Travails of a Struggling Internet Movie Maker

I see myself so much in Bill Flannigan, remember? The guy who produced the excellent Internet Movie "Jimmy Ritz" which I reviewed for you, guys a while back. Well, he's had a winning streak lately, which is a boon to the Internet Movie industry (I,for one being its staunchest watchdog). Hence, I would like to share with you his success.

Consider that he produced everything from scratch, with nothing but that creative spark to drive him. That is what makes Internet Movies so potent and so exciting. Do you know that it takes Hollywood between three to six months to complete a film? But here in the brave new world of Internet Movies, new films are delivered to the online community on a daily basis!

Wouldn't our online world be a little boring if we took that capability away? After all, Internet Movies are free, too, you know!

And Bill is one of its pioneers. Like some historian I am watching him and others like him as he builds the highways and the byways of this exciting medium. Bill wrote me recently: "Yesterday I learned that my feature script titled 'Tiananmen' had placed first in the Jury of Your Peers Screenplay Contest [http://juryofyourpeers2000.hypermart.net..."

Bill adds: "I suppose I'm testing the oft-repeated theory/statement that what Hollywood is looking for is a good script. I'd certainly appreciate if you could pass along the name of anyone you know who is not afraid to actually produce a script that takes place out of the country and deals with touchy issues." You know what? Bill also learned that his short film titled "Jimmy Ritz" will be advanced to the next round of the New Director's Contest sponsored by www.filmfilm.com. They will soon request a feature script from everyone in the second round and then will select a winning project that FilmFilm (started by Nora Ephron and Ron Brown) will pitch to production companies in LA and NY (with a $75K guarantee from filmfilm). Results will be announced early next year. Exciting, isn't it? Well what do you expect from Internet filmdom, where dramatic stories are unfolding every day around the world. A treatment that Bill wrote over the summer (with his new writing partner) has been requested by a production company in LA after the worst 2 minute pitch in history. Bill totally botched it, but the producer heard something she liked and called him Monday to request the full treatment. He says: "I'm excited since I never really intended to try to sell the story as a treatment and have been hunting for time to start writing the script (which we will do anyway)."

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