Asha-media's debut Film is about to get its International Festival premiere find out when and where http://ping.fm/X2Mt4

Kino International film festival accepting submissions

Kinofilm announces the Call for Entries to its new European Short Film Festival in 2010. The 11th edition of the KINOFILM Festival will take place in Manchester from 23rd - 28th February 2010, as a European Short Film Festival and invites submissions from all over Europe including former Eastern Europe and Baltic States. Though the 2010 festival focuses on Europe there will be a limited number of International Shorts entries considered from non-European countries for award-winning films or for those of outstanding merit, for a special International showcase. Kinofilm has a unique reputation for showcasing the best short films from around the world, whilst being renowned for seeking out diverse, challenging and ground-breaking new film. The festival maintains a high standard with many European & International award-winning shorts featuring in the Festival whilst including special programmes in low/no budget shorts, students shorts and underground cinema, giving new and emerging filmmakers the opportunity to have their work screened alongside that or critically acclaimed, established short filmmakers. Main categories include short drama, animation, experimental, digital shorts, Documentary, Romantic Tales, Cinema Extreme, Comedy, Horror, Fantasy & Sci-fi, Erotica, music videos, Lesbian & Gay, Polish Cinema, and Bluefire (Kino's Black and Asian section), however, the Festival welcomes shorts of any type and genre. The festival will also feature a youth and community led film event and welcomes submissions from those working with youth based organisations. The festival also features a varied education and professional development programme with seminars, forums, master classes, workshops and networking events. The festival will be competitive with awards in 6 categories.

Sidebar - New Features. New for the 2010 festival is a sidebar of debut features from UK and European filmmakers that have recently made the transition from short film to feature or from those directors that have moved into features from other art forms. We are looking for no more that 5 films so competition will be tough. There will be a series of events involving the selected filmmakers exploring the routes of transition.

Submissions Requirements Short films should be no longer than 25 mins (except documentaries which will be allowed up to 35 mins) and must be made within the last 18 months prior to the festival. The festival does not have a premiere policy but there is a small entry fee from £5.00 to submit a film. There will be a extended deadline for late submissions to the 30th September though this will incur a higher submission fee. Distributors, agencies and educational institutions are exempt but should contact us first to register the exemption. Please note. Exemptions for filmmakers that submitted to the 2007-8 festival and paid the entry fee of £5 may be able to submit their film free (but must provide their reference number or/and details of previous entry). Submissions are now open and will close on 10 September 2009. To submit a Film please email the Festival for the festival rules, rules and regulations and an application form: info@kinofilm.org.uk We look forward to receiving your submission. Kinofilm 11th edition, European Short Film Festival, Manchester, 23rd – 28th Feb 2010 KINOFILM is funded by North West Vision & Media and supported by the Polish Cultural Institute, Goethe-Institut, Instituto Cervantes, Alliance française and the Dante Alighieri. Official Website: http://www.kinofilm.org.uk Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/MIFFKINO http://www.myspace.com/kinofilm Twitter http://www.twitter.com/kinofilm

asha-media film school

this is what i watched to teach me (Mark Ashmore) to make films, here i will begin to share this with you, simple videos for you to watch

media relations job in Colchester UK

Agency: Messages PR Contact: Michael Knowles Telephone: 01647 277588/9 Email: mick@messagespr.co.uk Marketing co-ordinator

Dates & Times Start: 23 Jul 2009 End: 31 Dec 2009 Rates up to £70 per day Locations Regions: East Colchester

Messages PR are a specialist shopping centre promotions company. We have

worked on this Colchester site and account for the last 6 months on a retainer contract organising promotions with the supporting media liaison. In 2009 our role has been broadened to encompass the Public Relations role and tenant liaison aspects of the marketing function. There is also considerable scope to generate and monitor on-site activities & retailer driven promotions and for this reason a new part time role of Mkt' Co-ordinator has been created.

There is dedicated office space for this job but we expect 70% of the work to be done in the malls, in the stores or in the local community. This is not a desk job.

The Job

The job encompasses a variety of regular and simple jobs but also offers a great opportunity for imagination and initiative.

It is important to stress however that this is a hands-on role and the bulk of the workload is in the execution and implementation of promotions.

Deadlines must be met, targets matched and results measured.

