Indie Films Set Sights On Net

Streaming video will soon be doing for movies what MP3 technology did for online music distribution, and like the music industry, Hollywood studios are facing their own piracy fears.
While independent filmmakers are eagerly forging strategic alliances with online networks to distribute their own movies via digital downloading, mainstream movies aren't likely to play at a Web site near you soon.
"Opportunities for video-on-demand are out there, but right now the [streaming video] technology just really is too slow and cumbersome and not really effective for hit movies," says William Guerrette, senior VP/COO of Movie Gallery, the nation's third-largest video specialty retailer, with nearly 1,000 locations.
But the company is getting ready. In November, Movie Gallery teamed up with Video Pipeline, the largest supplier of promotional videos in the U.S., to stream 10,000 movie trailers over www.moviegallery.com. Eventually, Guerrette says, the chain expects that its customers will be able to reserve videos online and pick them up at the store.
"Retailers today are building these Web relationships with their customers," he says, "It used to be brick-and-mortar, and now the catch phrase is "click-and-mortar.' You have a relationship on the Internet, and you have a retail store to send them to, and the two work in a symbiotic relationship together to meet the customer's needs."
But some view the click-and-mortar philosophy as short-sighted.
"In the future, movies will be rented and sold using Internet protocols, not using hunks of plastic [like] VHS tapes and DVDs," says Scott Sander, president/CEO of Sightsound.com. In 1999 Sightsound conducted a paid download of the feature film "Pi."
Sander adds that the company is in discussions with a number of the major studios to license their film libraries for Internet broadcast.
But until advances in technology convince the studios that it's time to join the digital-download arena, the market will continue to be largely dominated by independent films.
And that's just fine with online digital network Sputnik7.com, which streams music videos and plans to add films, animation, and E-commerce this year.
"The bulk of the content that you will see on our site is going to be independent," says Sputnik7 executive VP Tom Grueskin. "A lot of the labels that we're dealing with are labels that have a very difficult time getting attention through some of the more traditional media outlets."
Grueskin says that filmmakers use Sputnik7 as a marketing tool that will lure consumers hungry for fresh content. The goal is to eventually persuade consumers to buy the films online or at a video store.
While indie filmmakers are taking advantage of the Internet, there's no question that major studios will eventually play a major role.
"It's an incredibly important moment in time for the motion picture industry," says Sightsound's Sander. "They don't want a replay of what happened in the music space. This thing is either going to be a love story called "Movie Download: The New Revenue Stream,' or it's going to be a horror flick called "Son Of Music.' "