With visions of iPads dancing in their heads, media companies such as CBS.com are moving to make their video portals iPad friendly by testing and then rolling out HTML5, this as the aforementioned slate does not support Flash. If you believe their methodology, Flash has close to 100% market reach.

On the other hand, the iPhone has less then 1% OS penetration as reported by NetMarketShare

As Michael Cervieri of Scribe Media stated so accurately

If you subscribe to the estimates of Wall Street analysts, in a Barron's article the prediction spread is between 1 and 6 mil units sold in 2010, seriously? And the notion that $500 (love it when people list a price as $499), plus $30/month for unlimited data, it is not an impulse buy and one that will require significant carrier subsidies, That said, it will sell and sell well though 6million units for a consumption only device?

Vidar Brekke, Emerging Media Strategist at DefinedLogic and I attended the NYC Cross Media Conference in New York City, this past week. The conference, held at the Scolastic companies offices in New York City was organized to bridge the gap between different media sectors, share information and provide a forum for people to meet and network. Among notable presenters and topics covered, Vidar and I had the opportunity to talk with and interview Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment. Jeff, who is not only a compelling person to talk with about technology but also a sought after expert on the emerging field of transmedia storytelling.

Transmedia storytelling is the art and process of telling a story in pieces or segments across multible technology platforms. On the consumer side, it is a way to extend a companies brand and engauge the audience over time and across platforms. Additionally, it may be an opportunity for Indie filmmakers and other smaller media creatives who thus far have had a hard time gaining traction with their work on-line. As Jeff said, "The Internet is not Television" This is an important point I think many people, from Indies to major media outlets do not get or practice specific to how they develop their project for what is a two-way communication medium and not just a platform, or pipe for delivering content.

By Levi Shapiro

Israeli-born director Oren Moverman

Hollywood is throwing itself a party this evening. Unfortunately, in the business of specialty film there is little to celebrate - 2009 was a year of record losses. A glut of more than 420 specialty films were dumped on the market last year but less than 10 percent were profitable. Production costs for films with stars attached averaged $8 million (before marketing) but earned only $1.7 million.

In this environment, specialty units at Warner, Paramount and Disney have been shuttered or severely curtailed. This has opened the door for newer, more nimble entrants, like Beastie Boy (aka Nathaniel Hornblower, aka MCA) Adam Yauch. His two year old indie distributor Oscilloscope Labs acquires films on the festival circuit while maintaining low overhead. The process generated two Academy Award nominations for The Messenger from first-time, Israeli-born director Oren Moverman. The commercial and critical success of The Messenger suggests a path to profitability for other film-makers:

* low overhead

* story integrity

* built-in audiences

* artistic risks

The indie-film model of this decade is based on Miramax of the nineties. Harvey Weinstein's formula included nurturing talented young film-makers (Quentin Tarantino, Gus van Sant, etc), picking stories with built-in audiences and aggressive promotion to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. This yielded mega-hits like Pulp Fiction and Chicago ($213 million and $306 million) plus Oscar sweeps such as The English Patient (nine) and Shakespeare in Love (seven).

Adam Yauch, Beastie Boy and aspiring movie mogul

In the new indie-film economics, writer/director Oren Moverman incorporates a different formula for The Messenger. The film is about two members of the Contact Notification Office in the US Army. Their job is to inform the next of kin about the death of a loved one.

1. Maintain the Integrity of the Story: Sometimes "development hell" helps clarify artistic vision. The script, co-written by Moverman and Alessandro Camo, was attached to three directors in three years - Sydney Pollack, Roger Michell and Ben Affleck. Pollack wanted a love story while Affleck emphasized combat scenes. Oren held firm in the story he required. "To us, it's about grief and life, about needing to move back into the realm of the living once faced with death. And so it's a much more universal theme than just a particular war. All of us will get notified one day."

Directing the film allowed Moverman and Camo to work the material from the inside, adhering to the integrity of the story. "That is a gift."

2. Nurture a built-in audience: "The film was supported by the army from the beginning. We asked for their help and advice, they read the script and said, 'Yes, we want you to make this movie and we will help.' So they gave us access to a base to shoot, and we had a full-time adviser on the set. So we knew that officially the army as an institution was behind the movie."

In the United States, there are two million men and women in uniform and millions more veterans and their families. Oscilloscope reached out to this potential audience quite early, arranging screenings for military families in the DC area. This encouraged a built-in audience and word of mouth, creating interest in the film before its release. "Soldiers individually responded to the movie, which I think was a really important thing for us, and a real honor. In particular, soldiers of the Vietnam generation." That word of mouth was very cost-effective.

The film also generated buzz through the festival circuit. It was acquired at Sundance 2009 and won two awards at the Berlin Film Festival - Best Screenplay and Peace Award. This notoriety meant a strong opening last November when it premiered on just four screens. The critical support, end of year release prior to awards season and targeted screenings combined to help The Messenger realize $1 million in box office.

3. Artistic Risk: The most important ingredient for indie success, other than fiscal caution, is artistic risk. Oren embraced creative risk. "For the notification scenes, I didn't let the two sides meet before the scene and there were no rehearsals. We wanted everything fresh and raw. This script is so raw, it might as well be raw on film. We also encouraged the cast to explore their characters. Some of our best moments were not in the script.

