Indie Film Blogger Road Trip By Sujewa Ekanayake - Web Site
Wow! I love this film and I think that people who are the a similar junction between film production, tweeting, blogging, press, film festivals, distribution, self-distribution, etc. will feel the same way. What Sujewa Ekanayake brilliantly captures in his film are the amazingly insightful, thoughtful, and passionate people who are navigating the wild west frontier brought on by the democratization of film criticism and the new digital world of independent cinema.
This film, like my favorite documentaries, conveys a real sense of the people behind the independent film bloggng movement, and it hits home so strongly for me because it articulately talks about the exact same concepts that are floating around in my head at this time. If you are someone who is tweeting or blogging about film, independent or mainstream, in anyway then this is a must-see film for you.
If you are someone who is involved in independent film and not involved in the blogging and social network communities, then this film will probably convince you to get online right away. As independent filmmakers know, it is a lonely and hard world out there if you don't have people and a community of like-minded people to talk to. This film shows how people who are participating in the blogging and social media communities have found people with similar interests, and how this provided an amazing support network for discussions, thoughts, and ideas.
Here is the most important thing about this film to me: it reveals that the independent film blogging community is a bellwether for the independent film making community. What you see is that these bloggers are doing what they do because they love doing it, they want to express themselves, and technology allows them to do this for free. But a main point is that they have all accepted the financial uncertainty of the new world and pretty much cast aside the notion of making money from this self-expression. In the same ecosystem, the vast majority of the independent filmmakers are striving not to make films just for the sake of self-expression, but in order to make a lot of money and a financial career doing it. This documentary shows that if filmmakers embrace the financial uncertainty of the industry and embrace the creative and community aspects that the independent film blogger have found, then perhaps they will find the same level of contentment as the people in the film.
This is an important documentary for independent filmmakers to watch not in order to find out how to use social media to be financially successful in the movie industry, it is essential for them to watch in order to show the power of connecting with people and happiness having a community around you is if you do something just because you love doing it.
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