Indie filmmakers find community online

A number of films have left the recently concluded Sundance Film Festival with distribution deals. For most movies, the fight continues.

The marketplace for independent film isn't just located in the snowy mountains of Utah: it's online. A number of Web sites specialize in showcasing and helping to promote independent films.

To be sure, the main gateway for most documentaries and indie films to find distribution is through festivals like Sundance. The festival's Web site, http://www.sundance.org/festival/, is informative, and includes features and video on the films that were in competition — including Grand Jury winners "Frozen River" and "Trouble the Water."

While festival prizes and distribution deals are the end point, the advice, guidance and general enthusiasm of sites like http://www.indiegogo.com can be a boon to aspiring filmmakers.

IndieGoGo, which launched shortly before Sundance, helps directors and producers raise funding, recruit talent and promote their films. The site is a kind of community — a "social marketplace" — where filmmakers create a profile and use it as a platform to pitch their projects and interact with others on the site, including fans and others in the industry.

Founded by Slava Rubin, Danae Ringlemann and Eric Schnell, the site hopes to foster a greater collective identity to indie filmmakers, who have long specialized in a do-it-yourself ethic.

The site's community can rank a film based on the quality of its idea, its "team" and its chance of success. A Cambodian documentary on NGOs, for example, is hoping to raise $9,600 in the next five weeks.

There are other online communities based around independent film, most notably the epicenter of the scene: http://www.IndieWire.com. Indie Wire has been around for over a decade and offers a constant stream of news and festival coverage.

Of course, there are many blogs that chart the fortunes of indie film. One interesting one helps moviegoers overhear the chatter at film festivals they're not able to attend. At http://www.TheFilmPanelNoteTaker.com, the panel discussions that follow screenings are transcribed for all to read.

But that's only one example of many tools for movie fans. What makes IndieGoGo unique is that's it really built around helping the growing number of independent filmmakers out there trying to make it. There are more festivals than ever before, and those festivals are receiving more submissions.

Though studios have become specialized in making tentpole blockbusters (and left their boutique divisions to distribute indie movies) the truth is that more people are making independent film than ever.

And the Web is turning out to be a useful place for those moviemakers. Sundance, for example, has made 45 of the festival's short films available for $1.99 each on iTunes, Netflix and Microsoft's XBox 360. Just a few years ago, those shorts would have almost no chance of such availability.

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VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Quentin Tarantino at Sundance

The proliferation of would-be filmmakers running around with cameras isn't entirely a good thing. Walking out of a building at Sundance to enjoy a smoke and a cup of coffee, Quentin Tarantino was approached by a paparazzi. The video of the encounter, posted on YouTube at http://tinyurl.com/2r6rfu, shows the director getting understandably annoyed at the cameraman. But when baited for violence, Tarantino — who was a juror at the festival — wisely walks away. Less combative footage of the festival can be watched at http://www.youtube.com/user/sundancechannel.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — What's your favorite Web site for independent film? E-mail AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle at fcoyle@ap.org