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RSSUnflinching Triumph and the Director’s Manifesto
I’ve spent days thinking about the advancement of web video as a substitute for television lately, and I’m only at the notes/research stage of a post on the topic. One of the things that I’ve been doing is doing a lot of surfing to see if there are enough quality, independent, DRM-free, legal, web-based shows and movies available to make the idea viable.
In my travels, I came across this video that I couldn’t wait to share.
The video is a mocumentary about a man named Phillip Rockhammer and his bid for the National Staredown Championship. Not only is it a quality movie that you can watch in its entirety online, but the director, J.R. McCord, has made the film available for download in both DVD and IPod formats for free.
This is the trailer:
For the full movie, head over to UnflinchingTriumph.com.
Beyond enjoying the movie, I found McCord’s Director’s Manifesto to be inspiring:
“For too long the aggression of the Hollywood mainstream movie industry has remained unchecked. It is simply unjust and un-American that the entertainment of so many is left in the hands of so few. And it is this few that seems to abhor the average viewing public consistently putting out trivial garbage and then having the audacity to charge upwards of ten dollars a pop to see said garbage. Their greed has ruined all that was once good about the movies. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and it is my goal to prove it.
My plan is to use the power of the Internet to create an entirely new and completely free distribution model for movies. I intend to make exactly $0 from this project. My goal is not money, but instead entertainment and I will go to great lengths to make sure this movie is available to all free of charge.
Hopefully this movie will help inspire others to break the Hollywood stronghold, but until then please enjoy ‘Unflinching Triumph.’”
It’s refreshing to see ideas that are usually expressed by content consumers being expressed by a content creator.
Official Staredown rules can be found at the National Association of StareDown Professionals site (a sort of easter egg at the end of the movie).
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January 24th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I can’t wait to actually see this. I think it’s something worth thinking about, whether original, independent video programming on the web will ever rival television programming. It’s still very early, but I think there’s the possibility:
There’s a short, 10 minute fake court show called “McCourts in Session” that I found on YouTube that’s produced by a Madison, WI based production co. (The same guys that do Chad Vader) I think McCourt is much funnier. I actually paid money to get the 3 episodes of that show on DVD. I think we will see more sophistication from aspiring filmmakers and TV producers, and while these show’s may not get the audience that, say “CSI” might get, we will see loyal audience for this kind of content grow in the next few years.
January 26th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
It’s seriously worth the watch.