundance Film Festival this week and beyond.”

“I’ve been a big fan of SnagFilms from their earliest days, and am truly thrilled to be part of the team as they expand the service, bringing more filmmakers to bigger audiences on a wider array of platforms,” said Ray. “This is the future of our business.”

“SnagFilms plus Bingham Ray is a great combination,” said Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics. “Bingham knows the indie world as well as anyone alive and is admired for his experience and for always delivering for filmmakers. He’ll be a big asset to SnagFilms’ expansion.”

In addition, SnagFilms intends to use its new growth capital to expand its indieWIRE unit, now in its 15th year as the leading web source of news, reviews and analysis of independent film.

“indieWIRE’s traffic is now ten times what it was when we purchased it two and a half years ago,” Allen said. “Before the Academy Awards are announced later this month, you’ll see new editor-in-chief Dana Harris add ongoing features to our coverage of the indie world, and exciting new blogs to our Network, like the recently-added blog The Playlist.”

About SnagFilms

SnagFilms features free ad-supported viewing of more than 2,000 award-winning titles from some of the greatest names in documentary film. All films are shareable across the web. Since its launch in July 2008, SnagFilms’ library has been featured on over 2 billion web pageviews, with more than 325 million minutes of SnagFilms titles streamed across over more than 100,000 affiliated sites and webpages, including through partners such as Aol, Comcast, Hulu, the Starbucks Digital Network, IMDb, the Miami Herald, hundreds of non-profits, special interest sites and blogs. SnagFilms also offers selected titles via VOD (with Comcast and FiOS), on iTunes and through a new free application for the iPad.

OVGuide has twice named SnagFilms a Top Site and MovieMaker Magazine named SnagFilms to its annual list of “50 Best Websites for Moviemakers.”

The "Catfish"–A.K.A. the Other Facebook Movie–Dudes Speak!

Kara Swisher — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:37:03 +0000

Last night, BoomTown got to grill some “Catfish”–as in the three young hipsters responsible for the new documentary about a twisted online romance on Facebook.

That was for a Q&A after a screening in San Francisco, where I got to talk to Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost and the film’s subject, Nev Schulman, about how they decided to make it.

“Catfish” is being released by Universal Pictures, which picked it up after it got a lot of attention at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Before the social networking site’s CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg gets his knickers in a knot, “Catfish” is actually not the Facebook-bashing one.

Instead of a semi-fictional film–that would be “The Social Network” from Sony (SNE)–this one is a rumination on identity in the digital age.

As I previously wrote, I won’t give away the particulars, except to say it shows the range of human emotions that social networking engenders, from desperation and loneliness to serendipity and hope for love.

We talk about all that and more in the video of the interview I did before our discussion with the audience at the screening:

[ See post to watch video ]

"Catfish": The Other Facebook Movie Speaks Real Truths About the Social Network (Plus Video!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:15:32 +0000

Last night, BoomTown attended a press screening of a new film, due out this fall, in which Facebook plays a big role.

No, not that movie.

Instead of a semi-fictional film–that would be “The Social Network” from Sony (SNE)–this one is a documentary, called “Catfish,” about a man who has a real-life encounter of the you-could-not-make-this-up kind on Facebook.

I won’t give away the particulars, except to say it shows the range of human emotions that social networking engenders, from desperation and loneliness to serendipity and hope for love.

Here is the description of the movie, being released by Universal Pictures, which got a lot of attention at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year:

In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding and began to film the life of Ariel’s brother, Nev. Nev, a 24-year-old New York City photographer, was contacted on Facebook by Abby, an eight-year-old girl who asked permission to paint one of his photographs. After she sent him her remarkable painting, Nev began an online friendship with Abby and her family, eventually falling in love with her older sister, Megan. When Nev uncovered some startling revelations about Megan, the boys set off on a road trip to find out the truth.

Nev, Ariel and Henry had no idea that their project would turn into the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives. A reality thriller, CATFISH centers on a riveting mystery that is a product of our times, where social networking, mobile devices and electronic communication so often replace face-to-face contact. The film is a powerful story of love, deception, and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue.

