I have a number of friends who derive their livelihood from the mainstream, Hollywood-centric film industry, so if you find me dead in a ditch soon, it may be because of some of the things I’m about to say. In much the same way that record labels created their own demise a decade ago by desperately trying to hold on to a juicy business model that let them charge twenty bucks for a twenty minute CD (by doing things like suing customers and artists alike), the floundering and litigation-addicted film industry has been doing much the same thing for a while. They’ve used lawsuits, melodramatic anti-piracy clips, and distorted claims about how piracy has stolen billions in wages and thousands of jobs from Hollywood. Even the US General Accounting Office has called their bluff. So while it may have taken a few years for the indy music scene to evolve into the hodgepodge of profitable distribution channels that it is today, in the end we have more great music – and at a better price – than we’ve had in decades. And it seems that price is at most a dollar a song. So watch out Hollywood. Your days of multimillion dollar productions are numbered. And your demise will be at the hands of clever ventures like VODO, an ingenious new funding and distribution plan that coordinates the world’s largest torrent trackers to distribute artists’ films, and then facilitates funding them. You get a high-quality and original viewing experience for free, the artist gets massive distribution and a source of revenue based on perceived value, because you pay as much as you feel like paying, if anything at all. VODO has also partnered with MOFILM for a contest with over $100,000 in prizes. VODO’s currently highlighted project is a “hard sci-fi” series called Pioneer One. The series pilot cost just $6,000, which was raised through the micro-funding platform Kickstarter. Pioneer One was produced by the same team that created Vodo’s biggest success to date, a film called Lionshare. Having watched both Lionshare and the Pioneer One pilot, I have a lot of enthusiasm for where this could go. In spite of some occasionally wobbly acting, writing, or production in both projects, the material is largely pretty solid, and VODO has many other films to explore. All for whatever you feel like paying for them. Check out the trailers for Lionshare and Pioneer One below.

Lionshare is shot in a vérité style that suits its theme of “sharing files and girls”, but occasionally lingers on moments a bit too much. Still a nice piece of work, especially for the price.

Pioneer One has acting and writing that definitely wobbles here and there, but has an intriguing premise, and could easily gel into something much more solid.

By the way, if you like the idea behind how these projects are funded, make a donation to ME and I’ll keep writing about them