American Cinematographer - December 2000 - 87

of channels
rather than

-

surfed via

remote

mouse

control."

Many of these new sites are
focusing on the thousands of
unknown and
who have

tion,

not

or any

struggling filmmakers

received wide distribu¬

distribution at all. With

the lack of broadband in most house¬

holds, most of these Web sites

are

They also recently announced that
director Spike Jonze (Being John
Malkovich) has joined their advisory
board and will help counsel Atom
Films on the company's future direc¬
tion. Atom will also exclusively
a number of Jonze's short
films, including Amarillo by Morning

distribute
and How

They Get There.
Following its launch in October

starting with modest goals and are
streaming short or animated films,
which have a more feasible length for
people who have slower, dial-up Net

of 1998, iFILM (www.ifilm.com) has
become one of the leading resources
for online film viewing. Very different

connections. And while online audi¬

from Atom Films, which functions

ences

and

revenues are

still small, the

possibilities of this

new outlet seem
to be unlimited. In his keynote

somewhat like

a

traditional film

distributor, iFILM is the first film

portal and directory, linking viewers

Sunday's Game, which was directed
by Gene Laufenberg and produced
by David Garrett. Produced as a "call¬
ing card" while Laufenberg and
Garrett were working on sitcoms,
Sunday's Game was rejected by every
film festival until iFILM president
Roger Raderman approached the
filmmakers about launching their
short on his Web site. Compared to
the typical film festival, which proba¬
bly has a few hundred attendees,
iFILM's showcase allowed Sunday's
Game to be viewed by hundreds of
thousands of people. "It's really hard
to quantify what it did and didn't do,"
says Garrett. "But when it went up on

Opposite

page:

On

Nibblebox.com,
Virtual Rob kicks
up his
trio of

heels and
Sorority

Crimefighters
chat about, like,

battling evil. This
page: A selection
of

scenes

from

eye-catching
shorts

now

streaming

on

Eveo.com.

speech at the first annual Yahoo!
Online Film Festival, Mandalay
Entertainment CEO Peter Guber had

interesting thoughts about the

some

future
"With

of
a

online

entertainment.

feature film

being released

into theaters, we have to market the
film to millions," he said. "On the

Internet,

we

will have to market to

just one, but a million times over."
Perhaps the two online enter¬
tainment Web sites that have been

getting the most attention in the
press have been Atom Films and
iFILM. Since starting up in late 1998,
Atom Films

(www.atomfilms.com)

has been

acquiring exclusive rights to
short films, animation and digital
media; the site generates revenue by
distributing this content through TV
networks, airlines, theaters, home
video and the Internet.

Keeping pace

Blockbuster, HBO, and Warner Bros.,

different

and has also established business ties

action, international, experimental,

companies that produce hand¬

held and wireless devices.
In addition to alliances with

Frames

than 10,000 online films.

Akin to

with

Evecoo.curfmtesy

to more

with the AOL/Time Warner merger,
Atom Films has struck deals with

major companies, Atom Films has
also developed relationships with
celebrities and cutting-edge direc¬
tors. For example, Atom recently
teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio's
Birken Interactive Studio to produce
an

international online short-film

festival titled The

Savage Sideshow.

a

Yahoo! service for films,

divides online films into

iFILM

categories, including drama,

the site,

we

were

all unemployed

writers." After the film

was

shown

on

the site, however, it received press

from Variety, Entertainment
Weekly, The Los Angeles Times and

coverage

spoof and student films. The site also

The New York Times, which in turn

has

generated

section that attempts to target

stories

tremendous amount of
project. Based on the
exposure and overall strength of the
film, Garrett and Ward subsequently
sold two TV pilot scripts to Fox and
three feature-film pitches, one of
which recently completed produc¬
tion at Disney. Director Laufenberg
sold a pilot that he wrote and

from iFILM has been the short film

directed for MTV and has also inked

a

niche audiences, such

gay/lesbian,
women and teens.
Additionally, the
portal links viewers and filmmakers
to other things that relate to film,
such

as

news,

as

schools, festivals,

production houses, studies and film
trailers.
One of the

big

success

a

buzz about the

American

a

Cinematographer 85
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