And here’s the video of the trailer for “Catfish,” to get a taste:

Exec Producer Ridley Scott and YouTube Announce a Global Film First

Beth Callaghan — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:15:33 +0000

The online video site is inviting people worldwide to film bits of their own lives on July 24th and submit them to its “Life in a Day” project. Director Kevin MacDonald will assemble the pieces into a feature-length documentary. Participants whose footage makes it into the film will receive co-director billing and a chance to attend the film’s 2011 Sundance Film Festival Premiere.

The One-Year Report Card of Yahoo's Carol Bartz–Deal-Making: Incomplete

Kara Swisher — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:24:13 +0000

Sorry for the break in grading Yahoo’s Carol Bartz on her one-year anniversary as CEO.

But BoomTown was swanning around the Sundance Film Festival in Utah this weekend, went partying with those boozy Hollywood types and ended up in Provo with the crazy gals from “The Runaways”!

I wish! Actually, running away from issuing any grade for deal-making for Bartz is a pretty good way to put it.

Because today, after much thought, I have to give the Yahoo leader an incomplete for deal-making.

That’s because the only deal that truly counts–the search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft (MSFT) struck in July–has still not been approved by regulators.

More to the point, no one will really know what it means for Yahoo (YHOO) until the company finally embarks on the biggest bet of its recent history.

And that answer is many, many quarters away.

I began handing out marks to Bartz recently, after she gave herself a B- for overall performance for the year since she took over the troubled Internet giant.

But I decided to be more specific, splitting the grades for Yahoo in 2009 into five categories: Management, financials, product innovation, deal-making and moxie.

I awarded Bartz an A- for management, a C+ for financials and a C- for product innovation so far.

And as much as I would like to give a definite grade for deal-making, she has made no other deals of major consequence on which to base a grade.

The deal to integrate Facebook Connect and Twitter? A catch-up long past due and not as impressive as similar ones by Google and Microsoft. The sale of Zimbra and other assets? Essentially, cleaning up. A few minor acquisitions? No needle-movers in the lot.

Thus, the only deal has been with Microsoft, which is indeed a very big deal.

And it is, as I said, incomplete, although not to everyone.

Some thought the deal, which Bartz said she should have made sooner, was the best that Yahoo could pull off after the disastrous attempt by Microsoft to buy Yahoo for upward of $40 billion collapsed and left egg on everyone’s face.

With Google (GOOG) and Microsoft gearing up for a costly search war and no chance of Yahoo ever regaining any kind of tech advantage, the argument in favor goes, Bartz opted to get some kind of leverage while she still had some.

On many levels, that makes a lot of sense. And if it works, the deal will surely help improve Yahoo’s bottom line, cutting expenses in the search technology arena drastically and, the company hopes, giving it the ability to compete better in the marketplace by combining Yahoo and Microsoft search against the Google behemoth.

Presumably, if Yahoo can innovate in search experience and add to share, all is not lost.

But a lot of people certainly don’t like the deal, citing a variety of problems, especially the fact that Yahoo has essentially turned over all search monetization to Microsoft and traded away a big part of its business with no financial guarantees.

In fact, Bartz said in an interview with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference–months before she struck it–that she would want “boatloads of money” in any deal with Microsoft (see that video below).

[ See post to watch video ]

At the time, most people thought she meant a gigantic upfront guaranteed payment for handing over search to Microsoft, which she did not get in the final deal.

Wrote one Internet exec in a long email to me, expressing a typical sentiment I have heard time and again:

She would have been much better off to simply have sold the current Yahoo search biz to Microsoft along the lines of the deal Carl Icahn tried to broker the summer after the acquisition bid was pulled. The cut over could have happened much faster (just start running Bing results on Yahoo) and Microsoft would probably have given a revenue guarantee that would keep Yahoo whole on revenue per search for the traffic they generated. That would also have eliminated the sales overhead immediately, providing greater cost savings…She chose a middle-ground (classic Yahoo) and will end up with lower returns for the declining search business than she could otherwise have had.