Public Relations / Advertising / Digital Marketing

Liaising with retailers to source offers and discounts.

Generating updates and posting this information via the web content management system for the centres website.

Putting up posters and distribute leaflets

Collecting research and generating database contacts for e-mail-outs.

Administration / Retail Liaison

Assist Centre Management team

Update tenants packs

A more complete job specification will be provided at an interview stage.

Interviews will be held in August.

Apply by email only miket@messagespr.co.uk with appropriate cv, covering letter and photos.

#mif and @not part of futureartists.co.uk has just won a CITY LIFE Award for our event at the urbis notpartof media city yet night!!!

Labels: notpartof, urbis

Skating Babies and Bruno the 'Teen' cut

Skating Babies Provide Pre-launch Boost For Evian Ad

A new TV commercial from Evian which features rollerskating babies has been watched more than 10 million times on YouTube. The ad, which was filmed at Pinewood Studios by Paris-based advertising agency BETC Euro RSCG, has not even aired in the UK yet - underlining the internet's growing power as a viral marketing platform.

The 60-second ad shows a bunch of babies performing hair-raising skating stunts in a park. The actions, created using special effects, take place in a park - where the nappy-clad babies are superimposed with the kind of behaviour you'd usually associate with skateboarding teens. The soundtrack to the ad is a remix of Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight.

The popularity of the ad is one of the clearest indicators to date that offbeat humour can attracts audiences to brands - particularly, it seems, if babies are involved. Earlier this year, one of the most successful ads during the NFL Super Bowl came from eTrade - which promoted its services with two lipsynched babies discussing the economic downturn in a humorous way. 60 seconds of out-takes were posted on YouTube and attracted in the region of 4m unique users.

Interestingly, Evian also has a Making Of The Ad video posted on YouTube. Separate from the ad itself, this has also managed to generate in excess of 1.5 million views.

posted 17th July, 2009

Universal Creates Special Bruno Edit For Under 18s

Keen to cash in on the excitement around Sacha Baron Cohen's new movie Bruno, Universal Pictures has decided to release a 15 certificate cut of the movie in the UK.

The movie has already shot to the top of US and UK box office as an 18. But such is the level of interest among younger fans that Universal has decided to release two versions simultaneously for the first time ever in the UK. In doing so, it is sure to boost the box office still further.

Bruno, like previous Baron Cohen hit Borat, is a mockumentary. It follows the exploits of an outrageous gay Austrian fashion reporter as he attempts to make it big in America. In the US, it took U$30 million in its first three days - ahead of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. In the UK, Bruno opened with a massive 35% market share. The 15 version is only 110 seconds shorter than the 18. The new cut impacts on three scenes with strong sex references.

posted 17th July, 2009

Business models for social startups

5 Business Models for Social Media Startups

July 14th, 2009 | by Jun Loayza41 Comments

cash-computer Jun Loayza is the President of SocialMediaMarketing.com, a company focused on building social media campaigns for companies. He is also the co-founder of Viralogy.com, which measures and ranks your social influence online. He loves to meet other young, motivated entrepreneurs, and can be reached though his personal blog.

During the first Internet boom, the most common business model was probably, “get a ton of traffic, then figure out how to make money” — which savvy readers will note isn’t a very good business model. Often, the way those businesses attempted to make money on that traffic was to use display or text advertising. Making money from advertising is still possible, but it’s no longer as easy as building a site and putting some ads on it. Fortunately, there are a number of business models to choose from.

Today’s social media startups are finding unique ways of generating revenue from the very beginning. Here are a few of the revenue models that they’re using and how you can apply them to your company.

1. Freemium Model

Description: This business model works by offering a basic service for free, while charging for a premium service with advanced features to paying members.

Examples of the Freemium Model: UserVoice, Flickr, Vimeo, LinkedIn, and PollDaddy

The biggest challenge for businesses using the freemium model is figuring how much to give away for free so that users will still need and want to upgrade to a paying plan. If most users can get by with the basic free plan, they won’t have a need to upgrade. For example, I’ll probably never upgrade my LinkedIn account and because I don’t shoot high definition videos, I’ll never need a Premium Vimeo account either.

