Filmmakers get a shot at fame a la 'Idol'
NEW YORK -- The fast-growing Internet video business is about to get a boost from firms with extensive ties to Hollywood and Madison Avenue and business models inspired by American Idol.
Two companies — new Web studio Filmaka and public relations firm Edelman — hope to find promising young talent by staging separate competitions for big-time contracts.
Filmaka will announce today that former Fox Television Entertainment Group chairman Sandy Grushow, part of the executive team that brought Idol to TV, has signed on as president.
He and CEO Deepak Nayar, who produced Bend It Like Beckham and Buena Vista Social Club, say they're launching a series of contests that will give young filmmakers opportunities to display their talents on the Internet. "We're creating a next-generation, digital-entertainment studio, and we're using competitions to identify talent and to create low-cost, high-quality" videos," Grushow says.
One winner each year will land a contract to make a theatrical feature; another, a documentary.
Other competitions will be staged for specific assignments: For example, cable channel FX wants someone to make a sitcom pilot, and brewery company SABMiller wants to license Web films that support its brands.
Filmmakers who pay a $10 entry fee submit brief productions, typically five minutes or less, that appear on Filmaka.com and sites that syndicate its work. A jury of Hollywood veterans selects three finalists each month. Judges include directors Werner Herzog, Paul Schrader and Wim Wenders, and actors Bill Pullman and Colin Firth.
The finalists, plus three runners-up selected as wild-card entrants, will get a small allowance to make another production that will be judged to pick the winner.
Filmaka could score big if one of the films or TV series it backs becomes a hit.
In addition, Filmaka will manage finalists' careers — an arrangement similar to the one that Idol finalists have with the show's creator, 19 Entertainment's Simon Fuller. The William Morris talent agency will have first dibs to represent finalists when it comes to cutting deals.
