David Von Ancken is very, very pleased.
"I could jump up and down all day telling you how happy I am," he says. Von Ancken is the winner of an online film contest sponsored by Universal Pictures and Hypnotic.com, an Internet company that develops the work of "emerging" artists.
Since winning the contest in January, the 36-year-old former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant has been quite busy working with Hypnotic and Universal on the US$1 million movie deal he received from the two companies.
"We believe young filmmakers, if given the right guidance and opportunity, can make a film that people want to see and we believe we can make money with it," says Gene Klein, Hypnotic's vice president of content.
Hypnotic is among a handful of Web sites dedicated to incubating film talent - with the belief that the next Steven Spielberg could be living somewhere in rural Alabama, miles away from Los Angeles or New York, the entertainment industry's traditional centers of power. Von Ancken, however, does live in New York.
Each of these companies functions differently, but they all face similar challenges. Selling movie projects is a rough business, even for executives who have clout and Hollywood know-how. Finding films good enough to pitch - and good enough to sell advertising against on a destination site - isn't an easy game, either.
And then there's the foul-weather front, full of twisters, which seems to be picking off a new Internet content site each day. At least one breeding ground for new talent has already been destroyed. AntEye launched last April and was gone by the end of the year. The company's chief executive, Matti Leshem, a former USA Networks executive, had grand plans of finding talent and giving them "the best deal in Hollywood" - a 50 percent cut of the sale. He was in search of music videos, TV pilots or movies to stream on his site and further develop for potential offline distribution.
Although its site is still operational, AntEye closed shop in December, another victim of capital markets that have grown less speculative. "Media businesses generally take a long time to build, and eight months isn't a long enough time to prove any concept," Leshem says. He still believes in the model, pointing to a "first-look" deal he signed with Home Box Office, and today he spends some of his time shopping around promising content he discovered on the site.
Pop.com didn't have any time to prove its concept, either. The company founded by Hollywood heavyweights, including directors Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg, closed last year before it ever launched. Execs were mum throughout the planning stages, but the site reportedly was going to feature original programming by an all-star lineup as well as works from unknown artists.
Those failures don't necessarily mean the concept is broken. Jeremy Bernard, Hypnotic's founder and chief executive, has always believed in the model of nurturing talent. But he could only pursue it once he received the kind of hefty financial backing - of an undisclosed amount - that he got from Universal. In October 2000, Bernard transformed his site, reelshort.com, from a showcase for short films into the new media studio that Hypnotic is today. Hypnotic's revenue sources include licensing short films domestically and abroad, advertising and sponsorship.
Bernard's pitch to Universal went something like this: By taking a stake, you'll get a platform for discovering and incubating talent, a place to experiment with digital distribution and a new marketing venue. For example, the upcoming Universal movie American Pie II received fabulous publicity when thousands of users competed to be one of two extras in the movie through a Hypnotic-sponsored contest.
Universal still finds talent the way it always has - through agents and producers - but Hypnotic's Klein says the studio now can find filmmakers who don't fit the traditional Hollywood mold. "We give Universal access to people who are working off the beaten path in their directing style and writing style, and that's what they need us for," he says.
Miramax Films is also looking to the Net to find talent. The studio has launched an online contest, similar to Hypnotic's, in conjunction with HBO, producer Chris Moore and actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Miramax will give the winner of "Project Greenlight" a $1 million production budget and has guaranteed to distribute the film in theaters in early 2002. The top 10 works out of 10,000 entries are now being considered, and the winner will be announced in March.