I spoke with Marcus Nelson from UserVoice about their use of the freemium model and how it works:

1. Is UserVoice profitable? We’re “ramen noodle” profitable, but have recently taken funding to accelerate our growth.
2. How long did it take UserVoice to implement a business model? Eight months, though I would not recommend that as a new startup. I talk a lot more about this in an interview on Mixergy.
3. How long did it take to get your first customer? Depends on your definition of customer – we had sign ups immediately and grew by 30-35% a month. What we had built was core features, so as we spoke with customers we began asking what would they pay for on our UserVoice page. Once we had some premium features in place, we went back to those customers and began doing paid pilots to test out the service. The first paid customer arrived in November.
4. How many users do you have right now? 16,652 as of June 5, 2009.
5. What percentage of users are paying members? Since moving to paid plans, our conversion rate is around 5%.
6. What are the biggest obstacles that UserVoice has for getting members to pay? The same as most businesses, providing value that customers want to pay for, and overcoming objections for implementation.

2. Affiliate Model

Description: This is a model in which a business makes money by driving traffic, leads, or sales to another, affiliated company’s website. Businesses that sell a product, meanwhile, rely on affiliated sites to send them the traffic or leads they need to make sales.

Examples of the Affiliate Model: Illuminated Mind, ShoeMoney, DIY Themes

Like businesses that rely on advertising, high traffic sites predictably have a much easier time making money using affiliate links than sites that are just starting out. High traffic means that even low conversion numbers can equal big bucks. However, in just a year since starting his blog, Jonathan Mead from theIlluminated Mind generates enough income from affiliate links that he has been able to leave his full-time job. This is a dream of many bloggers and this is how he did it:

1. When did you start your blog and how long did it take you to generate enough revenue to be a full-time blogger? I started blogging in February of 2008, so it took me a little over a year (15 months) to become a full time blogger.
2. How much revenue are you generating through affiliate links? I earn roughly $2-3k per month from affiliates. It depends on the month though, some are better than others.
3. How many page views per month do you have to receive in order to generate the status of a full-time blogger? I don’t think page views really played a critical role in my success. I think creating a community based around living on your own terms and making self-development palatable, was really the key to my success. You can have tons of traffic without anyone really caring enough to value what you have to offer.
4. What is the best way to get your readers to click on your affiliate links? I’ll try to break it down into what I think are the three most important factors.
1. You have to have your reader’s trust. If they don’t trust you, they will not buy what you recommend.
2. You have to target the products to your readers. Speak to their interests, personality and emotions.
3. You need to be able to write decent copy and communicate in a compelling way why they should buy what you’re recommending.
5. What are the best kinds of affiliate links: Low price point and low margin, or high price point high margins? I only aim for $20 and above range, so I’m not sure how the lower priced products convert.
6. What are the biggest obstacles to overcome when generating revenue through affiliate links? Reader trust and proper targeting. These things seem so simple, but it’s amazing how many people don’t get this part right. It’s worth the time researching those in your niche selling products and starting conversations with them. Ask them why their readers buy and then use that in your copy.

3. Subscription Model

Description: Sites using the subscription model require users to pay a fee (generally monthly or yearly) to access a product or service.

Examples of the Subscription Model: Label 2.0, Scrooge Strategy, Netflix

I talked to Greg Rollett, the founder of Label 2.0, a marketing school for musicians that sells its services for a monthly membership fee. The service teaches musicians how to use online tools to help further their careers, find more fans and navigate the business of music.