Only reason she doesn’t get the F that [former Yahoo CEO and Co-founder] Jerry Yang obviously earned on this topic is that she did actually make a deal.

And, indeed, Bartz had to play the cards she was handed by her predecessors, and they were not good ones.

Still, Yahoo is now depending on Microsoft to innovate in search technology. If it does not or cannot, look out below in that category, even if Yahoo recovers in its stronger display advertising arena.

So, with Yahoo’s search share declining of late, even as that of Microsoft’s Bing grows, it is right to start worrying and be nervous.

Nonetheless, as much as I like to dole out grades and as much as Bartz’s detractors would like to say it is over, it’s probably fairer to wait and see what happens.

One thing is certain: Bartz has shown either amazing guts or an astonishing lack of foresight here.

But let’s save that particular grade–moxie–for tomorrow, on the day Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings come out and Bartz is front and center in the earnings call.

Speaking of moxie–a.k.a. ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!–here’s the trailer for “The Runaways,” which just opened at Sundance:

Social Media Storytelling at Sundance: MySpace, YouTube and Oprah Dudes–Also, My Twitter-Hating Mom–Discuss!

Kara Swisher — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:01:46 +0000

On Friday, BoomTown was back at the Sundance Film Festival for the fifth time for my annual techie panel at the famous independent film confab.

This year, we opened the New Frontier on Main series with a session titled, “Spotlight on Social Media: Successful Strategies for Storytellers.”

Panelists included Robert Tercek, president of digital media for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network; filmmaker Ondi Timoner; Chris Gebhardt, head of Participant Media’s TakePart social media platform, which just sold a documentary featuring Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT); David Eun, head of film partnerships for Google (GOOG) video unit YouTube; Jason Hirschhorn, chief product officer of News Corp. (NWS) social site MySpace; and Matt Jacobson, Facebook’s market development exec.

The conversation was super lively about how social tools can bring filmmakers closer to their audience–before, during and after a work’s creation. There was also a lot of talk about how the Web gives movies with little chance of theatrical distribution more opportunity to be seen and possibly make money.

But still, with ever more disaggregation of entertainment and the confusing array of new mobile devices to receive content, it is not clear that Silicon Valley can save the day for anyone trying to reignite the indie space via software, hardware or any Web innovation.

Incredibly, Oprah dude Tercek ignored my brilliant idea for an Oprah-cam attached to the television host’s head. As in Oprah 24-7! Talk about social storytelling!

Here are my video interviews on this and more with three of the panelists–Hirschhorn, Tercek and Eun–as well as thoughts from my mother, Lucky, who most recently was bashing Twitter in this column and does so again here (although she said she would be happy to watch a movie via magic glasses).

Also, at the end of the video, I ski and use my Flip camera, for no good reason.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Education Documentary Featuring Bill Gates Gets First Distribution Deal at Sundance

Kara Swisher — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:03:01 +0000

Like BoomTown, Bill Gates was at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend–not just to sample some of the fare at the well-known independent film festival, held annually in Park City, Utah, but also to appear at the screening of a documentary about the crisis in public education in which he appears and that scored the first distribution deal at the event.

The worldwide rights for “Waiting for Superman,” directed by Davis Guggenheim and produced by Participant Media, were sold to Paramount Vantage, a unit of the Viacom (VIA) movie studio.

The film premiered Friday at Sundance, with Gates in attendance. The Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder took questions at the screening and made it to several Sundance events, surprising several film types.

“I couldn’t believe it was him,” said one participant at a filmmakers’ gathering.

Yes, it was him, especially since issues in public education have been a big focus of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he has been spending most of his time since leaving day-to-day work at the software giant in 2008.

Interestingly, Participant Media–along with Guggenheim–put out “An Inconvenient Truth,” the global-warming doc starring former VP Al Gore, which was a huge success.

And in yet another Silicon Valley connection, Los Angeles-based Participant was founded by former eBay (EBAY) exec Jeff Skoll.

