Dozens of striking film and TV writers are negotiating with venture capitalists to set up companies that would bypass the Hollywood studio system and reach consumers with video entertainment on the Web.

This has been expected since the strike began. The writers are frustrated with the system and realizing that they can own it all. The musicians have been living this for a while, but it takes a bit more people to produce a tv show than an album. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Look at all the episodic stuff on the web these days. Let a million small studios bloom!

[via Core77]

So, it’s a contest, kinda. They’ll cover the HD DVD authoring fees for you, and then you’ll use the CustomFlix service to sell the new DVDs. I’m assuming that the HD DVD authoring isn’t too cheap and I’m also assuming that if they are doing 1000 of them for free, that you probably won’t have much say in the authoring itself.

I just watched the DVD for “Stranger Than Fiction.” Good movie, but I really like the title sequence and the nice use of motion graphics as part of the story telling, integrated into the video. Bummer is that they don’t have any of it in the most recent reel on their site, but you can check out their other work which is also quite nice.

[Added 3/14/07]

from avclub, I found a link to one of the sequences MK12 did in the film.

Both of these pieces are doing something similar. They are using motion graphics and typeography to help illustrate and enliven spoken word material. I think that the Master Plan piece is better visually (which is admittedly much easier at 3:15 instead of 36:00. However, the content of Lawrence Lessig’s piece is far more effective if only because he is much more experienced at speaking and he is much more knowledgeable about his topic. It definitely shows how substance can beat out style, but it also shows how compelling voices and messages are really the most important part of a informational, educational or political piece.

The Lawrence Lessig film is below:

welcome to Ruairí Robinson’s webpage. No loitering.

Once nominated for an Oscar, Director Ruairi Robinson has since been doing a lot of commercials. He has decided to post his newest short film on his website in both standard and HD, which I very much dig as a way to promote your work.

The Television Revolution is at the Gates

This article is over a year old and still seems precient. We’re starting to see Indy filmmakers try to raise money this way, but they don’t have the dedicated audience that someone like Joss Whedon or Aaron Sorkin does. If someone at that level decided to go audience funded, they could kick start a whole new industry…

As with any site like this, better read their agreement before giving it the ok. In general, their heart seems to be in the right place, but you are basically signing away all rights to your film for free. That means that if they make a zillion bucks off of it, you get zero. At least, their rights are non-exclusive and are simply cancellable (unlike many other sites). Also, they are a non-profit according to them. As I said, they have their hearts in the right place, and I have only heard good things about them.

It’s kind of a cool idea/major risk for a real-world very prestigious art gallery to open up its website to all artists, un-juried. It is also very cool and a major risk to have a video section on that site. For the moment, there is a chance for video artists to network and share their world. Get on it before it gets sued out of existence or canceled due to insane bandwidth costs…