1. Why did you decide to use a subscription based model over a one-off sales model? When Eric [Hebert] and I decided to work together I was actually presenting him with an offer to promote a product that I had created and he was working on something similar. Instead of offering a one-off sale for both products and fighting for the same niche (our sites have nearly identical target audience and traffic). We decided that coming together and creating a long term relationship with the people we were helping would be better for our business in the long run. We have enough content and features that every month will be an exciting new journey. The business model was pretty simple. We took the features that we liked the best and least from popular internet marketing strategies for membership sites, continuity programs, etc as well as different ways to run the membership software and found what was going to be the easiest for us to use and easiest for our members to digest
2. How did you prepare to have a successful launch to your service? Luckily Eric and I had been building up trust and a user base for years through our blogs,Twitter, live speaking events and client work. We have both worked on high profile projects and that helped us secure a great position in the market. We both posted teaser blog posts and within a few days we had over a 100 musicians testing it out and providing feedback for our public launch. We expect 300-500 paying members within the first 2 weeks.
3. What are your price-points and how are you maintaining a personal touch with your subscribers? Our pricing model is high for the industry we are in and we know that. At around $50 a month and $400 a year we have priced ourselves to only work with those that really want to see an impact in their careers. If you look at the bigger picture and see that for consulting we typically charge $100 an hour, you are getting a great deal, but losing that one-on-one feeling. That is why we are having bi-monthly conference calls, webinars, walk-throughs, Q&A’s and really doing our best to ensure that every musician gets their bang for their buck.
4. What are the biggest obstacles in the subscription-based model?
1. Price – Musicians are used to free. MySpace is free, YouTube is free, there is free information everywhere and musicians would rather spend $500 on a new guitar pedal than invest $50 into something that can find them hundreds of fans with which they can begin to make a living on.
2. Stereotypes – Musicians do not think of themselves as marketers. They feel like that is what a manager, record label or promoter is supposed to do. We are helping them turn that stereotype upside down by teaching them how to market themselves to create better relationships with their fans which is going to help their business in the long haul.
3. Monthly membership sites have a high attrition rate – The reason is after their 1st or second time they login, they forget about it and never come back. We are doing everything that we can to ensure that there is always something going on, from new lessons to trainings to calls and webinars to activity in the forums to leveraging the community to make everyone stronger.

4. Virtual Goods Model

Description: Users pay for virtual goods, such as weapons, upgrades, points, or gifts, on a website or in a game.

Examples of the Virtual Goods Model: Acclaim Games, Meez, Weeworld, Facebook Gifts

Virtual Goods come in all shapes and sizes. Hot or Not was one of the pioneers of virtual good in the online dating industry by allowing users to send virtual roses to other users that cost from $2 to $10. The beauty of virtual goods is that margins are high, since goods essentially only cost as much as the bandwidth required to serve them, which is generally almost zero. I spoke with Ali Moiz from Peanut Labs, a social monetization company that focuses on virtual goods and currencies.

1. What is the margin on each item sold? Very high. There is little or no marginal or production cost once you setup an economy, so for game companies this is in the 90% or higher range.
2. What percentage of your users actually buy virtual goods? 10 – 20% buy it using credit cards, another 30 – 40% get it for free by doing surveys and offers through Peanut Labs Media and companies like us.
3. What are the biggest obstacles in selling virtual goods? Creating something that users want and need, and that is relevant to the community.
4. What are the most popular types of virtual goods sold? 3 main categories: functional, status items, decorative. All 3 play a major role.

5. Advertising Model

Description: Sites that rely on advertising, sell advertisements against their traffic. In basic terms: the more traffic you have, the more you can charge for ads (additional demographics about your site’s visitors, such as age, gender, location, or interests, also affects the amount you can charge advertisers to place ads on your site).

Examples of the Advertising Model: Yahoo!, MySpace, Tweet Later

I spoke with Dewald Pretorius from TweetLater, whose site relies on a unique variation of the advertising model in which users are able to bid on daily sponsorships on his site. When researching the site, I found that the average bid amount for a completed auction was $50-$80. Predictably, most of the users that won the sponsorship auction also linked out to TweetLater web site from their Twitter profile — driving more traffic and potential bidders back to the site.

1. Is TweetLater profitable? Yes, absolutely! I run my business with very low overhead costs, and TweetLater has been profitable since the very start when I monetized it in February 2009.
2. How long did it take TweetLater to implement a business model? I started TweetLater in April 2008, and ran it as a completely free service until February 2009. That period allowed me to build a solid user base, which was very willing and keen to dive into the paid side when I released it. Personally I think some people are too anxious to start making money immediately and underestimate the value of being patient and first building a reputation and user base.
3. How long did it take to get your first customer? After I announced TweetLater Professional? If I remember correctly, it was about 10 minutes after I made the announcement that I got the first subscription. I might be wrong. It could have been 5 minutes.
4. How many users do you have right now? TweetLater has around 71,000 users, and is steadily growing by around 600 users every day, seven days a week.
5. What are the biggest obstacles that TweetLater has for getting members to pay? It is never easy to monetize something that sits on top of a free service. I have done that successfully, and logically it is because folks feel they get real value for their money. Maintaining and increasing the value proposition is one of the things I think of every single day. I believe that giving people a free trial of TweetLater Professional has contributed to its success. People can test-drive it with no commitments and no catches before deciding whether it is the right service for them. I believe it demonstrates respect for the users, as well as confidence in the value that the service provides.