"We didn't want to show anything but human situations. We used only zoom lenses to allow a slow, subtle approach to and from the characters. There is one insert in the movie, otherwise every frame has some human interaction. There are no establishing shots, no dissolves, nothing fancy, just a camera longing to lock in the essence of the emotions portrayed on screen."

Oren's likely next project will be a big studio release with a built-in audience, the Kurt Cobain biopic. Oscilloscope is following that path of other indie distributors that have shown staying power, such as Zeitgeist and Kino - keep costs low and quality high. At the Academy Award announcement, Adam Yauch had a message: "Watch out Harvey, it's on now."

Cablevision, more recently in the news for their brew ha ha with Scripts network and currently with ABC/Disney over carriage fees is innovating.

With their announcement of a "First-of-its-Kind Service That Will Seamlessly Connect Computer and Television Screens With the Press of a Button", I wonder where the lines between iTV, IPTV and cable will merge? Read the press release

The PC (MAC, later on) will allow users to view content from sites like Hulu and YouTube on their TV sets in addition to personal media, photos, videos and music, this much like Tivo does now I'd imagine with an assigned IP address. What's interesting other then innovation and Cablevision in the same sentence are some productivity apps such as email, and documents though there is no word if these are their own apps, opensource or commercial software.

What's potentially interesting is having capabilities without the need for additional boxes (though no word if you'll be able to use your PC as a DVR bi-directionally) especially if you can use your existing software apps within a multi-taking environment though I've not seen a UI come close in terms of ease of use and navigability to Tivo and I've seen most of them...

After viewing the film, Beer Wars, via VOD (full disclosure, I'm a long time craft beer purist) I was impressed with not only the content of the film (not that I'm giving anything away here but the beer lobby: NBWA is in bed with Congress) but with the production I reached out to Anat Baron, the Producer to discuss Indie production as it relates to Internet distribution. What follows is our conversation.

ipTVe
How did you approach web distribution, what were your expectations early on, did they change?

Anat
Web distribution came after the theatrical premiere and DVD release. And is simultaneous with the on demand release on cable and satellite. I wanted to make the film available to everyone with a TV or computer. We just launched on February 1st and the film is available for download on iTunes, Amazon VOD and Netflix streaming. Expectations were low but we were #3 top rental and #5 top sales on iTunes documentaries the first week (we were featured on the home page for movies). The film reached #2 on IMDb most popular documentaries in week 2 then fell to #5 in week 3.

ipTVe
What lessons did you learn about where the Internet is with respect to distribution, marketing and building community?

Anat
I've had a tough time getting the word out through traditional media. Having Anheuser-Busch as the evil empire in the film means that networks/TV stations are afraid of losing ad dollars if they promote my film. I've used social media to get the word out.

I built a community on Twitter and got people to follow me @beerwars and @beerwarsmovie, and also set up a Facebook fan page. We linked it all together through the film's website and hub: http://beerwarsmovie.com

Initially I used the trailer and deleted scenes to bring attention to the film and also started a blog. This allowed people to get a sense of the film and also of my voice. I learned that people like to be talked with and not to. The more I made conversations personal, the sooner i responded directly, the more viral things became. On April 16th, the day of the film's live premiere, Beer Wars was a trending topic on Twitter. The same day that Ashton Kutcher reached the million follower mark. That was pretty cool.

(view the trailer on the extended page)

ipTVe
Have you found it difficult to rise above the Internet clutter and what strategies have you employed?

Anat
Everyone talks about the internet as the magic bullet but I've found it more difficult to make noise because there is so much fragmentation and clutter. It's tough to get attention and even when you do, the pace is so fast that you have it for a moment and then everyone moves on to the next. I have tried to foster relationships without being pushy. I've found that the more "famous" someone is in the social media rankings, the tougher it is to engage them. And I also found it interesting that these same people have their hand out. Beyond what can you do for me? Actually looking for money to tweet about my film. I've tried to engage bloggers by appealing to what they write about. It's worked well for the most part. Especially when you show them that you're paying attention to their platform.

ipTVe
How has iTunes been verses other distribution vehicles, where are seeing the most traction?

Anat
Too soon to tell. iTunes is the only place I can check on a constant basis. As I said earlier, it did well initially and now that it's not promoted, it goes up and down depending on the day. I need awareness to push it back into the top 10.

ipTVe
Do you see a market for a behind-the-scenes film exclusively for web distribution, had you thought about this early on to build community?

Anat
I started making the film before social media sites existed (2005) so it wasn't on the radar. I think that what I've found is that video on the web has become the norm and so people expect it for free. The problem is that as an indie filmmaker, I still need to recoup my investment. I still have almost 200 hours of footage, lots of it really great. I'd love to edit it and post it into watchable videos but who will pay for that? It's a constant art versus commerce question.

ipTVe
Do you have any final thoughts?

Anat
I think the biggest question for filmmakers remains this whole idea of free. And many people's expectations that everything on the web be free. As someone who invested 3+ years and close to seven figures making and promoting the film, that option doesn't really work. If you're a young filmmaker and invest $20,000 in your movie, and use it as a calling card well then the Internet may be the perfect solution (although you still need awareness to find your audience). There's no question that the indie film business model is broken. I'm just not sure that we have anything viable to replace it. Yet.