Here are highlights from a terrific interview Walt Mossberg did with Melinda Gates at the sixth D: All Things Digital conference in 2008, where she talked eloquently about the problems faced by U.S. schoolchildren:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here’s the press release from Participant on the “Superman” deal:

HOLLYWOOD, CA (January 21, 2010)–Worldwide rights for the new documentary from Oscar®-winning director Davis Guggenheim (AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH) and Participant Media have been acquired by Paramount Vantage, it was announced today by Adam Goodman, Paramount Film Group President and by Participant Media’s CEO Jim Berk.

The documentary will have its world premiere tomorrow, January 22, at the Sundance Film Festival. Paramount Vantage will release the movie in the fall of 2010 in the U.S. with international release dates not yet determined.

The studio’s specialty division Paramount Classics released Guggenheim’s acclaimed AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH in 2006. The influential documentary, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, received two Academy Awards®, and was a worldwide box office hit, grossing more than $24 million in the U.S. and nearly $50 million worldwide.

The new film, developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media, examines the crisis of public education in the United States through multiple interlocking stories–from a handful of students and their families whose futures hang in the balance, to the educators and reformers trying to find real and lasting solutions within a dysfunctional system.

The documentary features several leaders in the field of education, including philanthropist Bill Gates of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; President and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone in Harlem, New York Geoffrey Canada; Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools Michelle Rhee; Knowledge is Power Program Founders (KIPP) David Levin and Mike Feinberg; and President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation Bill Strickland.

Six-time Grammy Award-winning recording artist, concert performer and philanthropist John Legend composed the end title song “Shine.” Legend’s own Show Me campaign uses education to break the cycle of poverty through sustainable development at the individual, family, and community levels.

Said Paramount’s Goodman: “Our commitment to this movie and the issue of education is urgently important to all of us at Paramount. In collaboration with our partners, we hope to bring about a real solution.”

Said Davis Guggenheim: “With these two great partners, Participant Media and Paramount Pictures, we have a chance to create public awareness around this issue, and this is the only way we can make real change in our children’s schools.”

Said Jim Berk, CEO, Participant Media: “The movie creates an emotional personal connection to an issue which underpins the very future of our country. By reuniting with our good friends at Paramount, we have the chance to build on our ground breaking partnership on AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH to launch a national conversation from movie theaters, to kitchen tables all across the country.”

“It’s wonderful to have Paramount as partners on this film,” says the film’s producer, Lesley Chilcott, who was also a producer on AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. “It’s crucial to have experts like Paramount and Participant that understand the power of a film to create urgency about an important issue. We need to get the message out there. Millions of kids are waiting.”

The film is directed and produced by Davis Guggenheim. Lesley Chilcott is the producer, with Jeff Skoll and Diane Weyermann serving as executive producers. Written by Davis Guggenheim and Billy Kimball. The cinematographers are Erich Roland and Bob Richman. Greg Finton, Jay Cassidy, and Kim Roberts served as the editors.

Weekend Update 01.23.10–The Bated-Breath Edition

Drake Martinet — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:26:59 +0000

We’ve all seen it, that spiro-graphed, color-splotched invitation to Apple’s Jan. 27 event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. Weekend Update isn’t on the inside, but we hear rumors that Jobs will storm the stage dressed as Moses, carrying the new tablet, which will be made of stone, under his robes. Apparently, that’s where it’s been hiding all along. Either that, or Weekend Update is going a little nuts from “tablet fatigue.”

Before we got to rumors, plans and all important educated guesses, AllThingsD spent the week doing reporting about real companies with products you can actually buy.

