Of course, it can easily be argued that not a lot has changed since the advent of new and digital media, the conglomerate blockbusters tend to dominate the mulitplexes and in turn, the box office. But without doubt, NDM has increased the chances for independent film makers to share their films and for audiences to access films outside of the cinema. ‘Withoutabox’ is one example of an initiative to assist film makers and screenwriters – the popular film website, IMDB claims that their initiative is the largest independent film community and it gives users a chance to get a helping hand in publicising their work https://www.withoutabox.com/
Acquired in 2008 by IMDb.com, a division of Amazon.com, Withoutabox has become the industry’s film-festival submission standard. Launched in 2000, it created a revolutionary new process: Instead of filmmakers sending DVD screeners to festivals one-by-one in the mail, they could use the site to enter their data once and submit to multiple festivals, with the films delivered digitally.
Most major festivals, including Sundance and Toronto, use Withoutabox for all their submission needs.
That amounts to a lot of information, and a lot of money, that passes through Withoutabox. Festivals must sign up for multi-year contracts to utilize the service and pay a range of 10-18% of their submission fees. (Receiving the lower rate requires an upfront payment of over $1,200.) (Taken from indirewire.com)
But it must be noted that many in the film industry (400,000 filmmakers and more than 1,000 film festivals use the technology) are complaining that it is outdated and slow….
There are so many platforms for aspiring film makers to share their films; http://www.snagfilms.com/, http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/, http://www.striketheset.com/ are just three not to mention vimeo and Youtube…
Whilst the reach of these websites might be limited, at least people now have a platform where they can share their videos. Thanks to relatively cheap cameras, computers and editing software, film making has become much more democratised.
Doha College Media Studies 