Conclusion

Before you launch your startup, make sure you have a clear business model in mind. You will most likely have to change and tweak your business model as your startup progresses, but at least you will be focused on cash generation from the start, which means you’ll be ahead of the game.

This post covered just a small number of the many business models available to web startups. Please feel free to use the comments below to discuss these models and others that you may be using or considering for your startup.

playstation 3 see's VOD surge

Sony's Playstation 3 sees VOD surge

Network a lucrative platform for distribution

By MARC GRASER

Sony's PlayStation 3 hasn't moved as many Blu-rays as Hollywood had hoped it would, but the videogame console has clearly established itself as a lucrative platform studios can use to distribute their films and TV shows.

A year after launching its PlayStation Network, Sony has digitally delivered more than 500 million pieces of content to owners of its PS3 console and PSP handheld device.

That includes sales and rentals of movies, TV shows and original video programming.

Altogether, the video delivery service, available through the PlayStation Store, has registered more than 25 million users since launching on July 15, 2008. It saw a surge of subscribers around E3 in June.

The PlayStation Network initially bowed with 300 movies and 1,200 TV episodes. At the time, it had signed up most of the major studios, including Sony, Warner Bros., Fox, Disney, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate.

It now has all of the majors onboard and boasts more than 2,000 movies and over 10,200 TV show episodes, both new releases and library fare, from 38 different content partners. An estimated 35% of the movies on the network are in HD.

The numbers are notable at a time when studios are keen on creating ways to generate revenues from homevideo now that DVDs have reached their earnings peak.

Just how much coin is being collected by the studios from Sony's service has yet to be revealed.

One reason: Each studio comes up with a different pricepoint for its programming.

For sales, a movie can cost anywhere from $10 to $20, while a TV show ranges from $3 to $6 per episode. Rentals average around $3 per film. High-definition content typically costs more.

Helping to put financials in perspective are recent reports from analysts that suggest digital downloads are starting to appeal to mainstream audiences.

The sale of online videos is expected to generate $3.8 billion this year, according to digital media analysts at Strategy Analytics. That would surpass the $3.5 billion that ad-based videos are expected to earn this year.

Digital distribution is up 21% during the first half of the year, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, generating revenue of $968 million. That compares with $407 million for Blu-ray sales.

Who is doing the downloading from Sony will be key in helping to determine just how lucrative videogame consoles will become as a future revenue stream.

While males 18-34, the traditional game-playing demo, unsurprisingly comprise a majority of its user base, Sony said it's been happy to see that more women are embracing the service and influencing which movies and TV shows are downloaded, broadening the reach of the console.

The trend of moving from early adopters into the mainstream fits in well with Sony's efforts to promote the PS3 as not just a game system but an entertainment hub in consumers' living rooms.

Getting there wasn't necessarily easy. It took time to develop the network -- but then it also took some time educating Hollywood on the benefits.

Having Sony Pictures as the initial partner helped sell the service, but studios "had to be convinced that it was a good place to be and that their content was safe and secure," said Eric Lempel, director of operations for the PlayStation Network. "There were lots of discussions, a lot of roadshows, a lot of technical and business evaluations," he said.

That process also involved coming up with a proper release window for programming.

Movies are released through the video-on-demand window, which is typically a month after pics bow on DVD. The films remain available for up to two months. Studios are increasingly releasing films day and date on DVD and VOD, however.

Sony is hardly the only player in the vidgame space to offer digital downloads. Rival Microsoft has also scored well with movie and TV shows offered to its Xbox Live account holders.

To date, Xbox Live has 30 million subscribers who can digitally access movies via Netflix and other video downloads, using their Xbox 360s.

Going forward, Sony plans to add more original programming to its network. That kind of fare will either be picked up from outside producers or produced inhouse through teams in Los Angeles and Foster City, Calif.

"Original programming is big for us," Lempel said.

It also expects the service to grow further after Sony starts selling its PSPgo, which exclusively plays digital content, in October.

Playstation 3 see;s VOD surge