Friday, January 28, 2000
Sundancers abuzz about films online
BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
PARK CITY, Utah — “The year of the woman” may be the fashionable tag at the Sundance Film Festival this year, but it could just as well be called “the year of the dot-coms.”
Bulletin boards, light poles and shop windows all over town are festooned with Web sites devoted to showing, selling and promoting films. Electronic movie-mongers have rented office suites, taken over restaurants and dropped a blizzard of fliers, press releases and postcards on any open surface.
Virtually all offer online viewing of short films; growing numbers also stockpile feature-length movies. Their aim is to bypass theaters, distribution companies and festivals to make movies available directly to consumers with home computers.
In the sometimes frenetic atmosphere of Sundance, however, simply getting noticed is a challenge. Thus, squads of young people have been hired to hand out bags of popcorn, foam flying disks, buttons and business cards to festival-goers.
The expansive iFilms.com banner hanging over Main Street points to one of the largest and best-financed of the sites, where visitors can see trailers and shorts from the Sundance festival lineup. The version available for free is less than stellar quality; for a small fee, you can download higher-resolution, full-screen versions.
Atomfilms.com runs bus tours of Park City for anyone who will take the time to sit through samples of its film library. Its homepage come-on: “Rub elbows at Sundance without ever leaving your desk.”
Slamdance, the first of the many counter-Sundance festivals (NoDance, Slamdunk, Dances With Films and DoggieDance among them), programmed a parallel online festival at slamdance.com that has been drawing more than 200,000 hits a day, said founder Dan Mirvish.
“We didn't really know what to expect because, after all, when you look at it (on a computer monitor), it's that big and the picture is ragged,” Mr. Mirvish said, “but it has been going great.”
Some of the other Web movie sites touting themselves here include ZeroOneFilms.com, which claims it is the only site with round-the-clock, uninterrupted streaming video, and which offers on its film menu Francis Ford Coppola's first feature, Dementia 13.
Fugitive sought in killing
Parks won't pay for deck
Warm-up coming, but get your shovel
Auf Wiedersehen to a Zinzinnati institution
Tristaters: Clinton packed a punch
Area Republicans pan president's proposals
Text of State of the Union address
War 'blood brothers' want to reunite
Wrongful birth suit uncharted territory
Police hoping for stricter seat-belt law
School board accused of caving
Taft appointments more diverse
Woman who copped cruiser to get mental exam
Queen City's moments to shine reflected in book
14 ideas for the 14th
GET TO IT
Getting married? Be in our 'Love Story'
NBC delays private-eye comedy
Sundancers abuzz about films online
Trucks Band a few songs behind Allmans
AROUND THE COMMONWEALTH
Auditor to review Lebanon buyouts
Boy accused of groping 10-year-olds at school
Burglar-molester gets 29 years
Businesses see group growing
Butler County has new funeral carriage new for officers
Food agencies want Y2K leftovers
Glenn mission results in
Hit-skip driver sought
Inmate comes to court via TV
Miamitown salvages river relic
Minority students to get aid
Monroe plans to study fire status
Montgomery woman has new career: Mom
Ohio fights to reserve contracts for minorities
One arrested, one sought in shooting and robbery
Republicans sign up to support Roeding
School bets on reading emphasis
Sheriff goes after grants
TRISTATE DIGEST
Truck ban suit is topic of meeting
UV light to be used at plant
Visalia water plan resurfaces
Water rate raised to pay legal bills