Walt’s column wasn’t exactly its normal, gadgety self this week. Maybe he’s saving his strength. Instead of the newest thing that won’t be leaving your pocket, he covered a service that claims to help you remember everything. Evernote, with its adorable little elephant logo, aims to be a sort of digital filing cabinet in the cloud, allowing you to save information, images, notes and just about anything else that can be digitized. Walt had good things to say all around, even if the available apps didn’t give every device the same functionality. Weekend Update liked the auto text-recognition feature that makes pictures of text searchable. We’ll never carry a business card home again. Neither rain nor snow nor tablet rumors can keep Walt from his appointed rounds at Mossberg’s Mailbox, and this week he grabbed a couple questions about e-readers, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer 8 and the right laptop for the young and litigious. Walt cleared up the myth that e-books can’t highlight text (even if they don’t do it in color yet), and then moved on to a question about what IE8 refers to as “accelerators.” Before tying up the mailbag strings for anther week, he also gave counsel to a future counselor. He recommended a moderately priced Windows 7 laptop or a Macbook for the incoming law student, though he suggested it would be a good idea to check with the school and current students for specific needs. Weekend Update thinks that last bit is extra good advice. Katie was busy this week testing the latest Bluetooth earpiece from Aliph’s Jawbone line. The Jawbone Icon is the first earpiece to run with a software package that allows the addition of apps just for the earpiece. Overall Katie thought the Icon represented a step forward for Bluetooth earpieces but hopes for upgrades to the app suite will bring more robust features. Oh yeah, and she was glad that they finally got rid of those tricky hidden control buttons.

At MediaMemo, Peter gave us the continued saga of e-magazines and the world’s slowest moving electronic construction project. It looks like the Time Inc. e-mag prototypes won’t be part of Wednesday’s Apple (AAPL) event even though there was a lot of hullabaloo over the company’s Sports Illustrated prototype. Condé Nast, on the other hand, has declared its GQ mag-as-app tests a success. No word yet on who will be three-quarters naked on the first 10-inch screen edition. Completing the out-with-the-print, in-with-the-electronic trifecta was Peter’s post about the New York Times pay-wall announcement. The Times claims it will erect a metered wall in 2011, which seems like an awfully long time in the shifting sands of the Web. Outside partners may be playing a factor, and some speculate that the 2011 date is just a declaration that New York Times Company (NYT) will be waiting-and-seeing. Peter doesn’t see what that would accomplish and cites experts who assert that a year isn’t an unreasonable amount of time to build a complex pay wall with necessary features.

Digital Daily was on the ball this week with John’s signature hard-hitting hilarity. His early report proved correct when sources suggested that the EU’s approval of the pending Oracle (ORCL)-Sun (JAVA) acquisition was nigh. Not to leave the tablet news out in the cold, John asked some important questions about a future tablet’s data consumption habits, and thinks it might end up in a class of its own. A big, beautiful screen means big, beautiful images and video, which mean gloriously huge file sizes. Hooray for Wi-Fi. To round out the week, John covered a story about Google (GOOG) co-founders Larry and Sergey planning to sell about $5.5 billion in stock over five years. We’re not sure whether the proper term is “cashing out” or “cashing in,” but they are going to be doing a lot of one or the other. The stock sale will remove them as a two-man majority voting block, but their remaining 47 percent will assure that their velvety duet will continue to ring clearly at board meetings.

Boomtown led off with some viral video for the ages. Jimmy Fallon one-upped the “pants on the ground” video by performing the sarcastic ballad as Neil Young. We’re not sure the audience caught that it was Jimmy right way, in part, because Young was making the TV rounds about that time, and in part, because Fallon does a surprisingly good Neal impression. Kara asked her readers to vote on the new tablet’s name, making “iPad” her own prediction. Kara has an eerie way of getting this stuff right so Weekend Update is gonna go ahead and get that tattoo this weekend. Kara finished the week with a quick post about her trip to Sundance and all the geektastic happenings there. Kara’s Winnebago, which we call “Operation Rolling Thunder,” was crammed full of wife, kids, mom, dog, and maybe a few stowaway Bay Area indie filmmakers who tied themselves to the undercarriage. Read the post; there’s never a dull moment on a Swisher expedition.

AllTingsD is back on Monday with some great new stuff to feed that techie habit. And don’t forget to set your homepages here Tuesday (as if they weren’t already) to see live photos and blogging from Apple’s big unveiling. We’ll see you there, and will be sure to let you know if Jobs does, in fact, part the Bay in his walk from Marin to San Francisco that morning.

BoomTown Heads to Sundance Film Festival in the Fifth Annual Meet-the-Geeks Pilgrimage

Kara Swisher — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:19:53 +0000

Today, BoomTown is loading the wife and kids, along with mom, into our tricked-out All Things Digital Winnebago and heading to Park City, Utah, for the 26th Sundance Film Festival.

Now, what I know about independent filmmaking could fit neatly into a thimble, with room to spare.

But what has brought me back there for five years running is the chance to introduce those auteurs gathered on the frozen tundra to a slice of what’s to come from the digital world–for Sundance’s terrific New Frontier on Main series.

Increasingly, that matters a lot to those who make movies, especially those associated with smaller film efforts that might never see the light of a theater projector.

Thus, the tech sessions at Sundance are packed to the gills, with huge crowds turned away, because Hollywood knows what’s coming, and it has increasingly less control over it.

Imagine, for example, what the Apple (AAPL) tablet will mean to media giants in relation to entertainment distribution. And exactly how might you tell a story on a smartphone? Or not!

They can’t say they were not warned.

Last year, I interviewed a trio panelists: Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO of the Google (GOOG) video service YouTube; Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, the premium online video service and joint venture among News Corp. (NWS), Disney (DIS) and GE’s (GE) NBC Universal; and Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix (NFLX), the largest online DVD rental service, which has been moving into an ever wider range of movie distribution on the Web.

This year, my panel–which takes place Friday at noon and runs 90 minutes–is titled: “Spotlight on Social Media: Successful Strategies for Storytellers.”

Here’s the description:

“Today’s social media sites have the potential to bring content creators closer to audiences than ever before–creating new marketing opportunities for independents. But what more can be achieved? Can we create meaningful experiences through our profiles pages, or is it all just self-promotional clutter? Are the popular sites we use today the end of the line, or just a peek into the future?”

In other words: Will Twitter’s 140-character influence murder all creativity? Or just bruise it a little bit?

The subjects of my prying interview questions on this important issue include Robert Tercek, president of digital media for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network; filmmaker Ondi Timoner; Chris Gebhardt, head of Participant Media’s TakePart social media platform; David Eun, head of film partnerships for YouTube; MySpace’s Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn; and Matt Jacobson, Facebook’s market development dude.

Whatever that means, since the hot Silicon Valley social networking site has done little in the way of storytelling as yet and much more in the way of pokes!

But, as ever, I shall strive to drag answers about innovation and more out of the lot of them.

Video to come, of course!

So, until I get there and thaw out the Flip digital video camera, here is my longish video from last year with the panelists, as well as cameos from my kids and once-indie film star and now TV hit queen Jane Lynch.

And below that, my 2008 Sundance video featuring Lynch and MySpace co-founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe.

[ See post to watch video ]

And if you want to know even more about Sundance, there is a new app on the iPhone for the festival. It costs $4.99, with the proceeds benefiting the not-for-profit Sundance Institute.

YouTube to Test Video Rental

Jessica E. Vascellaro — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:27:43 +0000

Google Inc.’s (GOOG) YouTube said it will begin testing a new video-rental service on Friday, starting with movies from the Sundance Film Festival.

YouTube, which announced the move in a blog post, also plans to allow people to begin renting videos in the health, education and fitness categories in the coming weeks.

A company spokesman said that content partners get to set the price they want to charge consumers and that customers must pay through Google’s payment service, Google Checkout.

Google and the content partner will split the revenue, with the partner getting the majority, he said.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Kara Visits Sundance and Interviews Hurley, Hastings and Kilar

Kara Swisher — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:29:06 +0000

Here’s a longish video BoomTown did over the weekend at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the famous annual independent film gathering now taking place in Park City, Utah.

I was there to moderate a panel on Saturday titled, “Where Do We Go From Here? Icons of the Digital Age.”

It was a great session, with a lot of insights as to where things are headed in the online video space and how that would impact the movie industry. Main conclusion: Significantly.

The trio of panelists were: Chad Hurley, the co-founder and CEO of the Google (GOOG) video service, YouTube; Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, the premium online video service that is a joint venture of News Corp. (NWS) and GE (GE) unit NBC Universal; and Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix (NFLX), the largest online DVD rental service, which has been moving into an ever wider range of distribution of movies on the Web. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

I did interviews with each of them, as well as a chat with my only indie celebrity friend, Jane Lynch, some scenes from the festival and an intro and outro from my own little stars, Louie and Alex Swisher.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Sundancing With the (Tech) Stars

Kara Swisher — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:00:50 +0000

BoomTown is headed to the 2009 Sundance Film Festival today, an annual journey I make to moderate panels about the tech industry.

The festival officially opened yesterday in Park City, Utah. And while still largely a confab of independent filmmakers, Hollywood deal types and various celebrities rifling though swag orgies, a lot of geeks are there too.

Since Sundance also has taken a keen interest in all things digital, ATD moves its HQ there for a few days every January, to the New Frontier on Main digs, to talk to those gathered–for what have become standing-room-only events–about whither tech and how and when it is eventually going to eat the entertainment industry’s lunch.

Oh yes, my friend: Silicon Valley will eat lunch in this snowy town again!

And for good reason, given that the entire movie industry has long worried about how digital distribution will impact its business, especially as every year, the encroachment continues at a relentless pace.

This year, we’re going even more futuristic, with a panel tomorrow at noon titled, “Where Do We Go From Here? Icons of the Digital Age.”

In fact, the panelists are that: Chad Hurley, the co-founder and CEO of the Google (GOOG) video service, YouTube; Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, the premium online video service that is a joint venture of News Corp. (NWS) and GE (GE) unit NBC Universal; and Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix (NFLX), the largest online DVD rental service, which has been moving into an ever wider range of distribution of movies on the Web. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

Here’s the panel description:

“Remember the world before the Internet, email, and cell phones? Now we try and picture it 15 years from now. If we are currently in the greatest information revolution since the printing press, what can we expect next? How will media, entertainment, and our digital lifestyles change? This roundtable assembles visionaries of the digital revolution to discuss the limits of our imagination.”

It should be an interesting exercise in creative prognostication, although I for one cannot remember the world before the Internet, email and cellphones.

I am also dragging my two young sons there, along with ATD majordomo Ed, so expect lots of filming of our own, with my shaky Flip Mino, to be posted all weekend.

Until then, here’s one of the two videos I did last year, including an interview with MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe and a visit to the trendy party he threw on Main Street with my celebrity friend Jane Lynch as tour guide (and she’ll be back this year for another special guest star appearance!):

Apple: A Ship That Leaks From the Top?

John Paczkowski — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:28:43 +0000

When Daily Variety broke the news that Pixar had hired writers for the pitch that became the 2007 release, ‘Ratatouille,’ Steve Jobs tracked the reporter down at the Sundance Film Festival, demanding to know her sources and threatening to fire the film’s writers. He called her on the private line of a rented condo–a number she had not given out to anyone. She still doesn’t know how he found it.”

– Daily Variety, June 18, 2006

Beyond the technology on display at Tuesday’s Apple event, what was perhaps most interesting was the accuracy with which it had been predicted. Astonishing really, given Apple’s near-monomaniacal secrecy. With the exception of that bogus $800 MacBook story, nearly every single rumor voiced in the weeks preceding Tuesday’s event was proven true–Apple’s new “brick” manufacturing process, aluminum enclosures for consumer MacBooks, LED backlit display, multi-touch glass trackpads, the screaming fast new Nvidia GPUs, even the date of the MacBook event itself. So when CEO Steve Jobs took the stage and said, “we have some exciting new products to show you,” most everyone sitting in the audience already had a pretty damn good idea what they were about to be shown. And that’s got to bother Apple (AAPL), which has long argued that leaks dampen excitement around product launches and taken legal action against rumor sites that publish them. Certainly, Jobs, showman that he is, can’t be pleased that the rabbits he’d planned to pull out of his hat Tuesday were hopping willy-nilly about the stage before he even arrived.

But apparently there’s little Apple can do to stop it. Or it’s given up trying. Or something else. “There used to be saying at Apple,” Jobs recalled at our D5 conference: “Isn’t it funny? A ship that leaks from the top.”

Perhaps it’s time for that saying be brought back into popular usage.